Look down: There’s art on these floors
By Susan Pugh on Apr. 02, 2008
In Colonial times, settlers often couldn’t afford to buy woven rugs and have them shipped from Europe. But they still wanted something to cover their floors.
So they took old sailcloth or other scrap canvas, and painted it to make a rug. Those who could afford to do so imported already decorated floor cloths from England.
That tradition became the inspiration for a group of artists who have created a floor cloth and floor-cloth hangings for the Lynchburg Community Market. The Floor Cloth Art Project will be on display in the market’s Heritage Crafters Gallery from 10 a.m. to 7 p.m., coinciding with this week’s First Friday.
It all began when Janet Rose-Campbell, the market manager, was looking for a way to generate local artist involvement in the craft gallery. She approached local artists Lois Coward and Elizabeth Ford about doing something using one of the heritage arts.
“We brainstormed together,” Coward said, and came up with the idea of the idea of creating a floor cloth.
Starting in the mid-20th century, floor cloths began making something of a comeback as a form of artistic expression.
They originated as practical items, however. They were used to add a layer of insulation atop drafty wooden floors — or even dirt floors in Colonial cabins — and to catch crumbs from tables. Hence, one of their names: crumb cloths.
At least three presidents had floor cloths: George Washington, John Adams and Thomas Jefferson, who had two, one of which was in the dining room of the Presidential Mansion.
Early floor cloths were often painted green. People then began to use the canvas as a canvas. Some painted patterns imitating patterns on fine European carpets; others bore the painter’s own designs or popular quilt patterns.
“The nicest example in Lynchburg of a floor cloth is at Point of Honor,” Coward said.
It is “exquisite,” she said. “You don’t realize you’re walking on a piece of canvas.”
The floor cloth largely disappeared from homes after the invention of linoleum in 1863.
Now viewed more as art, the floor cloth became the focus of the three Lynchburgers planning the project for the gallery.
They approached other artists for help. They were Cindy Lacy, Sue Matherly, Katrina Perez, Laurie Foote, Rita Jefferson, Martha Showalter, Phyllis Thomasson, Bettye White, Corinne Forde, Becky Staples, Belinda McDaniel, Joanie Parsons and David Wilson.
The canvas was cut into squares of roughly 6 feet, and each square was given to a different artist or group of artists. The idea was to piece the squares together like a quilt.
Their only instructions: To incorporate the Virginia star, an eight-point traditional quilt pattern, into their work and to use the same five colors.
“They could then interpret the quilt pattern any way they wanted,” Coward said.
The result, as described by Rose-Campell, is squares that are “so cohesive and yet they are all so different.”
Taken together, the finished product would have overwhelmed the gallery’s floor space, Coward said. So the panels hang above the gallery instead, with another painted floor cloth, with the star and all the artists’ names on it, covering the floor.
Other offerings for First Friday:
Mural painting at the Studio Gallery, also in the Lynchburg Community Market. Artist and owner Ariel Uniss Parker will be painting a mural during First Friday, one with a whimsical, sentimental view of the riverfront, since all her works have a historical connection.
It’s the second mural painted there during First Friday. The first one, done by artist Andrew Montgomery, has been finished.
The Annual National Juried Art Exhibition at the Academy of Fine Arts opens with a reception scheduled for 5 to 7 p.m.
The exhibition features the work of 30 artists from nine states. The juror was George Billis of George Billis Gallery in New York.
The exhibition will be on display through April 25.
The Academy also has exhibitions at satellite locations. Bill Connelly’s oils will be on display through May at UBS; Solly Blank’s watercolors will hang at Faria’s Twin Oaks through April 9; and Mark Johnson’s oils will be on display at Magnolia Foods through April 26.
Glassblowing and jewelry making demonstration at Beeswax Candle Co. — An Artisan’s Gallery with Jonathan Baker, a Lynchburg native who has show his work internationally. The gallery will host a reception from 5 to 8 p.m.
The GLTC’s “Art Trolley” will run from 5-8 p.m. between the Academy of Fine Arts, Riverviews Artspace, the Beeswax Candle Co. – An Artisan’s Gallery, Hardwick’s in the Galleria, the Lynchburg Art Club, Avenue Arts Studio, Heritage Crafters Gallery & The Studio Gallery at Lynchburg Community Market, 921 Main Street Fine Art, Magnolia Foods, the Maier Museum and participating downtown restaurants.
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