Karen Donleavy was born in London, raised on the Isle of Man and lived in Ireland before coming to Los Angeles in 1979. She studied at Dartington Hall School in Devon, England, the National College of Art and Design in Dublin and London’s Harrow School of Art, where her teachers included world-renowned potters David Leach, Michael Casson and Walter Keeler. While she tried working in other media–etchings and drawings–she always returned to her first love, ceramics.
Karen Donleavy now maintains her studio in Caldwell, Idaho.