T H E H I D D EN A RT 128 EM ERY B L AG D O N 129 LESLIE UMBERGER Emery Blagdon BETWEEN 1955 and the year of his death, could be put to good use. For more than three decades, he Nebraska native Emery Blagdon (1907–1986) shaped worked on an organic installation in a shed built specif- an installation-style art environment that would come ically to house it. It was in the late 1940s or early 1950s to be regarded as one of America’s most significant. when Blagdon began making wire formations, drawings, Blagdon died before his work garnered international and paintings. When he inherited his uncle’s farm in 1955, a ttention—but during his life he was too busy making, Blagdon began to install his creations in a large, existing using, h oning, and adjusting the array of sculptures barn. In the early 1960s, the roof of the aged barn caved in, and paintings that comprehensively comprised what he and with the help of his friend Ben Fox, Blagdon repur- called The Healing Machine to let any piece of it leave his posed the lumber to construct a shed with an adjoining farm on the Sandhill plains. workshop. It was a crude space without any foundation or floor, but Blagdon liked the idea that his pieces would Art environments evolve over time and mirror the be in direct contact with the earth itself. Inside the shed, unique endeavor and worldview of an entirely self- Blagdon installed his works in the array he would collec- directed artist. Projects like Blagdon’s shift after tively call The Healing Machine. the artist is no longer there to tend, alter, and dis- cuss it. Sometimes a site remains intact; sometimes Blagdon enthusiastically shared his project with family, the individual components find new contexts and friends, ailing locals, and a trickle of curious visitors. But a udiences—always carrying the story of their past the place was personal. Using bent and webbed hay-baling life with them wherever they go. wire, salvaged copper, aluminum foil, wood, tape, min- erals, paint, electric lights, and various items he believed Blagdon tailored his world to fit his belief that the could help wrangle the energies of the earth, Blagdon powers of the earth were inestimable, mysterious, and orchestrated a space that might heal the body and soul. PLATE 77 | Emery Blagdon | Untitled | c. 1955–1986 | Paint, popsicle sticks, steel and copper wire, paper, and tin foil | 59 x 8 x 5 in. [PREVIOUS] Detail of PLATE 99 (see p. 161). T H E H I D D EN A RT 130 EM ERY B L AG D O N 131 Blagdon was influenced by the scientific developments he wanted to harness—a place of flux, power, magne- of his time and by the personal events in his life. Born tism, and mystery. Paintings didn’t hang on the walls; in 1907, Blagdon was a true character of the American they were stacked on the shed’s earthen floor so that the West: a place of open spaces and rugged individual- mineral paints might draw the earth’s energies from ism. He was known as a free spirit. He lived for a time deep below, upwards into his space. Sculptures hung, as a rail-riding hobo, prospected for gold in California, sat, moved around, and came and went from his adja- modified tractors to travel at highway speeds, tended cent workshop. his own subsistence garden, and worked as an itinerant laborer with significant mechanical talents. He watched After Blagdon’s death, the site was dismantled, but cancer ravage first his mother, then his father. Perhaps the pieces were kept together and preserved. A plan already feeling the effects of his oncoming arthritis was crafted to keep a core body of the Healing Machine when he inherited his uncle’s farm in 1955, he settled together, much as Blagdon had left it, and to allow down and began to create a space that might positively collectors and museums to care for the individual impact these life-shattering ailments. works—which Blagdon called his “Pretties”—that would come and go from his workshop. Natural science was a topic that enthralled Blagdon. He grew up in an age when “health physics” was wildly In each work that he crafted, Blagdon’s attention to popular: electricity was thought to ease pain, newly dis- detail is clear. Intersections are not merely structural; covered x-rays revealed the body’s interior realms, and they are the junctures at which energy should flow into uranium radiation was promoted as a natural healing the adjoining materials. The seven works by Blagdon phenomenon. Blagdon often experimented with elec- in