Pearl McGown

Last updated • 3 min readFrom Wikipedia, The Free Encyclopedia

Pearl Kinnear McGown (February 27, 1891 – 1983) was an American designer of hooked rugs and a teacher and innovator in the field who is credited with helping to bring the craft out of obscurity in the 20th century and gain it recognition as a form of folk art.

Contents

Career

Pearl McGown learned rug-hooking as a child. [1] Hooked rugs are made by pulling loops of yarn or thin strips of fabric through a base material with an open weave, typically burlap or linen. [2] [3] [4] In North America, rug-hooking has been a widespread handicraft since the early 19th century, possibly brought over by English textile workers. [5] Like patchwork quilts, hooked rugs have historically been primarily made by women as functional decorative objects that use up remnants from other sewing, knitting, or weaving projects. [2] [3] [4] Although a few professional designers took an interest in hooked rugs during the late 19th century Arts and Crafts era, they remained associated with poverty and did not enjoy the same degree of aesthetic development as other handicrafts in that period. [1] [6]

In the late 1920s, McGown began designing and selling her own patterns to students of a Massachusetts hooked rug teacher, Caroline Saunders. [1] [4] Her business flourished and became national in scope, and she eventually hired several helpers. [1] All told, she created over 1000 original designs during her career. [1] [4] She began making rugs herself (now sought by collectors) and became known for floral designs that employ many subtle shades of color to create rich detail and striking pictorial effects. [6]

In the 1930s, McGown began writing books on the techniques of rug-hooking as well as on patterns and color schemes. [7] She also began offering workshops in wool dying to obtain the shades needed for specific projects. [4] Through her books and dye workshops, she championed rug-hooking's evolution from a plain craft to a folk art, insisting on high standards of fabrication and steering her students away from commercial patterns towards more personalized designs. [2]

In 1940, McGown organized an exhibition of hooked rugs that became an annual event. [1] [4] During World War II, she began a newsletter, Letter Service, that offered instruction in special techniques, and she also taught rug-hooking to servicemen recuperating in military hospitals. [1]

In 1951, McGown organized the first in what became an annual series of hooked rug workshops to train new teachers, exchange knowledge, and develop the formal study of hooked rugs and their history. [1] The McGown Teacher Workshops, as they became known, centered on McGown's own patterns, which consequently became widely known. [1]

In 1970, McGown sold her business to Old Sturbridge Village, and it was later sold again to the dye manufacturer W. Cushing & Co. [1] [8] Today, there is still a Pearl K. McGown Teacher Certification and Workshop Program under different owners. [7]

McGown also created the first known correspondence course for those who wanted to teach rug-hooking to others. [2]

Some of McGown's work is in the Hooked Rug Museum of North America in Nova Scotia, Canada. [9]

Books

Personal life

Born Pearl Kinnear, she married Maurice McGown, with whom she had a son, Winthrop (b. 1915). Her granddaughter Jane McGown Flynn also became a noted rug-hooking designer and instructor. [3] [7]

Related Research Articles

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Ann Macbeth</span> British artist and suffragette (1875–1948)

Ann Macbeth was a British embroiderer, designer, teacher and author. She was a member of the Glasgow Movement where she was an associate of Margaret MacDonald and Charles Rennie Mackintosh, and many other 'Glasgow Girls'. She was also an active suffragette and designed banners for organisations supporting women’s suffrage, such as the Women’s Social and Political Union

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Carpet</span> Textile floor covering

A carpet is a textile floor covering typically consisting of an upper layer of pile attached to a backing. The pile was traditionally made from wool, but since the 20th century synthetic fibers such as polypropylene, nylon, or polyester have often been used, as these fibers are less expensive than wool. The pile usually consists of twisted tufts that are typically heat-treated to maintain their structure. The term carpet is often used in a similar context to the term rug, but rugs are typically considered to be smaller than a room and not attached to the floor.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Rug hooking</span> Craft technique for rugs and hangings

Rug hooking is both an art and a craft where rugs are made by pulling loops of yarn or fabric through a stiff woven base such as burlap, linen, or rug warp. The loops are pulled through the backing material by using a crochet-type hook mounted in a handle for leverage. In contrast latch-hooking uses a hinged hook to form a knotted pile from short, pre-cut pieces of yarn.

