re-introducing Noguchi’s Indiana experience ... --Glenn Ralston <a href="http://technorati.com/claim/2niyby5ji" rel="me">Technorati Profile</a> googlefa1bad85ad56fded.html <META name='blogburst-verify' content='B8Ws3djm4x7ozDRUvu26ubhR'/>

“LEONIE” the Movie...

Sun, 13 Sep 2009 18:17:07 -0400

Coming Soon
“LEONIE” the Movie

The movie now being produced about Leonie Gilmour and her relationship with Yone Noguchi will provide an introduction to their young son, Isamu. It also could provide the film goer, an avid reader or any interested party an alice-in-wonderland, through-the-looking-glass Portal to turn-of-the century Japan or America or the World. So many stories about Arts or Life or Spirit could spin off from here.
* * *

This image, above, is an original movie theatre announcement of the period presented to the audience by projecting onto the screen the image from a 3X4 inch glass slide standard format of the time. It is likely that this and the other images displayed here, and similar, were routinely seen by Leonie, Yone, and their friends.
* * *

This in-theatre advertisement, above, evoked the strong political sentiments about the time the young Isamu traveled to America and LaPorte, Indiana in the Midwest. There is an enormous side story about Dr. Edward Rumely’s strong international political feelings. Coincidently it is also the time of my paternal family’s deep involvement in statewide Democratic politics of Indiana.
* * *

In another example, this 1915 “Coming Movie Attraction” theatre slide, above, of Jesse L. Lasky’s Paramount picture featuring famed Metropolitan Opera singer Geraldine Farrar for the first time sought to bring “high art” into what was still considered tawdry “nickelodeon” art. In her book “Isamu Noguchi ...”, Caroline Tiger describes (p22) “Geraldine Farrar, a famed soprano, helped popularize “Madame Butterfly” and Japanese culture by playing the lead role in the Metropolitan Opera’s version in 1907.”
* * * *

The following advertising slide, below, is typical in-house movie advertising of the time targeting the up-scale segment of the market for a local retailer located nearby in the neighborhood.

Caroline Tiger's “Isamu Noguchi” (Asian Americans of Achievement)

Fri, 11 Sep 2009 17:13:21 -0400

Caroline Tiger's "Isamu Noguchi" is a terrific and concise Bio. It should be on any reader’s short list for those who are interested in his Art, Life, and Spirit. It is also notable for being the only hard-copy account (copyright 2007 edition) published thus far to be accurate about his important adolescent years being publicly schooled at LaPorte, Indiana High School, graduating in 1922, while living four years as a typical teenager with a typical Midwestern family. This rich backstory, when finally told fully and properly, will become an explosive note in American Arts history. This book is one of my favorite choices for anyone interested in his real story.

Noguchi many times visited his teenage hometown, LaPorte, Indiana

Sun, 9 Aug 2009 16:15:28 -0400

Noguchi many times visited his teenage hometown, LaPorte, Indiana ...

"On October 18, 1932, the LaPorte Herald-Argus reported on Noguchi's timer design in a article that acknowledged his early roots in Indiana and his established art career. The article, which provides the most extensive recognition of Noguchi's manufactured timer design, states: "Isamu Noguchi -- From New York to Los Angeles an art world is reclaiming him as one of the most brilliant of the young American sculptors. And yet many LaPorteans remember him simply as the quiet, studious young man who not so many years ago came here to enroll in Dr. Rumely's Interlaken School and later, to enter LaPorte High School. It mentions how Noguchi continued to maintain ties to his hometown:
"LaPorte, however, is closely allied with his career, for it was while in this city that Noguchi first decided to be an artist and it was LaPorte friends who helped him embark on that promising career. And if LaPorte has [not] forgotten Sam Gilmour, neither has Sam Gilmour forgotten LaPorte, for many times Sculptor Noguchi has returned to this city to visit Dr. and Mrs. Rumely and their family and other friends here..."
excerpt, "Noguchi the Adventuresome: --" Deborah Goldberg,

“The East-West House: Noguchi’s Childhood in Japan” by Christy Hale

Mon, 3 Aug 2009 15:13:27 -0400

... now, THAT’S what I’m Talking About --
This is a wonderful tribute to the artist as child. Christy Hale’s illustrations and words:
“He walked watching shadows shift.
Light on stone revealed secret colors.
Water mirrored shapes above---
a kaleidoscope in motion.” ...

... and, One More thing -- This loving presentation for children is followed by a 3-page, detailed postscript that provides the authoritative context of his life. This includes a short but suitable segway into continuing Noguchi’s little known adolescence as a typical High School teenager during those four highly important years in the small Midwestern town of LaPorte, Indiana.

NEW VIDEO Interview with Christy Hale about her preparation of “East-West House ...”

FYI -- “ADOLESCENCE IN INDIANA”

Thu, 9 Jul 2009 01:29:07 -0400

Mirroring the studies we’ve recently conducted in Indiana, the Noguchi Museum updates his Bio: “...After growing up in Japan, at age thirteen Isamu Noguchi was sent to America for schooling. He arrived by ship in Seattle and made his way alone by train to the Interlaken School in Rolling Prairie, Indiana, run by inventor and progressive educator Dr. Edward Rumely . Within months of his arrival, however, the school was converted to a military facility and closed. With nowhere else to go, Isamu remained at the school living with the caretakers. Dr. Rumely eventually placed him in a foster home in nearby La Porte, in the household of Swedenborgian minister Dr. Samuel Mack. Going by his mother's name of Gilmour, Isamu attended La Porte High School, and he seems to have had a typical small town American experience, paper route and all. Dr. Rumely encouraged Isamu to become a doctor, and Rumely raised the funds that enabled him to enter the premedical program at Columbia University, New York City, in the fall of 1922.”

Also SEE: “Strong Support for Noguchi Indiana Effort”

a Voice from out of the Wilderness

Mon, 6 Jul 2009 06:03:54 -0400

Yes--it WAS INVENTED here at the IU Art Museum.
It is as if the voice from out of the Hoosier Wilderness, I.Noguchi, would ask “if I fashion a Stone into a Sculpture, but no one sees it, is it Art?”

Noguchi, Rickey, and Smith
“Three major American sculptors with strong ties to Indiana, whose work evinces some of the most vital developments in modern sculpture, were featured in this (1970) exhibition celebrating the Sesquicentennial of Indiana University. Foreword by Thomas T. Solley, text by Daniel Mato.”...

I am reminded of the time when Walter Wood, producer of the distinguished movie “The Hoodlum Priest” featuring Don Murray, described how I “have the uncommon ability to thread some very wide concepts through some very narrow apertures”.

re-introducing Noguchi’s Indiana experience ...
Since first beginning the NoguchiBlog journal in 2004, it has become increasingly clear the enormous impact on Isamu Noguchi of his growing up for four years as a typical Hoosier teenager in LaPorte, Indiana and going to its public High School. These little known years of the child becoming a young man shaped the spirit and the genius of this future world-famed artist. Noguchi’s formidable Indiana experiences become an explosive note in American Arts history. “I am a Hoosier too” Noguchi said.

