Lighting, Hardware & Metal
Could there be anything else that so perfectly combines Beauty and Utility as art lighting? Designed from the beginning for electricity, in a period that championed craftsmanship, Arts & Crafts lamps and fixtures represent an unprecedented marriage of technology and artisanry.
Here we see the skill of the woodworker, the metalsmith, the potter, and the glass artist, often together in one lamp. Iridescent glass and panels of amber mica give soft illumination (even with modern light bulbs). Lighting may be the most visible—and affordable—way to lend period ambiance to a room.
Even more so than during the original movement, Arts & Crafts hardware and metalwork in iron, brass, copper, and bronze is readily available, with design influences from Mackintosh to the Forest Craft Guild.
Patricia Poore is Editor-in-chief of Old House Journal and Arts & Crafts Homes, as well as editorial director at Active Interest Media’s Home Group, overseeing New Old House, Traditional Building, and special-interest publications.
Poore joined Old House Journal when it was a Brooklyn-brownstoner newsletter in the late 1970s. She became owner and publisher and, except for the years 2002–2013, has been its editor. Poore founded the magazines Old-House Interiors (1995–2013) and Early Homes (2004–2017); their content is now available online and folded into Old-House Journal’s wider coverage. Poore also created GARBAGE magazine (1989–1994), the first unaffiliated environmental consumer magazine.
Poore has participated, hands-on, in several restorations, including her own homes: a 1911 brownstone in Park Slope, Brooklyn, and a 1904 Tudor–Shingle Style house in Gloucester, Massachusetts, where she brought up her boys and their wonderful dogs.