Virtual Tours, Exhibitions and Discussions: Virtual Events Coming Up

by Kate Nixon

 

The lyfe so short, the craft so long to learne.

Geoffrey Chaucer’s words still ring true, today when folks are still restricted to their houses and the days drone on and on. Thankfully, the abundance of online resources and virtual opportunities can help collectors continue learning their favorite craft. We’ve listed a couple of online classes and virtual tours and a virtual exhibition from the Stickley Museum at Craftsman Farms in the last remaining weeks of May.  If you need something to do, consider these as possibilities to add to your ongoing education about the movement that we love – and while you’re waiting for these events, check out the links for virtual tours and an additional class that you can experience whenever you want. We’ll be updating this article with new information as we receive it, so please check back often.

 

Ceramic Object Study Session with Garth Johnson – Live from the Everson Museum of Art

Date: Friday, May 22nd
Time: 1:00pm EST

Using the popular Zoom environment, curators from the Everson Museum of Art discuss ceramic art objects of all genres and interview ceramic artists. In addition to classes, Everson also offers studio tours and live virtual lessons including visual thinking strategies and conveying meaning through art for students of art of all levels.

For more information, https://www.everson.org/virtual-programming/classes-and-studio-tours

 

Coffee with a Curator: Roycroft Artists – Live from the Roycroft Campus Corporation

Date: Saturday, May 23rd
Time: 10:00am EST

Pour yourself a cup of coffee and join our curators virtually to learn the stories behind some of our most unique artifacts! This session will feature items from the Roycroft Campus’s historic collection that are connected to some of the Roycroft’s most well-known artists.

$10 donation – zoom link will be sent upon registration. 

Space is limited, click here to register.
All proceeds benefit the continued preservation of the Roycroft Campus archival and artifact collection.

 

Virtual Farms Afield with The Stickley Museum at Craftsman Farms

Date: Saturday, May 23rd
Time: 2:30 PM EST

  

From the desk of Executive Director Vonda Givens:

Calling all Members (and potential members!) of the Stickley Museum at Craftsman Farms! Our Farms Afield travel program has gone virtual! The museum is hosting virtual tours over two consecutive weekends beginning this coming Saturday, May 23. Though the format is changing, as with all of our Farms Afield trips, we are still focused on providing the exclusive one-of-a-kind experiences, in community with other Stickley fans, that have become the hallmark of this program.

This coming Saturday, May 23 at 2:30 EST we are “traveling” to Pasadena, California and the Gamble House for an exclusive, in-depth tour with Jennifer Trotoux, the Gamble House’s Director of Collections and Interpretation. RSVP here. Want to know more about the historic connections between Gustav Stickley and California? Check out our History in Focus video with executive Director Vonda Givens.

 

 

On May 30 we are headed to the midwest to Cranbrook in Bloomfield Hills, Michigan for a tour of Frank Lloyd Wright’s Smith House at 2:30 p.m. EST with Greg Wittkopp, Director of the Cranbrook Center for Collections and Research, and Curatorial Associate Kevin Adkisson of the Cranbrook Center for Collections and Research. RSVP here.

As always Farms Afield is a Member Benefit and as a thank you to members, whose support helps us maintain operations during these trying times, our virtual travel programs are being offered FREE to Members. Space is limited so Members, please take a moment to click here to RSVP.

Not a member? We invite you to join us. Become a Member of the Stickley Museum at Craftsman Farms and a part of our nationwide community of supporters. You can feel good about supporting the museum and begin enjoying the benefits of membership. Click here to join today.

 

Virtual Exhibit: Things Wrought by the United Crafts: An Expression of Modern Life

Date: Saturday, May 30th
Time: 5:30 PM EST (online reception)

The 2020 exhibition, Things Wrought by the United Crafts: An Expression of Modern Life, will open as planned, on March 30, as a virtual exhibition until the museum is able to host it onsite.

