A cursory glance around our house reveals an eclectic mix of nik-knackery.
I am parked opposite my dresser, where the large ancient late-nineties-silver television is topped by rubberized likenesses of the two main rats from the Disney film ‘Ratatouille”.
There”s an antique mirror on a beautiful dark wood stand. It was never meant to be adorned by the dust-clad claythumbpot made by Maddie some years ago, or a toilet roll.
Moving along there is the Indian mahogany jewellery box which my parents gave me on my eighth birthday: the one with a secret lock made by some skilled indian craftsman or other.
Next to this is a flowery scarlet gift bag stuffed with make-up and sundries. And bringing up the rear: a tall can of deodorant.
The ensemble does bring to mind a few words attributed to a great man, more than a century ago:”Have nothing in your houses”, he said,” that you do not know to be useful or believe to be beautiful.”
It is hard to believe that the can of deodorant scores more highly, under the criteria of writer, designer and political visionary William Morris, than my two small rodent effigies.
When Morris died on October 3, 1896, his body was loaded onto a steam train, the wonder of his age, to travel from London Paddington to Lechlade.
From there he took a last trip in a traditional framer’s wagon, painted yellow, and draped artfully with vine leaves. He was horse-drawn to his beloved Kelmscott Church. It was a tempestuous black-skied day:I feel Morris would have approved.
Because in the nicest possible way, romance was his middle name.
Take the tome of his life and turn back the richly illustrated pages 55 years, and what a charming pastoral scene you will find: straight out of the fairy tale books.
The young William lived with his well-off family at Woodford Hall in Essex. He was wont, as a little boy, to dress in his diminutive suit of armour and go out riding on his little pony to visit local churches and other mediaeval architecture.
I love him already.
He didn’t fit in, though. They sent him to Marlborough which was a nasty little den of violence back then. He would escape, at every opportunity, to Savernake Forest, and the ancient landscapes of Avebury and Silbury Hill.
It wasn’t until he was at Oxford that he found a set of friends with whom he felt comfortable. A star-studded crowd, they worshipped Tennyson but possessed a sharp nose for social injustice: many of the group had come from the Midlands and the heart of industrial reform.
He graduated and became articled to a prominent Oxford architect. But he had an agenda all his own. Man should not live by intellect alone, he felt sure: but should combine intellectual skills with practical, craft-based activities to live a full life.
He was learning to model clay and carve wood, and was making illuminated manuscripts contemporary with the time. These last are breathtakingly beautiful, some inlaid with gold leaf. He had studied manuscripts at the Bodleian Library and the British Museum. Now out poured works of exquisite detail, fairytale wonders based on the old sagas of Iceland and other such wonders.
In a handful of words one could never do justice to all he devoured in his lifetime. His decorating company,originally Morris, Marshall, Faulkner & Co, was nicknamed early on in its life ‘The Firm’. A list of members reads like a who’s who of pre-Raphaelite talent: D.G. Rossetti, painter Ford Madox Brown and Arts and Crafts architect Philip Webb were all there.
They sold metalware and glass, hangings and embroidery and of course, Morris’s signature wallpaper. After a shaky start the firm gained a firm footing and was soon de rigeur in high circles.
Morris continued questing, a restless romantic. He made two voyages to Iceland and fell in love with the stories he heard there. He revived hand weaving, setting up a loom in his bedroom in his house at Hammersmith and rising early to take advantage of the natural light of the early hours.
And he found Karl Marx.
Socialism had always been important to his life, ever since those days with his friends at Oxford. Now it took a front seat in his life and he lost some of those friends to whom class was all-important.
To the very end he was creating. Five years before his death he set up the Kelmscott Press “to produce books which it would be a pleasure to look upon as pieces of printing and arrangement of type.”
Books to covet, from a man who had a lifetime of cultivating the useful and the beautiful.
There. I have skimmed the froth from the very top of a lifetime: barely a beginning. One thing, though, is clear: his voracious creativity is an inspiration to us all.
The sketch is by Edward Burne-Jones, one of Morris’s best friends. I have pilfered it from here
Kate Shrewsday 
I feel so sorry for the truly creative child, they all seem to have a difficult time.
He is indeed a man to admire, how I envy those with the drive and passion to create at all levels
It;s funny, creative children are different: they can’t seem to help it. I ache for them in their early years but the relief of finding a group of soul mates at college must be huge.
I do enjoy my morning read ‘chez toi’! Thanks Kate. Very informative – both about your dresser priorities and Morris. That illuminated manu is amazing.
Isn’t it, Earlybird? Makes you want to run out and but parchment and quill pen!
Hmm … Interesting. I feel I have many beautiful and useful things in my house LOL
I have absolutely no doubt of that, Trudie, knowing all your interests! Thanks for commenting 🙂
Wonderful, Kate! Thank you for skimming the froth from the top for us. You are, dear writer, the best.
Thank you Penny 🙂 I LOVED your post from Laura Ingalls Wilder’s home,thanks so much for sharing it with us. In fact all these away-posts have been very inspiring….
