www.guildofstgeorge.org.uk The Guild of St George The Companion No. 17 (2017) 1 www.guildofstgeorge.org.uk Front Cover: Westmill Village Hall. Photo: Alec Hamilton. The Guild of St George This issue of The Companion is dedicated to the memory of Companion Peter Wardle and collector Jack Walsdorf. The Companion Editor & Designer: Stuart Eagles No. 17 (2017) Assistant Editor: Sara Atwood CONTENTS Learning To See Kateri Ewing 3 THE GUILD The Need For Beauty: Some Personal Reflections on Discussions at Brantwood Neil Sinden 5 Beauty: An Appeal Charlie Tebbutt 6 Master The Ruskin Lecture 2016: Ruskin and Birmingham Stephen Wildman 6 Clive Wilmer Letter from the Master Clive Wilmer 7 Directors Symposia & Seminars: In Brief Stuart Eagles & Sara Atwood 9 Janet Barnes Celebrating 175 Years of Whitelands James S. Dearden 11 Whitelands Ruskin Lecture 2016: Ruskin and Dress Beate Howitt 12 Rachel Dickinson Whitelands Ruskin Lecture 2017 Stuart Eagles 14 Chris Harris Professor Stephen Wildman Stuart Eagles 14 John Iles ‘Make Good Livelihoods’: Ruskin in Sheffield 2016 Ruth Nutter 15 Like Rain On Fresh Ground (Poem) Line at a Time 19 Peter B. Miller Line at a Time Fay Musselwhite 20 Jenny Robbins Ruskin’s Use & Beauty Parlour on the Moor Mir Jansen 22 Clive Wilmer Reflections on the Use & Beauty Parlour Carrie Leyland 23 Heritage Open Day: Celebrating Meersbrook Hall Rhiannon Thomas 25 NA Officer: An Anniversary Broadcast L. Du Garde Peach 27 Sara Atwood Goldsmith, Sally: Thirteen Acres: John Ruskin and the Totley Communists (Review) Mark Frost 30 Administrator: Rivelin Valley Artists Stuart Eagles 31 Commemorating a Centenary: Fanny Talbot in Barmouth Stephen Wildman 32 Martin Green ‘Our Power To Bequeath’: The Companions’ Day at Westmill Stuart Eagles 33 Ruskin in Sheffield Ruskin in Wyre Jenny Robbins 37 Ruth Nutter Ruskin Land Big Draw Prize Jenny Robbins 38 Ruskin in Wyre Farewell Thanks to Neil Sinden and Lynne Roberts Stuart Eagles 38 The Guild and The Big Draw Stuart Eagles 39 Peter Miller American Notes Jim Spates & Sara Atwood 40 The Fun is in the Hunt’: John J. Walsdorf on Collecting William Morris Sara Atwood 43 Thank you to every- Websites Stuart Eagles 44 one who has ‘The Hand, the Head, and the Heart’: Ruskin, Morris, and Craftsmanship Today Sara Atwood 45 contributed to this Teaching Ruskin in Rural Arkansas Paul Dawson 47 issue, including our Arkansan Intimacies with John Ruskin Kay J. Walter, 50 American Art Students Respond to John Ruskin and Marcus Waithe: A Report Jane McKinne-Mayer 52 proofreaders: Clive ‘A Different Spirit’: The Opening of The Horsfall, Manchester Stuart Eagles 54 Wilmer, Ruth A Remarkable Friend: William Towler Kingsley (1815 - 1916) Clive Wilmer 56 Nutter, Kay Walter Ruskin Mill in Birmingham Stuart Eagles 57 and Chris Eagles. On the Alban Mount: Ruskin and God-Consciousness Jim Spates 58 Special thanks to Sara Hanley, Keith, & Hull, Caroline S. (eds): John Ruskin’s Continental Tour, 1835: the written records and drawings (Review) James S. Dearden 60 Atwood. We wish Nichols, Aidan: All Great Art Is Praise: Art and Religion in John Ruskin (Review) Kay J. Walter 61 Sara and Jodie South- Select Ruskin Bibliography (2015-2017) James S. Dearden 63 wood all the best ‘Houses Built Without Hands—For Our Souls To Live In’: Swan Song Stuart Eagles 64 with the magazine in David Peter Wardle (27 Sep 1933 - 8 May 2017) Cedric Quayle 66 the future. Poor Mrs Creswick Paul Dawson 67 Published Sep 2017. Please direct any questions about The Companion to Sara Atwood <[email protected]>. For general enquiries, please contact Martin Green <[email protected]>. The Companion is typeset in Perpetua, a typeface designed by Eric Gill, and printed by Herald Graphics, 272-274 Elgar Road South, Reading, Berks, RG2 0BZ. Herald Graphics is a family-run firm accredited by the FSC (Forest Stewardship Council). The Guild is committed to using sustainable forest print stocks. Please note that all references to the Library Edition of Ruskin’s writings—The Works of John Ruskin, ed. E. T. Cook and Alexander Wedderburn, 39 vols. (London, 1903–12) are in the form of Works, vol no. and page no. 2 LEARNING TO SEE Kateri Ewing In April 2013, a simple Google search sent artist/naturalist whose work looked quite I knew a bit about John Ruskin, as I was at me on a journey that would change the elegant and appealed to my own sense of one time the night clerk for the Roycroft Inn, course of my life. aesthetics. The very first book on her list birthplace of the Art & Crafts movement