Alright – so today we’ve got the honor of introducing you to Kate Hughes. We think you’ll enjoy our conversation, we’ve shared it below.

Kate, looking forward to hearing all of your stories today. What’s something crazy on unexpected that’s happened to you or your business

I create highly detailed, realistic portraits of people in thread. To hone my skills and express my personal creativity, I have an ongoing series of “Pop Culture Portraits” featuring celebrities and my favorite characters from popular media. The craziest and most exciting day of my early embroidery career was in 2018 when I shared on social media my Pop Culture Portrait of Julia Louis-Dreyfus and Tony Hale as their characters Selena and Gary in the Emmy award winning HBO show, Veep. I was traveling with friends, and took a few minutes to post the photo, tagged them and went about my day. Hours later, to my surprise, Julia herself liked and commented on the photo praising the portrait! I only had a few thousand followers at the time and her acknowledgement and praise of my work made me feel on top of the world, A few weeks later I received an email from her team letting me know that Julia wanted to commission me to make the wrap gifts for her co-star and a producer of the show. After she received the finished artworks, she hand wrote me a thank you letter that I now have framed in my studio, a daily reminder of the appreciation I received from such a talented artist herself. Receiving this special commission gave me a new level of confidence in my artistry and allowed me to continue making the art that I feel destined to create.

Awesome – so before we get into the rest of our questions, can you briefly introduce yourself to our readers.

I’m Kate, the CEO (Chief Embroidery Officer!) of Kate Hughes Art. Stitching makes my heart happy! I love making keepsake pieces of art that can be given as gifts, passed down for generations and treasured forever. Following college graduation, I settled into a corporate position. However, my creative nature was waning. As a result, I felt called to the meditative practice of embroidery and I taught myself to how to stitch. I began stitching treasured childhood photo images onto linen fabric. Slowly, I developed my signature “painterly” style. My creations involve multi-layered, perspective defining thread sculpting techniques. Hence, my finished works are labeled “thread paintings.” In 2015, I opened a shop on Etsy where I specialize in thread-painted portraits and landscapes. I was honored to be featured in Etsy’s Editors’ Picks of 2015 and several regional art exhibitions in recent years. I have created commissioned pieces for dozens of clients, including a few celebrities whom I respect and admire. In 2020, I enjoyed a sabbatical from commission work to focus on noncommercial art projects. In 2021, I resumed requests for commission work on a limited basis. In 2022, I launched “Threadpainting Behind the Scenes” on the Kate Hughes Art Youtube channel, where I share timelapse videos of my art being created, as well as exclusive behind the scenes commentary. I love sharing the art of embroidery with others!

What’s been the best source of new clients for you?

The best source of new clients for me has always been word of mouth. I enjoy what I do for a living and I am always excited to talk about what I can offer to others, and share my business card with them. In a world where social media dominates, the interactions and conversations I have with people in person have always yielded me the most business. Even if the person I’m speaking with doesn’t end up working with me I’ve opened the door for them to share my business with their network.

Have you ever had to pivot?

My business came up on Instagram in its earlier days, when photos dominated the feed. In 2022 I have had to pivot and invest more time into video content so that my work can continue to reach people through the algorithm. Rather than capturing only still images of my embroidery, I am filming time lapse videos of the stitching process. This has opened up a new door for me to show the behind the scenes process of my artworks and how much skill and time go into them, which has helped grow my audience.

Contact Info:

• Website: www.katehughes.biz
• Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/katehughes.art/
• Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/katehughes.biz/
• Youtube: https://www.youtube.com/c/KateHughesArt/videos