New documentary tells the story behind Nancy Noel's famously intimate, comforting art

Alex Noël Kosene likes to say he's been making a documentary about his mother for 30 years. Starting with the video camera she bought him at age 15, he recorded her riding her horse, petting her llamas, trudging through deep snow with a dog by her side.

And, of course, he captured her painting.

Nancy Noël's ability to imbue brush strokes with comfort, intimacy, honesty and the otherworldly made her famous. The Indianapolis native, who died in 2020 at age 74, is known worldwide for her depictions of children, animals and angels — and the way she kept her work accessible while avoiding commercialized oversaturation.

Behind the paintings is the story of her life that Noël Kosene helps to tell in "Art & Soul: A Portrait of Nancy Noël," which will premiere Saturday at the Heartland International Film Festival. The documentary, produced by 3rd Strand Productions and Sweet Revenge Pictures, brings in people close to Noël, including her former husband, sons Michael and Alex Noël Kosene, friends, business associates and collectors, among others.

The film traces the American Contemporary Impressionist painter's journey from a girl who was told she'd be voted "least likely to succeed" to a woman who created an artistic world that lives on.

'This should be a feature'

Along with taking an abundance of footage of his mom, Noël Kosene had also conducted audio interviews with her shortly before her death after a battle with breast cancer. But he didn't expect to fashion it all into a documentary so soon.

That changed when Amy Pauszek saw a short that later played at The Children's Museum's 2021 exhibit about the artist. While Pauszek did not know Noël Kosene, she did know his father and Noël's former husband, Gerald Kosene. So she reached out to him.

"This should be a feature," said Pauszek, who is a co-producer and co-executive producer. "She's iconic."

Noël's family agreed. But her filmmaker son felt a heavy responsibility to be faithful to his mom's legacy — and on a tight timeframe to make the Heartland deadline. So he undertook the task with co-producer and editor Sami Issa Mustaklem, who has worked with Noël Kosene for almost two decades and knew his mother.

The time limit ended up being a blessing.

"It's a good thing that we didn't have another year to do this," said co-producer and director Noël Kosene as he laughed. "We might have overthought it a bit; we might have approached it in a way that would be un-Nancy-like. And by that, I mean Nancy was a very instinctual artist, so she painted the things that were just calling to her. She had an emotional relationship to her work."

Likewise, the documentary unfolded in an almost improvisatory way, as Mustaklem put it. At its core was how the artist conveyed in her work an intimacy she sought in childhood.

'Always interested in doing her own thing'

Noël and her five siblings grew up in Williams Creek and Meridian-Kessler, where she attended Immaculate Heart of Mary and later went to boarding school at St. Mary's of Notre Dame. While she formed close friendships with her peers, Noël had undiagnosed dyslexia — and teachers made fun of her struggles.

But the young artist found her bliss at the family's vacation home in Walloon Lake in Michigan, where the family's 16-millimeter reels show her swimming, jumping rope, hugging a dog to her face.

While Noël grew up with plenty of opportunities, good family role models and a strong sense of herself, she sought more connections.

"Her parents were very wonderful in some ways, but when you have six kids and you have a pretty kind of social upwardly mobile lifestyle, how much attention does each kid get?" Noël Kosene said.

The experiences fueled Noël's artistic talent, which she honed at Mount St. Joseph University in Cincinnati and continued after she opened a North Broad Ripple gallery in 1971 where she showed her work and others'. At the Penrod Arts Fair, people quickly lined up to ask her for portraits.

From there, the artist followed her passions — painting Amish children and horses, East Africans and angels. Especially high resolution scans of Noël's work display her brushstrokes in beautiful detail, Mustaklem said.

Noël found inspiration in African adventures; in orphanages; on Llandfair, her farm full of animals; and by taking her llamas to care facilities and youth organizations where people could pet them. She created community at her Zionsville gallery, The Sanctuary.

“In some ways, not fitting into the everyday world gave me the opportunity to create my own,” Noël said in the documentary.

Many people wanted to join her.

'These images are like a message'

Pauszek brought her own Noël painting of a little angel boy to her initial meeting with the family about the documentary. Her parents had bought it to comfort their devastated daughter in the aftermath of her best friend's suicide.

She soon realized how many others turned to Noël's work for solace.

"I cannot tell you, every time I mentioned (the documentary) — or even (mention it now) — people will tell me stories about how Nancy's work touched or helped them find peace," Pauszek said.

Growing up, Noël Kosene hadn't been moved by his mom's angel paintings. But the more he interviewed collectors for the documentary, the more he was struck by how the works helped grieving parents who'd lost their children.

"These images are like a message to these people in their pain that their child is OK or that it's going to be OK," he said.

The filmmakers want to spread Noël's messages of pursuing bliss in life and authenticity, so they'll look to screen the film for students, art organizations and others. They're working to distribute the documentary more broadly, and the public can follow updates at artandsoulfilm.com.

"We didn't want to make a Lifetime movie that just pulls at the heartstrings the whole time and makes people feel things that aren't really there," Mustaklem said.

Noël "never stopped doing what she loved," he added, "and I hope that people come away from this film feeling that energy and feeling like they've experienced something very truthful."

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If you go

What: "Art & Soul: A Portrait of Nancy Noel"

In theaters: 3:30 p.m. Oct. 7 at the Toby theater at Newfields, $20. 7:45 p.m. Oct. 12 (sold out) and 4:45 p.m. Oct. 13 at Emagine Noblesville ($12).

Virtual: Available from noon Oct. 5-Oct. 15 at heartlandfilm.org/festival. $12.

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Contact IndyStar reporter Domenica Bongiovanni at 317-444-7339 or d.bongiovanni@indystar.com. Follow her on Facebook, Instagram or Twitter: @domenicareports.

This article originally appeared on Indianapolis Star: New film tells the story of Nancy Noel's intimate, comforting art