NBFF 2015: ART HOUSE

The Wharton Esherick House in Art House.

Space by de/sign

By Miranda Inganni

Many artists strive to construct a safe and stimulating space in which they can freely create. Director Don Freeman captures nearly a dozen of such places in his film, Art House.

Based on the book Artist’s Handmade Houses by Michael Gotkin, Freeman travels through the US -- and through the past 100 or so years -- documenting places like Byrdclife Arts Colony in New York (the oldest arts colony in the States), to Eliphante, Michael Khan and Leda Livant’s home built over the course of nearly 30 years in Cornville, Arizona. Some of these residences have been lovingly preserved and/or are still being used as workshops. Meanwhile others, like the Wharton Esherick Museum in Pensylvania with its seemingly living staircase, have been converted into museums. Whether open to the public or gifted with National Historic Landmark status, Art Housegives viewers a glimpse into these infrequently-viewed locales.

Freeman uses vintage photographs throughout, as well as interviews with surviving relatives or disciples of the artists and commentary by writer Alastair Gordon. So many of these artists were looking to bring other artists back to nature and to integrate nature into everyday life. And so many of their abodes seem to do just that very successfully!

Unfortunately, the music is a distraction to the images more often than not, and the cross fades from one still shot to the next happen too quickly for the viewer to fully realize what object or scene she or he is seeing.

As Gordon states in the beginning of the film, “It’s about making a perfect life.” Exploring these eleven dwellings all in one film, despite its distractions, allows one to imagine for a moment that perfection each of the designers were trying to create.

 

 

Art House screens at the Newport Beach Film Festival April 29, 5 p.m., Edwards Big Newport. For more information: Art House.