Getting Laid Off Forced Her to Finally Bet on Herself

For nearly ten years, Kadee kept her art mostly to herself.

In her spare time she created greeting cards and wreaths, floral arrangements made for people she loved, and eventually pressed flower mosaics assembled piece by piece in the quiet hours she could find.

But she wasn't quite sure if it was a business.

For Kadee, creating had always been a way to process life and express things that were difficult to put into words. But over time, that practice became more exploratory. She began creating pressed flower mosaics, using petals, leaves, and other pieces of nature to build something entirely new.

One of her first pieces was a watercolor fairy with hydrangea petals for hair and fern wings. It was accepted into an art show. And suddenly, something that had lived quietly in the background of her life had a place in the world.

She wanted to make more. The problem was finding the space to do it.

For years, she was balancing a full-time corporate job with the realities of solo homeownership. There was always something else that needed to be done, another obligation that seemed more practical, another reason to put the creative work off until later.

And underneath all of that was a bigger question:

What would it actually mean to build a life around creativity?

Earlier this year, she was laid off from her corporate job. Losing a job is rarely the way anyone would choose to create more space in their life. But sometimes an ending creates room for something that has been waiting patiently underneath it.

Instead of immediately filling that space with the next corporate job, she decided to invest in the thing she'd been imagining for years.

And, finally, the beginnings of the flower farm and cut-flower business she'd always dreamed about. Root & Whim began to take shape.

The name itself captures what she loves about the work: the balance between being grounded and being a little bit whimsical. Between putting your hands in the dirt and making something that feels almost magical. These days, you'll usually find her somewhere between the garden and the studio, growing flowers and turning them into art.

It is, in many ways, the creative life she had been building toward all along.

After spending so much time trying to figure out how to build a creative life, she found herself surrounded by a local artist community that welcomed her, encouraged her, shared their knowledge, and believed in her work. That community became one of the greatest gifts of the entire experience.

It also happened to be how she found Rise.

Through the Phoenixville art community, she met Abby and Jill, a mother-daughter duo who eventually introduced her to Rise co-founders Tami and Rachel at a Rise Night Out event they hosted at their studio. One connection led to another. And before long, Rise had become part of the community that was helping her build this new chapter of her life.

It's tempting to think of creativity as a solitary pursuit. But that's not actually how most meaningful things grow.

Root & Whim grew through creativity, yes. But it also grew through encouragement, friendship, introductions, shared knowledge, and people willing to say, “You should keep going.”

That's something she has come to understand more deeply through Rise:

Community can be just as important as creativity when it comes to growing something meaningful.

Sometimes we don't need someone to tell us what our next big move should be. Sometimes we just need people who make us brave enough to take the next small one. A person who sees the thing you've been making quietly for years and says, "You should show people this."

A friend who introduces you to someone who changes the trajectory of your life. A community that reminds you that the thing you're building matters. And sometimes, when life unexpectedly clears the space for it, we finally get to find out what might happen if we give ourselves permission to follow it.

The point isn't always knowing exactly where it will lead. Sometimes you just have to start making something. And then, little by little, make room for it to grow.