Colgan was raised in Nyack, NY. The daughter of an architect she credits her father’s sensitivity to color and light as the earliest influence on her work. She earned her B.A. degree form Briarcliff College but her painting studies at The Fontainebleau School of Art in France provided a turning point. While earning a living as a journalist after college, she went on to study at the Art Student’s League in New York with Robert Beverly Hale and Bruce Dorfman, and at the National Academy with Hugh Gumpel. Later she worked with the encaustic Painter Barbara Ellman. Colgan lives in Berkshire County Massachusetts and in Manhattan.