With Butler: Kathie Sever
About Kathie
Kathie Sever believes lost arts are ones worth finding. In a digital obsessed culture, she and her team of talented artists at Fort Lonesome have revived the forgotten and laborious craft of hand-cranked chainstitching embroidery and elevated into an artform. Their work is known across the world and worn by everyone from Nick Offerman to Lil Nas X.
We worked with Kathie and the Fort Lonesome crew on several projects for ourselves and clients, including the very first physical expression of the Austin FC brand — a flag with the badge chainstitched onto it by the amazingly talented Christina Hurt Smith.
As part of our With Butler series, Kathie shares the importance of humor in collaboration, why she enjoys creative teamwork, and the one person in her life who keeps everything grounded.
In a word or two, how would you describe working with Butler?
I can trust that if a project is coming via Butler, it’s been vetted and is undoubtedly imbued with integrity and meaning.
What’s the one thing you love most about your job?
I find the older I get, the more valuable I find the specific symbiosis of teamwork and creativity. There’s a lot of trust building and compassionate communication involved in keeping a creative team together.
What’s the most valuable piece of advice someone has given you?
Go outside.
What quality do you value most in a collaborator?
Humor and honesty in equal measure, I guess.
Who’s the one person you work best with and why?
I work best with a community- I find comfort and purpose in knitting together a mycelial network of shared resources. No one particular person, although my husband is the anchor without whom the rest of the system would probably crumble.
About With Butler
We get to work with some truly amazing people. With Butler is an ongoing series where we highlight the many remarkable clients, partners and leaders we’ve been able to collaborate with over the years. In the series, we ask them to share lessons they’ve learned and how they like to collaborate by answering five thought-provoking questions.