Today we’d like to introduce you to Kate Sypek.
Hi Kate, it’s an honor to have you on the platform. Thanks for taking the time to share your story with us – to start maybe you can share some of your backstory with our readers?
As a kid, I knew I wanted to either be a veterinarian or an artist. It only took one afternoon volunteering at a local vet office for me to realize I wasn’t cut out for it (blood is not my thing). But I still had art. My grandma was an artist and loved sketching, and my mom(also a great artist and ceramicist) taught art to elementary school kids. So I grew up drawing and studying art and took art classes throughout high school and college. I was told I had a gift for it, but was also told that it wasn’t a viable career option – so unfortunately I didn’t take it seriously until more recently.
After college, I worked for years in interior design and then graphic design. I was looking for the creative joy that art gave me but was having trouble finding it. By the time I decided that I was ready for a new direction, Instagram was starting to get really popular. I started finding talented artists there and would follow their journeys and try to learn how they had turned it into a career. That – along with a great business coach and a very supportive husband – helped me start to realize that there were absolutely ways to turn art into a business.
Since I didn’t go to “art school”, I decided to teach myself to paint. I had some very basic art knowledge from the classes I took during school, and I supplemented this with some online courses and lots of practice. I started with watercolors and decided to paint my husband’s dog Mandy who had recently passed as a gift. It certainly wasn’t my finest work, but he loved it. From there a couple of friends asked me to paint their dogs for them, and then friends of friends, and so on! Once I saw how excited people were about these pet tributes, along with my own personal love for dogs, I realized this could be a fun niche to work in for a while.
I’ve been working on my art ever since. I’ve spent the last handful of years focusing on dog portraits, but this year I’m really excited to expand my subject matter.
I’m sure you wouldn’t say it’s been obstacle free, but so far would you say the journey have been a fairly smooth road?
I don’t think a career in art ever truly comes easily – it’s been a winding road for me thus far, and I’m very much still on it. I think my biggest obstacle since I started painting has been my own self-doubt, aka ‘imposter syndrome’. At times I’ve felt frozen by it, and that prevented me from moving forward for a long time. And then I had my daughter Lucie in 2021, which kicked off an almost year-long creative rut and total lack of desire to paint. I do know I was lucky to spend that time bonding with her, and I’m grateful for that. But I think for many artist-moms (or any moms for that matter) – re-discovering your identity after having a baby can really be a challenge. It’s a delicate balance between wanting to pursue your own dreams and be your own person, all while revolving your life around this beloved new family member you’re totally responsible for. It’s a lot!
Thankfully I did eventually start feeling the urge to paint again. It took me really developing a daily practice to finally kick the imposter syndrome and start feeling good about the work I was creating. I learned that not every painting has to work out, and the only way to evolve is to practice and play and experiment. I can’t wait to teach these lessons to Lucie one day, and I’m really excited to see what this next year brings!
As you know, we’re big fans of you and your work. For our readers who might not be as familiar what can you tell them about what you do?
I started off painting with watercolors and have since transitioned to oil painting. I just love its texture, versatility and history. I have always loved old things – they have so much character. It’s pretty amazing going to museums and seeing paintings that are many hundreds of years old, looking worn but still so beautiful. It’s fun to imagine where they’ve been and what they’ve seen over the years. I think the muted, aged tones of vintage paintings are definitely starting to influence my work.
My subject matter thus far has been almost exclusively dogs. When I adopted my dog Jackson, a pit bull mix, during college, I learned a lot about the shelter system, misconceptions of bully breeds, and the sad truth about over-breeding in this country. I have since developed a deep love for shelter dogs and have rescued two more since then. I am always amazed at the depth of personality these little pups have. I think that’s why I love capturing them so much. Outside of dogs, I just love portraits in general. I have a painting of an elderly man that my mom bought at a garage sale, and I look at it all the time wondering what his life was like. My ultimate goal is to have someone look at a portrait I painted and wonder what the subject has been through, who they have loved, what their interests were.
For this reason, I will be creating a collection of people portraits this year, and I can’t wait!
What sort of changes are you expecting over the next 5-10 years?
It’s definitely a weird time for traditional artists, with technology and AI apps creating art that would take a human hundreds of hours to make. That said, no computer can ever re-create the beautiful imperfections that come with human-made art. Paintings show you a specific moment in time – whether a portrait, landscape, or still life – through the filter of the artist’s brain. No two people are going to see another person, or a dog, or a sunset in the Tuscan countryside exactly the same. And I truly believe there is always going to be a market that values the human aspect of hand-made art.
Contact Info:
- Website: www.katesypek.com
- Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/kate_sypek_art/
- Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/katesypekart/
Image Credits
Personal portrait photos: Ali Winston Art Photos: Kate Sypek
