Based on an award-winning story by Julian Street, the film tells the story of eccentric inventor Sam Bisbee (Fields), who has invented a shatterproof glass and wants to sell the patent in the big city.  A series of tragic and comic circumstances keep Bisbee from selling his patent, and, dejected, he boards a train bound for home.  Unable to face the shame of failure, he contemplates suicide.  Fortune belatedly intervenes and a foreign princess, traveling on the same train, comes to his rescue.

Street sold his story, “Mr. Bisbee’s Princess,” to Paramount only for a specified number of years.  After that time, the rights reverted to him or his estate.  When So’s Your Old Man was remade in 1934 as You’re Telling Me, the rights were still in effect.  However, when it came for a television sale in the 1950s, the rights had reverted to Street, and You’re Telling Me could not be screened.

By the 1970s, Universal had purchased the 1934 version, but Paramount retained the 1926 film. Universal and the owners of the story came together and made You’re Telling Me available for the first time since the 1930s.  Paramount, seeing no market in their obscure silent, let the film collect dust on a shelf.

The material in the short story was a little thin to support an entire feature.  Fields solved the problem by throwing in his sketch “An Episode on the Links.”  Although it dated back to the 1918 Ziegfeld Follies, Fields loved the sketch, and worked it in before the climactic scene.  In So’s Your Old Man, the caddy is played by Fields’ long-time assistant Shorty Blanche, who had moved on to other things by the time the remake was made.  The sketch is normally heavy on verbal gags, so the silent version will amaze some long-time fans.  It works well enough, but the 1934 reshooting (with Tammany Young as the caddy) benefits hugely from dialogue.

Besides Young, the casts of the two films are vastly different.   The romantic lead in So’s Your Old Man is Buddy Rogers (third husband of Sparrows star Mary Pickford), and Alice Joyce was the princess.  In the talkie remake, Buster Crabbe has replaced Buddy Rogers and the princess is played by lovely Adrienne Ames.

Both films are fairly short (a bit over 60 minutes each), and it will be a fascinating exploration of how Fields’ character changed from silent to sound, and how filmmaking in general was a little different in 1926 than it was in 1934.  The 1934 version is very studio-bound, due to the needs of sound film production, but the 1926 version uses real locations whenever possible.  Paramount had moved most of its production to Los Angeles by 1934, but So’s Your Old Man was shot in New York’s Astoria Studios.

Because the rights for So’s Your Old Man have still not been fully resolved, the film cannot be released on video.  Theatrical screenings are still few and far between.  April 12′s showing will be a rare opportunity to see the film as it was meant to be seen… with an audience and a live piano score.  Don’t miss it!

The first film that will be shown is Night of the Hunter (1955), which was directed by Charles Laughton.  He had been a successful actor in movies for some 25 years by the time he decided to direct this film.  It was not successful when released, and Laughton returned to acting.  Laughton’s blood-and-thunder opening, followed by the sensitive, dramatic approach to the ending, was a little jarring for 1955 audiences.  Robert Mitchum’s character, Harry Powell, is unhinged and creepy, a complete departure from roles he’d been playing up to that time.  Seen today, it’s an unforgettable bravura performance, but at the time reviewers found it confusing.  Mitchum is top-billed, but is the film’s villain, even though he does not appear for long stretches of screen time.

As the film reaches its midsection, the entire tone of the story changes.  Trying to escape the influence of murderer Mitchum, two children (Billy Chapin and Sally Jane Bruce), flee down a river and continue on several adventures.  Their exploits have an almost story-book quality to them, thanks to the photography of Stanley Cortez.

Cortez (1908-1997) is the film’s true star, because Night of the Hunter literally shimmers with his dazzling photography.  He had been working in films for years, notably on The Magnificent Ambersons (1942), and he had a fondness for experimental photographic techniques, often things that mainstream Hollywood was reluctant to let him do.  Charles Laughton gave Cortez a free hand to try different things, within the bounds of Laughton’s overall vision, which was to create a German Expressionistic atmosphere.  Cortez was only nominated for an Oscar twice, although he never won.  Although Night of the Hunter is perhaps his finest work, it was not nominated at all.

