Emile Norman

FILMS ON ART

Emile Norman: By His Own Design

Director: Will  Parrinello
Filmmaker in person
Emile Norman, a self- taught California artist, is still working at the age of 88 with the same passion for life, art, nature and freedom that inspired him through seven decades of a changing art scene and turbulent times for a gay man in America. BY HIS OWN DESIGN is a rich chronicle of an independent spirit whose idiosyncratic art work has led him from a childhood on a walnut ranch in the San Gabriel Valley to success in New York, a thirty year relationship and partnership with Brooks Clement (who told Emile, "You go into the studio and I'll show the world what you're doing"), a mountaintop home in Big Sur, and to freedom. An artist to the end, Emile says, "When I stop working, call 911." (2006, 56 min.)
Showing: May 19, 5pm, Abalone Room