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Spirit of tljc 2Vgc,Woodstock* Vkkmokt(Established 1840.1Subscription Rates:One year..........1100Six months..........00Three months ........26Single copies ........08Postoffice Building J • Telephone 16-4EDWARD C. DANA,Editor and Publisher.Woodstock, Vt., August 3, 1907Art in Home Industries.All over New England and in the southern mountains the women are getting out their old looms and are trying to remember how their grandmothers made those wonderful old coverlets and rag carpets, whose colors are as fresh today as when they were first woven. The young women have been learning from the old ones how these articles were made because the work sells at such good prices. At least everything did at first when the idea was new and every one caught the craze of buying “hand-made” articles. After a time people found fault with the ugly colors and poor patterns. Then several artistic women such as Mrs. Douglas Volk and Mrs. Helen D Albee became interested in wakening up these home industries and it was decided that an artist must look after the designs and the choice of colors.Tho immediate result has been quick sales and better prices all over the country for everything these women make. There is a mass of fancy work executed all over this country by women who like to have their hands employed when the heavier work is done, and all of us, as wo look at the embroidery, crochet, knitting, lace making and other fancy work executed by our friendB will acknowledge we can acquire skill and that we have abundance ofpatience to carry out any art work we may undertake no matter how toilsomely we learn it.The professional designers of wall paper, hangings, rugs, carpets, furniture, pottery, china and thousands of other objects go through long and severe courses of training before they are permittee* by manufacturers or dealers to plan goods that are to be put upon the market. This shows that people do not always know instinctively how to make beautiful designs and artistic combinations of colors, unless, like the Japanese, they have been trained for generations in the common use of beautiful things; while there are many women who instinctively dress well, even though inexpensively, and who show the most delicate and refined taste in fancy work and in the furnishing and decorating of their homes.If we will frankly face our own and our neighbor’s homes we will discover them to be treated with very llittlo display of good taste. And this is as true in the homes of the rich as in those of the poor. Theformer are apt to buy costly thingswhich do not bear any relation to each other in color or design or utility. The poor who must buy cheap things choose the gayest and most heavily ornamented for the money.Thev fill out the decorations with•»hand-made scarfs, table covers, tidies, bows, lace covers, etc.The rich who realize their own lack of good taste, pay professional architects, decorators and furnishers to manage this sort of thing for them. Others buy costly things for the sake of revelling in possessions. The middle class folks do the same tiling and so do the poor. It is because we like things, and plenty of them. We want color and we get a lot of different tonos together; we want things to look home-like and cosy and warm, and we think we get it through having as much around as possible.ecu ted. It would be an easy and [ perfectly delightful scheme to start a society or club where the principles of art and design could be taught simply and practically by some one interested in the society; where work could be planned according to the ability of each one desirous of doing any, and where a trained artist would give advice on all objects to be made.An exhibition held once a year would not only be attractive to thecommunity, but would result in the advertisement and sale of hand-made articles both to visitors, residents and the country round.In the mountains of North Carolina, women are working on looms over 150 years old and making carpets, rugs, coverlets and portieres which sell in Asheville at the “Woman’s Exchange” for good prices and are known all over the south and inmany places in the north on account of the interest Mrs. Vanderbilt has taken in pushing this industry.At Deerfield, Mass., the “Blue and White Society” holds annual sales and sells things all over the country, Boston being perhaps headquarters for much of its works. Mrs. Helen R. Albee superintends the making of Abenakee rugB at her summer home,Pequaket, New Hampshire, whereIlianV KmwIao ****•“housework, make a dollar a day weaving rugs in odd minutes.Mr. and Mrs. Douglas Volk of New York city superintend the making of the Sebatos rugs (a New England hooked rug) at Center Lovell, Maine.On the Cranberry Isles opposite the Northeast Harbor, Maine, the \yivea of the fishermen wished to build a wharf and help tho church fund. Having heard of the Abenakee rugs they started something similar in order to raise this money. They had the backing of Mrs. SethLow and other