In this solo episode, Kat gets honest about a lesson she's still relearning 15 years in: protecting her own art practice. An inspiring gallery visit and a painful past experience resurfacing reminded her of what matters, how to protect it, and understand the value of our art and personal relationship to it.

• The artist's date that reminded Kat to get back to the pure joy of art
• Her past solo show cancellation, and what resurfacing it taught her
• Why not every gallery experience is a bad one, and how to find the right partners
• How her first sloppy 100-day challenge changed her relationship to painting
• Chasing validation vs. finding satisfaction in showing up

Kat's Spend More Time With Your Art Challenge starts July 15, 2026. It's a 21-day commitment to showing up for your own practice, open to any medium. It is not a painting course (though three of Kat's own painting examples are included), it's about reclaiming your relationship with your art, one small commitment at a time.

Join Spend More Time With Your Art →

Loved this episode? Send Kat a DM on Instagram or email info@createmagazine.com, she'd love to hear from you.

If you have ever felt like you are running a marketing agency instead of an art practice, you are not alone. In this episode, I sit down with Alex Mitow and Sharone Halevy, the dynamic duo behind Superfair, now in their 11th year as one of the most artist-forward art fairs in the country. We talk about what they are witnessing in real time across the artist community, why burnout is at an all-time high, and what actually works when you strip away the noise.

We cover:

• Why social media has aged and what that means for your practice
• The concept of force multipliers and how to find yours
• What artists are doing that is getting in their own way
• Why in-person connection is the ultimate leverage point
• How to come back to life creatively when you are running on empty
• What it actually looks like to exhibit at an artist-forward art fair

LINKS AND RESOURCES

Book a free 15-minute discovery call with the Superfair team (mention Create! Magazine for exclusive listener discounts):
https://calendly.com/d/cqt2-fkf-54v/15-minute-discovery-meeting

Learn more about Superfair:
https://www.thesuperfair.com

Celebrate ten years of Create! Magazine with our first ever Annual Art Prize, open now through July 31:
https://www.createmagazine.co/prize

Submit to our current open calls and stay up to date on everything Create!:
https://www.createmagazine.co

Join us on Substack. Articles are free for your first seven days, and your support keeps us sharing artists, career tips, and resources with the community:
https://createmagazine.substack.com

CONNECT WITH SUPERFAIR

Website: https://www.thesuperfair.com

What if the missing ingredient in your creative life isn't more productivity, but more loafing?

In this solo episode, Kat shares a personal update from her summer and an honest reflection on burnout, rest, and the radical act of doing less. Drawing from the book Writing, Creativity and Soul by Sue Monk Kidd, she introduces the concept of creative loitering, and makes the case that your imagination actually requires aimless, unstructured time to do its best work.

Kat reads from the chapter "Creative Loitering," explores why slowing down is not laziness but a prerequisite for original thinking, and shares how she has been building more space into her own life, from beach reads and Paris Review issues at the hair salon to long European-style dinners and mornings with no agenda.

This episode is an invitation to reclaim your human mind, protect your creative energy, and trust that stepping back is sometimes the most productive thing you can do.

In this episode:

• Creative loitering: what it means and why it matters for artists and makers
• Excerpts from Writing, Creativity and Soul by Sue Monk Kidd and Joie: A Parisian's Guide to Celebrating the Good Life
  by Ajiri Aki
• The analog bag trend and other small ways to reduce scrolling and add presence

Join the conversation on Substack: https://createmagazine.substack.com

Share what you're reading, how you're resting, and what you'd like to hear more of on the show.

Follow Kat:

Instagram: @ekaterinaspopova | @createmagazine