We were lucky to catch up with Katie Dilworth recently and have shared our conversation below.

Katie, thanks for joining us, excited to have you contributing your stories and insights. Let’s start with a fun one – what’s something you believe that most people in your industry (or in general) disagree with?

I personally disagree with the current standard idea of “hustle culture”. The idea that if you’re not working 3 jobs with 2 side hustles then clearly you don’t want success badly enough. I think that’s a ridiculous mindset that leads to burnout and ruins what people love by making it about money. I have a full time job that pays my bills and allows me to live how I want to, and then I have a side hustle of sorts with painting shoes which I do more as a hobby that supplements my income instead of considering it as a second job that I need to invest all of my time in to be successful at. I take commissions as they come and in the down time I fill my portfolio by getting cheap thrift store shoes and painting them for content, then donating them back to the thrift stores. I don’t profit from that obviously but I am creating content that gets new customers attentions and doing it because I love it. And I believe that if I were to commit to painting shoes full time and now have to worry about that for my rent money I would come to resent it even if it ended up being successful. While I am making money off of this hobby, I never want to lose sight of the fact that I still enjoy it as a hobby first. Otherwise I wouldn’t want to do it anymore.

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 got started simply by being unable to buy nice Christmas presents for my family. I have always done a bunch of art and had given my family paintings, drawings, and photographs as gifts before but wanted to make it a little more interesting so I decided to put the art onto something else that they could wear and take with them out and about instead of just having another canvas hang on the wall. I gave the painted shoes as gifts and immediately other family members and friends asked about them. My Instagram page primarily showcases the shoes that I paint, but I also do mini pet portraits. I honestly just love painting and my biggest draw for potential clients is that I truly enjoy painting new and different things and being a creative vessel for your ideas. I love taking whatever ideas someone has for a pattern, design, or picture that they want to be able to carry around with them and show off to the world and putting those ideas down on a pair of shoes. It makes art more accessible and puts that positivity out into the world and I hope it makes people smile. And I would love to work with everyone and anyone to spread this art and joy around the world.

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

My best source of new clients has been happy customers and word of mouth. I started painting shoes for my family and friends, then they told their family and friends and that’s where I get most of my new business from.

We’d love to hear your thoughts about selling platforms like Amazon/Etsy vs selling on your own site.

I do not use other platforms to sell my shoes apart from my instagram page. As I said before, I enjoy painting too much to potentially ruin it by letting it overwhelm my life. So that makes the pros and cons actually the same thing – it keeps my business on the smaller side which enables me to enjoy it more, but then I also obviously do not make as much money as I could with more exposure.

Contact Info:

• Instagram: @_walkingonart_