For decades, artist Kathie Lostetter has made her home atop a mesa along the Rio Chama. Originally from New Jersey, she has lived in New Mexico since the 1970s, making art, building community, raising sons, and connecting with the natural world. Her visionary animal sculptures reflect those connections to the landscapes and communities of northern New Mexico, and her art has been featured at galleries in Santa Fe, Taos, Aspen, Albuquerque, Abiquiu, and Tubac over the last 30 years. Each sculpture, inspired by dreams and folklore, is created in clay, fired, and then painted with oil paints. Each sculpture is also uniquely embellished with bead work, gemstones, and feathers from her macaws. Lostetter’s distinctive style of mythic animal sculpture is influenced by folk tales from ancient cultures and her respect for wild animals, their spiritual integrity, and their value to our world. Each of her sculptures carries a theme of nurturing; loving care for the young and for all life on this planet weaves through each detail of her sculptures. For Lostetter, the practice of sculpture is also about the sacred inspiration humans have found from animals, plants, and the lands that have been portrayed in myths, art, and ceremony. Kathie received a BA in Communications for animation and art at the University of Miami in Coral Gables, Florida.