Message from the President June 2019
Achieving Harmony, Just Like Embroidered Mums
A year ago in June 2018, my column was titled Days of Our (Carnival) Lives and it compared the organized carnival glass collecting world to a soap opera. It discussed some of the more “interesting” times in carnival glass, as well as some of the darker times in terms of some animosity or issues in the carnival world over the past 50-plus years of carnival glass associations. In a hobby gilled with color, we have had many colorful people and situations to serve as fertile conversation topics.
This year, though, I’m hoping the hobby achieves some sort of harmony, a balance in which people are working towards the same goal (of educating and helping more new collectors enjoy the hobby itself, something that has provided years and years of fun, satisfaction and interest for many of us). Making harmony out of a melee isn’t ever easy, but we have many perfect examples within our own collections to show us the way. For me, the answer is in Embroidered Mums.
Now Northwood was ambitious with some of their patterns, while they took inspiration in many things, including embroidery and stitch work. Certainly, Hearts and Flowers is a popular pattern, but with Embroidered Mums, they took the inspiration and turned the dial up to eleven. Hartung (who named the pattern, Presznick called it Mums & Greek Key) called it “intricate, lacy and Oriental in flavor”.
To see some great examples, check out these two pieces that Jim Seeck sold at the Poucher auction in 2014. The pie crust edge version in sapphire brought $7,500 and the aqua opal rufgled version sold for $3,500.
When you girst look at the pattern, there is so much to see that it’s hard to focus on any one thing. You may see the six-pointed star at the very center, and then you see the mums towards the outside of the pattern. The more you look, you see the Greek Key behind the mums. Then you see other leaves, some stems and some stitch marks. Then the rays (almost like Northwood’s Sunflower pattern) around the edge pop out. So many things going on, so much chaos.
But eventually you see that it’s all symmetric. Everything is in place, all around the pattern. It’s all replicated, duplicated around in infinity. Once you see the repetition, it generates order, then the chaos fades away entirely into something very much in order. It starts to make sense. Then intricacy, the duplication, the actual planning that goes into making the pattern becomes overwhelming and your appreciation for the pattern rises to a higher level.
The carnival glass collecting hobby can achieve that same level of appreciation, especially from new collectors, if we can gind that same balance, the same harmony as in Embroidered Mums. There is so much interest and opportunity for our hobby to grow right now. Facebook has given many clubs access to billions of potential collectors, and each club’s Facebook page has 10-25 TIMES the number of followers than members.
You can’t deny the interest is there, but converting interested people into members involves a lot of hard work, with the primary one being friendly, nice, and inviting. With some of the negative issues clubs and collectors are facing from its own members, we invite the chance that interested parties will lose interest. We need more harmony from each of us. Now is the time to focus on the many positives of carnival glass clubs and not spend time focusing on the people in the hobby with whom we aren’t the best of friends.
There is truly a lot of chaos in carnival glass. There always will be (it’s one of the reasons we have 20+ carnival glass clubs when most hobbies only have one or two.) But working to be inviting and genuinely interested in new members will, hopefully, become the primary activity of each of us. When we are in harmony, we are an amazing hobby. When we aren’t, then we can be very self-destructive.
We hope to see all of you at the convention in July. Des Moines brings great opportunity for all, new and experienced, and it can be the launch platform for an even more fantastic future for our hobby. Come, become part of this effort as we strive to achieve the same harmony that Northwood’s pattern designers did in one of the most difficult patterns out there…
Brian
