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The Saga of Broomcorn Johnny By Bob Lawernce
Brian Newton & THE SAGA OF BROOMCORN JOHNNY
By Bob Lawernce
Long before renowned craftsman Brian Newton ever handcrafted a broom, he had several diverse careers: an Air Force jet fighter mechanic; an engineer designing machines to manufacture medical devices based on prototypes; a real estate dealer; and motorcycle shop owner.
So why did the Beaufort, South Carolina, native finally settle into specialty broom making that would win him honors, see his work featured in Hollywood movies and TV, and display his wares at the White House? “I had grown up around traditional crafts and wanted to work with my hands and make something useful and unique,” says Newton whose parents were spinners and weavers.
It all started in Indiana in the 1990s after Newton purchased broom-making equipment dating back to the late 19th and early 20th centuries and began hand-stitching brooms from broomcorn the way they were made back then. It started as a hobby but it soon morphed into a fifth career for Newton because word got around and people wanted to buy his unique handcrafted brooms. Soon he was displaying and selling them at small craft shows, then large craft shows, followed by affluent juried art shows. Demand grew to the point that in 2009 he opened a retail store in Nashville, Indiana, while also doing some wholesale. The following year, he received his first large wholesale order from Anthropologie, a chain owned by Urban Outfitters, for 1,000 colored Shaker cabin brooms which he describes as “hand-dyed brush, soft shoulder, hand-stitched with hand-finished handles.” The chain sold them in their stores in large cities nationwide and advertised them in their catalog. “At that point, I had two buildings, one for retail and another dedicated to wholesale production where I had employees doing prep work and shipping.”
Newton crafts his brooms on machines made between the mid-1800s to 1903 and an electro/pneumatic winder acquired from Newton Broom’s Don Leventhal (the name alignment is a coincidence). Despite the availability of modern machines, he prefers the old ones because “it keeps it real,” explaining that “When I touch the old wood I hear those who came before me. I think about what their lives might have been like. What was happening in their world at the time they were using this same machine. I know the back pain they felt because I feel the same pain. In some small way using the old equipment, and making brooms the old ways keeps them from being forgotten. Perhaps I’ll not be forgotten either. There is a legacy in it all. A history. It’s important not to forget.”
Regarding his nickname, it’s derived from another aspect of his craft, pertaining to those having the skill sets needed to grow and harvest broomcorn, which he once did when he started out in Indiana. Thus, he says, there are a few broom makers with those skills who share the Broomcorn Johnny moniker. Females in the trade are referred to as Broomcorn Janes. Even so, in doing an Internet search for “Broomcorn Johnny,” Brian Newton dominates.
Because planting, growing, and then harvesting broomcorn is both time-consuming and labor intensive, Newton no longer does it, the same reasons mass broomcorn growing in the U.S. vanished more than 60 years ago. By then, Mexico was quickly becoming the world’s major grower and supplier, and it’s where the Grade 1 broomcorn he uses now originates.
Early on, the growth in popularity of his handcrafted brooms resulted from buyers wanting something distinctive, not big box or discount house brooms, says Newton. “They want work that is different, work with character that is obviously professionally handcrafted. Not too folksy, not too witchy. I stayed with hand-stitched, soft-shouldered brooms although I can, and have made all broom types. I also made a point of staying away from the same styles others were doing. I felt, and still do, that the craft grows only through innovation, not by copying ad nauseam what’s already out there. I tell my workshop students to stay away from the Internet, stay away from Pinterest. Find your own voice.”
Regarding those workshops, Newton teaches classes in institutional settings throughout the nation to those wanting to learn how to make brooms the traditional way. Even more so than crafting brooms, he gets the most satisfaction from teaching. “Put me in an art or craft school, a living history facility, or a museum, and I shine like a newly minted penny. It’s the energy of it all.” Although his wholesale and retail broom making thrived, Newton eventually dissolved that aspect of his trade because “doing everything by hand takes a lot of time and energy. I love making brooms, but I don’t want to do it six and seven days a week, which is what it takes. I wanted to continue creating special pieces and teach others how to do it.”
