Editor’s Letter

Welcome to the annual special print issue by the editors at artsandcraftshomes.com.

ARTS & CRAFTS IS ABOUT LIVING WITH BEAUTY EVERY DAY. Art is not just for paintings and sculpture; the hand-embroidery on a sofa pillow is art, too. Why shouldn’t our lamps and our chairs, our kitchen bowls and door hardware be beautiful? Adherents of the Arts & Crafts movement and its ongoing revival see beauty where it lives. That’s why we find so many vernacular and regional expressions under the Arts & Crafts umbrella. The buildings may be stone, brick, or shingled, depending on custom; motifs may refer to the designs of the Navajo or to local fauna. Consider how different are the Arts & Crafts vocabularies of William Morris (Britain), Gustav Stickley (New York), Greene & Greene (California), and Frank Lloyd Wright (Illinois).

What defines Arts & Crafts, then? Practitioners and designers are concerned less with style, and more with an approach to design and manufacture. They consider peculiarities of place, use discernment, marry design to craft, and often work cooperatively with other artists and tradespeople. Their clients are looking not for what is trendy or for the cheapest option, but rather for a connection to the maker. It is about making and having fewer, better things. Our annual, special print issue of Arts & Crafts Homes is devoted to celebrating a revival in its fifth decade. Today’s work is diverse, just like that of the original movement. The revival rallies for greener practices and for smaller homes. Craftspeople and small-business owners have learned to integrate life and work— not achieving the utopian visions of yesterday, perhaps, but moving in the direction of conscious living. And they make beautiful things.