Remembering Toshiko

In the early 1990s, when I was still a production assistant here at State of the Arts, I had the idea to do a half-hour program about Toshiko Takaezu, the internationally known ceramic artist who was then still teaching at Princeton University.  I went to propose the idea to Toshiko at her studio/home in Quakertown, New Jersey. It is an old farmhouse that she transformed over the years into a sprawling complex, surrounded by gardens, huge bronze “forests” and her signature  bells. She waved from the kitchen window to go on in, she was on the phone and would be right with me. I walked inside and just stood there among the George Nakashima furniture and a huge loom with one of her weavings on it. She walked in shortly and started by pointing to my feet, exclaiming – I had walked in with my shoes on!  Not done in her house.

No matter. Over the next couple of years, I got to know her through days spent videotaping her at work, talking to her, to others about her, and spending lots of time trying to shoot her art in a way that would convey some of its power. At one point, Toshiko said that I must go to Hawaii with her, as that was where she had first become an artist. I somehow convinced a tourism council and others to cover the costs, and I flew out to meet her one January. She greeted me at the airport with a fragrant lei, and we began about 5 days of traveling to sites that had influenced her. Some of these – such as the “Devastation Forest” in the Volcanoes National Park – Toshiko herself had not been to in years. I worked with a crew from Hawaii Public TV to shoot her walking in these surreal landscapes, and talking about how they had shaped her sense of beauty. One morning we woke up very early and caught a perfect sunrise over Haleakala.

"Isis"

Toshiko died yesterday, in Hawaii with her family. She was blunt in her opinions, full of laughter, and really fun to be around. On the trip I took to Hawaii, we shared a room, and it was liking having a dorm mate who likes to talk when the lights are out. But the thing I will remember most about Toshiko was her sense of timing. It’s how I ended the documentary I did about her, Toshiko Takaezu: Portrait of an Artist. She’s sitting on her steps, shelling some large purple beans from her garden, and you hear her say:

You know, there is always such as thing as timing. And if you let yourself, allow yourself to work on timing, you really get it. I know when to change – something tells me you should go away and study.  And something tells you, you know, it’s a good thing to teach…. Even do my own work, it’s timing that you know it’s the right time to do.

The last few times I saw Toshiko, she was taking care of the work she had made over her prolific career. She was making sure pieces were going places they would be taken care of, and seen. She gave me one of her large ceramic spheres, cracked so that it was perhaps unsellable, but great because you could leave it outside! Toshiko had stopped working on her art, but she never lost her sense of timing. She had a sense of the greater whole that didn’t let her down.

Working on that piece was one of the best things that’s happened to me here at NJN. Strangely, I had scheduled it to air this very week: it’s running on NJN2 through tomorrow. We hadn’t aired it in a long time – after all, it is almost 20 years old – but for some reason, the timing seemed right.

My neighbor the renowned painter Mel Leipzig

My colleague Aubrey J. Kauffman and I have been shooting a documentary over the past 3 years about the artist Mel Leipzig and it is airing now on NJN.

Mel is a renowned realist painter. His works can be found at the Whitney Museum in New York, the White House and in private collections around the world.

Mel Leipzig Painting Michael Graves

He is also my neighbor in the Glen Afton section of Trenton.

I don’t usually appear in the programs I produce. I am much happier behind the camera. But, in this case, I just had to make an exception.

After filming a number of interviews, gallery openings and sittings with Mel painting friends, fellow artists and famous architects, Mel decided he wanted to paint me playing my cello. It seems he would hear me through the upstairs window practicing when he walked his dog.

Let’s face it, an invitation to be painted by a famous artist is flattering and completely irresistible.

Shortly before I was to be painted, I met my old friend and cello player Lynne Beiler at Fred Oster’s rare violin shop in Philadelphia. We were trying out cellos and Fred brought out the cello that Thomas Eakins had painted in 1896. I had seen the painting at the Philadelphia Museum of Art many times.

"The Cellist" by Thomas Eakins, 1896

Knowing that Mel revered Thomas Eakins, one of America’s most famous 19th C entury painters, we borrowed the cello for my sitting.  Mel was blown away.

Producer Eric Schultz painted by Mel Leipzig

Mel’s old friend of thirty years Aubrey J. Kauffman, my colleague here at NJN, served as director of photography and narrator for the documentary.  Mel painted Aubrey and his wife Michele a few years ago.

