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Web Exclusives:
Under the Ivy January 23, 2005: Arts
and crafts Nothing says the 1970s quite like a loom. The cover story of the October 26, 1971, PAW, called “Princeton Gothic,” profiled four Princeton students who, in the words of editor Landon Jones ’66, symbolized the “new romanticism” on campus. “It is not the familiar romantic radicalism, which disappeared sometime in the summer of 1970, but rather is a romantic agrarianism,” Jones wrote. “This new faith holds that our salvation lies in the soil. The noble savage is back.” The noble savages in this instance, however, were not working the land in loincloths, but exploring old-fashioned arts and crafts. Michael Rodemeyer ’72, who was majoring in sociology, interviewed the four to find out what drew them to the unusual arts they were pursuing: stained-glass, weaving, ceramics, and woodcarving. The results, Jones noted, suggested several answers. “One is that the crafts provide a refuge from the oppressive intellectualism at Princeton. Another is that the crafts offer a means of striking back at a machine-tooled, consumer society. A third is that the crafts give students the feeling of actually accomplishing something instead of being passive receptacles of knowledge.” Emily Bonacarti ’73, the weaver of the group, had a few more reasons for pursuing her interest in textiles—which she pursued all the way to Sweden, in fact, working at her loom eight hours a day for a month during one summer vacation. Bonacarti noted that creating woven cloths also entwined her with centuries of traditions and different cultures. “I’ve seen beautiful tapestries that little kids in Egypt made,” she said, adding, “Each country [in Europe] has certain traditional elements that are carried through in their weaving. It made me want to come back and go out West to study the Indians and learn how they weave.” Indeed, the writer compared her to a “frontier woman” – though looking at her picture today, one can’t help but think of a proto-Carrie Bradshaw from HBO’s Sex in the City, big dark eyes gazing soulfully out from under long curly tresses parted in the middle, garbed in an embroidered peasant blouse draped over blue jeans, hands resting on the wooden crosspiece of a loom. Another linkage Bonacarti found was across age lines. “If you join the weaver’s guild, for example, you’ll find that half the people in it are 95 years old,” she said. “The woman I stayed with in Sweden was 70, and it was very nice that we had all these things to share.” But Bonacarti’s final reason for weaving was one to gladden
the hearts of the mothers through the generations who encouraged
their children to learn typing. “If a Princeton education
doesn’t get you that high-paying job of your choice,”
she said, “it’s nice to have something you enjoy doing
to fall back on.” Jane Martin ’89 is PAW's former editor-in-chief. You can reach her at paw@princeton.edu
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