We’re excited to introduce you to the always interesting and insightful Katherine Botts Whitaker. We hope you’ll enjoy our conversation with Katherine below.

Katherine , thanks for taking the time to share your stories with us today Learning the craft is often a unique journey from every creative – we’d love to hear about your journey and if knowing what you know now, you would have done anything differently to speed up the learning process.

I attended Missouri State University to earn my B.F.A in Design/illustration. Out of college, I was hired by a church to create illustrations to accompany music and special services for the liturgical seasons. During the pandemic, I bought Procreate and really honed my digital skills. I drew Little Red Riding Hood over and over again for an entire year. They were all learning experiences. I always knew I needed a long term, low stakes, self-directed project but it took me years to come up with the right thing to hold my attention day after day. I found it in drawing Little Red Riding Hood — there’s a lot of room for interpretation and the more I think about how illustrator’s approach LRRH, the more I learn. It is nice to find a comfort zone that’s easy to return to, so you can push through the stuff that isn’t easy. Sometimes structure provides the best freedom.

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?

I haven’t settled on a good title for what it is that I do. There are a few that are helpful to know about me; illustrator, designer, fine artist, creative strategist, fiber artist. I’m a professional creative with a lot of tools and disciplines at my disposal.

When I think about my most successful projects, the ones that I still get a burst of pride thinking about, they are the ones that feature a heightened sense of experience. Anything that invites people to a space where they can fully give themselves over to the wonder of imagination — that’s where I want my work to live. Some of my favorite works has been environment designs, museum exhibitions, arts and culture events, and theatre performances.

As a freelancier for the Springfield Art Museum, I helped establish one of the signature fundraising events called 99x. Each event focused on one art object in the Museum’s collection in need of conservation. Then, we designed a whole event around that object. I created illustrated logos for each year’s theme. The logo set the look, feel, and experience of each party. Local influencers are given space in the museum to set up a temporary tableau expanding on the theme, and local artists, florists, musicians, and caterers fill the public spaces of the museum with all of these other things that just connect the senses to theme. Patrons are invited to wear on-theme creative cocktail attire. Pure magic. The graphic design and illustration invited patrons into this elevated spectacle and the results were fantastic.

Last year, I was asked by Phillips Exeter Academy to create the show posters for their theatre department’s season. They picked “Identity” as the theme for their whole season, and they selected works to match. But they didn’t know all the shows they were going to produce over the full season at the start of the season. So, it was a challenge to build a cohesive set of posters that reflected the theme at the beginning. We worked together to build the look and feel of the posters over the course of the year. It was an exciting challenge, and I think it really highlights the way the individual shows focus on identity as well as how the full season was thoughtfully devoted to helping the Exeter community explore identity.

I have an expansive background in the arts. I studied dance for fourteen years, I played an instrument, I’m an avid reader, I’ve been sewing and embroidering since elementary school, I minored in creative writing in college (that’s where I met my husband!). I’m not a specialist and I’m certainly not an expert. It’s my interdisciplined understanding of arts and humanities that sets me apart. I’m not committed to a “style”. I’m beholden to finding a solution. The style follows the solution in the same way that form follows function.

Looking back, are there any resources you wish you knew about earlier in your creative journey?

The Illustration Department. The podcast, critique group, and classes have been instrumental in my illustration growth in the last two years. I highly recommend The Illustration Department podcast. I’ve learned so much about contemporary and historic illustrators and the business of building a creative life. An absolute must-listen.

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

Before the pandemic I was balancing a lot of different revenue streams. I was freelance designing, maintaining a fiber art practice, working as a teaching artist, and was an artist-in-residence at rural schools in the Ozarks (where I live). When the pandemic started, it all shifted. Everything teaching artist related was suspended when the schools closed. So, I shifted focus. I spent a lot more time illustrating. Up until that point, it had been arguably the smallest focus of my time, even though it was the thing I went to school for and really, really wanted to pursue. Recalibrating to focus most on illustration was an unexpected but ultimately a really good direction. Now, I’m emphasizing my energies into building the illustration part of my creative business.

Contact Info:

• Website: https://katherinebottswhitaker.com
• Instagram: @KCBWhitaker

Image Credits
Charlie Whitaker