10 Years!

10 years ago we were getting ready to close on our house. And I was getting ready to leave for India. Oh, and we were signing our first lease for The Firefly Artists...a little seed of an idea that was planted and began to grow...

As house closings tend to do, ours kept getting pushed back and pushed back until finally it was happening on Valentine’s Day! We had movers at our apartment while we were signing the papers because the clock was ticking. I was leaving for a two week trip to India in less than 24 hours.

All of these things were life changing in massive ways I’m still realizing and, in typical Kate fashion, they all happened on the same day.

We bought our home! Stacked with boxes so high we could barely see into the kitchen, I left Eric to unpack on his own as I embarked on the biggest, most uncomfortable journey of my life.

After the house closing, I popped downtown to sign a lease for our unborn artists cooperative...a move that changed everything. My friend Cathy Nichols and I decided we needed a space to sell our creations and to collaborate with other artists. 10 years and a ton of work later, Firefly Gallery is in its third location with over 30 artist members. The cooperative started a movement in our sweet Northport Village, and created a community for artists to collaborate. A decade later it’s stronger and more prolific than ever.

The house is still standing and it’s a good house with room for my studio and our boys and dogs, and lots of winter fires.

The India trip was epic and eye-opening. I’ve never been as sensory overloaded by the most beautiful and heartbreaking things life has to offer. A decade later, I’m still inspired by the sights, textures, and sheer human resiliency I witnessed on the other side of the world.

As they say, hindsight is 20/20, and as it turns out, Valentine’s Day 2011 was a pretty life-altering moment in time for this humble jeweler.