We caught up with the brilliant and insightful Cara Harjes a few weeks ago and have shared our conversation below.

Cara, appreciate you joining us today. We’d love to hear about when you first realized that you wanted to pursue a creative path professionally.

I have always been creative in the way I live my life but it wasn’t until much later that I found an outlet for that creativity within the arts and later still when I began to pursue it professionally. I remember dressing up as an artist for career day in the third grade. But over the years, my attempts at finding my artistic niche were snuffed out. From a high school art teacher who accused me of cheating on my self portrait because it was “too good” to a failed attempt at taking a college pottery class, I never found a place to splash my creative expression.

Later, in high school, I was interviewed for the Senior video and said that I wanted to be in a helping profession. I went on to earn a Master’s degree in counseling after my undergrad work, and practiced therapy for a decade. But all along I craved (and desperately needed!) a creative outlet. I tried a variety of things over the years, but never found my niche. And then as a young adult, I was limited by my finances, as making art requires supplies that were out of my budget at the time.

It was not until 2010, at the age of 33, after stepping away from my counseling career, that I made my first painting. Within a year or two, I began causally and then seriously selling my artwork. Eventually, my love for making art and my love of supporting and empowering people came together and I began teaching workshops and offering Art Loft Sessions, where people can learn about process painting one on one in my studio.

Cara, before we move on to more of these sorts of questions, can you take some time to bring our readers up to speed on you and what you do?

How you got into your business/craft: I began painting in the winter of 2010 when my late husband Herb asked me to make him a painting as his Christmas gift that year. Prior to that first painting, I had an intensely creative core with no outlet. After Herb and I married in 2005, I began scrapbooking pictures from our wedding and newlywed years. Those scrapbook pages quickly morphed into art journaling pages and collages. When Herb asked me to make him that painting, I owned paints for my crafts, but making a fine art painting was new to me. From there, I started making small paintings as gifts for friends and family. Within a year or two, I started hanging my art in local coffee shops, showing them at the farmer’s market down the street from our home, and posting them to social media. I was suddenly selling my work in various venues, became a member of a gallery, received many commissioned jobs, and began to teach my painting style. None of this was anything I ever imagined myself doing.

What type of products and services do you provide:
I make original abstract paintings that inspire and empower people with playful movements and loud pops of color. These can be found on my website and social media platforms. I also take commissions and deeply enjoy walking collectors through the process of partnering with me to help me create a piece for their space that they love.

I also teach intuitive or process painting, exploring mindfulness, acceptance, and presence through the safe portal of painting on a canvas. I am hosting two live mini-retreats in St. Louis, MO and one virtual mini-retreat in 2023. And this year I am taking my love of teaching and making it more accesible as I launch a new series of digital painting courses online.

What problems do you solve for your clients:
I connect people with gorgeous original artwork for their spaces. I love making this a personal and very special experience by inviting my collector to my painting studio or taking a chosen piece of art to their home so they can see it in their space before committing to the piece. When I am commissioned to make a piece of art for a collector, I go to their home to measure their space and get a sense of their personal aesthetic.
My teaching incorporates my love of people, mental health, and art making. I create safe, cozy spaces for people to explore and nurture their creative sides. I give permission to prioritize yourself, your creativity, and your desires. I help people who feel stuck get unstuck.

What sets me apart from others:
Where many artists create work that explores and expresses pain, I am more interested in the intersection where pain and beauty collide. My colorful pieces are generally first perceived as being playful, fanciful, and full of joy. With closer examination, one will see that the works are comprised up of messy and imperfect shapes, drips, smudges, and lines. It has been my experience that if we only allow ourselves to acknowledge the beauty of life, we will live in denial. And if we focus only on the pain, we will live a life of despair and pain. Instead, I want to feel all of it. The beauty, the pain, and that strange thing that happens when we allow ourselves to enter grey areas and experience both at the same time.

What are you most proud of:
I am proud that through the last decade of young motherhood and early widowhood, I have maintained a consistent (though somewhat bumpy) relationship with my art practice.

What are the main things you want potential clients/followers/fans to know about you/your brand/your work:
I want people to know that I am here to help. Whether you need new life in an old, painful space like my client who collected my work all throughout a painful divorce, or you need someone to fan your flame while you make your creative life a priority, like my student who needed to reconnect with herself after a quick transition from single life to becoming a partner and step-mother of three. I was there slow clapping for her, in awe, when she sent me pictures of a little corner near a window in her basement that she claimed as her studio.

How can we best help foster a strong, supportive environment for artists and creatives?

Society can best support artists by buying original artwork, directly from the artist whenever possible. We live in an era of mass consumerism and instant gratification. When people can get a large, mass produced image on canvas from a big box store for $100, it can make it difficult for artists to create a sustainable income and lifestyle. But artists are not the only ones missing out as a result of this “fast art” culture. Society as a whole loses out on the experience of being able to identify, appreciate, and enjoy original fine art. An original painting the same size of that $100 big box store canvas print will probably cost the buyer upwards of $1500 or much higher. I can appreciate the sticker shock and the default decision to buy the print. The missing link, in my opinion, is that people simply lack education on *what* they are paying for when they buy a piece of original artwork.
When you buy a piece of original artwork, here is a list of just some of the things you are paying for:
– Any art or business education the artist has obtained to make the piece of art and run their fine art business.
– Time put into practicing their craft. I have heard it said that one must make 1,000 bad paintings before finding their artistic voice. If this is the case, you are paying for the time, cost of materials, and the gumption it takes for one to acquire this amount of experience in their craft.
– The cost of art materials is higher than most people can imagine. Just the cost of a blank wrapped canvas from an art supplier may cost almost as much as the large canvas print from the store.

How about pivoting – can you share the story of a time you’ve had to pivot?

Recently, I have chosen to make pivot in my business. I was focused on teaching Art Loft Sessions (individual painting sessions) in my studio and small group workshops at a local gallery. However, life really got the better of me this year. Between my kids needing more of my attention than ever and a close family member being diagnosed with cancer, I found I was often having to cancel and postpone my events and commitments. This did not feel good and was not sustainable for my business. It also did not give me the flexibility I wanted to give my family. So I have shifted my focus to taking everything I love teaching people in my Art Loft Sessions and workshops and translating it into online painting courses. You can start looking for these online offerings in the late spring of 2023! I will continue to teach workshops, but there will be fewer of them and they will become two day mini-retreats where the student can more fully immerse themselves in the experience. I can’t wait to launch these special two day workshops this summer!

Contact Info:

• Website: www.caraharjes.com
• Instagram: @cara_harjes_art
• Facebook: cara_harjes_art

Image Credits
Jodie Allen at Fresh Art Photography Cara Harjes