These days, Newton has a studio in Kansas City and also takes one with him when on the road. It’s in an 18’ trailer truck and is fully equipped, allowing him “to travel and still have a studio within arms-reach no matter where I am.” Additionally, it allows him to have roadside sales whereby he “affixes an awning to the truck, set up my displays and sell work to whoever stops and wants to buy. I like the anonymity of it, I don’t have to be Broomcorn Johnny. I’m just a guy selling brooms and mops I’ve made.”
Newton's studio
Other than those roadside sales, Newton’s brooms are no longer sold to the general When I touch the public because he now devotes his time and energy into old wood I hear making them for the TV and those who came motion picture industries, but not cleaning. They appear on before me. I think screen being used by actors about what their or are in the background as props. This spring, they’ll lives might have appear in HBO’s new series, “The Gilded Age.” He’s been like. What also produced brooms used was happening in in films by Cinemax, 21st Century Fox and Steiner their world at the Studios. He landed all that time they were work after, unbeknownst to him, an Emmy Award- using this same winning set decorator visited his shop in Nashville and later machine. I know placed an order. “And it grew the back pain they from there, just as business often grows. A colleague tells felt because I feel a colleague, a friend buys brooms for all of their friends. the same pain. I have a broom in the home of a Supreme Court Justice. I’ve made beautiful “house” brooms for the starred Michelin restaurants. They are also in homes of celebrities and in thousands upon thousands of homes of everyday working people.”
Although Newton can make any style broom, his specialty is the soft-shouldered Shaker, first designed and made in the late 1700s by the Shakers, a religious order. While some say any flat broom is Shaker, he explains that “there were three main periods of Shaker broom construction. Prior to about 1811, one could order a Shaker-made broom stitched flat or round. By the 1820s, round was no longer an option. I make them in both round and flat, one at a time by hand just as they were made then. Within that discipline, I freely introduce color, textures and materials. And from my mind’s eye, I create beauty, elegance and simplicity.” As such, they don’t come cheap. A basic Shaker-dyed cabin broom has a price tag ranging from $68-$72. ABOVE: Newton’s studio
Wholesale brooms created by Newton
While it’s rare for the majority of Americans to get a call from the White House, Newton not only received one but with it came an invitation to exhibit his brooms at 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue. He was among 49 companies, one from each state, chosen to display their products at the White House’s first “Made in the USA Product Showcase” as part of its “Made in America” week in July 2017. Governors and members of Congress recommended a company to represent their state and Newton was chosen to represent Indiana. The White House surprise invitation came while he was on the road doing back-to-back shows in the Berkshires and in Connecticut. “I got the call while exhibiting at a show on a Friday, asking if I could be there the following Monday morning.” At the event, nearby his exhibit was Chick-Fil-A from Georgia, Maryland’s Lockheed Martin displaying a model of its new Sikorsky helicopter and Gibson Guitars from Tennessee.
Asked to characterize himself, he says, “I consider myself to be a traditional craftsman, but my work has an artistic element to it, a distinct look and feel. I purposely focus on making brooms for upscale urban buyers. Brooms that can be displayed and given as tasteful gifts, functional art. I’ve been designing and creating professionally since I was in my 20’s. Brooms are a fascinating medium to work with.”
As for what he gets out of broom making, Newton says it “fulfills my need for unrestrained creativity and the logic of mechanical function.”
Newton teaching at Haystack Mountain School of Crafts on Deer Isle, Maine
In reflecting on his years in the craft, Newton says he’s “made and sold brooms at a history-based event with more than 350,000 people in attendance, and I’ve sold my brooms out of my truck at a farmers market with only a half dozen other sellers. I’ve made more than 20,000 long brooms and God knows how many smalls. I’ve been slowly working on a book detailing the history of broom making in North America prior to 1790. That’s a magical year you know. That’s when broom making went from being a barn craft done by slaves and Native Americans, to being grown at scale by wealthy white farmers. There is very little talk of the history of American broom making before it became profitable. There are as many stories about broom making as there are broom makers.” –brm
Broomcorn angels
Newton's store in Nashville, Tennessee