in Recently divorced, recovering from breast was The Elements of Drawing by John Ruskin. Western New York. There is a room at the cancer and five years of surgeries and Inn called The Ruskin Room and hospital stays, having just seen both ‘… your art is to be the praise of something that I was also aware of Ruskin’s of my children off to begin life on influence on William Morris, their own in different parts of the you love. It may only be the praise of a shell or a who had a great influence on the world, and trying to find my own stone ... ’ founder of Roycroft, Elbert way to earn a living after being a stay —John Ruskin, The Laws of Fesolé (Works, 15.3553). Hubbard. I had always loved -at-home mom for twenty-some Ruskin’s watercolour drawings, years, I was really feeling the empty nest so I thought that perhaps this was the book for syndrome—quite alone, with far too much me. There was a link in the blog post to the time on my hands. Gutenberg Project, a website that features My daughter, who had just moved across free downloads of many works of literature in the country to El Paso, Texas, had left an the public domain. Perfect for my budget at assortment of her art supplies on the kitchen the time. I had my local printer create a spiral table, including a little set of watercolours, -bound copy of the book and I began to read. some brushes, an assortment of artist’s Over the next several months, I woke two pencils and a spiral pad of watercolour hours earlier than usual and went to bed far paper. I decided, to help fill some of my too late so that I could learn more and time, that I would give them a try. practice my new skills. I worked through the I have always loved to sketch and to try my writings and exercises that Ruskin had so hand at art, but none of my efforts had ever carefully written long ago. The language was revealed what was in my head or my heart. I beautiful; the work was not easy. My first would have this vision of what I wanted to Kateri Ewing, Kateri Ewing, Monarch Butterfly The Goldfinch (2015). (2015). create, but I never seemed to have the skills, or patience, to see them through. attempts were disappointing, and at times I Something was different though, in that found Ruskin’s mentoring harsh, even though spring of 2013. I was searching for his voice was intimate, as if he were writing something more in my life. I had so much I only to me. At the same time, I knew that he wanted to say, so much I needed to discover wasn’t offering his knowledge for those who about how to move forward in my new simply wanted to make pretty drawings as a circumstances, and creating art just felt like a way to pass time: he had stated so in his first good way to begin. few paragraphs. Several times I almost gave Without the financial means to enroll in art up, but then I tried my hand at painting a classes, I decided to teach myself. So, into fresh, spring-green leaf that I had found on my Google search engine I typed: best books my morning walk. for learning how to draw and paint with That first leaf was a bit sloppy and forlorn, watercolour. I clicked on a link that looked and I realised that I was working too swiftly, promising, a blog entry entitled ‘Top ten not really taking to heart all that the Master books for learning how to watercolor’, by an had been teaching me. I began again, this time Kateri Ewing, Spring Crocus (2016). 3 spending days trying to paint another leaf artist, I would say Kateri Ewing, that was left over from the previous autumn. that it is the belief It was dull and brown, not something most that if we pay close Arjahli Snowy Owl people would find beautiful or worthy of enough attention (2014). drawing, but something about it caught my we can discover eye and made my heart ache for its passing immense beauty in beauty. I worked on it for several days, the most ordinary always keeping in mind something that I objects of nature. perceived from my reading of Ruskin: beauty When we pay close is in truly seeing. When I looked closely at attention and find this tobacco-brown, withered leaf, the the beauty in the patterns and spots and subtle variations of ordinary things that colour, the gentle turning lines of its veins, surround us, we were far beyond my level of skill to paint at tend to discover the time, but I knew that this was what I their importance wanted to learn—how to capture the and choose to care essence of something so ordinary, that about them in a people (myself and others) would perceive it more profound as extraordinary.