Scholarship Fund Established In Memory of Michael Clark

Our longtime friend, author, speaker and teacher, Dr. Michael Clark, passed away on Sunday, January 1, at the age of 64. Though burdened in recent months with a deteriorating heart condition, Michael remained dedicated to the Arts & Crafts movement, even making the journey this past October from his home in Elmira, New York to Morris Plains, New Jersey for the seminar presentations at Craftsman Farms.

Michael, along with his wife Jill Thomas-Clark, played a vital role in the resurgence of interest in the American Arts & Crafts movement. While the rest of us were mesmerized by Gustav Stickley, Elbert Hubbard, Artus Van Briggle and Dirk Van Erp, Michael and Jill asked the question, "What about the others?"

When he wasn't in a classroom at Elmira College, where he had taught since 1984, rising to the post of Associate Professor of Speech, Communications and Theatre, Michael was researching many of the more obscure Arts & Crafts firms and designers, including J. M. Young, Harden Furniture, Plail Brothers, Majestic Furniture, and the W. B. Brown Chandelier Company.

For Michael and Jill, research meant weekend road trips to small towns, seeking out librarians, local historians and descendents of the nearly-forgotten men and women who had produced fine examples of Arts & Crafts furniture and lighting we all enjoy. They poured through old files, photocopied letters and sales receipts, photographed shopmarks, and made copious notes, returning to Elmira anxious to share their discoveries with the readers of Style 1900 and the attendees at the Grove Park Inn Arts & Crafts Conference, where both Michael and Jill delivered seminars and led annual discussion groups.

They always knew that their books, magazine columns and speaking appearances would never come close to covering the expenses of real, on-the-road research, but that never slowed them. In 2006 they graciously accepted a modest grant from the non-profit Arts & Crafts Research Fund to aid in their research into Arts & Crafts lighting companies, presenting their material at the Grove Park Inn and publishing it in Style 1900 magazine.

Jill Thomas-Clark has suggested that those who wish to recognize Michael for his work in the Arts & Crafts field might make a donation in his name to the non-profit Arts & Crafts Research Fund. Those donations will be specially marked and presented by Jill to a researcher who has demonstrated his or her dedication to the Arts & Crafts movement in the same spirit as exemplified by Michael Clark.

Donations can be made out to the Arts & Crafts Research Fund, with a notation for the Michael Clark scholarship fund. They can be mailed to the Arts & Crafts Research Fund, % Bruce Johnson, at 25 Upper Brush Creek Road, Fletcher, NC 28732.

On the Elmira College website, Michael recently wrote, "It is optimism that rules your outlook on life. Outside of the classroom Jill and I have found another passion in the Arts and Crafts movement, which looks upon life as 'the life that is art,' but that is hard to achieve without work and optimism. Being from the South, I would leave you with one quote from the Mississippi novelist William Faulkner that reflects that struggle. 'I decline to accept the end of man. I believe that man will not merely endure: he will prevail. He is immortal.' "

While Michael's unflagging optimism will be missed by those of us who had the pleasure to both know and to work alongside him, his life's passion will also prevail through the words he wrote, the photographs he took, the talks he presented, and the opinions he voiced on his favorite subject -- the Arts & Crafts movement.

- Bruce Johnson