Note: In an ongoing collaboration with Vashon Island Visual Artists, The Beachcomber is sharing bios and news from the island’s vibrant community of visual artists. This week, meet Kathleen Kinney, an artist whose long resume tells the story of a lifetime of creativity — Elizabeth Shepherd, Arts Editor

An islander for more than 20 years, Kathleen Kinney has painted, designed, taught, created and exhibited in Seattle, California and Vashon for decades.

Highlights include teaching at the Seattle Art Institute, a Masters Degree in Art and Consciousness (from JFK University in Berkeley, California), several painting exhibits in the Green Door Gallery, “Fantasy Florals” at the Vashon Tea Shop in 2008, and a show at Nirvana with paintings inspired by her love of India and its decorative imagery.

She has taught The Artist’s Way in Seattle, coaches creativity in her “Studio of Possibility” and illustrated the Possibility Process Journal launched in 2012. In 2018, Kinney curated The Red Shoe Show at VCA’s first Summer Arts Fest. While her painting themes are often nature-inspired symbolic abstractions, her stylized cat paintings have emerged at various island auctions.

A jewelry fabrication class in college planted an enduring seed that came to life for Kinney more than a decade later. Now, her hand-formed “refined rustic” limited edition jewelry is usually made from copper, brass and African beads. Special patinas have always been favorites. She has exhibited her jewelry at various holiday and summer art shows, the Blue Heron, in a Vashonistas fashion show in 2009, SAW Gallery, and the 2019 holiday jewelry show at Vashon Center for the Arts.

She can be found at Facebook.com/kathleen.kinney.94 and Instagram.com/kinneystudiovashon. Her email address is kinneystudio@me.com.

Vashon Island Visual Artists (VIVA) is a 300+ member-strong nonprofit, with the stated goals of connecting artists to each other and the community, supporting the needs of its members personally and artistically, empowering creativity through education and exhibition, and preserving the artistic culture that has been fundamental to its island community for decades. Find VIVA online at vivartists.com.