In this hour of To the Best of Our Knowledge, celebrating the sense of place in American painting and literature, from John Steuart Curry, the artist whose work invented the Mid-West of the country, to William Kennedy, who found his muse and his great subject, in his hometown of Albany, New York. Also, small town Montana in the 1950's and the lure of fishing in the Pacific Northwest.
Patricia Junker is Associate Curator of American Art at the Fine Arts Museums of San Francisco. She has organized a travelling exhibit of paintings by John Steuart Curry called "Inventing the Middle West." Junker tells Judith Strasser that Curry's images of farm life in Kansas taught people back East what the rest of the country looked like, and that the pictures capture the extraordinary emotional complexity of even simple lives.SEGMENT 2:
William Kennedy has written both journalism and fiction but is best known for his sequence of novels that play out against the history of Albany, New York. Kennedy tells Steve Paulson why he writes about Albany and how he is inspired by the city and his own memories. Kennedy's latest Albany novel is The Flaming Corsage. Other titles include Legs, Billy Phelan's Greatest Game, and Very Old Bones.SEGMENT 3:
Poet and novelist Larry Watson tells Jim Fleming about the latest of the three books he's set in the mythical town of Bent Rock, Montana. It's called White Crosses and concerns a fatal road accident and the town sherriff, who fears that the truth about the victims will destroy the town. Watson's other Bent Rock books are Montana, 1948 and Justice. Also, novelist Craig Lesley tells Jim Fleming that he got many of the characters for The Sky Fisherman from his own Oregon boyhood, and explains the lure of fishing, even when he gets skunked!Cassette copies are available at 1-800-747-7444. Ask for program number 98-04-05-C.
flemingj@wpr.org
Page Design and Management by Jim Fleming at Wisconsin Public Radio.
© Copyright 1999 Board of Regents of the University of Wisconsin System.