Just down the road from my university, down a curving hill and past the blue waters of Lake Michigan lies the Mary Nohl Art Environment. (Also known as The Fox Point Witch's House and the Mary Nohl House)
Born in 1914, Mary Nohl graduated from the Art Institute of Chicago and taught in junior high schools around the area and eventually opened her own ceramics studio for 10 years.
After her parents died, Mary Nohl received an inheritance which allowed her to create a massive collection of folk art, including statues and architectural features. After Mary Nohl's death, the Kohler foundation acquired the property and began cataloging the hundreds of pieces that she had made from 1961-2001, the year of her death. Although she donated many of her pieces to the John Michael Kohler Arts Center when she was alive, they've also acquired her house after her death and are working hard to preserve and conserve it (as well as make it available to the public - fingers crossed!)
The whimsy of the home jumps out at you when you drive by. The house has bright, wooden reliefs of blue, turquoise and red. The house is surrounded by concrete sculptures with different natural elements mixed in- like driftwood, rocks from the beach and glass. She drew much of her inspiration from the lake right outside her house. One of the things I admire about Mary Nohl is her perspective that everything could be a medium. She transformed everything from her lawn to the inside of her house; making it go from drab to expressive. The house is a private residence and the other people in the neighborhood don't really like having people hanging out and looking at the house. That's why it isn't open to the public, unfortunately.
Although she is most known for her concrete sculptures outside fo her home, she also worked with...
Wood
She carved faces out of wood and made them into a playful fence. She eventually hung the wooden faces from the trees surrounding her yard, because vandals were stealing them.
Metal
She created jewelry! Often depicting people in boats, likely inspired by her home on the lake. You can actually still buy her designs at the John Michael Kohler Arts Center store page.
Woodcut & Printing
In the book Mary Nohl: Inside and Out, there are many pictures of her woodcuts. I was unable to find any pictures online, unfortunately. They are of people and rooms and streets, likely to be Maryland; where she was an art teacher at the time. If you look at Van Gogh's bedroom painting, they look a little like that. With wiggly, expressive lines and energy bouncing from the images.
Ceramic
After she traveled and taught, she became a potter and opened her own studio and sold her own designs. You can see the clear beginnings of her whimsical style that would later define her concrete works: curious faces and expressive bodies.
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| This is an intern for the Kohler Foundation making an inventory of some of the ceramic items in Mary's home after her death. |
Mary Nohl also painted, drew and experimented with all sorts of mediums in between. She truly is an inspiration to artists who want to try everything. There is much more that I can say about Mary, but instead I will end with a quote from her:
"No amount of disorder will induce me to give up my front row seat on the changing moods of Lake Michigan- the ice hills against the blue water in the winter, and the afterglow of the sunsets in the summer, and the infinite variety in between."
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