About Cathy
"As an artist, my job is to listen, to muster enough faith to open the door of fear – step through – lift off and fly free, with no particular destination.”
"We are surrounded by beauty. What often attracts me is the ordinary, the overlooked—a rusty tool or untended weed patch; the wild, ruined, cast-off, neglected and humbled. The perfectly imperfect. I love combining internal lines of visual thought with natural and human objects to create symbols, spells and stories.
Working in my studio, I find myself considering life, death, the universe, myth, and meaning. When overwhelmed or depleted, I retreat to the natural sanctuaries of mountains and prairies. After years of resistance, I now practice acceptance and consider myself lucky to have been born with the noble and uncompromising purpose of painting into the leap of faith.
Part of my responsibility is to share my work with others who also may be swimming upstream against the every-day while pondering existential questions. I hope viewers of my paintings find space to rest, to consider, to hope, to listen with their hearts and to softly float into the unknown.”
Ledeker is a painter, calligrapher, illustrator and illuminator with over 40 years of professional experience owning and operating her freelance art business. She maintains studios in Lawrence, Kansas, and Creede, Colorado. In addition to producing award-winning commercial and personal artwork, she also was a public school teacher, artist-in-residence and instructor of art workshops – nationally and regionally.
Since retirement in 2015 as Art Director for Van Go, Inc., Lawrence, KS, Ledeker has focused primarily on personal and studio work. She unveiled BONEYARD Studio and Gallery at the Studios at Bristol (south of Creede, Colorado) in July of 2018. BONEYARD features Ledeker’s painting, hot glass, and handmade cards along with selected artists’ furniture, welded metal sculpture and fabric work.
Ledeker’s work appears in many public and private collections. She has participated in numerous group and invitational shows over her career and exhibited in thirty-four one-woman shows.
Selected collections include:
The Smithsonian Institution, Washington DC
The New York Botanical Garden, New York, NY
Kew Royal Botanical Gardens, Kew, England
The Field Museum, Chicago, IL
The Bishop Museum, Honolulu, Hawaii
The Nature Conservancy Headquarters, Arlington, VA
Harvard University, Cambridge, MA
The University of Kansas, Lawrence, KS
Tallgrass Studio, Lawrence, KS
The Winds, Yellow Springs, OH
Creede Repertory Theatre, Creede, CO
Her work can be viewed at BONEYARD Studio and Gallery, Creede, Colorado, The Stephen Smith Gallery, Topeka, Kansas, Two Old Crows Gallery, Pagosa Springs, Colorado and on her website.