This is the first book to study the revival of cottage crafts that accompanied the growing interest in an arts and crafts movement in Britain and Ireland. It focuses upon three regional craft associations, organised, sponsored, and promoted by British women: the Donegal Industrial Fund (founded 1883 by Londoner Alice Rowland Hart); the Irish Industries Association (founded 1886 by Ishbel, Countess of Aberdeen and supported by a number of Irish and British aristocrats); and Highland Home Industries (revived in 1886 by the Marchioness of Stafford, later Millicent, Duchess of Sutherland). The three examples have been selected because although like many of their counterparts, the patrons endorsed a relationship between work and morality, they also recognised the significance of consumption and market. Their patrons understood the value of spectacle, the usefulness of advertising, and the efficacy of exhibition. The emphasis is upon how and why they adopted these strategies to promote and sell cottage crafts for the benefit of rural workers. The introduction provides an overview of home arts and industries in Britain as part of the late-nineteenth century craft revival and examines the difference between the large English-based Home Arts and Industries Association and other home arts organisations in England, Scotland, Wales and Ireland.

The Arts and Crafts Movement espoused values of simplicity, craftsmanship and beauty quite counter to Victorian and Edwardian industrialism. Though most famous for its architecture, furniture and ornamental work, between the 1890s and the 1930s the movement also produced gardens all over Britain whose designs, redolent of a lost golden era, had worldwide influence. These designs, by luminaries such as Gertrude Jekyll and Sir Edwin Lutyens, were engaging and romantic combinations of manor-house garden formalism and the naive charms of the cottage garden – but from formally clipped topiary to rugged wild borders, nothing was left to chance. Sarah Rutherford here explores the winding paths and meticulously shaped hedges, the gazebos and gateways, the formal terraces and the billowing border plantings that characterised the Arts and Crafts garden, and directs readers and gardeners to where they can visit and be inspired by these beautiful works of art.

A discussion of each medium, ranging from wood to basketry complemented by an outline of the regional styles, history and the social and symbolic significance of many of the artefacts.

Illustrated with 200 stunning photographs and encompassing objects from furniture and ceramics to jewelry and metal, this definitive work from Jo Lauria and Steve Fenton showcases some of the greatest pieces of American crafts of the last two centuries. Potter Craft

“Have nothing in your house that you do not know to be useful, or believe to be beautiful.” This quote alone from William Morris could summarise the ideology of the Arts & Crafts movement, which triggered a veritable reform in the applied arts in England. Founded by John Ruskin, then put into practice by William Morris, the Arts & Crafts movement promoted revolutionary ideas in Victorian England. In the middle of the “soulless” Industrial Era, when objects were standardised, the Arts & Crafts movement proposed a return to the aesthetic at the core of production. The work of artisans and meticulous design thus became the heart of this new ideology, which influenced styles throughout the world, translating the essential ideas of Arts & Crafts into design, architecture and painting.

In his second book of Arts and Crafts, Dr. Asim K. Dasgupta takes us on another fascinating voyage of discovery, exploring some of the most important achievements of human ingenuity across many centuries and many thousands of miles. In these pages you can learn some of the secrets of bee-keeping, and thrill to the dangerous adventure of wild-honey gatherers; find out how to get salt from seawater; and penetrate some of the secrets of the whisky distillers. You can visit the little-known worlds of the jute-miller and the silk-weaver, and find out how an umbrella, a comb, a clock or a cork is made. You can follow a hardwood tree from forest to wood work, and a stone from quarry to carving. This book tells us how hand-made cards, mosaic, fine jewellery, gemstones and many other crafts are created or produced. In addition, Dr. Dasgupta provides an expert guide to the health risks attending each craft. The book is illustrated throughout with superb photographs showing how the arts and crafts are practised in various parts of the world.