CANVAS OF LIFE

Hear Katie Brickman’s life story (so far) and it plays out like a vintage film in Technicolor—complete with plot twists, encounters with world-famous design legends, and a bright yellow dining room in Lake Forest that serves as both set piece and muse.

‘If yellow were a person, she would be outgoing and upbeat and be really fun to have around—warm and welcoming; not too loud, like magenta might be,” says Brickman, a local artist who infuses character and life into everything she creates. “Yellow is pure joy. Yellow is always smiling and having fun.”

To say she is a born creative is an understatement.

“I think about my childhood when I paint. I jumped off roofs onto mattresses in backyards, set up an office or a store in the play house adjacent to our house, climbed trees all day in the backyard … everything was a shade of green and blue,” explains Brickman, who spent most of her formative years in Winnetka before moving to Chicago and attending high school at Cranbrook Kingswood, a boarding school in Michigan designed by architect Eliel Saarinen.

“It was a whole community of creatives living and working on this extraordinary property. It’s pretty impossible not to be influenced by it,” she adds. “There were lakes and ponds and theaters, and trails that cut through the woods. It was like a fantasy.”

She took those early design influences on to college as she studied art history at Hollins University, an all-girls school in Virginia. But it was a chance opportunity to work as an assistant for a nowfamous couple that truly changed the trajectory of Brickman’s career as a designer, creator, and now painter.

“There is so much to say about my time with Kate and Andy Spade,” recalls Brickman of the late fashion icon and her husband. “The creative process was unfolding. It was so organic, not what you would think it would be—at least not for me, fresh out of college. From the tiny little bud of an idea in that office, listening to “Ob-La-Di, Ob La Da” on the Beatles White Album to one day, seeing the finished product on the shelf at Barney’s or as an ad in a national campaign.”

She wrote stories about her childhood in Winnetka that became ad campaigns and even worked with Andy on a documentary film called Paperboys, also based in part on experiences her brothers had in Winnetka.

Looking at Brickman’s work today—a vibrant feast of color, mixed media, and bold lines—it’s easy to see the influence working with the Spades had on her development as an artist. And yet, life also happened on the road between then and now, all the things that led to the moment when she began painting (sometimes on whitewashed wood boards and antique prints) in her bright yellow Lake Forest dining room.

She got married, had kids, and eventually moved from Chicago to Lake Forest. For years, that now-famous dining room served its primary purpose, feeding and nurturing a family. It wasn’t until the children got older that it began to nurture the inner child in Brickman who always loved to paint.

“I tend to use primary colors in my paintings, because that’s what I think of when I think about my childhood,” she explains. “Everything was bright and carefree. That is where my mind is when I paint.”

Not long after she began posting images of her work on Instagram, her paintings caught the eye of another now-famous former employer—legendary North Shore designer Alessandra Branca.

“I worked for Alessandra twice. She always laughed and said the third time would be the charm. She was right!” says Brickman, explaining that Branca picked up a few pieces for her Casa Branca pop-up in Palm Beach. “Her interest in my art— her acceptance— gave me the confidence to keep going.”

Those who enjoy Brickman’s paintings are glad she did.

“I think of my paintings like an accessory, kind of like the way green shoes add a little edge to a simple or more conservative dress. My Arsenic Green painted fire place doesn’t exactly go with the rest of the room, but I think it gave the room a boost! A spark! A little edge,” she says. “I hope my clients think of my paintings the same way—that my art brings a little boost, a little spark, or a little edge to their space. As I continue making art and building my little business, what feels the best is that I am trusting what I like. Because there’s always room for evolving, now I’m just giving it a shape and an identity—and I’m running with it. It feels so free.”

For more information about Katie Brickman’s art, visit katiebrickmanart.com. You can also follow her (like Alessandra did) on Instagram @katiebrickmanart.