Blogger Babble: Color Me Katie

By Lexi Green
May 26, 2010

If only we could stay children forever, or at least hold on to our childhood dispositions—when the simple things like playing with colorful construction paper, or monkeying around on the sidewalks was still okay. For Katie Sokoler, photographer, street performer and the mastermind behind the wildly popular blog ColorMeKatie, being a veritable grown-up Punky Brewster is just another day in the life. One look at the ColorMeKatie blog and readers are greeted with photographs of Katie’s creative masterpieces: a path of paper Pac-Mans strategically placed around Katie’s Brooklyn neighborhood in which passersby are an unwitting part of the chase; the chronicles of her super-cat Moo; and finally, the videos of the improvisational public scenes she creates with the group Improv Everywhere. In fact, while writing this we noticed that Katie posted a video of the group’s most recent “scene,” in which they surprised a very quiet crowd inside the New York Public Library with a reenactment of Ghost Busters.

Katie started her blog in 2008 as a photography major at New York’s Fashion Institute of Technology. She was having a hard time finding her “style,” she tells us, and was not feeling the whole dark and moody vibe that many photography students lean toward. So, a natural performer, Katie began chronicling all of the goofy things she did around New York: getting strangers to dance with her at a park or painting multi-colored footprints on the sidewalks for pedestrians to walk across. People started tuning into Katie’s artwork and soon she realized she could combine her cheery outlook on life with her art. “I wanted to feel good!” Katie tells us. “What if people could see the idea of being happy out on the streets? Then they could be happy too!” Nearly two years later and only a mere eight months out of school, Katie has not only kept up her sunny disposition, but the requests for more of her “happy” artwork have poured in. She is currently writing a children’s book as well as a “Color Me Katie” book. She also gets commissioned for street art, private photography portraits and wedding shoots. She was even recently approached by MTV to host a show.

When we ask her where she gets her inspiration, Katie tells us, “I love walking around the city and taking in everything, like colorful buildings or just finding a toy store and spending hours in it. That’s what I find really inspiring.” Her fans, which span across the globe, often mimic her projects and send her their photographs. “The great thing is that my projects are very simple. I am not a very good drawer, but I show people that you can do simple things with an X-acto knife and some construction paper. I want everyone to feel like they can bring out their artistic side!”

** Portrait provided by the subject. **