May Morris, Daughter of the Arts & Crafts Movement

  Nursed at the breast of what can only be called a type of renaissance, May Morris (1862-1938) was a true daughter of the Arts & Crafts Movement. Her father, William Morris, was a prominent founder of the international design philosophy, which originated in England in the early 1860s. A talented and gifted embroiderer, May followed in her father’s footsteps as a reformer and an artist. Having studied textile arts at the South Kensington School of Design, she went on to serve as director of the embroidery department at her father’s company, Morris & Co.

One primary thrust of the Arts & Crafts Movement was the formation of guilds. These guilds were the equivalent of our modern-day labor groups. Artisans of similar trade gathered together to ensure skilled and beautiful craftsmanship, as well as to provide protection for the trade and the craftsmen. These guilds presided over the production, quality inspection, and distribution of every piece made by their artisans. They also provided a platform for disseminating the socialist ideals of the movement and forming policies that would affect the governing bodies of their cities.

Miss Morris, an artisan and founder of the Women's Guild of Arts, encouraged an attention to detail, which hearkened back to medieval days, with a distinctly socialist flavor. Her standards were exacting, but the passion with which she pursued her art made her a brilliant teacher.

“If pursues her craft with due care, and one might even say with enthusiasm, however, she will not only taste the keen pleasure which every one feels in creative work, however unpretending, but the product will be such as others will be careful to preserve: this in itself being an incentive to good work. For work done at the demand of fashion or caprice and that done inevitably, that is, for its own sake, are as widely dissimilar as can be: the first being discarded in a month or so as ridiculous and out of date, and the other remaining with us in all its dignity of beauty and fitness, to be guarded as long as may be against the unavoidable wear and tear of time.” ~May Morris (Decorative Needle Work, 1893)