Walking through the offices near the Perry Building’s sunny turret, one might notice several desks displaying the same cheerful, watercolor-kitty calendar.
These desktop calendars are just one the many artistic endeavors of Kathryn Lavender, a data project manager for the National Archive of Computerized Data on Aging at the Institute for Social Research’s Inter-university Consortium for Political and Social Research.
Lavender made her first kitty calendar three years ago after family and friends encouraged her to create something with her growing collection of watercolor cats.
“I’d been painting these cat images for some time, and my aunt and cousin suggested they would work well as images in a calendar,” Lavender said. “So, in 2021, when I saw that York (on Packard Street) was hosting a holiday artisan market in December and that seemed like a good time to sell a calendar for the new year, I started looking through my images, researching a printing company, and realized I could do this.
“York accepted my application, and that first year my calendars sold out.”
The process Lavender uses to create the watercolor cats is a bit unconventional.
“I don’t usually draw the cat out. First, I put watercolor on the paper and let it do its thing,” she said.
Then she typically layers paint with a wet brush until she achieves a desired shade and shape. Finally, she uses a Japanese ink marker to sketch the cat.
“Using the marker helps ensure that I don’t do too much to the cat. I want the image to be minimalist,” she said.
The watercolor calendars are not Lavender’s only feline-inspired creation. She has also painted a collection of cats based on “Mortal Kombat” characters, which she calls “cosplay combat kitties.” These images have been sold, usually as stickers, at art shows and at Vault of Midnight, a comic shop on Main Street.
“I like the different expressions and personalities of cats. I also like when people tell me about their own pets, especially if they see one of my pieces that remind them of their own cat,” Lavender said.
Lavender’s interest in capturing cats via art began in earnest with the arrival 11 years ago of her muse, Starbuck, a tortoiseshell cat named after the character Captain Kara “Starbuck” Thrace on “Battlestar Galactica.”
Starbuck was a birthday gift from Lavender’s husband — and the first cat she’d ever had, though not the first cat she ever loved. That would be Garfield, the sardonic kitty creation of cartoonist Jim Davis.
“My mom tells me I was around 2 when I saw Garfield on TV for the first time and went right up to the screen,” she said. “I still have a Garfield doll I got around that age. In the fifth grade we had to do a research project, and I chose Garfield comics. I can’t tell you what it is about Garfield, but I know it’s true love, which I believe lasts a lifetime.
“After my husband got our pet cat, my appreciation for Garfield only grew because I fully understood the humor in the comics and could embrace being a true cat lover.”
Lavender’s love for Garfield has taken her to Muncie, Indiana, the original home of Jim Davis’ PAWS Inc., multiple times in an effort to visit every one of the 20-plus Garfield statues in the area. On one visit she met Davis.
“We pulled up to the PAWS studio just as Jim Davis was pulling out of the driveway. He stopped his car, and I waved at him,” she said. “Then he gets out of his car, and I said, ‘I’m sorry to stop you in your tracks — literally — but I’m a huge fan.’ He was very nice.”
While cats are one of her favorite subjects — in life and art — they aren’t her only inspiration. Lavender’s self-portraits also have been featured in art exhibits at the Riverside Arts Center and the Matthaei Botanical Gardens, and she participated in an art project in Royal Oak that was part of the Arts, Beats and Eats Festival.
“Between 2016 and 2018, Ford (Motor Co.) sponsored a project to paint roughly 150 parking meters in the Royal Oak area. I painted one each year. The first year I did mermaids eating hamburgers and pizza, the second year I did an octopus, and the third year I did Lady Bast, (an ancient Egyptian goddess),” she said.
Lavender also has donated her paintings to help raise money for the Laurie Staples Fund Auction at ISR. In fact, when her first donation to the fund in 2016, a watercolor octopus, sold for a sizable sum, it helped her see herself as an artist.
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“There are so many creative people — photographers, basket weavers, painters — that make things to donate. So, when my octopus painting sold, I realized my art had value to other people, too,” she said.
While she isn’t interested in creating an official business around her art right now — and she has a full-time job at U-M she enjoys — Lavender does love sharing her art with others at local craft and art shows and by posting it on Instagram.
“Growing up, I always had an interest in art and creative tasks, but I also grew up working class, so my primary goal was to graduate college and find a stable job with benefits,” she said. “But now that I have that stability, I can take some time for my art. I can just make it, enjoy the process and put it out there.”
