About Me

I spent my childhood in the Midwest and New England. In 1992, I moved from Boston to Philadelphia in order to attend the Pennsylvania Academy of the Fine Arts, where I studied printmaking and painting. I graduated from PAFA in 1996, and three years later received my B.F.A. from the University of Pennsylvania. I taught first grade for four years at a private Quaker school, but now I teach drawing classes at an art school in Philadelphia - but work full-time for an engineering firm.In my spare time, I'm a painter - mostly focusing on urban and pastoral landscapes. You can see some of my work at MundieArt.com
I have just become a mom and am learning to juggle motherhood and being an artist.
I like trains, train structures and architecture and I don't know why...

My Interests

I am a landscape painter working in oil, and also do some etching. I love to cook. If I am away from my kitchen for a couple of days I get a bit loopy. I just got a food processor and I love it.
I practice Vinyasa yoga everyday and have studied Jivamukti and Iyengar yoga styles.

Hey, Check out Workermangallery.com
bicyclerevolutions Very cool bikes

I'd like to meet:

flying monkeys locked in a deadly aeronautical battle with flying pigs

Music:

Ozomatli, Jurassic 5, Billy Bragg, The Clash/Joe Strummer, Django Reinhardt, Beastie Boys (up until the last album), Rodrigo y Gabriela, Johnny Cash, Those Legendary Shack Shakers, The Kinks, James Brown, The Pogues, Etta James,Ruth Brown, Sam Cook, David Byrne, The Tossers, The White Stripes, The Color Bars, Sean Lennon, DropKick Murphy's, The Tossers, Hank Williams.

Movies:

Favorite Asian Films (in no particular order):

Favorite Gangster/ Criminal Element films:

Old Boy Pulp Fiction
House of Flying Daggers Snatch
Crouching Tiger Hidden Dragon Millers Crossing
Hero Layer Cake
Jet Li's Twin Warriors Killing Zoe
Prison on Fire La Femme Nakita
City on Fire The Usual Suspects
Drunken Master (Jackie Chan) Sin City
Legend of Drunken Master Reservoir Dogs
A Better Tomorrow Lock, Stock and 2 Smoking Barrels
Kung Fu Hustle The Departed
Fist of Legend
ZatÃ´ichi (The blind swordsman)

Favorite Classics (in no particular order):

Other Favorites (in no particular order):

Diabolique (1955) Rabbit Proof Fence
Love Crazy Dear Frankie
The Philadelphia Story Kinky Boots
The Ghost and Mrs. Muir Little Voice
The Third Man Children of Men
My Man Godfrey Tokyo Godfathers
Jane Ere (1941) 28 Days Later
The Thin Man Eat, Drink, Man, Woman
Pat and Mike My Neighbor Totoro
You Canâ€™t Take it with You (1936) Porco Rosso
It Happened one Night Shaun of the Dead
La belle et la bÃªte (1946) Flawless (the one w/ Philip Seymour Hoffman)
Night of the Hunter Lives of Others
The Awful Truth (1937)
Favorite Documentaries(in no particular order): Hands on the Hardbody, The Control Room, Fahrenheit 911, Bowling for Columbine, Murderball, Shane McGowan: If I Should Fall From Grace
We just saw Be Kind Rewind- hilarious!

Television:

Sigh, I wish there was more Dead Wood
Frak! I love BSG!
Dude Run! Ghost Hunters is on!

Books:

I read all the time and just about any genre. Some favorite authors are Jane Austen, Paul Auster, Charlotte BrontÃ«, Augusten Burroughs, Anthony Bourdain, Bill Bryson, Alexander Dumas, Gerald Durrell, Jeffrey Eugenides, John Irving, Christopher Moore, Farley Mowat, Tom Robbins, J. K. Rowling, Eric Schlosser, David Sedaris, and J.R.R. Tolkein, P.G. Wodehouse.
Just read: A General Theory of Love by Thomas Lewis, MD, Fari Amini, MD, & Richard Lannon, MD. It is about brain structure and chemistry and how that relates to the science of emotions.
Just finished: Labyrinth by Kate Mosse
Now reading: Year of Living Biblically by A.J. Jacobs

Heroes:

I have had good mentors throughout my life, each have given me great advice and steered me along my path. I try to learn from every experience, positive and negative.

My Blog

Amsterdam: Part 3 of the Mundie travel log

Jim and I took the train from Paris to Amsterdam early on a Friday morning. We got into Amsterdam around noon after a very picturesque trip through misty Belgian fields and along Dutch canals through ...
Posted by Kate on Wed, 25 Jun 2008 09:42:00 PST

Paris

Jim and I flew from London to Paris on a Friday evening. For the Paris portion of our trip we would be staying in a studio apartment with a kitchen and a bonus: a washing machine! The apartment ...
Posted by Kate on Wed, 25 Jun 2008 09:08:00 PST

London Trip, January 2008

Jim received for a grant to do research for his artwork utilizing collections of medical, pathological and anatomical preparations at museums in London, Paris and the Netherlands and I got to tag al...
Posted by Kate on Sat, 24 May 2008 07:38:00 PST

Painting Americas crumbling infrastructure.

Over the last two weekends I have been painting at sundown on 25th, Washington and Graysferry Avenue in the Graysferry neighborhood in Philadelphia. Graysferry is a residential and industrial area alo...
Posted by Kate on Mon, 27 Aug 2007 01:46:00 PST

Landscape Painting Part II

The first three paintings are not summer paintings. I did them last January on site in Philadelphia. I returned to the paint the South Street Bridge on an unseasonably warm January day. It was as bri...
Posted by Kate on Mon, 30 Jul 2007 10:59:00 PST

Landscape painting: Summer 2007

I have been doing quite a bit of landscape painting in this summer as well as a couple of visits to Eastern State Penitentiary. It is always my goal to grow as an artist and this summer my painting s...
Posted by Kate on Wed, 18 Jul 2007 07:57:00 PST

Reading not Painting

I have been reading lately instead of making art. I make art in my free time, I read in my free time, and all I have been doing is reading a lot of good books and some not so good books. I just ...
Posted by Kate on Fri, 18 May 2007 11:40:00 PST

A tourist in my own city (part 2)

We spent much of Saturday preparing for Matt's show, setting up the sound system and lights, and unpacking boxes of broken glass for his glass walk. As Jim and I were arranging chairs and such Matt pr...
Posted by Kate on Mon, 05 Feb 2007 03:57:00 PST

A tourist in my own city (part 1)

This past weekend Matt The Knife, an entertainer of the highest order: magician, sideshow performer, escape artist, lecturer, consultant, and a holder of eleven Guinness World Records" came for a visi...
Posted by Kate on Wed, 31 Jan 2007 07:51:00 PST

Gallery Update

In the past week both galleries mentioned in the previous blog have contacted me to let me know that work has sold. It feels great. They also want more work. I better go paint. ...
Posted by Kate on Tue, 09 Jan 2007 01:36:00 PST