Hewn and Hammered

Arts & Crafts Revival according to the Seattle Times

It's always interesting when a newspaper suddenly and inexplicably picks up that we're in the middle of a revival of the A&C Movement, especially when this has been going on since the late 1980s. Usually, though, it's a case of warming up a particular audience for an upcoming home show or museum exhibition. Not so with this article by the Associated Press' Ula Ilnytzy: it's a general primer on the Movement, its various offshoots and collector subcultures. It would have been nice to see a bit more specialization - there's nothing here you don't already know - but it's certainly not a bad thing to be seeing articles like this in regional newspapers. And the photographs are certainly nice.

"Have nothing in your houses that you do not know to be useful or believe to be beautiful."

Those words of William Morris — British poet, socialist and wallpaper and fabric designer — are as inspiring now as they were when he helped the Arts and Crafts Movement span the globe at the turn of the 20th century.

With its focus on clean lines, hand crafting and natural materials, the style was a response to the excesses of the Victorian era and the advent of industrialization and its emphasis on quantity over quality. The same ideas feel fresh in the current era of mass production, fueling a renewed surge of interest.

In fact, the revival inspired by a 1972 Princeton University exhibition has already surpassed the original life span of the style's popularity in the early 1900s.

Tokyo's Nihon Mingeikan & Mingei's relationship to Arts & Crafts

Japan's Daily Yomiuri includes an English-language edition, and a recent issue includes a short article by Robert Reed on Tokyo's Nihon Mingeikan, a small museum celebrating Mingei crafts and the life and work of Soetsu Yanagi, the founder of the Mingei movement. Mingei is sometimes associated with the Arts & Crafts movement by art historians who note both its chronological proximity to European A&C and its similar philosophical underpinnings (the recent International Arts & Crafts show, which originated at the Victoria & Albert and was at San Francisco's De Young Museum in the middle of 2006, included a model room based on Mingei crafts and made a strong case for that movement's inclusion as part of the 'International Arts & Crafts' milieu).

From the museum's website:

Located in Tokyo, the Mingeikan Museum is housed in a beautiful traditional Japanese building completed in 1936. Founded in the same year, the Mingeikan has over 17,000 items in its collection made by anonymous crafts people mainly from Japan, but also from China, Korea, England, Africa, and elsewhere.

Yanagi Soetsu (1889-1961), the first director and founder of the Museum, coined the term Mingei (folk art) in 1926 to refer to common crafts that had been brushed aside by the industrial revolution. Yanagi and his lifelong companions, the potters Bernard Leach, Hamada Shoji, and Kawai Kanjiro, sought to counteract the desire for cheap mass-produced products by pointing to the works of ordinary crafts people that spoke to the spiritual and practical needs of life. The Mingei Movement is responsible for keeping alive many traditions.

Arts and Crafts Revival Society of Boston

reader Carl Close Jr., an artist blacksmith at Hammersmith Studio, forwards the following notice and hopes that other craftspeople in his area will be interested in forming a latter-day craftsperson's guild:

Are you an artist or craftsperson that works in the Arts and Crafts style? I am a metalworker in the Boston area and want to start a group that fosters the ideals and philosophies of the founders of the Society of Arts and Crafts in Boston. I thought it might be fun to also have an exhibit called Then and Now, a show that could showcase past masters and what similar artists are doing today to revive the Arts and Crafts Movement. So if you are a wood carver, metalworker, potter, book artist, silversmith, furniture designer, pleinair painter or any other historically-styled craftsperson, and live in the Boston or New England area, please let me know if this would be of any interest. You can contact me off my website, hammersmithstudio.com, or write me email.

