Five Online Arts and Crafts Opportunities
by Kate Nixon
Online purchases, Zoom meetings of professional, social and educational matter, and most recently, viewing the historical sites we know and love through an online portal: it’s become a new kind of normal for Arts and Crafts collectors and enthusiasts. Recent events has forced organizations to make digital content their primary way of connecting with supporters and enthusiasts from all over the world. As isolating as it may feel for those of us who enjoy and rely on social interaction, this new way of life has given way to making businesses and non profit organizations literally think outside the box – or in some cases to 3D render the box. Organizations hold Zoom seminars, collectors are posting beautiful imagery of their own collections in their groups, and museums offer virtual tours either through YouTube videos or rendered digital portals where users can click and focus in 3D rendered rooms of historic sites. Here are 5 online Arts and Crafts resources to explore:
1. “Living the Simple Life: The Arts and Crafts Movement at Home” Online Zoom course, courtesy of The Stickley Museum at Craftsman Farms
Instructor and Stickley Museum Director of Collections and Preservation Jonathan Clancy handles examples of American Art Pottery in a preview for “In Defence of Fire” – an online seminar covering the Arts and Crafts Movement.
One of the few live Arts and Crafts classes opportunities being offered currently, the “Living the Simple Life” series of Zoom presentations come to us from The Stickley Museum at Craftsman Farms, where the Zoom sessions are live from their picturesque log cabin. Jonathan Clancy, Museum Director of Collections and Preservation and Executive Director Vonda Givens walk us through a presentation of several facets of the Arts and Crafts Movement with the organized opportunity of a question and answer session at the end each Saturday. Having done two sessions already, the next session, “By Hammer and Hand”: Arts and Crafts Metalwork, this Saturday, April 18 at 1:00 p.m. EST will explore examples like Stickley, the Roycrofters, Dirk Van Erp, and others and approaches to the medium.
Hammered into the living room fireplace hood at Gustav Stickley’s Log House at Craftsman Farms, the motto: “By Hammer and Hand Do All Things Stand” is a reminder of the importance of handicraft in the Arts and Crafts movement. That phrase–a rough approximation of the Blacksmith’s Guild in London’s motto–drew attention to the importance of metalwork in the home, the laborers who made these objects, and the main aesthetic (the hammered treatment of the surface) that many in this movement engaged. Surveying the metalwork of Stickley, the Roycrofters, Dirk Van Erp, and others, participants will begin to understand the regional variations within the movement and different approaches to the medium that practitioners applied.
Click on the link below to register:
https://www.stickleymuseum.org/programs/online-classes.html
2. Frank Lloyd Wright Trust: 3D-rendered Virtual Tours and an online classroom for the kids
On the virtual tour that the Frank Lloyd Wright offers of Taliesin West, users can view 3D images of each room with the ability to zoom into details as well as measure within the space.
Frank Lloyd Wright offers “Digital Innovation” with virtual tours of both Wright’s Oak Park Studio and Taliesin West and an online classroom for k-12 students, including six projects to complete at home.
The Oak Park Studio curated tour comes in the form of a YouTube video, while users who would like to explore each room themselves can do so in a space where they can click and zoom through 3D renderings of each room of Taliesin West. In the hopes of creating virtual experiences for users in several different formats, the Frank Lloyd Wright Trust goes above and beyond for providing accessible content for users.
Through the combination of a powerful 3D imaging laser scanner, sophisticated documentation and an immersive media platform, any user anywhere can now experience the work of the master architect through visiting his living room, the land bridge, the structural desert masonry, the light fixtures and furniture — all from your own home.
For families, the Frank Lloyd Wright Virtual Classroom is a resource center developed by the Frank Lloyd Wright Foundation’s education department as a free online learning tool for K-12 students and virtual engagement for families. The six-week series will introduce a new lesson and corresponding video weekly, where one activity builds upon the other to culminate into a final project where the student creates a work of art inspired by Wright’s renowned art glass! The Virtual Classroom combines fun, real-world lessons with Wright’s famed principles of organic architecture and solutions-based design, each STEAM-focused lesson will offer students its own variation of hands-on activities that encourage them to think critically and creatively. The first 6 activities have already been posted.
Click the two links below to access the 3D tour and the virtual classroom.
https://franklloydwright.org/3dlab/
https://franklloydwright.org/virtualclassroom/
3. Kirkland Museum shows a virtual tour of Fine and Decorative Arts.
You can access rooms of Arts and Crafts items through the Kirkland Museum’s website under Virtual Tour.
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/
4. Google Arts and Culture offers Virtual Museum Tours.
Google Arts and Culture offer tours and virtual exhibits from museums all around the world: examples include Parisian landmark Musee d’Orsay, New York’s Museum of Modern Art, the Metropolitan Museum of Art, the J. Paul Getty Museum from Los Angeles — and now the Ohr-O’Keefe Museum of Art and the Frank Lloyd Wright-designed Guggenheim Museum. While a limited number of the museums listed have the virtual tours, users can explore virtual exhibits from each museum.
The Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum
Ohr Pottery: Ohr-O’Keefe Museum of Art
https://artsandculture.google.com/partner/ohr-o-keefe-museum-of-art?hl=en
To view other art collections from museums all around the world, click the link below:
https://artsandculture.google.com/partner?hl=en
5. William Morris Society’s Museum and Emery Walker’s House are featured in Virtual Tours offered by Arts & Crafts Hammersmith.
The Coach House shown during a virtual tour of the William Morris Society Museum. The Arts and Crafts Hammersmith, a partnership of prominent British trusts, have made this tour and a tour of Emery Walker’s house available to everyone to enjoy from the comfort of their own homes.
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. Dating back from c.1835, the press is fully operational and used on a regular basis by our artist in residence. The Society has a comprehensive collection of Morris and Company wallpapers, watercolour designs, and a selection of textiles, ranging from a Hammersmith rug and woven hangings to printed cottons, silks and embroideries. The Emery Walker house, a famous Arts and Crafts House located in London, is a fitting tribute to Walker, who was a key member of the Art Workers’ Guild, the Society for the Protection of Ancient Buildings (SPAB), the Socialist League and the Arts & Crafts Exhibition Society. Walker’s experience in printed reproduction of illustrations and photographs, typesetting, reproducing works of art and photographs as book illustrations helped revolutionize the book industry, and his passions fed into his design preference in his Morris and Co wallpaper and preservation of many Arts and Crafts items to the point where the house is believed to be the most authentic Arts & Crafts home in Britain.
Click the link below to see both virtual tours.
https://artsandcraftshammersmith.org.uk/virtual-tour/