Tell Me What You're Reading No. 42: Katherine McKenna - The Paleontologist's Daughter
Carol and I recently attended a lovely dinner party hosted by Abigail Sturges and other supporters of the Woodstock Byrdcliffe Guild. On its website, the Guild describes itself as “a vibrant center for arts and crafts in the beautiful and unique rural community of Woodstock, New York, while preserving the historic and natural environment of one of the earliest utopian arts colonies in America.” Carol and I live in the Woodstock Byrdcliffe community and the beauty abounds whichever way you turn.
I had the good fortune of being seated next to Katherine McKenna at Abigail's dinner party. Katherine is on the Board of the Guild and was Carol’s painting and color Instructor at the Woodstock School of Art, which is a sweet coincidence. Katherine and her brothers Douglas, Andrew and Bruce grew up in Englewood New Jersey, and Carol was Bruce McKenna’s 8th grade elementary school teacher. Small world
Katherine now divides her time between the Hudson Valley and the American West. Her landscape paintings of Wyoming, Colorado, Montana, Utah, and Arizona reveal an attachment to the natural geology and essence of place that she was first exposed to on the childhood trips she writes of in her memoir.
Katherine has exhibited widely, and her paintings reside in permanent collections of the Rockwell Museum, the Museum of Northern Arizona, the Booth Museum, the Woodstock Artists Association & Museum, and the Desert Caballeros Museum in Wickenburg, Arizona
Katherine also serves on the boards of Pratt Institute, the Woodstock Byrdcliffe Guild, and the Arts Society of Kingston.
Over dinner, Katherine told me of her father’s work as a paleontologist, including at the American Museum of Natural History in New York City, and of her own field work out West with her father when she was very young. I was fascinated that her artistic journey started with what she was exposed to at a very young age, and what she learned at the side of her father.
Katherine mentioned that she had written a memoir, which I then ordered from the Woodstock Byrdcliffe Guild, and that we discussed on the podcast
Books, Wyoming ranches and art instructors Katherine mentions on the Podcast
Wyoming mystery tales by CJ Box
Arizona mystery tales by Tony Hillerman
Cloud Cuckoo Land, by Anthony Doerr
Books and Wyoming ranches Howard mentions on the Podcast
This Time Tomorrow, by Emma Straub
Reviews The New York Times | NPR | The Washington Post | The Boston Globe
I cannot remember another book that had me reading through tears in my eyes like this one. Both poignant and beautiful. A father and his daughter. Great recommendation by Melanie!
The Latecomer, by Jean Hanff Korelitz
Reviews The New York Times | The Washington Post | The Financial Times | Kirkus Reviews | The San Diego Union Tribune
An engrossing, highly entertaining late 20th/ early 21st century upper class New York novel, running through Brooklyn Heights, Martha’s Vineyard, IVF and frozen eggs, private school, Ivy League colleges, sibling rivalry, family dysfunction, trauma, lies, deceits, infidelity and scandals, class, race, politics, religion, art, lost and found relationships. Wow.
I calmed myself down from that one by reading two classic Elizabeth Strout novels, Lucy by the Sea, and Oh William. I’ve loved all of her work since I first met Olive Kitteridge.
Reviews of Lucy by the Sea, by Elizabeth Strout
NPR | The Washington Post | The New York Times | The Guardian | The Atlantic |The Financial Times | The Irish Times
Reviews of Oh William!, by Elizabeth Strout
The New York Times | The Washington Post | The Los Angeles Times | The Guardian | NPR
Let The Great World Spin, by Colum McCann
Reviews The New York Times | The Guardian | | The Washington Post | NPR | The Boston Globe | The Seattle Times | Esquire
Written in 2009, a “pre-9/11” novel that starts in August 1974 on a highwire between the two World Trade Towers, and promptly comes down to earth, landing with a thud in the South Bronx during its nadir of poverty, violence, drugs, blight, desperation and prostitution. Well done.
Button Man, by Andrew Gross
Reviews a book review by Sam Millar: Button Man: A Novel | Mysteries: Taking a Journey Into the Past - WSJ | BUTTON MAN: Five Questions with Andrew Gross | https://historicalnovelsociety.org/reviews/button-man/ | Button Man | Jewish Book Council | Button Man: A Novel | Seattle Book Review | Review: 'Button Man' is rich and compelling novel
Andrew Gross Gets Personal In a New Rags to Riches Novel
Andrew Gross | Between The Covers
Andrew Gross discusses BUTTON MAN with Patrick Millikin
Interview with Fred Pomerantz… Oral history
Fred Pomerantz interview, 1981 October 29 and November 5
Jews in New York’s garment district during the early 20th century. My family history. Riveting. Thanks to my friend Jeff Kaminsky for the recommendation.
The Line of Beauty, by Alan Hollinghurst
Reviews The Guardian | The New York Times | The New Yorker | The New York Review of Books | The Los Angeles Times | The San Francisco Chronicle | The Boston Globe | NPR | BBC
Coming of age of a gay young man at the beginning of the AIDs epidemic in Margaret Thacher’s mid 1980s London. Absolutely captivating.
Two novelas by Claire Keegan, Foster and Small Things Like These
Two tightly written, moving stories of small town Ireland.
Reviews of Foster The New Yorker | NPR | The New York Times | The New York Times | The Los Angeles Times | The Wall Street Journal | The Guardian | The Irish Times | The Irish Independent
Reviews of Small Things Like These The New York Times | NPR
YouTube Booker Prize Short List | Bookish YouTube | The Art of Reading Book Club with Colm Tóibín
The Paleontologist's Daughter, by Katharine L. McKenna, a beautiful memoir, and tribute to her dad, that we discussed on the podcast, and the essence of which is captured in the Afterword.
I realize now, this design work was a means to an end. "When things are not right, go left." As I Incorporated my scientific heritage, I found myself wanting more and more to become an artist. Ever since I was 7 years old, I wanted to free the artist inside me. I could feel that and connected to the colors and textures I discovered, most often in the West.... I am guided in my painting by the spirit of the West and so often, my face turns in that direction. There continues to be a calling; a breeze from the west of my childhood beckons. The sagebrush rustles, the sky reddens, and the buttes rise high displaying layers of vistas and adventure. It's time to return, go back to that landscape, the dirt roads and open space... time to revisit the places where I spent time with my father and family, time to honor and cherish what I had then and what I have now.
Triangle X Ranch, Moose, WY
Flat Creek Ranch, Jackson Hole, WY
