Katie has been commissioned by various organizations and foundations to write tributes for honorees and to collaborate with other artists in creating multi-genre awards. Below are two samplings from her commissioned work.

Council of Smaller Enterprises (COSE) Arts Awards, in collaboration with glass artist Rene Culler:

Cairns to Giving: a tribute to Betty and John Kemper, commissioned by the Community West Foundation for their annual Art of Caring award honoring philanthropic excellence.

Cairns to Giving

in tribute to Betty and John Kemper's exuberant, visionary passion for giving

You could start out by dreaming in a way that conducts heat.
Go ahead, fire the kiln and the hearth. Make the flames unruly,
jubilant enough to imagine onions into broth, grain into bread,
ore into brass. If till now you've been wary of strangers,
leave your doors open so we can recognize each other
in the company of bread baking, the melody of onions
soft-shoeing in the pan. Make it so we'll want
to feast on the dream of dreaming in a way that conducts heat.

Speaking of brass, you should have some
fluxing in your heart—bold, impudent brass in your marrow.
Enough brass to jimmy the lock of this wishful thinking,
to widen your stride and jostle the shoulder
of what could be. To not take no for an answer.

Miracles will probably take place, but you don't need to be
a superhero or a saint. Just be here, right here. In the everyday
light of the hearth, ask the old, forgotten hands beside you
to chop the onions. The crooked, forgetful fingers
will remember then to husk away the skin. Be sure to feel
the memory reaching out to jostle the shoulder, the shoulder
straightening, then inflecting towards the heart.

You could be explicit, electrolytic.
You could fashion extraordinarily close tolerances,
combust internally, navigate the incandescence
towards what's missing from the world.
Then urge it, inspire it. Persuade it back.

Or, you could combust externally, burn with curiosity
and headlong hands. You could take the hands
of someone who's forgotten and place them over your heart.
Let your heart break in a way that conducts heat
so that the hands of the one who's forgotten
remember the heart beating, rising, breaking.
Make it so the memory in the hands mends the heart.

You'll need to have a grand appetite for firing the kiln
and passing the salt. A grand appetite for rousing
the appetites of those of us who've forgotten. We see you
robust with combustion and persuasion. Flushed with
the hardy vintage of belonging. You'll need to pass the salt.

This will make you resistant to corrosion. You'll become
magnetic and unexpected, a Renaissance blacksmith
in a dream-starved age. When you conjure back what's missing,
you'll be jubilant with details. You'll hammer the jimmied locks
into trumpets, and you'll make sure something for the feast
is rollicking in the hearth. By the time we arrive,
every door in the place will stand wide open.