Patricia Fenix Kettenring

Longtime Summit Resident, Rutgers Business School Faculty Member & Newark Arts Activist, "Pat Did Not Think Small"
Patricia Fenix Kettenring, a passionate artist and arts educator, loving wife, mother, and grandmother, died this week at age 82 in Logan, Utah. She was endlessly energetic, wildly creative, brilliant in her artistic and educational vision, and fierce in the face of obstacles. She was infinitely curious and inspired others to see beauty all around them-in nature, in everyday objects, in plants as a form of art.
Pat spent the bulk of her life in Summit, NJ, where she raised her two children, Brian and Karin, with her husband, Jon. Pat's children were her "hope for a better world" as her friend aptly put it. Throughout her life, Pat pursued a wide range of artistic and educational pursuits. She used her love of the arts to address racial and economic injustice. She created and directed the Business and the Arts Program at the Rutgers Business School, in Newark, NJ, where she taught courses in marketing, non-profit accounting, entrepreneurship, and arts fundraising. She also founded a glassblowing non-profit, GlassRoots, in Newark, that provided arts and business skill development for the city's youth. She practiced the Japanese art of flower arranging (ikebana), photography, and was active with the NJ Center for Visual Arts, NJ Performing Arts Center, Newark Arts Council, and the NJ Youth Symphony. Pat was a loyal member of Christ Church, Summit.
Patricia Ann Fenix was born to Robert and Opal Fenix on March 1, 1941, in Stockton, CA. Bob and Opal's work in university administration would take Pat from Stockton to Salem, OR, Los Angeles, and ultimately Chattanooga, where Pat graduated from high school and attended college at the University of Tennessee (she received A.B. degrees in French and History in 1963). Two particular aspects of Pat's childhood impacted her profoundly and shaped her career and life work: growing up on the west coast as World War II was coming to a close, witnessing the inhumane treatment of Japanese Americans, and then moving to segregated Tennessee in the late 1950s and witnessing the emerging Civil Rights movement in the South.
After college, Pat moved to Chapel Hill, NC, to pursue her M.S. in French Diplomatic History at the University of North Carolina and spent three years working towards a Ph.D. in history. While at UNC, Pat was introduced to her future husband, Jon, and the couple married in June 1969. She and Jon would ultimately end up in New Jersey, where Jon, having finished his Ph.D. in statistics, had secured a position at Bell Labs. By 1971, Pat and Jon had their first child, Brian and then their daughter, Karin, in 1976.
One of Pat's defining traits was her wide ranging interests, including arts, education, and travel. With kinetic energy, she was always on the go, immersed in an array of arts projects, family life, and friendships. Pat became steeped in ikebana, studying in the Sogetsu school and eventually became an ikebana instructor in her own right. She gave many dozens of ikebana demonstrations over the years in the New York metro area and had a side business doing floral arrangements for weddings and events. She also traveled to Japan numerous times for trainings and demonstrations and collected many pieces of hundreds-year-old Japanese ceramics and furniture. Other travel was centered on the art, history, and cultures of regions she was particularly passionate about such as Santa Fe, Cuba, Italy, and Turkey. Her beloved 1873 Summit home was curated with ceramics, glass, and prints from her travels as an example of her commitment to supporting artists around the world.
If ikebana was one of Pat's first forays into the arts, photography was another, especially in the 1980s and 90s. For many years she had a darkroom in the kitchen, sometimes leaving the area smelling of photographic chemicals. One notable set of photographs was from a 1980s trip to Carmel, California, which yielded beautiful shots of the coastal cypress trees, including one that won a prize in a local photography contest.
Pat was equally passionate about the performing arts. She regularly attended New Jersey Symphony concerts with Karin and introduced her family to the stunning dance of Alvin Ailey. She spent countless hours driving Karin to violin lessons and orchestra rehearsals throughout northern New Jersey, as one example of her commitment to ensuring her children had all opportunities to pursue their passions.
Pat did not think small, she was determined, and would not accept "no" for an answer-traits that were essential for the transformations she had in mind for the countless arts organizations she worked with or built. She was active at the Summit Arts Center (now the New Jersey Center for the Visual Arts), curating numerous exhibitions in the 1980s–90s and serving on its board. Later, Pat turned her attention to Newark, NJ. Here she cultivated relationships with a range of emerging and established artists and art entrepreneurs in her unwavering commitment to address racial and economic inequalities in Newark through the arts. Many of her Rutgers students were first generation college students or children of immigrants. Pat seized this opportunity to inspire the next generation of arts supporters. Around this period, Pat took a deep interest in glassblowing, particularly after a transformative visit to the cutting-edge program in Tacoma, WA, centered on glassblowing for at-risk youth. It was this interest in the glass arts and the City of Newark that led Pat to found GlassRoots in 2001, where she served as Executive Director until 2010. Her work at Rutgers and GlassRoots was honored with the Rutgers Faculty/Staff Community Service Award in 2008.
Pat and Jon were active members of Christ Church (United Church of Christ and American Baptist Church) from 1978 through the 2020s. For many decades, Pat was a dedicated member of the choir and prepared weekly floral arrangements for Sunday services. She was deeply committed to the church's mission of welcoming all, serving others, and giving back to the local and global community.
She was (in)famous for her driving skills. On one occasion, after maneuvering her car into the tightest of parking spots in New York City, bystanders on the sidewalk stopped, clapped, and congratulated her. In another instance, when faced with NYC gridlock, she tucked right behind an ambulance and rode the parting waves of traffic all the way to the Holland Tunnel. She even had her own language with context-specific terms like "zorch"-to drive at a rapid pace and with purpose-a word she would exclaim as she raced off to one event or another. Pat was a lover of all periodicals-but especially The New York Times and The New Yorker magazine. Her (unrealistic?) optimism about her free time and desire to stay abreast of the world's news manifested itself in an impressive backlog of newspapers and magazines that covered many surfaces of their New Jersey home.
Pat is survived by her husband of 54 years, Jon Roberts Kettenring; her children Brian Kettenring (Jenny Lawson) and Karin Kettenring (Mike Taylor); her sister Mary Pryszmont; and her four grandchildren: Meridian, Annika, Jacob, and Linna who brought her immense joy. She is preceded in death by her sister Barbara Schmitt and parents Robert and Opal Fenix.
To celebrate her life, and because of the far-flung nature of Pat's network, we are hosting an online memorial service at 1pm eastern (10am pacific) on the Friday after Thanksgiving, November 24th.
In lieu of flowers, donations can be made in Pat's honor to GlassRoots ( www.glassroots.org/ ) of Newark, NJ, or the Alzheimer's and Dementia Research Center at Utah State University (cehs.usu.edu/adrc/).