The View from Mount Chocorua, New Hampshire, 12 x 12 in. © Kathleen Hudson. All rights reserved.

OCS held a unique career event on Thursday, February 9, in which alumna Kathleen Breeden Hudson ‘09 returned to campus to speak about her experience as a professional visual artist.

Though she now works as a landscape painter, Ms. Hudson was not a Visual and Environmental Studies concentrator at Harvard. Instead, she studied History and Literature and did not know she wanted to pursue a career as a professional artist until her senior year, when she served on the selection committee for the Harvard Student Art Show and began painting more regularly. After realizing that art was what she loved to do most, the hardest part about choosing her career was the fact that she had to pave much of her own path.

Sunrise on a Farm, Kentucky, 12 x 16 in. © Kathleen Hudson. All rights reserved.

Ms. Hudson explained that there “isn’t really a structured way to pursue an art career. There isn’t really a set path, and it’s daunting. But this also gives you freedom to not have a certain barometer of success, which I really liked.” Ms. Hudson’s career trajectory is unconventional: after college, she worked with a program that was not directly art-related but circuitously led her into the art community. After receiving a grant to start an afterschool program in South Africa, Ms. Hudson met a man who graduated from Harvard Business School looking to hire someone to do corporate art in Boston. Ms. Hudson described this instance as a classic one in the art business, because an artist never knows where a connection or an opportunity will come from. For her, this underscored the importance of investing one’s energy in a broad range of interests.

Off the Coast, Marseilles, watercolor sketch, 7 x 10 in. © Kathleen Hudson. All rights reserved.

Despite the fact that there is no archetypical path to break into the world of professional artists, Ms. Hudson did mention some helpful tips for how to get involved. “One of the things that really helped me was to reach out to artists in the area that I admire,” she explained, adding “it’s really helpful to learn from more experienced artists and to establish gallery connections from friends who have already had gallery shows.” While some might suspect artists to feel threatened by stylistically-similar artists in the field, Ms. Hudson assured her audience that is not the case. “Other artists are really helpful in trying to make connections, because everyone knows how hard the process is,” she said. “Don’t underestimate the power of building relationships with established artists.”

Though the process is not easy, Ms. Hudson does not regret taking the road less traveled in comparison to others in her graduating college class. Her only regret is that she “really wished [she] had committed to art earlier,” in college and not let the conception of art as a “loosey-goosey” career ever deter her. At the end of the day, Ms. Hudson continues with her art because of its personal and cultural significance in her life. “Art has so much to offer and is such a great way to cross cultural divides. How is my art serving my community? Why am I painting? I know that there is an underlying meaning, and that brings real joy. It’s a big motivation for me.”

— Julia Eger, ‘14

To see more of Ms. Hudson’s work, visit www.kathleenbhudson.com.