Director Laughton also went un-nominated, another undeserved slight.  Most directors tend to be either technical experts, overseeing the photography and editing, or acting specialists who compose sloppy films.  Laughton handled both tasks well.  Children are particularly difficult to direct, and Laughton lavished extra time on them to get the performances he needed.  Elsa Lanchester, Laughton’s widow, donated 80,000 feet (over 13 hours) of footage showing outtakes and behind-the-scenes shots, enough that UCLA historians were able to make a documentary about Night of the Hunter that lasts longer than the film itself.

Like Night of the Hunter, the second film on the program Un Chien Andalou (1929) also starts off violently.  Un Chien is the first film directed by Luis Buñuel, who, unlike Laughton, went on to a long career directing movies.

Inspired by dream logic and surrealistic art, Buñuel and collaborator Salvador Dali made a film comprised almost solely of stunning images without a thread of plot to connect them.  Their hope was that it would annoy and upset patrons looking for a conventional narrative, and they were slightly disappointed when the film caught on with audiences and got decent reviews.

The film’s opening shot is not for the squeamish, and is one of the most iconic in all cinema.  Actress Simonne Mareuil apparently has her eye slashed open with a razor (actually done by intercutting with a dead calf’s eye being cut).  This image is juxtaposed with a cloud, also shaped like a razor, “cutting” across the surface of the moon.

Un Chien Andalou continues at a breakneck pace throughout its brief 16-minute running time, with images of ants crawling out of a hole in a man’s hand, dead donkeys strapped to pianos, and, well, a lot of other things.

Overall, it makes no sense, but it isn’t supposed to make sense.  Like all art, it’s supposed to make the audience think and feel, which it still does.

Both films will be screened Friday night in the Toby, starting at 7pm. 

Every kind of plant was presented as a potential partner in helping the amateur and professional gardener achieve success. A very large plant palette was presented to attendees, from small native spring ephemerals to large exotic trees, dappled shade to dense dark shade, and stunning tender tropicals to tough as nails perennials. We were thrilled to have 175 people from Indiana, Kentucky, and Ohio join us for this wonderful event.

A quick note on each of the speakers, who not only educated but entertained the audience (you need to have a sense of humor when you deal with nature every day).

Dan Benarcik of Chanticleer Gardens opened our program with a visually stunning review of many wonderful plant combinations used in this highly respected public garden. Chanticleer is rightfully considered one of the finest gardens to visit. I always leave there inspired nearly beyond measure.

Karen Perkins was our one specialist, you might say. She covered the incredibly diverse world of epimediums. Her mail-order business, Garden Vision Epimediums, carries an amazing selection of plants with fragile looking flowers and exotic leaves that are in reality some of our hardiest perennials. Expect her to be online soon but in the meantime you can request a catalogue at by emailing her here.

Munchkin Nursery & Gardens, LLC in southern Indiana has been a destination and mail-order nursery for some time. Husband and wife team Gene Bush and JoAn Riley run the nursery and garden but Gene is the one that gets in front of audiences. Always knowledgeable and entertaining, he presented many tough shade tolerant perennials.

As the interest in using native plants in our gardens has increased, so has the research. This covers not only new colors and forms, but also less obvious things like selection for more robust plants that reproduce faster. Faster reproduction can mean more folks can add natives to their home gardens.  It also generally means lower cost so we can afford more of them. Brian Jorge of the Cincinnati Zoo and Botanical Garden’s Native Plant Program presented a program highlighting the diverse possibilities of Trilliums and other native woodland flowers. Always remember this zoo is also a botanical garden. You can get your flora and fauna fix at the same time.

