Photo courtesy of Elizabeth Berry.
I am an avid fan of all nut butters from peanut, almond, to cashew (trust me, it’s good). So, when I saw that Cummings would be showing a new exhibit on Elizabeth Tashjian’s drawings, paintings, and sculptures of nuts, I was intrigued. A person just as obsessed and fascinated with nuts as me, was finally being celebrated on campus. “Revisiting the Nut Museum: Visionary Art of Elizabeth Tashjian” was curated by Professor Christopher B. Steiner alongside students in “Bad Art: Looking Beyond Canon.” While a student at the National Academy of Design in New York City, Tashjian painted nuts as her primary subject. In 1972, she opened the original Nut Museum in Old Lyme, Connecticut on the ground floor of her Gothic Revival mansion. Admission was $3 and one nut, but don’t worry—the current exhibition in the Cummings Galleries is free and open to the public.
Tashjian was not only an artist and lover of nuts, but also a figure in the media, appearing on late-night shows including Johnny Carson, Howard Stern, and Chevy Chase. In 2002, when Tashjian was in poor health, Professor Steiner petitioned to the local judge of the Probate Court to allow him to remove the 150 paintings, 200 drawings, 20 sculptures, 100 boxes of documents and photographs, and the furniture and displays from the museum. The judge agreed and ordered that the College be entrusted to preserve the collection.
Eleven years after Tashjian’s death, the exhibition memorializes her fascination with her “pet” subject. But don’t be fooled, this exhibit is about far more than an enjoyable snack. The various mediums used and incorporation of the human body, her musical background, and social commentaries make “Revisiting the Nut Museum” a quintessential example of an interdisciplinary education in the heart of a liberal arts college.
In 1973, Tashjian composed an original song titled “Nuts Are Beautiful”. Its lyrics make an appearance in her paintings. In both “Oh Nobody Ever Thinks About Nuts” and “Nuts Can Be So Beautiful” (titles taken from the anthem), Tashjian uses paint and styrofoam to create faces composed of –you guessed it– nuts. The rusty orange, ochre yellow, deep red, and dark tan colors signify the exteriors of a nut.
In the 1970s, Tashjian began to draw people as nuts and nuts as people, a.k.a. anthropomorphism. “And Feel a New Taste Being Born” includes actual nutshells in addition to what I interpret as a human mouth open wide, its top teeth bared with a tongue reaching down to slurp up a coconut embellished with eyes and hair.
Although many of Tashjian’s artwork lends itself to abstraction, there are multiple pieces that highlight her eye for detail. She experiments with watercolor, pastel, and oil in various drawings, all of which capture the intricate details of a nut. In “The Gold Standard,” she paints almonds atop ancient fabrics while in “Quartet” she uses pastel to depict the inner grooves of a nut.
In 1980, Tashjian began to experiment with aluminum sculpture. This medium, as seen in “Nuts Nourish Man II” and “Eve,” encapsulates the human form. The metal sculpture “Coco-de-Mer Tree” pays homage to the most notable piece in Tashjian’s collection: a rare, 35-pound coco-de-mer nut donated by someone who visited the original nut museum. This nut holds a mystical origin and remains a provocative piece as the nut resembles female sexual anatomy.
Natasha Strugatz ‘20 is in Professor Steiner’s course and was part of the team challenged with deciding where to place the anthropomorphic sculptures and paintings. Steiner, having already curated this exhibit in the Lyman Allyn Art Museum, gave each group a binder with the available art pieces and assigned to the designated space for each theme. The students, however, had complete control over what exact pieces went in each space.
Professor Steiner explains that for Tashjian, the nut was a metaphor for the overlooked, the cast aside, the insignificant; he believes “she wanted us to see beauty in all people. That was her true mission.” Furthermore, this collection is a perfect example of “community cultural activism,” as Steiner feels that if he had not “stepped up to save the Nut Museum in 2002, I am certain that 90% of it would have ended up in a dumpster when the house was sold.” Despite being an unconventional, ephemeral collection, visitors have been smiling, laughing, and genuinely enjoying the exhibit. Strugatz believes that it is important to display niche art subjects. She hopes viewers will educate themselves about where the artist is drawing inspiration from and “have respect for what the artist is doing.” The Nut Museum is not a joke, but an art exhibit that should be taken seriously.
The exhibition goes beyond Tashjian’s artwork and becomes more interactive with a TV screen playing selected television appearances made by Tashjian. Additionally, there are two sets of headphones in Cummings 226 where you can listen to “Nuts Are Beautiful” while admiring furniture and displays from the original nut museum, including the 35-pound coco-de-mer. There is even the infamous box where visitors gave a nut for admission (TBD if this is still active). There is also a wall dedicated to news and media clippings in reference to Tashjian’s persona and a space for students to answer the question“What makes you a nut?”
Ginger Miller ‘21 worked as a research assistant under the museum studies department this past summer where she collected, photographed, and scanned archives from Tashjian’s life which are now on display outside the Linda Lear Library. There are four cases dedicated to Tashjian’s personal life, the Nut Museum itself, thank you cards and photos from visitors, and the downfall of the museum when Conn acquired the collection. From the summer months to the opening of the exhibit, Miller saw various reactions to the exhibit. In fact, the room was filled with generations of admirers of the Nut Museum at the curator talk held in Cummings.
Miller believes that not every art show has to follow an elitist style. We should embrace offbeat work such as Tashjian’s, and embrace its weird and wacky style while still honoring the dedication she put into her work. College is an opportunity to find your niche, and Elizabeth Tashjian sure found hers in nuts. As she would have said, “I am nuts for this exhibit.” •
