We recently connected with Katie Jackson and have shared our conversation below.

Alright, Katie thanks for taking the time to share your stories and insights with us today. Parents can play a significant role in affecting how our lives and careers turn out – and so we think it’s important to look back and have conversations about what our parents did that affected us positive (or negatively) so that we can learn from the billions of experiences in each generation. What’s something you feel your parents did right that impacted you positively.

Both my parents are creatives. My mother is a writer (and a therapist, which probably explains a lot about me) and my father owned his own golf stores for 30 years but was the artist behind many of the kid’s school projects. On top of that, they are both story tellers. While my dad is known for taking over a party and having the most outrageous stories to tell, my mother also knows the power of words and has always instilled that to me.

My mom was a stay at home mom for most of my life and made space for us to pursue the things we loved. When she did go back to school, I never remember that really taking her away from us. She was still around for everything. My dad was a business owner and so I knew that I wanted to be one too. From the age of 10 I had been pursuing my own business from rocks sales at the end of the driveway (My dad had said no one would buy rocks but I’d already made $20!) to babysitting, to working for local small businesses in high school.

Katie, love having you share your insights with us. Before we ask you more questions, maybe you can take a moment to introduce yourself to our readers who might have missed our earlier conversations?

I create paintings and wallpaper that remind us to look for the magic that’s around us everyday. I’ve worked in fast paced industries (my background is marketing) and know all too well the signs of burn out. Slowing down isn’t just something we are craving, but something our mind, body, spirits are in need of. I hope that through my paintings viewers will be reminded to slow down for a minute. Notice their painting and maybe stay slow long enough to witness some of their own magic hanging out around every corner.

You’ll also notice that all my artwork is pretty colorful and this isn’t without thought. The color palettes of my pieces make them easy to mix and match (either artwork for a gallery wall or playing with art and wallpaper) and there is always a more neutral color in the palette that would make it easy to match with your home decor. If you came to my house you’d see that I have blues, green, yellow and rust throughout my home and yet, these mix of colors never feels like too much or out of place but actually grounds you and gets those creative juices flowing. I firmly believe it’s time for the fad of the grey home to leave us and for everyone to embrace color again. It’s really not as scary as it’s made out to be.

Do you sell on your site, or do you use a platform like Amazon, Etsy, Cratejoy, etc?

I get asked this a lot (and not just from my accountant). I’ve done Etsy and society6 in the past and never found them to help push my business forward. If anything, they end up steering people to similar creators and leave me in the dust. When they first started creators definitely saw an uptick in sales, but now as they become oversaturated, I think there is more risk in using them. Their biggest benefits are that they are in charge of sales tax and you don’t have to have your own website. If that’s something you just aren’t ready to take on or can’t afford, then using these platforms is really helpful.

I myself use WordPress with the WooCommerce plugin for my products. I have a background in website design so I’m able to keep up with it but have thought about migrating to Shopify in the future. Shopify is more expensive but they really take care of all the grunt work and make the user experience pretty amazing when it comes to making purchases.

Any advice for growing your clientele? What’s been most effective for you?

I implement what I call feminine marketing in my marketing strategy. This means marketing in a way that feels good intuitively. I’ve gone on and off Instagram for this reason, decided to move my newsletter off mailchimp and use Substack, all because I wanted to keep things simple, and it felt good to me (both divine feminine traits).

Whether you are an online business, a service based business, or an ecommerce business, starting local is where it’s at, and this is very much a feminine strategy. It’s easy to get caught up in the idea that you CAN serve anyone in the world. But when you really focus on your local community, you’ll see how much faster that growth goes. From going to as many networking events as you can to partnering with other established businesses locally, both these avenues have allowed me to share what I do, make friendships, and help support other small businesses as I grow my own. This same principle is how I’m answering these questions today, my name was forwarded after meeting someone at a networking event.

Contact Info:

• Website: https://shopmodernmagic.com/
• Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/modernmagicdecor
• Other: Substack: https://shopmodernmagic.substack.com/

Image Credits

All images are my own or mock-ups I have licensing rights to.