Kathy Kemp, Writer and Friend

At the close of Charlotte's Web, E. B. White wrote of Charlotte A. Cavatica, "It is not often that someone comes along who is a true writer and a good friend."

My friend Kathy Kemp was a true writer and a good friend. Although I met Kathy, a journalist, through my work in community theater (we first met after she reviewed a play in which I acted; happily, she complimented my performance), our friendship widened to include our mutual interest in folk artists.

I gave her tips from time to time, and she followed up on them, producing moving prose portraits of then-new and important artists like Lonnie Holley, Reverend Benjamin Perkins, and Fred Webster. She articulated what I couldn't -- what made them so special.

Some years after I moved from Birmingham to New Orleans, Kathy called me to chat about a new book she was writing. She wanted the photographer to visit me and photograph works in my collection for Revelations: Alabama's Visionary Folk Artists. She said she had discovered someone really special, a painter about whom no one knew anything.

There was a pause and I filled it with "Are you talking about Myrtice West?"

She was, and she was speechless to discover that I had met Myrtice years earlier with a mutual friend. She was even more surprised that both of us had managed to keep that visit secret from everyone.

When her book was published and I received my copy, her descriptions of the artists I love were deeply moving and deeply true. She made no judgments about their living conditions, their worldviews, their precarious holds on reality. She presented them lovingly, with an abiding curiosity and respect for their individuality and ingenuity.

Kathy Kemp died today, after fighting breast cancer for a decade. Her words will live on as will the gentle company she kept and friendship she made with all who knew and read and loved her.