Noguchi's work in the 1970 IU catalogue is presented in rather drab B&W rather than the vibrant colors of the present. Today we could reproduce the earlier Indiana University catalogue in so-called "glorious technicolor" at little extra cost and less effort on today's timely Web pages. In one fell swoop, the drab obscurity of the earlier could take its rightful and gloriously colorful place with the contemporary.

At this time the grand accomplishments of the world-famed Japanese-American sculptor Isamu Noguchi, publicly schooled in Indiana, could be recovered from those dimly lit vaults of yesteryear and made easily accessible anew. But--Does that make it Inauthentic? What we have here has been a failure to communicate.

NOW I am COMMITTING to Indiana University to personally cover the COSTS of reissuing those same classic Noguchi images that Thomas Solley introduced to us years ago, to a new posterity in today’s even MORE authentic, vibrant WEB colors.
--Glenn Ralston

1938 Radio Nurse

Wed, 13 May 2009 02:02:58 -0400

Absolutely best exposition of The Radio Nurse yet. Great illustrations. Extensive description. Historic context.

Graham Dance with Noguchi Costumes

Mon, 11 May 2009 17:03:54 -0400

excerpt: "Clytemnestra," Graham's crowning achievement from 1958, has been re-staged. (The work, which has not been seen locally since 1994, will alternate with a mixed bill.) For the current production, Eilber has returned to the original costume designs by Isamu Noguchi, with its striking palette of reds, whites, blacks and golds.
...Still, the idea that a dance company, even a historic one, might emulate museums is guaranteed to produce howls of protest. In the dance world, Eilber admitted, the word "museum" "has this pejorative, dusty-musty thing attached to it." So the upcoming Graham season will prompt debate, not only about "curatorial" methods, but more radically about the need to preserve historic dances. If a company commissions dances from contemporary choreographers, but the new works are mediocre in comparison with others made long ago, then is dance still a "living" art? Surely it is the choreography that must live to touch an audience, and for that it must be great. What's wrong with museums, anyway?...” --Robert Johnson

POW! Epiphany becomes EUREKA

Sun, 26 Apr 2009 12:43:29 -0400

POW! Epiphany becomes EUREKA
At Amazon I’ve added my review of the catalogue for the 2001 “relocated” exhibition at the Noguchi Museum. “This review has become of great personal meaning to me because of my studying for the past five years of Noguchi's significant but little known years of schooling in Indiana as a typical teenager. This volume itself is gorgeous, and for me easily the best hard-copy example of publication aesthetics approaching those of Web graphics. Not knowing otherwise, I can only attribute this quality to Bonnie Rychlak and Amy Hau of the Noguchi Museum, as mentioned there. It is transformative to me in comparing to my previous review here in these pages of Thomas Solley's groundbreaking 1970 exhibit at Indiana University of "Noguchi & Rickey & Smith".
In comparison there, Noguchi's very similar work is presented in rather drab B&W rather than the vibrant colors of the present. Today we could reproduce the earlier Indiana University catalogue in so-called "glorious technicolor" at little extra cost and less effort on today's timely Web pages. In one fell swoop, the drab obscurity of the earlier could take its rightful and gloriously colorful place with the contemporary.
In today's Digital Age, the New York Times front page heralds a new cellphone in colorful blasts, while informing us of the accomplishments of an Arab-American Steven Jobs and an African-American Barack Obama. At this time the grand accomplishments of the world-famed Japanese-American sculptor Isamu Noguchi publically schooled in Indiana could be recovered from those dimly lit vaults of yesteryear at our Universities and Museums and made easily accessible anew.”Universities and Museums and made easily accessible anew. --Glenn Ralston

CORRECTIONS: Noguchi’s Indiana Schooling

Sun, 29 Mar 2009 03:20:09 -0400

We’ve drilled down into our own back pages to recover Errata, lost during technical changes, on the specific public schooling of “Sam Gilmour” Noguchi in Indiana.

Noguchi grew up for four years in a local family as a typical Hoosier teenager in LaPorte, Indiana and going to its public High School, graduating in 1922. These little known years, of Sam Gilmour the child becoming Isamu Noguchi a young man, shaped the spirit and the genius of this future world-famed artist. We will expand this backstory in these spaces here. Academics, Scholars and Curators, and 4th-grade teachers of History everywhere will be grateful.

Previous misinformation dominated our perception of Noguchi’s education as though a foreign child was sent to America from Japan by his mother to the progressive, private Interlaken Boarding School in Rolling Prairie, Indiana. Not So--this had been true, but that School was suddenly closed (in a rush by the US Army with the unrealized intent to be converted into a WW I training facility; but the War ended before the training camp could be established) at just about the time of his lonely transcontinental arrival. Befriended then by its progressive educator and former owner, Dr. Rumely, the thirteen year-old was placed with the local Dr. Mack family in nearby LaPorte. So, the American-born Noguchi became assimilated back into our culture as a Hoosier in the Midwestern state of Indiana. The rest is history, but not fully told (see our previous pages throughout for details). “Mark Twain” where are you when we need telling such an improbable tale?

Noguchi’s formidable Indiana experiences will be an explosive note in American Arts history.

“I am a Hoosier too” Noguchi said.

the Transcendence of Light--seemingly transporting us outside of our selves--AKARI

Mon, 23 Mar 2009 13:37:07 -0400

TEEN ADVISORY BOARD, the Noguchi Museum

Fri, 13 Mar 2009 21:18:39 -0400

“The Teen Advisory Board has been busier than ever recently: we've been working with artist Mitch Cope on the Tree of Heaven project that has seemingly engulfed the Noguchi Museum. We've said farewell to the monumental ailanthus ("Tree of Heaven") tree that existed for so many years in the center of the museum's garden, but welcomed the new products that will arise from the wood that remains. TAB has been documenting the whole process of the project by means of audio recordings, which will be broadcast in the near future with oversight of the artist collective/project Neighborhood Public Radio.”

TWO LYRES, logo for NYCB

Fri, 13 Mar 2009 18:09:02 -0400

“This is the logo for New York City Ballet, designed by Isamu Noguchi. How cool is that?” says Kristin Sloan, their New Media Director.

The IU Art Museum as Critical Muse: “Reinventing", "Redefining" Education...Portals of Transparency --an Homage to Isamu Noguchi

Wed, 4 Mar 2009 12:30:18 -0500

Lifelong Learners as taxpayers, and generally as stakeholders in the commonwealth, may be faced with the challenge of getting access to treasures from the dimly lit vaults of yesteryear, where old-fashioned Educators may be serving as de-facto gatekeepers.

