JB:
Today is Saturday, March 6, 2010. And I’m here in the beautiful home of
Nancy Wyle Romero in Altadena, California. Nancy is the daughter of
Edith and Frank Wyle, the founders of the Craft and Folk Art Museum. And
she’s an artist, and an anthropologist. And my name is Joan Benedetti.
So, let’s start at the beginning--and by the beginning, I mean your
beginning, which was, I believe, before the birth of the Craft and Folk
Art Museum.
NR:
Yeah, rather. (laughter)
JB:
So where and when were you born?
NR:
I was born in Los Angeles, 1945.
JB:
Can we have your birth date?
NR:
Six, four, ’45.
JB:
June 4, ’45?
NR:
Right.
JB:
There must be some astrological significance to the six four five. Or
six, four, four, five.
NR:
Six.
JB:
And you had siblings.
NR:
Yes, I have an older brother, Stephen, and a younger sister, Diana.
JB:
So, tell us what it was like growing up with Frank and Edith Wyle.
NR:
Wonderful! We had a very busy family. My mother was a painter. Studied
with Howard Warshaw, Keith Finch, and Rico Lebrun later on. And my
father was very busy starting his business up--engineering in the space
industry--jet propulsion and space industry. [Frank Wyle was the founder
of Wyle Laboratories, headquartered in El Segundo, California.] And we
three siblings were very close. It was--as my mother got more and more
involved in her art career, we saw less of her, because she had her own
studio. But she did give us—me--art lessons when I was 12, which I just
loved, with a friend of mine, Barbara. We went on lots of trips. We had
a lovely home. And as I said, she was kind of a solitary soul in the
early--in those days, and loving to be in her studio, painting, and she
had a very, very close relationship with Rico Lebrun, who was a
Neapolitan artist who settled in Los Angeles. And he had a very strong
humanist focus on the human figure, and . . . classical training. He had
studied in Orvieto--studying the Signorelli murals, and other places.
And he brought a really different focus to the L.A. art scene, that was
grounded in, as I said, in the human figure. And the beauty of the line.
And mom had a--you know, loved him dearly, and they became very, very
close friends of ours. Their son David, who’s now a filmmaker, was--grew
up with me--and we were the same age, and went to high school together
also. Dad was very supportive of [Mom] as an artist, but they both were
very involved in their own careers. When Rico got cancer, there was a
time when they were designing their new house in Zuma Beach, and he was
very ill, and [their] house wasn’t finished, so . . . he moved into our
house . . . until the last two months of his life . . . .
JB:
And how old were you when that was going on?
NR:
I was in college.
JB:
Oh, you were--oh, I’m going to pause. [Break in tape.]
00:05:00
NR:
. . . . Anyway, Rico stayed in our house during his illness, which
was--it was kind of like a wake, you know, all of his people that
admired him and studied with him were all congregated around. It was
very depressing. I was in college--I missed that part. I did see him
just before he died, on Christmas vacation, and he died like a month
later. By then, he had moved into his [new] house in Zuma. But his death
had a profound impact on my mom, and I realized that it was really a
guru, guru-y relationship--as well as very close friends—[and] that a
lot of her inspiration and motivation to be an artist was locked up with
him. And when he died, she really floundered
in her own career as an artist. And it was around that time that they
had become friendly with Betty and Albert Chase. And Albert was a
doctor. Betty was bored as a doctor’s wife and looking for something
meaningful to do. And mom had built her own little studio in the
backyard, and was trying to paint in there with--
JB:
Tell us where their house was at this time.
NR:
555 Woodruff Avenue in West Los Angeles.
JB:
In West LA, OK.
NR:
So she built a little studio in the back. They had gone on a safari in
Africa and gotten in a terrible accident there because my dad forgot
that they--which side of the road to drive on. You know out in the
bush--
JB:
I hadn’t heard about this.
NR:
--and they got flown to a bush hospital. Right--they got a little beat
up. Anyway, she came back and did these really kind of marvelous, large
paintings of lions, that sort of--she very [much] identified with lions.
JB:
Yes, I noticed she had a collection of lions.
NR:
Yeah.
JB:
I thought for a long time that she was a Leo, but--
NR:
No, she just liked lions. My dad was a Leo, so maybe that--I don’t know
what the connection was--but that was her last [art] work. And she . . .
thought . . . you know, a little gallery would be good. And at that
point of time, the art world was being kind of driven into two different
schools. What she had been trained in was a classical way of
painting--you know--you put in your years of student-hood, learning--you
know--studying the different masters, drawing from them, working from
models and all that. And suddenly--you know--it’s--pop art came in, and
that was really iconoclastic. And these people with no art training were
doing these--you know--works of art all about popular culture. And I
think my mom felt very disassociated from that whole world, and was
really--she kind of lost her thread with her own art, and this world
was--which [was] where the art world was going, she didn’t--on a
visceral level--relate to. And what she did relate to was crafts and
folk art, because she felt those were real, the people who did them had
a very strong cultural and historical connection to what they were
doing. And so she kind of said, "Well, why not do something with
craft—crafts people?" She liked crafts people. And so they thought OK,
and then the other thing: she was learning to cook omelets, I think,
about that time, and she thought--she didn’t cook much--we always had
cooks, right, so when she went into the kitchen, it was always to
perform something, you know? So—omelets--or something she loved. And so
that’s kind of how this all happened. She wanted to do something for
Betty, basically, [to] give Betty something to do, and . . . [then] she
was going to really continue with her painting. But as they
got--approached dad--and tried to figure out how to do it right, he was,
"Well, we need to find some investors." And this kind of started--you
know--growing into a whole other thing where they had, I think, 30 or--
JB:
Shareholders?
NR:
--shareholders that would put in some money, and they found a place, and
she got caught up in the whole idea of it, right? And as she was going,
she was inventing what it was, and that folk art, which--because [she]
and dad had traveled a lot through his business, and also through just
enjoying traveling. So they’d been to Japan several times, and I think
through his business, they--he had started diversifying his business
into other things--in Africa and Ethiopia and I don’t know [if] she
could have been to Peru yet--but I don’t think so. But anyway, she was--
JB:
Well, one of the World Craft Council meetings [was in Peru]--
NR:
Yeah, but she wasn’t in that world yet (overlapping dialogue;
inaudible). Yeah, she wasn’t there yet. This was a very humble
beginning. . . . [Break in tape.]
NR:
All right, it--we’re still talking kind of a narrow definition of what
this gallery was going to be. For-profit--
JB:
A commercial gallery.
NR:
A commercial gallery. And they found the spot, and--but she had met Sam
Maloof at the [L.A.] County Fair.
JB:
Yes, it’s a great story.
00:10:00
NR:
It’s a great story. And that had a lot to do with what was happening,
and also other--at the ranch, she’d met
Hans Sumnf in--who had a sort of architectural pottery in Fresno, or
Madera, I think it was Fresno. [The Hans Sumnf Company was in Madera,
California.] And that’s where the [Egg and The Eye balustrade] columns .
. . [that] sort of look like raku stacks of rocks . . . [came from]. I
think he made those. [The artist who made the balustrade was Stan
Bitters, who had worked for Hans Sumnf.]
JB:
Oh, I’m so glad that you remembered his name, because I’ve been--I knew
that Guy Moore designed the interior, and I asked your dad, and he
couldn’t remember the name of the artist [who made the balustrade].
NR:
I’m pretty sure that’s who that was. It was an architectural pottery.
JB:
Spell his last name, as far as you can remember?
NR:
S-U-M-N-F, Sumnf.
JB:
S-U-M-N-F?
NR:
P-H-F, I don’t know. Sumnf.
JB:
Sumnf, OK.
NR:
Hans Sumnf--it sounds--you know, what? Dutch or German or something--all
right. Anyway, he did like adobe, architectural adobe, like, you know,
what they call "stabilized adobe" . . . pavers and those hose pots, you
remember those big hand-thrown hose pots? That was his thing. And I
think he did those columns, that were the banister [for the mezzanine of
the gallery].
JB:
Well those were gorgeous.
NR:
They were gorgeous. Oh it was a small . . . the gallery was just
downstairs at that time, and on the--looking south as you go into the
gallery . . . they just had one half of the building, right?
JB:
Yes, I want to--do describe that.
NR:
On the bottom floor, yeah, was the gallery, and then there was an office
in the back and a little storage room. And then you went up [a central
staircase] into a mezzanine, and that was the restaurant. And Rodessa
Moore--they found Rodessa Moore, who was a real character, who was head
of the kitchen. And she performed omelets--
JB:
There was sort of a little stage that--
NR:
There was a stage where--it had a white arch, and she stood in that
arch, and [it] had two burners, and she would make omelets, and I don’t
know, [the menu] had 30 or 40 omelets.
JB:
So let’s just--just to--I want to try to clarify: there was a whole
other person who leased half of the building.
NR:
Yes, yeah.
JB:
There was--I guess--a separate entrance for them.
NR:
Not only the other half, but the upstairs.
JB:
Yes, on the third floor.
NR:
And I think it was a theater company--I’m pretty sure it was a theater
company.
JB:
Yes, well, it was Madame Oleska’s Theater of Art.
NR:
OK, there you go.
JB:
So The Egg and the Eye was--
NR:
Was simply the . . . bottom floor--
JB:
It was 5814 [Wilshire]--
NR:
And the mezzanine.
JB:
And the mezzanine.
NR:
Right, that’s what it was.
JB:
And I actually have a picture I found in the archive [at UCLA Special
Collections] last week that very clearly shows 5810 [Wilshire], which
was Madam Oleska’s, and 5814, which was . . . the Egg and the Eye. Well,
thank you. That’s been a little unclear. So--
NR:
So anyway, the Gallery--it drew in all sorts of interesting families,
right? And I . . . know [this] very peripherally because I was, you
know, in school.
JB:
You were in college by then, weren’t you? This was 1965.
NR:
Yes, I was in college. In fact, I was in Spain for--in ’64 to ’65. So--
JB:
Did you come back for the opening? Were you there for the November First
opening?
NR:
I’m pretty sure I was there. I’m trying to remember. Yes, there were so
many openings.
JB:
I have a lot of pictures in the archive of you at openings--
NR:
Oh yeah, I went to a lot of openings.
JB:
--but I am not sure--and I think I saw you at--in the [first] opening.
NR:
I think I was. I know that it--I don’t even--what was the first show, do
you remember?
JB:
Well there were actually, let’s see. There were several.
NR:
Several first shows?
JB:
Yes, yes. Well I--as you probably remember--there were very few times
when there was only one [artist] shown . . . .
NR:
No, well it was--yeah, right.
JB:
There were several [artists featured] at the same time. And I think
that--I know that one of them was the Inuit, or Eskimo show.
NR:
Right. And then there was the American Indian, the Kachina show . . .
took over the whole place.
JB:
Yes. I think that was a little bit later, but--
00:15:00
NR:
OK, right. Well yeah, they always had featured jewelers, and featured
ceramic artists, and maybe a furniture piece or something.
So yeah, it was a small space really.
JB:
Yes.
NR:
Think about it! But I worked there for--during the--
JB:
Oh, you did.
NR:
--between college and graduate school, I just couldn’t--I had been in
Peru, and I just couldn’t get my head around going to graduate school
yet, so I took a semester off, and I worked in the gallery. And Betty
was still there, so anyway. We can get back--that was an interesting--so
Betty and my mother were--my mom finally decided she wanted to work in
it, and she gave up her artwork, and devoted herself to the gallery with
Betty. They ran it together.
JB:
Yes. Well she--let’s see, you mean she gave up her studio before--
NR:
No, her studio was in--that ultimately was in the back yard of the
house. And she had--you know, after Rico died--of course, [she] gave up
the studio that was alongside his studio in Brentwood. But she no longer
devoted time to painting. And she never got back into it after that,
even though Frank (my husband, Frank Romero) and I lured her back into
painting, because that’s what we were doing, you know, giving her
materials and stuff, and she never got back into it.
