An artist's path is supposed to be weird and windy and unique

I met my friend Sarah Watts when we were both wee surface design babes. I had started a surface design/artist meet up group with my friend Khristian Howell, which I used to write about from time to time and shared photos on my blog. An artist in another city – Jenny Kostecki Shaw – reached out and told me her friend Sarah had just moved to Atlanta and we might like another group member, and she recommended that I reach out to Sarah. So I did that, and Sarah came to one of our meetups, and the rest is history. I’ve known Sarah for almost 2 decades now, and she’s one of the most inspiring, talented, authentic, energetic people I know.

I like when the universe orchestrates things this way. A random email from an artist I don’t know leads to a decades-long real friendship with another artist I don’t know. Amazing. Meant to be? Maybe!

Sarah and I are both surface pattern designers, fabric designers, artists, moms to 2 young kids, and we’ve both experienced some pretty traumatic and hard stuff in our lives. We’ve had so many conversations about life and creativity and balancing the heavy stuff with this relentless drive to create and this hopeful nature that we both share – to find and create beauty in and from dark places, to keep going, and how the light and the dark of life coexist and add richness, realness, and really cool honest + inspiring kinds of connection.

So I’m verrrrrry excited to be collaborating with Sarah on a very special project. As you know, she’s a pattern designer like I am, but what you may not know is that our processes are pretty different. She primarily uses Photoshop, I primarily use Illustrator. We both use Procreate on the iPad, but in slightly different ways. She teaches Photoshop, I teach Illustrator.

What’s so cool about being an artist is that there’s not just one way to get where you want to go. For example, Sarah and I both design fabric, for different companies, and have really different design processes using different programs entirely. But the result is the same – colorful, quirky fabric. It can be really tempting to follow someone’s advice when they tell you they know the way to your success, but the truth is – the creative path is different for everyone. Sarah and I create some of the same types of things, but our paths have been different and we’ve each created our own versions of creative success that don’t look like each other’s or anyone else’s. And that’s how it should be!

There are lots of different tools to choose from, and there’s not one that’s the right choice for every artist (if someone tells you there’s only one way to do things, don’t listen and run the other way! haha) The tools and programs that make sense for you might not be the same as the ones that make sense for other artists. Your process will be your own – you’ll develop your own little quirky ways of doing things in Illustrator, or you’ll find that your artwork lends itself better to Photoshop, or that you don’t want to use a computer at all and you’d rather just make art on paper or canvas forever and call it good! And that’s ok! There’s absolutely no right or wrong. There’s just making a lot of art, trying a lot of things, listening to what makes your heart sing and how your gut leads you forward, and figuring it out as you go. Your path is supposed to be windy and weird and unique. That’s the path of an artist.

So! What is this special collaboration anyway? The Variety Show is a week-long live event focused on surface pattern design that Sarah and I are hosting together. You’ll get a peek into my process, Sarah’s, and those of a couple of other special guest artists as well. You’ll get a look at Photoshop, Illustrator, Procreate, and some analog techniques, too. Our intention is to pull back the curtain a bit and show you that there’s no one-size-fits-all approach to creative learning, and there are lots of ways you can learn how to design patterns if that’s something that you want to do.

Details: The door fee is $27, and the dates are March 31-April 4th. The event will be held live, and there will be replay options. You don’t need to download any programs to join in. No experience whatsoever is required! Sign up here!