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

Kim, thanks for joining us, excited to have you contributing your stories and insights. Are you happier as a business owner? Do you sometimes think about what it would be like to just have a regular job?

I couldn’t be happier as a business owner. The thought of going back to a regular job Flies through my brain on occasion and I cringe at the thought. I launched my art business just before Covid hit and was balancing a 8 to 5, my three special needs adult offspring. (I use that word as they are adults and not children) when Covid hit, the start up I worked for closed its doors. I ended up strengthening my online efforts and when we started to see Covid in our rear view mirrors, I was succeeding and didn’t look back at the 9-5 job other than to wave goodbye

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 am currently a full time artist. My art covers all subjects, but there is definitely an emphasis on aquatic wildlife. With special attention to the octopus. I am primarily a watercolor artist but started exploring acrylics about a year ago.

I create artwork that is fun and has a sense of whimsy about it. As mentioned above, I paint everything. From fairies and mushroom houses to portraits, both animal and people, to wildlife. I even once painted a sloth riding a goat like a bucking Bronco. With a Cowboy hat in his hand and a smile on his face.

I also take this artwork and put it on things like magnets, stickers, bookmarks, water bottles and messenger bags. Of course I also do print’s. I’ve gotten mixed opinions on this. The art community frowns at me because they think that by doing so, I lessen the value of my originals. The public however loves that I do this.

So why do I do this?
Simple. I believe that every person deserves to have access to art. EVERY PERSON. By creating these smaller and alternative products I create that access.

With the way the nation’s wealth is distributed, fewer people have more money. My opinion is that it isn’t a good business model to turn your back in 93% of the population and only speak to the guy in the corner because he’s the only one with enough money to purchase the originals.

I’ve always wanted to become a brand and had my eye on that as a goal but the way society has evolved around my business has only fortified my stance.

I moved to the central coast at the beginning of April and have slowly developed relationships in this community. My products are in several shops in the area as well as in the gift shop at the Aquarium of the Bay on Pier 39 in San Francisco. It’s this growth that I am most proud of.

These days I do local-ish festivals where I haul my trailer full of art and set up for people to walk through. I enjoy talking to people about my art, why I paint and how they connect with my pieces. I’m developing relationships. My favorite part of the festival’s are My bookmarks. I create little aluminum bookmarks with various images on them. When kids walk by my booth I ask them if they like books. (I started asking them if they like to read, but some kids are JustLearning and others struggle with dyslexia among other things) So if the kids say they do like books, I tell them to go inside the tent and pick out a bookmark from the table and take it home and put it in their favorite book. So I give most of my book marks away.

Connecting with people over my art is what I love the most

We’d love to hear a story of resilience from your journey.

My entire story/life portrays the resilience that my mother instilled in me at an early age. At this point in my life I have been widowed for over ten years, I have three adult special needs offspring. All Three are autistic and one also has cognitive challenges and epilepsy. Nothing has been easy except the act of painting and creating. My husband and I faced him becoming bedridden and me needing to be the breadwinner. I faced losing him and needing to do everything. I faced having to figure out how to live somewhere on one income. There are New challenges every day

Can you talk to us about manufacturing? How’d you figure it all out? We’d love to hear the story.

After I had been painting awhile I had a collection of images/paintings to work with and had been seeing people put art on a variety of items. I wanted to do that. It would been a way to get my art into more hands. I started looking into vendors. I did hard enamel pins, I did calendars. I did sketchbooks but I never really made any profits from these items. Then I started to winter fire these things were created in the first place and is it something I could do. One rabbit hole after another and I found a video about how to convert a printer into one that did sublimation. You needed the type of printer that you filled with ink and not a cartridge. I was able to get one for $200 and instead of the ink that came with it, I bought sublimation ink and out that in. Combine that with a $300 investment in a heat press and I was ready to start doing these things in my own. There was definitely a learning curve. Each product has a different time, temperature, and pressure. I ruined so many products learning what was best for each product. In the end though I have a better profit margin, and more control over quality

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