Kathie Bodily, artist, co-founder of Inter-Media Art Center, dies at 74

Kathie Bodily, a Long Island artist and co-founder of the nonprofit Inter-Media Art Center in Huntington village, was known for her loving personality and ability to make fast friends with anyone. 

Bodily of Huntington, 74, died Wednesday from pancreatic cancer, which she was diagnosed with in 2019. Since then, she endured many rounds of chemotherapy and three clinical trials before dying at her Huntington home surrounded by loved ones. 

She is perhaps best known for co-founding IMAC at what is now The Paramount. She formed the nonprofit with her late partner, Michael Rothbard, after receiving a grant from the New York State Council for the Arts in 1974. The organization bounced from Halesite to Bayville and ultimately to Huntington in 1983, where it took over a crumbling 600-seat balcony space on New York Avenue.

Raised in Ogden, Utah, Bodily moved to New York City as a young adult, where she met Rothbard. She was a dental assistant at the time. They collaborated on a project in 1970 and brought a multimedia festival to Hofstra University — the first project in a lifetime of promoting the arts. 

IMAC shuttered in 2009 — a year of great tragedies for Bodily, friends recall. Rothbard died that year, and so, too, did Bodily’s beloved pooch Cleo, a golden retriever that discovered a hornet’s nest at Rothbard’s funeral and died two days later, said friend Mary Beth White, who had known Bodily since the early 1980s. Cleo was just as beloved as Bodily, White said, and carried the money bag into the bank to deposit to tellers. 

“We joked that she had a Ph.D. in grief because she had many tragedies in her life,” White said, but “she really was an inspiration and a role model for us in living life to the fullest.”

Bodily's resilient spirit and zest for life became her reputation, said friend Bobbie Comforto, who met her husband through Bodily. 

“She lived until she died,” Comforto said. 

Bodily’s creativity, expertise with connecting to people and eye for detail gave her the ability to organize performers and employees at IMAC, White said. She was creative in her own right, too, and made fused-glass jewelry, was an interior designer and a culinary wizard in the kitchen, and built furniture, which she learned alongside her grandfather in his basement wood shop, said Bodily’s younger sister, Mary Jo Boyle. She had a marvelous garden and could rattle off the names — in Latin and English — of her plants. 

“She was good at everything,” Boyle said, adding that despite her sister’s talents, what stood out the most was the way she made people feel. She insisted on traveling back to Utah to attend family gatherings, milestones and celebrations. “People remember that stuff, and it meant a lot to her because those things only happen once.” 

Bodily is survived by Boyle, of Ogden; her daughter, Marva Match of Salt Lake City; granddaughters, Maggie and Cate Cannon-Match of Salt Lake City; and her cockapoo, Jo Jo.

Arrangements have not been announced, but a memorial service is being planned for late October.

Correction: An earlier version of this story misstated Michael Rothbard's early work experience.

By Brinley Hineman

brinley.hineman@newsday.com

Brinley Hineman covers the Town of Hempstead and the City of Long Beach for Newsday. She previously was a reporter in Nashville, Tennessee, and is a West Virginia native.