This may require that new qualifications for the Curators of academic museums [but not research collections] be changed and rewritten so that the acquired, evaluated treasures be shepherded with an attitude that Education is a proffered service to the commonwealth and not seen as a guarded, protected or restricted function for only the "chosen" few.

Again, powerful digital tools can provide inexpensive and effective access that Traditionalists are not familiar with. Seriously-- the new transparency of the Digital Age requires us to dial down our natural instinct to impose our self-importance in publicly visible situations.

As old-fashioned Contrarians like myself found out, such changes are easier to come by through the time-honored Chronological process, as I was assured (to my doubting disbelief) by my own college Profs way back when segregation, racism and discrimination ruled the land. Meanwhile we old-fashionedistas “just fade away”.

Here is a current example I've been pursuing for a year and half: Several years ago as I was just beginning to flounder around in the thicket of ignorance surrounding Isamu Noguchi’s pivotal years in Indiana, a very helpful Curator at the Indiana University Art Museum not only introduced me to their landmark 1970 catalogue of “Noguchi & Rickey & Smith: an exhibition of sculpture in honor of the Sesquicentennial of Indiana University” but gave me a copy, which later I determined to be hard to get and obscure. I recently replaced that copy, of which I had lost track after lending it to an IU art student friend, for a price of $99 from the used-book market (editor note: btw, notice the unusual circulation here).

Recently I was prompted to revisit the item more thoroughly. In the annals of Indiana Arts it is a landmark presentation. I’ll leave it to IU to adequately honor its importance, but briefly it is a loving presentation by Thomas T. Solley (his great-uncle, J.K. Lilly, founded IU’s Lilly Library) the distinguished, long-time Director of the IU Art Museum, of a trio of the greatest sculptors, Hoosiers all.

“Reinventing” education ... Senior picture of Isamu Noguchi, LaPorte High School graduate - 1922

Sat, 21 Feb 2009 02:52:44 -0500

Mary Margaret Schroeder, a graduate of IU’s Herron School, had prepared, a few years back (about 1996) an Indiana University SCS extension course 31H for Art History and Appreciation: The Visual Experience: Isamu Noguchi. This could have, would've, should've been an important and timely introduction to fellow Hoosier high school students of Noguchi's legacy. It was ideal in that it had strong, useful and enlightened references to Noguchi. Unfortunately, IU has lost track of any of this record, even though I had found and re-Linked to her outline of this back in 2006. It seems info, records, even treasures cannot be resurrected from the dimly lit vaults of yesteryear by unwilling gatekeepers even in this digital age. What a waste... I suspect a powerful search could rescue this, but such is beyond my capability--but not beyond my curiosity as a lifelong learner.

IU SCS extension.edu HS Arts; 31H
http://www.ulib.iupui.edu/imls/ Page Not Found IUPUI University Library
http://www.extend.indiana.edu/courses/art/art31h/AbtAuth.htm

IMA adds premiere sculptures to IUPUI campus

Fri, 20 Feb 2009 02:04:16 -0500

“The Indianapolis Museum of Art announced today that four pieces of outdoor sculpture in its collection will be provided on long-term loan to Indiana University-Purdue University Indianapolis. The four works will be on view throughout the school’s campus in downtown Indianapolis.”

From our own narrow perspective, this would also be a splendid setting for a renewed tribute to Isamu Noguchi in honor of his four years of going to High School in Indiana as a typical Hoosier teenager.he IMA were relocated to the IUPUI campus in late January. The final piece of sculpture will be relocated in March 2009.

Noguchi “Playscape” in Atlanta

Fri, 20 Feb 2009 00:57:30 -0500

Also see great playground and landscape discussions in LandscapeOnline.com

The Gap Between Art and Life

Tue, 17 Feb 2009 03:26:14 -0500

The Gap Between Art and Life
By Lily Glover
A few images from her animation of the Isamu Noguchi space on SketchUP, February 16, 2009.

Habitable Wall Presentation

Noguchi: Artmaking as it relates to Life

Sun, 15 Feb 2009 01:36:11 -0500

NYC’s Renaissance Charter K12 School -- Learning to Look 2008-2009:
“Learning to Look is a collaborative program of the Noguchi Museum and The Renaissance Charter School now in its third year. The teachers and teens involved this season meet once a week to explore ideas and methodologies concerning the way they look at art and the world around them. Join the teens as they become more informed as art audiences and as art makers. See how the way in which they look at and engage the world around them develops throughout the year.”

superb On-Line resources for exploring Noguchi

Thu, 15 Jan 2009 03:58:36 -0500

highly communicative: direct, fast, easy-access, graphic, inexpensive, often scarce, valuable --

ARTCYCLOPEDIA
The Noguchi Museum
Flickr
NoguchiBlog
Architectural Ruminations

* * *
Desktop Media Alternatives...for Higher Education 1992
It is with real satisfaction that I, with colleagues, prepared for the Indiana Commission for Higher Education a report and demonstrations to be published and presented that critically forecast the tools like those outlined at top above that now give us “powerful, inexpensive, highly interactive, individually controlled for self-pacing, suitable for independent studies, and distance learning -- and ultimately empowering to the learner.” It is only fitting that we as earlier forecasters now ultimately reap those benefits as life-long learners ourselves.

sculpting Indiana landscapes--Maya Lin, Isamu Noguchi...

Tue, 13 Jan 2009 06:30:54 -0500

GoTo page HERE--
Sculpting Indiana landscapes: Maya Lin, Isamu Noguchi...

images of Noguchi’s Art around Indiana ...

Fri, 17 Oct 2008 09:26:07 -0400

GoTo: “images around Indiana” page...
for images of Noguchi Art found around Indiana, with Links.

Little She

Sun, 28 Sep 2008 14:58:10 -0400

“Little She” 1966, sold Sothesby’s 9/10/08, $134,000.

the Challenge ...

Fri, 12 Sep 2008 09:43:27 -0400

the Challenge ...
Isamu Noguchi, unexamined ...

[image shown here is reputed to be a Noguchi drawing published in his 1922 LaPorte HS yearbook; with the telling signature of “I. Gilmour”, his given name, on lower right. We’re working hard to get a better copy of the image.]

A not insignificant benefit of his prodigious output, to those in awe of his prodigious talent, is the volume of material to be examined, studied, interpreted and enjoyed. The drawings, watercolors and prints on paper, were early or late? ... 1920s or 1970s?

What we have here above, in a drawing by an 18 year-old, may be a precursor to much of his reflective insights as he develops the Noguchi vocabulary of life, its existence and anticipations ... What could be called his “flat work”--drawings, sketches, watercolors and prints--appear to be a large uncharted territory. Some additional representative examples have appeared below-- IMA’s “Flower”, IU Art Museum’s “Flower Forms” ...

In this large uncharted territory, there appear to be few reference resources, even at the Noguchi Museum. If you have suggested resources, lets post them here.

