The News Every Collector Needs
In The News
Colorado Arts and Crafts Society Prepares for Annual Event
On Sunday, April 29th, the Colorado Arts and Crafts Society (CACS) will host its popular “Gathering of the Guilds” at the Boettcher Mansion overlooking Golden, Colorado. This interactive forum of local artisans – including bookmakers, calligraphers, ceramicists, illustrators, jewelers, leathersmiths, painters, printmakers, textile artists, and woodworkers – provides scores of attendees with the opportunity to observe and understand the unique techniques of each craft. Created 21 years ago by a cadre of kindred spirits, CACS is a non-profit, volunteer organization headquartered at the iconic Boettcher Mansion atop Lookout Mountain in Golden, Colorado. Built in 1917 as a rustic seasonal …
Little Journeys
By Bruce Johnson
Springs Rocks!
April in North Carolina is still too soon for planting herbs, but not for getting a new planting bed ready. A few years ago I took a landscaping shortcut, the kind that always comes back to haunt you, by building this low retaining wall for our first herb garden out of pine landscaping timbers. They were fast and cheap, but like everything fast and cheap they not only didn’t look good — or natural — they soon began to rot. So last week Leigh Ann and I started our spring project by first tearing out the wooden timbers and replacing …
Collector’s Guide
Price Tag Scars
As sensitive as everyone should be to the condition of a finish on any piece of antique furniture, I still find myself wincing as I walk through antique malls noting the number of price tags stuck to old, fragile, original finishes. Not long ago a good friend alerted me to this pair of walnut bookends with carved dogwood blossoms on them. They were cut, hand-carved, and signed by The Artisans’ Shop here in Asheville, NC around 1930. The Artisans’ Shop co-founder was George Arthur, who had trained under Eleanor Vance at Biltmore Estate Industries from 1905-1915. In keeping with …
Traveler’s Guide
Whether it be a museum with an Arts & Crafts collection, a nearby Prairie School home, a bungalow neighborhood, an Arts & Crafts gallery or a Frederick Law Olmstead park, just being able to add an Arts & Crafts side trip to our journey would add to our enjoyment and our education.
See Traveler’s Guide
How-To Videos
If a picture is worth a thousand words, then how valuable is a video?
Here at ArtsandCraftsCollector.com we have been busy making brief, informative videos to educate and instruct viewers in a variety of aspects of Arts & Crafts collecting.
See How-To Videos
Know Your Shopmarks
We are currently in the process of collecting, organizing, identifying and displaying on this website as many Arts & Crafts shopmarks as possible. And like our Reference Library, we need your help. While we have documented the shopmarks of the major Arts & Crafts firms, we need for you to email us a photograph of any shopmarks you have from lesser known firms, along with a brief description of the piece.
Shopmark Guide
Books Worth Reading
As both a collector and a researcher, I have often wished there was one site where every book ever written on the Arts & Crafts movement was listed. Now that place exists. Together we can compile on this website a list of every book of interest to Arts & Crafts collectors. All you have to do is pull some of the books off your bookshelf (go for the less obvious ones – and check below for duplicate entries) and email me the title, author, publisher and most recent copyright date. I will sort them by category and list them here so that anytime you or anyone else wants to research anything relating to the Arts & Crafts movement, you will start your search here.
Reference Library
