I was taking pictures and shopping.**

** I was mostly shopping. 

When you are in FRANCE (Not Marrakech as my apron says. . . more on that later.) you have to buy wine soaked chocolate covered raisins, and mini watercolors from local artists and giant glass front lockets in which you can display tiny paintings. 

Oh, and you have to paint. 

All Gas No Brakes

A couple pictures of the challenge. How it got started and how it ended up. 

There’s not HUGE difference because I was busy painting but you can see window details, some more bright greens, more light marks, and more blue. 

What I learned from this challenge:

• To make the most of the 50 mark limit (plus 10 extra marks for windows, ok) I had to connect a lot of stuff. ALLLLLLLL of the roofs are connected in one zig-zaggy mark and many of the dark and mid greens are also connected. You can see that fairly well in the first picture.
  
  Why that matters? Connected efforts give you more bang for the buck. Talk about the same things on. your website, in your marketing emails, your LinkedIn posts, your text messages, and your conference talks. 
   
• To make fast progress, get the scaffolding in and add the details later. I made the big marks first to establish the “rules” or the “container” of my work.
  
  If you’re beginning a new initiative, answer the big questions first: WHO is responsible? WHEN is it happening? WHERE is it taking place? WHY are you doing it (the goal)? WHAT needs to be the net profit (if any) if no profit, what is the budget? HOW will your organization benefit? Use those as your guardrails to when you fill in the details. 
   
• That I like rules and guidelines when I’m doing something new. Pastel is a new medium for me and it is easy to get overwhelmed. A 50 mark challenge is a set of guardrails to allow me to safely explore. Nobody expects to make a masterpiece in 50 marks. I am freed from the expectation of finished work. Oddly enough, I ended up liking this painting second best out of the 15 or so I made over 10 days.
  
  How to apply this: Guidelines make people feel safe to try new things. Whether it is an SOP of how a job gets done or a clearly stated set of expectations: “We’re adding one creative workshop a month to see how our audience responds and we’re doing a three month trial with the goal only of data gathering. Simply putting them on and gathering data is a success.” 
   
• I love a challenge and a novel way of trying things. Creative people get bored.
  
  Give your staff opportunities to re-evaluate systems, processes, offerings, etc. Hold a merchandising challenge and let your customers vote on the display. 

But Maybe a Guardrail or Rumble Strip

To celebrate the Centennial of Route 66, Springfield MO has installed a rumble strip that, if you drive exactly 30 mph, the road plus your car will play America the Beautiful. (Link below in handy links.) There was originally a strip that did this in Tijeras, New Mexico. Part of it is still there and I got to drive it in 2024. It was SO COOL. 

All this to say, a guardrail or a rumble strip can be a good idea. 

What Tonya Learned from this Exercise

That’s Tonya up there. 

Isn’t her smile amazing? 

Isn’t her painting cool? 

Tonya has the most grit of anyone who was in my group in France because Tonya is a hyperrealistic watercolor painter which is JUST ABOUT AS FAR FROM WHAT WE WERE DOING WITH PASTELS AS YOU CAN GET. 

She’s also brand new to pastel. 

That right there is a recipe for CHAOS and an IMPLOSION of self esteem. 

While in France. 

With a bunch of people she didn’t know (except now we’re all Whatsapp besties and we knew each other well enough after 9 days that I 73% guessed which make of car everyone drove with little help).

During this exercise, Tonya had a breakthrough. The guardrails let her create this INSANELY COOL piece of art. (At least I think so.) 

And her GIGANTIC SMILE SAYS IT ALL. 

That is one happy artist. 

When Tonya got back, she took a class and painted an amazing portrait of a pet. She learned how she likes to learn and she is DOING IT. 

I didn’t ask her if I could share the pet painting, so you have to imagine the best pastel painting of a golden retriever you’ve ever seen. 

AI – but not what you think

This might be my favorite picture I took in France. 

Bethany Fields, my pastel teacher, might kill me when she opens this but it will have been worth it. (She’s the one who, to paraphrase someone on Instagram responding to a name that caption inquiry “Painted ’til she fainted.”

These are all people in my group and a pretty good summation of what it was like to herd us around for 10 days. Harrison, the guy taking the photo of Tonya, is the co-owner of Perigord Retreats, the company we went with, and my final rating was something like 187/10 stars for the trip. 

It legit could not have been any better. 

And that’s due to AI. 

As Bethany coined in an instagram reel this morning:Artistic Integrity. 

