Episode 13: Katy Raines: Melding Structure and Creativity for Career and Community

10/22/18 • 46 min

Ever the researcher, Katy Raines discovered that becoming a graphic designer meant she could create as a career without foregoing the paycheck. There was also the freedom of creating the art she loved in her spare time. “I figured I could do the graphic design full time and then do fine art on the side and still have fun with it,” Raines said.

In 2014, Raines graduated from the University of Arkansas at Little Rock with a degree in graphic design and a job. The job started as an internship in 2013, over her senior year of college. A professor had emailed her about the position, suggesting she apply. “I saw it and I was like heck yeah,” Raines said. “It’s an internship, they just want part-time, this would be perfect for my senior year or over the summer, whatever. So I was actually in Hawaii when I found the email on my honeymoon. My husband was still asleep so I got up super early and luckily I had my laptop with me and I finished my portfolio and sent my resume. And I sent it to my current boss now and she emailed me back the same day.”

They scheduled an internship after her return. Jet lagged, Raines thought she’d bombed.

She began the internship at Colliers International soon after while she finished her degree, working 20 hours a week while going to classes. “They didn’t have a marketing department at all about a month before I started,” Raines explained. “And then my boss said, ‘We have to have a designer.’ And so now I’ve gotten to do everything from photography to web to social media to actual graphic design work.”

Special Guest: Katy Raines.

They scheduled an internship after her return. Jet lagged, Raines thought she’d bombed.

Special Guest: Katy Raines.

Previous Episode

Episode 12: Katie Childs: Problem Solving with Photographs

Now, Katie Childs photographs over 30 weddings a year, along with family portraits. In 2018, she booked 35 weddings, but hopes to reduce to 20 yearly. That may prove challenging--she’s already booked 14 weddings for 2019. Childs also started working with the Arkansas Times this year, traveling to farms for Food and Farm, and working on family-based shoots for Savvy. Savvy has brought projects that have been familiar due to her previous work, while Food and Farm offers opportunities to learn additional photography skills. “We’ll do the farmer’s portraits and try to pull a story from their farm and situation,” Childs explained. “With the cattle and corn, I’m just doing a documentary kind of style. A lot of the time, with these shoots, I don’t get to choose what time of day or what situation the cattle or the corn is going to be in. So it might be in the middle of the day. I’m trying to make the best use of whatever’s happening. And that is its own specific challenge, but I love figuring things out like that, it’s kind of my favorite thing. If it were super easy all the time, I don’t think I’d enjoy doing it. I like being thrown into a situation and having to figure it out.”

Special Guest: Katie Childs.

Next Episode

Episode 14: Legenia Bearden: Opening Horizons with Affordable Art Classes

Determined to fulfill the vision she’d had as a child, Legenia Bearden began researching to make her dream, the Bearden Productions Center for the Arts, a reality. In 2006, she found the resources to file for her 501(c)(3) status and was approved three months later.

But it would be another eight years to fully get her vision off the ground. “I just stopped doing stuff, once we got our 501(c)(3) status,” Bearden explained. “It just wasn’t moving fast enough for me when I tried to actually start the business, so I kind of let it just sit there and nothing happened until 2014.

She taught drama for a bit, then worked for the city until 2014. “When I started Bearden Productions, I was still working at the city, and it would just be on my heart every day as I was driving to work,” Bearden shared. “And I’m like, I’m thinking, ‘Oh, I don’t want to be going to work.’ I just knew I was not supposed to be doing it. I just knew in my heart, this is not something I’m supposed to be doing. So I remember, that one particular day, I was crying on my way to work. I went to work, I sat down, and I’m still crying. I’m working. During my lunch, I said, ‘Ok, if I do this, I’m going to need a building.’”

She found the space, renting a dance studio in the basement of a church for $300 a month. “And it was ours,” Bearden said. “Just that simple, just that quick. Like all within a week. I thought about it, I moved, and I did it.”

--
More of Bearden Productions Center for the Arts:

Facebook - https://www.facebook.com/beardenproductions/

Twitter - https://twitter.com/bppas_

Instagram - https://www.instagram.com/_bpca/

--
Want the full article about Bearden? Head on over to http://hewandweld.com/news/.
Find Hew and Weld on Instagram, Facebook, and Twitter as hewandweld.

Special Guest: Legenia Bearden.