About – Kathryn J. LeMaster Art & Design

MEET KATHRYN J. LEMASTER

Hi there! I am an interior designer and entrepreneur, and among the many things I love (coffee, yoga, puppies, pesto, Frank Sinatra) I most especially love helping people live happily in their homes! I believe for the happiest space, where we live and work should be extension of who we are, reflecting our personalities and telling our stories. So part of my job is helping people express themselves and tell their stories through their homes while we optimize the space to function at it’s full potential! If you can’t tell by now, I absolutely love my job. Getting to know my clients on such a personal level as to accomplish this level of authenticity in their spaces means I always end up making new friends – usually that is my clients, but it is often their dogs, too.

I studied interior design at UCA here in Central AR, followed by the privilege of working at a world-renown luxury residential design firm, Tobi Fairely Interior Design. After a couple of years at the firm it was time for a change. I struck out on my own. In the middle of nowhere. Not really. But I wasn’t sure I “had what it takes” to start my own business. I believed alot of what I now identify as small-minded thinking and limiting lies that often hold us back from what we were meant to do. Nay, I was a lady of little faith.

How I ended up here is a long story for another time, but by God’s grace, here I am. 7 years later, celebrating my company’s 6 year anniversary with faith grown and more joy from this journey than I ever could have dreamed! It turns out I was most definitely meant to start my own business. In doing so, I’ve gotten to live out part of my purpose by using my creative gifts and professional skills to serve countless families, individuals and businesses, helping solve their interior dilemmas to create personalized spaces that serve their intended purpose. It is seriously so rewarding and makes my heart so happy! I love what my Insta-friend artist Allison recently wrote, “Our Great Creator formed us all to be artists – each one of us being given unique gifts to encourage and touch others in this life.” Yes, I was meant to do this.

When I’m not helping people achieve their spacial goals, I’m usually doing something else business related because as it turns out, I love the business side too! I love reading, pod-cast listening, online course taking, Instagramming, thinking about another business idea, thinking about thinking about another idea…

Aside from this portion of my life, the rest of my life revolves around my family, because I love them to pieces. Mostly my sweet husband of almost 12 years, first baby who’s somehow already 15 months old (#obsessed), and fur-babies/business partners Rufus and Nellie – but also the close-knit medium family he comes from and close-knit big family I come from. We’re super fortunate that most of them live close, so we take every opportunity to spend time together, as they are collectively the best bunch of humans I know.

So there’s a bit about me. I’d love to learn more about you! Please don’t leave without saying hello whether through the Connect page or connecting via social media. Thanks for dropping in!

xo – kathryn j.

THINGS THAT MAKE ME SMILE

1 Hot coffee. All day every day.
2 Italy. Italians. Italian food.
3 Critters of all kinds. Especially Rufus & Nellie.
4 Outside! Sunshine, blue sky, etc.
5 Swingin’ serenades by Frank Sinatra.
6 FRIENDS – the TV show.

everyone needs partners in crime

MEETMADDISON WENDLAND

Administrative Assistant EXTRORDINAiRE

Maddison Wendland, Administrative Assistant Extraordinaire, holds a Bachelor of Arts in Psychology from the University of Central Arkansas. With degree in hand, she marched down the doors of state government, where she has honed her human resources skills and general badassery since 2008. Professional skills include: employee relations, benefits administration, employment law compliance, policy implementation, 90 WPM typing, and sometimes being able to guess if they’ll “love it or list it” while watching HGTV’s show of the same name.
Maddison helps with Kathryn J Lemaster Art & Design through her strengths in organization and communication. Her tasks include everything from client communication, project management assistance, scheduling, building templates and streamlining processes, to filing and organizing, to basically being Kathryn’s sounding board and keeping her on track.
In her free time, Maddison enjoys traveling with her husband, Spencer, reading the classics (read: fiction that’s likely aimed at young adults), and talking to her doberman, Quorra, as though she has a deep grasp of the human language. How would she describe herself? Five words. Hard-working, Alpha female. Jackhammer. Merciless. Insatiable.

MEETEMILY PARKS

Junior Designer Genius

Emily attended the University of Arkansas where she obtained a bachelor’s degree in Social Work. She and her husband Devon (a film and television director) met at high school in Van Buren, Arkansas, attended the same college, graduated in May of 2013, got married 2 weeks later became parents to the Greatest Dane around (Scout) and moved to Los Angeles within the year. (Whew!)

With a lot of life changes happening so quickly, one “hobby” remained humbly and subtly consistent – design. Over the last decade, she found herself designing events from weddings, parties, showers, a bat mitzvah here and there, her too-small apartments, her friends’ too-small apartments, a regional Emmy Award-winning short film, short films that didn’t win anything at all – and several nationally-aired commercials. Despite numerous opportunities in the creative industry, Emily remained in her actual degree field for 5 years; working as a Behavior Interventionist for children of all abilities in a variety of settings. Yet when a friend enthusiastically said to her one day, “You should consider a career in design!”, she remembers looking at them as if they had just told a hilarious joke. Design full-time, what?! How? Where? With who?

Since finally committing to full-time design in 2017, Emily has completed 2 feature films and a 10-part television series for a major network. The answers to the whats, hows, and wheres are all stories for another time, but as for “with who?”- enter, with the sunniest soundtrack your brain can muster, Kathryn LeMaster. Emily and Kathryn met on set through a production design client, where their worlds of interior and production design met and melded in perfect design harmony. She continued to hone her creative gifts in production design and styling while expanding her design skills in to the interior design realm by training with Kathryn for a year. She recently became the company’s first Junior Designer and is continually saving the day by providing much needed design assistance in all capacities from design concepts, project development, presentation creation – essentially supporting Kathryn as her left-hand-woman (because Kathryn’s left handed) on all design fronts while also taking excellent care of our ever-growing family of clients and vendors. Emily says of her future in design, “The rest is a history still being written, but I am so blessed and excited to be a part of this special company lead by the best!”

MEETRUFUS & NELLIE

Super Receiving Supervisor and Dynamic Daily Operations Manager

Five years ago, they were just a couple a pups in a pen. Like a pair of mismatched book ends, Rufus was the biggest of the litter while Nellie was the runt. Despite their distance in stature and difference in personality – these two couldn’t be closer.
Rufus is the life of the party around the house and office, living by the philosophy that strangers are just friends he hasn’t met yet. Meanwhile Nellie prefers to take her time getting to know you, but once you’re “in” – you’re in for life. At work, you can usually find Rufus posted up at the window watching for the FedEx and UPS trucks to drop of incoming packages, mailman Kevin to drop off the mail, and keep an eye on his porch bird frienemies, ready to sound the alarm (Ruf! His name really is so fitting) should a bird-fight break out or a package arrive.
Nellie is always the first to arrive at the office (such a long commute down 18 stairs from her bed at the end of Kathryn’s bed to her desk under Kathryn’s desk) where she stares questioningly across the room at Kathryn (usually still stirring her coffee in the Kitchen) as though to inquire, “are we going to work today?” until Kathryn finally takes her seat at the desk after sloshing Nellie’s share of coffee across the floor on her way there. Once everyone is in their place, she likes observing from Kathryn’s feet to ensure daily tasks are performed up to her high standard of excellence and the office playlist is sufficiently jammy.