Are you an aspiring creative? This event is for you

Kathy Davis has been getting the emails for years.

Usually, they come from someone young looking to get started in a field they love or an older individual, hungry for a career reinvention or itching to fill the ample time they've finally found with something they've always wanted to do.

Their questions are variations on a single theme: What is the secret to your success?

As the CEO and chief visionary officer of her namesake brand, one of the top lifestyle and social expression businesses in the country, Davis still makes it a point to respond to every email. But she's always wanted to offer something more to the aspiring artists or struggling creatives who find her — which is why she's put together the program "How Not to be a Starving Artist."

The panel discussion, sponsored by the Scatter Joy Center for the Arts, which Davis founded in 2015, is slated for Oct. 29 at the Horsham Township Library. Featuring the wisdom of five creative entrepreneurs, including Davis, it will explore the pros and cons of starting your own business versus freelancing or working in-house, as well as offer insights and suggestions for licensing your work and building a brand. Attendees will have the chance to ask questions of each artist.

"Ever since I started doing what I'm doing, because I'm a former teacher, I've always had this desire to continue to reach back out and offer guidance or talk about my experiences where it can be helpful. This just feels right," says Davis. "I was 35 before I even considered going out on my own and I really would have appreciated a class like this. The five of us who are participating are each coming at this from very different perspectives."

The Horsham native will be joined by fine artist and illustrator Robert Papp; Amy Voloshin, founder and creative director of textile design studio Printfresh; Sarah Van Aken, president of Kathy Davis Studios and founder of fashion brand SA VA; and author and illustrator Lisa Papp.

“We’ve covered a wide variety of industries and combined different perspectives so that anybody could get something out of this, whether they want to be a musician, a writer, a photographer…" says Davis. “There are so many new fields in the arts, with technology-based companies and social media and computerized design in addition to some of the more traditional mediums. People should really explore and expose themselves to as wide a variety as possible out there before they try to zero in and make a decision.”

She knows what it's like to be daunted by the myth of the starving artist. Although she always loved art, Davis spent her early adult years teaching sixth grade and then high school art, lacking the confidence to dive fully into her dream of being a full-time creative.

“It was a common conception at the time that being an artist was not a safe career,” she says. “The whole starving artist thing is something we’ve all heard. It kind of puts the fear in people.”

Following a divorce, Davis began building her dream as a stay-at-home mom, designing her now-renowned greeting cards from a drawing table in the corner of her bedroom, one at a time. She never imagined her expressive watercolor paintings and heartfelt, inspirational messages would one day touch millions, with American Greetings selling about 125,000 of her cards daily.

Success didn’t come easily — and hasn’t for most on the panel — but being able to savor the process of getting to each stage of accomplishment has its own rewards.

"Keep exploring your craft. Eventually, you will find pathways, a door with a little opening you can squeeze through, and then a bigger door, and people on the other side reaching out to you," says Quakertown’s Lisa Papp. "Like a good hike, where you know you'll arrive — you just don't know when or how — trust your feet.

"One step shows the next, but you're not going to see it until you take that first step."

Papp, whose illustrated children’s books include “One for All: A Pennsylvania Number Book” and, most recently, “Madeline Finn and the Library Dog,” says no matter the success she's achieved, her fuel remain the same.

“An artist’s life is a circle of faith, trust, action. You can make a very nice living from art if you are dedicated and professional,” she says.

But even failure bears lessons to be learned. Van Aken, a Reading native and Philadelphia resident, became one of the city’s hottest young entrepreneurs when she launched her made-in-Philadelphia fashion brand SA VA in 2009. Its clothing was all produced with varying levels of sustainability, whether it was organic, locally made, fair trade or recycled. Then, in 2013, after becoming a celebrated model for contemporary sustainable enterprise, Van Aken shuttered her business amid struggles to raise capital for its wholesale division and unreasonable investor demands.

Today, she considers her uncommonly transparent exit among her greatest accomplishments.

“It could have been a disastrous — financially, professionally, personally — situation but each step of the way, I honored the people and process and the ending was even better than the beginning,” she says. “When I started my fashion business, I wanted to be great. I used to identify my greatness by achieving the ultimate in success — positive reviews in the best fashion magazines, a high valuation for my business… As I grew with my business, I saw that greatness is reached by always acting with integrity. Failure helps you find your greatness.”

Such insights are what Davis hopes aspiring artists will find valuable at this month’s event.

“You have to believe in yourself and your talent. But you also have to be flexible and adapt to what the market needs,” she says. “I was a starving artist until I found the right way to go about it.”

“How Not to be a Starving Artist” will be held from 1 to 3:30 p.m. October 29 at the Horsham Township Library, 435 Babylon Road, Horsham. Admission is $25; high school and college students, $10 (proceeds will go to donate art supplies to children in need). For additional information, call 215-672-3140 or visit www.scatterjoyarts.org.