A Conversation with Kathy Mattea (continued)

PM: You look righteously good, if I may say so.

KM: [laughs] Bless your heart.

PM: [laughs] Any special physical regimen you're into?

KM: I run, and I lift weights a couple times a week. And I feel really good. I never really loved running, but I've learned to love it. I woke up one day and realized I'd been running regularly for twenty years.

PM: Really?

KM: Yeah. And I'm not much of a competitive person. Sometimes I run really slowly.

PM: How far do you like to run?

KM: About three to five miles.

PM: Have you read anything lately that turned you on?

KM: Oh, so much. Do you know Madeleine L'Engle? She's mostly known for writing children's books, but she wrote this book that Janis Ian turned me on to 15 years ago that I couldn't get into at the time. And it came back around in my life, suddenly three people mentioned it to me. So I went and bought it and read it. It's called Walking on Water, and the subtitle is Reflections on Faith and Art. I'll tell you, there are amazing passages. I was reading that book when I was making this record. Especially when I'm recording, I have to have a way to gather up my energy, and that book helped me. I can't even tell you how many times when I was reading it that what she described about the creative process and being an artist moved me to tears.

PM: Thanks for that. We'll check it out.

As a performer, or simply as a person, what countries or places would you like to visit that come to mind?

KM: Within the last several weeks, two or three people have been talking to me about South Africa. I don't know what that means, but a lot of times signposts come in from lots of different sources. I'd love to see Australia and New Zealand. I'd like to go back to Italy. But I'll tell you, I don't have the wanderlust that I used to have. I used to really need to do that, and I feel less compelled to do that now.

PM: That's interesting.

KM: Yeah. It's like I want to settle in one place, and have a point of view from that place.

PM: Lastly, I'll ask you: If there is one, what's the strategy now, where would you like to see your career and your life go?

KM: Well, part of this thing that spewed out of me onto paper this summer was a book idea. Another part has to do with speaking publicly. A few years ago, I got asked to do a couple of speaking engagements. And it continues to happen. I learn a lot from them every time I do it. At one point, I went and spoke to some students from Berklee College of Music. And through that process and going back and doing that every year, they asked me to do an artist-in-residence. I went up for a week recently and taught at Berklee, and it changed my life.

So I know that there's something coming up involved with speaking, I know that there's something involved with teaching. And I know that I don't want to stop doing music. And I think there's probably a book involved with that. But I don't know--the door just opened, and I don't know where the path leads yet. But I do know that I felt very empowered when I was teaching.

PM: That's very interesting, because the person that I saw on stage at your show recently is a person that could do something like what you're describing.

KM: Yeah, it's wild. This all came to me, and I thought, well, I need to bounce these ideas off a friend of mine at Berklee, and the phone rang, he had called me. And he had some ideas, bounced some stuff around with some of the people over at Berklee, and they had some ideas of what they thought I could do to help, things I could teach. And they said, "Do you have any ideas?" And I said, "Yeah." And out of my mouth came, "I'd like to do a clinic on this, and I'd like to do a master class. Here's what I'd like for it to look like, here's the theme of it." I was asking myself, "Where did that come from?" I have no idea.

And that was part of what happened when I got into a situation--I put myself out of my comfort zone and it felt like the right thing to do. I knew this was calling me. And when I did, it was like discovering another hard drive in my head that has all this stuff on it I didn't know was there.

PM: [laughs]

KM: It's exciting. And it's all informed by performing, and that's my channel into the learning process. I get to go sit in a room with 30 people who are like I was when I was 20. What would you say to yourself at 20, from where you sit now, if you could. There's just something beautiful about that. Looking back these years later, I asked myself what things people had said to me that turned out to have had value. I've identified a couple of them that were just huge.

PM: Well, jeez, Kathy, it's very nice to speak with you this morning.

KM: Really nice to speak with you. I checked your webzine out. It's really cool!

PM: Thanks very much. Good luck with this new record, and the teaching to come.

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