By Catherine J. Barrier
The Arts & Crafts Movement began in the British Isles with William Morris, circa 1861. Morris and his friends founded a company and designed and made decorative objects, such as wallpaper, textiles, furniture, and stained glass, for the home and began to celebrate the texture of ordinary materials. Morris’s ideas soon spread, and Europeans started trying to recreate the world of hand-made crafts that industrialization was destroying. The Arts & Crafts Movement then spread Stateside—to Chicago
During WWII, the government encouraged American citizens to be self-sufficient. Much of the country’s machinery was being used for the war effort, and people who had gotten away from making things by hand became more independently resourceful. Many drew their inspiration from the earlier Arts and Crafts Movement. Many were eager to learn how to make fine and functional items, and master craftsmen taught them their many skills.
In August 1940, craftsmen from 22 states, including Pennsylvania , attended the National Conference on Crafts, held in North Carolina
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| A Fine Example of Denise Wilz's Sgraffito (Scratching) Pottery |
“Peoples’ interest in crafts has been kind of cyclical,” said Mohler. “There was the Arts and Crafts Movement; then there was a return to craftmaking during WWII, and the late 1960s and the 1970s saw more of the studio craft work. Now, ‘indie crafters’ [who identify with “indie-films”, etc.] are emerging and mostly selling their work online.”
The Pennsylvania Guild of Craftsmen recognizes the making of crafts enriches peoples’ lives and seeks to encourage the practice of and to nurture excellence in heritage and contemporary crafts. It is one of the nation’s largest craft non-profit organizations.
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| Visitors Enjoy the Festival-like Setting of the Craft Show |
More than 100 master craftsmen who earn their living making these crafts will display their functional and/or aesthetic fine crafts at the Fair, which will both include demonstration areas and feature the work of 6 emerging artists. Children’s activities will also be provided, as well as wine tasting and live music.
Unlike in previous years, this year’s Fair will be held inside and outside--inside the college’s Fine Art Center
Among other things, jewelry, quilts, hand-carved wooden items, clothing, and abstract paintings will all be displayed, as well as artistic works of pottery, paper-cutting, texture mixed-media, stenciling, and basket-weaving.
“Our craft fair stands out [above others] because of the two-level jury process [the craftsmen’s work undergoes],” said Mohler. “We pride ourselves on our standards. We know we can stand behind the individual craftsman’s displayed work. We jury all the work in advance, but then we have a Standards Committee, and the members of the Committee go around and visit the booths during the Fair—to view the actual work and to make sure that all the work being displayed is up to the same standards. It allows us to know the true quality of all the work. We like to make sure the work being shown is top quality.”
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| Robert Dewitt Demonstrates Wood-Carving |
“The Swiss-German style of paper-cutting dates originally to the 1500s in the areas of Switzerland and Germany, and groups from these areas immigrated to the United States in the 1700s,” said Marie-Helene Grabman, from Alexandria, VA, who has just completed her first year of a three-year term as the President of the Guild of American Paper-Cutters (GAP), and is also a member of a German Guild of Paper-Cutters overseas. “The American style then changed to a more primitive kind of work. My style is the original, real delicate-cut work, but I use American themes, not the Alpine village or cow parade scenes used in Europe . I try to use the Amish a lot in my work, so I have a lot of barns, the image of the buggy, and quilts over clotheslines. I also use general nature scenes.”
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| Marie-Helene Grabman's Paper-Cutting (Scherenschnitte) |
“I use eye-surgery scissors [from Europe] to do the cutting,” said Grabman, who also gets her French silhouette paper, which is black on the front and white on the back, from Europe.
“I have a technique only done in one area of French-speaking Switzerland
Grabman, who has been exhibiting her work for the past 30 years, first learned paper-cutting from her grandmother. Today, her daughter exhibits as well. “There are so few of us still doing this work,” said Grabman.
This past summer, Grabman exhibited her work at the Westmoreland Museum of American Art in suburban Pittsburgh Cabarrus County ’s exhibit in Concord , North Carolina Swiss National Museum in Zurich , in Stuttgart , Germany , and one piece of her paper-cutting is in a new Chinese paper-cutting museum that just opened in Datong , China
Robert Fisher, a Guild member from West Chester who primarily carves miniature wooden Santas, will be demonstrating his craft at the Fair.
