Education – Crafting a Career

Jes McMillan: Community activist, mosaic artist and Executive Director, The Mosaic Institute

use headshot Jes McMillan combined her skill and experience as a mosaic artist with her passion for community to create her career as a humanitarian artist.

In the beginning…

While growing up in Kettering, Miamisburg, Dayton and Columbus, Ohio, Jes McMillan always “wanted to be an artist”. In elementary school, she “loved going into the art room. (It was her) favorite class”. Her talent and interest were recognized early when the teacher chose her in second grade to “paint a window of the art room for the holidays… Usually (they) only let the 6^th graders paint the windows”.

How did Jes become a mosaic artist?

Jes followed her passion for art in high school. “I took every art class that was available”. She gained her first experience with handling, cutting and grinding glass when she did a fine design stained glass stepping stone project in art class. The project taught her how to cut the shapes exactly so they would fit together in the pattern with even spacing throughout.

“I did my first mosaic in high school at age 16. I got a piece of wood from the garage, 2’ tall by 4’ wide” and used glass for the pattern. Jes made a second piece which she “traded to my art teacher for a set of all the tools you need to do the glass, so then I was on my way”.

What did Jes do after high school?

After Jes graduated, she pursued industrial design. “I’ve always had a building and engineering type of mind”. She earned her Associates in Science degree in Industrial Design at the Art Institute of Pittsburgh. They recognized her talent and skills with mosaic art immediately and employed her to represent the Art Institute at festivals and to teach workshops on mosaics.

While she was going to school, Jes also worked at the YMCA. By the time she graduated from the Art Institute, she was advancing “up the ladder through the child care and I wanted to be a director”. She enrolled at Point Park University in Pittsburgh to get the necessary credits for that position. She majored in Art History and Child Development and graduated with a Bachelor of Arts in Design & Applied Arts.

What did Jes do when she returned to Dayton?

Pittsburgh “was a great city… I loved that experience”, but family ties brought Jes back to Dayton in 2005. Despite her experience in child care at the Pittsburgh YMCA, Jes discovered the Dayton YMCA lacked openings for child care directors. “I did try being an after-school site director, but I’d already passed that point and I didn’t want to take steps back”.

Jes secured a job as an industrial designer in Franklin, Ohio, but had the misfortunate to injure her hand. “I was dealing with a lot of models and you need your hands”. Shortly thereafter, she was laid off.

Next, Jes combined her background in art with her training in child development at K-12 Gallery & Teen Educational & Joint Adult Studio in downtown Dayton as a mosaic art class instructor. In order to supplement her income, she also managed Design Sleep, a high-end organic bedding store in Yellow Springs, Ohio.

How did Jes start combining mosaic art and community work?

Jes created her “first community collaborative piece” while teaching mosaic art at the K-12 Gallery & TEJAS. She led others to make “huge pieces of art that were affecting the community in a really big way. So that kind of changed the course for me right away”. use community mosaic MI

For almost eight years, Jes taught and directed community art projects at the K-12 Gallery & TEJAS. In November 2013, she “parted ways with them to create my own vehicle for community work”. While she considered what that meant, she worked as a database manager for Healthy Alternative, an independent chain of health food grocery stores. In 2015 she founded a 501(c)(3) nonprofit organization, The Mosaic Institute of Greater Dayton, to carry out her commitment to community through its mission: To Inspire, Empower and Unify Community Through Art.

Through contacts made while volunteering at One Bistro, a nonprofit restaurant in Miamisburg, Ohio, Jes found a building with 15,000 square feet available in the same town. In September 2015, The Mosaic Institute use elem classroom opened a walk-in mosaic studio with bins of pre-cut glass sorted by color that customers could use to create “make it and take it” mosaics. The studio offered a full class schedule, private parties and other events.

Since 2015 Jes has involved The Mosaic Institute in almost 20 community mural projects, both paint and mosaic, in Miamisburg. “I have done mosaic murals in every single elementary school in Miamisburg but one”, and that elementary school is scheduled to create one during the 2018-2019 school year. Miamisburg High School is also on the schedule. Eventually Jes “will have mosaiced with every child in” Miamisburg.

use blocking mural For the 2017 River Blast Festival, Jes and The Mosaic Institute partnered with the City of Miamisburg to create a giant painted mosaic on 350 feet of levee wall along the Great Miami River. Jes and her Mosaic Institute team taped the giant mosaic pattern on the levee and gave each participant a “paintbrush with the right color and directed them towards the spaces… Everybody from babies to seniors got involved in that mural”. The project made the City a semifinalist for the 2017 Governor’s Award for Parks & Recreation.

use Levee wall mural — Levee Mural, City of Miamisburg, OH

During its first year, The Mosaic Institute also used their building’s big open space to hold ten art shows with music, performance art, and visual art. It was “a lot of fun”, but, due to the heating and cooling expenses, “the building ended up being just a monster”. Jes needed to relocate The Mosaic Institute.

