Memories of John Nash By Shirlee Kalstone

It’s tough to write about John Nash so soon after his passing because everything I want to say sounds trite to my mind. But I feel that his friends and colleagues might like to know a little about John and our friendship before he became an industry icon.

I first met John in 1973 after Larry and I had just moved to New York City. We were very friendly with Joe Stanton and Tom Meyers, who owned and operated the Stanton School of Grooming in Manhattan. Joe and Tom immediately welcomed us into their social circle which included former graduates John Nash and John Stazko. Also part of our group was Eliane Nizet (a young Belgian woman living in New York, who bred Yorkies and taught at the school) and, when she was frequently in NYC, Eliane’s formidable and famous mother, Madame Denise Nizet de Leemans. I say formidable because Denise lived in Belgium and was a member of the Committee on Standards for the F.C.I. Not only that, she was credited for giving the curly variety of the Bichon the name Bichon Frise. So we were all in awe of her. Denise never went anywhere without her book that contained all the FCI breed standards which, to our consternation, she would quote from endlessly. Although we didn’t realize it at the time, Denise was laying the foundation for us to appreciate the various breeds of the world.

We became a tight little circle whose main interests were learning as much as possible about advanced grooming techniques. All of us were instrumental in forming the New York Professional Groomers Association. John Stazko was an instructor at the Stanton School and he went on to open his own salon in Manhattan and become famous as “Broadway John,” groomer to the stars.

John Nash owned a grooming salon in Cliffside Park, New Jersey, just across the George Washington Bridge from Manhattan. He was very interested in education and eventually wanted to establish a school. Having operated one of the first schools in the country, we spent a great deal of time talking about what was necessary to train individuals to groom dogs and the lack of consistency in the training that was presently being offered. Eventually the Nash Academy of Animal Arts came to be in 1979, and I never saw anyone who was so conscientious about designing the curriculum and teaching methods. When an idea formed in his head, he did everything possible to accomplish it!

Of course, there were other grooming schools at the time, but nothing like the Nash Academy. John made a point of selecting only the best instructors … people like Sally Critchlow (a fantastic terrier groomer who went onto marry Mark George and become a top handler), Loretta Marchese (who was Loretta Vogt at the time) and others. Joey Villani, a teen at the time, lived nearby and used to hang out with us; he loved animals and just wanted to be around them.

Every year, it was mandatory that the current students take a field trip to the Westminster Dog Show, and there John would be leading them around and making them acquainted with the various pure-breeds. John also loved art and he was very fond of the art deco illustrations of Erte, a Russian painter who worked in Paris. In fact, he liked Erte’s picture of an elegant woman walking her Russian Wolfhound so much that he had that image etched on a glass panel that was in the school and he once used that as part of his logo.

I went to the school regularly to teach cat grooming and handling. I fondly remember John’s love of Siamese cats. At the time, he owned a seal point named Arlo (after Arlo Guthrie) who was the school mascot and official greeter. No one … students, clients, clients dogs … came through the door without Arlo’s inspection.

After Intergroom began in 1981, both Johns contributed a great deal to its success. I relied early on for the Nash Academy to supply contest dogs. John Nash was the one who suggested that we start a “Grooming School Challenge” competition. We all thought it was a great idea, but it only lasted about four years because the Nash students always won and no one wanted to challenge them after that.

As the Nash Academy blossomed, John Stazko eventually came to the school as its Director. Those were fun times, as John Nash owned a limousine at the time and had the most charming Italian man (who used to pilot a gondola in Venice) as the driver. We had lots of memorable limo rides on Saturday nights in New York and we really became as close as brothers and sister.

John Nash was forever an innovator, whose ideas were always ahead of their time. I’ll never forget the mid-1980s, when Mirjam van den Bosch came from Holland to compete at Intergroom. She brought her own white standard Poodle and groomed him in the “Scandinavian” trim that most American groomers had not seen before. The dog was gorgeous and went on to win Best Groomed Dog in Show. When I saw John looking intently at Mirjam’s trim, I could see the wheels turning in his head that he had to incorporate European styles into his teaching and he did. After meeting Naoko and Masahiro Tsujihara at Intergroom, John and the Tsujiharas began a meaningful student exchange program with the Sepia School in Tokyo, Japan.

I could go on for pages and pages, there are so many memories. In the mid-1980s when John met Vivian Henderson, he truly found his soul mate. After they married, they opened the Nash Academy in Lexington, Kentucky in 1988. I don’t think I knew any two who were as devoted to one another as John and Viv. They loved each other, but they also respected each other and all this was apparent in what they accomplished together: the founding of the International Judges Association for Dog Grooming Competitions (holding events in the United States and Europe); the Triple Crown, which was the first competition to offer the largest prize money in the history of grooming; the Nash online training classes; the Canine Reference, the Groomers Reference, Nash Europe and much, much more.

After he was diagnosed in 2006 and until he passed, we talked a lot on the phone … not just about the grooming industry but also about cancer. The last time I saw John in person was at his home in Lexington in 2008. I was there for an IJA meeting and the Barkleigh Supergroom Summit that was held at the Nash Academy. I stayed at John and Viv’s house, along with Sasha Riess, Kathy Rose, Marea Tully, Karla Addington-Smith.

John always loved Italian sports cars, especially Maseratis, as did Larry and I. One afternoon, he and I went to his garage and sat in one of the Maseratis and talked a long while about cancer and chemotherapy and all the devastating things it does to one’s body. He told me then no matter what happened that he was not afraid to die if that was God’s plan. Now, after all his suffering, he is gone too soon and my heart grieves for Vivian.