The Victorian House of Arts and Crafts - Episode 1

How does one decorate a Victorian house?  Six modern-day craftspeople will find how.  Two design experts will be assessing their work.  Over the next month, the crafters will make twelve original pieces for the house, decorating the house room by room.  These craftspeople will share their knowledge and work together.  It was all about the group during the arts and crafts period.  The run time for the episode is 58:48.

The Arts and crafts movement was at its height during the Victorian Period.  A group of men and women are rewriting the rule books for design and architecture.  They were starting a revolution.  They hated the drudgery of the Industrial Age.  They wanted to turn back the clock to the time when the craftsman was appreciated and bring art to the masses.  So what can the modern period learn about the Arts and Crafts movement?  Six modern crafters are going to spend a month together in a Victorian Artist Commune and will be remaking a house room by room.

In week one, the crafters will decorate the parlor.  During the Victorian period, it was the place where entertaining took place and where people could show off their status.  In the early Victorian period, it was often cluttered with a variety of objects and dark.  During the Arts and Crafts period, the clutter was gotten rid of and it became an open space.

The first object to be created is a Sussex Chair and it was a hugely popular design that was sold.  It was created by William Morris, a furniture maker, who hated industrialization.  He handcrafted chairs that could last.  The second object is a silver hand bowl.  The bowl was to represent everyday life.  The third object is wallpaper.  William Morris was also famous for his wallpaper.  It took twenty-five years for his wallpaper to catch on.  Queen Victoria commissioned him to create wallpaper for Balmoral.  Once he had a royal commission, his works took off.

After their assignments, they make their way through the house where they will live for the next month.  The crafters are Rod Hughes, Abdollah Nafisi, Isla Parry, Bryony Knox, Niamh Wimperis, and Stephen Winstanley.  Everyone will have to take turns in cooking.  Each week, one crafter will be in charge and they will make sure that the team will work together.  Each crafter has been given a separate workshop and tools appropriate to the period.  There will be a learning curve to learning those tools.

For week one, they hope that the wallpaper will dictate their design.  They will have to come together as a team to decorate the house.  Time management will be a problem.  Creative differences have not taken long to emerge. 
Abdollah is finding carving out the pieces he needs from a tree a challenge.  He is not used to the hand tools nor does he have the skills to split the wood properly.  Splitting the tree trunk in half takes time.  Bryony is a silversmith and is working with it to make the bowl.  Isla is working on the wallpaper in the parlor.  She is finding drawing out the wallpaper a challenge.  Day one concludes and will the crafters will be able to get their projects done on time?

Day two starts and the wallpaper is nowhere near done and the blocks to print it need to be carved soon.  Isla who is making the wallpaper is butting heads with Rod.  One crafter steps up and helps with the Sussex Chair.  Abdollah works on the pole lathe to start carving the legs for the chair.  He is growing in confidence when it comes to using hand tools. 

Will the artists be able to work together?  What conflicts will come up?  How will they reconcile their different work styles?  Will they be able to share a common vision for the house?  Will modern crafters be able to learn the tools they need to craft the Victorian House?  Tune into the rest of his documentary to find out.

This was a pleasant discovery as I paged through YouTube for documentaries.  This was an interesting concept and so I was not sure how it would work.  As the episode progressed, I found that the concept worked well.  This would be an appropriate series to show in an art class instead of a history class because of all the work done for the class.  The only downside to this series is that Alex Langlands was not a judge!