Since The Mosaic Institute had been active in the community, Jes negotiated with the City of Miamisburg for some space to open a community art center. Her dream is to use her “skills and abilities in partnership with (the City of Miamisburg) to build a Rosewood Arts Center, a city-sustained arts program”. The City did provide some space in a community park, “but it was like starting over from square one”.

Why did Jes move The Mosaic Institute to downtown Dayton?

While Jes was wrestling with relocation, her friend, Mike Bisig, bought the building for

use Mikes Bike Park entrance — Mike’s Bike Park, 1300 E. 1st Street, Dayton, OH

Mike’s Bike Park, which included extra space. Jes had spent many years as a young artist at The Front Street Building and knew it always had a waiting list for studio space. When she saw the available space in Mike’s building, she “instantly thought it was a good opportunity to rent these out to artists”.

Jes faced a choice: “do I start over in Miamisburg or do I take this new opportunity? It puts me back in the city (Dayton), which is where I want to be and eventually it could be self-sustaining”. In Miamisburg, Jes relied on income, grants and donations generated by The Mosaic Institute. Funding was always difficult. The Crane Studios Market business model predicted a more consistent cash flow. “Once I rent these out, I’ve got a commitment”.

Consequently, she moved The Mosaic Institute to 221 Crane Street, Dayton, and “opened up Crane Studios Market to be a tenant in my own arts market”.

use Crane entrance1 cropped — Crane Studios Market, 221 Crane Street, Dayton, OH

“I started out with 13 studios. Each one (is an) individual shop where artists of different types are doing their own galleries/retail business”. Jes priced the rent, which includes internet access, to be attractive to entrepreneurial artists testing the risk of opening a studio gallery. “Can I get customers? Can I market? Can I switch it up enough in my shop?”

Studios in Crane Studios Market

The leases require the artists to open their shops whenever Crane is open: each 1^st Friday, 6 p.m. – 9 p.m., and every Saturday, Noon – 5 p.m. For those lacking the time to run a studio shop, Jes rents wall space and handles the sales of that artist’s work.

Crane opens a new show with a visiting artist every first Friday. That visiting artist returns on the second Saturday to give an artist talk from 3 p.m. to 5 p.m. A free bourbon tasting is included.

“We’ve grown into an awesome team. We still have a lot to learn… I’m coming up on my first year as far as managing tenants and spaces, but it’s been great”.

use Crane inside1

What community work is Jes doing in Dayton?

When Crane began attracting suburban residents to the first Friday artist talks, Jes realized “there was a huge disconnect” between the suburbs and the art activity in the city. Many people are unaware that East Dayton contains the highest concentration of artists in Dayton. In order to raise awareness, Jes developed the East Dayton Arts District.

use EDAD overpass1 — 1st Street overpass, Dayton, OH

Her immediate goal is to brand the area and “create some unity with the artists and the arts here and just try to change the face of the East side. In a collaborative setting, art has the power to transcend the barriers of division in every way”.

Her first steps to brand the district involved setting up the website and painting the First Street overpass to be a gateway to the area. The next step will require attending neighborhood association meetings in the district to get them on board. “I think the more people that we get on board, the easier it will be for us to build the district”.

Additionally, Jes is spearheading creation of a memorial for victims of the opioid epidemic, The Wall of Perseverance. Her speech at the 2018 UpDayton Summit earned a grant for seed money for the project. The award also gave her “a team of all these professional people who do all these awesome things”.

The project will invite people to write the name of a loved one lost to opioids on the back of a tile and incorporate it into the 3-D memorial. Jes envisions it as a way “to physically do something to help rebuild broken lives”. We will “make Dayton the Capitol of Healing”.

Jes’ reflections:

use sidewalk mosaic c — Sidewalk mosaic, Miamisburg, OH

The most difficult thing Jes does now is “managing the tenants, the different artistic personalities. I’m just trying to gather the team; that is the challenge… What an adventure! If you asked me two years ago, would I ever be a landlord to 13 people, no way that I would’ve said ‘yes’ to that”.

Jes would like to get back to doing her own mosaic work. “I haven’t had a show yet and I really would really like to”. She has been doing mosaics for 20 years now and says, “I really enjoy it, so getting back to that would be great.”