This exhibition will focus on an extraordinary 2018 gift to the museum of nineteen pieces of early ash furniture made by the United Crafts Workshops, all with intact and rare green finishes. A notoriously fickle color, Stickley’s fugitive green was neither widely produced, nor able to withstand the ravages of time and ultraviolet exposure. For the first time, the museum is making this rare collection available for public viewing in a new exhibition curated by Dr. Jonathan Clancy, Director of Collections and Preservation. This exhibition presents Clancy’s new research on this early furniture, the structure of Stickley’s factory, and the laborers he employed. Housed in the North Cottage, it also provides visitors a rare opportunity to experience one of the first buildings erected on the Craftsman Farms campus.

Click here for a preview of the exhibition first introduced at February’s Arts and Crafts Conference and a taste of what’s to time. We will host a virtual “Opening Reception” for museum Members on May 30 at 5:30 EST.

Click HERE to RSVP for the exhibition and the virtual reception! 

 

Coming up in June: Icons of 20th Century Design, a three-session online course presented by the Stickley Museum at Craftsman Farms! We’ll have a preview of the upcoming classes in the weeks to come, so stay tuned!

 

 

Virtual offerings at your own pace

Online exhibitions at Winterthur: Explore more of Winterthur’s collections, past exhibitions, and digital collaborations with other institutions through these online exhibitions, including exhibits on needlework, the art and science of detecting fakes, and five centuries of design.

http://www.winterthur.org/exhibitions-events/exhibitions/online-exhibitions

 

If you’ve wanted to learn how to detail furniture in the Greene and Greene style, this class might be helpful! Learn the history behind this popular style of Arts and Crafts design from Greene & Greene expert Dale Barnard. Then, jump into projects that will show off your skill. Offered through the popular crafting site bluprint.com, this course is for the intermediate woodworker and is currently on sale for $19.99 for a 7-session class to take at your own pace.

https://shop.mybluprint.com/woodworking/classes/arts-crafts-style-greene-greene-details/35176

 

Frank Lloyd Wright tours at home: watch tours of several Frank Lloyd Wright-designed houses and watch Kevin Nute, Assistant Professor at the School of Architecture, University of Hawaii examine Wright’s interest in traditional Japanese pictorial art in the context of his philosophy of ‘organic’ architecture.

https://www.flwright.org/education/wright-at-home/virtual-tours-resources-adults

 

Virtual tour of Frank Lloyd Wright’s Taliesin: Taliesin Preservation out of Spring Green, WI offers a number of Taliesin Experiences during Covid-19, including “Virtual Taliesin” a free 360-degree curated VR tour, where you can get the equivalent of a tour with high quality images of each room.

https://www.tourdeforce360.com/taliesin/

 

The Kirkland Museum arranges art in “salon style” with fine art (paintings and sculpture) shown in the same galleries with decorative art. The Kirkland Museum additionally provides virtual exhibitions, such as “Pull Up a Chair” a selection of chairs from Kirkland’s permanent collection (a chair from the Argyle Street Tea Room designed by Charles Rennie Mackintosh, a Roycroft side chair, and a Frank Lloyd Wright chair from the Heath House are included in this particular exhibition. Another recent exhibit entitled “Process and Print” – an exploration of the printmaking in the Arts and Crafts era – shows examples of lithographs, relief printing, intaglio prints, and screen prints.

https://www.kirklandmuseum.org/visit/how-we-display/

 

For an Arts and Crafts trip across the pond, the Arts and Crafts Hammersmith – the partnership between the William Morris Society and the Emery Walker Trust – present a 3D virtual tour of both the William Morris Society’s Museum and Emery Walker’s House. The William Morris Society’s Museum collection contains a number of Kelmscott Press titles and working proofs as well as the only printing press used by Morris left in the country. Click the link below to see both virtual tours.

https://artsandcraftshammersmith.org.uk/virtual-tour/