JB:
Well, I remember even, you know, into the ’90s, when I [would] visit her
there [in Brentwood] where they still have their house--she would point
to the studio and say, "I’ve got to get back to that one of . . . ."
NR:
[overlapping dialogue; inaudible] She was doing quilting and other--but
every time --they had a show, and there was some interesting technique,
she wanted to learn it. You know, like papermaking was a big one, she
really got--tried to do that, but it’s like, it’s just too many riches,
right? Where to focus your attention. So mostly needlework was her
interest in--
JB:
Well, I was just about to ask about that, because I know that she was a
very proficient seamstress, and--
NR:
No. No, no, no, no. She was not a proficient--but she had an artist’s
eye of what she wanted to do. So she set herself projects that were
immensely complicated, but she--I mean she couldn’t, like [overlapping
dialogue; inaudible].
JB:
She didn’t make your clothes.
NR:
She made a couple of dresses, á là Joanne Lopez. Joanne Lopez was a
designer of clothes using ethnic materials. So she made several pieces
for herself, and she and Ruth Shireson also used to make tunics and
things out of beautiful materials and stuff. But she didn’t really sew
very much. She made appliqued paintings, she did a few needlework
things, but she never followed anybody else’s rules. She always made her
own designs, so in that sense she was painting them, and the same
sensibility as painting, she brought to her sewing. But she wasn’t--I
mean she didn’t know how to tailor or anything like that, just--she
could embroider, and she--you know--she has an incredible library of
embroidery books and other things, but a lot of that was kind of
“wannabe,” she never really had time for it. She was in the museum 24
hours a day--in her head. And it took up a lot of psychic and emotional
and physical energy, so--
JB:
Yes. Well, it must have been, I would think, a little bit hard on her
children. I know you were grown up by that point, but you still want
your mom or dad’s attention once in a while. And--
NR:
Oh I don’t think it was like that at all. I loved the museum in those
days--I thought it was the happening place.
JB:
Well, it was.
00:20:00
NR:
It was--it was fun--and I liked participating, but in my way. I mean
there was a definite pressure to be involved a lot more in the museum,
which was so much a part of our world. And I resisted that, because my
mother and I were very close--we think very similarly, and in order to
distinguish myself as a young woman, I had to pull back from that
somewhat, and follow my own path. But there was always the welcoming
pressure to get more involved, let’s put it that way. Which sometimes I
did. And sometimes I didn’t. And I found it easy to do when I was doing
something with Frank [Romero], my husband, where we did projects
together,
and they were limited in scope rather than just being on the board, or
being on this or that committee, and all that stuff. I didn’t want to
get involved in any of that stuff--so.
JB:
Well I think you were probably very wise to do that, although Frank
Romero did get on the board at some [point]--
NR:
And my sister [Diana Munk, who passed away in 2002] was on the board,
too.
JB:
Oh that’s right, yes.
NR:
I’m just not a board gal.
JB:
Yeah. Well it can be pretty dreary.
NR:
I felt the lure of it, because you know the direction the museum was
taking for a while was very alarming, and it seemed to really move away
from Mom’s vision, and--which I thought was still valid--and so I could
have gotten in there and fought for her, but I didn’t.
JB:
Well you did other things.
NR:
I did other things, right--so.
JB:
Well, let’s back up just a little bit. I remember, Edith--in some ways,
of course your mother and dad were very private people, and I’m speaking
from a staff point of view. But every once in a while, she would drop
some, you know, bit of information about her childhood, or whatever. And
I also, of course, have read the interview that Shan did for the
Archives of American Art, and she talked a good deal about her family.
And she had said that she felt very dominated by her parents, especially
her mother. And I’m just wondering--you said earlier that you had a
picture that had belonged to Rose Robinson, and what do you remember of
your grandmother?
NR:
My grandmother? My grandmother, I remember her as a--
JB:
Well she was such an influence on Edith--
NR:
Influence. I’m trying to think of her as a whole person. It’s very hard
because she’s my grandmother. . . . She was a wonderful grandmother. She
was--I have two very different grandmothers, and I have to talk about
both of them [overlapping dialogue; inaudible].
JB:
Yes, I wish you would.
NR:
--because one, my mother’s mother, was Russian. She was the first of her
family to be born in this country. Her sisters were born in Russia. And
they were very intellectual--they were anarchists. They were humanist
idealists, and my grandmother always thought on a global scale, which
was--it could be very irritating, but also very far-seeing, and she
really liked--she was very--what’s the opposite of prejudiced? Very
open-minded.
JB:
Tolerant.
NR:
Very tolerant. But it was always with an -ist on the end, or an -ism at
the end of it, you know? Like humanism, and this and that. And for a
long time she was in love with Stalin--you know, in the early--
JB:
Oh well, she wasn’t the only one.
NR:
--because--and then was just devastated when information started coming
out about what he had done. You know--so she had her--Paul
Robeson—God--that was God to her, you know? And he was like, of course,
a real radical. Well, she comes from a radical background, they were
all--as I said--they came to this country as anarchists, set about to
disrupt the system, and fortunately, they were not ones that were put in
prison, but they lived with those various anarchists that were put away
for having tried to shoot Frick, and Carnegie, and all that kind of
thing. So--and they were also believers in "Cult-sha," with a capital C.
So, she--my grandmother--was trained as a pianist from--she was a real
child prodigy. She was called on to perform for the union meetings. She
was on stage as a little girl playing rousing union songs and things
like that, and--
JB:
Now she lived in San Francisco?
NR:
No, New York.
JB:
Oh, New York.
NR:
In New York, right. And she studied with an older man who was her
mentor, Alexander Lambert, who was shepherding her to the stage as a
performer . . . in piano when she met my grandfather, who was a violist,
or violinist. And nobody wanted them to get married. They were very
young, and they were very much in love, and so she pretty much gave up
her career to marry my grandfather. And they moved to San Francisco.
JB:
Then they moved to San Francisco.
00:25:00
NR:
Yeah, after--Mom was born in San Francisco. And he was a violist, or
violinist. I think he did [play] viola, but he played violin in the
symphony, and then in the--was it the opera? I think it was [in] the San
Francisco Opera, he would play
and he was also studying dentistry, because he felt that he could not--
JB:
Oh yes, I remember hearing that.
NR:
--support the family just on musicianship. And he was to always have the
dual career. He played in--when they moved to Los Angeles--in the
studios.
JB:
Oh, in the movie studios.
NR:
And he also had his career as a dentist, so his name as a violinist was
Rovinsky, and as a dentist was Robinson. (Laughter) I always loved that.
JB:
That’s great, yeah.
NR:
Perfect adaptation.
JB:
Yeah.
NR:
Anyway, so my grandmother was a pianist, and continued teaching piano.
And she was very exacting, I know. But of course the grandchildren, she
was all about love and giving, and fun, and she and my mom had a very
abrasive relationship. All the way to the end. My mother--
JB:
Did your mother learn piano, or did Rose try to teach her piano?
NR:
[overlapping dialogue; inaudible] Oh yeah, she was like--we all sort of
failed in the music department, I’m afraid. But we dated a lot of
musicians.
JB:
Ah ha! [laughter]
NR:
But no, she failed in that, but they had a lively cultural thing. She
had lots of musicians come to the house. She grew up in music, and she
had a profound love of music. And all our lives, we--at the ranch and
everything--where we really listened to music intensely, I learned to
love music through Mom’s love of music. And as I said, a lot of
incredible musicians were in the studio system in LA, all these refugees
from Europe, right?
JB:
Yes, yes.
NR:
And they all--they were--they played chamber music together, and she
grew up with all those people. Plus, my grandfather, he was the
violinist for all the Charlie Chaplin movies. He was the maudlin violin,
and he was friends with Chaplin, and he would clown around á là Chaplin
in there. There’s lots of wonderful photos of him, you know, being very
theatrical and he and my mom kind of were a unit, I think. And then
there was her mom. So she was an only child, so she got all their
attention, and it was difficult. But of course--and when she became a
painter, an artist--they were right behind her in that. You know, that
was equally valid, that was in the arts, right? Doctors or arts, that
seemed to be--you know. They were Jewish, but they had rejected Judaism
for--they were total atheists. We had no cultural connection to the
Jews, unless they were artists really. So her meeting Dad was, you know,
an interesting combination, because he comes from--his family were
German more or less. They were adventurers and shop keepers, and I mean
they had a very colorful history, but they came [to America] before the
Civil War, and they had stronger connections to Europe. And they were
very grounded, down-to-earth people, you know? Who, you know, I’m sure
they went to hear music and stuff, but they didn’t have that [fervor].
This [music] was [my grandparents'], their world and their passion. It
was very different. But my dad had a--so he’s a very pragmatic kind of
guy. He had a lot of visions, but he’s like--I always think of
Dostoyevsky’s Notes From the Underground. There’s the guy that's sitting
on his hands because he sees so many possibilities that he’s actually
paralyzed by it, and the other one that has blinders on and sees in one
direction, and goes barreling ahead and is the man of action, right?
That’s my dad, he’s very--when he sets his sights on something, he goes
for it, and he’s not deterred by the thousands [of] other possibilities
that could occur to him, so he just--
JB:
That’s how Wyle Laboratories came about.
NR:
And all the other projects in the museum. Let’s say, his energy helped
move it ahead. He engineered its birth. And how to structure it,
everything. And he has been the engine behind it ever since, I think.
Even ‘til perhaps now.
JB:
Well, it’s hard to imagine it without his support, absolutely.
00:30:00
NR:
It’s not just support, I think my--you know when couples live together,
they become part of each other. And my mom certainly learned
managerial--her whole ability to run the museum from constantly
discussing it with my father, and his input was critical, and she really
valued his opinion, and listened to him
occasionally. I mean, she had a lot of her own ideas. She was very
strong-minded. But she would absorb a lot of what he had to say. And he
took on a love of art in an extraordinary way, and became a craftsman
himself. He, you know, built all the cabinetry and things like that in
their house, and the stairway, and the doors, I mean he--
JB:
And they’re beautiful.
NR:
--and they’re beautiful. He--that was--and jewelry-making was another
thing he took up. So yeah, you know, they really influenced each other,
so.
JB:
Well that’s interesting, because I have to say then, at this point, that
Edith one time said, “You know, when we’re not here at the museum, Frank
and I hardly ever talk about the museum.” So that wasn’t true, I guess.
NR:
Oh no, no, no. My mother had [the] museum on the brain.
JB:
Yeah, it would be hard--
NR:
I think that they discussed it a lot, but it was a joint
interest--though definitely more hers than his-- but he always was
willing to listen. He’s a pretty patient guy. And of course the whole
ranch life was, you know, a place to let go, let it go. So--but the
ranch was a beautiful house with beautiful crafts, objects, a lot--all
the Sam Maloof furniture and everything--so it was her place to live the
craft life, you might say, in beauty and in nature, and I think it was a
place to defuse all the stress--so.
JB:
And there were quite a few Native American tribes that live in that area
too.
NR:
One, Mono.
JB:
Oh, only the one?
NR:
Well there’s the Mountain Mono, and the Valley Mono, and there’s
different Mono groups, but they’re all the Mono Indians. Oh, of course
if you go to Yosemite, there’s other--you know.
JB:
But there were some that she got to know quite well, yeah.
NR:
Yeah, neighbors.
JB:
Now that property was purchased in 1959, so you were just 14--is that
right?
NR:
Yeah, I was in high school, yeah.
JB:
And were you able to go to see it--
NR:
I didn’t appreciate it until college.
JB:
Yeah.
NR:
Because I was in the country, I was in Sedona, Arizona, which was not as
it is today. It was a--we were in the Red Rock country, outside of the
village. The village was one road. I mean--
JB:
Now what I heard was that Stephen had had the idea that all of you
should go--
NR:
No, Stephen didn’t have the idea for all of us--Stephen had the idea for
himself. He didn’t like the idea of going to Uni High, which was the
L.A. high school, University High. He didn’t fit in, he wanted something
else. So he’s the one who initiated the process to look for a--
JB:
But that was for himself.
