[smith! prehistoric CANADIAN ART 153 



make them at once. After the war they will once more have to 

 compete with European designers. 



These prehistoric Canadian objects have already been used 

 experimentally in designing several kinds of products. Art pottery 

 developed from typical Iroquoian pots have been made by Miss M. 

 Young of the Mines Branch of the Department of Mines, Canada, 

 from Canadian clay. Art pottery is not manufactured commercially 

 in Canada, and for every piece we buy money leaves this country. 

 Miss Young has also made tiles from our clays, some of them based 

 on British Columbian motives. She has also made tobacco jars, 

 electric lamp stands, tobacco pipes, book props and candle sticks. 

 She has used a single specimen for no less than eleven totally different 

 designs. Others have since taken up the use of both prehistoric 

 Canadian motives and Canadian clay. 



Some of the designs seem so simple that one who is not an artist 

 would imagine that they could have been created without a supplied 

 motive, but we are assured by both practical workers and psychologists 

 that it is impossible to design anything except by developing something 

 already seen. Designers state that the most difficult thing for them 

 to get is the original idea or motive. Once they have it they can 

 develop it in many ways into innumerable designs, many of which 

 might not be easily recognized as based upon it. 



An art teacher in Winnipeg has made wall paper designs from 

 photographs of the manuscript of the album of prehistoric Canadian 

 specimens to submit to a large Canadian wallpaper manufacturer. 

 This manufacturer requires so many designs that he cannot depend 

 on one designer but draws upon New York, Paris, and London, and 

 he has offered to consider contributing to an art school that will train 

 wallpaper designers in distinctive Canadian design. 



Some manufacturers in other countries have attempted products 

 based upon primitive specimens, but have failed woefully because they 

 have lost the spirit of the native art. This could be avoided by con- 

 sultation with anthropologists familiar with the art. They would 

 gladly point out any such departures. 



Perhaps the most successful of these products of distinctively 

 Canadian design is a book prop made by Miss Young after an engraved 

 Copper object from the Indians of British Columbia. This is far 

 enough developed to prevent those who dislike anything Indian from 

 recognizing its source, yet it is distinctively British Columbian. It 

 is made of Canadian clay and is artistic. 



May we not look forward to the time when, with the aid of schools 

 of design and scholarships, this country can produce wares as well 

 known and distinctive as Dutch tiles and oriental vases ? 