Jes’ career observations:

use sidewalk mosaic.a — Sidewalk mosaic, Miamisburg, OH

Explore experiences to find out what it is that matches with you as a person
Remember to meet people, network and communicate in order to make projects come alive
Build leadership experience by getting people active and involved in projects that make a difference
Infuse humanitarian acts, caring and giving, into your career regardless of what you do, whether you’re doing a job you love or not

use sidewalk mosaic.b — Sidewalk mosaic, Miamisburg, OH

“I’ve definitely hit this point with opening Cranes and The Mosaic Institute here that I have this amazing team of professional creative people here with me that are helping me do everything with the community work; they’re very supportive. Team Crane and Team Mosaic are all kind of merging together… a lot of us really care and are invested and excited about making a difference… This is my 20^th year as a mosaic artist and almost all of my career out of college has been dedicated to community”.

“Those who can have the responsibility to”.

use lady viking.2 — Mural in Miamisburg, OH

You can find more information about Jes at:

City of Miamisburg levee painting (WDTN.com, December 14, 2017)

Art projects in Miamisburg with The Mosaic Institute (Dayton Daily News, August 26, 2016)

Meet 2018 Artfest Featured Artist Jes McMillan (Dayton Local.com, August 22, 2018)

Dayton Wall of Perseverance to Memorialize Opioid Epidemic Victims with Art (WYSO, May 28, 2018)

Katrina Kittle: Author, Teacher, Speakeru

Kittle coffee

Katrina Kittle uses her passion for telling stories, training in writing and teaching, and experiences in a variety of jobs to create a career path which includes published novels, life coaching classes and teaching in secondary and college institutions. No matter what she is doing, writing is always her highest priority.

In the beginning…

“I always wrote stories, but I never thought about being a writer. I always thought I would be in theater. A lot of my childhood memories are of directing and orchestrating these reenactments of stories I liked or stories I’d written”.

Katrina continued on that path as a theater major during her first three years at Ohio University. “I just wanted to be in stories”. The Theater degree required additional Liberal Arts courses and Katrina discovered she especially enjoyed studying literature. “I loved reading and writing about stories”. Her enthusiasm fueled her performance and she was asked to join the English Honors Tutorial program despite being a theater major.

Her guidance counselor suggested Katrina also take the Education courses required for a teaching certificate. Graduating with a marketable skill appealed, and she graduated in 1990 with two degrees – a Bachelor of Arts in English with a Theater minor, and a Bachelor of Science in Education.

What did Katrina do after she graduated from college?

Centerville High School, Centerville, Ohio, hired Katrina to teach English, Advanced Placement British Literature, and theater. While there, Katrina had the inspiration for her first novel, Traveling Light. “I had never taken creative writing classes…but I think it was really good training reading all those really great works”.

Katrina’s heavy workload of preparing, teaching and grading made writing a novel difficult. Books on creative writing admonish aspiring writers to write every day, but Katrina knew, “I can’t write every day. I have to grade these papers, and I have to plan this class, and I have to read Beowulf again”.

Nonetheless, Katrina’s story idea “was kind of tugging on me like a little kid pulling on your sleeve”. In response, she set a schedule. “I decided that my best and most creative time was early in the morning”. Since she couldn’t manage writing every day, “I told myself I could give myself an hour every Saturday morning. And very quickly, I realized I could squeeze in two hours”. She maintained that schedule through vacations and holidays. As a result, “I wrote the whole first draft of that novel in these little two-hour increments over the course” of a year.

The first draft was just the beginning, however. It was too long, about too many things and “I didn’t know whose story it was”. To learn the craft of fiction writing, Katrina took courses, attended the Antioch Writers Workshop (AWW) in Dayton, Ohio, and read books on creative writing. Having a first draft made all the difference. “Everything single thing you learn, you can then apply it to something that actually exists”.

What did Katrina do after she left teaching?

books-2547179_1280 Katrina’s mentor at Centerville high school recognized teaching wasn’t her calling. He advised, “If you’re thinking of leaving, don’t stay longer than five years or you’ll just get stuck”. Katrina took his advice and left after five years. “I knew I really wanted to write and I knew that this was not a match for the writing life”.

Thereafter, Katrina worked in a vet clinic for a huge pay cut, but “I was rich in time and I didn’t have to take anything home to grade”. Next, she started cleaning houses, finding her clients by word of mouth. Cleaning houses was satisfying, because, unlike teaching or writing, the finished product was tangible. Cleaning also facilitated her creativity. “All my ideas come to me when I’m doing mindless stuff with my hands; cleaning houses was perfect”.

