Katherine Ace was born in Chicago in 1953 and fell in love with oil paint at the age of 10 at a summer children’s class at the Art Institute of Chicago. She began painting in oils regularly at the age of 14, and through high school had a small space in the basement of her home where she painted several hours a day. Ace went on to study art at Knox College in Galesburg, Illinois, graduating in 1975. After college Ace had a series of art-related jobs started in New Orleans, Vermont and Boston and then moved west – copying Old Master’s paintings, working as a potter, doing graphics work and serving as a quick sketch artist in New Orleans and in casinos in Reno, NV and Lake Tahoe, CA. She worked extensively on illustrations for textbooks producing a series of 16 books for Rorke Publishing and 36 portraits of composers for Simon and Shuster’s World of Music. She also did many portrait commissions including the Founding Father of the Oakland Children’s Hospital and the founders of the Jelly Belly corporation. Here is how Katherine described her painting process:“Although, stylistically, I incorporate representation, paradoxically, I approach the canvas abstractly and employ gesture founded in Abstract Expressionism. I throw paint at the canvas and sculpt the surface using painting knives, nails, pins, bottle brushes, gold leaf, plastic, anything that is lying around. I work whatever my mood, and each piece combines the intentional with the accidental, the textured layers forming what becomes the body and flesh of the painting.” Sadly, Oregon's art world lost the lovely Katherine Ace on April 17, 2023.