NR:
For himself. I was very popular in junior high and had no intention of
going to a boarding school until I went and visited him, and then I was
overcome with the school. I was overcome, and also there was this really
cute guy that came out to dinner with us, who said I was a great
conversationalist--
JB:
Oh Nancy.
NR:
--and I thought somebody thinks--is not looking at the way I look, but
thinks I have an interesting brain? This is really great. And I was sold
on the place right away, and couldn’t wait to get there, and I followed
him a year later. So--(laughs)
JB:
Let’s just get down where you went to elementary school first, just for
the record.
NR:
Warner Avenue School.
JB:
Was that a private school?
NR:
No, a public school, just down the street from us. I could walk to
school. I went to Emerson Junior High, which is a public school. And
then Verde Valley School in Arizona, then Sarah Lawrence in New York,
then the University of Pennsylvania in Philadelphia.
JB:
Well, tell me when you first--you said that your mom gave you painting
lessons, I guess?
NR:
Yes, she did.
JB:
And when you were 12--
NR:
Drawing lessons, yeah.
JB:
Drawing lessons. So at what point did you begin to think about--you
know, to take art seriously, and--
NR:
I had refused to be an artist. Because my mother was. This is--you know.
JB:
Yeah, of course.
00:35:00
NR:
We’re very clear. We’re both very strong-minded people. So she was the
artist. I wanted to be a costume designer as a child. That was--I
designed endless costumes for my sister, who was a ballerina. And I had
tried ballet, [but] she was so much better than I was, I gave it up. You
know, she studied with Carmelita Marachi, who was quite the figure in
L.A. And so Diana ended up following
a career in dance. And I was very happy to come up with great costumes
and to dress her, and do all that. And I did lots of drawings of clothes
and stuff like that. And did it at Verde Valley. You know, I took
ceramics and I always drew a little bit, but I didn’t--you know, I
always knew I could draw. Mother would drive us crazy at Verde Valley,
because it’s one of the most stunning places in the world, with the red
rocks, and she would come and visit, and she’d say, "Look at this, look
at this. Can you--this is the most beautiful place. Can you see that?
Are you looking at this? Are you looking at this?" And we’d say, "Mom,
you know, we live here, no big deal." And that--but it was a big deal.
And what it did is cause us to really look at things, and also through
just growing up with her and Rico Lebrun--who was like my second
father--but my artistic father--he would say, "Look at this beautiful
avocado. Look at the lines, and look at the color. Hold this--oh, what a
color." You know, he would--he caused us to really focus on things, and
I think learning to look and see is more than half the battle of
becoming an artist or a drawer. And I tell people now who say they can’t
draw, I say, "Learn to look first, and then the rest will come." Because
all it is, is looking, people don’t really look. So both of them worked
on me, and--from the beginning--so anyway. Yeah. [Inaudible] This is
really good pie. [Nancy has served them pie.]
JB:
And later, you had a home up at the ranch. There’s a story that I heard
about how you got the house.
NR:
Well I’ve got the house--you mean my own house?
JB:
Yes.
NR:
I had a boyfriend who was going to build me a house up there, and I’d
got--it was going to be an adobe house, because that’s--I always wanted
an adobe house. And then I broke up with him. [But] I already had the
plans, and right at that time, Tom Wheeler--
JB:
Was this after you had graduated from college, or?
NR:
Oh yeah, I was living in Berkeley--or Oakland. And Tom Wheeler, who was
the manager at the ranch, called me. He says, "You want a house? Drive
down here now." So I drove down there, and there were six houses that
were located at the PGandE Dam down below, where the reservoir is below
our ranch. Not connected--on the road to Auberry. And they were--they
wanted to get rid of them. And they were--anybody who wanted to move
them could sign up and get one, and there was a garage and a house, [a]
three-bedroom bungalow built in the ’40s. And he said--Tom said, "I want
the garage, but you can have the house." So all of us made a deal with
the moving company, and for $2,000 they moved the houses. They cut them
in half, loaded them on semi's, and then brought them to the ranch. And
the only trouble is that the site I chose was down in the canyon, and it
was very sharp pin turns--
JB:
Yeah, your dad said it was kind of scary.
NR:
It was scary. They had to load them--you know, anchor it with a huge
tractor to get traction. Anyway, they got one down, one side down, and
they were put on stacked, you know, raised up. And then the other half
got stuck. (Laughter) Like--I don’t know--500 feet from the house--where
they should have been, and it was stuck there for almost a month until
they could fix the rig. So anyway, we stuck it back together, and then
lowered it on the foundation, and I had a house.
JB:
Well that must have involved a lot of work to just get it--
NR:
Well I was--it was the ’70s. I was into do-everything-myself, period, so
I had this very slightly--quite inebriated, Indian guy, Gordon, helping
me. He was the carpenter, and I did all the plastering, and he did the
carpentry, and I did the tile work, which is really bad, it’s still
there to this day. I decided I could do it, and at Berkeley they give
you a little, you know, how-to sheet of paper, where you go buy your
tiles, and so I--you know--got all the materials and set myself up and
tried to do it, you know? So--with varying results. (laughter)
JB:
Do you stay in that house when you go up there?
NR:
Oh absolutely. It’s been remodeled a few times. Dad’s allowed me
to--helped me out--to redo the bathrooms. And you know I did--like
here--I made it into one huge room, a big family room, and then
subsequently we built—Frank [Romero] and I built a studio, a big barn,
which is now Rosie’s house--so.
JB:
Yeah, there’s a whole compound really of friends and relatives that live
either on the ranch, I guess, or--
NR:
Or adjacent.
JB:
-- or adjacent to it.
Yeah. So you--do you still spend a lot of time up there?
NR:
Oh yes--I do, I do.
JB:
So--let’s see. We’ve covered a lot of ground here, and I just want to
look and see if there’s anything in the early days that I haven’t asked
you about. I think that I have. Oh, I wanted to find out when your
interest in anthropology started, and you didn’t say in your resumé what
your major was at Sarah Lawrence. Was it in anthropology?
NR:
We didn’t major at Sarah Lawrence.
JB:
Oh. So what kinds of courses did you take there?
NR:
Well, I went to Sarah Lawrence so I could study with Joseph Campbell. I
was hooked on him as a teenager.
JB:
He was on the faculty there?
NR:
He was on the faculty. He had one course, and you had to be a senior,
and so I had to, you know, go to the school and work my way up to it.
And Verde Valley school got me interested in--I wasn’t interested in
anthropology, but it had a very anthropological focus. The school
went--as a whole school [we] went to Mexico every year in trucks; we all
. . . camped out all the way down. They placed us in families for two
weeks.
JB:
Had you been to Mexico with your family before that?
NR:
No.
JB:
So that was the first?
NR:
Every year we went to Mexico, I--it was absolutely fantastic.
JB:
When you were at Valley Verde.
NR:
Verde Valley.
JB:
Verde Valley, yes.
NR:
Yes, we were—[we] lived [with] families there--and then I learned to
speak Spanish. It was the way Spanish became vivid and real to me. And
we also stayed on the Indian reservations each year in a different
place, and learned what that world was all about. [They stayed on Navaho
reservations at Shiprock and Chinle in Arizona and Aneth in Utah, among
other places.]
JB:
Oh, great.
NR:
And I think--I started collecting folk art when I was 12. I have my--a
[Mexican devil] mask in there that I got from Ralph Altman; he had a
gallery on La Cienega [Boulevard]. I had $40 that I saved up from my
allowance, and I went and bought myself a mask. So--you might say that I
led my mother into it (laughter), because she wasn’t that interested in
crafts in the early days. I got--I brought her stuff from Mexico all the
time, so--
JB:
Oh, that’s really interesting.
NR:
It is. I think--well I knew (I don’t remember growing up) she had a
very--a very profound interest in Japanese art, from very early. . . . A
lot of it was because they had--Dad had--business in Japan. And so I
think she had a very keen appreciation for the Japanese aesthetic. Our
house had beautiful Japanese prints. We had--well we had Chinese
furniture from [Chinatown].
JB:
Well even the--I don’t know--I guess I was in the house that they had
before they had the present house, but only briefly, I think for [a
party]
NR:
But that was a rented house.
JB:
It was a rented house.
NR:
It was [an] awful, big old mansion in Hancock Park, yeah.
JB:
But the house--
NR:
They never really moved into that house.
JB:
No. But the house in--I guess it’s in Brentwood--the current house, the
current house.
NR:
Oh yeah, yeah. Oh it’s totally Japanese. Oh yes--and so is the ranch.
The ranch house, which was built in like ’60, I guess, is based on the
castles in Kyoto, all the stonework there. They took pictures of the
walls, and they just fell in love with it. And that’s--and so they only
approached John Rex, who was the architect. They came armed with these
pictures. Wood and stone.
JB:
That’s really--that’s interesting, because I would not have guessed
that. I was there [at the ranch] only once briefly, but I’ve seen lots
of pictures, and I was--you know, I assumed it was a sort of [a] modern
take on . . . lodge architecture.
NR:
No, it was totally based on Japanese feudal architecture. The marriage
of beautiful woods and glass, and [the] view--the idea of the outside
coming inside--it’s [a] very Japanese aesthetic. It’s like a Japanese
house. Built by a guy who’s used to building high rises--so you’ve
got--you know--kind of a meshing of the two views.
JB:
Did you--you must have been to Japan at some point.
00:45:00
NR:
I went with--well I had a business in Japan. I was doing commercial
house wares design, and I worked for a man who
was an importer, who had designs made in all these different countries.
And the ceramics were all made in Japan. He was half Japanese. Half
Dutch, half Japanese. Anyway, Nagoya was where they made some of [them].
I still have a few of those cups, those blue and white cups. So I had
business in Nagoya, which was--and Mom was leading a craft trip in
Japan, so I hooked up with her. . . .
JB:
Do you remember what year that was? I think she went in ’73.
NR:
Oh she went like many--
JB:
She had been before though several times.
NR:
--many times, many times. This one, we visited Hamada, and we visited
[Eishiro] Abe. And she was feted by Abe--it was really a fabulous trip.
And we went to Bizen [and Tamba] and--I’m trying to think of
another--I’ve forgotten the names of the pottery villages. So we were
visiting kind of national treasures, and seeing the traditional arts.
She had an "in" everywhere there. It was fantastic--fantastic.
JB:
Yes, she was really treated like a queen, I guess.
NR:
Yes, [inaudible].
JB:
So you were with that--with her on that trip.
NR:
But she had been many times to Japan. I mean she’d gone with my dad in
the ’50s quite a few times, two or three times with him. And she’d
gone--then when she started leading trips, this wasn’t the first trip.
She’d led at least one before this one. And several after this one--so.
JB:
Well before I forget, I want to follow up on this--on your buying this
mask. And do you mean that she really didn’t know very much about masks,
and did you sort of--
NR:
She didn’t know anything about folk art, except I think she liked it.
But I don’t remember her buying any of it.
JB:
Well I’m just wondering if--
NR:
I’m just trying to think . . . [of] what we had in our house. I
mean--she was in the world of fine art, you know what I’m saying? But
she was still a painter in those days, and that was her focus. And the
only things that they purchased were Japanese art, pretty much. Or they
had some paintings by Howard Warshaw, and Keith Finch, and you know,
[inaudible] go from that.
JB:
But she hadn’t really started to collect Japanese folk art.
NR:
Not folk art, [overlapping dialogue; inaudible]
JB:
What about textiles?
NR:
No. Other than a kimono or two, I don’t think [so], no. I think this is
something that-- You have to realize that there was a confluence of
events that made this whole museum [i.e., the gallery] thing happen . .
. . OK, what I wanted to say was: the museum didn’t--I mean the
gallery--didn’t just happen. But it was a process of learning about what
was out there. So--once the focus kind of got decided, then the world
opened up to show what there was, right? When you change your
focus--because Mother had been a very, as I say, private person in her
studio. And shy in a way, and [when] she suddenly was working in a
public--you know--arena, she changed.
