Kathleen has had a lifelong interest in creating art, and the path to becoming a working artist has been a rewarding one. Prior to turning her attention to printmaking as a full time endeavor in 1999, she was educated and employed as a biologist. It was while completing her master’s degree in wildlife biology at the University of Alaska that she decided to renew her efforts at studio art and printmaking in particular.  Her focus is collographs.

A collagraph is a hand-made print that is generated off a printing plate that is a collage of various materials. The plate is then painted over with acrylic gel mediums to add texture and detail to the design. The print is made on a similar printing press as an etching. The image is created with inks by carefully wiping away areas resulting in the darks and lights of the image. Kathleen limits her prints to small editions of 20 to 30. Although there are multiple prints of the images, each print is considered an original piece of art because it is generated entirely by the artist’s hand, not by using a mechanized reproduction process.