Katie Wreford — Creative Ally
Welcome to Mirador Access
Creative and Strategic
Coaching, Consulting
& Production Services
My name is Katie Wreford
I appreciate your visit!
I call myself a “creative ally” which is just a creative attempt on my part to describe what it is I do and what I’m all about. For almost 20 years I’ve provided practical support to so called “creative” people. I’ve also helped “ordinary” people, help themselves, largely by becoming more creative.
My services span three categories and at times, intersect. They include:
- Personal, one-on-one coaching, also known as “life coaching”
- Intuitive, creative, or project specific consulting
- The production of retail quality CDs, DVDs, and related support services.
I’ve posted some introductory materials about each service. I’ve also created a blog to support my ongoing desire to identify, nurture and celebrate creativity in virtually every human endeavor. To me, creativity is our freedom. It’s what inspires us to express and share ourselves meaningfully with others. Plus, it is the very mechanism by which our decisions and actions can become more conscious, and thus, more strategically aligned with our ambitions.
So whether you’re looking for inspiration, encouragement or some kind of skillful empowerment to reach your goal, I am here to help. All my work is professionally structured but fully customizable to meet your needs.
Business background and how the word “mirador” fits into everything:
I first entered business straight out of grad school where I earned a Masters Degree in Music Criticism (McMaster 1992). My primary passion (apart from the music of Gustav Mahler) was musical semiotics, or how it is that music appears to express subtle, emotional content.
The topic still intrigues me, but frankly, I’m grateful for my decision to leave academia when I did in order to pursue my passions a little more practically. You see, in school, I had a lot of opportunity to talk about music, but I started to see that if I wanted to experience, let alone influence the creation of music directly, I’d have a better chance as a producer or consultant than I would as a professor or music critic. So, in 1992, I started my own business called Mirador Productions.
The word “mirador” is of Spanish decent, and literally means “golden-view”. In English today, it refers to “a turret, window or balcony designed to command an extensive outlook” (Webster’s New Collegiate Dictionary). This resonated well with my intention of providing oversight and perspective to the creative process. It also inspired my early efforts to run a small record label and publishing company.
As a producer, I collaborated closely for a couple of years with a Kitchener-based recording studio, and in 1995 we partnered to form Studio A-Mirador, a full service recording and production facility that worked with both musicians and the business world alike. It was there that I developed the media manufacturing brokerage that I continue to run today. In 2008, when I decided to sell the recording studio, I maintained the media manufacturing part of the business, which along with some consulting work, became KW Mirador. The recording facility is now owned and operated by friend and colleague Chris Colvin as studio a recording and production
There would, of course, be one more name change to make, to Mirador Access. In early 2011, I decided to move back to my hometown of Stratford, Ontario. I was about a year into a coaching practice and was starting to see how the modality of coaching had informed a lot of what I did professionally, and otherwise. It seems that whether I work as a producer, sales broker, consultant, manager, or coach, my essential role is really that of a strategic friend– one who brings, not only some expertise and objectivity to the table, but also true commitment to your success.
So for your commitment to pursing something challenging and new, I honour you. Let me know how I can be of help.
Sincerely,
Katie Wreford