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Metalwork
Embroidery
Bookbinding
Metalworking
Mary Given Sheerer initiated a
new craft program at the College when she was unable to
find acceptable commercial lampshades for the ceramic
bases produced at the Pottery. Recalling the 1861 actions
of William Morris, Sheerer found no alternative but to
fabricate the shades herself. The first pierced brass
lampshade was made by Sheerer in the early 1900's, the
jewelry program initiated in 1909. (Sheerer also
conducted courses in beading and leaded glass for the
fabrication of lampshades, although little of this
fragile work was done or survived.) The instant success
of the jewelry program, accompanied by numerous orders,
prompted Ellsworth Woodward to lament that "... it
should have been introduced long ago."
Metal wares were made simply at the College, fashioned
by cutting and polishing sheet brass or silver. According
to a 1910 Ellsworth Woodward Womans Era article,
"Girls become excellent silversmiths in the
interests of personal adornment." It is entirely
possible, however, that the more dangerous or technically
demanding tasks, soldering for instance, were performed
by local professional smiths. The theory makes sense
since art school administrators were inclined to hire men
to perform tasks deemed too risky or dirty for the female
students. Equipment required for more sophisticated
fabrication might also have been prohibitably expensive
for the College.
There is also evidence to support that students
manipulated ready-made items in the metal shop. It is
unlikely that pieces requiring special equipment and
techniques to fabricate, such as flatware and hollowware,
were made at the College. Commercially-made spoons exist,
however, that indicate the coeds hand-hammered them in
the art school metal shop.
Embroidery
Although the needlework process had remained
pre-industrial, needle arts were exceedingly popular
during the Arts and Crafts revival. Traditionally a
female skill, the work required little equipment and
could be done anywhere. William Morris incorporated many
textile arts into his home furnishings company including
embroidery, fabric dyeing, and tapestry and rug-knotting.
Morris taught his wife, Jane, medieval embroidery
techniques. At the turn of the century, Morris’
daughter, May, herself an accomplished needlewoman,
toured the United States to lecture on Arts and Crafts
ideals, and in particular, embroidery.
The needleart program was begun at Newcomb in 1902 by
the art department’s first instructor, Gertrude
Roberts Smith. Like the pottery, both the materials and
the underlying principles of fabrication remained well
within the Arts and Crafts realm. Designs were inspired
by natural, local motifs such as camellias, poinsettias
and roses. And, as Gustav Stickley recommended in his
Arts and Crafts publications, Newcomb used woven
unbleached flax or linen to support silk floss worked in
darning, satin and buttonhole stitches. Emphasizing
simplicity and restraint, Stickley remarked that the
embroidery of scarfs, table squares, luncheon and dinner
sets, "is the kind of needlework that any woman can
do."
The Newcomb embroideries were exquisitely and expertly
executed. In 1910, Ellsworth Woodward boasted of their
success, stating that "...the Art of Embroidery...
is rapidly gaining in volume and popularity upon the
pottery. Newcomb Embroidery has made for itself a leading
position among the needle crafts of the land."
Embroidered pieces were displayed with Newcomb pottery as
early as the 1903 St. Louis World’s Fair.
Newcomb needlework was judged by jury, as the other
crafts, before being sold in the art department sales
room, or exhibited or retailed through arts and crafts
societies and stores. Sadly, few of the surviving
examples bear the embroidered signatures of the
needleworker.
Drawstring Bag
Unidentified embroiderer
Bookbinding
As literacy increased in the 19th century, the demand
for more and cheaper books was met by mass-production,
industrial printing techniques.
The art of making fine hand-crafted books was revived
during the Arts and Crafts movement. William Morris
founded his Kelmscott Press in 1890 and the following
year in London published his first book, The Story of
the Glittering Plain. Published the same year in
Boston, Morris’ book inspired a new generation of
private American printing houses, primarily in the
Northeast and Midwest. The revival of fine printing came
to be known as the "Kelmscott revival." The
Roycroft Press in East Aurora, New York, brought more
Arts and Crafts books to American households than any
other press.
Although bookbinding was an early and successful Arts
and Crafts industry, it was not added to the Newcomb
crafts program until the fall of 1913. The bindery was
under the direction of Lota Lee Troy, who studied at
Columbia University not only with Arthur Wesley Dow, but
also two well-known English book makers, Walter Roach and
William Mason.
Like other revival art printers, Newcomb emulated the
Gothic book style by using thick laid paper with deckle
edges, heavily inked in medieval typeset and with
woodcuts or engravings for illustrations. Students made
their own decorative end papers, meticulously sewed the
spines and hand-tooled the leather book covers.
Book
Leather bound and tooled by Eunice Bassich
c. 1935
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