Our final speaker, Paul Cappiello of Yew Dell Gardens, concentrated on woody plants for the shade garden whether they were for growing in the shade or creating the shade. Actually, most of the trees he mentioned did both. He could not resist presenting some prime herbaceous plants as well. Heuchera parviflora is in our future. Yew Dell is a young dynamic public garden only about 1 ½ hours south of Indianapolis and well worth the easy drive.

Before this first symposium started, we were already wondering aloud about next year’s possibilities. With the wrap up of “Shade Savvy” nearly complete we will soon sit down to evaluate the program and toss around ideas for 2014. We hope you will be able to join us in the future and contribute to our next savvy success.

But a larger underlying theme emerged in the life experiences of these three composers. Darkness as they were all uprooted and tormented by the World Wars and civil upheaval that stripped them of all personal possessions, Indeterminacy as they faced an uncertain future or nearly certain death during these struggles, and later found Rebirth and new beginnings with freedom to express their musical ideas.

Stanley Kubrick’s 2001: A Space Odyssey, presented last weekend in the Toby, was described in Eric Grayson’s blog post as “still a stunning and fresh experience.” Besides the cinematic elements that make this film so impressive, the use of music by classical composers heightens the experience. The two pieces most familiar to traditional music audiences in the film are Johann Strauss’ Beautiful Blue Danube Waltz and Richard Strauss’ Also sprach Zarathustra. It is somewhat odd that both of these nineteenth century pieces were featured in a movie about the future, however most of the other music in 2001 was by composer György Ligeti. Definitely on the leading edge of contemporary music, Ligeti was better known in avant garde art and music circles. Three works by Ligeti were in the movie. Excerpts from “Requiem” are heard during the monolith scenes and “Lux Aeterna” is another recurring motif. Ligeti’s Atmosphères is heard in its entirety in the film. Kubrick returned to Ligeti again for piano music to the masked orgy in Eyes Wide Shut.

György Ligeti

Ligeti was born to a Hungarian Jewish family in 1923. During the Austrian occupation of Hungary and the rise of the Nazi movement, Ligeti was sent to a forced labor brigade, his brother to a concentration camp and his parents to Auschwitz. His mother was a nurse and the only other member of his immediate family to survive. When Soviet troops violently suppressed the Hungarian uprising of 1956, Ligeti escaped to the West, hidden in a railway baggage car. Kubrick did not seek Ligeti’s permission to use his music for 2001 in advance. While the juxtaposition of his music with that of Richard Strauss’ did not make him happy, it did result in a top selling film and soundtrack recording.

Witold Lutosławski

Witold Lutosławski’s father was killed by the Bolsheviks in 1918 when he was five years old. He and his mother moved to Warsaw where, from 1939 to 1945, war was besieging the country. They narrowly escaped the retreating Nazi army that destroyed nearly 85% of Warsaw, but they lost everything. They endured a repressive Stalinist regime that tightly controlled the type of music he could write. The string quartet composed in 1964 came after an easing of government control and uses an aleatoric or random chance technique in each performers part. Each performer within certain structural boundaries has the freedom to express the music of their part as they feel best. If much of life is indeterminate, so is his music.

Iannis Xenakis

Iannis Xenakis was of Greek heritage and born in what was then Romania. In his student days living in Athens, he was politically active and fought against British troops and other efforts to restore the Greek monarchy during the Greek Civil War. In the midst of the fighting, Xenakis was severely injured, losing sight in one eye and having his face permanently scarred in a shell attack. He then escaped to France in 1947 after he was first sentenced to death by the right wing government of Greece. He practiced architecture in France with Corbusier as an illegal immigrant. He was also a brilliant mathematician.  He studied music composition with Olivier Messiaen. Xenakis wrote a collection of texts on applications of stochastic processes, game theory, and computer programming in music. Tetras is one of the most spectacular works in the entire string quartet repertoire. It is an athletic piece that’s powerful and dense — worlds away from the airy styles often mistakenly associated with string quartet music.

