We caught up with the brilliant and insightful Pam Karlson a few weeks ago and have shared our conversation below.
Hi Pam, thanks for joining us today. Are you able to earn a full-time living from your creative work? If so, can you walk us through your journey and how you made it happen?
Drawing and creating art my entire childhood and adolescence, I always knew I wanted to pursuit art professionally as a career. After graduating high school, I attended American Academy of Art in Chicago, focusing on illustration and watercolor painting. Graduating with a degree in Illustration, I entered the professional world as a graphic designer and illustrator, working on-staff for various studios and agencies. Over the next 12-15 years, I worked my way up to art director and creative director. Ultimately, I decided I wanted more autonomy and control over the number of hours my staff positions demanded of me as well as the freedom to carve out more time to paint. Thus, I went freelance. Best choice I ever made. I was able to create more balance between my commercial art career and practicing my love of watercolor landscape painting.
As with my art, nature and gardening was an integral part of my upbringing and being. I appreciated my long career in commercial art, but eventually craved being outdoors and more in touch with nature on a daily basis professionally. I decided to transition into professional gardening and enrolled in Joseph Regenstein, Jr. School of the Chicago Botanic Garden in Glencoe, IL. Attending school at night and on weekends while I continued to work as a graphic designer/illustrator, I eventually obtained certificates in Professional Gardening and Garden Design. I have been working as a professional gardener and garden designer for the past 9 years as well as a public speaker/educator, presenting on creating native garden habitats for birds and pollinators. My solid art background and training is still fully utilized in my current career, as the art principles of composition, form, line, color, texture, repetition, etc., are directly implemented in gardening/garden design. Working with a palette of plants, the canvass is the garden bed.
As always, we appreciate you sharing your insights and we’ve got a few more questions for you, but before we get to all of that can you take a minute to introduce yourself and give our readers some of your back background and context?
Growing up, art, nature and gardening were all an enormous part of my life. All were intertwined, and influenced who I am as an adult and what I have chosen to focus on professionally. I have a deep passion for Mother Earth, our environment and all we can do to protect her. In addition to my art and gardening career, I have been rescuing migratory birds since 2004 with licensed, not-for-profit rescue and rehabilitation organizations. As an avid birder, I participate in community science, monitoring bird populations in the Chicagoland area. I also am an active volunteer in our local forest preserves, working on habitat restoration. Professionally, I have combined all of these passions, by specializing in creating bird and pollinator habitat design for outdoor home landscapes. Our Chicago bird garden, which I created, has currently attracted 126 bird species, plus one out-of-range subspecies. I have been absolutely astounded and overjoyed at the abundance of bird diversity, allowing a safe haven for them to rest, feed and rejuvenate along their migratory journey. Our garden was featured in Doug Tallamy’s “Nature’s Best Hope: A New Approach to Conservation That Starts in Your Yard” and Emily Murphy’s “Grow Now: How We Can Save Our Health, Communities, and Planet―One Garden at a Time” exemplifying the power of urban lots. Provide and they will come!
Is there mission driving your creative journey?
Respecting, protecting our environment, giving back to and nurturing nature, doing all we can to leave the world in a better place for generations to come is my mission. Through public speaking, I hope to inspire others to do the same, to show how small steps we can all take do really do make a positive difference. One can feel paralyzed and helpless in the face of all the environmental destruction and climate change. I believe by taking small, positive, effective steps creates hope. Hope leads to motivation, which leads to action. Action leads to results- which fosters more hope. Through art and native habitat gardening, I believe we can inspire others to take these positive steps, to heal Earth, and ourselves.
Can you share a story from your journey that illustrates your resilience?
Art, nature and gardening are all incredibly healing to the human spirit for which I believe every child, every person, should be exposed to. My 3 siblings and I were raised by a single mother, my parents having divorced when I was 3 years old. Financially, we struggled. My upbringing was not easy. I worked starting at an early age as babysitter and doing odd jobs. I always had a job outside of high school and college. I was motivated to keep my high school grades up to obtain collage scholarships, helping me graduate from American Academy of Art debt free. I’ve always had a strong work ethic, taking my professional life very seriously. I am grateful my art/gardening career has supported me financially, allowing my artist husband and me to purchase a home. I believe we all have the power to create the life we desire, through hard work, perseverance and positive attitude. I credit my early childhood exposure to art, nature and gardening in helping to shape my optimistic outlook that has carried me through life’s bumps in the road. For that I am extremely grateful.
Contact Info:
- Instagram: PamArt321
- Facebook: Pam Karlson
- Linkedin: Pam Karlson
Image Credits
Pam Karlson