 |
Kate Chappell | |
|---|---|
| Born | Katherine Pope Cheney 1942 (age 80–81) |
| Nationality | American |
| Alma mater | Chatham College Sarah Lawrence College Sorbonne University of Southern Maine |
| Occupation(s) | artist businesswoman manufacturer |
| Spouse | Tom Chappell |
Kate Cheney Chappell (born 1942) is an American businesswoman, artist, and manufacturer. She co-founded personal-care product manufacturer Tom's of Maine in 1970 [1] as well as wool clothing manufacturer Ramblers Way in 2010 with her husband Tom Chappell. [2]
Katherine Pope Cheney was born in 1942 in Hartford, Connecticut. Her parents were George Wells Cheney, Jr., an insurance executive, and Mary Frances Pope, a trained artist. [3] She is descended from the founders of Manchester's Cheney Brothers Silk Company, brothers Ward, Rush, and Frank. It became the largest silk mill in the country at the time, and the family opened other textile mills including one for velvet. [2] The Cheney family included accomplished artists; John Cheney was an engraver, and Seth Wells Cheney created portraits. A number of Seth's works were donated to the Boston Museum of Fine Arts. The Cheney home was turned into a museum which is managed by the Manchester Historical Society. [4]
Chappell is a 1963 graduate of Oxford School in West Hartford, Connecticut. She attended Chatham College and Sarah Lawrence College before she and her husband, Tom Chappell, moved to Kennebunk, Maine in 1968 to raise their family. As of 2010, Kate and Tom share a summer home on Monhegan, Maine. [5] Chappell became the Vice President of Tom's of Maine, starting the business jointly with her husband after they developed a saccharine-free, natural toothpaste for their children. It was the first natural toothpaste to receive the American Dental Association's seal of acceptance. Her artistic skills were used in overseeing the packaging, advertising and media for the company. [6]
She also attended the Sorbonne and the University of Southern Maine, where she graduated summa cum laude in 1983 with an A.B. degree in Communications after an 18-year hiatus from college. [5]
Chappell founded the Kate Cheney Chappell '83 Center for Book Arts at the University of Southern Maine, which was launched in 2008, and serves as Chairwoman on the Advisory Board. Her teacher, professional book artist and USM faculty member Rebecca Goodale, was chosen to be the program coordinator. The Center provides an area for workshops, exhibits, and discussions by artists from across the United States regarding artwork pertaining to the illustration of books. [7]
In 2006, a controlling 84% stake in Tom's of Maine was purchased by Colgate-Palmolive for $100 million in 2006. [8]
In 2010, Chappell and her husband founded Ramblers Way, an organic wool apparel company. The clothing is made from American-raised Rambouillet sheep wool, silk thread, and vegetable dyes, and spinning, weaving, and knitting is done in East coast states to keep the sourcing local and sustainable. The silk thread used is a reminder of the Cheney mills, which Chappell recalled still functioning in her youth when she would go to the Cheney Hall remnant room with her mother. [2]
In 2009, Chappell was one of five women to receive the Deborah Morton award from the University of New England that year. It is presented to "outstanding women who have achieved high distinction in their careers and public service or whose leadership in civic, cultural or social causes has been exceptional". [9]
Chappell's artwork has been acquired and exhibited by a number of institutions including the New York Public Library, the Portland Museum of Art, [10] and the New Britain Museum of American Art, where her piece "Explosion of Amphibian Deformities" was selected by Director Douglas Hyland for inclusion in the "Director’s Favorites: 1999–2015" showing. [11] The Kingswood Oxford School commissioned a sculpture from her called "All Life Interrelated", and it was installed at their science building in September 2015. [11]
Manchester is a town in Hartford County, Connecticut, United States. The town is part of the Capitol Planning Region. As of the 2020 census, the town had a total population of 59,713. The urban center of the town is the Manchester census-designated place, with a population of 36,379 at the 2020 census. The town is named after Manchester, in England.
Colgate-Palmolive Company is an American multinational consumer products company headquartered on Park Avenue in Midtown Manhattan, New York City. The company specializes in the production, distribution, and provision of household, health care, personal care, and veterinary products.
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Marguerite Zorach was an American Fauvist painter, textile artist, and graphic designer, and was an early exponent of modernism in America. She won the 1920 Logan Medal of the Arts.
Tom's of Maine is a brand name and manufacturing company of natural personal care products. Tom's of Maine has been a majority-owned subsidiary of Colgate-Palmolive since 2006. The company's products are sourced and derived from nature, with formulas that are free of artificial flavors, fragrances, colors, sweeteners, and preservatives. The products are not tested on animals, and the company claims that its ingredient processing is supportive of human and environmental health. While most of the company's products are vegan, some products contain propolis and/or beeswax sourced from bees. The company was founded in 1970 by Tom Chappell and Kate Chappell in Maine, United States.
Howell Cheney was a member of the Cheney silk manufacturing dynasty. The Cheneys had long been the first family of Manchester, Connecticut. Their mill buildings, workers residences and family mansions form the Cheney Brothers Historic District.
Thomas Matthew Chappell is an American businessman and manufacturer who co-founded Tom's of Maine in 1970, and Ramblers Way, a wool clothing company, with his wife, artist Kate Chappell.
The Cheney Brothers Historic District was a center of the silk industry in Manchester, Connecticut, in the late 19th and early 20th century. The 175-acre (71 ha) district includes over 275 mill buildings, workers houses, churches, schools and Cheney family mansions. These structures represent the well-preserved company town of the Cheney Brothers silk manufacturing company, the first America-based silk company to properly raise and process silkworms, and to develop the difficult techniques of spinning and weaving silk. The area was declared a National Historic Landmark in 1978.
Mierle Laderman Ukeles is a New York City-based artist known for her feminist and service-oriented artworks, which relate the idea of process in conceptual art to domestic and civic "maintenance". She has been the Artist-in-Residence at the New York City Department of Sanitation. Her art brings to life the very essence of any urban center: waste flows, recycling, sustainability, environment, people, and ecology.
Rebecca Solomon was a 19th-century English Pre-Raphaelite draftsman, illustrator, engraver, and painter of social injustices. She is the second of three children who all became artists, in a prominent Jewish family.
Ward Cheney was a pioneer manufacturer of silk fabrics.
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Elizabeth Wardle (1834–1902) was an English embroiderer. In 1857 she married the silk dyer Thomas Wardle, a distant cousin. Thomas was later knighted for his services to the silk industry.
Evelynne Bernloehr Mess Daily was an American etcher, printmaker, painter, illustrator, and art educator from Indianapolis, Indiana, who founded the Indiana Society of Printmakers in 1934. Along with her first husband and fellow artist, George Joseph Mess, she was active in the Indianapolis and Brown County, Indiana, arts community. Awarded an honorary doctor of philosophy degree from Colorado State Christian College in 1973, and a recipient of a Sagamore of the Wabash award in 1987, she was also a past president of the Indiana Federation of Art Clubs and a former secretary of the Indiana Artists Club. Her work is represented in several permanent collections that included the Library of Congress, the Indianapolis Museum of Art, the Indiana State Museum, the Indiana State Library, the Indiana University Art Museum, the Richmond Art Museum, DePauw University, and the Philadelphia Museum of Art.
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Nadine M. DeLawrence was an American visual artist and educator. She worked as a sculptor, installation artist, painter, and printmaker. Her artwork was influenced by her interest in African religions and she created large scale installations out of sculptures made in aluminum and steel. She also went by the married name Nadine DeLawrence Maine.