William Morris

About a zillion years ago, my mom and I went on a day trip to Newport, RI. If you're from the East Coast you'll know that Newport is probably the beautiful Summer mansion homes of forgotten billionaires Capital of the US. It's also home to the Newport Folk Festival. And the Skoal Room, where my dad's 60s garage band used to play during the busy summer tourist season.

Anyway, my mum and I visited the Chateau-sur-Mer and I fell head over heels for a lot of the stuff in that house. So much of it was brought over the Atlantic and there was a strong theme of William Morris and the Arts and Crafts movement throughout.

The pieces in the house were beautiful, but I think I fell in love with the ideas of the movement more then anything. People were fed up with that was being produced in bulk by machines and instead wanted to shift back to original designs created by a skilled hand.

One of my very favorite blogs, The Textile Blog posted some of William Morris' original artwork and I couldn't help but re-post some of the images. They make me totally weak in the knees while pulling on every heartstring.

. . .

Rose, 1883


. . .

Honeysuckle, 1883


. . .

Jasmine, 1872