Waterbury Republican American
Susan Katz has energy to be poet, author, also
BY CARRIE MACMILLAN | REPUBLICAN-AMERICAN
She’s known for extremes — whether she’s driving 150 head of cattle 150 miles or hiking in an Israeli desert during a deadly sandstorm.
Susan Katz, 69, would much rather spend her vacations biking through a gale in Ireland than vegging out on a beach. The poet, children’s book author and newly minted jewelry designer has never experienced the listless sensation of boredom. When the mother of two and grandmother of seven mingles with fellow doctor’s wives who complain of personal or professional ennui, she can’t imagine how they feel.
“There’s just too much to do,” said Katz, her numerous silver bracelets jangled as she wrapped her palms around a mug with hand-painted sheep, on a blustery February afternoon. Outside, her sprawling, Washington, Conn., yard was cloaked in floury snowdrifts.
Recently, she turned her creative energy to jewelry making. It started as a hobby. She purchased rare and semi-precious stones like turquoise, amber, jade and moonstone and crafted intricate necklaces, favoring a type of silver called Bali made by a hill tribe in Indonesia. A stranger stopped her one day and bought the necklace off her neck — and later called to ask if she could make another. Two years ago, she founded Earth Whorls. Her earrings, necklaces, pendants and other items are sold at www.earthwhorls.com and at a handful of area shops.
The current economy might not lend itself to splurging on items that range in price from $35 to $500, but Katz is the type of person who does not give up. If she starts a book and doesn’t like it, she finishes it anyway. If she’s on a trip, and there’s a swollen river to raft down, she goes for it.
“I can not bear to be left behind. Whether I am good at something or not, I have to try it,” she said.
Her vacations are proof — such as the Israeli hike, where temperatures rose to 130 degrees. One valley over, someone died. The cattle drive was to celebrate her 30th wedding anniversary. The crew drove 150 cattle 150 miles in Colorado over eight days. They got as little as three hours sleep a night. They made their own “chuck wagon” food — the same type of grub one would eat in the 1870s and the toilets were … outside.
“It was a question of survival,” said Katz, who admits to being a “fussy lady” who likes her iced tea chilled and her coffee piping hot. Indeed, it’s almost hard to imagine the stylish woman, her waves of silver hair offset by a brown sweater wrap, dark leggings and knee-high suede riding boots, roughing it up.
“There was something so essentially human about it,” she said of the cattle drive. “You didn’t worry about your nails, the news, your kids or your home. You were so focused on doing what you are set out to do.”
She met her husband, now a cardiologist, on her first day of college and they married 10 days after graduation. While he was in the Air Force in the 1960s, they were stationed on Cape Cod. The winter winds were bone-chilling and Katz was stuck indoors with two small children. She taught herself to bake and honed her knitting skills, long ago learned from her grandmother.
When the family later moved to upstate New York, Katz worked up the courage to show a few poems she had written to a professional poet who said her work should be published. She joined a group called New York State Poets in the School Program. For nearly 30 years, she focused on illustrating the power of verse to students and educators through classroom visits and workshops. Meanwhile, her poems were published in collections, literary journals and anthologies.
In her Washington home, to which Katz and her husband moved from New York 12 years ago, she does her best to include the rugged outdoors. Sunlight streams in from abundant windows, hitting exposed beams of knotty wood. A balcony from the kitchen looks over a living room with cathedral ceilings and a 50-mile view into the hills of New Milford.
Katz’s green thumb is reflected in the upstairs hall bathroom, the walls of which feature painted tree branches and a white picket fence. Wooden, metal and porcelain figures of pigs, frogs and roosters populate her kitchen. Woven baskets are on one wall, painted plates on another, showing her penchant for southwestern and country charm motifs.
In a left-brain dominant family — her son is a physician and her daughter, daughter-in-law and son-in-law all have doctorate degrees — she is the lone poet, though she says several of them have a knack for words, too.
Her son, Dr. David L. Katz, who is the director of the Yale-Griffin Prevention Research Center in Derby, said he remembers his mother doing beautiful sand paintings of birds when he was a child.
“She’s incredibly creative and has the soul of a poet,” he said. “She sees the beauty in nature that many people overlook.”
He said he’s also not surprised that his parents remain as adventure-focused as they do.
“In terms of their peer group, they are unusual. They are on the brink of 70 and they are out there on speed boats and up and down the mountains and they bike hundreds of miles on trips in Ireland, Scotland or France in all kinds of weather,” he said.
When Katz isn’t searching for stones, she still writes. She’s working on a manuscript of a teaching book that contemporizes Greek mythology. Her poetry and jewelry craftsmanship fit together, she said.
“The jewelry is one stone at a time, just as writing is one element or word at a time.”
It’s her way of connecting with humanity and the natural world.
“You can’t improve on nature. It’s a way of celebrating it,” Katz said.
To buy or see Susan Katz’s work
Visit www.earthwhorls.com or visit Vanitas Jewelry, 1 Titus Road, Washington Depot or Party Elegance and Gifts, 951 Chase Parkway, Waterbury.