JB:
Frank mentioned that--that she had not really had much experience in
public--
NR:
Nothing. She was very happy painting in her studio, and being with her
friends and stuff. I mean she wasn’t retiring, she was--she liked to be
alone. And we all knew that as kids, you know? "Where’s Mom? She’s in
her studio." Not that--I mean we were—[we] had a wonderful upbringing.
I’m just saying--we were lucky as kids. It’s a very nice family to grow
up in. But she knows--that was her business. And anyway, they started
meeting crafts people, and learning about the kind of whole gestalt of
being a crafts person--this being connected to your work, and producing
something honest and real--and with a history behind it. And another
person that was very important in Mom’s early years was Beatrice Wood,
who lived in Ojai, and she was a very good friend of my grandmother’s
[my dad's mother].
JB:
Well your grandparents, your dad’s parents, lived up there at that time.
00:50:00
NR:
In Ojai, right. And so
I remember as a kid--she made pottery with my drawings on it. I have a
Beatrice platter with my awful little child’s drawing on it.
JB:
Oh, fantastic.
NR:
But we used to visit her in her exotic house, and she spent a lot of
time in India, and she--first she was dressed as a Peruvian Indian for
years, and then she discovered India and became devoted to India.
But--you know--we used to go visit her and see her beautiful work, and
my grandmother had several pieces. So I think that was one of the
artists that early on were very connected to the [development of the
museum].
JB:
Well and Beatrice Wood had a very large folk art collection, didn't she?
NR:
She did, fantastic. Her house was wall to wall. I remember I loved to go
visit her. So I was saying that [she] and Sam [Maloof] were two really
key people at the beginning. Other people, Lee Mullican is [one]--there
were several people. [For some of them], it wasn't folk art, but they
were "ethnic" collectors. They called it "ethnic art" in those days.
That was like [the] Ralph Altman [Gallery] and the Stendahl Gallery.
People my mother knew who collected ethnic art, like--
JB:
Yes, the Ethnic Arts Council.
NR:
The Ethnic--I don’t even know if that figured in her life in any way in
those days.
JB:
But the terminology was prevalent.
NR:
They were collecting American Indian, and like Oceanic art, or African
art. So those--she knew people like that, but we didn’t have any of that
stuff in our house. But that was--and I don’t think that was the world
she was interested in going into. It kind of evolved. And--but Lee
Mullican was a very important person in the beginning in helping define
the [scope of The Egg and The Eye gallery]. He [and his wife, Luchita
Hurtado] collected American Indian--and everything--wonderful art. They
had an incredible collection. So she met them, and so anyway, the people
that started--were attracted to this idea--broadened her view, and she
started learning about it. And she was a great student. She learned all
these different traditions and aesthetics. And she started traveling and
so she became very knowledgeable. But it was--it started from not
knowing at the beginning. She didn’t know about anything [regarding folk
art].
JB:
But it was a natural evolution.
NR:
It was--as I said--and as the time is [evolving]--also the world was
opening up to hippies. The hippie evolution of people traveling to all
these--you know--as far away as you could get from Western culture.
JB:
Nineteen-sixty-five, [which was the year The Egg and The Eye gallery
opened] was really--I mean the timing was--of the [opening of the]
gallery was impeccable.
NR:
Right. And she didn’t--and it was only as these travelers started
bringing back extraordinary collections, and then they were for sale,
that she began feeling that we’re letting these extraordinary things
fall through our fingers, you know, without being studied. And . . .
this was when they were starting to talk about the Fourth World, and all
that business. [Some scholars were saying] that was not authentic folk
art and crafts, but rather crafts made for the tourist market. And that
was a whole--you know--argument that was going on in those days, right?
JB:
Yeah, well actually, that continued into the [Craft and Folk Art] Museum
days and especially in the late ’80s and early ’90s--there was a lot of
interest among the [CAFAM] museum staff in you know, cross-cultural
influences, and the whole issue of what is "authentic," and so on.
NR:
But she was saying in the early days, they were--she was getting very
authentic pieces that she felt were doomed. And that unless they--that
was the real motivation of making it into a museum, so that they could
be studied, and they wouldn’t have to be for sale. And also, other
collections could be showcased . . . .
JB:
But she never had the funding for the right kind of storage and
conservation of those.
NR:
Well she did what she thought was good. I mean they--the shortcomings
weren’t immediately evident--and they never intended at first to create
a collection, but it became like a fire under her after a while, and
that became like she was on the hunt from then [on] . . . for stuff for
the museum. . . .
JB:
Well I have to say that when the--you know I’m really getting ahead of
myself here--but when the auction happened in 1998--I went to that
auction--were you [there]?
NR:
Me too, yeah, it was [overlapping dialogue; inaudible] very sad.
00:55:00
JB:
Yeah I know, it was more like a wake than [an auction]--but
what I found really interesting was in the preview days, the day or two
before the actual auction, everything was out on display. For the first
time--everything was out on display. And some of it looked kind of
crappy, it was not very clean, it hadn’t been displayed very well--but I
was amazed. I thought it was just amazing, the breadth of the
collection. We had never had space or time to show it [all], more than
just a few selected pieces from time to time.
NR:
It’s hard being a small museum. I mean that’s kind of an oxymoron,
because you know, you always need more space. You just always need more
space.
JB:
Yes, but I--
NR:
And money.
JB:
--think that--I think that if the museum had had a proper place to--at
least a proper place to store that collection--so that it could have
been shown with some pride, the reputation of the museum at the end
would have been much higher. It was a very mixed set of emotions to . .
. [see] that--
NR:
Well it was awful. I mean--my sister and I ended up buying all these
huipils because we couldn’t stand for them to be--
JB:
Yeah, we bought a few things too.
NR:
--to be--my dad bought back--I mean some of the northwest coast stuff
that—[inaudible] some of the big masks, he--
JB:
Yes, he’s got--in his office now--he has a few pieces. I bought--Beny
and I bought the big Mexican papier-mâché and wood figures, the devils,
and [the Judas figure], the one that was on the cover of American Home
magazine, there’s a wonderful image of her with that devil at the
forefront. [The photo of Edith Wyle with the Judas figure is not on the
cover; it’s on p. 46 of the July 1970 issue of American Home.]
NR:
It’s the one with the firecrackers on it?
JB:
Yes, yes.
NR:
Oh yeah, that one’s good.
JB:
They’re [the firecrackers are] still there, [the figure's] gotten very
fragile.
NR:
I bet.
JB:
After being moved several times--but it’s in a very prominent place in
our house. So you said-- there was a confluence of things that had
happened, and it’s interesting to me to realize that Edith turned to
folk art, not, I gather from what you were saying, out of a need to
reject abstract expressionism or whatever--
NR:
It wasn’t—"reject’s" the wrong word. She just didn’t relate to it.
JB:
Right. But it--
NR:
It wasn’t speaking her language.
JB:
Yes. But I gather that the motivation--her motivations--were much more
positive toward this new--
NR:
Oh yes.
JB:
--world that she had discovered.
NR:
She became wildly enthusiastic. And found that she had a lot to say
about it. I mean as she went along.
JB:
There were a couple of people associated with what eventually became the
Fowler Museum, Pat Altman and Chris--
NR:
Caroline West.
JB:
--Caroline West, and Chris Donnan, is that his name?
NR:
Oh yeah, yeah. He was--
JB:
He taught a class, I think, which was--
NR:
I had a class--
JB:
--maybe you were in that class.
NR:
Yeah, I was in some class of his at UCLA. He was an anthropologist. . .
. Yeah, I remember him. [Christopher B. Donnan also served for a time as
Director of the UCLA Fowler Museum.]
JB:
And he taught a class, I think at the Egg and the Eye--or actually, I
think it was during that transition between when the Egg was just
turning into a museum--and that was very influential for Edith. She--I
think she wrote--some of the best things she wrote . . . about the
mission of the museum . . . when she was taking that class.
NR:
Well I think she became an ambassadress of [folk art and crafts]--as she
met other women from . . . what was his name . . . what was the name of
the wonderful wife of the Egyptian president?
JB:
Oh, Jehan Sadat.
NR:
Yeah, Sadat, right. She met people from different countries who were
[also interested in traditional crafts and folk art].
JB:
The woman from India--
01:00:00
NR:
. . . . [Kamaladevi Chattopadhyay.] Yeah,
she met these women who, you know, represented their countries, and the
craft movement, and she felt like she was almost an equivalent, speaking
for the crafts movement of the United States, you know? She was asked to
speak so much about it, it became--she became the position [a
spokesperson], more or less.
JB:
Yes. Now, I know that sometime after she first met Sam Maloof, he took
her to New York and introduced her to the American Craft Council people
[and] to [Aileen Osborn] Webb.
NR:
. . . . I remember who she was, yes, I met her.
JB:
--we’ll fill that in on the transcript. [Aileen Osborn Webb was the
founder of the American Craft Council, America House, The Museum of
Contemporary Craft, and the World Craft Council.]
NR:
OK.
JB:
And I’m just wondering--I think--I had the impression that [Edith] had
very mixed feelings about the American Craft Council. That she didn’t
feel that--you know--she thought they represented East Coast values, and
that they were not as accepting of West Coast artists, and so on. And
I’m just wondering if you heard her talk about that at all.
NR:
I’m sure I did.
JB:
(laughter) OK.
NR:
I don’t recall specifically, but as she made a name for herself in the
organization, she got more comfortable. So she’s always--you know it
takes her a while, but she got on her feet, and felt she had an impact,
and I think she--that was important to her. She always was trying to be
heard.
JB:
Yes, yes.
NR:
Yeah, it’s a struggle. A lot of times it was a struggle. You know she
had a struggle with the Museum and the gallery to say OK, this is
valuable material here, it should be shown and appreciated the same way
that fine art is exhibited and appreciated. And even if it’s made out of
a piece of paper, it’s equally valid aesthetically, and I think that was
a really novel kind of view [at that time].
JB:
Oh, yes, well it was [at the time the gallery was founded in 1965].
NR:
--and that was kind of the basis of the gallery even--was that these
things needed to be showcased. Given some--
JB:
Well, and it--I think the thing that was really different was that an
art museum started to value, to show these objects as art objects. Later
on, there was a kind of backlash against that. And I think most museums
do show those kinds of objects in more of a cultural context now, but--
NR:
Well I remember, Proctor Stafford was--case in point, had an
extraordinary collection of pre-Hispanic art, mostly northern Mexican
art. And we were--she was, you know, acquaintances, friends with him,
and we used to go see his--he used to live in La Brea, Park La Brea. Had
an apartment there, and he always had a show on in his apartment. [Park
La Brea is a large development of town homes and mid-rise apartments
just east of CAFAM and LACMA built in 1941.] And this is before he gave
his collection to LACMA [the L.A. County Museum of Art], right? And he
was absolutely adamant that his pieces should be viewed totally devoid
of cultural context, just as sculpture. [Stafford was on the CAFAM board
for a while.] And I always felt that it was missing something, because
the—you've got a whole other dimension. OK--so you put them on a
pedestal, that’s featuring them, [inaudible] [but] the context was so
important, you know, that was my upbringing. So I--that was a raging
argument in those days.
JB:
Oh yeah. Well, I think it still goes on to a certain extent. And I guess
LACMA right now is going kind of back the other way. I hear from Bernard
[Kester] that the--Mike Govan--[the current LACMA director] wants all
the walls painted white and so on. But I agree with you--
NR:
After he did that beautiful job of color? I think it’s stunning, his
rooms—God! [Bernard Kester was an exhibition designer for LACMA for many
years.]
JB:
Bernard’s [designs of the LACMA galleries]--yes, oh yes. . . .