Hear these works performed by contemporary music ensemble JACK Quartet in the Toby on Thursday, February 21. Pre-concert discussion with ISO Music Director Krzysztof Urbański begins at 6:45 PM, Concert at 7:30 PM.

People from Generation Y, often called Millennials, are being lumped into a group by our media.  They are said to have a core belief that modern cinema began with Star Wars: Episode IV (1977), and that any movie older than that is culturally irrelevant. Under these conditions, it becomes difficult to make a case that 2001: A Space Odyssey (1968)is still culturally relevant at all, since it is much older and depicts a future now 12 years past. Even though it may seem a distant relic, 2001 is still a stunning and fresh experience.

The vast majority of films that try to depict the future, particularly anything with a science fiction slant, fail miserably both in dramatics and accuracy. Fritz Lang’s Metropolis (1927) shows a bleak world of labor unrest and a severely divided culture.  HG Wells’ Things to Come (1936) foretells a second World War that is stunningly accurate, but Wells’ war lasts for 30 years and degrades into global tribal conflict, a worldwide Afghanistan. The triumphant moon landing does not occur until 2036 and is technically incorrect in almost every way.

Learning from his mistakes in Metropolis, Fritz Lang tried again with Woman in the Moon (1929), which is amazingly accurate up until the rocket lands on the moon. This is, no doubt, largely because Lang hired advisors from the scientific community, many of whom went on to work on the German V-2 rockets and, later, the American Apollo program. Similarly, producer George Pal hired only top people for his Destination Moon (1950), which, despite some very hokey dramatics, holds up pretty well.

But 2001 is in a class by itself, and always has been. Novelist Arthur C. Clarke simply projected the American space program forward into the future, making the assumption that we would maintain a constant level of funding.  That was his only major mistake, because the Apollo program was not the beginning of a slow ramp of progress, but a bubble of innovation in a sea of lethargy.

2001’s gleaming spaceships, rotating space stations, and moon colonies never came to pass, not because they were impossible or impractical, but because we did not care to pursue them. Where Lang and Wells had been overly pessimistic and lacked technical vision, Clarke and director Stanley Kubrick miss the mark only because America decided to cut back on space exploration.

Kubrick employed groundbreaking techniques at every point in 2001. It was the first time in history that a movie based in space was truly convincing. George Pal’s 1950s epics had come close, as did Forbidden Planet (1956), but 2001 topped them all. It was the start of a career for Douglas Trumbull, who has continued as an innovator in the field of special effects.

After 2001’s triumphs, the movie industry went back to doing cheesy, unconvincing special effects, simply because it was too expensive to do them the way Kubrick had done. It was easier to invoke the spirit of Flash Gordon with ray guns and buzzing rockets than to do the stately effects that Kubrick produced. 2001 represents a gigantic step sideways, out of the mainstream of cinema. It was not until George Lucas made the process more economical with computer-controlled model work that the same degree of conviction came back to movies. Lucas managed to combine the fun of Flash Gordon with the more convincing feel of 2001, and he did it without being a budget buster.

From a dramatic standpoint, 2001 represents another giant step sideways, a step that has not been replicated.  Kubrick strove to make his film visually engaging with a minimum of dialogue. At many points, Kubrick’s directorial technique recalls silent cinema. He challenges the viewer to keep up with the story. It is not brainless and transparent in the way that many comic book movies are today.  2001 demands constant attention and participation from the viewer.

2001’s uniqueness in film history does not make it culturally irrelevant.  The film depicts many key innovations that did come to pass.  Scientist Heywood Floyd (William Sylvester) flies to the moon in a shuttle not dissimilar to the later space shuttle. He makes a video telephone call to his family.  Astronauts Poole and Bowman (Gary Lockwood and Keir Dullea) use computerized tablets that echo modern iPads. In fact, the similarity has been used as a complex legal defense in a lawsuit between Apple and Samsung.

