Joyce Anderson
Joyce Anderson
Joyce Anderson (November 24, 1923 - April 20, 2014) was an American furniture designer and woodworker. Anderson is known for her professional partnership with her husband, Edgar Anderson. Together, their works in wood are regarded as early examples of the American Craft Movement, specifically in the New Jersey craft world.
Biography
Early Life
Anderson was born on November 24, 1923. She grew up in West Orange, New Jersey in a middle-class family.[1] Anderson and her future husband, Edgar, met and dated in high school, but lost touch when they went to college and Edgar left for the army. While in college Anderson became engaged. Her fiancé was killed during the war, resulting in a complete upheaval of their plans for the future.[1] Anderson then had to chart a new path for herself. Following Edgar’s return from overseas, he and Anderson reunited and were married in 1946.[2]
Education
Anderson attended Dickinson College, in Carlisle, Pennsylvania. Later, upon receiving a fellowship from the Sloan Foundation in New York City, Anderson attended New York University, where she earned a master's degree in public affairs and regional studies.[2] It was during this time that Anderson and Edgar Anderson reconnected. Following the Andersons’ marriage in 1946, the couple moved to Chicago so that Edgar could study building construction at Chicago Technical College.[2]
Introduction to Woodworking
While Anderson enjoyed economics and public affairs, she was faced with limited prospects when she had to find work quickly following the couple’s move to Chicago. She found a job that she thought she would love, doing economic research, but found the workplace environment to be hostile, with “the man who ran the place [thinking that she] would be a sort of secretary.”[1] While reconsidering her career choices, Edgar started making furniture and eventually needed extra help. During this time Joyce became interested in design and made the decision to join her husband on the path to becoming a designer and builder.[2] Thus began a lifelong collaboration in wood.
On her early introduction to woodworking through her personal and professional relationship with her husband, Anderson stated:
“Pretty soon I decided that the life he was planning was going to be a lot more interesting than the life I thought I was planning. High on my list has always been I don't want to be bored, and I think I decided that the life he was going to live was the life where I wasn't going to be bored. And that very much fits in with me.”[1]
Later life
The Andersons were based in New Jersey for the entirety of their careers following their purchase of land just outside Morristown, NJ in 1950. The couple used wood from the acreage’s walnut, oak, birch, and ash trees to create some of their earliest custom-built furniture.[2] In 1959, the couple took on the project of building their own house and workshop on the property. They completed each task on their own, from digging the foundation, to installing the heating and plumbing, to crafting the built-in storage and furniture.[2] In 2008, Joyce and Edgar made an agreement with the Harding Land Trust, Harding Township, and New Jersey Audubon to preserve the house upon their passing. According to the agreement, the New Jersey Audubon will convert the house, studio, and buildings on the property into a museum.[2]
In the 1990s, following decades of woodworking, Anderson had to stop turning wood due to a severe cough she had developed years before. What was originally thought to be a wood allergy turned out to be chronic obstructive pulmonary disease.[1] According to Anderson, the development and severity of the disease could be due to the sawdust, finishing materials, and chemicals the couple used in their workshop:
“In those days, nobody seemed to have much idea of how dangerous all these things were for us, so we didn't keep our shop well-ventilated, we didn't wear masks for a while. After a while, we did. Then we got a very good dust-collecting system. But it was too late; I'd already done the damage.”[1]
Anderson died on April 20, 2014 at age 90. Her husband, Edgar, died the next year, on January 3, 2015, at age 92.[3]
Career
Joyce Anderson’s career in woodworking didn’t officially begin until her husband, Edgar, picked up the skills and techniques in the 1940s. However, as a child, she was exposed to some woodworking skills while her father would make repairs and add additions to their family’s summer house.[1] It was during this time that Anderson began to learn the very basic skills of woodworking.