Cleaning, however, was “hard physical work”. After two or three years, she gradually switched to directing shows for the Town Hall Theatre in Centerville/Washington Township, Ohio. The pay was good enough to enable her to cut back on her cleaning schedule. Eventually, Katrina quit cleaning houses entirely, and worked as the Town Hall Theatre Education Director and in case management support at the AIDS Foundation Miami Valley, Dayton, Ohio (now Equitas).

How did Katrina get her first book published?

By 1998, Katrina had worked on her book for six years and was ready to pursue publication. “I felt I had polished it, lots of people had read it, it had been heavily revised, and I had taken it as far as I knew how to. I felt like I was ready to hear some opinions of people in the business”.

Katrina mailed a personalized query letter with a self-addressed stamped envelope to 27 agents. All 27 agents rejected the book, often with a form rejection. “Sometimes they wouldn’t even use their own letterhead. They would just handwrite on your letter, ‘Not for us. Sorry. Good luck’”. Two did ask to see the first 50 pages, and one read the entire manuscript and gave feedback. Receiving that feedback “felt like a really good, hopeful rejection”.

During that process, she attended the Antioch Writers Workshop as an AWW work fellow, exchanging work for a reduction in tuition. Her tasks included driving speakers to the airport. Diana Baroni, from Warner Books (now Grand Central Publishing), was AWW’s guest editor that year. She attended the final evening program and heard Katrina read an excerpt from her book.

The next morning, Katrina was scheduled to drive Diana to the airport at 5:30am, but a bad thunderstorm caused power outages during the night. Katrina’s alarm didn’t go off. She happened to wake up at 5:15 a.m., brushed her teeth, jammed a ball cap over her hair, jumped in her car, and arrived on time.

K TLite — Traveling Light by Katrina Kittle; originally published by Warner Books, 2000

In the car, Diana immediately said, “’I really like what you read last night. Is that book finished?’” During the rest of the drive, Diana peppered Katrina with questions. “I thought she was just being polite”. But before she departed, Diana asked Katrina to send her the manuscript.

Several months later, Diana announced that Warner wanted to buy the book. With a book deal in hand, Katrina quickly found an agent. The agent negotiated a contract for two books and Warner Books published Traveling Light in 2000.

What did Katrina next?

Katrina had two ideas for her second book. One dealt with animal communication and addiction; the other involved child abuse. Warner Books said, “We don’t want to follow a book about AIDS with a book about child abuse; we need something… not quite so dark and controversial”.

K 2T&L — Two Truths and a Lie by Katrina Kittle; originally published by Warner Books, 2001

Nonetheless, Katrina felt most passionate about the child abuse book. “Totally naïve, I thought, ‘If they read it, they’ll understand it’s not that dark; it’s actually hopeful’”. Accordingly, she spent a year under contract writing The Kindness of Strangers. Once it was finished, Warner still didn’t want it.

Then, under the gun, Katrina wrote the book about animal communication and addiction, Two Truths and a Lie, which Warner published in 2001.

Following publication of Two Truths, Diana, said, “You really belong at a different publishing house. It’s not so shocking that they won’t let me publish Kindness, as it is that they ever let me publish Traveling Light”. As a result, Katrina needed a new publisher.

K Kindness — The Kindness of Strangers by Katrina Kittle; published by HarperCollins, 2006

Concurrently, due to business issues, Katrina began searching for a new agent. Diana assisted by sending the Kindness manuscript to three different agents with a note that said, “This isn’t for our house, but I really love this book; this book needs a home”. All three showed interest and Katrina chose one. Her new agent placed Kindness with HarperCollins Publishers. Harper published The Kindness of Strangers in 2006 and it won the Great Lakes Book Award for Fiction.

Katrina struggled with her next book, The Blessings of the Animals, as deadlines approached. Her lengthy draft had too many plot lines. After reading the first 100 pages, her agent said, “The daughter’s story is very compelling and interesting, but she needs her own book”. In response, Katrina retained the daughter as a character, but streamlined the storyline by deleting a lot of her scenes and dialogue.

K Blessings — The Blessings of the Animals by Katrina Kittle; published by HarperCollins, 2010

HarperCollins published The Blessings of the Animals in 2010.

When Katrina’s first two books went out of print, her agent helped her revert the rights into her own name. HarperCollins picked them up and rereleased them. Now Katrina’s four novels “look like they belong together”.

Katrina used the deleted material from Blessings to write Reasons to Be Happy. Sourcebooks published it as a Tween (Middle Grade) novel in 2011. When Katrina tried to follow it with a Young Adult book, she discovered the Young Adult market is quite competitive. “People think writing a children’s book will be easier, but it’s not”.

What else was Katrina doing during this period?

