Kathy Sharpe is a longtime Carmel-by-the-Sea artist, primarily working as an impressionist oil painter inspired by nature and still life, though she also works extensively in watercolor. She began focusing on watercolor in 1990, after her husband received the Nobel Prize in Economics, since traveling extensively made watercolors easier to bring along. Much of her subject matter comes from her love of flowers, nature, and animals, often inspired by her travels and by the gardens of Carmel-by-the-Sea, including her own. Her career spans decades — she has held thirty one-person shows, been included in forty juried shows, and participated in numerous group shows, with her work held in private collections across Europe, Japan, and fifteen U.S. states, and previously sold by Gumps, Nordstrom, and Neiman Marcus. A colorful personal touch: she once told her father, as a child, that if they moved she wanted a pet giraffe. Her gallery, the Kathy Sharpe Studio & Gallery, is nestled in a cozy courtyard called "Court of the Fountains" in the heart of downtown Carmel. This lifelong devotion to floral and garden imagery is clearly reflected in her Heart of Carmel piece, where an abundant bouquet blooms out of a painted blue-and-white porcelain vase.