LIVING ART- A FILM BY DON FREEMAN PROJECT DESCRIPTION When Curzio Malaparte built his famous house on the island of Capri he created "A house like me". "This house, my portrait in stone". I believe that truly great architecture can come from the intuitive vision of artists. This film is about 12 American artists who designed and built their own homes, with the same skill and creativity they put into their art. Leda Kahn, who built Eliphante with her husband Michael Kahn told me "When we started to build living space, we decided to make it an art form". As an artist myself, and having first photographed the home of designer Russel Wright for the World of Interiors in 1999 I began a journey to find and photograph the homes of artists.		THE BOOK In the fall of 2011 Harry N. Abrams, will publish "Artists' Handmade Houses", a collection of my photographs of 13 of the 12 artists' homes in the film, with 265 pages of full-color photographs and 30 pages of text by writer Michael Gotkin. THE FILM The film "Living Art" will be divided into twelve 8-10 minute segments on each home, and will include on-camera and off-camera interviews and comments from curators, family and friends, and volunteers who donate their time to keep these places alive and open to the public. The film will also have an original soundtrack by New York composer Jaime Rudolph. THE ARTISTS GEORGE NAKASHIMA    NEW HOPE, PA WHARTON ESHERICK    PAOLI, PA		HENRY VARNUM POOR    NEW CITY, NY SAM MALOOF    ALTA LOMA, CA RUSSEL WRIGHT    GARRISON, NY FREDERIC EDWIN CHURCH    HUDSON, NY RAOUL HAGUE    WOODSTOCK, NY HENRY CHAPMAN MERCER    DOYLESTOWN, PA MICHAEL KAHN AND LEDA LIVANT    CORNVILLE, AZ PAOLO SOLERI    PARADISE VALLEY, AZ CONSTANTINO AND RUTH NIVOLA    AMAGANSETT, NY RALPH RADCLIFFE WHITEHEAD AND JANE BYRD    WOODSTOCK, NY		THE HOMES GEORGE NAKASHIMA (1905-1990) was a Japanese American woodworker and one of the leading innovators of 20th Century furniture design and a father of the American craft movement. In 1983, he accepted the Order of the Sacred Treasure, an honor bestowed by the emperor of Japan and the Japanese government. Nakashima's signature woodworking design was his large-scale tables made of large wood slabs with smooth tops but unfinished natural edges. He built his home and studio in New Hope, Pennsylvania listed on the U.S. National Register of Historic Places in August 2008. Mira Nakashima has extended the tradition of the George Nakashima Studio by producing the classic and traditional lines, and continuing the "Altars of Peace" project, his dream that if each were made for each continent of the world, as centers for meditation, prayer and activities for peace, the world would be a better place.
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WHARTON ESHERICK- Impressionist painter who studied at the Pennsylvania Academy of Fine Arts, Sculptor and father of the current studio-furniture movement built his studio and home in Chester County, near Philadelphia in three stages. From 1921 to 1941 and then in 1966. Wharton made (and decorated) absolutely everything possible, imaginatively drawing on the landscape around him, using the local wood and stone, constructing outbuildings, crafting furniture, carving utensils, a testament to the artist's dramatic vision. "If you want to know me, look at my work," he once said. The artist died in 1970. His Heirs and hundreds of friends have kept the studio intact: everything is polished and dusted, the landscape is still wooded and open to the public. HENRY VARNUM POOR (1888-1970)- Little heard of today, in the first half of the 20th Century, was considered one of this country's most important painters, living among a secluded colony of writers,		artists and assorted Hollywood glitterati in upstate New York. Crow House-where he felled his own timber and quarried his own stone to realize a home inspired by Arts and Crafts ideals-became the informal centre of this American Bloomsbury. Poor's versatility and lifelong involvement with pottery is also evident throughout Crow House: cups and bowls are visible on shelves, vases are set into niches and on table tops, and ceramic plates, rather than paintings, are hung on (and sometimes embedded into) the walls as decoration. As recently as last year, Crow house has been saved from ruin, a foundation has been established and work has begun on restoring and preserving this treasure. SAM MALOOF (1916-2009)- furniture designer and woodworker, became the first craftsman to receive a MacArthur fellowship but declined to identify himself as an artist. The Smithsonian Institution described him as "America's most renowned		contemporary furniture craftsman" and dubbed the "Hemingway of Hardwood" by People Magazine but his business card always said "woodworker". He built his home and studio and a suite of furniture for it using salvaged materials on a former citrus orchard in Alta Loma, California in 1953. Sam died one month after the trailer for "Living Art" was filmed. MANITOGA- the home of Russel Wright. The Great American designer created a home on an abandoned quarry in Garrison New York, that bears comparison with the best of Frank Lloyd Wright. "Home of the Great Spirit" may be the single superb example of ecological design in the United States says famous landscapist Ian McHarg. Wright opened his land to the public a year before he died, at the age of 72, in 1976. In 1997 Manitoga was listed on the National Register of Historic Places. The home is preserved and maintained by the Russel Wright Design Center realizing Wright's "goal to bring to		American culture an intimacy with nature." OLANA- The home of Frederic Edwin Church (1826-1900), one of America's most important artists, a student of Thomas Cole, and a major figure in the Hudson River School of landscape painting. Built high on a hill near Hudson, New York between 1870 and 1891, called by Church "The Center of the World," Olana's Persian style house and 250 acres are a masterpiece as grand as any of his paintings. It is now a New York State Historic Site, and National Historic Landmark, and one of the most popular tourist destinations in the Hudson Valley and upstate New York. RAOUL HAGUE- For over 40 years the American Abstract Expressionist inhabited a modest cabin nestled in a valley in New York's Catskill mountains, were he created his most important sculpted work and gave his living quarters a rustic aesthetic. Visitors to Hague's home have likened the experience to being
