After studying at UC Santa Cruz, the Florence Academy of Art, and the Sichuan Academy of Fine Arts, Kaytea permanently injured the tendons in her arms working as a theatrical carpenter in 2003. The chronic, disabling pain prevented her from making sculptures for a number of years, so she turned to comic books and illustration. In 2011, she stumbled into a ceramics studio, and decided to give 3D another try. Her studio, Gnome Island Studios was born out of those first sculptures made after all those years.