Rosa Naday Garmendia was born in Havana, Cuba. She immigrated to the United States with her family at the age of 8. At a very young age she demonstrated her creativity and developed a talent for the arts. Throughout the early years of school, she won many local and statewide awards in the arts, including the Scholastic Art awards. She was a scholarship recipient from Parsons School of Design, Vermont School of Design and Fort Lauderdale Art Institute among others, finally receiving a Bachelors Degree in Fine Arts from the University of Miami in 1988. She has worked and lived in many cities in the United States and has traveled to France, Italy, England, Mexico, Haiti and Cuba learning about peoples and their cultures, but most importantly finding her own identity. Currently, Rosa Naday Garmendia lives and works in Miami where she is a resident artist at Art Center/South Florida and is a museum educator at the Miami Art Museum.