Wednesday, January 31, 2007

Elizabeth Tashjian, the nut lady has passed

her museum has been closed for quite a while now BUT her legend will live on.

Elizabeth Tashjian, founder of nut museum, dies at age 94

OLD SAYBROOK, Conn. --Elizabeth Tashjian, the famed "Nut Lady," whose passion for nuts became her life's work in her art and drove her to establish a nut museum in her home, has died. She was 94.
Tashjian died Sunday at an Old Saybrook nursing home, where she had spent the last five years.
A classically trained artist, the diminutive Tashjian painted more than 100 works and sculpted about dozen other pieces, but it was in the nut that she clearly found her muse. It was that artwork that adorned her museum.
"I use the nut form to inspire my artwork and thinking philosophy," Tashjian said in a 2002 interview with The Associated Press. "I don't want my museum to be taken as a joke."
The collection, now housed at Connecticut College, includes metal sculptures, a 35-pound coco de mer, nut masks, paintings and nuts. There are also video clips from her four appearances on the Tonight Show with Johnny Carson, and many newspaper clippings chronicling the offbeat museum.
Tashjian was the subject of "In a Nutshell," a documentary by independent filmmaker Don Bernier..........


2 comments:

fuzzyturtle said...

I read about this last night (it's Wed am now) in a Boston paper.. she seemed like quite a character.

what a nutty broad ;)

we need more people in the world like her :)

Unknown said...

yeah, i had seen her on late night talk shows. well YEARS ago of course. she WAS a character