(It turns out Bethany is not only a kind, skilled, fun human being, she is also kind of a rock star in the Pastel world. I didn’t know this because I took a circuitous route to the workshop, but hot damn am I glad I met her. Follow her on Instagram. You’ll love it.) 

We ALL should be using AI*

*Artistic Integrity

We ALL have the responsibility to examine how we conduct our lives and our businesses and embody integrity. 

That means giving credit where credit is due. 

Here’s what I also posit Artist Integrity involves: (and THANK YOU BETHANY for getting this conversation going.) 

We’re the artists, the makers of our lives. 

Yes, we live in sets of circumstances, guardrails if you will. (And sometimes not glass ceilings, but ceilings of bodies pushing down or surrounded by walls of debt collection or family obligations.) 

Yesterday, after Tami said to one of our clients, “Let’s use your 20 years vs. their 90 years in business to your advantage,” I came up with the idea of “Redi? So are we!” as a way to spin that they are a younger company that is smaller and more nimble. (The business is Blue Star Redi Mix. They sell concrete.)

Tami got me started. I kept going. 

Let’s use what we have. What we’re given. Let’s make the absolute most of our bodies, our businesses, our resources, our brains, our creativity.

Artist integrity means:

• Giving our customers interesting visuals to look at – not just LLM (AI) generated flyers
   
• Trying new things instead of offering the same old same old
   
• Being transparent about the fact that you’re offering something new and asking for feedback
   
• Being aware of trends and interests and tastes of your customers and offering them ways to fulfill their needs and wishes. 
   
• Citing your source materials and be transparent about inspiration. This can look like social proof to show the decision makers. This can look like printed examples to show your customers. 
   
• Giving YOURSELF the same consideration you give your clients and customers and spouses and children— tending to your own creativity, your own movement, and your own surroundings.

I’ve been SUPER into watercolor collage this year and LOL I THOUGHT I INVENTED WATERCOLOR COLLAGE. So the joke in France was that before I offered any sort of opinion I would say, “You know I invented watercolor collage so. . .” 

I have learned that I did not, in fact, invent watercolor collage.

I invented my own process and I stumbled upon something I like doing because I was tending to my own creativity and seeing what happened if I tried something, and then this other thing, and then looked up “what is a very sticky piece of glue tack” and then stumbled upon glue dots.

Now that I know other people do watercolor collage, when I’m teaching classes and someone wants to try something I don’t usually make with watercolor collage (Say, a seascape), I can pull up ANOTHER artist’s work and say, LOOK. This person makes the type of work you are interested in. Let’s study it and find some lessons and inspiration. Follow her (or him). Make your own work . . . don’t copy, don’t pretend you made up this look. But learn. 

Another note about artist integrity: As with patented plants, there are rules and guidelines about what you claim as your own, what you can copyright, and what you can sell. Most of my audience is in the green industry, so here’s a quick primer: If you take a step-by-step class, you will generally need to iterate and come up with your own spin on something before you sell. In the art world, you also only submit work from your own reference photos for awards. You can PRACTICE with other photos, but you sell your own work. 

In the case of the creative classes I’m teaching this year: I am SPECIFICALLY TEACHING YOU HOW TO TEACH so you absolutely CAN sell and teach classes making EXACTLY what I’m teaching you because that is the point of the classes. 

Why was our retreat 215/10 stars? Because Harrison, Katel, and all of the staff at Perigord Retreats are serious about artistic integrity. They run their retreats with the utmost care and integrity and it shows. They have 148 – 5-star reviews. 

I read it on LinkedIn

Oh GEEZE this newsletter is going from bad to worse. 

First AI then LinkedIn. 

But when I was about to put the finishing touches on this newsletter, Jordan Williams,  PR & Communications Manager at Star® Roses and Plants commented on my post where I showed a pictures of my desk and my office.

I wrote:

“I miss being surrounded by flowers and people all day. So I have curated what Amanda Thomsen calls my ‘enclosure,’ or my home office. It’s full of artwork and trinkets from travels and my team. I always have fresh flowers. I’m enveloped by my books and weird things I bought during travels. (Ask to see my faux taxidermy pelican the next time we’re on zoom.) My most gardened garden is out my front window. What’s behind me is as interesting as what’s in front of me because I look at my background on zoom all day. 

It takes massive amounts of creativity and stimulation to solve marketing and tech problems all day long. To innovate. I require my trinkets. I require my art. If you thought you’d be in the field but you’re not, how do you deal with it? How have you made your current life beautiful?”

