By Natalie Taylor
Kathleen Cammarata is originally from Brooklyn, New York, and her initial career was as an art teacher. She dedicated many years teaching art to children at Montessori, but also to young people and adults in summer camps. She had always loved drawing, but it was not until she was in her thirties that she began painting with oils. What she wanted to do more than anything then, was to create illustrated children’s books. Although she published a number of them in the 1980s, it was not as successful as she would have liked, and so she moved on to the next stage of her life. She found a job as an artist in a library where she did posters, fliers, and other art related material, and was highly encouraged by a woman who was her superior there. Kathleen loved her job at the library but when she got married, she and her husband moved to Vermont.
Over the next nineteen years, living in Vermont, she really concentrated on painting. But her professional art career truly flourished when she divorced, met her current husband Frank, and moved to Massachusetts. Here she became more serious about her art, and started doing art exhibitions in group and solo shows. She also taught at a museum, and at the university, and her students ranged from young children to adults, and she enjoyed bringing the world of art to them.
While she was living in the mill city of Lowell, Massachusetts, the industrial city fell on hard times. A city group raised $20,000 and Kathleen was given that money as a grant to open a print studio. The hope was that this would facilitate the start of an art district, and benefit the city. Kathleen did just that, and began doing and teaching monotypes. The project was highly successful and was a boost for the city.
In 2009, a friend was retiring in San Miguel de Allende, and invited Kathleen and Frank to visit. But the friend put out a warning to her husband—“once she is here, she won’t want to leave,” he said. His words were prophetic, because three days after Kathleen and Frank arrived, they happened to be at the Artisanal Market. Here they met and befriended an architect who eventually built the house they are in today. In 2012, they moved to San Miguel for good.
One of the things that Kathleen loves about San Miguel de Allende, and something she noticed immediately, is the special light that illuminates the city. She calls it “painter’s light,” and it is the same luminescence that caught the eyes of so many other artists, from Cossio del Pomar, to Stirling Dickinson, who all marveled at the special colors cast over the city in the light of day.
Kathleen’s paintings are characterized by a predominance of browns, ochres, yellows, and although the images are abstract, the feel is of earth and earthly objects. The interpretation is in the eye of the beholder who might imagine withering leaves floating in a dark space, or smoke scattered over the surface of a lake, or storm clouds over a volcano. The paintings draw you in, they challenge you to find meaning hidden within the forms.
What I found even more fascinating were Kathleen’s drawings. Most of them are monochromatic—variable tones of black on white, and although they are incredibly intricate in detail, the completed work has a softness and a certain ambiguity. The reality is overrun by other-worldly elements that create a surreal effect, as in the series she calls “Flower Fossils,” or “Experiments.” Even in the series of drawings called “The Gravity of Flowers,” where the plants are based on actual botanicals, there is something unusual about each of them—each is the artist’s interpretation of that particular flower and its habitat. Kathleen explained that she places them independent of any setting—they are not affected by gravity, and so they stand or hang in space; the flowers in this collection simply are.
In addition to paintings and drawings, Kathleen has a great collection of monoprints. They cover a wide range of subjects, themes, and palettes. The process of creating monotypes is fascinating, and Kathleen has given classes on how this works, and can explain it in detail during a tour of her studio. You can visit Kathleen’s studio and gallery by appointment. Email her at: katcammarata@gmail.com, or visit her website to find out more about her, and her art: www.kacammarata.com
Natalie Taylor: BA in English Lit and Journalism, Loyola University, Chicago, 1995. MFA in Creative Writing, Vermont College, Montpelier, VT, 1999. Published writer, editor, journalist. Spanish teacher in the US, English teacher in Buenos Aires, Argentina. Translator. www.natalietaylor.org Contact: tangonata@gmail.com