Director of Photography and Narrator Aubrey Kauffman and his wife Michele painted by Mel Leipzig

This project has been a 3-year labor of love for both Aubrey and me.

Viewers will not know about our connections to Mel, but we hope they sense the warmth and care with which we labored.

Still fresh: Will Barnet at 99

NJN videographer Aubrey J. Kauffman shoots artist Will Barnet at work

In October, I went with my NJN crew (videographer Aubrey Kauffman and sound recordist Jeff Reisly) to the studio of artist Will Barnet.  As a producer for State of the Arts since 1988, I’ve been to many, many artists’ studios and they are always unique and interesting. This one, however, will stand out in my memory.

Will Barnet at work on a painting for the Montclair Art Museum

Will Barnet will be 100 years old this spring, yet his art is vibrant, his production constant, and his eye is fresh. He’s been a serious artist since the 1930s, when he first arrived in New York City to study at the Art Students League. (For more on his career, check out this recent NY Times article.)  Known for a psychological style of realism, Barnet has also painted abstractly – and that’s what he’s doing now. In his studio are stacks of recent canvases, many still in process. When moving between paintings, he saves his subtle yet intense colors in wax paper for later.  Some of these recent works will be exhibited at the Montclair Art Museum from February 4 through July 17, 2011. They’re related to his Indian Space work of the 1950s, paintings which approached abstraction in a way that made sense for Barnet. As the Montclair Museum of Art describes it, the canvases integrate “organic and geometric pictograph forms within a flat, seamless space.”

Will Barnet welcomed me, Aubrey, and Jeff into the 2 story studio/apartment in the National Arts Club where he’s lived and worked for about 30 years. When asked a question, he talked at length – clearly and with great thought. He agreed to work on a painting for the camera, and actually seemed to forget that we were there. It’s clear that he loves to make art and that he’s still making discoveries. I won’t forget meeting him.

My story on Will Barnet will air on the November 18th episode of State of the Arts; it will be available online as well soon after the 18th.

Our Tony Smiths

Somebody should really develop an app for locating and identifying all of the public art in the world, or at least the Tri-State area.  Something like Shazam – the app that can identify almost any tune hurtling through the air, find it online, and then sell it you.

Just imagine.  You stumble upon a strange, monolithic steel structure in South Orange’s Meadowlands Park.  You stop to stand in its shadow, as confounded as those primates in 2001: A Space Odyssey.  But it’s 2010, and you have a smart phone equipped with an app called ArtTrakker5000 – cool, right? – and all you have to do is point it at your object of inquiry and…

Ping!  “Tau, by American architect, painter, sculptor Tony Smith, native of South Orange, New Jersey.  In fact, his childhood home is just several blocks from here.  He was on the cover of TIME magazine, he was great friends with Jackson Pollock, he is world-famous artist Kiki Smith’s dad; coincidentally, she was named one of TIME magazine’s most influential people in the world.  Tau might be meant to evoke the T-shaped crucifix that Saint Anthony – Anthony as in Tony – was pegged to.  And here!  Now watch this short documentary about how Tau was designed, fabricated, and installed – and why!”

Ahhh.  Illuminating.  (Copyright 2010, NJN Public Television.)

Now where can I find more of these Smiths?

Ping!  “There are two in Princeton (Moses and New Piece 2/3), one outside the Newark Museum (For J.C.) – and a bunch more in Manhattan, Canada, Japan, Norway, and the Netherlands.  The State Museum in Trenton has a scale model of the one called Willy.  (Named after a character from a Beckett play.)”

As Bertrand Russell said: “Isn’t it nice to know things?”

So, to any app-savvy entrepreneurs who might be reading this: free million-dollar idea.

Please cut me in.

*

For more info on Tony Smith, start here.

To see more of the show that featured the Tony Smith story, go here.

American Repertory Ballet on hold

On March 27th at the War Memorial in Trenton, American Repertory Ballet will celebrate its 25th annual gala – and give its last performance of the season. As Peggy McGlone of The Star/Ledger writes, “The American Repertory Ballet in New Brunswick announced today it has canceled the remainder of its season, opting to not perform in order not to make an already six-figure shortfall even worse.”  The plan is to restructure the organization.