MVS front door — The Miami Valley School

After the publication of Traveling Light, Katrina decided it was time to stop freelancing at a variety of jobs. Too often she overloaded herself with part-time work and didn’t have time to write. She needed one steady job to maintain her writing routine. Consequently, she returned to teaching, this time in middle school at The Miami Valley School, Dayton, Ohio. Since “they take it out of you while you’re here, but then none of it goes home with you”, the position was less demanding than teaching high school.

Concurrently, Katrina got her Masters in Fine Arts in Writing (MFA) from Spalding University in Louisville, Kentucky. Spalding offered a low residency program so she could teach fulltime. “I think it improved me as a writer; improved me as a teacher”. Subsequently, the MFA also enabled her to land adjunct teaching positions at Wright State University and Sinclair Community College in Dayton.

While Katrina was teaching, HarperCollins published Kindness of Strangers. Publication required promotional activities. At times “I’d be doing a radio show in a conference room at school and then, the minute it ends, I’m going back to my classroom where some other teacher was covering for me”.

What did Katrina do after she left teaching?

Katrina felt torn between the publishing obligations and her teaching responsibilities. “I was in danger of not doing either of these jobs very well”. In 2008 Katrina decided to take the risk of writing full-time. By then she was divorced and on her own, which gave her the freedom to experiment. “If it doesn’t work, it doesn’t work and I’ll find some other job.”.

K Happy — Reasons to Be Happy by Katrina Kittle; published by Sourcebooks, 2011

Katrina traveled during her “Year of the Gypsy”, house sitting or pet sitting for friends around the country. During that year, she finished Blessings of the Animals and wrote Reasons to be Happy. At the end, she returned to Dayton and bought her house. Then things changed. “I got my first round of cancer”.

What was the impact of Katrina’s first bout with cancer?

Fighting breast cancer made writing fulltime difficult. Although Katrina had health insurance, her deductible quickly depleted her savings. In order to rebuild, she found a part-time job at the Miami Valley Fair Housing Center, Dayton, Ohio, (MVFHC) writing inspection reports.

Katrina also began developing her own freelance gigs. She offered creative writing classes through Word’s Worth Writing Center, Dayton, Ohio. Positive feedback from her speech at LexisNexis in 2014, encouraged her to create her class, Leap and the Net Will Appear, which she presented in different venues around Dayton. An encore speech at LexisNexis in 2016 used material from Reasons to Be Happy. Subsequently, she created another class focused on happiness.

Once again, as Katrina expanded her freelance activities, she had less writing time. By 2016 Katrina had rebuilt her savings and was “feeling a little spread too thin”. She left

K MVFHC — Miami Valley Fair Housing Center

MVFHC so she could “get back to the ideal writing day”. Then she learned the breast cancer was back.

What happened following Katrina’s second bout with cancer?

Again, cancer was expensive. As Katrina recovered from surgery, she worked to rebuild her savings. She taught creative writing for Word’s Worth, presented the Happy class around the region, and offered her Leap class to a variety of audiences.

What’s next?

Recently Katrina decided the “constant hustle of self-employment” was exhausting and was diminishing her writing time. She will continue to offer select writing courses for Word’s Worth, including The Writer’s 12-step Program: Write Your Novel in a Year, which begins September 11, 2018. In Fall 2018, she will also join the University of Dayton English Department to teach creative writing. This will allow her to teach the subject she loves, interact with respected colleagues, and maintain a reliable writing schedule.

Katrina’s observations:

First, make the writing exist. Once you make it exist, then it’s much easier to make it better.
Big chunks of time aren’t going to magically appear. Just start putting words on the page.
Give yourself your best, most creative time. You’ll get the other stuff done regardless.
Garner experiences and connect with people. If you just sit in a room and write, eventually you will have nothing to write about.
Stay open to other means of income. It’s all material.
Writing is not the way to get rich or famous. If your goal is to be rich, there are better ways to do it that are faster. Very few creative writers make a living just writing.

“Lots has happened in my personal life since 2011. I got cancer twice; my mom got dementia; my sister and I were completely in charge of finding (my parents) a home, moving them, getting their house ready for sale and selling their house; and also, I combined my household with (my partner) Jason and sold my own house…I’m really proud of the fact that I continued writing during all of that”.

Kat & cat — Joey, Katrina’s cat, regularly oversees her writing

Books by Katrina Kittle:

Traveling Light, originally published by Warner Books, 2000
Two Truths and a Lie, originally published by Warner Books, 2001
Kindness of Strangers, published by HarperCollins, 2006
Blessings of the Animals, published by HarperCollins, 2010
Reasons to Be Happy, published by Sourcebooks, 2011