Kate is excited by gardens and landscapes that are beautiful in their funkiness. She's also drawn to contrasts of extreme dark and light and natural and man-made objects. She prefers the lighting of afternoon, when shadows on laundry, rusted tool or branches are at their most intense. Recently, she's been trying to capture the feeling of summer and water with a series of girls and teen swimmers.

She's not had much formal training in watercolor, but it's been her medium of choice since childhood. Over the years she's worked at a variety of art-related jobs from rug designer to animator but has always come back to watercolor as her "home".

Painters who continue to inspire her are Winslow Homer, John Singer Sargent, Ken Potter, Zoltan Szabo and her first love, Beatrix Potter. When she's not painting, she's either walking her dog, Hannah, or writing poetry.