We still have no modern computers that talk and interact like HAL, voiced by Douglas Rain. Rain’s creepy, emotionless delivery is one of the most memorable in the history of cinema. It was the inspiration for Anthony Hopkins’ eerie portrayal of Dr. Hannibal Lecter in The Silence of the Lambs (1991). Apple’s new Siri functionality on the iPhones comes closest to HAL, but Siri hardly seems as threatening as a room-sized computer that controls all of the life-support systems in a gigantic spaceship. Siri also bumbles and misinterprets in a way that HAL never did.

Ironically, HAL has the greatest amount of dialogue and screen time of any of the characters in 2001.  Many of the humans are denied closeups and establishing stories, making 2001 feel cool and distant toward most of its key characters.  The story is not about individual humans but about the larger class of humanity itself.  It is HAL’s conflicted view of humanity that causes the plot to move forward.  The mysterious monoliths seem to nurture and encourage humanity to go off and pursue new horizons.

Ultimately, 2001 is not outdated, but simply a story of a future that never occurred. Its use of sparse dialogue and deeply technological themes foretells a cinema that never occurred, or an alternate universe. After more than 40 years, there still is no other film quite like 2001.

See the film this weekend in the IMA’s Winter Nights Film Series. Screenings will be held in the Toby  tonight at 7pm and Sunday at 2pm.

Image courtesy of Robert Wilson.

Everybody loves movies, especially Americans. We took ownership of the medium at the height of the Industrial Revolution, and much like Henry Ford via his assembly line, bestowed a beloved commodity to the masses.

So, it’s appropriate to consider film to be the first great democratic art form. It invites and reflects all walks of life and social classes. It inspires us to imagine how far we can go, while simultaneously shaming us for how pathetically we have evolved. We sit together in the darkened theater, collectively taking a ride that even Ford could never deliver.

Two such epic adventures can be found in Apocalypse Now and 2001: A Space Odyssey. These movies ranked #14 and #6 respectively in Sight & Sound’s definitive 2012 poll. They remain staples in Roger Ebert’s all-time top 10. They are intrinsically linked as the best modern myths of Homeric proportions. Both take us on spiritual journeys toward the edges of existence without looking back.

Still from “2001: A Space Odyssey,” 1968.

Francis Ford Coppola’s bizarre odyssey to complete Apocalypse Now is well documented as being just as surreal as the story (Heart of Darkness) and war (Vietnam) that inspired it. The filmmaker and his crew nearly lost their minds by the end of the 18-month production. Even star Martin Sheen suffered a heart attack that almost killed him. The result is a primal nightmare that challenges the existence of humanity’s soul. The voyage through the Nung is a Hellish descent down the River Styx. By film’s end, “the horror” will burrow into your core and challenge everything you’ve ever believed in.

Still from “Apocalypse Now,” 1979.

A decade prior, the meticulous Stanley Kubrick set sail on a journey of even greater magnitude. In 2001: A Space Odyssey, he takes us from the dawn of time to the conceivable end of existence through methods exclusive to the magic of movies. The drums of Stauss’s Also sprach Zarathustra themselves transport us to an age beyond human comprehension. It might be the closest that mankind will ever come to appreciating the expanse of our limitless universe.

Still from “2001: A Space Odyssey,” 1968.

I could go on, and on, and on, but no amount of hyperbole can live up to experiencing these masterpieces on the big screen. Please, I beg you to put aside life’s worries, crowd into the darkened Toby theater for two Friday evenings, and lose yourself to the ultimate power of cinema. Trust me, it’s a ride you won’t want to miss.

Apocalypse Now screens tomorrow evening at 7pm in the Toby.  2001: A Space Odyssey screens at 7pm on Friday, February 8 and at 2pm on Sunday, February 10 in the Toby. Both are part of the Winter Nights film series at the IMA.