As a reminder of the creative work that’s being put on hold, we invite you to view this story about one of ARB’s original dances, choreographed by artistic director Graham Lustig.  Called ”Beauty and the Beast - A Gothic Romance,” it’s the classic fairy tale , reset in the pinelands with the Jersey Devil. 

Catch Daniel Beaty before he leaves for LA

Obie Award-winning actor/playwright /poet Daniel Beaty opens his new one-man show, “Through the Night,” this Thursday at Crossroads Theatre in New Brunswick (Feb. 11-21, 2010). It promises to be a tour-de-force, with Beaty playing six African-American men at different stages in their lives - plus all the supporting characters. Producer Sia Nyorkor met up with Beaty in rehearsal in New York, and their conversation is now a podcast featured on JerseyArts.comCheck it out, and the play, before Beaty moves to the Geffen Playhouse in Los Angeles.

Haitian author Edwidge Danticat in 1994

In this week’s New Yorker, Edwidge Danticat describes what it’s like to be safe in America while her extended family is suffering through the aftermath of the earthquake – and she remembers her cousin Maxo, who died when their family home collapsed upon him.  Danticat received a MacArthur Genius award in 2009, and in 2007 won the National Book Critics Circle Award for “Brother, I’m Dying.” In 1994, her first novel, “Breath, Eyes, Memory” had just been published, and was soon to be made famous as an early Oprah book club selection.   Edwidge Danticat appeared on State of the Arts. to talk about her book and a series of documentaries about Haiti that she was making with Jonathan Demme. She was 25 at the time, and just finding her public role as an artist and a representative of the country and culture of Haiti.  Here she is in that interview with Amber Edwards, then host of State of the Arts.

Clark Terry Wins Grammy

Jazz trumpet legend Clark Terry receives the Lifetime Achievement Award at the 52^nd Annual Grammy Awards January 30, 2010, just in time for his 90^th birthday. Five years ago, State of the Arts produced a feature about  Terry. We recorded interviews, performances and a session with the famous trumpeter teaching young jazz students at William Paterson University.

We planned to call the program “Nice Work If You Can Get It,” after a song by George Gershwin.  At first, when we asked Clark to play the tune, he didn’t remember it. But, after hearing us hum a few bars, he laughed, said he hadn’t done that tune for 50 years, and played it perfectly!

After years of working with the likes of Count Basie, Doc Severinsen and Wynton Marsalis, there are probably few tunes Clark Terry cannot play beautifully.   NJN congratulates Clark Terry on his Lifetime Achievement.

Here’s the story we produced in 2005: 

Collectible art pottery from New Jersey

Stangl "Sunburst" Pottery (Photo by Peter Meissner)

The interest in American art pottery just keeps growing, and some of the most highly collectible pieces were made by the Fulper and Stangl potteries in Flemington and Trenton, New Jersey.  We just posted a 1999 story about the interconnected history of these potteries – it features collectors but also some of the original designers and Stangl’s daughter. This is just one story from our amazing backlog slowly being added to the State of the Arts website!

If you’re a collector, you’ll definitely want to catch Utility and Artistry: Works of the Stangl and Fulper Potteries at The Trenton City Museum at Ellarslie Mansion. The show runs through May 2, 2010 and on January 10  Peter Meissner, the curator of the exhibit and a leading authority on Stangl pottery will be giving a lecture and tour.

On the Road with Jay Gaunt

This week’s State of the Arts program begins with a feature we produced about 15-year-old Jay Gaunt, an amazing young blues and jazz harmonic player. (Read More)

Our NJN film crew spent three days with Jay, following him from one end of New Jersey to other. Meeting Jay made me think about how mysterious real talent is. His parents aren’t musicians, nobody in his family was a musician, and there was nothing in his upbringing, at least on the surface, that would make you think he would become a blues harmonica player.

Jay at Saddle River Day School

Our first day was at his high school, the Saddle River Day School. It was a Monday, the only day all the boys wear their blue blazer uniforms. The preppy look just accentuated the contrast between the mild mannered high school kid and the blues power house Jay becomes on stage. At first, he was embarrassed to have our NJN crew following him around school. I felt like a pushy producer, but he got over it, and we got some good candid footage.