Louise Kalin was born in the Catskills and moved to Cape Cod with her family at age nine. She credits her upbringing in the New England area for influencing her visual world. She graduated from the Rhode Island School of Design in 1970 and then printed briefly at the Experimental Etching Studio in Boston and then at the DeCordova Museum School. She then spent a year as the museum graphic designer before moving to Hollis, New Hampshire in 1976.
She has had numerous corporate commissions, as well as entry in the US Government Art-in-the-Embassies Program. She exhibited solo at the Currier Museum of Art and shortly after, held a MacDowell Fellowship, followed by an artist's residency at St. Anselm's College in 1988. In 1990, she moved to Saint James, Long Island, and became director of Gallery North, a regional not-for-profit gallery in Setauket, NY. She was a guest curator at the Islip Art Museum, and worked with other Long Island Art Institutions. In 1997, she moved to the Hudson Valley and served as director of the Rhinebeck Chamber of Commerce until 2004, when she returned to making her own work.
Since then, she has studied innovative print techniques and adapted to new, safer materials. From 2015-2016, she completed a year's Printmaking Mentorship Program and has since been showing at galleries in New York City, the Hudson Valley, and the Catskills.
