Winter 2017
A Path Well-Defined
According to Mary Kathryn Davis, there is a direct link between her insatiable appetite for beauty and her education.
It was the pursuit of God’s truth, goodness, and beauty that cultivated her interest in history and fine arts, developed her finely-tuned sense of aesthetics, and forged her unlikely path. As she followed Beauty, beauty followed her.
Mary Kathryn was exposed to the truly beautiful at a young age by her local classical school, Westminster Academy, in Memphis, TN. Here she was taught to love the truth, and became familiar with an objective standard and purpose of beauty. Having met Beauty Himself, there was no option but to be enamored.
As her studies progressed, her delight in fine arts grew and resulted in a deeper interest in the classical world and its history. Nearing graduation, she wondered where to go next. She struggled with forming her deep love of humanities and her liberal arts education into a career path that could actually make ends meet.
Little did she know the path would find her. By chance, her first internship was at a fine arts museum, and here she struck gold. According to Mary Kathryn, the prospect of “educating and exposing” visitors to the truly beautiful “excited me.” Granted an arena to display and nourish her zeal for beauty, Mary Kathryn went full steam ahead to Georgetown University where she earned her MA in art and museum studies.
Now a manager at Dixon Museum and Gardens in Memphis, Mary Kathryn shares her love of beauty with others. “I have the wonderful opportunity to catch a glimpse of God’s beauty every day through the paintings hanging on the Dixon’s walls, and I have the privilege of sharing the transformative power of art with others,” she says.
Moreover, she still uses the skills developed in Westminster’s classrooms on a daily basis. “As the membership manager at the Dixon Gallery and Gardens, I raise money by selling memberships and frequently find myself using skills that I learned in the classical classroom,” she relates. Beyond simply cultivating a love of beauty itself, Mary Kathryn’s education assists her in the more practical aspects of her job at the Dixon. “Logic gives me the ability to form a compelling argument for why people should become Dixon members. The knowledge I learned in art history allows me to talk to donors about art, and rhetoric gives me the skills to speak comfortably in public.”
MARY KATHRYN DAVIS graduated in 2010 from Westminster Academy in Memphis, TN.
