From the outside looking in, Kathryn Sayle Jewkes lived a charmed life. She lived on three acres in a highly sought-after East Cobb neighborhood. She had a successful husband and was a full-time mom to four great kids who she drove to private school. She was involved in her church, cheered on at sports practices, and was surrounded by friends.
Then one day the unexpected happened and Kathryn found herself in the middle of a divorce—in the middle of the pandemic. Shutdowns protracted the pro cess and the pain. The divorce was finally finalized, and she found herself in a deep depression.
“It was really rough,” she said. “You know you’re dealing with the emotions that you’re feeling, but I’m also the mom of 4 children. My youngest is 6, my oldest is 21. And you’re so worried about them.”
Then one day something changed.
It started as most days: Kathryn just struggled to get out of bed and get her kids off to school. On this day, though, a random thought came to her.
“I think I’m just going to go to Michael’s and get a paint set,” she thought. “I think 
I’m going to paint today.”
She wasn’t an artist. She had never painted.
“So, I got dressed, I went out, and bought a $25 art set,” she recalled. “Came home. Started Painting. It was so contagious, and it made me feel so good, that I just could not stop.”
One might imagine the cathartic feeling of using the canvas to get out those painful emotions. Perhaps dark, chaotic, maybe even angry images come to mind. Not so with Kathryn.
“What was crazy is they were all, like, happy paintings,” she said. “Bright colors. Nothing I was feeling was transferring to the canvas.”
Not long after, her friends saw her work and encouraged her to sell them. She started posting photos on Instagram, although she said it as hard for her to expose herself like that at her age. The vulnerability paid off, however, and she got rave reviews and even commissions. Within months, at the age of 46, she was on the cusp of a new career.
“People would ask me all the time, they say, “how long have you been painting? I had no idea you were an artist,’ and I would say, “yeah, I had no idea I was an artist either.”
“It was something I stumbled upon, and the way I see it, I think that God was holding on to this and saving it for when I really needed it the most.”
In the year since, she was invited to show locally at Trinity School Spotlight on Art in Buckhead and The Wesleyan School Artist Market. The owners of Art Houzze, a gallery in Greenville, SC, asked her to show in the High Point Market, the largest home furnishings industry trade show in the world.
The side bonus of her new art career? It led her to her new husband. While showing at High Point, she and a friend snuck into a party, and he was there. A long distance phone romance ensued, and she and David Jewkes were married in March.
Art Houzze now sells her work in their gallery as does Chestnut Hall Interiors in Memphis, TN. About 50 percent of her work is commissions for clients.
