Evening star. [volume] (Washington, D.C.) 1854-1972, 1902-09-20
RAG CARPETS NOW
REND YOUR GARMENTS tt
WALK OVER.
Homely Floor Coverings Have Come
Back Again-Dean Of the
Craft.
Written for The Evening Star.

Written for The Evening Star.
After years of undervalue in the indus
trial world, products Of the human hand
are again to the fore. Handicrafts are
Springing up on every side. Not In COM
petition with or antagonistic to the ma
chine, which has done so much to bring
utility and beauty into lives that might
otherwise have never known either, but as
q natural expression of individuality, are
handicrafts multiplying. Periodicals de-
voted to handmade arts threaten to be-
come as formidable trade journals It
Is the inevitable result Of two growing
factors in American life. Educated wealth
is spreading, and with 1t, desire to possess
exclusive objects Of art which bear the
impress of individuality and which cannot
be duplicated, as are machine-made things
Educated wealth Is learning to recognize
and appreciate the intrinsic value of human
skill as manifested in the various handi-
crafts.
Ready to meet this taste and demand
upon the part Of educated wealth are men
and women of ideas who have learned to
think and to execute for themselves
Breaking away from the employer and the
salary, they have set up their tools under
their own roof tree, and from designs of
their own fashioning, out of clay. brass,
other mediums, they are making for util-
lily and beauty articles that bespeak the
thought that is within them
In out OF the way corners Of large cities
are numbers of little handicraft shops
where single worker creates and stamps
his or her handmade work. as did the BEN
neventu Cellinis of the middle ages, with
their personal signature or trade mark
Knowing no taskmaster but the satisfac-
tion Of their individual sense of the true,
they withhold their work from the buyer
until 1t realizes as near as possible their
IDEAL. Their own designer executor, task
master, their salary is their profit. These
little shops nestle for the most part under
sky roofs. or are buried in cellar base
ments 80 rapidly have they increased in
number. and Of such superior excellence is
the work they turn out, that in more than
one large city depots have been established
for their exhibition, with hope Of command
Ing larger market than Is possible in the
scheduled shop or studio.
Almost Forgotten Art
In this refreshing revival looms long
discarded ar-the weaving Of rag carpets
As the dean Of carpet weavers swings his
gaily filled shuttles these days he marvels
at the change in the clientele that finds it's
way to his basement home, where his loom
of nearly forty years service has long
been curiosity to the passerby. In lieu Of
an occasional housewife or the matron of a
charitable institution comes now, to the
old mans perplexity, my ladys maid with
balls of cut rags, or monogramed. per-
fumed note asking him to call at No. So
and So and collect material prepared for
the weaving of a carpet, rug or portiere.
TITS the Americans-the rich Ameri-
cans, chuckles the old weaver, who have
set my loom a singing in it's old age"
When the dean came from Bavaria with
his good frau less than forty years ago he
found In New York more than 600 carpet
weayers all doing thriving business. 'I
owned four looms" sighed the old man
with q blink In his merry brown eye. cali
u big stores bought my carpets, and
treat ladies living In fine houses In ron6
street and Lafayette place used to brinR
me their fine gowns cut up into strips y,
weave into carpets-not for the kitchen, I
would nave you know. but for their own
Only Three Left.
With the coming Of the machine-mads
carpet. among the first to desert the hand
weaver were the foreigners. Today the
gee aeen ri knoS vs. OF but three hand looms on