By Brian Panowich | Photography by Amy J. Owen

I wasn’t at all surprised by the news of Kat moving on to bigger and better things; after all; she is an extraordinary talent. But I was amazed to hear how Kat McCall Papers, which specializes in watercolor works on custom invitations, announcements, cards, stationery as well as fine art, had catapulted over the course of the past year, following our initial encounter. I was thrilled to take the job and called Kat immediately. I started things off by thanking her again for what she had done for me in the past, and her answer was a brief and humble one. “Anyone would have done it,” she said.

“No,” I told her. “Not anyone would.” I knew that for a fact due to how many rejections I’d already received before I picked up the phone and finally asked her to get involved. Not everyone would spend the considerable amount of time and effort it takes to create art—to immerse themselves into a project with such passion and vigor—to just give it  away. Kat did, and that piece of insight leads into the story of a woman who fits perfectly into this country-wide awakening—revolution, if you will—of powerful women finally stepping into the foreground of the business world.

A native of Newnan, Ga., Kat received her bachelor’s degree in biology—with a minor in art—from Converse College, in Spartanburg, S.C. Her original educational track included medical school, but Kat says that her heart was never really in it. “I literally got up and walked out of the MCAT testing. It wasn’t what I wanted to do. I didn’t know at the time exactly what it was I did want to do back then but I was sure that being a doctor wasn’t it.”  Kat did, on the other hand, attend nursing school at Emory, and it was during these formative years that Kat met the man who would soon become her husband—a studious young engineer named George McCall, working on his master’s degree in Atlanta. The couple eventually married, had two children—Trent and Mac—and relocated to George’s hometown of Augusta in 2006, where Kat continued down the path she’d dedicated a considerable amount of her adult life to already, being a wife and mother. “I’d stopped working to homeschool both of my children. Being the best mom and the best wife I could had become my calling, so I went at it with everything I had. I knew the whole time I was raising my family that there was something else inside me yearning for something more, but I’ve always believed, and still do now, that if you’re going to do a job, then you should do it to the best of your ability,” Kat says.

Once her boys had gotten older, Kat went back to work as a nurse, leaving her ambitions of being a full-time artist to take an even smaller piece of the backseat. But the interesting part of Kat’s philosophy of staying the course, or as she has often put it, “Living the thoughtful life,” is that those sacrifices tend to pay off. After selling a few paintings, studying under the tutelage of local mentors, and completing various other projects—like helping a first-time novelist organize a fundraiser—Kat was commissioned by Cheatham, Fletcher & Scott Architects to produce an 18-piece set of botanical-themed paintings for a private collection. That huge commission led to exclusivity deals with local businesses and now world-renowned establishments.

Doors kept opening and Kat didn’t hesitate to step through them. Inspired by her younger sister, Allie Balling, and her successful marketing business, coupled with the generous support of her family and the community, a 55-year-old, relatively self-taught painter quit her well-paying job at the hospital and reinvented herself as the owner/operator of Kat McCall Papers.

I asked Kat about when it hit her that she was now, for the first time in her life, her own boss, and she told me about a day she and George attended a football banquet at a local school and she happened to be in need of a graphic designer. A friend, also attending the banquet, pointed to a young man named Ryan Bacheller who had just recently gotten into the business. Kat immediately got up, walked over to the young man, and offered him a job. “That’s the moment it struck me. I just hired someone,” she said. “It felt incredible.”

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