Artist, Nomad, Advocate: The Losses and Leaps That Shaped Kirsten Dickerson's Life of Service (Part 2)
This episode picks up right where Part 1 left off, as Jennifer continues her conversation with her friend and longtime travel companion Kirsten Dickerson in her home in London. Kirsten opens up about what came after Raven + Lily - the quiet grief of walking away from something she had built her identity around, and the winding season that followed: a global nonprofit, a string of retreat centers renovated by hand, a painting practice she never expected to fall back in love with, and a handful of countries that eventually led her to a feature-length documentary. It's a conversation about what it looks like to keep saying yes even when the next step isn't clear, and about the people that have been along for the ride the whole way.
📍 This episode was recorded in London, England.
This is Part 2 of of a two part episode. If you haven't listened to Part 1 yet, start there first.
Update: Since this conversation was recorded, Kirsten's documentary, Handmade Future, has been completed. It's now screening at festivals and events around the country. Visit artistandnomad.com for the current screening schedule.
MEET KIRSTEN DICKERSON
Kirsten is passionate about living mindfully, empowering women on the margins of society, and promoting ethical design in the artisan craft sector. She has traveled extensively (over 40 countries), building meaningful long-term relationships with artisans, designers, and local guides.
Kirsten is a visionary leader with 25 years experience in the social business and non-profit sector. She has helped to launch and grow both impact businesses and global nonprofits such as Raven + Lily and Tirzah International and is the founder of Artist & Nomad. She has mentored and coached female change-makers across the world and helped develop a global emerging leader curriculum now used in 35 countries. She helps design and renovate large impact projects such as retreat centers, storefronts, and nonprofits. She is a textile, natural dye, and fiber enthusiast. Kirsten has also served as an art director and production designer for film projects ranging from commercials and music videos to features. She is currently directing and producing an award winning feature documentary on artisans.
Her real passion lies in exploring the intersection of faith with creation care, creativity, and contemplation. She practices Franciscan spirituality and actively lives out those convictions in her everyday life. Kirsten is also a nature enthusiast and a Texas Master Naturalist as well as an active artist who loves to paint in nature and invite others to join her.
With Artist & Nomad, Kirsten offers her experience and expertise to curate travel experiences, develop and source ethical products, and empower people to think about all levels of ethics involved in our everyday choices, especially revolving around the world of slow living and slow design.
CONNECT WITH KIRSTEN
🌐 Website: | artistandnomad.com
📷 Instagram: | @artist.and.nomad
KEY TAKEAWAYS
- Walking away from something you built is its own kind of grief. Leaving Raven + Lily after a decade wasn't a clean business decision for Kirsten because, at least in part, her identity had gotten wrapped up in the company, and stepping back meant grieving something that still felt like her baby.
- Being early means there's no map. Kirsten reflects on the burnout that came from trying to please both mission-driven values and investor expectations; a tension she couldn't resolve, in part because no one had written the playbook yet for the kind of social business she was building.
- Integrity can cost you. When COVID shut down her small travel company overnight, Kirsten refunded her clients even though the hotels never refunded her. It was a decision that cost her and her husband personally, but one she doesn't regret.
- Sometimes the thing you set aside decades ago is exactly what brings you back to life. With her nonprofit and travel work paused during COVID, Kirsten picked up a paintbrush for the first time since childhood. She found herself losing entire days to it, eventually turning it into unexpected income.
- Renovation, for Kirsten, has always been a form of ministry. From a run-down retreat center outside Nairobi to an abandoned stone chicken coop in Portugal that became a chapel, Kirsten kept finding herself turning neglected spaces into places for people to encounter something sacred.
- The documentary wasn’t the plan. Handmade Future was born the night after a guest half-joked that Kirsten should write a book. She couldn't sleep, saw the whole film in her mind, and by breakfast the next morning had her first donors before she'd even finished the sentence.
- A shared "yes" is a kind of covenant. Kirsten credits nearly 29 years of marriage and a daily practice of praying together with her husband, Brandon, as the reason they've been able to keep saying yes to the next unclear, unglamorous, faith-led move together.
SEO KEYWORDS
Tirzah International, Handmade Future documentary, artisan documentary film, retreat center renovation, women's global leadership, ethical travel company, faith-based nonprofit leadership, Portugal expat life, artisan storytelling podcast, slow travel and design, burnout and rebuilding, creative reinvention story
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