Isamu Noguchi and the spirits of the
Northwest Territories ... Woodlands, Wetlands, Prairies ... As a keen observer and master of reflection ... in his youthful tenure and later sojourns ... of the then still detectable remnants--earthwork sculptures--of the Mississippian and Hopewell cultures, the earliest Native American peoples

RESPONSE to “Comment” below:
Andrew--I'm working on getting a better copy of this image to help our interpretation. I feel it is more multi-figured than a tree. For instance, I sense a kneeling woman in the lower right.

I completely agree with your Dr Rumely and Leonie Gilmour influences here. However, Rumely's contacts with Noguchi were entirely subsequent to Interlaken... at LaPorte.

What we have here in these flatwork examples seem to be keyed to a large uncharted territory of his early works referenced to an abiding grounding of those naturalistic influences you cite. However, the scholarship on this early uncharted territory has been much too sparse. The powerful new tools of the Web, Digital Imaging, and Blog Journaling will do much to correct this.
Glenn Ralston

another Noguchi item, found in Indiana ...

Thu, 11 Sep 2008 04:10:14 -0400

Isamu Noguchi
FLOWER FORMS
Watercolor on paper
11 11/16 x 11 5/8 inches
#73.51
Copyright 2008 Indiana University Art Museum, Gift of Richard Young, Photo by Michael J. Cavanagh

RESPONSE to “Comment” below:
Andrew--Yes, it does closely resemble the Sea Lions sculpture in certain topical details.

When? See Comments above on "drawings, watercolors and prints ..." on how the Web, Digital Imaging, and Blog Journaling will do much to fill in the sparse scholarship to date.

Hoosier artist brings us "HOPE" ...

Wed, 3 Sep 2008 14:58:15 -0400

Hoosier artist Robert Indiana first brought us “LOVE”, and now “HOPE” ...
get your HOPE here http://store.barackobama.com/category_s/1031.htm
--“Robert Indiana decades ago created the pop icon LOVE, known worldwide with its letters stacked two to a line, the letter "o" tilted on its side. Now he has created a similar image with HOPE, with proceeds going to Democrat Barack Obama's presidential campaign. A stainless steel sculpture of the image was unveiled this week outside the Pepsi Center at the Democratic National Convention in Denver. The campaign is selling T-shirts, pins, bumper stickers and other items adorned with HOPE. Indiana would like to see his latest work become a symbol of newfound hope for Americans, and thinks an Obama presidency could bring just that. "There might be a chance we survive eight years of Bush, I don't know. That's where the hope comes in," he said in a phone interview from his home on Vinalhaven, an island off the Maine coast.”

Nature versus Nurture -- It may be instructive to look at the similar life styles shared by those famed sculptors Isamu Noguchi, Robert Indiana, David Smith, and George Rickey and the importance of growing up in Indiana. Are there common visionary qualities in their sculptural reflections that reveal a Hoosier sensibility of the epochal changes of the 20th Century as they felt them?

SEE more on Indiana roots and Hoosier background of famed artist ROBERT INDIANA;

GREAT 20th Century Hoosier Artists

Multiples Editions of Noguchi Sculptures

Tue, 29 Jul 2008 13:57:36 -0400

The Gemini G.E.L. Online Catalogue Raisonne of the National Gallery of Art shows more than 25 images of Noguchi’s galvanized steel sculptures in limited editions.

Yes We Can ...

Mon, 21 Jul 2008 15:15:30 -0400

"You can't just come in and take pictures of it in the gallery" says an earnest and distinguished Curator at the IU Art Museum of Indiana University.

But wouldn't it be an interesting proposition for discussion that Museums can now for-see their destiny as being inviting portals for the ordinary person to engage the extraordinary treasures of his and her culture. Until recently, Museums were bastions for their own treasures to which the admirer had to be invited or had to scale the gates in order to share their wonders.

Yes we can ...

The Indianapolis Museum of Art helpfully extends the direction of this kind of discussion in their IMA BLOG: "... Photo flash is prohibited for general visitors, though we do allow limited use by the media, with close scrutiny from our Conservation staff. Think back to Mom’s new sofa. If it sat by a sunny window for a few years it would look faded and drab, just like our art would if we allowed flash photography.
Speaking of photography … we only allow photos of our permanent collection, so no pics in the special exhibits or in the third floor Contemporary galleries, and no tripods, bipods, or monopods, thank you. Why, you might ask? Hell, I don’t know. I’d have better luck explaining the Golden Ratio than I would Copyright Law and our Rights & Reproduction guidelines. Suffice it to say that we don’t want photos of our collection showing up in places not of our choosing. ..."

In the “Cloud of Knowledge” as in the “Fog of War” things are not always as they seem. So, when “We” think about it, why is that: “Not of Our Choosing”... be considered a legitimate function of publicly chartered Museums?

In a somewhat related observation, note that the Noguchi Museum uses heavy Web exposure to bring the access to their treasures to the rest of us. This function nicely bridges the New Age philosophy of "Flowers to the People" with our emerging and ubiquitous Digital Lifestyle.

Hanneoria says “Good job that many museums around the world now permit us photographing their exhibitions, so I can share collections with others ... [Flickr]. Hopefully, artists and architects appreciate their works being shown to a wider audience. However, if anyone is unhappy about having his or her art displayed on Flickr please email me, and I'll remove it.”
 NOTE: Annual Conference on Museums and the Web to be in Indianapolis, April 15-18, 2009. Museums and the Web addresses the social, cultural, design, technological, economic, and organizational issues of culture, science and heritage on-line. Taking an international perspective, the MW program reviews and analyzes the issues and impacts of networked cultural, natural and scientific heritage.

Yes we can ...

‘'Thought is more imperishable than ever; it is volatile, irresistible,
and indestructible. It pervades the air...Now she [virtual printing] is
a flock of birds, flies abroad to all the four winds of heaven, and
occupies at once all the points of air and of space...' Victor Hugo

Noguchi at Yorkshire Sculpture Park, UK

Fri, 18 Jul 2008 09:04:30 -0400

Isamu Noguchi at Yorkshire Sculpture Park: Noguchi and Iconic Designers

"... Yorkshire Sculpture Park is one of the few places in the world able to provide the gallery and landscape context to fully appreciate the breadth and diversity of Noguchi’s work. Noguchi and Iconic Designers is part of a larger exhibition which includes a magnificent outdoor display of Noguchi’s monumental stone carvings ranging in size from 25 tonnes to small interior works, ceramics, set designs, drawings, models and works on paper."

the idea revealed ...

Sun, 13 Jul 2008 09:36:22 -0400

“FIGURE EMERGING”
Artist Noguchi, Isamu
nationality American
birth-death 1904-1988
Creation date 1982-1983
Materials Galvanized Steel
Dimensions 71 x 22 x 14 in.
Credit line Gift of Frank C. Springer, Jr. in memory of his wife, Irving Moxley Springer
Accession number 1991.349
Copyright © The Isamu Noguchi Foundation and Garden Museum, New York/Artists Rights Society (ARS), New York

Indianapolis Museum of Art; IMA

Gemini G.E.L. Catalogue of Noguchi Multiples

Isabel, Nadja, “Undine” ...

