Kate Maynard's lifelong passion for Scotties mirrors her interest in all things Scottish. Her own Scottish heritage can be traced through ancestors both paternal and maternal who settled the Appalachian region of the U.S. during the 17th and 18th centuries. She attended her first Gathering of the Clans at the Tidewater Scottish Festival in the early 1980s and has been actively exploring (and collecting) things Scottish -- including dogs! -- ever since.

Kate Maynard is a graduate of The Art Academy of Cincinnati and later received a BFA in Painting and Printmaking from Northern Kentucky University. She continued her studies at the Tyler School of Art of Temple University and completed an MFA in Printmaking from the University of Cincinnati in 1978. After serving as the Visual Arts Director for the Women's Art Center of Cincinnati where she founded Tiger Lily Press, Maynard was nominated for the "Outstanding Individual Contribution to the Arts" award by The Ohio Arts Council. During that time she widely exhibited, most notably at the Contemporary Arts Center's "A Group of Six: Cincinnati Printmakers" and as part of a PBS documentary, "Small Rooms."

Ms. Maynard first "retired" from the art world in 1980, choosing to spend the next decade as a machinist in the Norfolk, Virginia, shipyards. After moving to the Blue Ridge Mountain area of Northern Virginia, Ms. Maynard emerged from artistic retirement to pursue her lifelong interest in Scotties. Her current model, Kirmse, was named for artist Marguerite Kirmse, who was herself a Scottie aficianado, etcher, and illustrator of note.