When her husband became interested in woodworking and building Anderson initially joined as a helping hand. In time, however, the couple set up a custom furniture making studio in 1948. Theirs was one of the first modern studios making custom furniture.[4] The Andersons were fully involved in all the processes of furniture making, including design, construction and finishing. They continued making furniture into the 1980s, furniture with simple designs, beautiful uses of woods, and no surface decoration.[4] Additionally, Anderson was one of the first professional female woodworkers. Although there were several other women furniture makers in the 1940s and 1950s, the field itself didn’t become as professionalized as it is now until the 1970s, which opened more opportunities for women.[4]
Commissions
When Joyce and Edgar began their business, much of their work consisted of repairing or refinishing, rather than designing.[1] However, in doing so, they learned a great deal about future design decisions that they would need to make. Over time, the Andersons notoriety grew and they became recognized designers, no longer unknown repairers. As their notoriety grew, they gained several patrons that would consistently support their work through commissions for years to come. One such couple, Sandy and Louis Grotta (he was the former president of Paige Electric), discovered the Andersons’ work on a visit to the Museum of Modern Art in the late 1950s.[5] Sandy Grotta stated that upon seeing their work she fell in love and promptly “came home and got rid of all [her] furniture.”[5] Upon discovering the Andersons, Sandy Grotta’s passion for collecting was ignited and she and her husband Louis set off on a six-decade long journey of prolific arts patronage. There are many examples of other collectors who supported the Andersons’ innovating work for decades through specific commissions and purchases of other works.
Influences
The Andersons’ works are inspired by a variety of influences, from Frank Lloyd Wright to gallery shows to craft collectives and more. Their various influences and individual design preferences converged into furniture for which they are known.
The Andersons were extremely inspired by Frank Lloyd Wright, even living in his Robie House while in Chicago.[1] This great love of Wright’s design ideals translated into the Andersons’ decisions while designing their own home, which, interestingly, has no 90-degree angles.
Anderson stated that the early direction that their work went in was influenced by works that they saw at furniture shows, such as a Brooklyn Museum show of Scandinavian furniture. This show was revolutionary for the couple, as they had never seen a lot of the details that they saw in some of that furniture, and we very much admired it.[1]
The Andersons were also very influenced by the natural world. Anderson has stated that, “We think we probably couldn't live anywhere except in the woods, with doors that come right outside of the rooms we're in so we can kind of ooze outdoors whenever we want to.”[1] Additionally, the Andersons were inspired by George Nakashima’s furniture, especially with the free-edged techniques. Over time, however, the Andersons developed their own design tendencies that included more control than the loose, fluidity of free-edged wood.[1]
The Andersons formed the New Jersey Designer Craftsmen with several other couples in the 1970s.[6] The other designers were mostly jewelers, ceramists, and woodworkers. About the founding of the organization, Anderson stated:
“...we all were very enthusiastic about the fact that we were breaking tradition. We were going to do modern things, and we were going to teach people the way of breaking with all their cruddy old antique stuff. So we formed an organization, spent a lot of time arguing on what to call ourselves, and what we were in the business for.”[1]
The New Jersey Designer Craftspeople set up an annual exhibition to display the members’ works, thus creating an influential relationship between all contributors.[1] Later, the organization expanded to the Newark Museum for a selling show in which large numbers of people were exposed to the group’s works.[1]
The Andersons were very influential in the early years of the American Craft movement in terms of the start of organizations such as the New Jersey Designer Craftspeople, the American Craft Council, and Peters Valley.[1]
Honduras
In the 1960s the Andersons traveled to Honduras as part of a USAID (United States Agency for International Development) program that taught craft techniques to local inhabitants. The goal of the program was to train local people to make products from indigenous woods for sale in the US market.[1] Initially, only Edgar Anderson was hired for the program, not Joyce herself, as the program had had bad experiences with hiring husbands and wives.[1] USAID eventually did pay for Anderson’s travel fees to Honduras, and once she got there she discovered there was no reason why a woman couldn't contribute to the work, both as a leader of the workshops (herself) or as an indigenous craftsperson (the women of Honduras):
“It was not a problem that a woman was working. I think in the woodworking shop, we each had to prove, when we worked with the various shops, we each had to prove that we knew what we were doing for them to really want to do what it was we wanted them to do. We each had to show that we had certain skills that we could perform some of the tasks that we were trying to teach them to do.”[1]
Style
Much of the Andersons’ design style can be characterized by the honoring of the material with which they work. Whether large or small scale projects, the Andersons highlight the intrinsic qualities of the wood. In their own words, the Andersons describe their style as a conservative modern or contemporary that is characterized by traditional joinery and careful selection of woods.[1] The Andersons had a desire for warmth in their work that sent them in the direction of using interesting pieces of wood and pieces with some special kind of grain to inspire their designs.[1]
The Andersons had different tendencies - Joyce was free-hands and spontaneous, while Edgar was a meticulous note-taker. This is part of what Anderson feels worked so well about their partnership, as they made all kinds of things that required different approaches.[1] The Andersons’ project varied from large scale furniture commissions, or even their own house, to egg cups, candle holders, plates, rings, and more, all of wood. Part of this was due to a desire for variety and diversity in their day to day activities.[1] Joyce and Edgar’s forte was tables, and felt that they were challenged and had the most room to improve their skill in designing and building tables rather than chairs.
