Studio: international art (50.1910)

The Glasgow School of Embroidery

SIDEBOARD CLOTH

scheme in needleworking that may ultimately
develop into a national art. A visit to the school
any Saturday morning holds a surprise to the
uninitiated. In one of the fine class-rooms in the
new section at the top of the great building,
where the thoughtful architect has introduced an
abundance of light, there sit about a hundred
young women, drawn
from the teaching staffs
of the Board schools in
the West of Scotland,
sacrificing well - earned
leisure weekly in the
interests of the advance-
ment of a scientific
system of art education.

The class is instituted
by the provincial com-
mittee, and works under
a system devised by
Miss Ann Macbeth and
Miss Margaret Swan-
son, and which, starting
with the first simple
stitches made by a child
of six, taking note of
the developments of
plain needlework and
the simple elements of
decorative design, and

making use of such con- sideboard cloth

128

struction lines as seams
and hems, to ornament
with dots and stitches
and other patterns, pro-
ceeds later, as the child
develops to woman-
hood, to teach her to
correlate drawing with
the stitching, and finally
to produce her own
designs for beautifying
her own garments, and
for embellishing the
household linen, the
hangings and other
adornments belong-
ing to modern decora-
tive art.

The hundred young
women students are en-
tering into the whole
scheme with fervour,
beginning with a type
of pattern fairly simple, which in turn they pass
on to the pupils under their regular care, inculcat-
ing at the same time strict economy of method,
by making use of simple, inexpensive materials,
such as linen, cotton, crash, and the many beau-
tiful fabrics of a cheap kind modern scientific
manufacturing furnishes, to the exclusion of the

BY HELEN PAXTON BROWN

BY HELEN PAXTON BROWN