Linden Glass Co. of Chicago: The Martin House

It took craftsmen at Chicago's Linden Glass Co., which answered Frank Lloyd Wright's "Martin House" challenge a century ago, 300 hours (or more) to produce each of nearly 400 panels -- which the architect described as "light screens." The order included 60 windows and doors with the "Tree of Life" motif -- about half of the originals remain.

Depending on the size and complexity, it's estimated that a contemporary "Tree of Life" window re-creation/replacement can cost upwards of $20,000.

Most viewers passing these windows can easily identify the "Tree of Life" pattern -- a base or "pot" from which a central axis or "trunk" extends to an upper "branch" configuration of chevrons. Wright set these windows in a continuous band around the second floor, and the downstairs reception room, to create a grove of abstract trees.

Wright designed more windows for the "Martin House" than any other building in his portfolio -- including other well-known Prairie Houses.

It was one of the most phenomenal uses of art glass ever, and as such "The Martin House" remains a world-wide draw.

Hermon Atkins MacNeil

Hermon Atkins MacNeil graduated from Massachusetts Normal Art School (now Massachusetts College of Art and Design) in 1886, became an instructor in Industrial Art at Cornell University from 1886-1889, and was then a pupil of Henri M. Chapu and Alexandre Falguière in Paris. 

Returning to America, he aided Philip Martiny (1858–1927) in the preparation of sketch models for the World's Columbian Exposition, and in 1896 he won the Rinehart scholarship, passing four years (1896–1900) in Rome.

In 1906 he became a National Academician. His first important work was "The Moqui Runner," which was followed by "A Primitive Chant," and "The Sun Vow," all figures of the North American Native. Several of his earlier Native American sculptures served as the inspiration for his later contribution to the long-running Society of Medalists, "Hopi Prayer for Rain." "Fountain of Liberty," for the Louisiana Purchase Exposition, and other Native American themes came later -- his "Agnese" and his "Beatrice," which are two fine busts of women, and his nude statuettes, which echo his time spent in Rome and Paris, also deserve mention. One of his principal works is the sculpture in Columbus, Ohio, in honor of President William McKinley. In 1909 he won in competition a commission for a large soldiers' and sailors' monument in Albany, New York.

Perhaps his best-known work is as the designer of the "Standing Liberty" quarter, which was minted from 1916-1930, and carries his initial to the right of the date.

He also made "Justice, the Guardian of Liberty" on the East pediment of the United States Supreme Court building.

MacNeil was one of a dozen sculptors invited to compete in the "Pioneer Woman" statue competition in 1927, which he failed to win.

One of his last works was the "Pony Express" statue dedicated in 1940 in St. Joseph, Missouri.

Carl Milles

During the first half of the 20th century, sculptor Carl Milles (1875-1955) dominated the Swedish art world. He received many public commissions in Sweden and abroad. He was a monumental sculptor who received many public art commissions at a time when many cities expanded and were modernised.

Carl Milles may be described as a traditional as well as an innovative artist. In his choice of motifs he was traditional. Ancient Greek, Roman, and Christian mythology, as well as Swedish history were often his sources of inspiration. His art was always figurative and often narrative. The innovation was to be found in his personal interpretation of the motifs and that he, especially in his later years, raised up the sculptures, and with the aid of hidden steel constructions made them appear to be floating in the air.

He sculpted in heavy, hard materials such as granite and bronze, and paired the sculptures with the lightest of materials, water and air, by placing them in fountains, and raising them up in the air so that they interacted with the sky.

Although inspired by the art of antiquity and mythology, Carl Milles' own pictorial language was often not Classical. He happily borrowed stylistic features from Greek and Etruscan art and non-European cultures. Carl Milles was a very productive artist. His greatest creation was Millesgården, his life's achievement that he worked on for 50 years.

Maurice Heaton: Glass Art

Maurice Heaton was born in 1900 and lived in New York until his death in 1989.  He was educated at the Stevens Institute of Technology, in Hoboken New Jersey, and is well-known for his Modernist glass works and enameled tableware.  His work is represented in the permanent collections of the Metropolitan Museum of Art and the Museum of Arts & Design (MAD).

Bob Montana

Froebel Gift: Vintage Kindergarten Toy

Friedrich Froebel opened the Universal German Educational Institute in Gieshelm in 1816, relocating in 1817 to the nearby village of Keilhau. Froebel ran the Institute himself until 1830, then went on to found schools using his techniques in Switzerland. He later opened his first Kindergarten in 1840 at Blankenburg, Germany. Until this time there had been no educational system for children under seven years of age, nor recognition that young children were capable of learning social and intellectual skills that might serve as a foundation for their whole life.

Froebel challenged other conventions in education. In his day, intricate and decorated toys for children were the norm -- he found them completely inappropriate. As he formulated his curriculum for young children, Froebel designed open-ended instructional materials called the Gifts, with complementary Occupations. These were for use both in kindergarten and school, and gave children hands-on involvement in practical learning experiences through play.

A frequent misconception today is that the Gifts were designed primarily for use as math manipulatives. As Froebel’s insights from his categorization of crystals suggest, they represent in fact much more than that, opening a window to the child’s inner self and leading him to a deepening knowledge of the world and the interrelationships of things.

