Catherine "Kater" Cheek is a writer and artist.
Nov 04
These were a special request from my friend who had a birthday in August (who can resist a birthday girl’s wishes?) She wanted something like something she’d seen on etsy or in a magazine, where it was a small bisque fired pendant used as a personal diffuser for aromatherapy. She said it didn’t matter what …
Oct 31
Consider the Fork: How Technology Transforms the Way We Cook and Eat by Bee Wilson I do love books that delve into the history of a small subject, like the book on Salt, or Oranges, or red dye. I also like those that wander a bit, but still talk seriously about the mundane necessities we …
Oct 31
Crucial Conversations: Tools for Talking When Stakes Are High by Kerry Patterson This book reads like a textbook, because it sort of is. It’s about something that all of us need, but don’t know we need: how to have conversations with people about important topics without ruining everything. How to have a conversation in which …
Oct 31
I started making this mask recently, during a spate of visual art creativity. I’m finishing up a novel, which involves a lot of fine tuning and orchestrating helpful volunteers to find errors. It doesn’t involve as much creativity, and so I often find when I’m between novels that the creativity spills out into the visual …
Oct 29
The Secret Life of Pronouns: What Our Words Say About Us by James W. Pennebaker If you have a nerd-gasm about statistics, linguistics, and social psychology, this is a must-read book. Bonus points: the author has done the research himself, so it’s not just rehashed from another book you’ve already read (though I’ve seen his …
