television
The Creative Touch
Emile Norman, a gay sculptor and visual artist whose work
famously adorns the exterior of the Masonic Temple on San
Francisco’s Nob Hill, has led an extraordinary, inspirational
life distinguished for its artistic accomplishment and heart
warming for his 30-year love affair with Brwk Clements, who
died in 1973. That life is inquisitively yet respectfully docu
mented in Emile Norman: By His Own Design.
Featuring bountiful interviews with and commentary by
the present-day Norman (blissfully content in his 80s) as he
continues his work, the film also recounts his childhood in a
ranching family suspicious of his “sissy” creative bent. But he
used the materials at hand and.transformed the mundaneness
of his world into art; you wouldn’t believe the amazingly tac
tile aesthetic properties of pieces of shattered beer bottles (for
one example) until you’ve seen them incorporated into one
passion that inspired him through seven decades of a
of his formalist, symmetrical, yet vibrant pieces.
changing art scene and turbulent times for a gay man
Norman was equally inventive when it came to a personal
in the United States.
life that had no accessible precedents or models and had to
be kept invisible. In the deeply closeted post-war ’40s, as the
demand for his creative touch rose in the film and fashion industries in addition to the art world, he met Clements, a hi-fi
repairman who came to fix his set. Clements quickly became Norman’s de facto manager, dealer and accountant; Norman
would later very sweetly add Clements’ name below his own signature on his work, so highly did he esteem the collabora
tive nature of their relationship. The couple bought a property in California’s Big Sur, and their home (in which Norman
continues to live and work) became a mecca and haven for their artist and gay friends.
Airing 11 p.m. June 25 on OPB, Emile Norman: By His Own Design might almost feel like a puff piece without its ample
footage of Norman at work, but the struggle to manifest his vision out of such recalcitrant materials as wood and stone
becomes a transfixing metaphor for the long-standing affinity between queemess and creativity. To make something where
there seemed to be nothing but immovable opposition is what Norman had to do in his work and in his life, and Will
Parrinello’s film evinces his success on both fronts.
—Christopher McQuain
ROSE CITY ROLLERS
SEASON 3 I BOUT NT? 5
ROLLER DERBY | JUNE 218T, 2008
Roller derby teams The Bombers and The Demons square off in an attempt
to revive the classic sport in Jam!
Continued from Page 63
the roller derby crowd is more Jerry Springer (or Reno 911!) than WNBA. It is
not composed of the best or brightest people, but they’re captivating for their
evidently total lack of self-consciousness in pursuing their dubious goal. They’re
also hilarious, and one doesn’t feel bad for laughing at them; there’s a need for
attention underlying the film’s subjects and their quasi-athletic pursuit that long
ago left behind any qualms about exploitation. We learn that the world of roller
derby is very, very similar to the world of professional wrestling (albeit with a
fraction of the audience). The game is almost irrelevant, completely secondary
to its trashy spectacle of personalities, drama and physical mayhem.
If you, like the vast majority of people, don’t care about roller derby, Jam! is
not going to change that. But the film does humanize its subjects, and you may
find yourself caring about them. If they seem like outcasts and undesirables,
their persistence in simply trying to hack out a niche for themselves makes
them all the more oddly endearing and occasionally even inspiring.
C hristopher M c Q uain is a Seattle freelance writer.
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