Rustic and Fabulous

Posted by Mary Murray on August 16th 2011 | 0 Comments

Tags: Museum of Art

According to the Adirondack Museum in Blue Mountain Lake, rustic furniture was built by Adirondack guides and handymen for whom woodcrafting skills were essential to their livelihoods. Typically they constructed boats and furniture during the long winter months.

The range of forms created by these men is remarkable, from tall case clocks to desks, tables, and cupboards. The craftsmen used unpeeled wood such as cedar for the furniture’s structure and applied birch bark or twigs and inlaid varieties of wood to create attractive surface patterns on the forms.

Ernest Stowe (d. 1911), Dressing Bureau, c. 1905,
on loan to the MWPAI Museum of Art from a private collection

Ernest Stowe’s origins are not known but he lived on Indian Carry, Upper Saranac Lake, and was a prolific rustic furniture maker around the turn of the 20th century. This dressing bureau, generously on loan to the Museum from a private collector, typifies Stowe’s skills and talent.

See this wonderful example of our regional artistic heritage for yourself in the Museum of Art Galleries on the second floor of Fountain Elms.