Thank you - Carl Close, Jr, artist blacksmith

Forest Hills Gardens: an American Planned Community

Situated on the edge of New York City's borough of Queens, Forest Hills Gardens is probably the most successful - and best known - example of an English planned garden community in the United States. Originally built as a commuter suburb - even in 1915, just six years after its construction, it was less than 15 minutes from Manhattan's Penn Station by rail - the community was originally planned and built by the Russell Sage Foundation and Cord-Meyer Development Co. beginning in 1909. Landscape architect Frederick Law Olmsted Jr., son of the father of landscape architecture and a great craftsman and technician in his own right, collaborated with architect Grosvenor Atterbury to make a community that worked both internally and as part of the world-class city they both realized New York would soon grow into.

This thriving community still offers a lush, green and very much park-like escape for several thousand residents, and suggests solutions for our conflict between limiting sprawl and creating living, working, and above all livable communities. Forest Hills Gardens was home to many visionaries of the time, including Frederic Goudy, one of the foremost typeface and graphic designers of the age and an important figure in the American Arts & Crafts Movement. Goudy even published a monograph in 1915 detailing his own family's many reasons for relocating to the community; unfortunately, the book has not been reprinted, and you'd be hard-pressed to find a copy today. Gustav Stickley's own magazine, The Craftsman, also featured articles and drawings on the community in 1911.

Susan Klaus has written a terrific book on Olmsted's relationship to the community, focusing on the planning of the community and with many illustrations of its history to the present. It's worth a read if you are interested in planned communities in general and how the Arts & Crafts Ideal can be applied to so much more than simply architectural design. Additional photographs of and articles on the community are available online.

A Visit with Randell L. Makinson

the following interview with Randell L. Makinson, by Linda Arntzenius, was originally published in Autumn 1998 issue of USC's Trojan Family Magazine.

If there is a Greene & Greene cult abroad in Southern California, USC architecture alumnus Randell L. Makinson can take most of the credit.

Imagine yourself a keen student of architecture. Eager to assist a visiting professor by bringing him slides for his architectural history class, you approach a large, wooden house on a quiet residential street in an upscale Pasadena neighborhood. No sound save birdsong breaks the late morning silence. Lawns are perfectly cropped, hedges trimmed. No one is about as you set up camera and tripod for a carefully composed shot of the magnificent building. Framed in your viewfinder, the portal is a symphony of oiled teakwood and leaded glass.

Then, just as you are about to click the shutter, the door opens. A gentleman, tall and imposing in a dark suit, steps out. You watch as, unsmiling, he makes he way across the wide, private lawn and asks you to explain yourself.

This is precisely what happened to Randell L. Makinson in 1954 in front of 4 Westmoreland Place. But instead of being sent about his business, Makinson founds himself treated to a tour of the house and garden. Three and a half hourse later, he was seated on the living room floor with Cecil and Louise Gamble, pouring over their home's original blueprints.

much more after the jump, below

Design-a-Room

A group of Parsons graduate students are responsible for Design-a-Room, an interactive tool that lets you play around with motifs and furniture items from the Cooper-Hewitt's own collection of historic design objects. The Craftsman era collection is not so big, but there are some neat standouts - a Charles Rennie Mackintosh cardtable, a Bradley & Hubbard slag-glass shade lamp, a Voysey (identified as Vaysey on the site) sideboard designed for Morris' Kelmscott Chaucer. Unfortunately, the site is riddled with spelling errors and incorrect dates, but it's a fun little toy anyway.

Roycrofters not Luddites

The Roycrofters - or at least the Roycroft Campus Corporation - have got themselves a weblog. So far, lots of Elbert Hubbard epigrams and bits and pieces of news relating to the always-interesting events going on in that magical place. And unlike this place lately, it's more original content than links to other places (speaking of which, please do email me if you've got pictures or articles you'd like to share with our readers!).

Greene & Greene at Auction, redux

Given the recent attention given the sale of a reproduction lantern which hung for a time at the Gamble House, this 2005 article from the Los Angeles Times, detailing the sale of Randell Makinson's personal collection of Greene & Greene ephermera, may be particular interesting to those who are not familiar with the story.

It was the auction the Craftsman community couldn't stop talking about.

