St. Paul daily globe. [volume] (Saint Paul, Minn.) 1884-1896, 1889-01-20
HOME PROFESSIONS.


HOME PROFESSIONS.
New Fields for Women's Work in
Decorative Art.
The young women who are taking up
house decoration as new profession
and promising means of earning liv-
ing. have turned their thoughts to poker
work as possible new departure in
decorative art. Simultaneously with
the craze for white and gold pdrlors. one
may in brief time see an equally viO-
lent craze for libraries. halls and dining
rooms, whose frieZeS, panels. chimney
pieces. odd chests, ETC.. illustrate the
rich effects a steady hand may produce
with a hot poker On cherry or
Mexican mahogany or oak boards,
inspired, possibly, by the example of
j. W. Fosdick, who was the first artist
to take poker work seriously. Three or
four young girls who are doing good
work in modest little studios as interior
decorators are turning out panels and
character sketches in poker burning,
and have begun to obtain orders for
large pieces for new city houses. One
who has not seen specimens of clever
poker work would hardly credit its pos
sibilities. 1t needs much skill In quick,
free drawing, and, that acquired, there
is no limit to the variety of tones, rang
ing from black through the whole
gamut of red and golden browns to
golden cream, which can be obtained
from the iron as it cOOlS from white
heat to,a temperature at which it barely
deepeDS the color of the wood.
Amateurs use poker work as ready
means of decorating picture frames.
An etching Of MilIet's 'Angelus,"
framed in chestnut, with bell and bell
rope. done in black with the hot iron on
one corner of the wood is favorite de-
sign. Poker artists who have pro-
crossed farther do plaques, illustrating
scenes in stories or poems, as Elaine
rowed by her blind gondolier, Enid on
horseback, etc, from the ''ldylS of the
King" From such work they advance
to portrait plaques, which are framed
in velvet, bringing out sympathetically
the fiat tones of the burning.
Children's heads come out quantity
and prettily under such treat
ment. Other pieces attempted success
fully are boxes and bellows and ntique
chairs. More ambitious, and in an art
lists hand, most successful of all are
designs from Hydrologic or old Greek
subjects, heads, horses, nymphs, hunt
ing scenes. professions of GraceS or
Cupids. The grace, the dellcacy of the
work is even more surprising than its
boldness, clearness and freedom. One
of the women artists who experiment
with the iron has just furnished for a
country seat trieZe for an old oak hail,
of dogs heads and whips, which is
wonderfully suggestive of what may
vet be accomplished with such simple
tools.
Wood carving leads off a good share
of the women of ones acquaintance into
captivity this winter. To own fine
pieces is. an aspiration. To execute
them an ambition. Lately finished is
beautiful duet seat, which goes to the
Crockers, of San Francisco, and coat
cabinet designed for niche in a mill
ionairs's hall, and meant to contain
those articles of apparel never Eung up
by family of boys. John Todd Hill,
one of the best known of American
wood caryers, is deluged with letters
who wish to carve to pass
the time: women teaching school
who would like to earn their bread
by the sweat of their brows while WELD
ing the carver's tools instead of the
birch society girls who carve, as they
play the violin, for amusement; and it
is really becoming a mOney-maklng
occupation for women. Beginners
carve boxes or bellows. Then they pro-
ceed to picture frames. Ii they have
talent they by and by do chairs, tables.
over-mantels, friezes and all manner of
decorative furniture. The art is one
which women like and in which they
are likely in the near future to succeed
we'll. They make Jealous pupils and
throw themselves headlong into the art
which fits in so well with the other en-
thusiasms of home decoration.
Book embroidery is fad which may
attain the dimensions of mania. There
were days when it had the dignity of an
art and missals of the seventeenth CEN
tury, volumes once belonging to queens
and monasteries and preserved in the
collections of cCnnoisseurs or unearthed
by the antiquarian, form the models Oh
based. A young girl who aGmireS
Whittier is embroidering cover for
copy of his poems which she hopes may
be accepted by the Quaker singer in his
hoar but kindly age. A thick-piled
green velvet is the material and the de-
sign is monogram of the poets in
itials in gold and silver threads, with a
conventional border. An amateur pho
tographer has filled a portfolio with fine
large prints of Hudson river and Cats
kill scenery. His pretty sister, who
figures as ''human interest" in many OF
tile pictures, has designed for the vol
ume which is to contain them, cover
of soft drab velvet. against which back
ground she has embroidered the old
bridge in Sleepy Hollow, with the head
less horseman hard on the heels OF
Ichabod Crane. fitting reminder of the
legend of the Western Rhine. A dainty
PRAYER book belonging to a de-
votional little maid is cased in
black velvet, adorned with lily
SPRAYS. Some one sent Mrs. Langtry a
superb volume of historical costumes
finely illustrated. This the Lily has
had bound in a cover of pale greeniSh
blue silk, over which wanders design
of golden dragons, winged and with
wonderfully wreathed tales, which as
sault each other ferociouSly with teeth
and claws. Book embroidery is not
difficult art if the artist adopts con-
ventionalized designs for small covers,
and subjects which can be treated in
mass without fine detail for all work.
1t is not worth undertaking, except for
volumes of permanent value, but as APP
piled to well chosen books it is likely to
prove profitable field for the needle
women who enter the market while it is
a novelty. =. L. ID.
Clara Morris Idiosyncrasies.
American Musician