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How my love for adventure, music, and the wild have shaped my life and led to this brand.
Hi! I’m Katherine Homes, friends call me KT! I’m an artist, activist, and have an interesting environmental background that is too long to fit on this page, but I'll try. When I was very little I was very shy. I often played behind my house in our tiny forest and sang to the birds, caught fireflies, counted shooting stars, and believed I could heal hurt animals with the energy in my hands. In my late teens and early 20's I got lucky and attended a university that had some of the most incredible outdoor and environmental professors and they changed my life. My love for the arts, music, outdoors and wildlife persisted.
During my environmental philosophy classes I debated if chairs made out of wood were still alive. I wrote a paper on how mediation can impact the brain. I camped in -40 degree weather. In my environmental psychology class, I discovered how colors could change your mood, and spent half days roaming around upstate New York learning about the history of the local environment. I became fascinated by how to build barns, discovered my love for being on the river, hiking and camping, and bought my first guitar. I found my voice and started using it to sing about the voiceless: the wild. It only made sense that my desire to explore the world consumed my 20's.
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I saved up every penny I made from playing music, or teaching art, babysitting, or working at restaurants so that I could adventure. In New Zealand I worked on a move set and after lived out of a white van with three friends, we called it "HOMEY". We hiked, explored, volunteered on an organic farm and photographed everything.
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In Nepal put together a trip in Upper Dolpo Nepal to distribute much needed shoes and socks, and ended up backpacking in a seriously remote area for three weeks learning how different cultures connected to their natural environments.
When I returned from Nepal I moved the the Vail Valley and met who would become my bandmate for the Boxcar Daisies. We cowrote songs and opened for notable acts such as National Rateliff, Trampled by Turtles, Elephant Revival, Joe Pug, and Emmit-Nershi Band. It may have been short-lived but one of the most magical moments in my life.
In my early to mid 30's I worked for organizations in climate change and conservation. This included raising money as the Director of Development for an organization educating children on waste management, and My work in Indonesia in the early 2010's was with an organization I continue to support, Health in Harmony, and had one of the greatest impacts on me.
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I watched in awe as two communities (local and international) came together to help loggers stop logging and instead become forest guardians. Through active listening, sustainable farming education, environmental youth education, and subsidized medical care the organization had a profound impact on the area and while the people were positively impacted, so was the nature wildlife. I photographed eye surgeries in makeshift surgical rooms in a remote village in the middle of a jungle. I documented the devastation of illegal logging in order to plant palms for palm oil. Their work made me believe more could be done and filled me with hope.
Although I wanted to keep working in the environmental non-profit world, I had little time for creativity and I knew something needed to shift. In 2017 I made a huge leap of faith and launched a kickstarter campaign to raise money for my upcoming solo album, Speak, and in the process a brand was born.
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Everyone who donated to the music album received either a hat with my art on it or a print. We raised enough money to complete the album, but the hats were so successful I took out a business loan, and soft launched the hats at a music festival.
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I had always dreamed of using my art to bring attention to wildlands and wildlife, but for years I didn't know how I could possibly raise money and run a company and so I forgot about it. It's funny how if you plant a seed and water it -but let it do its thing- it grows. :)
