These books represent reading and reference for the last year or two. I don't plan my reading far ahead. Often the current book will reference an author or book and that will influence the next reading. Sometimes, I see something on the shelf at the library that reminds me I was interested, or I'll see something on line. Recently, the reading has become a lot like my studio practice, a searching for something, I am not always sure what it is but I know when I find it. It's a quote or passage that inspires me personally or my studio work, it justifies a certain line of inquiry, it bolsters an idea; it opens a new door. It's an enjoyable and necessary escape, but always a search for the next question.
Recent readings allow me to dabble in interests in science, physics, astrophysics, cosmology, early aviation, explorers, artists and ways of making, critics, and the characters who work and live in these various fields. It's certainly a search for questions about existential ideas of what it means to be small in this large universe, how we understand the space and time and how we juggle an everyday existence with knowledge of an immense starry firmament above. It's about how we see and understand the world around us. Each book opens the door to another.
Anne Morrow Lindbergh, Janna Levin, Charles Lindbergh, Gertrude Bell, Michael Kimmelman, David Byrne, Antoine de Saint-Exupery, Albert Einstein, Phil Platt, PHD, Alan Lightman, Dorian Sagan, MFK Fisher, Hannah Holmes, Timothy Ferris, Robert Smithson, Sarah Thorton, Reeve Lindbergh, Neil DeGrasse Tyson, Cabinet Magazine, Discover Magazine...
bio: Rachel Katz is an artist whose work investigates the sublime and existential ramifications of what it means to be small in a large universe. This takes many forms including cut paper pieces utilizing light and shadow, embroidery with electrical wire, charcoal drawing, and occasional photographs. She is hopelessly fond of the Hubble Space telescope, the Moon, Google daily alerts, and the BBC Radio 4 daily serial drama, The Archers.
Rachel works as the Administrative Director of the MFA in Studio Arts program at Maine College of Art. She received her BFA in Drawing from Arizona State University in 1995, and her MFA in Studio Art from Maine College of Art in 2000. She resides and reads in Portland, Maine with her husband, Brian, son Finn, and dog, Luna.
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