International studio (26.1905)

2*72

going to his bench in the corner of the old barn,
hammers*out merrily a copper cup. Winter means
to the members of such a household a season of joy,
not of hibernation. The thirst for the city never
comes^upon them. Does that not pay ?
However, we must Anally stand related to the
world. Does the world want the handicraftsman ?
Is there any demand for the product of his labor ?
Experience seems to indicate that the world has
grown somewhat tired of machine-made art. We
are beginning to recognize that crowds of men are
busy, busy long after their bones ache, making
weary goods full of backache and all unloveliness,
just to weigh us down. Crowds of men are busy
making painful stuff painfully, and we buy it just to
dust it and keep the moth out. There seems to be a
genuine revolt against this. No doubt the simple
life is a fad with many, but there is a bedrock of
firm conviction that a few beautiful things are more
satisfying than clutter. The buyer, then, is showing
better taste, and that means he will demand the
unique things, the product of the craftsman's skill,
rather than objects turned out by the hundred on a
machine.
The buyer is getting, too, a finer conscience. He
wants to know where and how the goods he pur-
chases were made. He likes to know that the things
about him were hammered out or woven by a merry
hearted fellow in some quiet nook of the world,
rather than run out at steam pressure in some
noisy, dirty factory. Conscience and taste in the
buyer, then, are steadily creating a demand for the
craftsman.
The movement started by Morris and Ruskin
has grown, until now there are some five hundred


AT THE LOOM WESTCHESTER FARM


METAL WORKING AFTER FARMING

centres in England where village industries are car-
ried on. Many a man and woman is earning during
the dull seasons on the farm a good living by hand
work. The silk weaving of Spitalfield, the lace
making of Honiton, are reviving. And it is true in
America as well, that if a craftsman can make a
sound and beautiful thing he can sell it. Even the
little Westchester farm house, which was only pro-
ducing for home consumption, had on its loom a
piece of fancy stuff which caught the eye of a con-
noisseur. A pattern of this cotton and linen mixture
was shown to a Fifth Avenue tailor, and he offered
three dollars a yard for the cloth, as each yard could
be woven with a slight variation, thus giving unique
material for fancy waistcoats.
The main question is as to whether the craftsman
is prepared to do his share towards the success of
his craft. What led William Morris to train him-
self in six different trades was that, when his archi-
tect had finished his famous house, he could procure
to put in it no beautiful modern things. He could
get Indian rugs, but, as he said, he was not an East
Indian and that art did not express his British taste.
He could get Chippendale, but he belonged to the
nineteenth century and the eighteenth century
didn't express his ideas of furniture. He could get
Danish china, but he was not a Dane. He was an
up-to-date Englishman with vital ideas, and he fell
to expressing them in wall papers, in furniture, in
textiles for himself, his countrymen not being ready
to give him what he wanted, as they were all tight
bound to machines.
Morris's success is full of lessons for the crafts-
man. In the first place, he saved himself no pains
in acquiring skill, and he demanded the highest
skill in the workmen about him. Money, time,
energy were lavishly spent to get a desired eSect.
The ability to take pains is the foundation of suc-
cess for the handicraftsman, as of others. The

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