First Things First
Eileen Harris Norton, Heather Hubbs, Pamela and David Hornik, Elizabeth Leach, Sade Lythcott, Jordan Schnitzer, Ami Sueki and My Nguyen
Member of Stanford’s Cantor Arts Center board Pamela Hornik in her home.
We asked our favorite collectors about the item or work that started it all. Eileen Harris Norton highlighted a 1990 David Hammons found art piece, Rocky; NADA Executive Director Heather Hubbs told us about her childhood Crinoid collection, which grows every time she visits home; Pamela and David Hornik told us about their first collector's intuitions; Elizabeth Leach expounded on the graduation present that never came to be; National Black Theatre CEO Sade Lythcott explained what her collection of Hermès scarves means to her; Jordan Schnitzer recounted his precocious first acquisitions; Co-founders of the interdisciplinary creative studio Zoo as Zoo Ami Sueki and My Nguyen talked about the jacket that started the Zoo archive closet. We all start somewhere.
Rocky (1990) is one of the pieces that I bought early on with my former husband. It’s not the first piece we bought together, and it's not the first artwork I bought, but I have several David Hammons in my collection. I’ve always been a fan of David's. He started his career in Los Angeles as an artist, but later moved to New York. I was born and raised here [in LA] and naturally gravitated to his work. Many of the pieces I bought are more of his edgier pieces; I’ll say push the boundaries of art, and that's what I enjoy about collecting them.
David is uniquely himself. When he walks the street, he sees something, and creates something fabulous from the thing that we usually would just walk by. Of course, in the case of this artwork, it’s a rock, but the hair on it is actually from a barbershop that he went to. So he added the hair to it. And then, of course, the pedestal, he just found on the streets of Harlem, walking down as he does. Many of his pieces are just pieces he found just walking along the streets, things that people have thrown out, but he transformed them.
Seeing black artists create art has been a thread throughout my life… I first encountered Ruth Waddy, and then years later, I met David. I've encountered many other Black artists, such as Lorna Simpson, Glenn Ligon, Gary Simmons, and many others. These artists have shaped my collecting history and challenged my notions of what art can be. I admire these artists and their craft.
We have always been drawn to painterly paintings. We loved impasto before we knew what impasto was. So when we saw Ray Turner’s gorgeous, thick, expressive paint on glass, we lost our minds. We still do. As parents of four small children at the time, the fact that the painting was of Ray Turner’s son, George, was a bonus.
Growing up in Northwest Indiana on Lake Michigan, I went swimming all the time. There, these fossils wash up on the shore with all the other rocks, called crinoids (aka Sea Lillies). They come in all different sizes and colors, but they are always round. Sometimes they have a star-shape in the middle, sometimes it’s a round hole, and the texture can vary. They were stacked when they were whole and intact, and then over time, they break apart into single discs and wash ashore. I’ve amassed a collection of about 800 over the years. It resulted in a particular appreciation for objects and wanting to take care of them, to keep them; I went on to collect other things including a crazy collection of ceramic Hello Kitty coin banks.
Working at Sotheby’s after graduating from college, I would go on collection visits with different experts. They weren't always art collections; once, I went to a factory building, now the Mana building in Chicago, which used to be owned by an automotive parts company. The gentleman who owned the company loved Tiffany lamps, and he bought a Tiffany lamp for every office in the building, which was a lot because it was big. The company was closing, and they were auctioning off the Tiffany lamp collection; I went there to assist in tagging all of the Tiffany lamps, and I had an expansive moment where I realized what it looked like to authentically collect something you love, and realized that is what I had done with the crinoids, it’s just that the crinoids are free.
