I’ve been creating for as long as I can remember. Designing. Painting. Growing things. Making things with my hands. And somewhere along the way I stopped thinking of any of it as separate — because it isn’t. It never was.
What I live is what I can only call an artful life. Not a perfect life. Not a curated one. A real one — full of color, intention, creativity, and the deep satisfaction that comes from making something beautiful out of every single day.
Here’s what that looks like for me.
The studio — design, paint, and digital creation
Thirty-five years of graphic design — in-house, contract, and freelance — working through agencies and corporations like Comp Design, Barbeau Hutchings, Pilot Pen, Perrier, Bigelow Tea, and Aurora Products. Package design, branding, beer can art. Watercolor and pastel. Procreate patterns on Spoonflower. Brushes. YouTube tutorials. S
killshare classes. All of it flowing from the same source — a deep, unshakeable love for making things.
Copper wirework — where jewelry meets stillness
I make copper wirework jewelry. And if you’ve never worked with wire, let me tell you — it asks everything of you. Your full attention. Both hands. Total presence. There is no multitasking when you’re wrapping copper.
It is one of the most meditative things I do.
Each piece is completely one of a kind. The wire goes where it wants to go, and I follow it. That surrender — that collaboration between maker and material — is what I love most about it
From garden to jar — canning & healing
When the harvest comes in, I can. I preserve. I make tinctures and salves from the herbs I grow — healing things, intentional things, things made slowly with your hands. There is something deeply satisfying about turning what the earth gave you into something that nourishes and heals.
To me, that is art too. The care, the patience, the knowledge passed down — it all requires the same presence that painting does. The same love that design does.
The garden — where it all begins
Every year I grow an organic garden. And every year it reminds me of the most important creative lesson there is — you plant, you tend, you trust, and eventually something beautiful shows up.
The garden is not separate from my creative practice. It IS my creative practice. The colors, the textures, the way light hits a tomato vine in the morning — all of it feeds my design eye. All of it ends up in my work somehow.
People ask me how I do it all. The honest answer? I don’t separate any of it. The garden, the wire, the paint, the design work — it’s all the same thing. It’s all just me, making something beautiful out of what I have.
My artful life doesn’t live only in my studio. It spills into my garden every spring. It shows up in my kitchen when I’m canning tomatoes or simmering herbs into a healing salve. It wraps itself around copper wire in my hands on a quiet afternoon. It lives in every pattern I design, every brand I build, every video I make for you.
This is what living art-fully every single day actually looks like for me. And I want to show you all of it.
You don’t have to do what I do
Your artful life will look nothing like mine — and it shouldn’t. Maybe yours is sketching on your lunch break. Baking sourdough on Saturdays. Growing three tomato plants on a balcony. Knitting while you watch TV. Writing in a journal no one will ever read.
All of it counts. All of it is creative. All of it is enough.
— Karen Ciocca
The only question worth asking is — what calls your heart? Start there. The artful life grows from exactly that spot. 💛🌿
“An artful life is living each day to its fullest — mindfully, boldly, and unapologetically yourself. It’s the creator within you showing up every day. Making. Creating. Doing what calls your heart. That’s what I believe. That’s what I teach. And that’s what you’ll find here.” 💛
