The Roycroft Café

The British and American "Arts and Crafts" movements (approx. 1840-1910) that was born out of a fear that industrialization would render hand-crafters' skills moot and lead to a mindless standardized society, bereft of imagination, individuality, and a loss of the connection between humans and the natural world. In hindsight, it's easy to see that their fears were in large part justified and prophetic. At the same time, they failed to recognize and give proper credit to the small but consistent percentage of the population who are the fearless dreamers, innovators, and stubborn individualists that recognize, understand, and nurture a symbiotic relationship with the universe.

I first became aware of Roycroft, Rookwood and Roseville (all major players in the American Arts and Crafts movement) when I was a young child through both pottery and woodworking classes at a Girl Scout camp in Connecticut. My appreciation was reinforced at age 10 by my Grandmother when she took me to various local antique shops, flea markets and the Moravian Tile factory that were nearby her farm in Quakertown, Pa. What impressed me most was the use of natural materials (as opposed to the proliferation of plastics in the late 1950's-early 1960's); the individual attention and love that went into the creation of each piece; and the depicture of flowers, trees and woodland creatures that capture their essence in just a few simple lines and shapes.

In creating my own art, it is rare for me to have any particular agenda or vision of what I'm about to produce. All I start with is how I feel at the time (physically, emotionally and spiritually) and an image or shape or color scheme that calls out to me at that moment. In the case of my paintings "The Roycraft Café" and "Shadow Dancing", I was drawn to a particular hand-crafted Roseville vase that was for sale at an online antiques mall. The series of images below document my progression from the original photograph of that vase to the final tableaus. As to why I made various design decisions to add or subtract something, I honestly can't tell you as I'm not consciously aware at the time of execution of actually making such decisions! My paintings are more of an expression of my unconscious feelings and mood. While that hardly makes my methods easy to translate into a useful tutorial...

The real lesson to be taken is that in creating your own art, let go of your inner critic and rely more on your instincts. And above all, keep in mind that Art Buyers rarely purchase a work of art because of the technical skills of the artist, nor because of the particular objects or scenes depicted. They buy because of how the artwork in its' entirety makes them feel.