Award winning sculptor, Deborah Rael-Buckley was born in Albuquerque, New Mexico, and began taking courses in art history at the University of New Mexico in Albuquerque in 1980. She took a BA from the University of Illinois-Chicago (UIC) in the history of art and architecture, and was awarded the McNee Foundation Award, an Honors College award in 1994, graduating Phi Beta Kappa. She finished her MFA in ceramic sculpture at the University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee (UW-M) in 2000. She has shown and published her work nationally and internationally, most recently in Belgium. Her works have been included in public collections, including the Mexican Museum of Art in Chicago, and the Albuquerque Museum, as well as many prestigious private collections of contemporary American ceramics. She lives and works in Taos, New Mexico, where she keeps her studio.

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