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P R O F I L E | L E G E N D S I N T I M E
N.C. Wyeth paint table at the N.C. Wyeth Studio, photo by Carlos Alejandro
identity," adds Balint.
Reinforcing this idea is HAHS' nationwide
reach, with its sites stretching east to
west. This includes where the program
is administered—Chesterwood, the
home and studio of sculptor Daniel
Chester French. In New York, there's
the ornamental Olana, with its grand,
rambling landscape, home of Hudson
River School painter Frederic Church,
and the heavily wooded Manitoga,
belonging to mid-century modern
industrial designer Russel Wright. Out
west, in Great Falls, Montana, is the C.M.
Russell Museum (the first such institution
dedicated to western art), featuring
the Charles Marion Russell House
and Studio, as well as the Alta Loma,
California site, the Sam and Alfreda
Maloof Foundation for Arts and Crafts,
dedicated to woodworker Sam Maloof,
maker of California Modern furniture.
Despite immense differences in
geography and architectural vernacular,
every artist's home and studio is a deeply
personal place, but unified in that each
is what Balint describes as an "incubator
for ideas" that taps into the "human
impulse to create and express."
Indeed, sites also function as an
excavation into the creative process;
visitors are privy to the same scenes
and tools of the artists for an intimate
sense of what they saw, how they felt,
and the depth of their labor. "This is very
different than what you see in a museum,
which is what I call the output—the end
of a physical and intellectual process,"
says Balint, "where you tend to be
removed from the person who made it.
These environments offer an immersive
experience." One where the rich
specificity of a space forms a fuller, more
illustrative picture of the artist as both
creative and creator. Where a museum
tends to support a static experience, the
artist studio is a place where the past is
not something embalmed, but always
and engagingly of the present.
Offers Mayes, "These homes and studios
are important for today, for what we can
learn, and how we can be inspired. I
love it when these places of creativity
continue their creative legacy and are
used to inspire new work in the present.
That's really their greatest power—to
give us insight [into] who we were and
who we are, and to inspire us in who
we may become." A creative force for
generations to come.
ArtistsHomes.org
40 DIGS.NET
| 11.29.24
