We caught up with the brilliant and insightful Katie m. Berggren a few weeks ago and have shared our conversation below.

Katie, appreciate you joining us today. Can you take us back in time to the first dollar you earned as a creative – how did it happen? What’s the story?

When I was early in high school, I began to turn my love of drawing people into a way to earn money for college. I created some fliers that advertised “Realistic Portraits” and had the little rip-off-able phone number tags and everything!

People took my tags, people called me! And I did a lot of work. I charged far too little and didn’t include the fact that I drove all over town to deliver the finished pieces. I accepted photographs from my customers and spent many hours finessing faces onto thick paper with pencil.

At that time, I was interested in realism and creating a drawing that was as ‘like’ the photo as I could get. I would go to bed thinking about these drawings, make notes to myself on what parts of the face I need to take a second look at, and my step-father even built for me a wooden sitting-easel that I could use on my bedroom floor.

That was where I made my first real art-money. My step-father drove me to one of my first deliveries, and when I came out of the house with the $20-30 that I had earned for that project (that probably took me 17 hours) I was so fulfilled. I climbed into the car, and he said “you do realize you are a professional artist now. Once you’ve made money off of your art you are officially a professional.” That sat in me and warmed me. Wow.

Since that time, a lot has changed, and a lot of years have passed. I do not strive for likeness anymore, in fact I aspire to capture emotion, movement, joy, connection… far more than eye shape, thickness of lower lip or exact angles of chins.

95% of my collectors are states-away from me now, vs the same town. Many of my collectors are all the way across the globe and most places in between. I rely on others to deliver my finished pieces now :) My number of collectors has risen from 10-20 to many thousands.

But I still create people and faces: my first art love that stems back to drawing baby faces from Parenting Magazine when I was around 12. I create with paint now, instead of pencil, and enjoy different paint techniques on paper and canvas.

I still do cherish the memories from and usefulness of a good sharp Dixon Ticonderoga, though.

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 as the fourth child in a family that lived in the country, I spent a lot of time doodling and drawing, writing and creating things with my brothers and my sister (and my grandma who always brought craft stuff and made play-doh when she came to visit!). I think the joy for creation started there.

As I grew, my older brother’s drawings inspired me – he created intricate line drawings and pages that I could color with markers. They were really cool! I think seeing my sister and both of my brothers drawing helped to cement the creative urge into me.

All through grade and middle school I kept drawing. For a large period of time I challenged myself by drawing faces from magazines, then began to create my own faces. In high school I started a business creating realistic pencil portraits from the photos of my clients. That was a creative direction I really liked. And to be paid (however small) for creating for a happy client, was such a neat experience!

In college, I went the other direction! Line drawings of birds and plants and non-realistic and imaginative compositions. After college I continued to nurture the urge the create my own whimsical characters and people – knowing strongly that I didn’t want my creations to look “realistic”. In college I took a class on how to paint shadows and still life. I also took a class creating illustrations. I studied typography and design and did not get a degree in general Fine Arts, but Graphic Design, instead.

After college I spent a lot of time doing graphic design and logo creation – my artwork morphed into colored pencil and marker-based images of people and bugs and birds. Trees, boats, flowers, mushrooms with intricate designs. Lines, dots, colors, shapes.

When I had my first child my artwork very quickly morphed from animals and nature-inspired pieces, into mother and child – I knew INSTANTLY that that was what I was meant to capture. All of the imaginative, design-based and free-flowing drawing that I had done up until this point prepared me to create my “own” people.
Once I experienced how it felt to place child against mother and how their lines, bodies, hair and molecules could interact – I was HOOKED.

19 years later I am still working in the subject of women and mother with child. That’s a long way of saying that I am self-taught. I am trained by practice and by self-discipline. I learned by doing. I worked hard and kept going even when I thought my artwork was mediocre.

I offer my original paintings to my collectors, and I create prints from my sold paintings.

Are there any books, videos, essays or other resources that have significantly impacted your management and entrepreneurial thinking and philosophy?

I have been very inspired be a small collection of books: The War Of Art by Steven Pressfield, Big Magic by Elizabeth Gilbert, and some inspiring mothering books by Alexandra Stoddard.

I have been inspired by The Four Agreements by don Miguel Ruiz, and the podcasts of Exposure Ninja.

These have all helped me in different ways.

I am inspired by life in general, so books and podcasts about family, life, psychology, health… all inspire me.

What’s the most rewarding aspect of being a creative in your experience?

The most rewarding part of being a creative person who works from home and is blessed to be able to make a living while working at home, is being available to my children.

That is simply the best part.

Another huge and wonderful bonus is being able to immerse myself in soul-satisfying work for hours at a time.

Contact Info:

• Website: www.KmBerggren.com
• Instagram: @kmberggrenart
• Facebook: @KmBerggrenFanPage
• Youtube: https://www.youtube.com/@kmberggren