In A Nutshell
Don Bernier

Elizabeth Tashjian hijacked Don Bernier.

The filmmaker had been planning to do a documentary on roadside museums and the Nut Museum in Old Lyme, Connecticut had been recommended for possible inclusion. He had a glancing familiarity with the storehouse of memorabilia on all manner of the shelled comestible and it appeared to have an eccentricity that suited his approach. So, he called for an appointment and one weekend motored down with his wife for a guided tour and to audition the institution housed in a crumbling Victorian mansion.

Impressed by what he saw and its curator the nonagenarian Tashjian, he elicited for her cooperation. But she wasn't interested in less than her own film.

"That was back in early 2001," recalls Bernier. "She just had this tremendous strength of personality. There was absolutely no question that you could do an entire film around her and the museum. It was really this incredible place and her own story was just as compelling."

Bernier may have thought all he had to do was set up a camera and let it roll. Instead his timing couldn't have been better; or worse depending on one's perspective. Issues such as outstanding back taxes, her mental competency and increasingly fragile health coalesced, and his snapshot portrait ballooned into an epic tale that extended over three years of filming.

At one point the subject lapsed into a coma and was not expected to survive. Local authorities moved quickly to take control of her residence/museum and cavalierly dealt with her legacy and artifacts in the name of some outstanding bills.

Another person that became involved in the story was art historian Chris Steiner of Connecticut College. When he became aware that the museum was being disassembled he rushed to Old Lyme to see what was being done and witnessed officials randomly throwing away potentially important work. He quickly stepped in to have the college assume control of the collection and was given three hours to gather up materials. The College subsequently mounted as exhibition of Tashjian's original art pieces.

"It's too easy to classify her as an outsider artist," says Steiner. "She studied at the National Academy of Design but doesn't really belong to a particular school. She is unique, original and significant."

Born into a wealthy Armenian family, Tashjian lived a Bohemian lifestyle in New York City and had her early exhibited in the 1950s. She returned to Old Lyme when her mother became ill and, following her death, evolved the idea of the museum. It opened for business in 1972 and she attracted a degree of celebrity including appearances on The Tonight Show. Nonetheless, Bernier paints her as a somewhat diffident and reclusive personality with no apparent surviving relatives and few close friends within the community.

"The film became a lot bigger than a personal portrait," says the filmmaker. "It's a contemporary horror tale from a particular perspective. It's what can happen when you get old and don't have anyone to look after your best interests. It something that should make us all a lit bit uncomfortable."

- by Leonard Klady