Maude Kirk studied Art at Kent State University. In 1967 she spent two months traveling in Mexico, then moved to San Francisco's Haight-Ashbury district. Her unusual batiks, collages, painted stones and bones and "found art" creations, exhibited and sold through many San Francisco shops and galleries, developed an appreciative following, including underground film maker Kenneth Anger, who invited Maude to produce masks for his infamous "lost" film, 'Lucifer Rising'.

In 1970, Maude lived with the Handmakers artist group at their Gallery/Workshop. She studied ceramics with Bob Burnett, developing her own style of finely detailed underglaze and porcelain inlay decoration. Several works from that period were bought for the acclaimed Hayakawa porcelain collection, and she went on to create pieces for a number of authors, musicians, and other artists.

In 1971, Maude and Bob Burnett became founding members of San Francisco's now-oldest and most successful artist collective, Project Artaud, which was established in an old American Can Company building. There they designed and built their own studios and continued their ceramics work as White Cloud Pottery, exhibiting throughout California and Oregon.

While traveling in Mexico, Maude became fascinated by the "Huichol" style of art, in which objects are covered with a single layer of colored beads, in geometric patterns. Modifying this technique, she uses richly colored transparent glass beads to cover animal skulls, bones, and shells. Currently Maude is working with ostrich egg shells, which are melon size, translucent, and very strong. The pin-head size beads are applied one at a time, in intricate designs. The beaded shells are placed on bases she constructs from aged metal, and softly lit from within. Each piece requires thousands of beads, and may take 120 hours or more to complete.

Maude's studio was once a large vault, and the thick walls and steel door provide a unique atmosphere in which to create. She continues to work in a variety of media, including collage, paper sculpture, furniture decoration, assemblage, and most recently, experimental lighting.