Sustainability Practices for our Small Business
We are trying to improve our own sustainability practices every year. Here are some of the things Kathryn does in her studio and workshop to reduce waste and limit our carbon footprint.
Clean Energy and Efficient Workspaces
Our home and Kathryn’s workshop are powered by solar panels, which also charge the electric car we use for delivering paintings to the post office.
Kathryn’s workshop was built with reclaimed materials wherever possible, with old furniture, discarded flooring and desk tops from the side of the road.
Kathryn’s forest studio and workshop are lit by LED lighting. The foundation was built with reclaimed materials from a constuction site.
We ordered the prefabricated kit to build the forest studio from a local BC company, and we used the pallet it was delivered on to build the shelving.
Reuse, Reuse, Reuse
Kathryn reuses nitrile gloves, popsicle sticks and restaurant chopsticks, and gets multiple uses out of mixing containers.
Our friends and neighbours save disposable cups and containers for mixing resin.
To reduce the use of paper towels, Kathryn wipes her hands off on her apron. When the aprons are too saturated with paint, they are turned into zipper bags by zero waste maker No Trace Shop.
We reuse incoming packaging from Kathryn’s art supply shipments to package the outgoing paintings. It doesn’t look as professional, but it’s better for the environment. We hope you can use it again too!
Sustainable Materials
Kathryn uses acacia wood and mango wood to make functional art, because these woods are fast-growing sustainable hardwoods.
Bamboo is also used for some pieces because it is also a good sustainable choice. This piece is decorated with strips of runoff paint.
Kathryn uses bio-based Canadian made resin for the food safe surfaces of her functional art.
When possible, Kathryn uses local reclaimed wood and discarded pallets to make wall art and raised garden beds.
To celebrate Earth Day and her 40th birthday, Kathryn made her first Repurpose series, a series made out of recycled paint and leftover resin drips.
These bags were made by zero waste maker No Trace Shop from Kathryn’s old aprons. The pieces of apron saturated with resin were cut up to make mosaic tiles.
This tray was made with cut up pieces of runoff paint that accumulate in Kathryn’s drip trays from acrylic pouring.
We’re going to make this birthday series an annual tradition, with a different conservation beneficiary each year.
At the start of the pandemic in March 2020, Kathryn and her kids cleaned up a local creek and made an art series dedicated to supporting urban green spaces.
Kathryn created a nonprofit mini course for fluid artists on sustainable practices in the studio, free for her full-length course participants and collectors.
Kathryn has used her artwork to generate over $50K to nonprofits such as Leave No Trace, Pacific Wild, and the Sequoia Parks Conservancy. This painting is one from a series made for Conservation International.
Kathryn still wears her Canadian forester’s ring, as a reminder of her professional oath to be a steward of the land, even in her new career. Read about her forester’s ring and aspen leaf logo here.