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| A Carved Robert Fisher Santa |
“Sometimes I hear something funny and write it down; then later I develop a piece based on that humorous note,” said Fisher. “Sometimes I get ideas from customers.”
“Today’s Catch”, one of Fisher’s Santas, is a Santa with an old-fashioned fly-fishing rod in one hand who is carrying a box under his other arm that says “North Pole Fishing Company”. “Lo and behold!” said Fisher. “He didn’t catch anything that day and had to go to the local Fish Company to bring home his dinner. There’s a bit of humorous twist to that one.”
“[Woodcarving] is a dying art,” said Fisher. “Young people don’t want to, don’t have the patience to, take the time to produce the sculptures. It’s an art form that doesn’t ‘forgive you’. Once you cut a piece off, it’s gone. It has to be done right the first time.”
Fisher uses a blade to produce his works and first picked up carving when in the Boy Scouts. “If I have a decent piece of wood and a sharp knife—and adequate light—I can carve anywhere,” said Fisher, who makes his living producing these works. “It’s what I do.”
“I usually sit and carve, so people can see that I make each piece by hand,” said Fisher. “People like what I do; they tell me it’s original.” Fisher will be at the Kris Kringle Mart in Bethlehem , PA
Karen Wychock, a former President of the Penn-Jersey Basket Weavers Guild for 6 years and a current member, hails from Warrington New Hampshire
“The Shaker baskets are very special and are made using techniques dating back to about the 1850s,” said Wychock.
“The baskets are done over a wooden mold, and the Shakers made a lot of nesting baskets, baskets that fit into one another,” said Wychock. The use of molds enables the baskets to be made a specific size, which assures that they will be the correct sizes to nest into one another.
“The baskets are made out of pounded ash [wood],” said Wychock. “Ash splits along its growth rings, so it’s a natural separation, which makes it perfect basket material. The rims and handles are usually made of maple wood, and sometimes [of] oak. The baskets are made by hand. The wood is steamed and then bent around the mold until it’s dry. Then it can be carved.”
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| One of Karen Wychock's Shaker Baskets |
Wychock and her basket-making were featured in this past summer’s edition of Bucks County Town and Country Living, and she gives basket-weaving lessons out of her home.
“It takes a lot of time to weave a basket,” said Wychock. “Some baskets take me 5 hours, some as many as 50 hours, to complete, depending on the intricacies or the pattern. People nowadays don’t often seem willing to take the time necessary to produce such crafts.”
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| Wychock's Basket-Making Demo |
“For the most part, people have never seen [basket-making] done,” said Wychock. “People ask a lot of questions. I hope they learn something when they come.”
There will be 6 emerging artists featured at this year’s Fair, 3 producing jewelry, 2 working with fiber, and 1 producing pottery.
Non-established artists often need help to get started. “In Wilmington , Delaware
“We wanted to provide a means for them to take part in our event, so we came up with an emerging artist package,” said Mohler. “It gives them membership in the Guild, a type of non-official ‘mentoring’—some tips and suggestions mainly from one of the craftsmen working in their same medium, and it gives our craftsmen exposure to the younger artists, who are often coming at the work from a different angle, or maybe using a different technique. It’s been a good kind of give-and-take. And the craftsmen are interested in being involved in such exchanges.”
Children’s craft activities will be provided at the Fair by the Distelfink Artisans.
“We had them last year, and their activities were really popular,” said Mohler. This year they will be inside the Fine Art Center.
The PA Guild of Craftsmen has its corporate offices, as well as its fine crafts boutique-like store, located at 252 N. Prince Street in Lancaster PA
“This is the PA Guild, but we have a lot of craftsmen from all over the place,” said Mohler. “Anyone, anywhere can join the Guild, if they agree with our mission and with the promoting of crafts, but not just anyone can show his or her work at one of our events. There are no guilds in some states, such as Delaware , New Jersey , and Virginia
For craftsmen and craft-lovers alike, the PA Guild’s Fine Craft Fair is a great place to meet this October.
* Photos Courtesy of the Pennsylvania Guild of Craftsmen
© 2010 by Catherine J. Barrier. All rights reserved.