influential women, by whose advice they started their industry under the supervision of Miss Mali Hicks, a designer of New York city. Afterwards, Miss Una A. Clarke of Cambridge, Mass., who is also a designer, took up the work. Their rugs are sold as fast as they can be made for summer cottages, and the industry is on a self-supporting basis.Besides this kind of work there are arts and crafts societies all over the country which are devoted to the hand-making of jewelry, lace, leather good», pottery, bookbinding, wood-carving and brass and metal objects. The mass of the workers in these societies are women, and the blessing of the movement is that women are being taught to open their eyes to see beautiful lines and forms, to appreciate color and textiles and to learn the right use of ornament.The skill that was once wasted on useless and inartistic “fancy work” is now put into artistic objects which are useful, ornamental and salable.Kate Louise Roberts.“Beautiftjl Vermont” Again.When the esteemed Woodstock Spirit of the Age says of the stateboard of agriculture’s “Beautiful Vermont” publication that it “covers the state very thoroughly,” it evidently does not reckon Franklin county as worth noticing. Not a line of reading matter, not a picture, relating to Franklin county appear in the book. But Franklin county taxpayers must pay their share of what it costs, just the same.—St. Albans Messenger.The Age allows that in a somewhat hasty examination of “Beautiful Vermont” the omission and elimination of Franklin county was not noticed. And Franklin is a considerable county, too; it contains 549 square miles, it had in 1900 a population of 30,198, it has St. Albans and The Messenger. It is worth space in any book about Vermont. Secretary Aitken says ho asked for advertising literature; he received “profuse promises” and a picture of a Franklin county horse which arrived too late for publication.It seems as though Secretary Aitken ought to have said a little something about Franklin county, even if he had to go to “Thompson’s Ver-ont,” edition of 1842, for data;It would do us all good, whether)also that the Franklin county people]ought to have had pictures and things ready whon the advertising man came around.rich or poor, to live with the Japanese for a time and see how wonderfully simple a home can be arranged and be beautiful. Only one ornament is put out by them at a time or one beautiful piece of embroiderydisplayed. What we need to learn from this nation is how to appreciate beautiful lines in our furniture, jewelry and fancy work ; and how to see colors in their true relation to each other, so as to produce harmoniousThe villages of the country have at last an organ of their own. TheVillage Life Publishing Co. of 35 Nassau street, New York, publish a very beautiful magazine called “The Village, a Journal of Village Life.” It is about the size of Harper’s Weekly. The illustrations are attractive. It has articles on such sub-effectB, even though in a gorgeousway. Over-decorated cheap things J6cts “ ‘J^ica! Jair Play for Vil-are made in cheap factories of cheap materials by cheap designers and workmen. The simpler the construction the better material one will get and better workmanship for the money.Now all of this brings me back to the idea with which I started. There is no doubt we women give much timo and thought to the decorative work we de. We need, however, to realize a few facts. The most of our work shown at home and at the fairs and bazaars of our native place would not be approved by any school of art, because of faulty design, arrangement and col .r. These things have little interest and little commercial value, no matter how skilfully ex-lages;” “How a Village Advertises Itself;” “The Village Improvement Society of Rhode Island,” and brief reports from village improvement societies from all over the United States. In No. 8, for July, there is a beautiful illustrated description of Barton, Vt., and another similar de scription of historic Hatfield, in Massachusetts. This is one of the most useful and attractive publications in its line that has ever appeared and should be liberally subscribed for in Woodstock.DeliiId i sc Gen a tel lute undto Clmapliarlto dmaringbyagaiT outs is e:Theingcon!chaithcigermilleacldozlt;andismijustwincausthuswillscrilingso mcamanytheaim4ansiingappT8olilt;vvoimarmatsariEvestraicaujphomisisufliFlastwictywasoneYorMfewN. ] B Brieon tRcuciSugJ.comF.HonweeQat tlAusM in V Jlt; $11CLakiMat .WoeCigrarFurLhim.Ctow IfrierCand and for aAmainotiaboiAwascamquichaditlikeaskctcm «placproiteenHImar“]a'hadthetrhad ley i mon afra thin andOASTOniA.turn the Kind You Haw Always BoughtBifaatmi*ofMbs. ' used flt; era foi pcrfec the gu and larelieveSold 1 world, to as SyrupOn iAct, *
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Woodstock Spirit of The Age
Woodstock, Vermont, US
Sat, Aug 03, 1907
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USA 02 Jun 2021
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Woodstock Spirit of The Age