Additionally, there is often an aspect of humor in their pieces, which is not always expected in wooden furniture. Whether it is an unexpected grain pattern or a bullet in a piece of wood, when the Andersons built furniture with that piece they would deliberately include the part with the bullet.[1] These unexpected touches give a humorous quality to their works that also acknowledge the wood’s history. Another example comes from when the Andersons faced a carpenter ant infestation. When they saw the patterns the ants made, the Andersons decided to let them get into some new works that they had made in ash. They let the works sit there for several years until they achieved the particular look they desired.[1]
Married Partnership
In the early years of their partnership, Joyce Anderson describes her role as a helping hand. Eventually, she started doing things on the lathe, and Edgar taught her what he knew, and then she learned how to do things beyond what he knew.[1] One step at a time, the couple progressed so that their individual skills developed and complemented one another’s. Anderson’s finishing skills were better than Edgar’s, but she soon realized an issue that she faced as a woman doing the woodworking: the standard equipment was made for men.[1] The couple contacted the manufacturers of their supplies and eventually found equipment that better suited Anderson’s hand. While at the beginning of their career together Anderson described herself as the pupil and her husband as the teacher, by their later years that was not the case.[1] The Andersons worked collaboratively, unlike other design couples of their time who worked in fairly separated spheres of design.[1]
Joyce Anderson described the couple’s design and decision-making processes below:
“We work together quite well. We developed our own skills and preferences for which machines we liked to work and which parts of the work we wanted to do. For the most part, it was complementary rather than contradictory. But over the years, it became more difficult because I became more of an individual woodworker, not just a helper to my husband. So that made a lot more decision-making that had to happen of how you go about it when you disagree with each other. And we solved a lot of it by saying, okay, when we can't agree, we'll submit separate designs, but since we don't like people to play us off against each other, we won't tell them this is his and this is hers; we'll just submit two or three designs and let the client pick out the one they want. It worked for a few years, till we decided each one of us had much more positive ideas and we only wanted our own, so then it became more difficult again.”[1]
Upon being nominated to the American Craft Council College of Fellows in 1992, Edgar Anderson had this to say about their partnership:
“Recognition as a creative team is doubly gratifying to me. My objective within this symbiotic partnership is to design and make elegant objects for a contemporary environment. I respect the demanding tradition of excellence in craftsmanship, appropriate use of materials, and innovative technical concepts and I believe that curiosity, eclecticism, personal responsibility, and a sense of humor are all indices of mature self-confidence.”[2]
References
- ↑ 1.00 1.01 1.02 1.03 1.04 1.05 1.06 1.07 1.08 1.09 1.10 1.11 1.12 1.13 1.14 1.15 1.16 1.17 1.18 1.19 1.20 1.21 1.22 1.23 1.24 1.25 1.26 1.27 1.28 1.29 "Oral history interview with Joyce Anderson, 2002 September 18-19". www.aaa.si.edu. Retrieved 2020-10-31.
- ↑ 2.0 2.1 2.2 2.3 2.4 2.5 2.6 2.7 "Remembering: Edgar Anderson". American Craft Council. Archived from the original on 2015-04-18. Retrieved 2020-10-31.
- ↑ "EDGAR ANDERSON Obituary (2015) - New York Times". www.legacy.com. Retrieved 2020-10-31.
- ↑ 4.0 4.1 4.2 Jackson, Ann. “Women Studio Furniture Makers: A Longitudinal Study”. ProQuest Dissertations Publishing, 2020.
- ↑ 5.0 5.1 Loos, Ted (2020-01-02). "New Jersey Collectors Who are Crafty, in More Ways Than One". The New York Times. ISSN 0362-4331. Retrieved 2020-10-31.
- ↑ "New Jersey Designer Craftsmen Incorporated". Unknown parameter
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