Kitty Baker (bornSallie Kathryn Cardwell, August 21, 1912 – June 2, 2014) was an Americanmathematics educator, artist and weaver, and author of books on theater.[1][2][3][4]
Sallie Kathryn Cardwell was born on August 21, 1912, inLynchburg, Virginia. Her early interests included both mathematics and art;[1] she won an art contest as a high school student[3] atE. C. Glass High School in Lynchburg,[1] and went toRandolph-Macon Woman's College because of its reputation for strength in both mathematics and art.[3] She graduated in 1934,cum laude,[2] specializing in her studies in mathematics and German.[3]
She was accepted to graduate study atColumbia University,Syracuse University, and theUniversity of Chicago, choosing Chicago because of its proximity to theArt Institute of Chicago.[3] She completed a master's degree at the University of Chicago in 1935.[2]
Cardwell became an instructor atBaylor University, and in 1936 met and married theater professor Paul Baker; they had three children.[2] At Baylor, she became a co-founder of the Baylor Children's theater.[1][2] In 1963,[1] after a production by her husband ofLong Day's Journey into Night was censored by the university administration, they left Baylor with many of the other Baylor theater faculty, moving toGonzales, Texas, near San Antonio. There, Kitty Baker taught mathematics atTrinity University andSan Antonio College.[3]
While at Baylor and Trinity, Baker studied art, naming "Edmund Kinzinger, Austin Killian, Bruce Dean, Gay Wilson Turner andReynould Arnould [fr]" from her time at Baylor and "Robert Tiemann and Jim Stoker" from Trinity as influences. She retired in 1976,[1] and began working more heavily in weaving,[3] working with Hagar Celmins and Margaret Demster, and teaching art at a local high school. She also founded a children's activity center in Gonzales.[1]
She died on June 2, 2014, at her home, of congestive heart failure.[2] One of her daughters, Robyn Flatt, founded the Dallas Children's Theater and became its executive artistic director; a granddaughter, Kristi Cardwell, became a school theater teacher.[4]
With Jearnine Wagner, Baker coauthoredA Place for Ideas: Our Theater (Principia Press of Trinity University, 1965).[5] With her husband, she coeditedMaking Sense With the Five Senses.[2]
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