Stef Ratliff, the wild woman behind KYARTRAT, was born, bred, and buttered in the coalfields of Appalachia. Creating from the heart of the holler in Eastern Kentucky to the streets of Music City, her artwork is inspired by sissycat stories and honky tonk dreams. 

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Her career was homegrown at an early age, when she used brown crayons on the walls of her parent’s house. That escalated quickly leading her to winning her first NCECA award, receiving a Masters in Art, starting her own business, and becoming the annual painter for the Americana Music Association Honors & Awards since 2013. Her artwork for the Americana Music Association is regularly featured at the Country Music Hall of Fame in Nashville, TN in their American Currents: State of Music exhibit. Most recently, you may have seen her custom-painted Gibson Murphy Lab for Grace Bowers on the 2025 Grammy Awards stage.

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What you won’t find on Stef's resume is her love for huntin’ & fishin’, her uncanny ability of picking Keeneland winners, always burning her biscuits, making poor choices in men, and adopting all the dogs. If she ain’t out in the hills or in the garden you’re liable to find her perched on the porch with a coffee or painting one of Gary Preston’s handmade cigar box guitars with her pups underfoot. And as if that ain’t enough for one gal, she also spends her time slinging KYmudworks clay around & cuttin’ up blocks for printing making with the Queens of country on in the background. 

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Come for the art, stay for the stories, & watch for snakes…

 

& we ain’t talking about the ones in the grass neither.