Creating art has always been part of Kathie’s life. As a child she could usually be found drawing or making things from cardboard, cloth, yarn or whatever she could find. It was the element of texture, both tactile and visual, that drew Kathie to textiles as a medium. She began using a sewing machine at 11 when she drafted her first dress pattern. She pursued drawing and sewing as hobbies through college and careers in education and Information Technology.
An encounter with fiber art dolls in the early 1990s ignited a passion for fiber art. Enthralled with the possibilities she began to create her own and soon her cloth art dolls were featured in books and magazines. She published patterns and began teaching nationally which put her in contact with art quilters and exposed her to a new way to use fabrics to make art. Shifting her focus to contemporary textile painting, she left the business world in 1998 to dedicate her full time to fiber art.
With a life long love affair with nature Kathie found the inspiration for her art quilts in the flora and fauna surrounding her northern Michigan retreat. In 2016 she moved to North Carolina finding new inspiration: breathtaking mountain vistas punctuated by dilapidated tobacco barns, vine covered trees and magnificent waterfalls. Daily walks in the country with her dog Bridget keep her in close contact with roadside plants, busy pollinators, and the neighborhood cows.
Kathie most often begins an art quilt by creating a background; sewing a combination of her own hand-dyed and commercial fabrics to create “quiet noise”. After quilting the background she layers and stitches the design elements often using her own photographs as reference.
Her art quilts have been displayed in many regional and national exhibitions and won numerous awards. Her work has been published in several books and magazines including Art Quilt Portfolio: The Natural World, Cutting Edge Art Quilts, Adventures in Design, Art Quilt Studio, Art Quilt Quarterly, Quilting Arts Magazine and Quilts Magazine.