Thank you Robynn,

Since 1980 Kay was a teacher, mentor, and friend of mine. It began in the
old home of the UCSC printmaking program on the bottom floor of the
Applied Sciences Building. Kay was the central force in making it a very
serious, welcoming, program where students could begin working on rather
advanced work in their first year, and be sharing in seminars and exhibits
a couple of years later. Students had access to the studio 24 hours a day,
there was a central curating room, which also happened to have a sofa, hot
plate, refrigerator. The students didn’t actually camp there, but we did
put in long hours.

In my senior year she talked me into studying Italian so that I could
study at Il Bisonte’s new printmaking program in Florence. Kay happened to
be there during the same semester, and she would occasionally tell me to
meet her at the bus stop and we would head off to places like Sienna, or
Poggibonsi to change buses for San Gimignano.  Once, with her friend Serai
Sherman we drove off through hill towns to Rome. Before we left Kay made
sure to take me to the the Etruscan Museum.

Kay way a bridge between ancient and progressive. She taught me how to mix
etching baths for copper and zinc plates, and in the painting studio how
to stretch and prime canvases with rabbit skin glue, and apply an oil
ground. When I returned to UCSC for the Fifth-year program, she was
teaching an art history course on women artist’s. I caught only one
lecture, one of the best I’ve heard on any subject, contemporary and
concise and thought provoking. I wish that I’d taken the whole course.

And, she could be a bit demanding. More than once she turned to me with,
“Oh, Aaron…” In Italy I remember her saying, “… you don’t want to be a
regional artist.”  Probably I had been saying that I was planning to skip
the second semester, it just wasn’t quite the studio for printing and
exploring like we back in Santa Cruz. But the place was fascinating.

Since then, while exploring other places, I’ve stepped onto a spot or two,
looked at the landscape, and suddenly realized that Kay had stood in that
exact spot. Some of her most revealing sketches, watercolors, dry points,
and even multicolor etchings or oil paintings evolved from very specific
places. She was a fierce defender of the people, places and values that
she believed in. Kay understood that some things need to change, but
others are worth defending and preserving.

I’ll miss her,

Aaron

On Mon, October 29, 2018 8:36 am, xxxxxx@cruzio.com wrote:
> Hello CSP folks,
> I’m very sorry to let you know that our very dear friend and colleague,
> Kay Metz, passed away earlier this month. An artist of grace and
> compassion, she touched thousands of lives through her work and her
> teaching at University of California in Santa Cruz. Below is her obituary
> in the Santa Cruz Sentinel.
> Kay's close friend Betsy Andersen was working with Kay on her
> archive/legacy, and is now doing this very important work. If you would
> like to contact Betsy, her email xxxxxx@cruzio.com
> <mailto:xxxxxx@cruzio.com>. I’m sure she would like to hear from those of
> you with memories/stories of Kay.
> All the best,
> Robynn Smith
>
>
> Kathryn Metz
> 1932 - 2018 Obituary Guest Book
> <https://www.legacy.com/guestbooks/santacruzsentinel/kathryn-metz-condolences/190452185?cid=full>
> Gallery <>
>
>
>
>  <https://www.legacy.com/obituaries/santacruzsentinel/obituary-email.aspx?n=kathryn-metz&pid=190452185>
>  <https://www.legacy.com/obituaries/santacruzsentinel/obituary-print.aspx?n=kathryn-metz&pid=190452185>
>
> Sign the Guest Book
> Kathryn Metz
> September 3, 1932 ~ September 27, 2018
> Resident of Santa Cruz, California
> Kay Metz was a painter and printmaker who, for the several decades after
> she retired from teaching art at UCSC, delighted in painting the wetlands
> of southern Santa Cruz County. Venturing out with her painter friends,
> Mary Warshaw, Marta Gaines, and others, she set up her easel in most
> seasons, though not all weather, and referred to herself as a plein air
> painter.
> Kay came of age as a painter in New York City in the 1960's studying
> abstract expressionism, which informed all her work subsequently, from her
> intimate plein air paintings to her monumental landscapes that were
> luminous and slow to know but filled with reward for the time taken--just
> like Kay herself. She evolved her work with that aesthetic through
> representational and abstract landscapes and in all the mediums she chose,
> primarily oil painting, watercolor, printmaking, and woodcuts.
> Born Kathryn Metz, in Dayton, Ohio on September 3, 1932, Kay died on
> September 27, 2018 at Dominican Hospital in Santa Cruz following a valiant
> fight to recover from a traumatic heart surgery.
> She received her BFA from Bowling Green State University in Ohio and her
> MFA from the University of California in Los Angeles. Her teaching
> experience began in 1964 at Phoenix College in Arizona. She left there in
> 1966 to go to Paris and study at Atelier 17, the celebrated print studio
> established by Stanley William Hayter, under the auspices of the College
> Art Study Abroad at the American Center for Students and Artists. She
> continued her studies in New York City, including an independent study
> with Philip Guston and one with Robert Blackburn.
> Kay then resumed her teaching career in 1967, becoming a part-time faculty
> member at the NYU School of Education, New York City. Following this and
> several other brief teaching stints, she was hired to establish the
> printmaking department at the University of California, Santa Cruz in
> 1971, remaining there until her retirement in 1992.While becoming an
> accomplished and influential artist, Kay was also a tireless and generous
> teacher whose students often came back to see her after graduating. She
> always welcomed their visits and spoke happily of them. Exceptionally
> independent, she went to Europe on her own, recording her impressions in
> drawings and photos, which she turned into series of woodcuts and
> large-scale paintings.
> In 1997, Quarry West, UCSC's literary magazine, devoted its 33rd issue to
> honoring many Santa Cruz women in the arts with its publication of "In
> Celebration of the Muse: Fifteenth Anniversary Anthology." Of the 72 Santa
> Cruz women writers and printmakers featured, 12 printmakers were invited
> by art editor Mary Warshaw to contribute their work to the journal, pieces
> created in honor of Kathryn Metz, professor emerita of art.
> Not limited to being an accomplished artist and teacher, Kay actively
> supported the arts locally and the environments she painted. She was an
> avid active member of the Watsonville Wetlands Watch for many years, and a
> Board Member from the 1990s into the early 2000s, plus a supporter of
> other local organizations. Though she had no children of her own, she
> valued youth education in arts and supported the Arts Council of Santa
> Cruz County. Her interests and activities were inclusive of the needs and
> desires of her total environment. She was political, engaged, a deep
> thinker, not afraid to speak her mind.
> Up until her heart surgery, Kay was working in her studio to organize her
> collection with the help of Betsy Miller Andersen with whom she developed
> her cultural legacy.
> She was generous with her gifts of art work to friends, institutions, and
> places.
> Her works are held in numerous collections, including the New York Public
> Library; the Library of Congress; the Fresno Art Museum; Monterey Museum
> of Art; Community Foundation of Santa Cruz County; the University of
> California, Los Angeles
> <http://www.legacy.com/memorial-sites/ucla/?personid=190452185&affiliateID=1436>;
> and Special Collections, McHenry Library, University of California, Santa
> Cruz. She gave two large paintings to Dominican Hospital, among other
> gifts. Currently, there is a small retrospective of her work at Vanguard
> Realty in Santa Cruz, up until December. Several exhibits are planned for
> the near future.
> The UCSC Art Department will host an informal memorial which will be
> announced at a later date.
>
>
> View the online memorial for Kathryn Metz
> <http://www.lastingmemories.com/kathryn-metz>
> Published in Santa Cruz Sentinel on Oct. 12, 2018
>
>
>
>
>
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