To an outsider, Nicole Emanuel’s life seems overwhelming. An artist, arts organizer, grant writer, grad student, archivist, documentarian, wife, mother of two, and volunteer, Emanuel juggles a lot of balls in the air.
But to the grandniece of famed photographer Philippe Halsman and symphony conductor Vladimir Golschmann, granddaughter of Latvian, French and South Africans, a grandmother who was an artist in 1920s Paris and another an obstetrician in Johannesburg, it’s not overwhelming; it’s part of her DNA.
This theme keeps reappearing in Emanuel’s art; it resurfaced recently when she won the 2011 ArtsKC competition to design its awards. Based on vintage circus posters and yes, juggling life, the paintings feature men, women & children balancing on globes, in circus rings or flying trapezes — all while holding cell phones, babies, and all the accoutrements of a modern life.
This may be overwhelming to others, but not to Emanuel. In fact, her family history is a rich one, blessed with world famous characters. “We all perform spectacular feats daily,” she adds with a grin.
“I grew up with these people,” she says in a recent interview in her Overland Park home. “My family spoke French and Yiddish and Afrikaans and sat at this dining room table,” she adds, pointing to a glass topped table that once held the parachute silk maps of France her grandfather used in WWII, before his internment in a German POW camp.
“These people” influence her work so much so that her newest project is based on her family history — a potential collaboration with the Nelson-Atkins Museum of Art. She hopes to travel to New York City this summer with museum staff to discuss her proposed exhibit with Emanuel’s cousins, trustees of Philippe Halsman’s estate.
Emanuel’s vision includes Halsman family archives — hundreds of letters and documents from her grandfather’s daring escape, as well his POW diary, tapes of her grandmother speaking Russian-accented French and a family genealogy. She also wants to showcase Halsman’s famous photographs as well as the letters written to and from family members during his 1928-30 trial for patricide. In a trip to Austria with his father Morduch (Max), Philippe was arrested for murder after Max’s body was found with head wounds. It became a cause célèbre throughout Europe where the family had moved from Riga, Latvia. Philippe spent two years in prison and was released with the help of Albert Einstein and Thomas Mann on the condition he “never return to Austria again.”
But Emanuel’s proposed exhibit is not just memorabilia and celebrity photos. Her work is instrumental to the show and will feature large-scale paintings hinged to form a book. “I’m telling a story,” she explains. “The whole idea is to overwhelm you so your intellectual defenses fall.” Her paintings would evoke the feeling of a child reading a book — bigger than life, much like the Halsman family itself.
Emanuel says it’s important for the Jewish community to recognize that “Jews like me are not necessarily connected to the organized Jewish community,” but feel that “we are a piece … with an incredibly strong heritage.” She stares at the old Parisian table that anchors her family in Kansas. “Living with this past is not weird, but if I had not known my relatives, it would seem surreal.”
While Emanuel awaits the outcome of the trip to the Halsman archives, she’s busy working on other projects. She designed a centerpiece sculpture for the March 6 “Once Upon a Time” fundraiser luncheon for St. Luke’s Children’s Spot. She’s also in her fourth year running a local Artsmart Program, hands-on programming at her children’s school. Her kids, 9-year-old Molly and 6-year-old Owen, think art is cool and work with her on projects at home, much like she did as a child visiting her great-uncle “Vova” Golschmann.
“We’d sit on the floor, where he’d conduct art contests,” she recalls. “We all idolized him because he saved the family,” she says, noting that he provided the affidavits needed to bring her grandparents and parents to America. Amidst the Picassos — real ones — in Golschmann’s New York apartment, Emanuel knew at a young age that she wanted to be an artist. And although her husband, Luke McGlynn, works in human resources, it’s for Hallmark, so even he, too, is peripherally involved in the arts. The two met in San Francisco, where Emanuel had planned a two-week vacation and stayed for nine years.
“He’s very supportive,” she says of her husband, showing off the art she’s created all over the house, as well as in her basement studio. It is, however, opposite the washer and dryer, which seems to always return her to this juggling act — like coordinating the second annual “Who Does She Think She Is?” This multi-media exhibit and events featuring local women artists runs from April 1 through May 13 at JavaPort, downtown. In addition to the Halsman family exhibit, volunteer work, and finishing a Master of Arts in liberal studies at UMKC — Emanuel juggles even more.
She draws a line from the Nerman Museum of Contemporary Art through Overland Park to downtown’s CrossRoads art district, noting that 50 percent of the KC Artists Coalition membership live in Johnson County. They need a place to work, other than their basements. So she’s currently in talks with the Arts Council of Johnson County, officials in Overland Park as well as the owner of a building.
“Like many other professional artists raising kids in suburbia, I need studio space, proximity to other artists and events nearer to home. We need a satellite-CrossRoads out here, where we can build a critical mass of creative synergy to generate foot traffic, be a cultural attraction and support of local businesses,” Emanuel explains.
“I know many local artists struggling in their homes who are thirsty for this. Imagine: a building with art studios, a cafe, and exhibition space in downtown OP!” she says. Let’s “build a local economic base for our suburban artists who are in the trenches raising kids.”
Still juggling, Emanuel looks at the bookcases from her grandparents’ Paris apartment. Stacked with more memorabilia, she insists that all “this is fun.”
“I want to honor them,” she says of her family, “not compete.” She views her history as a gift, but doesn’t let that overwhelm her. “If you’ve been given something like I have, you’d better have a sense of humor.”
