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THE SPIRIT CATCHERS by Kathleen Kudlinski

THE SPIRIT CATCHERS

An Encounter with Georgia O’Keeffe

by Kathleen Kudlinski

Pub Date: Sept. 1st, 2004
ISBN: 0-8230-0408-2

This story mixes fact with fiction: the life and art of Georgia O’Keeffe with the travails of a fictional young Dust Bowl wanderer who stumbles on O’Keeffe’s ranch in New Mexico. Fifteen-year-old Parker Ray walked all the way from the Texas Panhandle after drought, dust storms, and death devastated his family and their farm. After a rough and, for the reader, baffling encounter with a sadistic ranch hand in the first few pages, the plot takes off, partly on the strength of Kudlinski’s plausible-sounding portrait of O’Keeffe. The irascible artist takes Parker in, gives him a camera, and teaches him a thing or two about art. Unbeknownst to him, she also sends a portfolio of his work to her husband, the famous photographer and gallery owner, Alfred Stieglitz. Parker’s career is launched. A strong sense of O’Keeffe’s commitment to art, the desert and its native inhabitants, and living life her way shines through. (Fiction. 10 )