Mon, 16 Jun 2008 09:23:47 -0400

Isabel, Nadja, “Undine” ...
[interview excerpts ...] PAUL CUMMINGS: What about the Leonardo da Vinci Art School? That sounds as if it was the first time that you started doing things on your own.
ISAMU NOGUCHI: Yes. Well, that was more serious, I mean, in the sense that it was sort of an art school which was started in this old church on Tompkins Square on the corner. The red church building is still there. At that time it was an art school. It had been started by the Italian group, the Piccarelli brothers. The director was Onorio Ruotolo.
... There was a whole group of Italians interested in art. Of course it was academic art, but what else was there in those days? There wasn’t anything else. So, as I explained in my book, I became an apprentice to Ruotolo and had very little to so with the school. I mean I was at the school maybe three months altogether. The rest of the time I was his apprentice. He more or less promoted me.
PAUL CUMMINGS: Did he have a studio that you worked in?
ISAMU NOGUCHI: Yes. He had a studio on Fourteenth Street near Union Square. He was a Neapolitan, very handsome, with flashy eyes. He was a pupil of Gemito. He took it into his head to make me into a sculptor. I remember the first summer I was with him I helped him illustrate John Macy’s book on The History of Man. He made some sort of pseudo woodcuts. You see, after I had been at school for a short while, I asked Ruotolo is I would work for him. He paid me to work for him so I was able to quit my job as a waiter in a restaurant. Also, I quite Columbia and became a sculptor.
PAUL CUMMINGS: Did you have drawing classes or anything at the school?
... ISAMU NOGUCHI: Yes. Sure. All those things.
PAUL CUMMINGS: And then you went right into making –
ISAMU NOGUCHI: Yes. And then he sort of promoted me into making sculptures. Within three months I had an exhibition at the Leonardo da Vinci Art School. He promoted me in the sense that he would call a news conference for instance. I haven’t called a news conference since those days. He would call up the newspapers and all these reporters would come traipsing in and we would have a news conference. It can be done, you know. I haven’t done it since but I’m sure that’s the way things are done in Washington – you call news conference and everybody comes.
...
PAUL CUMMINGS: What appealed to you, though, in the working in his studio and doing things for him?
ISAMU NOGUCHI: It was a quick way of doing sculptures, a quick, academic way of doing sculpture. He taught me all the tricks. Of course, they were of no use to me afterward but I found out how to make things quickly.
PAUL CUMMINGS: But I mean the activity must have appealed to you in some way.
ISAMU NOGUCHI: Well, it was a lot better than being a doctor. You know, I was fed up with taking the premedical course at Columbia. I liked the life around there. Downstairs in the building was Sandy Calder’s father – Sterling Calder. He had a studio there. He was a very handsome man, I didn’t know Sandy until later on, but I knew his father and mother. Later on in Paris I met Sandy.
...
ISAMU NOGUCHI: Well, I was at that one until I got the Guggenheim Fellowship in the spring of 1927 when I left.
PAUL CUMMINGS: What kinds of things did you do then? Because you hadn’t started doing heads.
ISAMU NOGUCHI: Well, I was doing heads. I was doing figures. I was doing a figure of a Russian girl named Nadja Nikolaiova – a head. She was a girl with a nice figure who danced in “the Serpent” [Eastern musical, dance] and in a club. She posed for me.
...
ISAMU NOGUCHI: Yes, that sort of thing. I got that through Ruotolo, as a matter of fact. Then I got other jobs to do, a head mostly. Because of Ruotolo’s beating the drum and so forth, I became a kind of celebrity at the National Sculpture Society and at the Architectural League. In those days, the Architectural League was very, very academic. In fact, everything was academic. And I was academic too. But then I changed at the age of twenty-one, so to speak. I was just twenty-two, as a matter of fact, when I went to Paris.
. . . .
courtesy Andrew Raimist, Apr 9 2007; excerpts of Paul Cummings interview of Noguchi for Smithsonian Institution on 7 Nov 1973.
http://www.aaa.si.edu/collections/oralhistories/transcripts/noguch73.htm

* * *
* http://blog.goo.ne.jp/madsaki571/e/80bbef7a1a34d3fca76e870909f1499e
MADSAKI

Technorati Profile

Sat, 14 Jun 2008 16:24:07 -0400

<a href="http://technorati.com/claim/2niyby5ji" rel="me">Technorati Profile</a>

Isamu Noguchi

the Hoosier Chronicles of the Sojourner Artist, Isamu Noguchi

Tue, 29 Apr 2008 06:51:05 -0400

This is reputed to be an image of a watercolor painting by Isamu Noguchi at the Indianapolis Museum of Art. The image itself may be a cropped photographic reproduction, since it is further identified elsewhere as similar to "a small watercolor very much like this, but it is not identical to" one at the IMA museum.

--across the ocean,
                         over the hills,
                                                   through the trees ...
Andrew L W Raimist, AIA: Remiss63    says:
“...this is a painting by Noguchi from 1925? i've never seen anything like it!” Posted 4 months ago. ( permalink )

http://www.flickr.com/photos/hanneorla/sets/72157602729586569/
2007 Indianapolis Museum of Modern Art (IMA), Indanapolis,
Indiana set by Hanneorla

***
Isamu Noguchi “Flower” 1925, IMA, Indianapolis, Indiana

“The Sea Lions”

Sat, 12 Apr 2008 14:59:55 -0400

NEW: I have just arranged for new images, previously unavailable, of Noguchi's bronze "Sea Lions" sculpture at LaPorte High School, Indiana to be freely available to you and others for non-commercial use. I've also made a modest contribution to the LPHS school funds in recognition of their honoring their illustrious graduate's place in the Art World.

As they are shown on my Web pages, moderate resolution images can be copied from off the page or sent by email. For educational, informational, non-commercial purposes under Creative Commons coverage, please attribute to "Courtesy Glenn Ralston".
http://web.mac.com/gralston/NOGUCHI/NoguchiBlog/NoguchiBlog.html

Higher resolution copies of these same images, and more, can be obtained directly from the professional photographer "Chris Randall Photography" at their reasonable rates, for non-commercial purposes.
http://www.chrisrandallphotography.com/

Glenn Ralston
EnvironMedia

emeritus trustee
MoMI: Museum of the Moving Image

'Thought is more imperishable than ever; it is volatile, irresistible,
and indestructible. It pervades the air...Now she [virtual printing] is
a flock of birds, flies abroad to all the four winds of heaven, and
occupies at once all the points of air and of space...' Victor Hugo

WOW! :: a prodigal Hoosier spirit of "Appalachian Spring meets Pacific Overture" ... [photo: Ben Cohen]

Thu, 27 Mar 2008 05:15:52 -0400

a prodigal Hoosier spirit of "Appalachian Spring meets Pacific Overture"... Would it be destiny for the Muse of noted Hoosier sculptor Isamu Noguchi, to return to Indiana as the fabled water sprite "Undine"?
When the very young Mr. Gilmour-Noguchi -- as only a lad -- traipsed alone across the Pacific ocean during WWI by steamship and through the American rolling prairie by train and by foot to La Porte Indiana, he was destined to later meet his muse “Undine”, even as he created her...