She replied, 
“You’re speaking of your physical desk space, I know, but when you ask ‘How have you made your current life beautiful?’ all I can think about is my LIFE life. How have I prettied it up, honored it, scooped out all the joy seeds? How have I adorned my day to day? Thanks for the question, Katie!”

THAT is a great summation of Artistic Integrity. 

What ARE you doing for your LIFE LIFE? 

Because you only get one life, and every part affects everything else. If you ignore one part, everything else suffers.

In France, one of the pastellists (It might have been Bethany) said they’ve learned as much from making art as they’ve learned to make art.

You can’t just water one part of your garden and expect the entire garden to be beautiful. 

Above: My desk. You can see the bottom of the pelican up top.

Some of today brought to you by:

This podcast episode: Art Gurl’s Meagan Mahaffey on Life-Changing Bad Art

I’ve been noodling and pontificating on everything I wrote about here today, but she really hit the nail on the head about 78% of the way through with having a creative practice being as important as having a workout routine (FAIL KATIE) and other daily practices. 

Credit where it is due! 

If you like this newsletter, you might like that episode. 

Activate Your Imagination

This summer and Fall I’m on a grand tour of Imagination Activations, inviting you to tap into your creativity so you can help your staff and customers tap into theirs. 

Here’s where you can find me:

Cultivate ’26 in Columbus, Ohio: July

1. 3-session arc: 
– Panel discussion: How to have profitable creative experiences at retail with special guests from Bailey Nursery, Tonkadale, and Koetsiers
– Hands-on: How to use materials to teach three different types of creative experiences (this is where YOU get to make stuff with me!)
– Brass tacks: How to plan, market, and implement these experiences

WE ARE MOVING ROOMS BEFORE SESSION TWO SO COME WITH ME!

2. Creative Networking session with Meg Morrison – it’s gonna be SUPER FUN!

3. COACH CORNER! Sign up for a FREE 15 minute coaching session with me at Cultivate!

Garden Center Conference & Expo in Nashville, TN: August

1. Overview of hosting creative experiences

2. Immersive workshop on how to make and teach creative experiences (This is NOT your typical conference session.)

Farwest in Portland, OR: August

1. How to Upsell Existing Customers with Engaging Email
2. Learn to teach 3-D Watercolor Collage

Green Industry Show & Conference: Westerner Park in Red Deer, AB. Canada

Keynote:  Developing & Using a Point of View for your Business 

Sessions: 
1. Managing & Marketing Events to Reach Max Capacity 
2. New Customer Onboarding to Make More Sales

In Print — Trending: Maxxing, Maximalism, and Dopamine Dressing

My June Green Profit article kicks off a series about creativity and color. CLICK HERE TO READ IT

Handy Links

Each newsletter always has a mix of fun and functional links.  

LADIES COMING TO CULTIVATE I just got my new pajamas for PLANTS AND PAJAMAS with Megan Taylor Morrison. Sign up here!

Listen to the musical highway on Route 66 (Youtube Short auto plays. Skip to 1:19 to hear it.)

Want to go on art holiday? Everything’s downhill after Perigord Retreats. (Joe and I are headed to Morocco with the pastel crew in ’28.)

Shademap: Simulate sun and shade conditions for anywhere on earth. So cool!

The Shopping Cart as Coping Mechanism One of our clients sent me this and it is super interesting.

I’m OBSESSED with the Treleaf customizable plant stakes. We are going to do what this blog post talks about at ALLLLLLLL of my summer stops, to make sure to come to the “hands on” sessions! And get your own free customized little stake to take home!

The White Oak Gardens instagram feed is majorly inspiring to me and fun. They are for sure keeping up with the trends!

Bethany Fields Instagram

I used AI to write this: Artistic Integrity. Leaning into the collage-ness of it all which is why I’m sure there are typos.

Stay tuned for the July Green Profit article and I’ll probably be back in your inbox sometime in August. 

We’re starting to book for fall projects. (ASDJFLSKDJFKLSADF HOW IS IT ALMOST TIME FOR THAT?)  So grab a discovery call and we’ll chat. 

Can’t wait to see y’all real soon!

Art PS

1. Watercolor under pastel in Rhode Island
2. The AMAZING group of ladies I got to paint with and hang out with in France. 
3. Pastel experiment – Monet’s waterlilies
4. Pastel at Wrightsville Beach – Watercolor underneath
5. Watercolor in Rhode Island
6. Becky’s house