Posted on: January 1, 2007
Crafting a Way of Life
The old-school Arts & Crafts style is strong, simple and inviting – everything, it seems, we want in the latest furnishings for our homes.
By Chuck Ross
CTW Features
With telephones the size of wristwatches and TVs that can fill a wall, we’re closer than ever to living the life of the Jetsons, the cartoon family of the future. But, even as our economy moves from nuts and bolts to bytes and bits, the simple, often handcrafted lines of Arts & Crafts design continue to have appeal. Experts say it only makes sense that this style, developed as a reaction against turn-of-the-last-century industrialization, would reappear as our economy transitions through yet another paradigm shift.
Arts & Crafts design originated in England, as architects and artisans rejected the bric-a-brac clutter encouraged by new mass-production technology. Championed by designer William Morris, this movement favored clean lines and a connection to nature in everything from plant-themed wallpapers to grain-revealing finishes on furniture and millwork. “Mission Style,” as this approach became known in the U.S., became a dominant theme in American homes from 1900 to the Depression, a popularity it seems to have regained in the early years of this century.
“I think a lot of people can identify with the warmth and character of the style,” says Treena Crochet, an interior designer and author of Bungalow Style (Taunton Press, 2005). “A lot of times, too, we’re on brain overload and the simplicity of these lines is uncomplicated. We want our home environment to be something that’s relaxing.”
Crochet credits gentrifiers with bringing Arts & Crafts back to the forefront. As urban rehabbers rediscovered bungalows and began restoring their characteristic Mission-style moldings and built-ins, they gained a new appreciation for the patina of aged wood grain and the Zen-like simplicity of time-tested construction. Now, she says, even new-home buyers are drawing on Arts & Crafts principles.
One major identifier of Arts & Crafts and Mission styles is that they were among the first artistic movements to bring together architecture and furniture design. Prairie School progenitor Frank Lloyd Wright was famous for creating not just homes, but also the furnishings that filled them. And Sears, Roebuck & Co.’s mail-order bungalows provided the perfect backdrop for the retailer’s Mission-style sofas, chairs and accessories. Today’s Arts & Crafts revivalists are just as enthused over the role furnishings play in creating harmonious interiors.
Woodworker Bill Laberge creates chairs, tables, desks and other furniture out of his Dorset, Vt. workshop, William Laberge Cabinetmaker. He says the continued popularity of Arts & Crafts furniture is driven by its inherent combination of craftsmanship and durability that creates obvious value for homeowners.
“You can have nice-looking furniture that’s well built and will last for a long time,” he says. “I think that’s why interest was renewed and that’s why it will remain.”
Laberge draws inspiration from the work of California-based architects Charles and Henry Greene, who developed a version of Arts & Crafts design often termed the “Craftsmen” style. In the work created by their firm, Greene & Greene, these brothers drew on Asian influences to soften the sometimes imposing linearity of Mission Style furniture. So, while Frank Lloyd Wright became famous for his high-backed, slatted dining chairs, the Greene’s designs are somewhat sinuous, and can feature cutouts across the back slats and contrasting pegs in the joinery.
Laberge also works with other artisans to add another layer of handcraftedness to his pieces. For example, he’s worked with stained-glass artists to create tabletop insets, and with painters to create inlaid room screens. He sees this effort as one that harkens back to mutual efforts of the craftsmen who originated the style.
“It speaks to a holistic approach,” he says. “It isn’t about just a dining room server – it’s about the tiles on the backsplash of the server. You’re including all these different things in the house.”
One of the ironies of the British Arts & Crafts movement is that though it championed art for the masses, only the wealthy could afford its made-by-hand creations. In the U.S., mass manufacturers, like L. & J.G. Stickley, based out of upstate New York, added a degree of automation to Mission Style furniture production to bring prices within middle-class budgets while still incorporating craftsman-level joinery and high-quality materials.
Karen Deans, a Rockville, Md.-based artist, similarly blends technology and artisanry in the decorative wooden tiles she creates. Some of them feature pared-down versions of the patterns Arts & Crafts founder William Morris developed for wallpaper, textiles and ceramic tiles. Dean works with an area printer who prints her patterns onto archival-quality paper, which the artist then mounts onto 6-in. and 8-in. square wooden boxes. Either on their own or in groupings, these signed and numbered pieces add a surprisingly unique and affordable artistic touch to any setting.
“My hands have touched every piece,” Deans says, describing the combination of automation and individual attention that goes into her work. “I think that’s something we don’t get anymore.”
As the architecture of modern-day Arts & Crafts design evolves, practitioners are seeing a move to more open spaces than traditional bungalows generally offered. And kitchens, often ignored 100 years ago, are now the centers of many homes – and attracting greater attention from architects, as a result. But even with these changing requirements, experts say homeowners still yearn for the comfort and craftsmanship evident in fine Arts & Crafts creations.
“Our clients seem extremely interested in things that are handmade – inevitably, that includes the Arts & Crafts,” says Tom Conway, director of design for The Rosen Group, a Summit, N.J.-based architecture firm and a strong believer in the movement’s ongoing influence. “When they’re building a new house in this region, they want a new house that has all the charm of a house from 1910.”