SEE various “Undine” views ...

SEE previously--”rendezvous...”

rendezvous with Noguchi’s “Undine” ... [photo: Ben Cohen]

Wed, 26 Mar 2008 06:06:32 -0400

A rendezvous with Noguchi's historic bronze "Undine" sculpture ...
Greg Kuharic's account, below, of the improbable fairie tale twist in the destiny of this classic bronze by the "famed Hoosier" sculptor has left me speechless.

Noguchi's "Undine"
photo above: Ben Cohen
"Hi Glenn, I was Googling some Noguchi references and came across your NoguchiBlog. I have never been one to spend any time on blogs, but some of your comments and observations are very interesting for me. I am the purchaser of the bronze, Undine, which I have now put on loan to the Noguchi Museum, for the exhibition, "The Full Figure and Portraiture". I was simply blown away by the beauty of the sculpture when I first saw it at Freeman's. My undergraduate degrees are in Ceramics and Sculpture and I spent one career as a full-time studio potter before moving to New York to spend another career as an expert in 19th and 20th Century Decorative Arts at Sotheby's. In that capacity, I handled a great deal of 19th and 20th century bronze sculpture. When I first saw the figure at Freeman's, while I was consulting there, (I left Sotheby's in 2003), they had not yet identified it, since it was so corroded and the signature on the base was barely visible. Haunted by the figure, I waited for the sale to take place and did some preliminary research once it was identified.

As both an artist and art dealer and as someone who appreciates all of the attributes of a great work of art, I realized that this represented an amazing opportunity to acquire an object of great rarity. A unique, thought-to-be-lost, masterpiece by one of the most important sculptors of the 20th century, produced by a towering talent at the precocious and energetic age of 22! Astonishing! I was amazed that I was the successful bidder. By the way, my mother grew up and was raised in Rolling Prairie, Indiana. Her parents and grandparents were farmers in the area. Immigrants from Sweden, some of the uncles undoubtedly worked as machinists in the Rumely Tractor factories in LaPorte. I was born and raised in South Bend/Mishawaka, attended school there and later went to Ball State and then Indiana University, Bloomington. So it very much made sense that this "Hoosier" boy ended up acquiring an artwork by another "Hoosier"!

I was contacted by the museum through Freeman's, and made the offer of the loan directly to them. As a result of that dialogue, Undine, now beautifully restored, is being premiered as she was originally meant to be seen and in what I think is the most appropriate venue. There are still a few major questions to be answered in terms of the model, history, and provenance, but it is hoped time, patience and research will help to provide those answers."
Gregory A. Kuharic
Decorative and Fine Arts Consultant/Potter
gkuharic@nyc.rr.com

SEE various “Undine” views ...

My “AMAZON.com” Noguchi reviews ...

Sun, 2 Mar 2008 13:01:36 -0500

Relocated: Twenty...Sculptures from Japan

Isamu Noguchi: A Sculpture for Sculpture

Isamu Noguchi: Master Sculptor

Noguchi & Rickey & Smith

The Life of Isamu Noguchi: Journey without Borders

Isamu Noguchi (Modern Masters Series)

Isamu Noguchi

Noguchi East and West

http://www.books-sales.com/noguchi-east-and-west

Masterworks from the Indiana University Art Museum

Tue, 26 Feb 2008 10:40:05 -0500

“Richly illustrated with more than 160 full-color plates, Masterworks from the Indiana University Art Museum presents a selection of the finest works from one of the best university art museums in the world. Included are examples from the full range of world cultures collected by the museum: Africa, the Ancient Western World, Asia, Ancient America, the South Pacific, and Western Art before and after 1800. The entry accompanying each piece, by the curator of that collection, sketches the cultural context within which the object was created and used and describes the unique qualities that make it a masterpiece.”

This is a masterpiece catalogue of the Arts at Indiana University, including the stunningly beautiful color photo of Noguchi’s marble sculpture “Pisa” on page 359. This “Pisa” sculpture was also featured in IU AM’s 1970 landmark exhibition “Noguchi & Rickey & Smith”.

a little help here please ...

Mon, 25 Feb 2008 06:30:23 -0500

a little help here please -- like a few of us, I sometimes have difficulty following linear instructions, like in technical manuals ...

Could someone help here by posting the simple instruction required for Search Engines to easily pick up this URL for the “NoguchiBlog” that is “universally” recognizable.
THANKS ...
Glenn Ralston

“Honoring Noguchi, Renowned Sculptor ...”

Sun, 17 Feb 2008 01:35:42 -0500

Honoring Noguchi, Renowned Sculptor
by Barbara Stodola, “The Beacher” November 25, 2004, Michigan City , Indiana
pp. 33-35

http://www.bbpnet.com/pdf/2004/BeacherNov25.pdf

SEA LIONS
LaPorte High School

LPHS 1922 Yearbook,
Noguchi drawing

Martha Graham: Dance on Film

Fri, 25 Jan 2008 15:40:55 -0500

Editorial Reviews
“One of the great artistic forces of the twentieth century, performer, choreographer, and teacher Martha Graham influenced dance worldwide. Criterion presents a sampling of her stunning craft, all collaborations with television arts-programming pioneer Nathan Kroll. A Dancer’s World (1957), narrated by Graham herself, is a glimpse into her class work and methodology. Appalachian Spring (1959)* and Night Journey (1961)* are two complete Graham ballets, the first a celebration of the American pioneer spirit, scored by Aaron Copeland, the second a powerfully physical rendering of the Oedipus myth. These are signature Graham works and tributes to the art of the human body.”

*Each of these with Noguchi’s famously stunning, original sets, here in full dance time ...

* * *
* Of thee I dance: America’s enduring ‘Spring’ fling Charlottesville Daily Progress - Charlottesville,VA,USA Sculptor Isamu Noguchi, who collaborated with Graham for three decades, created the set. Composer Aaron Copland penned the music, for which he won the ...

UPDATE: “Undine”

Thu, 24 Jan 2008 14:56:52 -0500

Full Figure and Portraiture 1926-1941 On view at The Noguchi Museum February 13, 2008 – January 2009

“The Noguchi Museum exhibits a full figure bronze sculpture, entitled Undine (Nadja), in its first public exhibition since the 1920s. Isamu Noguchi’s unique vision emerged in response to the Western figurative traditions and techniques he experienced firsthand in the workshop of the sculptor Gutzon Borglum and through his mentor, Onorio Ruotolo. Organized around Undine, this exhibit also highlights a selection of portrait busts from the permanent collection which illustrate Noguchi’s growing confidence owing to his formative academic training and a natural gift for incisive portraiture.”