“Fashion is architecture: it is a matter of proportions.” – Coco Chanel

I grew up in a family of artists: my father was a painter and my mother is a sculptor. At home, it was like an open house for other artists to come over and passionately discuss art and politics. For me, the best painter was my dad and the best sculptor was my mom. So I guess the other “real” artistic professions, in which I will not compete with them, was to become an architect. I was good in mat, loved problem solving, and was fascinated by shapes and colors, so becoming an architect was a very natural path for me to choose. From here comes my deep interest towards fashion as an art form, with its volumes, colors and proportions.

This is my second participation in Project IMA. Two years ago, my daughter and I created a dress made from rubber bands as part of Project IMA: Fashion Unbound.  It was a great experience to be involved with the Indianapolis Museum of Art and I am thrilled that I have the opportunity to contribute again. For my current entry, I found inspiration in this evening dress by Norman Norell:

I wanted to grasp the spirit of Norell’s work and give it a new, contemporary interpretation. My work, which will be made entirely from different sized black rubber bands and industrial felt scraps, is continuation of the design ideas developed in my conceptual project “Recycling of the Architectural Office,” in which I explored the ever-changing character of the contemporary architectural office and how standard tools become obsolete in lieu of digital technology. Recently I’ve also been thinking about our current economic condition, and opening our senses towards the use of alternative materials, recycling and upcycling. I believe that we have to be environmentally responsible and conscious about our surroundings. My submission to Project IMA is my creative response towards finding new sources and expressions. Intrigued and inspired by the Chantilly lace that Norell used, I created my own version of the delicate net by using only black rubber bands. Thousands of rubber bands are knotted, interlocked, twisted together and assembled in order to create the unique texture of the garment. Looking for a fusion of past and present, I’ve chosen to pay respect in this way and give a modern interpretation of the artistic techniques associated with creating fabric, all done by hand. Norell used fox fur to trim the lampshade-shaped top of the evening dress. Half a century later, and living in different environment, I decided to interpret his design by using colorful industrial felt scrap circles. The felt that I used is 100% wool – a biodegradable and renewable material.

In my work, I am inspired both by the artistic and cultural heritage of couture, and am intrigued by innovative designers like Norell who changed the shape and the mood of fashion with his geometrical shapes and attention to detail.  You’ll have to come to Project IMA tonight to see the results of my work.  I hope that you will find it interesting, challenging and a valuable contribution to the show.

Norman Norell, “dress,” 1968-1971.Gift of Clare Eggleston Geiman in memory of Norman Norell. 1985.667.

I met Niloo and Petra, the curators responsible for the organization of fashion arts and textile exhibitions at the museum. After speaking with them, I decided to  make a couple garments and submit them as entries in Project IMA.  Below is an image of the pattern I drafted after being inspired by a dress in the exhibition by Norman Norell.  This deceptively simple day dress was carefully constructed with a fitted torso and molded waist.  The skirt’s beige fabric was cut on the straight grain, using a technique called slashing and navy blue fabric inserts were then added. It’s an excellent example of the precision Norell brought to the cut and construction of his garments.

For my dress, I cut it completely on the bias from silk chiffon, which adds a draping contour to the body without darting. I work on the bias often, as it lends itself to soft feminine shapes. Here’s how it turned out:

And here are some images of the work in progress:

I have a very talented sample maker, Poksun, who has been working with me for the past twenty five years:

The final results wil be presented in this week’s Project IMA.  Hope to see you there!

What unspoken messages do First Ladies send with fashion? And how did the unforgettable Jacqueline Bouvier Kennedy break the mold to present her husband’s candidacy and presidency as progressive and modern?

