Susan Gilbert Harvey
Susan Gilbert Harvey will discuss her book Tea with Sister Anna: a Paris journal in an informal program called, "From the Trunk to the Printed Page" at the Chattanooga Writers Guild on Tuesday, June 10. Ms. Harvey will tell how she turned a cache of family memorabilia into an award winning book about her great-aunt's life in Paris at 7 p.m. at the Chattanooga-Hamilton County Bicentennial Library. The meeting is free and open to the public.
Ms. Harvey was a 1958 Chattanooga Cotton Belle.
After studying design at Shorter College with Virginia Dudley of the Rising Fawn art community, Ms. Harvey took off her debutante white gloves and become the mighty Junk Woman, a visual artist who created sculpture from objects found in scrap yards. Junk Woman morphed into the introspective Monk Woman, who wrote poetry and explored dreams. Monk Woman emerged from her chrysalis to become The Lunatic Moth. The Lunatic Moth flapped her hot pink wings on top of the Empire State Building. She also appeared on the Clock Tower in Rome, Georgia, as part of "Standing Ovation," the annual spring equinox egg balance started by Ms. Harvey in 1985.
Ms. Harvey's sculpture, performance pieces, and narrative visuals have been presented in national venues, including Barking Legs Theater in Chattanooga.
In the 1990s, Ms. Harvey inherited the letters and Paris journal of her grandmother's sister, Anna McNulty Lester (1862-1900). Ms. Lester's courage as a nineteenth-century Georgia artist inspired Ms. Harvey to go to Paris in 1998 in a centennial retracing of Sister Anna's steps.
Golden Apple Press published Tea with Sister Anna: a Paris journal in 2005.
Ms. Harvey led a walking tour of Anna Lester's Montparnasse neighborhood as part of the Hollins Abroad-Paris 50th anniversary in 2005. She received a Georgia Author of the Year Award from the Georgia Writers Association in 2006. In 2007, the Rome Area Council for the Arts presented Ms. Harvey with its Lifetime Achievement in the Arts Award.