At New York’s Macdowell, the Fiery Epiphanies of Artist Luise Kaish Unfurl

In the summer of 1976, married artists Luise and Morton Kaish were residents at MacDowell , the revered artist colony in New Hampshire. “They did that a lot,” says their daughter, Melissa Kaish. Luise and Morton were a team, traveling together all around the world throughout their 65-year marriage: Italy when she won the sculpture prize at the American Academy in Rome, Dartmouth when they had another joint residency, Alaska to get inspired by the otherworldly landscapes.

One perk of their tandem residencies was no doubt observing each other as they puzzled through their work. So when Luise was frustrated by her experiments with canvas one afternoon at MacDowell and threw her scraps into her studio’s fireplace, Morton was there to witness the epiphany that followed. He later recalled