NR:
I think I . . . have to take a pause for a minute. [break in tape]
01:05:00
JB:
Well, now I want to talk a little bit more about the beginnings of the
museum. And I’m wondering where you were when--when did you first hear
that your parents were considering
turning the gallery--what had been at least ostensibly a commercial
gallery--into a non-profit museum?
NR:
Give me the year framework.
JB:
Well, I found documents that go back as early as 1967 when there were
discussions about the possibility of starting a folk art museum. You
know the gallery started in ’65. But it seems like--at least Edith--had
in the back of her mind that, you know, a museum [was what it should
be]. You know—she, I think, really thought of the gallery enterprise
more as an educational and aesthetic opportunity. She didn’t seem to be
very interested in making money. She wasn’t opposed to it, but her--the
focus of her attention was more on the display, the collecting and
display of the objects, and learning about them. I mean there were
many--there was this whole Egg and the Eye Association that sponsored
[many educational programs at the gallery]. [break in tape]
NR:
I’m OK now. Sorry.
JB:
So, in other words, the gallery, as wildly successful as it was in every
other respect: socially, culinarily, aesthetically, it was never, I
understand--I wasn’t there, but from what everyone-- including your
dad--has told me, it was never a success commercially. And she was
always very interested in programs of all kinds: lectures, workshops,
you know, pretty much every kind of thing. Puppet shows.
NR:
Yeah, I think the Mask Festival, you’re forgetting that.
JB:
Well yeah. I mean that started--
NR:
Because I’m the reason for that.
JB:
OK--well I want to get to that, and I just wanted to set the scene.
Because it was a process of several years to turn the gallery into a
museum. It had the--she went to Washington to lobby for it. And you
know, because the IRS had to determine that this was not just a tax
dodge, but that, you know, it was going to have an educational purpose
[so] that . . . you know--making it a non-profit enterprise was
[legally] appropriate. So that took--in 1973, they got their [501(c)(3)
status] or whatever it was: the non-profit status from the IRS. But then
it took another couple of years to form a board, to find staff--you
know--to do all those things that do make it [a nonprofit organization].
I just--I just said that the museum really wasn’t that different, but of
course there were some big differences. You had to have some
professional staff, and you had to have a mission, and you had to have a
board of trustees, and so on. So, the museum did not start to have
exhibitions that were advertised as Craft and Folk Art Museum
exhibitions until 1975. And at first, it was the "Craft and Folk Art
Museum incorporating the Egg and the Eye." They rightly wanted to use
the great reputation that The Egg and The Eye [gallery] had, you know,
before [completely] changing the name over. The restaurant remained, but
took on the name of the Egg and the Eye, which I thought was brilliant.
And so that was 1975. And then sometime in that period of time, before
the first manifestation of the Festival happened, which was October of
’76--and that was primarily a parade--I guess there were a few
performers--that’s what I’d like you to talk about. How did that whole
idea of the Mask Festival come about?
01:10:00
NR:
Well I was living in the Bay Area, the north Oakland/Rock Ridge area.
And there was a parade, a mask parade up there. I think it was in Tilden
Park or something. It was just a small thing where they—it's hailing,
look at the hail! It’s hailing!
JB:
I’m going to pause for a second.
NR:
Look-- [break in tape]
JB:
Yes, the Mask Festival. OK, we had a little bit of a cloud burst.
NR:
Yeah, it was just (laughter)--just the wild Altadena weather. OK, so I
told her [Edith] about this parade, and I thought, you know, LA has so
many different ethnic neighborhoods, wouldn’t it be great to, you know,
try to involve them in the parade? And you could be the center of it?
And she caught that idea and went running with it. I mean, of course, my
mother--you give her a little idea, and pretty soon it’s a big idea.
JB:
Yes, yes, every aspect--
NR:
So she was so galvanized by this whole idea, and thought OK, the school
children, let’s involve the school children. Then we could have
maskmaking workshops, we can get all the ethnic groups to, you know,
exhibit their masks and stuff. It wasn’t at the beginning of the
idea—performing--but mostly just us recognizing the ethnic contributions
of the city. She always thought in terms of the city, and its environs,
and trying to get everybody to--I mean I had no thought of--I was just
this--we were just this little--just a little mask parade, [whoever
thought] that it would ever become the Mask Festival [that it became]. I
mean that--
JB:
Oh, and how could anyone have? And it happened so fast.
NR:
It happened so fast. Well, Willow was the key person in that.
JB:
Yes. Well, Shan was the first, but Willow assisted her for a couple of
years, until she got her--
NR:
Her degree.
JB:
--bachelor’s degree [in World Arts and Cultures from UCLA], and then she
took over in ’79.
NR:
Oh, is that when it was?
JB:
Yeah, yeah. Seventy--well ’76 was the first. It was mainly a parade, and
then ’77 and ’78, and between ’76 and ’78, I have a report that Willow
wrote, I think for a grant proposal or something. And she shows that it
was just--it grew exponentially. It started out with something like 15
groups, and then grew to 60, and then, you know, over 100, and then 200
or 300.
NR:
[inaudible] Anyway, it’s marvelous, it’s my favorite part of the museum,
I love it.
JB:
So tell [us] again what this parade, the mask parade, was that happened
in Oakland, that was the inspiration.
NR:
That’s all I remember about it, except it was in Berkeley, and people
paraded with masks on that either they made, or that--they were ethnic
masks. And from that, I thought well, this would be something great for
Los Angeles, which is such a sprawling metropolis. It never had an
identity as a city in those days, it was like many, many small townships
and small cities, sort of in a loose relationship, but it never felt
like a city. And this was one way to give it some kind of, like,
cultural identity. A multi-cultural center, this was my mother’s
thinking, and see--this is like my grandmother’s thinking [of] that
larger context--where she got this ability from [she got it from her
mother, Rose].
01:15:00
JB:
And it was about that time in the--probably ’74 or something like
that--that Mayor Bradley had a commission that studied the ethnicity of
the city. I don’t know if it was for the first time, but there was a
report that came out about that time that, you know, made clear how many
different [groups there were]--at that time. He said there were more
different ethnic or immigrant groups in Los Angeles than in any other
city [in the U.S.], and that was a big shock, because everyone had
always assumed it was New York City or Chicago that had the most. But we
had so many more from Asia and the Pacific area. So, I know Edith would
quote that often--and that kind of became--and I think to some extent
still is--the identity that you say L.A. did not have before. Yeah.
Well, you came to many of the Festivals.
NR:
I got--yeah. [inaudible] I moved back to LA in 1980 [overlapping
dialogue; inaudible].
JB:
And you had Rosie with you at that time?
NR:
Rosie was born in ’72, and then Sonya was born in ’80. So, and Coco was
already--Colette, my stepdaughter, was--she’s three years older than
Rosie, so she was 11.
JB:
And when did you and Frank get together? You--
NR:
Seventy-eight.
JB:
Seventy-eight, OK. So probably just before the Artesano’s Mexicanos
show.
NR:
No, it was because of [that show that we got together]. [Artesanos
Mexicanos/Three Folk Artists from Mexico; opened June 26, 1978]
JB:
Oh, OK.
NR:
It was because of the [overlapping dialogue; inaudible]--
JB:
Now did you know Judith Bronowski?
NR:
No, we had no idea. What happened was that--I can’t remember his last
name--Kerry somebody [Marshall]. Somehow, I don’t know how mother got in
touch with this guy.
JB:
He had a company called Egg Carton, I remember that.
NR:
Yeah, something. Anyway, he lived in the Bay--he lived in . . . . He
lived in like Orinda, or Walnut Creek. And he somehow became chosen by
Mom to apply for an NEH grant to do accompanying material for the school
system that would go in conjunction to the Artesanos Mexicanos show. And
he wrote a grant, and it was turned down. So she called me and said,
"You’re the anthropologist"--which I’ve never actually been an
anthropologist--I studied anthropology. I did field work, but that
doesn’t--to me--qualify--
JB:
I don’t know, from what I hear from--
NR:
--you as an anthropologist. In my mind, anyway. [So she said], "You’re
the anthropologist," you know, "help him rewrite the grant." So I did,
and we got it. So then--the idea was to [create]--supplemental materials
to supplement the show. Judith Bronowski had taken--made three films on
three different artesanos, artisans from Mexico. And the show was these
movies in different areas of the museum, and then displays of the crafts
that were related to this. . . . and . . . the three artists were being
brought by Judith Bronowski to L.A. for a week. And--
JB:
Now, how did you find out about Judith, or had she come to the museum?
NR:
I didn’t know anything about her, but mother--
JB:
She got together with Edith, OK.
NR:
She was already--it was already scheduled. So, Judith didn’t know about
us, and she was infuriated that we would have anything to do with her
Indians, and-- God, look at it just going.
JB:
Oh my gosh. It is pouring.
01:20:00
NR:
It’s pouring. And that, you know--she felt we were interfering in her
domain. Nevertheless--what the grant was--what they wanted us to do was
to follow these three artists around L.A., and somehow create a program
about that for the school system, so that the kids could give it more of
a--related to L.A. in some way. I thought that was pretty shallow
grounds for any piece of work. And I said what we need to do to--well I
don’t know if it was me or Kerry and I together--thought there must be a
way of relating it to what--is there an equivalent in Los Angeles to
this folk art tradition of Mexico? Do we have a Hispanic folk art
tradition here? And someone said, "Well, there’s this guy named Carlos
Almaraz, you should call him, because he knows all about it." So we
called Carlos, and Carlos says, "You don’t want me, you want Frank
Romero. Frank Romero has been documenting Hispanic folk art in Los
Angeles for years as a part of Simon—" There was another guy [Seymour
Rosen], who also documented folk art in LA. But Frank specialized in
Hispanic folk art. I said, "What is Hispanic folk art in LA?" I had no
idea. So we called Frank, and he said, "Well, if you want to meet me,
you have to see a movie about me." So we met Frank at Jim Tartan’s
office--and Jim Tartan’s the filmmaker who had made the film Los Four.
So Frank said, "I want you to know what I’m about." So we watched the
film Los Four, and it was fascinating, because Frank’s work is very
involved with Hispanic iconography of Los Angeles. So that was our
introduction, and then we thought, "Well this is great." So Frank then
took over this part of the project, and he led us on a tour
of East LA. And we saw--we met all the low riders, we went to the low
rider clubs. We saw all the tattoos, we saw all the gardens--
JB:
"We" was you and Kerry?
NR:
Kerry and I. We saw the gardens, which are these sculptural gardens in
these small little East L.A. houses that are really like little
Disneylands--they’re outrageous. Usually shrines, but with all this
fantasy and other stuff collaged into it. And anyway, there were
different areas of folk art, and then we also came to know about Los
Four, and the Chicano art movement. And anyway, Frank and I fell in love
in this--at this time--and we decided not only did we want to do this
for the trunk [we were assembling for taking to the schools], we also
followed the three--then [the exhibition] opened at this point, and the
three artisans came up, and we got to know them, because we followed
them around for a week, and we decided we really wanted to visit them in
Mexico on our own, and do a slideshow about them in Mexico. So, without
Judith knowing it, we went to Mexico and we stayed with [Manuel]
Jiménez, and [Pedro] Linares, and . . . Sabina Sanchez. And we
photographed them in their houses, and became friends with them. We got
very friendly with Jiménez, and I used to visit him--we visited him for
years after that, and his sons. And we also asked them to give us
samples of their work in stages, so that we could use them as teaching
tools for this trunk we were assembling. So we ended up making three
slide shows. One on the--we called it "Pueblo," which was about what
artisans are like in Mexico. And we did one on the equivalent reality of
Los Angeles, so the kids could see that. And then we did the slide show
about these artists arriving from Mexico, and being walloped by a huge
cosmopolitan city, and one of the most moving moments of that was
Jimenez seeing the ocean--he’d never seen the ocean. He was an extremely
spiritual man--not even spiritual--mystic. He’s a natural mystic who had
this total epiphany on the shore of the ocean. It was an incredibly
moving moment. Anyway--so we did a little slide show about their trip.
JB:
But Judith had already made the films about these artists.
