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

Katherina, looking forward to hearing all of your stories today. How did you learn to do what you do? Knowing what you know now, what could you have done to speed up your learning process? What skills do you think were most essential? What obstacles stood in the way of learning more?

I fell in love with photoshop in middle school. photography in high school and never looked back. Most of my learning was through trial and error as back when I was learning, there were not many resources online and my family didn’t have the funds to purchase books for me to learn from. I was a pretty dedicated kid to the software and spent a lot of time in photoshop so I don’t think anything could have speeded up my learning process. I can definitely say that the photoshop skills I learned along the way has helped me greatly in the different career paths that I have pursued. The obstacles that I have now is just finding or dedicating time to continue my learning again as an adult since there are more things I have to navigate through and there are more changes and updates to the software.

Katherina, 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?

My name is Katherina Vang, most people know me by Kat and my pseudonym for my arts is “Maivab” (pronounced My-ah, means baby in Hmong). I am a portrait artist, retoucher and digital restoration artist based from the Twin Cities. I graduated with an A.A.S. in Visual Communications Technologies with a Focus in Professional Photography and graduated with an B.S. in Information Systems. I love my artistic side but I also love my techie side so I dabble with both.

Can you tell us about a time you’ve had to pivot?

I was a teaching artist and arts curators for years and loved what I did for the community through the non-profit In Progress. I thought I had reached my biggest career path goal when I was a fellow for MIA but there was so much politics going on in the museum along with the government and pandemic surge that my mental health deteriorated and I needed something else to keep me together. My husband then encouraged me to pursue my second love: technology. I honestly do not know if I have the energy to go back to curation, maybe in another few years when I feel ready but I will always dabble with my photography and digital restoration for my creative side. As for my technology side, it is what I am pursuing full time and I enjoy what I am learning and hope to intermix the two sides when I become more proficient.

Is there something you think non-creatives will struggle to understand about your journey as a creative? Maybe you can provide some insight – you never know who might benefit from the enlightenment.

Growing up and pursuing my creative side – until I met my husband, I struggled a lot to have my family accept my artist career. For one, I am Hmong and it is hard to just be a Hmong daughter in general. So to pursue a career that no one can see success from, it was just added stress. But for me, the arts has always been a therapy that helped me through my anxiety and panic attacks. It helped healed me in ways no one can ever understand and I think that’s part of the journey that every artist has. Instead of journaling where one could read your private thoughts, I threw the words into the art I made that could be conveyed in several meanings and no viewer ever could grasp the full meaning of the creation. Having anxiety, this really helped the side of me that never wanted anyone to really be able to figure out my true feelings. Due to how I pursued my creations, I also applied this to my clients. Being honest and truthful about my anxiety, mental health and just being open seemed to help those I worked with and thankfully they keep coming back.

Contact Info:

• Website: https://www.maivabphotography.com/
• Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/maivabphotography/

Image Credits
Models: Nukooja, Jiyoo and Max, Juju & Elsammiee, Nadia and Pasha, Moises Restoration photos: unknown photographer, scanned photos of my family