ARTS AND CRAFTS PMSS Overview

Pine Mountain Settlement School
Series 15: ARTS AND CRAFTS
Arts and Crafts PMSS Overview

ARTS AND CRAFTS PMSS Overview

Fair Day, 1998. [fair_day_1998_019.jpg]


TAGS: Arts and crafts overview, PMSS instructors who were also artists, community artists and craftspeople, visual arts, photography, ceramics, woodcraft, Pine Mountain Settlement School, Harlan County KY


ARTS AND CRAFTS PMSS Overview

(See ARTS AND CRAFTS Guide for full listing)

Arts and crafts have always gone hand-and-glove with the educational programs at Pine Mountain Settlement School. In addition, the School has often attracted individuals who have an artistic eye, ear, or hand and are eager to integrate their artistic knowledge into the programs offered by the institution.

Past instructors come quickly to mind such as Mary Rockwell Hook, the lead architect for the School, as well as  furniture maker, flower arranger, landscape planner, artist, and more. Art teachers such as Alice Carter Shera, and John Adams Spelman III and woodcrafters such as Boone Callahan, Frank “Unk” Cheney, Bennett and Frances Hall, and many others have left a legacy for later generations. Wherever one looks, the evidence of the trained eye can be found whether in building design, furniture, paintings, ceramics, musical instruments, metalwork and more.

043 Open House [House in the Woods] XVIII_10_110_mott_3500_043

Today, local native talent is found throughout the surrounding Community. Most are descendants of families of the past. Members of the William Causey Family, Bennett and Frances Hall, Matt Boggs, Fern Cornett, Sarah Bailey, Edna Patterson, and many others are now gone but they have left their legacy with their families and with Pine Mountain Settlement.

All the weavers who contributed to the long weaving history of the School, first exemplified by Aunt Sal (Sally Dixon Creech), inspired the founders and many workers who followed their interests. Their arts and crafts heritage continues to draw weavers to the campus to study the Pine Mountain Settlement School weaving history or try out any of the approximately 24 looms currently used in instruction. Native talent derived from the heritage of family has a depth that cannot be found in standard instruction and both native and “outsider” benefit from the sharing of heritage ideas and skills.

John and Virgil Stephens Students ; JOHN A. SPELMAN III Drawings at PMSS ; ARTS AND CRAFTS PMSS Overview

John Spelman III Drawings. [drawing] [spel_blocks_097]

ARTS AND CRAFTS PMSS Overview:

VISUAL ARTS

Trained visual artists such as Abby Winch Christensen, John Adams Spelman III, weavers such as Margaret Motter, Miss Mary Bradshaw Holtsinger, and others, continue to echo in the instruction rooms at the School and hollows surrounding the School. At Pine Mountain, Mary Rogers, wife of the director Burton Rogers, was not formally trained but she had a keen eye for nature and its internal artistic presence. She quickly learned the many arts and crafts of the region and transformed them with her mix of Old England, her deep religiosity, and her ever-present environmentalism.

PHOTOGRAPHY

The many photographers who helped to shape the artistic eye of students, such as Arthur W. Dodd in the 1930s and 1940s and later, Paul Lynn, who captured the life of Community School students, have enchanted many viewers with his sensitive eye for the eager learners he observed and taught during the mid to late 1960s. 

The echoes of so many sensitive souls who prized the value of creativity and the artistic urge while they were connected with the School can be felt throughout these digital pages.


GALLERY I: Arts and Crafts PMSS Overview


CERAMICS

Ceramics instruction has found many advocates over the years and through their interest ceramics programs have waxed and waned at the School. The talents in the art and craft of ceramics ranged from the primitive to the expert but the joy of shaping a useful vessel or a joyful form in clay seems to lurk in the creative shadows of the institution.

The creative journey— and some would call it “soul” of the artistic spirit, lives on at Pine Mountain Settlement School as an institution. It is integral to the institution’s endurance through the decades.

For a guide to pages about ceramics (pottery) at PMSS, go to ARTS AND CRAFTS CERAMICS Guide

WOODCRAFT

Those whose service and long commitment to the school have kept the arts and crafts associated with woodcraft alive through the years have generally been men. Matt Boggs, one of the School’s longest serving staff, and his Homemakers Craft Club was one such enduring craft initiative. He was sorely missed following his death in 2021.

GALLERY II: Woodcraft

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To see a full guide that will lead in many research directions see the ARTS AND CRAFTS Guide. The listing below on this page is a short guide. The various creative talents and the urge to create works of art in the Community and at the School have generated a wealth of documentation and advocates for Appalachian craftsmanship over the years. The regional creative impulse continues to influence and permeate the environment on the north side of Pine Mountain. It is not unusual to find that the spirit of creativity is also carried away by those who have visited, worked, or who continue to live within the reach of the School’s artistic enchantment and it beautiful setting.

The new flock of sheep on the campus suggests that the plans for Sheep to Shawl workshops will tap into many of the “Old Ways” as well as yield new ways to tap into the arts and crafts heritage of the region and of the institution.


SEE ALSO:

ARTS AND CRAFTS Guide
ARTS AND CRAFTS CERAMICS Guide
DANCING IN THE CABBAGE PATCH Feed Sack and Fashion (Blog)
OBJECT COLLECTIONS Overview
WEAVING Fireside Industries and Weaving at PMSS

UNDER CONSTRUCTION:

ARTS AND CRAFTS BASKETRY Overview
ARTS AND CRAFTS BASKETRY Guide

ARTS AND CRAFTS CERAMICS Overview
ARTS AND CRAFTS CERAMICS Guide

ARTS AND CRAFTS Corn Husk Dolls Overview
ARTS AND CRAFTS CORN-HUSKS Guide

ARTS AND CRAFTS METALCRAFT Overview
ARTS AND CRAFTS METALCRAFT Guide

ARTS AND CRAFTS WEAVING Overview
ARTS AND CRAFTS WEAVING Guide

ARTS AND CRAFTS WOODCRAFT Overview
ARTS AND CRAFTS WOODCRAFT Guide