NR:
Yes, but we couldn’t take those into the school system, so we just ended
up making our own show.
JB:
And she didn’t know about this?
NR:
Well she knew about it.
JB:
Oh.
NR:
But part of our being in love was that we got so excited about this
project that we kept amplifying the boundaries of it. So then we made--
JB:
The "Edith syndrome."
NR:
The Edith syndrome. Well it was also so much fun to work together--we
did these cards that were organized around projects for the classroom
that utilized these crafts, and other aspects of--this is the
anthropologist in me--I couldn’t help it. And Frank and I illustrated--
JB:
And the teachers I’m sure were grateful, yeah.
NR:
We illustrated them, and so we did something like--there would be a card
for foods. Guacamole, or chocolate, or how to make a huipil [traditional
garment worn by indigenous women in Mexico and Central America] or
enredo [a wrap-around skirt] or all these artifacts that were from the
culture of Mexico. And then the cards that had to do with different
celebrations, so there was Dia de los Muertos, or how they celebrated
Christmas, or how they--what they did for, you know, Cinco de Mayo,
whatever. And then how you could use these celebration cards, and then
make all the foods and the crafts that were associated--
JB:
I think there were recipes, too.
NR:
Yeah recipes, how to do--put on the whole shebang in the classroom. So
that’s--that was--I was very proud of those.
JB:
So the cards, all of that, by the way, is at the UCLA library in Special
Collections.
NR:
OK, oh good I’m glad it’s not lost.
JB:
No, not at all.
NR:
They were really, really cute, and yeah, that was part of our courting.
JB:
We took the slide--oh, that’s nice. Well, so the cards went into the
trunks--
01:25:00
NR:
Into the [trunks]--the cards, the slide shows, and then the examples of
their work. So Jiménez did, like, six stages of carving, from a piece of
a log to the finished product. Not painted, but all of the sculpted part
of an animal. Sabina Sanchez had the drawing of the--of an embroidery,
[inaudible] the color, and the sleeves. And then one partly-embroidered,
then a completed one. And Linares gave us--which is a hysterically funny
story--he gave us
a--the form, a plaster form of a skull . . . which was what he used as
the form for putting the papier-mâché on. And then he gave us the
papier-mâché shell, cut in half, so you could see how it was layered on,
and then opened up. And then one that was painted, a small one. So that
was all in the trunk. When we got to Customs, Frank had a huge beard and
stuff, and of course they stopped us, because we had this huge canasta
[basket] of--we used to buy so much folk art when we were there. So we
looked--and I had probably three or four [huipils] on, so I wouldn’t
have to pay customs on them. We looked like a circus, I’m sure. We got
stopped by Customs, and they looked at that plaster skull, and they
went, "I’m sorry, we’re confiscating this. It could be concealing
drugs." And they drilled it in half, and we sued them essentially, and
got money to repair it back together, but it was--of course, all it had
in it was newspaper, you know--but they couldn’t tell from their
primitive X-ray. They thought it had something--it had a hollow inside.
JB:
Yeah, oh boy.
NR:
So . . . it was ultimately repaired, but--
JB:
What an adventure.
NR:
A funny story. No, we had a great time--that was fun.
JB:
So that was your introduction to Frank, and it was--
NR:
And I ended up moving in with him virtually after that.
JB:
And then a year later, you worked on another CAFAM show, the Traditional
Toys of Japan [opened April 30, 1979].
NR:
No, that wasn’t--that was much later.
JB:
'79. '78 was Artesanos Mexicanos.
NR:
Really?
JB:
Yes, yes.
NR:
Oh, because we did a lot of mural painting.
JB:
Well, I want you to talk about the mural show too.
NR:
No, not the mural show. We did murals as part of the display of--let’s
see, what show? The Greek show--we did a mural which--Geri Kavanaugh
curated that show. [The Greek Ethos: Folk Art of the Hellenic World;
opened February 18, 1979; curated by Basil W.R. Jenkins; Kavanaugh
designed the installation.]
JB:
I remember that mural.
NR:
And there was one of the Romanian--we did something for our Mexican show
where we did [Los Voladores] in the background. We used to paint murals
for a lot of the backdrops--that was a lot of fun. So that’s kind of how
we participated. Plus, the Japanese Toy show, which was the--yeah, OK, I
totally lost the sequence.
JB:
It’s hard--oh I would not remember it if I didn’t have all these lists
of things. Well, yeah. And that’s another one that we have a lot of
the--you know--the slides for. That--well you tell about it.
NR:
So the technology was so primitive that by using two slide projectors,
you could key them so they’d look like one slide merged, or became
another one, you know. So it was pretty primitive.
JB:
So it was an animation show, a show--
NR:
Yeah sort of vaguely--
JB:
--showing how the toys moved. And it was lovely. So that went on a
continuous loop in the [projector].
NR:
When it worked, yeah. (Laughter)
NR:
I had technical difficulties frequently.
JB:
Yes. So--well let’s see. Do you want to go ahead and talk about the
murals, the Murals of Aztlan? [overlapping dialogue; inaudible] Were you
involved with that? [Murals of Aztlan: Street Painters of "East Los";
opened April 28, 1981.]
NR:
Did you talk to Frank? Of course.
JB:
No, I have not yet.
NR:
Yes, we’d been married I guess a year by then. And part of it is, you
have to understand my mother’s enthusiasm, right? So, here I was,
married to an artist. First of all, she was always impressed by
artists--across the board.
JB:
Oh yes, great respect for them.
NR:
When I went out--I used to date Karlheinz Stockhausen when I was 21, you
know, he was my lover for years, and she was appalled at first because
he was so much older, he was what? 17 years older than I was.
JB:
Wow, I didn’t--
NR:
But then she was also impressed . . . because he was so, you know, high
in his profession, right? And so Frank, she was charmed by Frank right
off the bat. You know he was--
JB:
And it must have been kind of funny having the two Franks--
NR:
[It was] mutual love. Oh yeah, the two Franks. And you know, Frank
was--he could hold his own. He had a big enough ego for me. You know, I
needed someone [like that].
JB:
Frank Romero, . . . yeah.
01:30:00
NR:
Yes, he did. And so, he and my dad, they all hit it off really well. So
his enthusiasm, he really had been documenting murals [in L.A.] since
they started, and so of course he was right in the middle of the whole
Chicano art movement. And so the idea was--here I am--I was kind of a
West Side girl
you know. What about bringing all this rich tradition into the view of,
you know, the rest of L.A.? That was kind of how it happened.
JB:
So that was really your idea.
NR:
Not mine, it’s ours. You know, I mean Frank’s. All of it was just
getting to know each other. Mother [was]--learning about this whole
world--and she probably met Carlos, who was also another charming person
at that time.
JB:
Well they all were.
NR:
Yeah, everybody was delightful. And they were. of course. tickled to
death to have the exposure. Everybody was, so Frank just chose the
people, and it wasn’t much to do. I mean with Judith Hernandez and
Gronk, and Willy Herrón and then the East Los Streetscapers. That was
the group. And they--we had a blast, and the idea was that you could see
how it was done, because it was open from the day one. So people could
come in and see the progress of the painting.
JB:
So, it started with blank canvases.
NR:
They created a canvas to fit the shape of the [gallery] walls. And
everybody had their zone, right? A wall. So on the bottom floor it
was--on the street side, it was the Streetscapers, they were [David]
Botello and [Wayne] Healy, that was just the two of them at the time.
And then on the west wall, it was Judith Hernandez, and then Frank
[Romero] was--no, Carlos [Almaraz] was also on the stair side, and then
Frank was sort of on the stair side, wrapping around to the back. So
they were the [ones] downstairs, and then upstairs, oh, John Valadez had
the north side, and then Willy Herrón and Gronk kind of had a--Gronk had
this huge, long wall, and then Willy sort of seguéd--they sort of merged
theirs together.
JB:
[John Valadez’s] was at the head of the stairs, so you saw that as soon
as you came up to the third floor.
NR:
. . . . That was John Valadez, who did projection--very--yeah, yeah.
JB:
Oh yes, yes, yes.
NR:
So, that was fun, and they had, you know, of course mariachis [at the
party, which was held after the murals were finished], and at that time,
the guy who ran the restaurant wasn’t Rodessa, it was this--I’m trying
to think of who it was, it was a Hispanic guy, he was really fun. I
don’t know who--
JB:
Yeah, I--there were several different managers over a period of time--
NR:
The different people--yeah.
JB:
--before Ian Barrington started.
NR:
Anyway, it was a blast, and then, of course, Jim Tartan made a film
about it. [Murals of Aztlan, an exhibition produced by the Craft and
Folk Art Museum, Los Angeles, 1981, curated by Frank Romero; filmmaker,
Jim Tartan, Bronson Films, 1981. 23 minutes, 16 mm.]
JB:
Yes, that’s a wonderful film, a wonderful film.
NR:
And it was. There was a critic who used to drive us crazy named Shifra
Goldman. Oh my God. Who said it was not authentic, because it was taken
out of context, and therefore it was not authentic. Like, so much
bullshit is that, you know. And she wrote these scathing articles about
us, it was so ridiculous!
JB:
Was there more than one article? I know there was one in Artweek. [June
20, 1981, 3-4; then a few weeks later Artweek published a response from
Judith Hernandez and a reply from Goldman.]
NR:
I don’t know. Whatever it was, it was stupid. It was stupid, and also,
[inaudible] like--it started with Carlos, he was the first one to emerge
from the East Side by having a show--you know he got the--it had to do
with the Arco Center for the Arts in downtown [that] gave him a show
there, and it was Fritz Frauchiger, who was the director, and also, I’m
trying to think of the other gal who was--not Eudora Moore--but somebody
important had it before--set it up. He was--he took over, gave Carlos a
show. Carlos sold so much--he got so much attention that Jan Turner took
him up, and she was a, you know, important midtown gallery. And then
Frank got an opportunity to have a show there, and that started his
career. They both got launched from Arco, and then Robert Berman took
him from there, and that was the beginning of his showing. So they were
already, at that time, the timing--showing on the West Side, so it [the
Shifra Goldman critique] was all a stupid thing. You know, they became
integrated into the L.A. art scene, not just marginal artists. You know,
which is what she wanted to keep them as, and it’s ridiculous. You
know--anyway.
JB:
Well yeah, I thought there was a--I mean there may have been some
personal things that I wasn’t aware of, but I thought her main point was
that if--that the mural tradition was a street tradition, and if it
wasn’t done on the street--
NR:
It’s an ephemeral one.
JB:
--it wasn’t authentic.
NR:
Right. Ephemeral, it’s an ephemeral art form.
JB:
I mean that really brought up the whole issue of "authenticity" again.
Which, you know, I didn’t agree with her and, you know, I thought it was
interesting, obviously, all of these quite authentic muralists--
01:35:00
NR:
Like Magú [Gilbert Lujan] didn’t do a mural, and I’m wondering if he was
asked, and I don’t know. He is a person--he was the social conscience of
the Los Four group, as the one who was, you know, trying to be strictly
Chicano,
and it--and like the ephemeral quality of the mural was
important--because it was like the newspaper of the community. He was
more--I don’t think the others ever intended to be "ethnic" artists,
they just were interested--they were consumed by art, period, and they’d
all lived in New York and worked there, too. It’s not like they were
homeboys or something, they were educated and men. I mean--you know.
JB:
Right. Well, the question was an interesting one though, it was sort of
like--the fact that Edith Wyle put folk art on pedestals, in an art
gallery, you know—yeah, you can find things wrong with that, the
cultural context was missing perhaps.
NR:
No, no, she--that was not her thing though. She always included the
cultural context.
JB:
Yeah, yeah, she did actually, of course. But I mean the idea of making
the visitor see these pieces as art pieces, and therefore valuable, and
be able to see them up close, and examine them the way you would examine
a piece of art, as opposed to being in a market. Well, that was--I--from
my point of view, I can see that as a transition kind of thing for--you
know--let’s face it--for people from the West Side who up to that
point--
NR:
Didn’t want to go to East LA.
