Jan Haag
Jan Haag | |
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Feminist | |
Website | www |
Jan Marie Haag (née Smith; December 6, 1933 – April 29, 2024) was an American filmmaker, artist and writer who founded the Directing Workshop for Women at the American Film Institute (AFI) and was known for her innovative contemporary needlepoint canvases and poetry.[1]
Early life
Jan Haag (née Smith), born in
Career
In Seattle, Haag managed poetry readings, an art gallery, and the Shakespeare Workshop for ABC Bookstore. As an actress, she performed in regional theaters during the 1950s and 1960s, and directed plays in Washington, Oregon and California. Haag has exhibited her work in West Coast museums, competitions, and galleries—including the
In Los Angeles, Haag served as Film and Television Director for the
Between 1975 and 2008, Haag created twenty-three contemporary needlepoint canvases, working on some of these simultaneously. One work took ten years to complete. The more complex of these canvases required hundreds, sometimes thousands of hours of application. An accomplished painter and poet familiar with different mediums, Haag writes of the textile art medium: “Compared with the roughhouse immediacy of painting and sculpture, one can cite many a rug, tapestry, piece of stitchery which took a year to make or, at times, a decade. Back and back and back, millennia by millennia, the history and lore of weaving/stitchery recedes as we, at the near end of the time scale, proceed -- cloth, grid arts, fractals and computer -- into the future.”
Haag explained: “Over the years, working on these pieces has become one of my primary ways of understanding both the world and my experience of it. The works… transmit knowledge. Not only the powerful subjective awareness of light and color, but the pleasure associated with study -- in this case, study of music, astronomy, mathematics, travel, archaeology, and the iconographic, mystical and esoteric traditions of many cultures.”[7][8]
These textile pieces became a life’s work. Through determined experimentation and applying techniques and iconography learned from a lifetime of travel, including treks on foot alone through India, Korea, China, Thailand, Nepal, Russia and Europe, Haag would forever change the perceptions and possibilities of needlepoint.[9] Leonore Tawney admired Haag’s work and despite failing health traveled from New York to visit her exhibition at the Seattle Asian Art Museum.
In 1982, Haag retired from AFI to focus on her art and writing. She wrote thousands of poems and gave poetry readings in theaters, museums, libraries, galleries, and private salons. A limited edition of "Amanita Caesarea", a legend, with original drawings by
Personal life and death
Haag was married for ten years, 1957–68, to John Haag, Professor and Poet-in-Residence at Pennsylvania State University. Haag spent her last years in Shoreline, in the Seattle metropolitan area. She died in Shoreline, Washington on April 29, 2024, at the age of 90.[10]
Selected works
- Poetry and Fiction
- Haag, Jan (2014). Ascesis. Xlibris Corporation. ISBN 9781493170319.
- The 2011 Poems: Lantern Light. 2011.
- The 1996 Poems. 2011.
- Haag, Jan (2006). Companion Spirit. ISBN 9780975442135.
- Indra's Net II; a collection composed of 333 of the Poetic Forms Used in English, inspired by Kevin Kelly. 2002.
- The Devayani Poems.
- Birds Migrate At Night.
- The Jaipur Sequence.
- No Palms.
- Nonfiction
- "A Wedding in Mahabaleshwar" in Travelers' Tales India, edited by James O'Reilly and Larry Habegger. Travelers' Tales Inc., Inc. 2009. ISBN 9781932361797.
- "There You Are" in Eat Pray Love Made Me Do It, with an introduction by Elizabeth Gilbert. Penguin Publishing Group. 2016. ISBN 9780399576775.
References
- ^ Abram, MB. "Jan Haag". MB Abram Galleries. Retrieved 7 May 2020.
- ^ a b Haag, Jan (August 19, 1999). "Jan Haag's Bio". Archived from the original on February 1, 2021.
- ISBN 978-0813587479.
- Smukler, Maya Montañez (2014). Working Girls: The History of Women Directors in 1970s Hollywood(Thesis). University of California, Los Angeles.
A dissertation submitted in partial satisfaction of the requirements of the degree Doctor of Philosophy in Film and Television
- ISBN 9781595807946.
- ISBN 9781135206208.
- ^ Abram, MB (6 July 2010). "Introduction to Jan Haag". Vimeo. Retrieved 7 May 2020.
- ^ Haag, Jan. "Textile Art by Jan Haag". Jan Haag's Website. Archived from the original on February 2, 2021. Retrieved May 2, 2024.
- ^ Abram, MB. "The Jan Haag Collection". The Jan Haag Collection. MB Abram Galleries. Retrieved 7 May 2020.
- ^ Barnes, Mike (May 2, 2024). "Jan Haag, Trailblazing Director and Instructor at AFI Women's Directing Workshop, Dies at 71". The Hollywood Reporter. Archived from the original on May 2, 2024.