On September 13, 2012 the IMA’s Fashion Arts Society hosted design historian Sandy McLendon, former contributor and senior editor at Modernism Magazine, for a lecture on the influential “Jackie Look.” McLendon took attendees through a visual tour of Jackie’s strategic choices: hiring Hollywood costume designer Oleg Cassini; embracing the slim sheath dress and fuss-free pillbox hat; and selecting—down to the detail—trim, elegant gowns suitable for superpower diplomacy.

FAS members turned out in their fabulous finery for the event, wearing hats, gloves and fur to celebrate mod sixties fashion.

Even if you couldn’t make it to the event, you can still watch it on ArtBabble or YouTube. I won’t judge you if you break out your pillbox hat for viewing, either.

Project IMA: Fashion Unbound, 2010. Winner: Jeremy B. Hunt.

The first IMA organized fashion show, Project IMA, debuted in 2008 on an idea and a shoestring. The idea was simple: engage our community through fashion in order to promote the traveling exhibition, Breaking the Mode: Contemporary Fashion from the Permanent Collection, Los Angeles County Museum of Art. It seemed therefore fitting to draw from the community for participants. Having only moved to Indianapolis six months prior, I scoured the web and attended multiple fashion events to quickly discover, much to my delight, a strong assembly of designers, wearable artists and stylists within the city. As a result, we asked 16 designers to participate in the fashion show. They had four months to visit the exhibition, study the accompanying catalogue and devise a plan for one to two ensembles that “featured outrageous, beautiful, irreverent and glamorous designs.”

Not only were the pieces created interesting, varied, and thought-provoking, but the public’s response was overwhelming. So many people attended the show we had to schedule an impromptu second show for all those who couldn’t make it in the first round. There are even rumors that the amount of traffic flowing into the parking lot actually (temporarily) shut down 38^th Street. Not bad, eh?

Project IMA: Fashion Unbound, 2010. Designs by Francis Stallings

So, in 2010, we decided to try it again. Only this time, we used our own exhibition, Body Unbound: Contemporary Couture from the IMA’s Permanent Collection, as the stimulus and opened the call for entries internationally. The response was exuberant.  We had over 50 people submit proposals for inclusion. Of those 50, we selected 40 participants who met the guidelines and, just like that, Project IMA: Fashion Unbound was in full swing.  Two back-to-back shows (having learned from experience) took place in The Toby to enthusiastic crowds. The concepts employed and the quality designs, almost 80 in total, were impressive. There were pieces made from paper, plastic bags and rubber bands while others, confronted, amused and referenced history. After much deliberation, the judges selected a piece by Jeremy B. Hunt as the best of show and awarded him the Elizabeth Kraft-Meek fashion design award. Afterwards, guests, designers, models and crew attended the official Behind the Seams after party, hosted by the newly formed affiliate group, FAS. Here audience members viewed garments up close, lined up for photos by Got Shot, and listened to the music of local pop sweethearts, Beta Male.  All in all, the event was a success.

So, here we go, again…

Project IMA: Fashion Unbound, 2010. Designs by Nancy Todd.

The IMA is currently inviting artists and fashion designers to submit original work for inclusion in a spectacular, one-night only fashion event, titled Project IMA, IN:spired which will take place in The Toby on Thursday, October 11, 2012.

The theme for this year’s show is based on works included in the IMA’s latest fashion exhibition, An American Legacy; Norell, Blass, Halston & Sprouse. Entries must be the exclusive work of the submitter (or submitting team) and be wearable objects that exhibit unique, innovative, inspirational and creative artistry.  The works must be based on the gowns, outfits and dresses designed by legendary Indiana fashion designers, Norman Norell, Bill Blass, Halston and Stephen Sprouse currently on view in the IMA’s  free exhibition.

Do you live outside of Indianapolis? Not to worry. We encourage submissions from people all over the country, and will be updating the exhibition webpage regularly so you can view all of the pieces from afar. Just check in periodically for updates.

Does this sound like you? Please review the guidelines, fill out the application form, and submit all your materials to ProjectIMA@imamuseum.org by Monday August 20, 2012.