Tara received her MFA from the University of Wisconsin-Madison in Painting. In 2014 she took her first rosemaling class at North House. Since then she completed a yearlong Rosemaling Apprenticeship with a Vesterheim Gold Medalist focusing on Telemark and Gudbransdal. In 2017 Tara traveled to Norway to continue her research of rosemaling funded by a research grant from UW Madison.