Kathleen was born and raised in Massachusetts and graduated from Massachusetts College of Art in 1972, with majors in painting and art education. She has taught art to both young and older adults in Australia, Africa and in the U.S.A, the majority in New Mexico. She has worked with local theatre companies doing set construction and scenery painting. She has worked as a painter for the noted photographer, Joel Peter Witkin. She added color to his finished photographs. Additionally, she was tasked with painting selected images, fragments of work from artists as diverse as Picasso, Titian, Ensor among others, directly on the surface of Witkin’s finished photographs. This experience has had the greatest influence on her work.