Purveyors of Light and Shadow
Two Artists Search for Meaning
Many years ago now I met a woman who would become an incredibly important friend. She and her husband walked into a gallery I owned along with a couple of friends here in Truchas, New Mexico. They stayed and chatted for part of a day, and ended up buying one of my paintings which was to be their first piece of original New Mexico art ever.
But it was lost in shipping. Yes, a tragedy, except that because of the loss, we had to communicate over the stretch of time that the USPS was searching for the piece and that's how we became friends. So I've pretty much come to believe the painting was never meant to belong to them, it was always meant to be lost, so Kathy and I would have time to recognize our various parallel connections.
That first meeting was in the summer and by January she came out to visit. It was during that trip that I asked her to write my "life story," in part because my blog followers had been asking me to write it, but I knew it wasn't in me to do, and in part because I felt, at the time, it was an important story that needed telling. I believed it could inspire others who were trying to live an artful life and help them face the challenges that poses.
And so, more than 10 years have passed now and she has done it. She has written a beautiful book that ended up being a hybrid memoir about two artists, Kathy and me, fighting to find and live both of our arts. In it she taught me much about who I am and how I came to be. She did this by exploring the many levels of shadow memory, those bits of information that aren't solid or linear, but that hold stories, pieces of buried truth. She put it all together and created a clearer portrait of me than I could have ever hoped for.
And, in doing so, she showed herself to herself. In finding the grace to look into the shadows on my behalf, she found her own story there. A writer's story.
Most place and person names have been changed to protect the privacy of those who wanted it. You'll recognize me as "Lucy."
To learn more about Kathy and the book, which she's written under the name Kate Calder Klein, check out her website at http://kathylkessler.com.
The book is available NOW on my Etsy site and on Kathy's website.
I'd be pleased to know what you all think about it so please drop me a line when you can.
From William DeBuys
Author of The Trail to Kanjiroba: Rediscovering Earth in an Age of Loss, Valles Caldera: A New Vision for New Mexico's National Preserve, River of Traps, The Walk and more
“Entwined herein are the stories of two strong women who, by reclaiming and renewing their lives through art, embark on one of the most universal of personal journeys. You don't have to be an artist to feel kinship with them as they struggle against steep odds; you just have to be alive.”
From a Reader
“The book is nicely produced with colour images of some paintings. The combining of the author’s experiences, and the weaving of her process through the book added a layer of complexity to the entwined journeys of these two artists. It was a well written and disturbing account of Lucy’s journey. I liked the manner in which the two stories unfold, merging and diverging, dipping in and out of the timeline. There was a lot of difficult stuff here, not glossed over making it feel more authentic and uncontrived. I hope to see more from this author... This book will sit with me for quite a while. Powerful stories!"
Book Stores
The book is now also available in person at the listed locations.
Southwest
Collected Works Santa Fe
opcit books Taos and Santa Fe
Garcia Street Books, Santa Fe
Eight Million Gods, Truchas
Hand Artes Gallery, Truchas
The SOMOS Bookshop, Taos
Harwood Museum of Art, Taos
Gallery 873, Ivins, Utah
New England
Shaker Mill Books, West Stockbridge, MA
The Bookloft, Great Barrington, MA
The Bookstore, Lenox, MA
Chatham Bookstore, Chatham, NY
Market Block Books, Troy, NY
The Book House of Stuyvesant Plaza, Albany, NY