Kathryn Turner ’95 spent her childhood roaming the acres of her family’s ranch inside Grand Teton National Park in Wyoming. First, she rode on the same horse as her mom, Mary Kay Brady SMC ’64, as the family worked around the ranch, and then, by the time she was three, she was riding her own horse. As Turner got older, a sketchbook was her constant companion as she observed the changing seasons and wildlife at the Triangle X Ranch, where she is part of the fourth generation in the family business.
“I was knitted into this community of family working together with the land, very much tied to a sense of place. With the beauty and the legacy of the West, I was shaped by that,” Turner said. “I am deeply attuned to beauty, and I think that’s why I’m here: to capture beauty. Art became my language to express what I was, what I loved, and what I appreciated about what I was surrounded with in the natural world. It became my way of understanding the natural world.”
She knew that she wanted to be an artist since those childhood days spent sketching on the ranch. Her family’s land has inspired her art all her life. Today, she lives near the ranch and is an award-winning painter, with her own gallery in nearby Jackson and her art on display at exhibitions in museums around the country.
Back in the ’90s, when the time came to choose a college, Turner wasn’t quite sure the University of Notre Dame was the place for her to reach her artistic goals. But with a Saint Mary’s graduate for a mom and a Notre Dame graduate, John Turner ’64, for a dad, plus a scholarship in hand, Turner moved from Wyoming to South Bend.
“It was very challenging for me to go from Jackson Hole to South Bend in August — it was so hot,” she recalled. “Thank God for the lakes. I would take my paints to the lakeshore.”
And more often than not, you’d find her at the Snite Museum of Art in the center of campus. “I was somebody who just wore out the halls of the Snite Museum,” said Turner, who was a Program of Liberal Studies major. “For such a small museum, it had such a high caliber of art, and it was right in the middle of our lives. Even if I just had a few moments, I would go and check out one piece of art and sit with it. The Snite Museum was a great teacher of mine.”
And it wasn’t just the museum where she connected with her love of art: She sang with the folk choir, took dance classes at her mom’s alma mater across the street, did illustrations for The Observer, and had her own art studio space in Riley Hall.
Sometimes, she’d sell her football tickets to take advantage of four hours of quiet time in the studio while the rest of the student body cheered on the Irish in the stadium — though she says her brother, Mark Turner ’97, was exasperated by that decision. She also spent a semester in Rome through Saint Mary’s, enrolled in drawing and art history classes that took her all over the city.
“I was at Notre Dame at a time when there was more art being developed. You had to work a little harder than maybe a business student would have had to; it wasn’t spoon-fed,” Turner said. “But there was also freedom in that I felt like I could create what I needed for a funky art student at Notre Dame.”
After graduation, she headed to the University of Virginia to earn a master’s degree in education. She worked at the Smithsonian and taught art at a Catholic school, an experience she loved, but the ranch in Wyoming lured her home.
“When I moved back, I worked at the National Museum of Wildlife Art; that was my day job. But every minute I could, I was very committed and devoted to learning how to paint and draw. Luckily, in a place like Jackson Hole, which has a special focus on culture and art, it attracts artists from all over the world, so I was able to study from really noted artists who were drawn to this place,” Turner said. “How lucky am I — to be back in my little, tiny town, but with really exceptional art influences.”
She also had all the supplies she needed for the job, thanks to her father’s Notre Dame roommate, Nick Rassas ’66, an All-American football player for the Irish who went on to play in the NFL.
“Nick and Dad have always been like brothers, and I called him up sharing my dream of returning to Wyoming to realize my dream of being an artist,” Turner said. “Unbeknownst to me, Nick secretly shipped out to Wyoming all the art supplies that an aspiring artist might ever need to make her start. I am still using these top-quality supplies today, 25 years later — Notre Dame is indeed family.”
She’s owned the Turner Fine Art Gallery in Jackson for 20 years, and is still part of the family business at the ranch, where she has a standing weekly horseback ride with her dad. It's a balancing act, running a small business alongside making art, and she is very disciplined about maintaining time in her schedule to paint. “Without discipline and deadlines, no art would get done in my world,” Turner said.
“I have this belief that I’m in the service industry, and that I need to give the art what it requires to serve the world, to serve beauty,” she continued. “I believe the world needs art, and I’m just making my contribution in service.”
This service mindset was shaped at Notre Dame, where she was inspired by her fellow Domers to strive for excellence.
“That's such a thread through everything that Notre Dame does, from the academics to the athletics to the music and architecture. I found Notre Dame incredibly inspiring,” said Turner, who has the word “excellence” emblazoned on the wall of her studio as a reminder.
Turner’s impressionist paintings chronicle a life lived with the land on her family’s ranch, and she hopes to inspire viewers to ponder their connection with the natural world.
“I want to make art that will give pause to the viewer in such a way that moves them emotionally to care in a deeper way,” she said. “Ultimately, my goal is to create art that is a reminder that we share this planet with other beings, and just offer a way of meditation, or a reminder or a reflection of this interconnectedness.”
Originally published by Maura Sullivan Hill ’90 at weare.nd.edu, a digital publication from the Notre Dame Alumni Association telling stories of Domers doing good in the world.