Frank Havrah "Kaffe" Fassett, MBE is an American-born, British-based artist who is best known for his colourful designs in the decorative arts—needlepoint, patchwork, knitting, painting and ceramics. While still a child, Fassett renamed himself after an Egyptian boy character from the book Boy of the Pyramid by Ruth Fosdick Jones. His name rhymes with 'safe asset'.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Mary White (textile designer)</span> English textile designer (1930–2020)

Mary Lillian White later Mary Dening was an English textile designer known for several iconic textile prints of the 1950s. Her designs were very popular and extensively copied in many 1950s homes, as well as in cabins aboard the RMS Queen Mary and at Heathrow Airport. She was also a commercial potter and ceramist, who in the 1960s founded Thanet Pottery, in partnership with her brother David White.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Viola Gråsten</span> Finnish textile artist and designer (1910–1994)

Viola Hildegard Gråsten was a Swedish textile designer.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Textiles of Mexico</span>

The textiles of Mexico have a long history. The making of fibers, cloth and other textile goods has existed in the country since at least 1400 BCE. Fibers used during the pre-Hispanic period included those from the yucca, palm and maguey plants as well as the use of cotton in the hot lowlands of the south. After the Spanish conquest of the Aztec Empire, the Spanish introduced new fibers such as silk and wool as well as the European foot treadle loom. Clothing styles also changed radically. Fabric was produced exclusively in workshops or in the home until the era of Porfirio Díaz, when the mechanization of weaving was introduced, mostly by the French. Today, fabric, clothes and other textiles are both made by craftsmen and in factories. Handcrafted goods include pre-Hispanic clothing such as huipils and sarapes, which are often embroidered. Clothing, rugs and more are made with natural and naturally dyed fibers. Most handcrafts are produced by indigenous people, whose communities are concentrated in the center and south of the country in states such as Mexico State, Oaxaca and Chiapas. The textile industry remains important to the economy of Mexico although it has suffered a setback due to competition by cheaper goods produced in countries such as China, India and Vietnam.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Kerman carpet</span> Style of Persian carpet named after region in south central Iran

Kerman carpets are one of the traditional classifications of Persian carpets. Kerman is both a city and a province located in south central Iran. The term also sometimes describes a type which may have been made elsewhere. Typical manufacturing techniques use an asymmetrical knot on cotton foundation, but less frequent examples incorporate silk or part silk piles, or silk foundations with wool pile.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Swedish carpets and rugs</span>

Carpets and rugs have been handmade in Sweden for centuries, taking on many different forms and functions over the course of time. Rugs woven in the traditional Oriental manner, especially in the Ottoman Empire and points east, were originally brought to Sweden over trade routes as early as the early Middle Ages. In the centuries that followed, Swedish rug-makers often infused their works with themes and motifs traditionally found in Oriental rugs. Eventually, Swedish rug-makers would begin to use Oriental rug-making techniques, but themes and motifs more consistent with the artistic and cultural heritage of Sweden. By the early modern periods, rugs had long been an important avenue of art – especially folk art – in Swedish culture. By the beginning of the twentieth century, the craft was seen as being an important artistic and cultural practice throughout Sweden, and designers began to make rugs that had a broad international appeal. Swedish rugs from the mid-twentieth century remain among the most desirable and sought after in the rug world.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Ilonka Karasz</span> Hungarian-American designer and illustrator (1896–1981)

Ilonka Karasz, was a Hungarian-American designer, interior decorator, painter and illustrator known for avant-garde industrial design and for her many New Yorker magazine covers.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Ami Mali Hicks</span> American artist, suffragist and writer

Ami Mali Hicks (1867–1954) was an American feminist, writer, artist, and organizer. Hicks art focused on textiles and other crafts, among other mediums. Though she was tutored in the arts, much of her skill was gained through self study. In addition to her artwork, Hicks wrote books on art instruction and criticism. Hicks was a longtime administrator for Free Acres, an independent, collectivized community in New Jersey. She worked with the Women's Political Union and was a member of Heterodoxy, two radical organizations that challenged some of the more placid activism of women's movements and suffragists. She died in 1954.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Elizabeth Eleanor D'Arcy Gaw</span> Canadian artist (1868–1944)

Elizabeth Eleanor D'Arcy Gaw was a prominent Arts and Crafts artist whose style influenced her former business partner Dirk van Erp and noted architect Lawrence Buck. She was the president of the California Guild of Arts and Crafts.

