KERAMIC STUDIO 177 
ARTS AND CRAFTS 
What designer of "commercial art" has not been 
made weary by the vagueness and assumption of "Arts 
and Crafts" outgivings? We heartily accept Lowell's 
"indefinable something called style," but the other fellows' 
half-described and half -realized somethings are not good 
enough. Generally these gentlemen are, as you say, 
"dilettante carpenters, metal workers, etc." They talk 
vaguely about personality in art, but will not learn that 
their working material has a personality to which their 
own must be subordinated— that the object in life of cast 
iron is to be and to look strong and solid — of wrought iron 
to be and manifestly to be pliable and tough— of wood 
construction to be framed together and look so, and to be 
worked with edged tools — and of pottery to be and to appear 
exactly the reverse, plastic, smooth moulded, following 
the hand. These things are elementary — • and constantly 
ignored, In industrial art practicability, soundness of 
construction must come first. Owen Jones was right: 
"Construction may be decorated; decoration must not be 
constructed." A chair that won't hold up a healthy man 
may be lovely; but it is not a chair. The first duty of a 
lock is to fast bind. It is the ladies, bless 'em, not the men, 
who buy arts and crafts things. Why? "It is absurd to 
offer originality as a substitute for efficient workmanship." 
An excellent theory! Let me thank you again on behalf 
of the men who make anvils that you may hit, hammers 
that you may hit 'em with, chairs that you can sit in, locks 
that will lock, (and open afterward on request), also screens 
that will stand up. Technique is not all, of course, but 
much of the arts and crafts product is like the hencoop 
of which the ingenuous one said, "It looks as though some 
one had made it himself." — (New York Sun.) 
DUTCH BABIES— THIRD PRIZE DECORATION FOR CHILD'S ROOM— GRACE BLETHEN 
