Carving Out a Career

CARVING

Out A Career

For women woodworkers, recognition and acceptance are long overdue

Karen Bishop, Historic New England’s Mellon Conservation Fellow, uses a handmade background punch to put the finishing touches on the carved drawer front she recreated for the missing part of a seventeenth-century box. Furniture made for women is well represented among the aisles of Historic New England’s collection at the Haverhill (Massachusetts) Regional Office—diminutive writing desks, chairs, sewing tables. I took note of this while touring the collection in the fall of 2020, when I started my Mellon Conservation Fellowship and was looking for potential research projects. My interests in furniture conservation and the history of women in woodworking prompted me to wonder if there were other examples of furniture made by women in the collection; if not, why?

Accompanying me on the tour was Senior Curator of Collections Nancy Carlisle, who suggested several project ideas to complete during

This 1901 chest was thought to have been carved by Ida Rydingsvärd, though now it seems likely to be the work of her husband, Karl, a minor figure in the Arts and Crafts movement who taught women how to carve in the early twentieth century. Below To make her interpretive reconstruction of the missing half of a seventeenthcentury box in Historic New England’s collection, Karen Bishop used the example on the left, which was made during the same period and is now in the collection of the Bowdoin College Museum of Art. On the right is Karen’s reconstruction, which she left unfinished to distinguish it from the original section of the box.

my fellowship. One was to make an interpretive reconstruction of the missing half of a seventeenthcentury box. Another was to investigate the attribution of an early twentieth-century chest that may have been carved by a woman named Ida von Rydingsvärd.

Fellowships provide advanced training after graduate school, and for the past twenty years, Historic New England’s Mellon Conservation Fellowship has served as a mutually beneficial opportunity for focused specialization. Woodworking is an integral aspect of furniture conservation and one of the goals for my fellowship was to strengthen my skills in this craft.

Replicating the seventeenthcentury box was a great opportunity to learn how to carve and turn, build on my cabinetry experience, and fill a curatorial need. I based the design on a similarly decorated box in the collection of the Bowdoin College Museum of Art. Both boxes are strongly associated with the William Searle and Thomas Dennis workshops of Ipswich, Massachusetts, and appear to be variants on the same design. Bowdoin staff graciously granted my access request, and I was able to examine their object closely, taking notes on measurements, joinery, and tool marks.

Assuming that the carving would be the most time-intensive aspect of the project, I decided to start with the drawer front. I practiced using carving gouges on scrap wood until I felt I could control the tools and then made a full-size mockup of the drawer front. The mockup took me longer than a week to complete as I figured out which tools to use and how to sharpen them properly. All the practice paid off; after marking the design layout with a compass and scribe I completed the final carving in three days.

I built the rest of the drawer and the surrounding base following the same joinery methods evident in the Bowdoin box. To avoid altering the original top by using adhesive or fasteners, I created a custom-molded lining so the two sections securely pressurefit together. I spent an afternoon with Caleigh Sullivan, Historic New England’s Americana Fellow for

Architectural Conservation and Preservation Carpentry, and learned how to make a custom molding profile for the trim. Lastly, to make the small round feet, I had the wonderful opportunity to take a beginning lathe turning course at the Center for Furniture Craftsmanship in Rockport, Maine, with instructor Beth Ireland. In the end, the success of the reconstruction had nothing to do with my gender, of course, and everything to do with access to professional educators, quality tools, and the financial support allowing me time and space to complete the work.

While I worked on the replica, I continued to think about the von Rydingsvärd chest. Ida W. (Simpson) Jackson of Brunswick, Maine, was the second wife and had been a student of Karl von Rydingsvärd, one of many women he taught as he extolled the Swedish sloyd system of handicraft-based education and artistic carving at the turn of the twentieth century. Karl is a somewhat obscure figure in the Arts and Crafts movement though he is noteworthy because of his influence as a teacher. The styles of Ida and Karl being quite similar, I wondered how one might be able to distinguish between their works.

Recognizing the benefit of close examination, I had hoped to compare the chest in Historic New England’s collection with another known example of Ida’s work but was unable to find anything attributed to her in a public collection. In addition, the only written information mentioning her name was in reference to her husband’s work. I finally came across an instructional column she wrote in an 1896 issue of The Art Interchange titled “Woodcarving at Home,” which starts, “Every year the field of woman’s work grows broader, and one after another those occupations which were formerly looked upon as a man’s exclusive domain, fall into line, and open their doors to the weaker sex.” The title and opening line reflect the beginnings of change in the prevalent belief that a woman’s sphere was only in the home.

In the late twentieth century women emerged as major figures in the American studio furniture movement. However, as Anne Carlisle noted in a 2018 essay, “This Is My Work: The Rise of Women in Woodworking,” in the journal American Craft Inquiry, “The histories and works of women, minorities, and people of color are often subsumed into the legacies of their male, likely white, collaborators and colleagues.” A 2019 show at the Foundation Louis Vuitton in Paris titled Charlotte Perriand: Inventing a New World, highlighted the life and work of the modernist architect and furniture designer. Previously, Perriand’s name appeared far less than images of her work, as her finest pieces of furniture were misattributed to Le Corbusier, a collaborator who continuously dismissed her talents. Current research and exhibitions such as Inventing a New World work to integrate the names of women makers into the craft canon.

Even as the self-representation made possible by social media has given makers a platform to showcase their work, the experiences of women in the woodworking field

Definitive attribution in furniture chronicled in Carlisle’s scholarship can be difficult even essay, from gender-based with a well-known maker. discrimination to unequal scrutiny and biased expectations, make it evident there is a lot of progress to be made toward equity and inclusion. Women and nonbinary craftspeople are pushing the boundaries of tradition to create stunning, highcaliber work. Yuri Kobayashi creates elegant, sculptural forms that go beyond the previously believed limitations of steam bending using her own creative technology. Beth Ireland masterfully recreates turned architectural elements massive in size and scale. Aspen Golann subtly blends classic American furniture styles with contemporary images to make statements regarding power dynamics in the history of craft. While gender has no influence on the technical qualities of any of the finished pieces, it’s an inseparable aspect of the experience of the makers within the field. Definitive attribution in furniture scholarship can be difficult even with a well-known maker, and the stories of those in supporting roles must be gleaned from archives of ledgers and town records. Therefore, finding a piece of furniture made by a woman that fits within Historic New England’s current collecting practices may be difficult. As we make an effort to expand the narrative of the stories we tell, an alternative exhibition practice could be to showcase contemporary work alongside pieces already in the collection. Women woodworkers are just woodworkers, after all, but the history surrounding access to education and societal expectations regarding gender makes the distinction an important part of the story of furniture making.