Helga Elisabeth Foght was a Danish textile artist who specialized in calico printing. She opened her own screen-printing workshop in 1937, first creating floral designs but later adopting a more abstract or strip-based approach. Many of her designs were used for commercial production by the L.F. Foght textile company. Foght taught at the Danish Arts and Crafts School until 1970.

McGown may refer to:

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Lillian Burke</span>

Lillian Burke was an American artist, teacher, musician and occupational therapist chiefly known for developing a hooked-rug cottage industry in the village of Chéticamp, Cape Breton. From 1927 until 1940, Burke taught the French-speaking women of the village how to create high-quality hooked rugs based on her own designs. Most of the rugs were commissioned by leading New York decorators on behalf of their affluent clients.

Merete Erbou Laurent is a Danish weaver and textile artist. Since the 1970s, she has specialized in weaving paper yarn to produce brightly coloured floor rugs, runners and carpets but more recently has used wool for her rugs. From 1983 to 2006, she was editor-in-chief of the Danish arts and crafts journal Dansk Kunsthåndværk and from 2011 to 2017 served as chair of the Danish designers' association Danske Kunsthåndværkere & Designere.

Marianne Elisabet Richter Lindroth (1916–2010) was a Swedish textile artist who from 1942 was engaged as a designer at Märta Måås-Fjetterström's workshop. There she produced flatweaves, pile rugs and tapestries. She is remembered in particular for her rya rugs and her large wall hangings. Her patterns have since become classics in Swedish textile arts.

Thrumming is a technique in which small pieces of wool or yarn (thrums) are pulled through fabric to create a wooly layer. The term thrum originally referred specifically to worthless pieces of warp thread which remained after weaving a piece of fabric using a loom, though its meaning has since broadened to include any small pieces of wool or thread which are used in a similar way.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Rasht embroidery</span> Iranian regional embroidery style

Rasht embroidery is a Persian art and handicraft. It is a decorative felt panel with a fine detail chain stitch embroidery, originating in the city of Rasht in Gilan province, Iran. This style of craft flourished in the 16th and 17th centuries in what is now Northwest Iran. Rasht embroidery is listed as part of Iran's Intangible Cultural Heritage by UNESCO.

Margo Selby is a British textile artist and the author of books on textile design. She has a workshop in Whitstable, Kent.

References

  1. 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 "History". National Guild of Pearl K. McGown website, 2018.
  2. 1 2 3 4 Conrod, Hugh, and Suzanne Conrod. Rug Art — Rescued From Oblivion: A Hooked Rug Museum of North America Research Project. Bloomington, IN: Authorhouse, 2010, pp. 82-86.
  3. 1 2 3 Fraioli, Maddy. "McGown Training Workshops: The Story of the Founder, Pearl McGown". Rug Hooking Magazine, January/February 2013.
  4. 1 2 3 4 5 6 Barger, Theresa Sullivan. "Hooked on Rugs". Saturday Evening Post, March/April 2009.
  5. ↑ Kent, William Winthrop. The Hooked Rug. Tower Books, 1971.
  6. 1 2 Green, Jane Halliwell. Rugs in Bloom: Shading Flowers in the Hooked Rug. Stackpole Books, 2012, p. 4.
  7. 1 2 3 "Jane McGown Flynn". Celebration of Hand-Hooked Rugs, vol. 21, 2011, p. 23.
  8. ↑ Libby, Steve. "Family Upholds Crafting Traditions". Lewiston Journal, Magazine Section, December 4, 1982, p. 1.
  9. ↑ "Exhibits". Hooked Rug Museum of North America website, 2013.


This page is based on this Wikipedia article
Text is available under the CC BY-SA 4.0 license; additional terms may apply.
Images, videos and audio are available under their respective licenses.