Building a Castle in the Air • by Karima Cammell

As a professional artist and founder of a shop dedicated to visionaries and dreamers, I see examples every day of how ART SAVES. Here is the story of how I made art a powerful force for self-direction in my own life.

Illustration & Inspiration
My life on the artistic path began during my childhood in Berkeley, California, surrounded by a family teeming with entrepreneurial painters, writers, architects, and filmmakers. Growing up I worked in several mediums, but found my true love in illustration.

Although I was blessed to have many opportunities as a young artist, I didn’t really make the journey my own until as a young adult I went through a series of disappointments that I was able to turn into inspirations. After graduating from college, I began working toward an MA degree in illustration. This soon proved untenable financially, so I said goodbye to academia and turned to commercial art, answering the call for graphic design in the heady days of the San Francisco dot-com boom. This gave me income, but little time or energy for my own work. Eventually, I bundled up a collection of illustrations and the beginnings of a novel and flew to New York, where I met with several publishers who could offer praise — but little else — for my work.

A Dream & A Shop
With neither the will to continue making art for hire, nor the stomach for more publishing rejections, I returned to Berkeley and took advantage of my two greatest strengths, my capacity for dreaming and my DIY stubbornness. If no one else would provide a place to make my fantasy of a satisfying artistic life a reality, I would create it myself.

Using a meager set of resources, I set up a studio and shop in a storefront on a busy Berkeley street. I called it Castle in the Air: A Studio for the Imagination. When there were visitors, I sold them greeting cards and fine art supplies. When there were none, I painted. But it wasn’t long before I realized just how many people really were attracted to the space I had created. Castle in the Air was fulfilling an important need in their lives. I hired a few artists to help mind the shop, and we moved to our current location amid a collection of boutiques and restaurants in Berkeley’s Fourth Street district.

Encouraging the Vision
In the nearly 10 years since it began, Castle in the Air has been a meeting place for some of the most amazing artists and dreamers I’ve had the privilege to know. Our combined work has brought to life not only a store selling the world’s best art and crafting materials, but a classroom, a gallery, a book publishing company, and an Online Shoppe to serve those who live too far away to visit in person. Step-by-step, we’ve combined our individual visions and worked together to make a collective reality that has made all our lives richer.

Every day when new visitors walk through the door, their artistic selves are awakened and nourished. Perhaps my most amazing discovery has been that I, too, continue to have the same such experience. Of course, some of my days here are lost to paying the bills or other mundane business, but I still thrill to discover new works to feature at the store, or in joining other students for a class and losing myself for hours in a world of pure artistic inspiration. The visitors and artists take creative encouragement from Castle in the Air, and they in turn encourage my own dreams.

Saving Ourselves
Art does have the power to save us from a life created by circumstance. My time with Castle in the Air has helped me realize that as artists, we save ourselves by visualizing a different life and creatively working toward it. And sometimes, the fulfilling artistic life we create — taking a dream and working hard to bring it to fruition — can be the motivation for others to do the same for themselves.

Learn more about Karima Cammell and Castle in the Air at castleintheair.biz.

Comments

[linda]

what a wonderful story and so inspiring...love how you said we save ourselves really...

[Sam S. @ home business]

It's really inspiring! I'm a dreamer myself also in my own way but the problem is I haven't found ways on how to put my artistic talent into application. Right now, it won't be a problem for I know in later times I will carry out into success like you did.

I'll just enjoy first what blessing I've got today. We don't know it could lead to the way of putting my artistic mind into application.

[Karen Mireau]

This is a wonderful, inspiring story about a true visionary . . .

[Ceparie]

"Art has the power to save us from a life created by circumstance."

Very powerful (and very true)...

This is a memorable quote. Who knows, maybe Bartlets will publish you afterall :)