JB:
Yeah. Well, and--but actually, part of the Murals of Aztlan programming
was to take tours of people around [to East L.A.—and elsewhere where
there were murals in L.A.].
NR:
Oh yeah, we led several tours, so.
JB:
But there were many people [who came to CAFAM to see the Murals of
Aztlan show] who saw murals up close for the first time, and certainly
had never seen murals being painted. And so it was a kind of a
transition for a lot of people.
NR:
It was a learning experience for everybody. And it was fun, I had lots
of fun.
JB:
It was great fun, and Tom Vinetz documented [it]; every week he came in
and spent--did you not know that? There are--
NR:
I don’t remember, I mean Tom was in and out of our life so much in those
years, I don’t know.
JB:
Well there are hundreds. I mean I think there probably are over 1,000
slides that he took of the whole progression of those--of all of the
murals individually, and then he took shots of, you know, each floor. He
took shots of, you know, audience members, visitors to the museum
interacting with the artists.
NR:
Yeah, I’d love to see some of those [inaudible].
JB:
Oh yes, you would love it. They--he was a wonderful photographer. I
don’t know, I haven’t seen him for years, but he’s--he is a wonderful
photographer. And so that show was thoroughly documented, plus, of
course, Jim Tartan made this fabulous film. Which is also, both the film
and video copies of it, are in the archive at UCLA.
01:38:20
NR:
Excellent! Good, good, good. [End of Session 1]
[Joan and Nancy take a break for lunch.]
JB:
So in 1984, Frank Wyle retired, and Edith retired.
NR:
’84? Huh?
JB:
Yes, ’84--I know. What I wanted to ask you . . . they gave her a big
send-off, she--I don’t know if I went to that or not . . . .
NR:
Reluctantly retired.
JB:
Huh?
NR:
She reluctantly retired.
JB:
Well, I was wondering if Frank didn’t twist her arm.
NR:
No, I don’t think it was Frank.
JB:
No? Oh.
NR:
No. You mean her husband, Frank, my dad?
JB:
Yeah.
NR:
No. No.
JB:
Well, Patrick, of course, was really chomping at the bit.
NR:
Yeah, he was.
JB:
But then, of course, she had lunch with him every Wednesday, as long as
they were [both] there-- where the Egg and the Eye [restaurant] was.
[The Egg and the Egg restaurant closed forever June 30, 1989; CAFAM
staff moved temporarily to 725/727 Curson July 31, 1989; the first CAFAM
exhibition at the May Company opened November 21, 1989; most of the
staff moved to the May Company June 28, 1990.]
NR:
Yeah, she--you know—[CAFAM] had occupied her mental space for so long,
it was very hard to retreat. She wasn’t--she still had a lot of energy.
JB:
Well, that--I was going to ask you if you noticed any differences in
either your dad or your mom after they retired.
NR:
My father? No, because he was always extremely busy. Though he did take
a lot more time with the family, and really [did] get involved in all
his grandchildren and great-grandchildren’s lives. They both did. They
were, you know, great family people.
JB:
Spent more time at the ranch?
NR:
Yeah. My dad always spent more time than my mom did at the ranch. But,
you know, as I said, they were involved in all their kids’ and their
grandkids’ and their great-grandkids’ lives. But, like, [I'm] sorry, my
mom didn’t really get to know the great-grandkids, because she died.
Let’s see... Rosie was pregnant when she died--with Sophia. And Alex had
just given birth to Devon, so those were the first, so she knew Devon.
JB:
Doesn’t seem possible it’s been that long.
NR:
I know. I get confused. But my dad was--had so many boards he was
on--and the ranch he ran, that he had ongoing business. Kept him busy
full-time, anyway. And his investments, and all that. But my mom, I
think she had a hard time. She was a little bitter.
JB:
I remember her saying that someone had told her--she said this as if
this was somebody else’s idea, but I thought to myself, I wonder if it
was her idea, too?--that she should’ve, in the renovated building--that
she should’ve had an office set aside for herself.
NR:
Well, I’m sure she would have liked that. I don’t know if she said it or
not. But she really felt that she was the--you know--the person who kept
everything on track, the track that she set out for it, for the museum
to follow. And that without her--her vision--it might not continue as it
had before. And she’s right, of course. It doesn’t. Because each new
director brings their own--his own or her own--personality to bear on
it, and the focus changes. L.A. changes, too. I think that she felt bad
that she left it at a low point. And I can’t remember exactly when she
retired, but it doesn’t--
JB:
1984. Actually--
NR:
Was it back in the new building?
JB:
--I think that was at a high point right then.
NR:
Was that before they moved to the May Company, or after?
JB:
Oh, before, yeah.
NR:
Oh, before, OK. Then she left it in a good point. Because that May
Company thing was a fiasco. She was so excited by the architects that
were going to do the [renovations].
JB:
Hodgetts + Fung?
NR:
Uh huh.
JB:
Well, I wanted to ask you--
NR:
But I never liked their design at all.
00:05:00
JB:
You didn’t like the Hodgetts + Fung design? Everybody seems to love it
or hate it. It’s pretty but it’s not very practical.
NR:
It’s not. It’s a waste of space.
JB:
Although getting the elevator in was wonderful.
NR:
Oh yeah, no, I’m not against the elevator. I just--it’s a very
disjointed space. . . . And the fact that they didn’t put a restaurant
in was the death of it. Because the restaurant was the only revenue they
could count on, and it also made it a place for people to go on a
regular basis. So they never could attract the people in there, the way
they could when they had the restaurant.
JB:
Well, I certainly believe now, in retrospect--I don’t think any of
us--maybe you did--but I don’t think any of us on the staff really
appreciated fully how important, how really--I think--integral to the
whole concept, the restaurant was.
NR:
The restaurant was buzzing. It was full. It was always packed. And even
if you didn’t care about art, you saw it, because you went to the
restaurant. So, it brought art to a lot of people that wouldn’t
otherwise have seen it.
JB:
Well of course at the beginning--
NR:
And it was intimate. And small. And it was a jewel, you know.
JB:
It really was. [But] I did hear Edith and others say that it made them
mad to realize that lots of people came in to eat, who were not aware
that they were in a museum at all.
NR:
Ah yeah, well. She was always trying to let people know how important it
was.
JB:
Well, there were a whole lot of reasons why the restaurant didn’t
happen. And I have found letters and memos that indicate that they were
still hoping and planning to have a restaurant in the renovated
space--what eventually became the office space there. But, you know, the
fiasco-- the real fiasco--was not getting that building on the corner.
Which your mother wanted to [buy as soon as it was available]. [There
is] a wonderful memo from her, from [April 17] 1975, that is [written]
to the whole membership, and it says, you know, “We’re starting this
museum, and the building on the corner is available for $350,000,
[actually $300,000] and we just have to raise that.”
NR:
And then the next owner just played on them mercilessly--made it so--
JB:
Oh, Ventress? I never did understand [why he was so stubborn about the
price]. Maybe you could shed some light on it.
NR:
I did not get involved. I don’t know.
JB:
Because it seemed like it was more than just a financial matter. It
almost seemed--he was so hard-nosed--that it just almost seemed as
though there was some personal reason why he would not back down and
negotiate in a reasonable way.
NR:
I don’t know, but that’s all I know. That he was very hard-nosed.
00:10:00
JB:
So, I mean, the fiasco was that that was built into the plan for the
renovated building . . . the merging of those two spaces. [And in the
end, they were not able to buy the corner building.] So, we had all our
offices, and the library, and storage space, and a gallery in the 5800
building. And the way the 5814 building was redesigned . . . you know,
it was either going to be offices--and not very big offices--or a
restaurant. It couldn’t be both. And there wasn’t, you know, any storage
space to speak of. There was sort of a little place in the back that
they called the Education or Program Room. It was named after someone,
was that the Ahmanson? Anyway-- So--and even the parking was . . .
[attached to] . . . the big building on the corner. The little parking
lot that we had [originally] was what became the courtyard. But that
seemed OK at the time, because we had the huge parking lot out in back
that belonged to the 5800 building. So it was a big shock to everybody
when . . . [the merger] couldn’t happen. [It happened—the merged
facility opened in May 1995, but when the purchase did not go through,
and the lease was up at the end of 1997, the corner building had to be
vacated and that was when the museum closed.]
NR:
Well also-- is it Ratkovich--is that his name--the developer?
JB:
Well, the Museum Tower [project] was Ratkovich, yeah.
NR:
And that whole fiasco, so--
JB:
Yes. Although, Nancy--and I know that [situation with the financing of
the Museum Tower falling through] was a big disappointment to
everyone--when that didn’t go through--but there were some of us [on the
staff] that were really worried about how in the world we would ever
maintain that much bigger space. You know, that would have been at least
three or four times the space that we [had] had [in the original
building], and--how would we have even provided the security for it? Let
alone any of the other staffing. [So, the Hodgetts and Fung design
seemed much more reasonable.]
NR:
I don’t know. I was not involved in any of this, so I have no input, I’m
sorry.
JB:
Yeah. I know. And that’s partly why I thought . . . maybe we would end
this fairly soon. But, you know, it does have . . . a happy ending, so I
just thought we’d go through to that point.
NR:
I did a great show, my Toy Mechanics show.
JB:
Oh! . . . . Tell about that.
NR:
Patrick was not the director anymore, but he was sort of forced to
be--during that period.
JB:
Oh, this was after the re-opening of the museum. I don’t think I saw
that show.
NR:
It was great.
JB:
Well, tell about it.
NR:
It was--I, from all my travels--found that what gave me [the] most
pleasure collecting was toys. And what I got most enthusiastic about
were toys that were made out of just whatever was lying around people’s
houses. Like, you know, just--anything. Just flotsam and jetsam, and how
people put them together and made these ingenious toys. And so I
collected them, and I also started trying to learn how to make them
myself. Because they were very simple mechanisms that I was trying
to--for me, they weren’t simple, because I have no engineering training.
But I learned to make some of them, and thought, “This is great.” And I
started making art toys with them, using certain--sort of animating my
art with these mechanisms, and I thought, “This would make a great
show.” And I was going to call it Toy Mechanics, and the focus would be
on the mechanisms, rather than the toys. [Toy Mechanics; opened 2002]
Simple things like wheel toys, or things with cranks. No industrial
toys, in other words, that had to have springs or anything like that, or
turn with a key; that’s way too advanced. It had to be very simple
stuff. And so I went around [to] all the collections in L.A. and
collected moveable toys. And I went to the Fowler, and to several
private collections, of which many of them were members of the Folk Art
Council, [that] I went to. And I’m forgetting everybody’s name now.
Ann--what was her name? Anyhow, various people that--there’s some great
collections in L.A. that--
JB:
Ann Morgan?
NR:
Morgan. . . . Yeah. And there’s a great collection in Pasadena; this
woman has toys all over her house. So what we did with this show,
because the toys—like [with] the Japanese Toys show--
JB:
Yeah, I was thinking of the Japanese Toys show with those toys with
those wobbly heads--
NR:
--we made a movie of the toys moving. And that’s my son-in-law’s
department--
JB:
Rigo [Saenz, Rosie's husband].
00:15:00
NR:
So he gave me his cameraman, named Vince. And we went around and made
all the toys move. And then we made a movie of it that was on a loop.
And we had--someone donated a large flat-screen [TV], and we had it
running so that when you went into the exhibit, you’d see all the toys,
but you could also see what happens when they move. And moving is what
makes them become--I mean, makes them wonderful. And it was a delightful
movie, which we then decided to market on its own, because it was so
much fun for children. Ah, but it’s bogged down in Rosie and Rigo’s
business, it never got off the [ground] . . . because the music we had
set it to--which was so great--was actually not in the public domain. So
. . . they had to redo the soundtrack, and--anyway, it got bogged down.
That’s another story. So anyway--it was a great--
I did that show from start to finish myself. Curated it.