In December, Sotheby's auction house put up a rare collection of furnishings and accessories from historic homes designed by the brothers Charles and Henry Greene, the architects who created the venerable Gamble House in Pasadena, as well as other celebrated examples of the early 20th century Craftsman style in Southern California.

The collection was offered by an anonymous donor whose identity did not seem of particular importance until it became clear it was Randell Makinson, the former curator and director of the Gamble House. The auction, which appraisers say was the largest of its kind, netted almost $3 million.

Arts and Crafts in Boston

Architecture Radio is a wonderful online lecture series and covers an enormous range of topics - and I am ashamed to write that I did not know about this terrific resource until today. A relatively recent lecture (mp3; recorded at the Boston Public Library on 05.05, published 09.05) by Maureen Meister, author of Architecture and the Arts & Crafts Movement in Boston: Harvard's H. Langford Warren (the first full-length study of this very important turn-of-the-century architect, educator and movement leader) and editor of H. H. Richardson: The Architect, His Peers and Their Era is devoted to the Arts & Crafts Movement in Boston.

Old House Interiors writes of her book on H. Langford Warren that “(she) makes the point that some architects are influential because they have a lot of clients, while others exert their influence less directly - but more widely - through students… Warren's own blend of Gothic, Georgian, and Colonial forms was perceived as the proper New England style long after his death in 1917. In serving the Society of Arts and Crafts for longer than anyone else, Warren further imprinted area taste.”

Paraphrased the jacket of her most recent book: 'Maureen Meister has taught art history courses at the Art Institute of Boston, Lesley University, Northeastern University and the School of the Museum of Fine Arts in Boston since 1982. In recent years she has lectured on American architecture at Tufts University.' And she has a very nice voice, too.

Personalization and Arts & Crafts

London-based researcher Tom Carden (whose work mostly focuses on pedestrian traffic flow in airport terminals) visited the International A & C show at the Victoria and Albert a few months ago and wrote a couple of paragraphs on the inconsistencies in the Arts & Crafts movement and how it could relate to the current trend toward "mass personalization" in manufacturing.

Arts and Crafts on Wikipedia

Wikipedia is a fantastically immense user-edited encyclopedia. Anyone can make additions and changes, and it's a testament to the principles of anarchism that it does not decay into chaos. Their entry on the Arts & Crafts Movement is excellent, although slanted more than a little toward the UK, the homeland of the movement. I would suggest that some of you add to the page, develop it a bit, and perhaps explore the influence that A&C has had on other parts of the world.

Practical Painting: the Pre-Raphaelites

Practical Painting showcases particular artistic techniques and movements in short illustrated essay form. This month, Denise includes a brief history of the Pre-Raphaelites, retrospectively considered part of the UK Craftsman Movement, although in fact they were more an influence upon William Morris and the still-forming Movement than part of it. Artists such as Burne Jones, DeMorgan, Waterhouse, Millais, Alma-Tadema, Rossetti, and Hunt were the central Pre-Raphaelites, and are all represented in the gallery that accompanies the article.

pictured: Waterhouse's Spring (The Flower Picker)

The Simple Home

Bernard Maybeck patron / client Charles Keeler (a poet, playwright, inventor of religions and generally odd duck) wrote The Simple Home in 1906. It has been out of print for many years and was reprinted in 1979 by Peregrine Smith; however, you can read the original text online without the (copyrighted) Peregrine Smith introduction.

ALL the arts are modes of expressing the One Ideal;
but the ideal must be rooted in the soil of the real,
the practical, the utilitarian. Thus it happens
that architecture, the most utilitarian of the arts,
underlies all other expressions of the ideal ; and of all
architecture, the designing of the home brings the artist
into closest touch with the life of man.

Sotheby's: Greene & Greene

Rich Muller notes that "many of the pieces that have been in the Huntington's Scott gallery are now up for auction (through Sotheby's). There are a lot of high-resolution images that I've never seen anywhere else. Get your checkbooks out, or at least download some of these images!  There is also information on each lot." Catalogs are US$43; the least expensive item up for auction is significantly more expensive.