Foundational to the development of the Gifts was the recognition of the value of block play. Froebel believed that playing with blocks gives fundamental expression to a child’s soul and to the unity of life. Blocks represent the actual building blocks of the universe. The symmetry of the soul is symbolized as a child constructs with blocks, bringing them together to form a whole. Through proper use of the Gifts, the child progresses from the material to the abstract -- from the volumetric lessons offered by blocks, through the two-dimensional planar ones elucidated by play with parquetry tiles (flat, geometrically-patterned wooden shapes), to deductions of a linear nature drawn from stick laying, to use of the point in pin-prick drawings. Points, in turn, describe a line, and the child completes the logic by returning from 2-D to the 3-D realm of volume through peas work (joining small malleable balls with short sticks) and on to solid three-dimensional work in clay.

Design: Unity with Variety

FLW -- a drawing and designing powerhouse on top of everything else -- the ultimate in "unity with variety"...

American Systems-Built Homes

The American System-Built Homes were modest houses designed by architect Frank Lloyd Wright. They were developed between 1912-1916 to fulfill his interest in affordable housing. 

FLW was devoted to the idea of providing beautiful yet affordable homes to the public. His firm produced over 960 drawings for the project, the largest number of drawings for any project in the Wright archives.

The designs were standardized, and customers could choose from seven models. Because of this standardization, the lumber could be precut at the factory, thereby cutting down on both waste and the amount of skilled labor needed for construction.

The buildings are often termed prefabricated homes, but they were not, since no parts of the homes were constructed off-site. The lumber was cut at the factory, packaged along with all other components, and delivered to the work site for construction.

Some are located in a federal historic district in Milwaukee, Wisconsin, and others have been designated Chicago Landmarks.

In 1999, it was announced that an update of the American System-Built Homes would be part of a renewal of Atlantic City, New Jersey. Taliesin Associated Architects were contracted to design new homes based on the original designs. They were expected to sell for $125,000 to $150,000 USD, similar to the originals in that the cost was relatively low.

The Geometry of Nature

"Whether or not Frank Lloyd Wright was aware of such concepts as the 'Golden Mean' and the 'Fibonacci Series' is a moot point. 

Wright used nature as the basis of his geometrical abstraction. His objective was to 'conventionalize the geometry' which he found in 'Nature' -- and his method was to adopt the abstract simplification which he found so well expressed in the Japanese print. 

Therefore, it is not too shocking perhaps that in this quest his work should foreshadow the 'new mathematics of nature' first put forth by Benoit Mandelbrot -- fractal geometry." -- Leonard K. Eaton

Frank Lloyd Wright: On Nature

My fascinated hyper-focus on the works and thoughts of Frank Lloyd Wright continues...

Frank Lloyd Wright on "Nature"

Like all the trancendtalists, FLW regarded nature in almost mystical terms. He deeply believed that the closer man associated himself with nature, the greater his personal, spiritual, and even physical well-being grew and expanded as a result of that association. Wright liked to refer to his way of thinking as "nature spelled with a capital 'N' -- the way you spell God with a capital 'G,'" and he further maintained that "Nature is all the body of God we will ever know..."

Usonia

So it seems that "Usonia" is simply an acronym of sorts -- United States Of North America or USONA. FLW just added the "I" to make it roll off the tongue easier. ROTFLMAO....

Eliot O'Hara: Vintage Postcard

Eliot O’Hara, namesake of the "O’Hara watercolor box," was an influential American artist who greatly popularized watercolor painting in America.

In the early 1930s O’Hara started publishing a series of instructional books that gave art students and art teachers a solid curriculum of study in the field of watercolor painting.

Mr. O’Hara’s books include "Making Watercolor Behave (1932)," "Making the Brush Behave" (1935), "Watercolor Fares Forth" (1938), "Art Teachers Primer" (1939), "Watercolor At Large" (1946), "Portraits in the Making" (1948), and "Watercolor With O’Hara" (1966).

In the late 1940s and early 1950s O’Hara was commissioned to produce 24 art instructional films for Encyclopedia Britannica.

Eliot O’Hara was an avid traveler, painting in India and Russia in the 1920s, and he continued painting world-wide throughout his lifetime.

He started winning AWS (American Watercolor Society) awards in the early 1930s and established the Eliot O’Hara Watercolor School in Goose Rocks Beach, Maine in 1931. The school was later destroyed in a forest fire in 1947.

Zuni Jewelry: Symmetry in Silver and Turquoise

In the 1920s two new style emerged in Zuni jewelry. 

The ability to solder and the availability of turquoise allowed the Zunis to indulge their personal taste by setting many small stones where one or a few were used before. This work is known as "cluster."

Cluster is a term that includes many types of stonework --often placed together. "Row work," mainly bracelets, is the usual place where square and rectangular-cut stones are featured because they often don’t cluster very attractively. 

"Petit point" is an oval stone with one end coming to a point. 

Oval stones which are included in cluster don’t have a special name and they are mostly seen in older work, often combined with round or petit point stones. Round stones of small size are called "snake-eye" and are used in row work also. Snake-eye is usually combined with other shapes otherwise.

Perhaps the most popular Zuni stone-work style is known as "needlepoint." Many people have used this style, but the master was Bryant Waatsa who invented a stone that was unusually long and thin, best approximating the name. 

Needlepoint is often compared to a canoe. An oval shape pointed on both ends. Waatsa’s distinctive style was much more logically called needlepoint. It is a shape that is difficult to grind because it is very prone to breakage, being long and thin and pointed. But most true needlepoint is striking and attractive, probably suggesting in its delicacy and its difficulty to make.