Morris would surely approve of your rodent figures and can of deodorant. He sounds like he must have encouraged the outlier in all he did. This is the most I’ve read about him. Shame on me. I will do something about that. 🙂
The more I know about him, the more I like him, Andra: unashamedly dramatic, his craft work was just peerless and his poetry on occasion rather beautiful. And I do love a romantic Marxist.
Have you ever visited Watts Gallery, and the Cemetry Chapel too at Compton, near Guildford? http://www.wattsgallery.org.uk/ I have a feeling you would like it.
No I haven’t, Nuvofelt! The next free day I have I’ll try to get out there. Thanks for the recommendation…
I knew so little about this amazing man! As always, Kate, you do inspire me to read on! The best line I’ve read in ages–“I have skimmed the froth from the very top of a lifetime”–for some reason this really moves me. I will have to use this from time to time, but I promise to give you credit. I would want to! Debra
I’m not sure why a pint of beer inspired me on that one Debra: dodgy, really 🙂 But I’m glad it struck a chord. Use away!
Lovely! Have you ever visited Blackwell? I love it there…
A wonderful example of the execution of the Arts and Crafts movement, of which William Morris was a founder member
http://www.blackwell.org.uk/present-day
Must visit, Pseu, thank you!
A truly renaissance man, Kate. One to admire indeed.
Love Dad
He was. Got to go and see his gaff now, Dad.
It is ironic that with his socialist aims and principles of bringing design to everyone, they were only affordable to the rich, as is still the case today.
I would endorse the Watts Gallery and in particular the Cemetery Chapel at Compton, a place I love too.
Lovely, I’ll make a list and have a Morris tour, Rosemary 🙂
Your comment is interesting. I love this passage from the Oxford Dictionary of National Biography which in turn quotes biographer Fiona Macarthy: “Morris perceived the bitter irony of his easy success with the discriminating middle classes while his aims of bringing art to the working people had so far failed. On a professional visit to one of his most faithful clients, the northern ironmaster Sir Isaac Lowthian Bell, Morris could be heard storming through the rooms of Rounton Grange. When Bell asked for explanation Morris turned on him ‘like a wild animal’, exclaiming ‘It is only that I spend my life ministering to the swinish luxury of the rich’ “
I like having things that I use, things that are beautiful, and . . . . things that make me smile. 😀
Thanks, Kate! YOU are a keeper!
Thank you Nancy 🙂 A huge complement coming from you. I do have ugly things, but they make me smile: so perhaps I should adopt your criteria instead.
Oh, I’d definitely keep the things that make one smile, with beautiful and useful things, of course. Lovely read.
Things that make one smile: my rats stay, then….
I’m a big fan of William Morris designs and the Arts and Crafts movement generally. His maxim is a good one which I try to keep in mind but I do have terrible lapses, like the “frog phone.” But no-one’s perfect.
ps Looks like you have plenty of suggestions for places to visit but if you’re ever on the Glos/Wilts border, there’s his former home, Kelmscott – well worth it!
I have a day on Friday. Wonder if it’s open? Thanks Jan, must check it out!
Kate ~
We saw a trailer for this movie last night and it seems like it’s “up your alley”
http://movies.netflix.com/WiMovie/Cave_of_Forgotten_Dreams/70145740?trkid=2361637
Celebrated documentary filmmaker Werner Herzog offers this unprecedented examination of Chauvet Cave, a cavern in southern France that contains the oldest human-painted images yet to be found on Earth. Besides presenting stunning cinematography of the exquisite paintings themselves, Herzog interviews experts who describe the context and reflect on the existential meaning of this artwork, which is some 30,000 years old.
It may not be out yet on DVD.
Ooooh, thanks, Nancy! I’ll get the popcorn and coke out and have a lovely evening!
Rodent effigies in your bedroom, Kate! As long as they’re not stuffed ones… 🙂
I’d be interested to know if Morris gave up his wealth when he found Karl Marx
Hurrah! Welcome back, BB! Missed you but hoping you had a cracking holiday. Yes, stuffed rats might be a little grim. Not sure about the wealth, I suspect he stayed well-heeled. Will check out the biography and see!
I wonder if creativity is part of being an old soul? or mayhap I’m being a tad fanciful… (Just clicked ‘Follow’ I thought I had before, but obviously I hadn’t as I’ve missed your updates.)
Loving your description of your house ‘ensemble’ …. mine too is a hotch-potch of stuff, when I really wanted a feeling of ‘less is more’ type of thing… It’s just a matter of I see something and I think…lovely, now where can it go?… That’s probably what I’m athinking in my profile piccie… 😉
xPenx
The words almost float beneath the photo, Pen. And as for an old soul, maybe you are right 🙂
I had a major William Morris phase in late adolescence, intoxicated equally by the graphics, the writing and the arty-crafty millennial anarchism that he propounded. Looking back down the tunnel of the years, against the abrasive materialism of our age, much of the bloom of that infatuation remains in place.
There is a great deal there with which to be infatuated, Dick. It’s a cliche, but there’s something of the rich tapestry about Morris’s life. Thanks for taking the time to comment.