Kathleen Piercefield is a visual artist who finds her inspiration in science, nature and the written word.  Sometimes invoking familiar literature, at other times focusing on intimate landscapes and personal observation, her work explores the varous ways human beings relate to their environment and are shaped by it .  Multiple layers of texture and color characterize her current prints, which generally begin with an impression from a collagraph plate and then are further developed with passages of monotype and hand coloring.

Taking a series of watercolor classes at the Baker-Hunt Arts Center in Covington awakened a desire to continue her formal education, and in 1999 she began attending Northern Kentucky University on a part-time basis.  Printmaking processes captured her interest early on, and changed the focus of her work.  She received her BFA in printmaking in 2004.  Two years later she expanded her home studio (no longer in the kitchen) to include an etching press, and now works in both print and paint media.  She is a member of The Print Club of Northern KY University, the American Print Alliance and the Mid-America Print Council.

Her work has been exhibited at the Rockford Art Museum, Rockford Illinois;  Mixed Magic Theater in Pawtucket, Rhode Island; and a number of venues in Ohio and Kentucky.  Several pieces from her ongoing series inspired by Moby-Dick have also been reproduced in scholarly publications on Melville, including an etching featured on the cover of the book Melville and Women, edited by Elizabeth Schultz and Haskell Springer, published by Kent State University Press in 2006.  Other publications that include her work are A Companion to Herman Melville, Wynn Kelley, ed. (London: Blackwell Publishing, 2006); Moby-Dick (A Longman Critical Edition) Herman Melville; John Bryant and Haskell Springer, ed. (New York: Pearson Education Inc., 2007); and Robert K. Wallace's book, Douglass and Melville: anchored together in neighborly style (New Bedford: Spinner Publications, 2005.)