After studying at University of Grenoble in France in 1976, she returned to her undergraduate alma mater, completing her Master of Fine Arts degree in 1977.

[1] Thomas studied under Jacob Lawrence, Michael Spafford, and Norman Lundin while at the University of Washington, noting that they "demonstrated that art was something that you do as your life's work."

[3][4] The first in her family to attend college, Thomas began with a vague goal to become a "physical therapist," eventually realizing that a major in art was a possibility.

[8] Thomas works in many mediums, including egg tempera painting, glass, cut paper, linocut and woodblock prints, sculpture, and installation.

[1] Art Critic Michael Upchuch has described Thomas' iconography as "besieged human figures in loving embrace, crows as trickster-companions-cum-predators, books as capacious homes for the mind to inhabit.