JB:
So was that during the time when Patrick was Acting Director? After Joan
de Bruin had gone on sick leave, or. . .?
NR:
He was Acting [Director]. Reluctantly.
JB:
But he was paid by the city for a year while she was on sick leave.
[Joan de Bruin was on sick leave from April 2001 – April 2002; Patrick
Ela was Acting Director during that time.]
NR:
He was there, but not there very much. In other words, he didn’t come in
all the time. And the city--it was when the city had taken over
everything. And it was really difficult. Everything had to
get--go--cycle through downtown and come back again. So getting money
for anything, getting permission for anything, was like such red tape,
it was impossible. And they had, like, oversight on everything you did.
[Phone rings] It’s all right, whatever.
JB:
Well, I just wanted to kind of reset the scene. We had to move into the
May Company; we had to find an alternative space to be, because the city
was insisting that 5814 be earthquake-proofed. As it turned out, that
was really good, because a few years later there was the big earthquake
of 1994, and it survived very well. But anyway--so it was at that point
that we looked at a bunch of different places as possibilities, and then
suddenly we were offered all of this free space in the May Company
department store. So that’s where we ended up going. And I wanted to get
your take--because it was somewhat controversial--as you know.
NR:
I thought it was a disaster.
JB:
Well, explain. Why?
NR:
Because it wasn’t visible. Period. If you don’t have street visibility.
. . . [For example], I was trying to help my son-in-law buy a building
for his business, and I was saying, “Look at this one, look at this one,
this one.” He says, “No, no. You have to have--I want it [to be] where
street traffic is. I want visibility from the street. Without that, I
won’t get any off-the-street traffic.” And [in the same way], as soon as
the museum moved into the May Company, it was hidden. Nobody knew about
it. Nobody--you wouldn’t say, “Oh yeah, I haven’t been there for a
while,” because you don’t see it, it wasn’t there. And it lost all its
momentum. And a place needs to build up a momentum and stay fresh in
people’s minds. And no amount of sending notices through the mail--or
whatever we did in those days--is gonna get the clientele to come back.
JB:
Well, there were people also who really thought the May Company had
declined, that it was kind of shabby--
NR:
It was shabby.
JB:
--even as a department store.
NR:
Yeah, it was a mess. So I know it was like treading water, being in
there, but meanwhile, everyone on the boat had left, you know. That’s my
[take on it]. . . . (laughs) You know.
JB:
Yeah. Well, I think you’re right. We were kind of insulated from that,
on the staff, because we were very, very busy when we first moved into
the May Company. We were still planning to move into this Museum Tower,
you know. The reason that the earthquake-proofing didn’t happen right
away is because--
NR:
You were gonna build the Tower.
JB:
Right, right. So we were busy making plans for that. I had started this
[adjunct] program called the Center for the Study of Art and Culture,
which was supposed to be an [R and D] fellowship program [in the Museum
Tower]. That didn’t materialize, but we got a lot of money from the
Irvine Foundation to build up the library and computerize it, and
develop this National Advisory board--which your mom and Patrick
attended [all] the meetings of. And that was really, really interesting,
because they [the Advisory Board] had some things to tell us about what
we should be doing. And we did begin to involve people from the L.A.
community more in the shows that were developed. It wasn’t just, you
know, taking already constructed collections and displaying them. It was
more involving people who had actually either made the objects or been
involved culturally with the objects. So that was--that was interesting.
That was the early 90s, and that was a very traumatic time. That was,
you know, the [time of the] Rodney King videotaping--
00:20:00
NR:
Frank and I were, you know,
living half the time in Taos, and we weren’t really in touch with it.
JB:
You were not aware of what was going on?
NR:
No, I was aware. I just chose not to be involved.
JB:
Yeah. Well, you’re right about the street presence. We tried--we had
been promised by the May Company people that the windows on the
street--and they’re big windows on that street!--that those would be
available to us to advertise the shows. And that only happened a few
times. They just--you know, in retrospect, you can always see things
very clearly. After the fact, I realized probably the only reason that
we were given that free space, all of that free space--it was a huge
amount. . . . . The fourth floor, is where the gallery was; the library
was on the mezzanine; and we had all those offices on the fifth floor,
right by the rooftop, [which we were able to use for parties]. It was
wonderful, from the staff point of view. But probably the only reason we
were given that is because the May Company department store was on the
decline. You know, we didn’t think of that at the time. I don’t think
anybody did. So, you know, it shouldn’t have come as such a shock when
the May Company Corporation told us, at the end of ’92, I guess it was,
that they were closing down the building. And that was when we went into
the building on the corner and--the 5800 Wilshire building--and the
plans for the merging of those two buildings began. [The Museum Tower
project had fallen through at that point.] And the assumption, from the
staff point of view all along, was that that [corner] building was going
to be purchased. That’s what all the plans were based on. So [when
Ventress began to balk], that was really the start of the problems. And
it was kind of a house of cards. So the museum closed, then, at the end
of 1997. We had [had] this grand re-opening in ’95. Did you come to
that, when we had the party [in a big tent] out in back, to celebrate
the [re-opening]?
NR:
I don’t remember.
JB:
It was great. I mean, I think if 1984 was a peak, then 1995 was also,
was [another] peak--
NR:
Was that to open the new building?
JB:
To open the renovation, the merging of the two buildings. The new, the
renovated, Hodgetts + Fung design.
NR:
Mhmm. But not both buildings?
JB:
Yes, oh yes! [It was both buildings.] They designed this
renovation--that was the two buildings [5800 and 5814 Wilshire] merged
with a courtyard [where our parking lot had been]--
NR:
Oh, I do remember that, with the screen going across the front. Right,
right, right.
JB:
Right. And there was a huge gallery in 5800, a beautiful gallery that we
had. One of the opening shows was a history of the museum. Edith brought
in the [screen] door that was the Egg and the Eye door, and that was
part of the show. And I put together a slide show, over 300 images from
all of the--
NR:
Right. I guess I was there. Can’t remember. Musta been.
00:25:00
JB:
. . . So, you know, and then it was like, that was the peak, and
then--whoosh! We went off the precipice after that. And within a year,
Patrick had resigned, and this fellow, Paul Kusserow, had been hired [as
Executive Director], and [that] was a huge disappointment. I don’t know.
I mean, I--he didn’t really understand the running of museums. He was a
businessman. And he had worked for the Williamsburg Foundation, but in
their marketing office, not in--or their finance office--not having
anything to do with the museum [collections or exhibitions]. So in less
than a year, the museum was--you know--was in terrible, terrible
trouble. And so it closed, and the library was given to LACMA and the
archives were given to UCLA. They were gonna be tossed out. All of [the
staff files were]—everything was gonna be tossed out. Martha Drexler
Lynn, you remember her. She was a [Decorative Arts] curator at LACMA,
and she was hired by Paul Kusserow to be the curator here, at the
museum.
[Marcie Page was laid off so that Martha Lynn could be hired. And the
rest of the staff began to be laid off—this was before the decision was
made to close the museum.] And she [Martha] had this idea that the
library could--half of the library could go into the different offices.
And of course I had been laid off by that point, so, you know--I could
just visualize everything being packed up and disappearing. So I got on
the phone and called every--all the art librarians [in L.A.] that I
knew. [And we formed a staff/board committee to decide who to give the
library to.] And we got eight proposals in writing. Wally Marks was on
that committee. Elizabeth Mandel was on that committee, as well as your
mom. She didn’t want to get rid of the library, but Elizabeth convinced
her that if she wanted the library to continue to be used, that it
needed to continue someplace else. So--we all thought the museum was
gonna be closed forever. You know, the restaurant wasn’t there any
longer. And so it [the museum] was closed [at the end of 1997]. And then
we had the auction of the permanent collection, and it seemed like, you
know, that was the end of it. But within a year, this wonderful surprise
happened.
NR:
Well, Patrick did it.
JB:
Yeah.
NR:
He did it. He got it back with the city. It’s a different animal, but
it’s still alive.
JB:
Yes, yes, it is a different animal. And it certainly went through some
traumatic times with a number of different directors before getting to
the stage that it is now, which is relatively stable. But I was very
happy that your mom was able to see the museum re-open. That seemed . .
.
NR:
That was important.
JB:
Very important, at the time. So--I’m glad to hear that you did have
something to do with the museum after that.
NR:
I did. I did.
JB:
And Frank continued--Frank Romero continued on the board for a while.
NR:
I think--I don’t know if he’s still on it. . . . I mean--I don’t think
he’s been going [to meetings] for the last several years, but he stayed
on even after we broke up.
JB:
And your dad has gone into a new phase. He stepped down as chair a year
and a half ago.
NR:
Finally. He wanted to step down a long time before.
JB:
I know. I know.
NR:
But no one else was there to take over. Finally he said, “Wally, take it
on!” A very good person to lead the board.
JB:
Very good. He’s very easy to work with. The experience I had on that
committee with him was very good. But he is a businessman. But a
very--with a very humanistic touch.
NR:
And he’s young enough to give some energy to the place.
JB:
Exactly.
NR:
That was the trouble with it. Now, where was I? I was, I went
to--somebody took me to the Southwest Museum to a lecture, and I looked
around there. Everybody was in their 80s. And I looked at the [Craft and
Folk Art] Museum and everybody was my parents’ age. And I thought-- and
the same thing with the Symphony. The Symphony was all these ancient
people. I said, that was the generation that believed in supporting
public institutions. And the new generation [would] rather work on their
computers. You know, they’re not--it’s not the same thing. And they
don’t believe in going or--except for MOCA [the Museum of Contemporary
Art], which has a hip edge, and I must say LACMA has managed to
re-invent itself--but by and large, most of these institutions are
having a hard time.
JB:
Well Maryna has really worked--she certainly has gotten a young staff,
who have really good ideas, I think. And she’s working to, you know,
really attract a younger audience. And that has to happen, because
there’s just too much competition for everything. Not just other
museums, but everything in the world.
NR:
Right. Well, the same thing is with art, you know. People used to buy
art and now they buy computer parts, you know, or cameras. So the same
money gets spent for that. . . .
00:30:00
JB:
It’s a different world.
NR:
Yeah.
JB:
Well, Nancy, is there anything else you’d like to say about your
experiences with [30:00] the Egg and the Eye and the Craft and Folk Art
Museum or your mom and dad, or. . .?
NR:
Whatever—I'm better when you ask me questions. (laughter) You know, it
was a lot of fun. It was enriching. I’m glad I participated in all those
events. And, you know, it added a great dimension to our family. And
fulfilled my mother in a number of ways, and also frustrated her
equally. And, you know, I wish it had more of that energy now that I
miss. But the world was different, so. Ever since they sold the
collection, and dispersed everything, it kind of lost its guts for me.
JB:
But in the meantime, you have had a kind of renaissance in your career,
I think, starting in the ‘90s. You started to have regular exhibitions,
and you’re still painting a lot.
NR:
Still. I just had a show in August; it was lots of fun. Hard work.
[Romero's exhibition was held in September 2010 at the Folktree Gallery
in Pasadena.]
JB:
Well, I treasure the Nancy Romero painting that I have.
NR:
You have one?
JB:
I have one that I bought quite a few years ago.
NR:
Excellent!
JB:
It’s of New Mexico, and it’s a beautiful landscape. A small one. But I
have it up in my office, along with the poster that [Shan?] did for that
New Mexico Space and Images [opened November 26, 1979] show, you know,
that long one?
NR:
Oh, that long one, oh yeah, that was nice.
JB:
So I have those two to always remind me of--where I am now [Joan moved
to Santa Fe, New Mexico in 2009], thank goodness.
NR:
OK, good. I hope . . . [I] answered enough questions for you, filled in
some holes.
JB:
Absolutely, you did . . . the story of the origins of the Mask Festival
was a real gem . . . and many others. Thank you so much for taking the
time on a Saturday to meet with me and participate in the history of the
Museum.
00:32:21
NR:
My pleasure. My pleasure. [End of Session 2]