SEE various “Undine” views ...
SEE earlier “Undine” comments:
UNDINE

“Undine” reflections ...

GoTo Undine reflections ...

SOLD $155,000, life-size bronze "Undine" by Noguchi

first, the captivating snapshot ...

FLICKR: the ISAMU NOGUCHI photo pool

Fri, 28 Dec 2007 17:49:16 -0500

http://www.flickr.com/groups/isamunoguchi/pool/
(more than 400 slides)
Courtesy Remiss63: Andrew Raimist

SEE Andrew Raimist’s own Noguchi photo selection
art::Noguchi

hanneoria photostream

Todd Oldham’s Isamu Noguchi video essay

Mon, 17 Dec 2007 10:32:24 -0500

http://www.low-density.com/2007/12/16/todd-oldhams-handmade-modern-isamu-noguchi-essay/

... Designs, such as the classic Noguchi coffee table

Noguchi, Rickey, Smith at the IU Art Museum, renewed focus

Thu, 29 Nov 2007 08:43:33 -0500

NOGUCHI & RICKEY & SMITH
New Focus, updated
We are grateful that IU’s lawyers are bringing new focus to the 1970 IU Art Museum catalogue. In paying much closer attention to this landmark Art Museum publication, I notice several additional circumstances. George Rickey’s family returned to Scotland when he was a youngster.

Both George Rickey and David Smith were in the forefront of Constructivist Theory in modern art. Perhaps reflecting the early, expanding 20th Century industrialism of their shared Midwestern background. Indeed, Noguchi (Gilmour) also occasionally flirted with Constructivist principles, bringing authentication to the idea of shared backgrounds. It is no coincidence that Scottish influence pervades the invention of “agriculture machinery” at the time of knitting mills and later. The industrial agriculture inventiveness of the surnamed McCormick, McAllister, Massey, Moline, Ferguson, Ford, Deere (Welsh), Whitney (English), Allis, Chalmers and Mack... is obvious. Here we’ve glossed over nature vs. nurture and genetic vs. geo-political to simply recognize the cultural affinities for the purpose of this forum, and view them as precedents for this trio’s Constructivism.

IU’s NOGUCHI & RICKEY & SMITH, 1970

Tue, 20 Nov 2007 14:27:48 -0500

NOGUCHI & RICKEY & SMITH

Several years ago as I was just beginning to flounder around in the thicket of ignorance surrounding Noguchi’s years in Indiana, a very helpful curator at the Indiana University Art Museum not only introduced me to their landmark 1970 catalogue but gave me a copy, which later I determined to be hard to get and obscure. I recently replaced that copy, of which I had lost track after lending it to an IU art student friend, for a price of $99 from the used-book market (ed note: btw, notice this circulation here).

Having just now gotten into a dispute with a unit of Indiana University for somehow “misusing” this information, I was prompted to revisit the item more thoroughly. In the annals of Indiana Arts it is a landmark presentation. I’ll leave it to IU to adequately honor its importance, but briefly it is a loving presentation by Thomas T. Solley (his great-uncle, Josiah K. Lilly, founded IU’s Lilly Library) the distinguished, long-time director of the IU Art Museum, of a trio of the greatest sculptors, Hoosiers all.

“NOGUCHI & RICKEY & SMITH
An exhibition of sculpture in honor of the
Sesquicentennial of Indiana University
Organized by Thomas T. Solley with
Catalogue by Daniel Mato

November 8--December 13, 1970
Indiana University Art Museum
Bloomington, Indiana
Indiana University Art Museum Publication 1970/4
cr Copyright Indiana University Art Museum, Bloomington, Indiana, 1970”
[53pp, 36b&w, 8.5X10”]

It is a primal document for Indiana Arts of several of the greatest sculptors of the 20th Century. It is further distinguished by describing those individuals--Isamu Noguchi, George Rickey, David Smith--born at about the same time, of being raised in similar, small Midwestern cities, and sharing the same Hoosier ethos. With 53 pages, 36 b&w photos, and sized 8.5 by 10 inches, it is a great introduction into 20th Century artistic sensibilities as felt by former Hoosiers. This is stuff that Indiana University and the IU Art Museum could beautifully and timely repurpose with a 21st Century palette.

Proper Use?

Thu, 15 Nov 2007 13:48:36 -0500

As we saw earlier ... an issue has been surprisingly raised by a unit of Indiana University as to whether this Website properly uses [?], attributes [?], or references [?] IU’s published materials. Actually a demand was made to “immediately cease” ...

This is puzzling to us. We are lifelong learners and were generally assuming educational issues were covered under fair use and freedom of speech principles, let alone obligations for dissemination of public information and education. As matters are presently, it may require waiting until legal discoveries are pursued to determine what presumed merits are at stake.

In the meantime, in a spirit of inquiry we continue distributing whatever info presents itself on Isamu Noguchi’s fascinating years of growing up in Indiana.

And we were worried that perhaps nobody was paying attention.

Now, here is the Web page cited:
http://web.mac.com/gralston/NOGUCHI/noguchiIUAM.html

And here is one of my earlier notes on the same, identical subject (could this have sparked such an exceptional demand?) --
http://web.mac.com/gralston/NOGUCHI/NoguchiBlog/Entries/2007/4/13_the_Gatekeeper%E2%80%99s_PRIDE_....html

"the Gatekeeper’s PRIDE ... Recently I encountered the following:
"... if you are interested in the [subject in question]..., first of all, the [subject item] is hardly obscure or difficult to find. If you need a copy, it is available in at least 45 university and museum libraries nationwide."

I have been tracking info about this item for several years, and have made several dozens of attempts over that time to find such titled resources from among the appropriate, scattered data files with absolutely meager to nonexistent results. In a nation of 300 million and across 50 states, asserting that 45 copies--paper not digital--are in unnamed locations does not reach a threshold of useful advice.

This is an attitude I've not generally encountered since the young professionals emerging from the '60s generation became prevalent among the staffs of cultural institutions. But, I gotta say this is occasionally characteristic of some otherwise great Midwestern institutions lagging behind the times. It is a holdover from the misplaced pride in themselves that "Gatekeepers" too often assume in any endeavor. We can do better."
GR

And here is another, even earlier note, on more IU citations:
http://web.mac.com/gralston/NOGUCHI/NoguchiBlog/Entries/2006/4/8_I.U._references_....html

IU Image Use Policy

“STOP--In the Name of [Deleted]”

Sat, 3 Nov 2007 08:12:30 -0400

University sues...? -- must SEE: legal notice to immediately cease unauthorized use of intellectual property ...

The other day I had to sign four times for a $5.38 certified US mail notice sent me from an unfamiliar entity that sounded to me like a gift offer from a Winery...Sommelier`Bonnard. Obviously, not to be. It was from a legal firm representing a famous University.