Audrey B. Heckler’s collection represent an exem- tricity and parts of his shed were wired—not just to light plary cross section of his oeuvre. The layered box-like up, but to create a truly charged space. He searched his structure (PLATE 77) made from popsicle sticks, paint, property for ideal energy fields and adjusted the ele- foil, and wire embodies the form Blagdon gave to works ments of his “machine” according to the phases of that he may have conceived as batteries, or energy the moon. bundles. It is small, dense, and, within its cavity, it holds foil and other conductive materials. Blagdon may have Blagdon envisioned his individual paintings and sculp- designed the slatted sides so that the flowing energy tures as functional components of a complex whole. could come and go with ease. Forms such as this one Nothing was static or had a permanent location; even could have commanded any number of positions within the works themselves were sometimes dismantled the machine itself, but they largely sat on the floor or a and reassembled. Change was the constant. In this table as power-generating hubs. way, Blagdon’s Healing Machine mirrored the universe PLATE 78 | Emery Blagdon | Untitled | c. 1955–1986 | Steel wire, paper, and tin foil | 39 x 19 x 8 in. T H E H I D D EN A RT 132 EM ERY B L AG D O N 133 Also in the Heckler collection are works sometimes referred to as balances, cascades, or chandeliers. The balances, such as PLATE 78, are exercises in symmetry and movement. The arms are mirrored around a central core, and shapes and materials mingle throughout the piece. Copper and steel wires are interwoven; foil is curled, flattened, and folded. Salvaged treasures comprise the heart: gleaming aluminum pull tabs and rusted, snowflake-shaped machine parts. Cascades such as PLATE 79 embody Blagdon’s skill as a wireworker who learned from watching his father practice the art of tatting. Wires are wrapped, woven, looped, and laced, and the energy seems to flow down- ward from the top. Chandeliers such as PLATE 80 add an astonishing pop of color to the array of wood and metal tones. This particular piece employs both hand-painted notions of the Wild West, but was just as specifically situ- and preprinted plastic; the artist’s intention to make the ated within his time and place. colors shout out their presence is clear. Hanging from a central axis, works such as this one spin and catch light, 1 For an in-depth and carefully noted discussion of Blagdon’s Healing Machine, see Leslie Umberger, “Emery Blagdon: Properly seeming to push a flow of energy outward across the Channeled,” in Sublime Spaces & Visionary Worlds: Built Environments of room. They highlight the notion that even in stillness Vernacular Artists (New York: Princeton Architectural Press in associ- ation with the John Michael Kohler Arts Center, 2007), 203–223. movement and flow persist. 2 General information in this essay is drawn from Umberger, “Emery Blagdon: Properly Channeled,” and the compiled research related The pieces in Heckler’s collection convey Blagdon’s to that project. In March 1980 Blagdon was filmed talking to North intention to craft works that are cumulative not only Platte reporter Jodie Pitcock of local news station KNOP-TV about his project. Other descriptions of his project come from in their individual forms, but gain power as they come friends and relatives, including Connie Paxton, “My Notes and together in groups. Blagdon’s works have been appre- Family Memories,” March 2006; Edna Blagdon Moore, interview by Don Christensen, October 1990; Ethel Blagdon Sivits, interview ciated by audiences from rural Nebraska to the 2013 by Don Christensen, October 1990; Ben Fox, interview by Don Venice Biennale, and are held in a number of public Christensen, November 1987; and Dan Dryden, “Emery Blagdon Recollections,” 1987. Typescripts of each are on file at the John [LEFT] PLATE 79 | Emery Blagdon | Untitled | c. 1955–1986 | Steel, copper wire, paper, and tin foil | 76 x 7 x 7 in. and private collections. Blagdon allows us to con- Michael Kohler Arts Center Artist Archives in Sheboygan, Wisconsin. [RIGHT] PLATE 80 | Emery Blagdon | Untitled | c. 1955–1986 | Steel wire, plastic, tin foil, and paper | 19 1/2 x 9 1/2 x 9 in. sider an American artist who was a different kind of [OPPOSITE] PLATE 81 | Emery Blagdon | Untitled | c. 1955–1986 | Steel and copper wire | 27 x 7 x 7 in. frontiersman—one who challenged stereotypical