Kalmia "Kelly"KARSTEN

Kelly's 2011 Autobiography

I was the luckiest kid in town during my school years in Westport because love and acceptance generously lit my path. Even after high school, while life- guarding, with John Brandt, in Westport in the sum- mer (home while a UC Berkeley student) a picture snapped by Doug Richmond won for me that year’s title of Miss Westport. Hey, my dumb Westport luck struck again.

Then, yes, back came my incurable wanderlust and taking all that early support for granted; I set my sails for adventure. I married Vaughan Barron and moved to Wash. DC. After living in Wash., DC three years (a son was born, now a UMass prof.) Following his birth, we moved to Great Falls, MT (where a daughter arrived, now a MT hospital administrator) then two years later, we divorced. An inheritance brought me back to Westport, my lucky town. Although sadly my dear mother died; she had thoughtfully she left me part of the Compo Parkway house. I moved in with two small children and worked as an artist-in-residence for the Westport School District. Happily I reconnected with Philip Teuscher who shared his enthusiasm for art with his b/w photos.

But money worries caused my return to MT; finding that our unsold MT house was in foreclosure. Enter my prince charming (aren’t all architects?) Byron Smith. He was practicing in Great Falls and we met one winter’s evening in the library’s newspaper room. Four years later we were engaged. In 1980 we married in the MT woods by a cabin in front of a lake with family and friends and two cowboy musicians and a keg. We have been living for the past year in that cabin (beyond cell phone range) where we were married 31 years ago on Flathead Lake. Over those years, while in Anchorage, AK, my third child was born (a daughter, now working on a master’s degree in geography at Penn State). Now we are happily anticipating the birth of our first grandchild this spring in Boston.

Byron and I followed his passion for architecture to many locations besides Alaska including Honolulu, HI, Port- land, OR, and several stops in CA. (In northern CA, Connie Milbrath, Thea Vierling, Karen Olson and Gail (Schuman) Rouchdy and I formed a group of west coast Staples alums.) Where ever we lived, Byron always encouraged my art. Painting has been where I express emotions that I have no other way to get out. We plan to try and show my lifetime of work when we return to the small town of St. Helena, CA in the Napa Valley. Byron designed our home there in 1997, which we have lived in and rented over the years. But the art studio on the property has remained unrented, as repository for storing my work. (House trades in a few years anyone? No worries, not the art studio. There goes that wanderlust again!)

I sincerely hope everyone will come to this reunion. We need to celebrate that we are alive and especially re- member the warmth, the affection, the strong forgiveness of our childhood friendships...whether one or one hundred. Always remember that in our childhood together you gave me acceptance, that great kind gift which I now can never take for granted having spent some pretty anxious moments seeking friends only to move. Yet when ad- venture, opportunity and economic necessity called; we answered, enthusiastically and idealistically with the excitement of dreamers. (See photo from 2009, while living in Honolulu.) Looking back, I didn’t deserve your generosity of spirit and am grateful more now than I ever was. Fifty years has taught me a few things about gratitude. But I’ve been accused of being too heavy (philosophically and unfortunately otherwise.) Nuff said. Better that you end up in a painting than I go on writing.