It said, in part
"... we require that you provide... including removing the infringing Website from the World Wide Web;
... you will not use ... any other intellectual property owned by IU... "
"... immediate and voluntary"

So, what does one do? Let's rule out discussion, since there was no invitation to do so, nor obvious way to pursue that. The most direct response was to review the circumstances as I knew them, look for corrective and proper actions on my part and offer that up.

Now, on my designated Website I had posted a "Notice for Educational Use Only." That is intended for the widest possible fair-use meaning and application. I couldn't provide a Link to their site, as is usually customary, because they have not posted a Web page. Indeed it can't be found except from my posting. There are no monies involved. I made a great effort to properly attribute sources. My honorable intentions from my neck of the woods, based on sensitivity to the subject, were to more widely spread public knowledge, good cheer, and thoughtfulness.

What to do? As always, I am open for discussions and suggestions.
Glenn Ralston, gralston@mac.com

Now, here is the Web page cited:
http://web.mac.com/gralston/NOGUCHI/noguchiIUAM.html

And here is one of my earlier notes on the same, identical subject--
http://web.mac.com/gralston/NOGUCHI/NoguchiBlog/Entries/2007/4/13_the_Gatekeeper%E2%80%99s_PRIDE_....html

"the Gatekeeper’s PRIDE ... Recently I encountered the following:
"... if you are interested in the [subject in question]..., first of all, the [subject item] is hardly obscure or difficult to find. If you need a copy, it is available in at least 45 university and museum libraries nationwide."

I have been tracking info about this item for several years, and have made several dozens of attempts over that time to find such titled resources from among the appropriate, scattered data files with absolutely meager to nonexistent results. In a nation of 300 million and across 50 states, asserting that 45 copies--paper not digital--are in unnamed locations does not reach a threshold of useful advice.

This is an attitude I've not generally encountered since the young professionals emerging from the '60s generation became prevalent among the staffs of cultural institutions. But, I gotta say this is occasionally characteristic of some otherwise great Midwestern institutions lagging behind the times. It is a holdover from the misplaced pride in themselves that "Gatekeepers" too often assume in any endeavor. We can do better."
GR

In earlier years, I had previously posted these expanded comments about the same, specific item:

http://web.mac.com/gralston/NOGUCHI/NoguchiBlog/Entries/2006/9/2_IU_Art_Museum%2C_1970.html

http://web.mac.com/gralston/NOGUCHI/NoguchiBlog/Entries/2006/3/3_..._and_so%2C_%22What_If%22_Indiana_University_celebrated_..._.html

We’ve posted far more materials here about the general subject than can be found at complainant’s site. And all of these, except for my own commentary that I identify, emphasize original sources.

Art History ... “through the Noguchi Lens...”

Sun, 14 Oct 2007 02:12:36 -0400

Here is another fundamental way the singular Noguchi legacy profoundly affects our sensibilities. The previous mention of fellow Hoosier Eleanor Lambert’s relationship with Noguchi led me back to Nancy Grove’s book “...Portrait Sculpture”. At the time I had been surveying Noguchi’s body of work, its expanse led me to shy away from Grove’s book simply because of merely personal feelings of its being esoteric, too precious...
Now, looking at the Lambert mention there led me through the portal of seeing how profound his insights, how acute his execution, how it accentuated my personal feeling of his work as “...being graced by the hand of God.”

“Through the Noguchi Lens” ... a transcendental view of Indiana History

Sat, 6 Oct 2007 14:45:18 -0400

the visionary "Portal", a Hoosier Effect ...
In what ways did the "Hoosier Effect" affect Noguchi?

(Always, as usual, through the Looking-Glass --
Using the Noguchi lens, Indiana History could rightfully be updated and revised. What we have here is a new chapter in profoundly revealing an otherwise obscure... )

"La porte", the French name of his American hometown means "portal", named there by the French fur traders, trading with the Native Americans of the 1700s, in what would later be the Northwest Territories--from the Eastern Woodlands onto the rolling prairies of the greater Midwest.
http://www.sculpturecenter.org/oosi/sculpture.asp?SID=158
http://virtualglobetrotting.com/map/39643/

History of La Porte
“In the 1670's, French explorers came to the area that was to later become La Porte County, from the north along the shores of Lake Michigan. This area had long been part of the Pottawatomie Nation which covered the distance from the Wabash River on the south to Lake Michigan on the north. The French explorers and fur traders that passed this way as well as the many settlers that came after them made use of a wide Indian trail that passed through the forest to the next prairie. This opening from forest to prairie was a legendary kind of passageway or door for these early pioneers and the French called this place "La Porte" which is French for "the Door." “
The Story of the Rolling Prairie Post Office Murals These murals depict a history of the town and surrounding area.
***
the visionary "Portal" -- a Hoosier effect
a. from Eastern Woodlands to Rolling Prairies
b. from Pacific Overtures to Appalachian Spring
c. (our window on the world...) "... aren't we all different for having seen the Earth from the Moon?" --Margaret Mead
d. "... I saw something totally unknown in the art world -- an American phenomenon"; "... the idealism that flourished in the twenties and thirties ... this energy of the American frontier." --Noguchi
a. [under development...]

* -- *

THE PUBLIC HISTORIAN
Review: Indiana through Tradition and Change: A History of the Hoosier State and Its People, 1920-1945 by James H. Madison
The History of Indiana, Volume 5) Indianapolis: Indiana Historical Society, 1982; xvii + 453 pp., illustrations, maps, charts, tables, bibliographic essay, index; clothbound, $12. Reviewer: Ralph D. Gray, The Public Historian, Vol. 5, No. 4 (Autumn, 1983), pp. 126-128:

“Good state history is very difficult to write. How does one determine the audience; the proper balance among national, state and purely local developments; whether to emphasize that which is unique or that which is representative; and the way to treat semi-legendary figures fairly, neither exaggerating an already larger-than-life image nor assuming a debunker's stance? Additionally, how does one sort out sources, when historians have already treated some topics in monographic studies and ignored others of equal or greater importance? All of these difficulties are compounded, of course, when the period under discussion is within living memory of many potential readers and reviewers.

“To James H. Madison's considerable credit, he has managed to avoid the major pitfalls of the genre. He resolved the dilemmas of approach, emphasis, and sources satisfactorily; and he has produced a useful and impressive study. Madison's theme, in Indiana Through Tradition and Change, is change -- its extent, its impact, the frequent resistance to it -- in all walks of Hoosier life between the ends of World Wars I and II.

“He indicates this theme in his initial chapter, when he notes "contradictions" and alterations in the "Indiana idea," the popular image of Hoosierdom as a pleasant rural place peopled with friendly but shrewd individuals.

“... -- he carefully develops his theme without belaboring it. He thus offers a balanced and readable analysis of one state's occasionally tortuous passage through two and a half difficult decades.”

...