Kristy DeWick has always been drawn to the magic of transformation.

As a mixed media artist behind KAT Designs in Lansing, Michigan, Kristy creates work that lives in the space where imagination and experimentation meet. Her pieces blend paint, collage, found objects, photography, and hand-crafted elements into layered works inspired by vintage aesthetics, folklore, nature, architecture, and the quiet stories hidden inside everyday life.

For Kristy, art is not only about what the finished piece becomes. It is about the process.

The searching.
The layering.
The trying again.
The moment when something ordinary begins to feel alive in a new way.

“I enjoy transforming simple materials into something unexpected and meaningful,” Kristy shares.

Her work carries what she describes as creative alchemy — the act of taking forgotten objects, ordinary materials, personal stories, and simple ideas and giving them new life through curiosity and imagination. At the heart of her practice is the belief that beauty and meaning can be found almost anywhere, especially in the things others might overlook.

That sense of transformation is not limited to her artwork. Creativity is also how Kristy moves through life.

“Creating helps me through everything,” she shares. “It always changes me and is what I use to bring me back to myself.”

Her creative journey has been shaped by experimentation, learning, burnout, rest, and return. One of the greatest lessons Kristy has learned is that stepping back does not mean giving up. It is part of the creative cycle. Rest, play, and small moments of curiosity have become just as important to her work as the hours spent making.

She wishes more people understood that creativity is not always effortless. Behind every finished piece are years of learning, starting over, and finding her way back after seasons of burnout. For Kristy, showing up imperfectly is still worth it.

Her inspiration comes from many places: vintage finds, the natural world, local architecture, folklore, theater, fashion, and the challenge of discovering new stories through layered materials. Her work has also been shaped by her great-grandfather’s artwork, the imaginative storytelling of Disney, the bold visual worlds of Tim Burton, the stylized photography of Nadia Lee Cohen, and the energy and confidence of Qveen Herby.

Younger Kristy might be amazed to know she never stopped creating. She grew up believing creativity was not a practical path, yet she has built a life where art, design, photography, writing, and imagination are woven into who she is.

It may not look exactly how she once imagined, but it is a creative life. And that is something worth being proud of.

Through KAT Designs, Kristy continues to build a practice rooted in curiosity, storytelling, and transformation — reminding us that even the most ordinary materials can become something meaningful when seen through an imaginative eye.