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inside a Joseph Cornell box with the same visual tropes, including collage, ballet, birds, mirrors and clocks, He treated walls like scrapbooks and called his collection of modified antique clocks "temperamental teenagers". On Hague's death in 1993, one final sculpture remained-largely completed-in his studio, where it resides today. The artist's home and studio are now part of the Raoul Hague Foundation, set up by Hague to care for his work after his death. The cabin's delicate contents require periodic conservation, but otherwise Hague's home remains as he left it. FONTHILL- The residence of Henry Chapman Mercer (1856-1930), noted tile-maker, archaeologist, antiquarian, artist and writer, founder of the Moravian Pottery Works in 1910-1912 and the Mercer Museum in 1913, is also a showcase for Mercer's own decorative tiles, a display of tile makers' art throughout history, and museum for Mercer's world-class		collection of prints and artifacts. With 44 rooms, 10 bathrooms, 5 bedrooms, 32 stairwells, 18 fireplaces and 21 chimneys his “castle in concrete for the New World” is one of the most unusual and architecturally significant homes in America. In 1985 it was designated a National Historic Landmark and is supported by a corps of 40 volunteers. ELIPHANTE- The little known sculptural home that is Eliphante, located in red-rock country, near Sedona, Arizona, three acres of fantastical domes, shacks and follies created over 28 years by painter Michael Kahn and his wife, Leda Livant a textile artist. Here there is the residence, which has 25-foot ceilings and incorporates rocks and scraps from construction sites, a labyrinthine art gallery called Pipedreams, in which every painting has its own environment, and the building that gave the compound its name has a long trunk like entrance made of rock and an irregularly Mounded roof, and a stained glass		interior that is a mixture of disarray and magic. The future of Eliphante is not clear, as the property is in desperate need of repair. COSANTI- Paolo Soleri, artist and environmental architect, whose famous experimental town in the high desert of Arizona called Arcosanti is well known, his home and ceramic studio 70 miles to the south is rarely seen or visited. There his ceramic and bronze windbells and siltcast architectural structures featuring many imaginative design elements reflect the innovative construction techniques that make it a true work of art. CONSTANTINO NIVOLA- The Italian sculptor's home in East Hampton, NY became the centerpiece for the New York art scene in the 40's. His friends were de Kooning, Kline, James Brooks, Pollack and others. There he produced his famous sand-cast relief sculptures and collaborated with Corbusier to create the stunning wall murals that are still in his home today. His		Studio is still very much alive with his sculptures and his wife Ruth Nivola's jewelry designs. BYRDCLIFFE ARTS AND CRAFTS COLONY- Established in 1903 by Ralph Radcliffe artists Jane Whitehead, John Ruskin, William Morris, Hervey White and Bolton Brown is possibly the oldest continuously operating arts and crafts colony in the nation. White Pines, the main residence and 30 other buildings were built on 1500 acres in the Catskills Mountains of New York, just outside the hamlet of Woodstock. The Colony produced pottery, painting, weaving. metalwork, and furniture and now has active artist in residence program.
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PERMISSION AND RELEASE I was happy to have been given the permission to visit, photograph and film the Interiors of these great houses, and meet with curators and family members that were eager to share with me the joy of each one of them. I look forward to returning to them this year to complete filming and interviews. THE DIRECTOR/PRODUCER Don Freeman has been an artist, and photographer for over 20 years. Living in New York, London and Paris his photographs of Interiors have appeared regularly in The World of Interiors, House and Garden, ADFrance, Elle Décor and others. His still life, fashion and portraits have been seen in Vogue, French Vogue, Martha Stewart Living, Town and Country, Vanity Fair and Italian Vogue. He has had his personal photography exhibited in galleries throughout Paris and New York, and his photography has been published in three books;		MY FAMILIAR DREAM- 1994, Tashen's GREAT ESCAPES NORTH AMERICA- 2006, and Rizolli's TED MUEHLING, A PORTRAIT BY DON FREEMAN- 2008 He is finishing production on his first film: TIRES, VELVET PAWS, shot entirely in Super-8 black and white, in Paris during the years he lived there-1994-1998, and being edited on Final Cut Pro, with original soundtrack by Jaime Rudolph. MUSIC Since the late eighties, veteran NYC composer/musician Jaime Rudolph has been creating sonic works ranging from classically inspired to experimental. When he was growing up in Florida in the seventies, his father first introduced him to classical music, including a recording of note, Switched-On Bach. Later in his early teens, Jaime was drawn to the piano. While attending Western Carolina University, he took piano and music theory classes. This influence would		later develop into an autodidactic interest in composition. Electronic dance and ambient music also became an interest which resulted in releases (from 1993-1996) under the name Evolve Now on Instinct Records and Invading Records. Jaime moved to NYC from North Carolina in 1994. His influences are numerous and his music has been described as, "Soundscape-like," "The advanced stage of electronic dance," "Stimulating." Jaime continues to write and record works in a variety of styles for film/video soundtrack, performance artists, singers, fashion shows, remixes and more.
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