Download Our Catalog

Our 80-page, full-color catalog of Motawi Tiles (PDF, 20mb) can be downloaded for free, or ordered for $10 from the online store.

The Perfect Gift?

Let your special someone do the choosing.  Motawi Tileworks gift certificates are available online.

A Brief History of The Arts & Crafts Movement

The Arts & Crafts Movement was born as a rejection of the machine-made emphasis of the Industrial Revolution.  In the 1780s, the Industrial Revolution had ushered in an age of mechanization and standardization, replacing the handmade cottage style industry of the preceding years.  The factory worker was enmeshed in a larger mechanical system. 

Early Arts and Crafts thinkers such as John Ruskin(1819-1900) wrote longingly of the loss of individual skilled craftsmen.  He planted the seed of what would become an aesthetic movement, a philosophy, and a social cause. 

Visually, the Arts and Crafts movement is commonly associated with handmade objects that are simple in design and construction, examples can be found in the furniture of Gustav Stickley and pottery of Grueby Faience and Pewabic Pottery.  Materials are used in a way that does not disguise their natural origins.  The Movement, at its height from 1880 to 1910, influenced British and American architecture, craft and decorative arts.  The style includes works of incredible complexity and scale, as found in the work of Louis Comfort Tiffany and architects Greene & Greene.

The reformist philosophy of the Arts and Crafts Movement is centered in

• the value placed on the skill of craftspeople,
• encouraging higher quality standards in craftsmanship and
• resulting in a deeper satisfaction in the handicrafts they created

While the movement was not wholly against the use of machinery, advocates shared a view that within the framework of industrialization, workers were essentially becoming part of the machines they worked.  Striving to create objects that were both authentic and affordable, they favored using machines as tools to assist craftsmen, reducing crushing labor, repetitive movement and monotony.  Freeing people from machines and valuing their work and worth as individuals dovetailed with the “Progressive” wants of safe working environments and increased civil rights.

With the coming of World War I, the Arts & Crafts Movement came to an end.  It remained a memory until the 1970’s when interest was rekindled and grew steadily until the 1990s when interest exploded.  The Arts & Crafts Revival with its focus on craftsmanship, natural materials and growing progressivism has found a perfect match with another time, a new generation that values the same ideals.  Mission, Prairie and Bungalow residential building styles remain popular in the United States today.