Of special note, at least to those interested in the graphic arts: some of the most expensive cuts (of such a small size, at least) ever.

What is a Bungalow?

Kerry Phillips, one of the founders of the Sacramento Bungalow Heritage Association, which tirelessly protects the many beautiful Craftsman homes in my own neighborhood of midtown Sacramento (as well as the rest of the historic neighborhoods of our city), has an excellent short essay defining this sometime-contentious word up on the SBHA site.

Cheltenham Art Gallery & Museum

The Cheltenham Art Gallery & Museum has a wonderful site documenting much of their large and important collection of

"...pottery, silver, metalwork, jewellery, plasterwork, leatherwork, private press books, textiles and embroideries as well as important archives."

Much of their collection is online, and you can search the database by designer name.

Pasadena's Craftsman Weekend

From October 15 through 17th, Pasadena will host its annual Craftsman Weekend at the Masonic Temple on 200 South Euclid Ave. in Pasadena. This particular show is really immense, even larger than San Francisco's event of a month ago. More than 80 exhibitors are set to show.

Tom Stangeland & Steve Helberg:Arts & Crafts Master Artisans in Pacific NW

When we moved into our home in 1998, we decided to furnish our main floor with Arts & Crafts furniture. We saw Tom Stangeland's Greene & Greene dining room table (modeled on one in the Blacker House in Pasadena) at NW Fine Woodworking here in Seattle and this was (to quote Casablanca) the "beginning of a beautiful [creative] friendship."

Auction Leftovers: Hidden Gems?

Looking for authentic antique Prairie, Craftsman or A&C furniture, accessories or artwork? Check out the unsold lots at Treadway/Toomey Galleries. A resource to keep an eye on.

bungalow associations all over

Our friends over at House in Progress recently compiled & published a list of bungalow associations throughout North America.

One they missed is my own local association, the Sacramento Bungalow Heritage Association. What organizations are trying to honor the historical integrity of and social contract in your own neighborhoods?

Arts & Crafts wallpaper today

People often think of the interior of Arts & Crafts period homes as austere, minimilist spaces devoid of pattern. They envision tasteful rich woods and plain walls with only a jewel tone paint shade as a foil. There may have been some interiors like that, but the height of the Arts and Crafts movement coincided with the height of Victorian decorating. Rather than homes and design books of the period only embracing one or the other style, what often occurred was a blending of the two styles. One of the finest examples of graphic art to come out of this period were the many rich and detailed wallpaper designs.

Thanks to Jo Horner of the always entertaining and often very touching Counting Sheep for this wonderful article!

Guild.com: 21st-Century Arts & Crafts

Building on the Arts & Craft movement of an earlier time, Guild.com is a treasure trove of current artists working in metalwork, ceramics, printmaking, painting, fiber, glass, wood, lighting, furniture and tableware.

The Arts & Crafts masters of yesteryear would have enthusiastically approved of The Guild's Philosophy: In a nutshell, we believe that when you live with art that you love, and it's made by a gifted artist with skill and care, it adds something rich and sweet to your life, every day.

21st-Century Arts & Crafts

When the philosopher-designers of the Arts & Crafts movement pushed design, usability and simplicity to the forefront, they tossed out the traditional standards of Victorian taste: outrageous cost and over-decoration. They felt that the best design [was] one which should become commonplace ... whether it was a piece of furniture or a spoon. And that great design should be within the reach of the common man.

Hewn and Hammered will be searching out the Arts & Crafts designers of this decade ... craftspeople who reach back to nature for their inspiration and who are on their way to becoming the Stickleys, Gruebys and Roycrofters of their generation.

So, stay tuned in to Hewn & Hammered for our showcase of Arts & Crafts of the 21st Century. We'll begin our tour with this unique 21st Century Arts & Crafts retreat in Scotland...

please visit House In Progress!