Meet Kelly Latham

We recently connected with Kelly Latham and have shared our conversation below.

Kelly, looking forward to learning from your journey. You’ve got an amazing story and before we dive into that, let’s start with an important building block. Where do you get your work ethic from?

I definitely got my work ethic from my mom. Growing up, she was working two jobs. Accounting during the day and bookkeeping for our local soccer league at night. I’d even help her stamp the backs of checks with the big stamp for the league. I always saw her working, so now I am always working. But I also enjoy working. A professor from my master’s degree in Sequential Art named Rashad once told me about a job opportunity and said, “It’s a lot of work, but you like to work.” And he’s right! Accomplishing what I want to get done gives me a sense of purpose and endorphins along the way. It’s like mini goals I can accomplish throughout my daily routine. And I have so much to do between my full time job and being the only employee in my art business, it’s really driven me to develop excellent time management skills. I like working because all my work is fun.

Thanks for sharing that. So, before we get any further into our conversation, can you tell our readers a bit about yourself and what you’re working on?

I draw things! As a soloprenuer I run Kelly Latham Art, and illustrated stationery business that focuses on cute and functional products that brings a little more happy to daily life. If my customer goes, “Aw, how cute!” when they see my products, I’ve done my job correctly. Currently I offer bookmarks, stickers, notepads, and coloring books, with zipper pouches on the docket for next year. For this holiday season, cute and whimsical bookmarks and stickers will be available soon, and a dinosaur themed line is coming 2026. For notifications when these new products are available, join my email list here: https://www.kellylatham.com/info

If you had to pick three qualities that are most important to develop, which three would you say matter most?

Three qualities, skills, or areas of knowledge that were most impactful in my journey are dedication to quality, pursuit of knowledge, and the willingness to try.

My dedication to quality can be seen in my standard of my products and art. If a product isn’t perfect, I don’t send it out. I have an entire sale each spring called the $1 Spring Cleaning Sale where I sell off all my b-grade (imperfect) products, and most of the time, people are wondering why they are considered defective. This is because even the slightest ding of a corner or incorrect fleck of ink on a design I’ll pull, and most of the time I’m the only that can tell. But it makes me proud to offer the best products I can to my customers because they know they will be receiving quality products, no matter what. This is especially important when I’m selling products wholesale to other stores to sell in their shops. I also don’t print everything I make. Frequently I’ll go through the whole process and have a finished product ready to manufacture, but the illustration isn’t quite where I want it so I don’t send it to print. This keeps all my designs top notch and not dragged down by messy or lower quality art.

Pursuit of knowledge has always been important, and education was highly valued in my family. It wasn’t “Are you going to college,” it was “Where will you be going to grad school?” With this in mind, I’ve been constantly curious my whole life, taking on tasks and breaking them down into steps so I can learn how to do this. This because especially helpful when I tried my hand at every category of art I could find; drawing, painting, photography, 3D, graphic design, animation, film, and more. All these skills end up working wonders together in my small business! Some examples are I’m drawing art for products, photographing these products for my catalog and online listings, editing TikToks and YouTube videos to teach other people how to make products like I do, and more. It all comes back together. And I’m not afraid to try anything, which is nice in business because there is always some new hurdle around the corner. I have the mentality of “If they can do it, I can do it.”

And that ties into the willingness to try as well. I was a real sponge in art school, where if I saw it, I wanted to be able to make it. And that stacked my skills to create a unique and sound style grounded in strong foundational skills while still providing for me to experiment.

Awesome, really appreciate you opening up with us today and before we close maybe you can share a book recommendation with us. Has there been a book that’s been impactful in your growth and development?

Steal like an Artist by Austin Kleon https://amzn.to/3VQyZkS is every golden nugget of information I’ve ever received as an artist, and I didn’t even know it at the time! I have a lot of art education, and you pick up super valuable pieces of information in passing by just existing in the space. And sometimes it takes a while before you see what they said in action. For example, I first heard that freelancing is “feast or famine” from Ben Phillips while getting my masters in Sequential Art. And I was like, “okay.” And then I started living it, and understood the value of personal projects to fill time in between freelance jobs. And then I realized for some reason, freelance jobs all start and finish at the same time, causing these gaps. And that’s exactly what Ben was talking about! And Austin Kleon talks about that in his book! So everything that I have learned from existing in the art space that has been tremendously helpful to me in my career shows up in Steal like an Artist. I reread it every few years, and there are new take aways every time. Every artist should have this book on their shelf to re-inspire them when needed.

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