Katie Parrish: The Rebel Painter

Each year, Vaillancourt Folk Art is proud to offer different lectures during Collector’s Weekend. This year, as we celebrate our 20th Annual Collector’s Weekend, it is only fitting that we celebrate you: the collector.

Our first lecture series speaker has never missed a Collector’s Weekend Painting Workshop since attending the first when she was just 14-years old. Her work has earned her a reputation for “painting outside the lines” and is affectionately known as the Rebel Painter.

Katie (Parrish) Blauer grew up in Lexington, MA and graduated from Massachusetts College of Art with a degree in Illustration. She has been working as a footwear designer for the last 12 years, first designing childrens shoes at Stride Rite and then womens skate lifestyle shoes at Vans in Southern California. Currently, Katie is working as a Senior Designer on the Womens Chuck Taylor All Star team at Converse and is once again living in Lexington with her husband, Adam, and their nearly 2-year-old son, Hunter. As time permits, she enjoys creating handmade custom wedding shoes for friends and family out of her home shoemaking studio. Every year, Katie looks forward to the Vaillancourt Collector’s Weekend painting workshop, which she has been participating in since 1997, and hopes to maintain her legacy as the Rebel Painter for as long as the tradition continues.