WAM Reading Group

WAM Reading Group

Join our interactive reading group! We will select one book at a time (fiction or nonfiction) related to an aspect of the visual arts to read and discuss together.

• Weekly discussions will take place through a private Facebook group.
• At the conclusion of the book, the Reading Group will meet live (via Zoom) for a final discussion.

Participation in the Facebook group discussions is optional, as is the final Zoom meeting. Participate in as much of the group as you wish!

To join the group, email library@worcesterart.org.

Current Book

Wilderness: A Journal of Quiet Adventure in Alaska by Rockwell Kent

In August 1918 Rockwell Kent and his 9-year-old son settled into a primitive cabin on an island near Seward, Alaska. Kent, who during the next three decades became America's premier graphic artist, printmaker, and illustrator, was seeking time, peace, and solitude to work on his art and strengthen ties with his son. This reissue of the journal chronicling their 7-month odyssey describes what Kent called “an adventure of the spirit.” He soon discovers how deeply he is “stirred by simple happenings in a quiet world” as man and boy face both the mundane and the magnificent: satisfaction in simple chores like woodchopping or baking; the appalling gloom of long and lonely winter nights; hours of silence while each works at his drawings; crystalline moonlight glancing off a frozen lake; killer whales cavorting in their bay. Richly illustrated by Kent's drawings, the journal vividly re-creates that sense of great height and space — both external and internal — at the same time that it celebrates a wilderness now nearly lost to us.

Next Zoom meeting: Wednesday, June 21st at 5:30 pm.