But even then, I never really thought about being able to buy art on my own. It wasn't until I started working for Art Chicago (the fair was called Art Chicago before it became Expo) that I made the leap. We were in the selection committee meeting for the fair, and I had seen a work at Anthony Meier Fine Art that I liked. I remember talking to him about how much I liked the painting, and he said, "Well, you should buy it." And I was like, "I can't afford it." And he's like, 'You can pay it in installments. Just pay whatever you can pay now and then pay later." And I was like, "Oh, I can do that?" And so, I bought it, and that was the start. That was where it began. It was a Jeremy Dickinson painting called Autotank III and I still own that painting.
I was very fortunate to study Art History in high school. It was my passion, and we had an incredible teacher. For my High School graduation, my father generously offered to buy me an artwork. When we were in San Francisco, we went to the John Berggruen Gallery, where I looked way up on the wall. The art was salon style—almost two stories high, it seemed—and I asked, "What is that piece?” It was a Sam Francis, which was beyond the budget provided.
So, I waited for the right piece. In college, I became involved with the Light & Space artists in L.A. That is when I found this incredible drawing by Hap Tivey from the year he spent in a monastery in Japan. I love this piece - the simplicity of the line drawing and the narrative. It is somewhat mysterious.
Collecting rare Hermès scarves that showcase people of color in all their power and majesty is a profound act of reclaiming visibility and celebration. Each piece, meticulously crafted, becomes more than just an accessory; it is a vibrant tapestry that reflects a rich, often overlooked narrative. In these scarves, the magnificence of people of color is captured with elegance and reverence, challenging historical invisibility and redefining notions of beauty and status. For me, this collection is not merely about luxury but about honoring and elevating our stories, weaving them into the fabric of fashion and history with grace and significance.
My first acquisition, by which I mean that I was given the piece, was when my mother, the late Arlene Schnitzer, decided to open the Fountain Gallery of Art. Her mother, Helen Director, found the cheapest space in town for $50 a month in the New Market Theater, built in 1872 in Portland. We don't have that many buildings that old, like they do on the East Coast.
One day, I went down to the gallery, and I saw some artists helping to sheetrock the walls and paint the walls. I also saw an odd cabinet over the side with these little drawers. And I thought to myself, "That's funny. How do you put sweaters or clothes in there?" So I go over—I'm now in the third grade—and I pull out a drawer, and it's a print cabinet. And I'm looking at a beautiful work by Stanley Hayter, a famous British artist who spent most of his time in Paris. I'm looking at this gorgeous, fuchsia-colored work. My mother comes over and says to me, looking over my shoulder: "Do you like that?" And I said, "Yes." She says, "Well, you can have it."
Some years later, in addition to being fortunate that my parents would give me art for my birthday, Hanukkah, and other events, when I actually bought my first piece, I was 14. One of the most important artists in the Pacific Northwest was a man named Louis Bunce. While he was not a very tall man, probably 5'8", he was one of those bigger-than-life characters wearing these tweed jackets and scarves around his neck. He had this savoir-faire and smoked like a fiend. Just like David Hockney, there was a cigarette flopping on his lips all the time and ashes falling all over. But he certainly wooed all the students in school with his character and personality. I was lucky he always paid attention to me. I loved his work. There was a small work called Sanctuary. It cost $75. I saw it, went to my mother, and said, "I want to buy it." There was a 20% family discount, so I paid $60 for it—$5 a month out of my allowance. I've always said my mother knew where to foreclose if I missed a payment since my bedroom was down the hall. I've kept that work with me; it's on the fireplace in the master bedroom.
This jacket by Clarissa Arocena of HIPS Studio is part of the very first collection that started Zoo’s archive closet. The year is 2016: we had just established ourselves as a studio. We’re in the process of inviting emerging fashion designers to join our StylePark program, designed to collect thesis collections and find placements for them within our works to extend the collections' life cycle. We were particularly drawn to Clarissa’s curiosity, experimental process, and use of unconventional materials.
Clarissa and Ami have been friends since freshman year in college. Through a decade-long collaboration and friendship, the two studios have seen their fundamental alignment in work ethics and philosophy. This garment serves as a gentle reminder of their origins—where they started and where they’re going.