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1920 Aug AUG. 8, 1928 12 PASADENA STAR-NEWS Business Woman's Success By Gussie Packard DuBois Grace Nicholson Has Time to Vision Pasadena of Next Decade or So Grace Nicholson is one of the outstanding business heads of Pasadena. In the many years that I have been honored by her friendship, she has never ceased to be a wonder for the unusual combination of artist and keen business acumen, two traits that are supposed never to be existent in one person. Nothing but a business sense that amounts to positive genius could have achieved the success that is hers today, built up from a mere pittance in the start, and carried forward through Pasadena's good and bad years. Farsighted, she has set her mark, and set it high, and overriding all barriers, has work up to her standard. That there have been barriers, no business head will doubt. The creating of a building of pure Chinese architecture which even our own architects at first thought an impossibility, was a high barrier, but to her, not insurmountable. Always, she has known what she could do, and has never spared pains or labor to do it. She has studied, and thought, and planned, she has lived into, and loved, her business, and had a good time arriving. She has arrived, and Pasadena takes price in her today. What Pasadena Needs I dropped in for a little visit with her recently, and with Mr. Hartman, whom I knew years ago in my Mackinac Islands vacations, and we fell to talking of our city, its possibilities and needs. They have high faith in Pasadena's future; in fact, they both feel that the people as a whole are not alive to the big things that are before us, if only we go on and do them. That we must have an auditorium, and soon, is beyond debate; the only question is why it is not already built, and in use. We need more fine hotels; reference was made to Atlantic City, and other places that have acted on keen business acumen and built height-limit hotels, furnishing them superbly, only to find them filled quickly that others had to be added to meet the immediate demand. The best entertainment attracts the crowd. Our architecture is beginning to be favorably known; fine homes are being built, and we need only to speed up a little on both. Someone is going to do this, and reap the benefit, and it is a matter for the wise investors of today to consider. Both were warm in their appreciation of Caltech and the Huntington library as great assets to Pasadena, but they were not ready to stop there. "Pasadena can do anything it sets its mind to do, if only it will go ahead and do it, and not talk too long about it." Miss Nicholson spoke from her own experience, the only standard for an opinion. "We have many people here of splendid accomplishments; what wonderful things we could see brought about if they would interest themselves in public affairs," said Mr. Hartman. Eventually, Why Not Now? I should like to see the magic city that would spring up here if all things we planned there, (we three who love it, and long to see it develop) could only come to pass, as they are certain to do someday. Eventually, why not now? Certainly, Grace Nicholson has done, and is doing her share. As an educational factor, she stands high. I wonder if people quite realize that not only her beautiful shop rooms, but her great art galleries as well, are absolutely free to the public. Some seem to think that because everything is so fine they are not expected to go in unless they are prepared to spend a large some and buy. This is a grave mistake, which I want to correct. True, her beautiful things are for sale, but they are also for you to enjoy, if you do not buy. It is like this: she is an artist with a treasure house full of rare and beautiful things which she longs to have you enjoy, and I am bidden to give you the invitation to come at your own convenience. Treasures Are to View I should need the pen of a Keats or a Shelley to tell you what you will see. The art galleries with their splendid entrances, flanked by great panels, are a source of education from their very thresholds. Within, are walls of velvet that had to be specially dyed to obtain that exact soft shade of gray against which all works of art are at their best, and a floor that seems of the same velvet, so carefully is it made and tinted. Here, from time to time, are rare exhibits of the work of great artists, absolutely free to the public; any day even when there is no special exhibit, you may see Grace Nicholson's own prices collection of Chinese antiques, paintings, carvings, etchings, embroideries, porcelains. Here students come, and young artist, and here you may come and lose yourself in the beauty, and you may sit for hours, if you so desire, and not say a word. A treasure herself, Grace Nicholson has her proper setting in a treasure house. It is against a tapestried background that I always see her; dull pinks and greys and blues, age-softened in brocades, or where some tapestry blends pale mauve, crimsons and moss green. Jewelry flashes its topaz and sapphire, a stray sunbeam lingers on a string of amber beads, an opal discloses its living heart of rose, of green, of desert blue, and above all China calls in the shrill tones on her lacquer and jade, her peculiar ancient deep, rich, thousand-year-old colors, a strange harmony of color that sings a strange old world symphony. yet with this background, I see her as the clear headed woman of big business, buying for the Smithsonian Institution, for the collector, for art, yet a part of the life of her home city, believing in its big future, and eager to hasten its advancement. KITE DOES 300 LOOPS
