Cathy Johnson, sometimes known as Kate, has been a working artist as long as she has been working, beginning her career at Hallmark Cards in Kansas City.  She has worked as a freelance writer and artist for the past 25 + years, and was staff naturalist and contributing editor for Country Living magazine for 11 years. She is also a longtime contributing editor to the Artist Magazine and Watercolor Magic, where she writes about realizing the importance of creativity in our lives; she has had a regular column in Personal Journaling magazine. She has illustrated her own work and that of others for a number of prestigious national magazines and books, including Women's History, Science Digest, Harrowsmith, Country Life, Sports Afield and many others.

Johnson has given workshops on field sketching and painting for the national Sierra Club, the Missouri Department of Conservation and the Martha Lafite Thompson Nature Sanctuary in Liberty, Missouri, and taught independent painting and sketching workshops coast to coast. Her paintings are included in a number of private and corporate collections, including Hallmark Cards, Inc., Kansas City, MO; F&W Publications/North Light Books, Cincinnati, OH; Early American Life Magazine, Harrisburg, PA; The Kansas City Life Insurance Co., Kansas City, MO; and Newcomers Funeral Home, Kansas City, MO.

She is a longtime member of the Author Guild and the Costume Society of America. Chosen Conservation Communicator of the Year by the Burroughs Audubon Society in l987, and won the Thorpe Menn Award for Creative Writing (AAUW) for The Naturalist Cabin; Constructing the Dream (Viking Penguin) in 1992. A resident of Missouri all her life, she was born in Independence and has lived in the Excelsior Springs area since 1969.

Her artwork is in collections in the United States and Canada, as well as Australia, England, Scotland and Wales.

Hobbies (more rightly considered obsessions) include travel, Celtic myth and history, drawing, reenacting, making reproduction clothing, and pottery. And among those things that are most important in her life are nature and solitude, creativity, music, family and friends, honesty, humor, and love. What else does one need?

A new announcement list on Yahoo will let you know when new things are listed--it's also Cathy Johnson Fine Art Galleries, at http://groups.yahoo.com/group/cathyjohnsonart/