Alright – so today we’ve got the honor of introducing you to Karen Hutton. We think you’ll enjoy our conversation, we’ve shared it below.
Karen, so good to have you with us today. We’ve always been impressed with folks who have a very clear sense of purpose and so maybe we can jump right in and talk about how you found your purpose?
My purpose actually found me when I was about eight or nine. I had this vivid vision — totally unexpected — of a huge column of Light pouring down through me while I stood on a theatre stage. The Light washed out over everyone there… healing, elevating, transforming them.
It sounds dramatic, but it was actually quiet. Focused. Clear. True.
And it stayed with me ever since.
Way before I knew to call it a “purpose.”
Every chapter of my life since then has basically been me trying to understand that moment and bring it to life n the real world.
Horse training, acting, figure skating, dance, voice coaching, photography, mixed-media art — on paper it looks like I couldn’t pick a lane. But inside, it was all driven from the same lane:
When you bring divine Light into the world – and help people reconnect with theirs – miracles happen. That thread has been steady, stubborn, and wildly persistent — and it continues to reveal delightful and surprising me even as new forms of that expression unfold in my life.
Great, so let’s take a few minutes and cover your story. What should folks know about you and what you do?
I’m a photographer, mixed-media artist, and educator — but underneath all of that? I’m someone who’s spent her whole life in a relationship with Light. I mean, after all – in photography – medium IS light. Handy!
It’s just that I see Light as so much more than a visual thing… it’s emotional, spiritual – it’s guidance. It’s divine. It’s life itself.
Photography showed up early. My mom gave me her hand-me-down cameras and I photographed absolutely everything throughout my wonderfully unconventional life chapters: horse training, acting, figure skating, dance, downhill skiing, voice coaching. Everything got photographed! So many stories, all told in film and pixels.
Now, on paper I realize it looked like some crazy zig-zaggy career path. But there was a deeper intelligence at work, which I only realized later: each one of those disciplines taught me something absolutely essential about how just creativity moves through the body – igniting the imagination, the heart, the soul. I learned what the human spirit was about… and what makes it so unique and magical.
Over time, those sparkly threads braided themselves deeply into my art and the way I create today. Because creativity is something you feel and express through everything you do, if you let it. We are happiest and healthiest when we just let it rip.
These days, my work has two parallel tracks: making my art and helping photographers to find their artistic voice in theirs.
What excites me most right now are new expansions in my world — new art series, new classes, new books — all centered around clarity, wonder, and a mighty lived presence of light.
Whether someone collects a piece of my art or comes to learn with me, I want the experience to feel like a spark of divine fire bursting forth. A magical moment of “Oh! I remember this!” What an incredible moment.
At the heart of it all is Light — the ways that it shapes us, how we shape it back – and how wildly transformative creativity becomes when we let creation Light lead the way.
If you had to pick three qualities that are most important to develop, which three would you say matter most?
Looking back at the (let’s call it) delightfully non-linear path I’ve taken, the things that shaped me most weren’t traditional “skills.” They were more like inner companions that kept nudging me forward. They taught me to…
1. Following the spark.
Not the plan — the spark.
The tiny inner zing that says, “Go there.”
It has led every reinvention of my life, often before I could explain why. When your life is guided by this inner spark, you learn to pay attention to the things that light you up.
For anyone starting out:
Don’t worry about your “trajectory.”
Follow the thing inside that feels alive. Authentic. Real. True. That you HAVE to do – or nothing else matters.
That spark will take you places your logical brain couldn’t dream up.
2. Learning to listen — deeply.
To light.
To the environment.
To my own internal weather – inner guidance.
My work changed the moment I stopped trying to “make images happen” and started listening for what wanted to be created. Light has moods. Landscapes have personalities. When you tune into the flow of light and life – your art becomes more honest — and far more fun.
If you’re developing this skill:
Start by pausing.
Notice what’s shifting around you and inside you.
Realize that listening is a creative act in and of itself.
3. Resilience… with humor.
Creative life is gloriously messy. Things fall apart, fall sideways, or fall on your head. What’s saved me again and again wasn’t toughness — it was the ability to get up, shake it off, laugh, and keep going anyway.
Advice:
Don’t treat resilience like armor.
Treat it like returning — to your spark, to your truth, to the part of you that remembers why you started.
If I had to sum it up:
Follow what sparks.
Listen deeply.
Stay buoyant.
Those three things shaped everything I’ve ever created — photos, art, teaching, the whole field of my life.
Alright, so before we go we want to ask you to take a moment to reflect and share what you think you would do if you somehow knew you only had a decade of life left?
If I only had a decade left? Wow. What a thought.
Well… honestly, I’d spend it doing exactly what I’m already leaning into now: living a life defined by Light, wonder, creative purpose, and the kind of presence that makes time feel irrelevant.
I’d spend more time outside with the light — listening to it, learning from it, letting it move through me the way it always has. Those ten years would become a conversation with the universe: brighter, quieter, deeper. I’d photograph, write, make art, and tell the stories that feel like transmission more than output.
I’d invest even more in the people I love — the ones who make life feel real. I’d teach, but more softly… in ways that help people remember their own spark.
Mostly, I’d live intentionally. Fewer distractions. More sky. More creation that feels like a gift rather than a goal.
A decade feels both short and spacious when you think this way. And honestly? I’d want to meet it with my eyes open, my spirit strong, my heart steady, and my hands still making things that carry heavenly light forward.
Contact Info:
- Website: https://www.karenhuttonphotography.com
- Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/karenhutton/
- Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/KarenHuttonArt/
Image Credits
Piotr Skrzypiec, Anton Lorimer, Justin Majezcky, Karen Hutton
so if you or someone you know deserves recognition please let us know here.
