Book Club

Dwell Time:
A Memoir of Art, Exile and Repair

by Michelle Young

Daytime Session: Tuesday, May 19, 11 a.m. to 1 p.m.

Location: Pratt Munson Library, 510 Henry St., Utica, N.Y. 13502

Join us for the launch of the Munson Book Club! We’ll explore books about art, culture, and creativity— with Michelle Young's story of courage, art, and espionage.

About the Book

Renowned art conservator Rosa Lowinger spent a difficult childhood in Miami among people whose losses in the Cuban revolution, and earlier by the decimation of family in the Holocaust, clouded all family life.

After moving away to escape the “cloying exile’s nostalgia,” Lowinger discovered the unique field of art conservation, which led her to work in Tel Aviv, Philadelphia, Rome, Los Angeles, Honolulu, Charleston, Marfa, South Dakota, and Port-Au-Prince. Eventually returning to Havana for work, Lowinger suddenly finds herself embarking on a remarkable journey of family repair that begins, as it does in conservation, with an understanding of the origins of damage.

Inspired by and structured similarly to Primo Levi’s The Periodic Table, this first memoir by a working art conservator is organized by chapters based on the materials Lowinger handles in her thriving private practice – Marble, Limestone, Bronze, Ceramics, Concrete, Silver, Wood, Mosaic, Paint, Aluminum, Terrazzo, Steel, Glass and Plastics. Lowinger offers insider accounts of conservation that form the backbone of her immigrant family’s story of healing that beautifully juxtaposes repair of the material with repair of the personal. Through Lowinger’s relentless clear-eyed efforts to be the best practitioner possible while squarely facing her fraught personal and work relationships, she comes to terms with her identity as Cuban and Jewish, American and Latinx.

Dwell Time is an immigrant’s story seen through an entirely new lens, that which connects the material to the personal and helps us see what is possible when one opens one’s heart to another person’s wounds.

Reserve a Copy

The Mid-York Library System has 20 copies available for Book Club members through a local partnering library. To reserve, call the partnering library below (different for each book) and mention the Munson Book Club. You may pick up the book there or request delivery to your home library.

Partnering Library

TBD

Library Location and Directions

The Library is located on the second floor of the Pratt Munson Academic Building at 510 Henry St., Utica, N.Y. 13502.

Parking Options

• Main Munson parking lot: entrance off State Street
• Parking lot behind the Studio Building: entrance off William Street
• Parking lot behind the Student Life Building: entrance off William Street

On-street parking is also available on Henry Street on the southern side of the street only.

Building Access

• To gain access to the Academic Building, please call Library Services at 315-927-8586.
• The building is handicapped accessible at the north side entrance via a ramp that extends from the east side of the building (closest to State Street). An elevator is located in the center of the building.
• Please note that access to the Academic Building from the parking lot behind the Studio Building is limited to a staircase.