About Kanna Art Studios

We are a family-run, small business (there is only one worker bee though, Maisy and Benji's job is to look cute and dole out cuddles and mischief).

Maisy Daisy Borek, CEO of Cute. Maisy started life as the second born, only girl and runt of her litter and boss of all of her brothers. She charmed her mom from day one with her waggy sweetness and worked her way up from Cuddle Clerk to CEO of Cute through diligent adorableness and consistent snuggles and wags. This girl is always swishing her tail, smiling at her mom, and willing to have her belly rubbed. Wrestling Moniker: Maisy Mayhem

Benji Bear Borek. President of Zoomies & Mischief. This handsome boy was the bonus of a litter of four. While Maisy is the primary instigator of play, Benji distinguished himself as a chief of bedlam by engineering escapes from the yard and chasing rabbits and squirrels into the woods. He takes particular delight in making his mom chase him. His worker bee provided a zoomie containment system which allowed him to excel into his current role as President of Zoomies and Mischief. Wrestling Moniker: Benji Bedlam

Maisy and Benji share equal co-ownership of their mom who is completely smitten with their spoiled sweetness. 

Jenn Borek, Worker Bee Arty Adventurer. Jenn has been creative all of her life. Her goals are to be quirky and unboring (aka interesting). She specializes in paradoxes: organized and messy, plans to be spontaneous, in tune and oblivious, confident and insecure, focused and splattered. 

The short story

Jenn never expected to end up in Florida. The first three words that came to mind were Miami, beaches, and Disney.  When she moved here, the experiences with the flora and fauna intrigued and delighted her. During Covid quarantining, she started a 100-day project drawing the creatures and environment she experienced in her doodle-y style as a black and white series. In December of 2024 she colorized 20 designs with the goal of offering them as memories of Florida experiences in the form of stickers, cards, bookmarks, and prints. 

The longer story about The Creative Splattering

Jenn took art classes all through school. She restarted her art adventuring in 2006 with a crafty accomplice who introduced her to the wondrous world of a bead show. Her wallet experienced a seismic event and Jenn dove deep into the rabbit hole of creating jewelry. Along the way she discovered serendipitous potential of a messy desk and has learned to embrace both chaos and order. 

Back when she was attempting to replenish her quickly depleted bead stash, the online bead world was not very robust. While wandering around the web looking for beads to buy, she discovered that you could make your own glass beads. What the what? Her original partner in crime told her if she ever took a lamp working class she was coming with her. They high-tailed it over to Ft. Worth and were initiated into the world of creating beads through the process of lamp working. (Lampworking - melting colorful glass rods over stainless steel mandrel and shaping the molten glass and decorating it with tiny bits of other glass.) Jenn made many many ugly beads for six months. There were some beads that were early indicators of her future style, but mostly ugly.

Jenn moved to Hong Kong and surprisingly was able to acquire a lamp work setup and continue making beads and started developing a signature swirl style. She continued to experiment with layers and types of glass (transparent, translucent, and opaque) and began developing a consistent way to achieve a specific look with her beads. Then she had to move to a different location where she couldn’t pursue her glass passion. She adapted by picking up polymer clay and promptly began making more ugly beads. Eventually her polymer beads got better and she made interesting wearable gifts for friends. She also explored freeform seed bead weaving and metal clay during this time.

She spent another few years moving around, toggling between making glass and not being able to make glass. She expanded her repertoire and made chain maille chains, experimented with metal clay and other cold metal smithing techniques. 

Then there was a big pivot. She took a business class to try to wrap her arms around building a business around creativity. Unfortunately, this class spun her off into multiple directions and opened up multiple streams of art. She attempted to focus on beads and bead shows. Between the physical toll on her body and the changing environment around beads and jewelry, her business never really lifted off the ground. Without focus, Jenn continued to add to her art repertoire and began creating confusion on what art she offered. Glass beads? Jewelry? Polymer? Chain mail? Cards? Prints? Pillows? Fabric? Scarves? Blankets? Sweaters? T-Shirts? The lack of identity was very confusing. But if you’re a chronically curious creative whose hands must always be busy, you understand the dilemma. IYKYK

For a decade she spun in circles creating more and different art. Then life circumstances changed. She took a year off from art and focused on family needs. She was about to press the button to delete her business entirely. At this time she stumbled across advice from another artist who launched a stationery business and gave a really concise list of “how she would launch her business” if she started over again. 

It sparked an idea and the stationery shop of Kanna Art Studios was born. After six months of converting 20 black and white designs into color, printing, testing, refining, experimenting, tweaking she finally is able to bring her bright designs to fellow Florida admirers. 

Eleventy-million more ideas are percolating in Jenn's firework brain! In other words, many more ideas to come! But first, stickers and stationery.

Thank you for being here. Your support is sincerely and warmly appreciated.