RoyCroftCampusCorporation

Shaved heads on the Roycroft Campus

Now you might be thinking to yourself...what can shaved heads possibly do with the Roycroft Campus.

I recently found a great little story in an  older book: Sinners: This is East Aurora. The Story of Elbert Hubbard and The Roycroft Shops by H.Kenneth Dirlam and Ernest E. Simmons. (copyright 1964)

" Knowing the Elbert Hubbard employed ex-prisoners, visitors tried their best to guess which ones: a bit bored with this, a half-dozen of the younger men in the composing room, on an agreed-upon night, shaved their head. The next morning, visitors encountering one of them felt they had solved the problem...until they discovered another, another, and still another with a prisoner's shaved head"

When you see someone with a shaved head today, smile and send them to the Roycroft Campus in East Aurora, NY. 

Julie

Ron VanOstrand, Roycrofter-at-Large Master Artisan Praised as Teacher

Picture of Master Artisan Ron Van Ostrand with copper trimmed jewelry box created by another Roycrofter-at-Large Master Artisan, Howard Lehning

        Roycrofter-at-Large,  Ron VanOstrand, Master Artisan, gets rave reviews from his students who took his metalsmithing class in July.  In addition to the words of Gary Miller (see an earlier blog) Lee Carpenter sent the following message to RCC Executive Director Christine Peters: "You and your staff's hospitality was wonderful, and the workshop was really first-rate.  We've enjoyed all of our encounters with Roycroft artisans, formally and informally, and plan to take other workshops as well as continue collecting their work.  Here's hoping our paths cross again. Best wishes to you on all of your many labors on the Roycroft Campus Corporation's behalf-you do important work, as you know, and we will do our best to continue to support the Corporation."

Jeff Buechler sent this message:......enjoyed meeting you (Christine Peters) Ron and Kate....the class was great (especially Ron's enthusiasm and generosity in sharing his insights and talent), the people participating were super, and your support and organization efforts were wonderful and most appreciated.

Every time I visit the Inn and Roycroft Campus, I imagine how wonderful it would be to be able to travel back in time to see things as they were during the Roycroft's heyday.  I greatly admire, appreciate, and support your individual, as well as your organization's efforts to return the capmus to a state as if Hubbard and the Roycrofters never left."

Great testimonials! They are reason enough to check the workshop schedule and sign up for one of the upcoming events.  Check our web site for details. www.roycroftcampuscorporation.com

The New York Times Travels to Elbert Hubbard's Roycroft Inn

          You have to get up very early in the morning to read the New York Times before your 6 am swim but that is exactly what friend Connie did this morning.....and had already forwarded a copy to her favorite blogger.

          The Road Trip On Route 20, Where the Past Is Present , written by Tracie Rozhon takes the reader on the road west from Albany, New York, on Routes 20 and 20A.  With the opening of the New York State Thruway in the 1950s, this route has largely been bypassed, only to be rediscovered by the author.  Architectural treasures, antique shops, bed-and-breakfasts, interesting people, history and more are delightfully described.

          Starting from Albany visiting Sharon Springs, home of the Iroquois Indian Museum; Cherry Valley; Bouckville, birthplace of Darwin D. Martin; Cazenovia; Skaneateles, most beautiful downtown on the route, summer home of L.D. Smith (Smith-Corona); Auburn, William Seward (Seward's Folly); Geneva overlooking Seneca Lake; and completing the trip at mile 290 from Albany the author arrives at our favorite place....Elbert Hubbard's Roycroft Inn.  Concluding the piece on the 290 mile trip, the author uses Elbert Hubbard's words.  "If victory is, as Hubbard wrote, a matter of staying power, then Route 20 is a real winner."

          The article too is a real winner.  Check the New York Times for August 11, 2006, your copy of The Times, online, or a library.  Better yet, take the trip, going West from Albany or East from Buffalo.  Visit the Roycroft Copper Shop after you check in at the Inn.

John Ruskin, Elbert Hubbard's Mentor, Speaks to Us All

          "Our buildings are not ours. They belong, partly to those who built them, and partly to the generations of mankind who are to follow us.  The dead still have their right in them: That which they labored for....we have no right to obliterate.

            What we ourselves have built, we are at liberty to throw down.  But what other men gave their strength, and wealth, and life to accomplish, their right over it does not pass away with their death."

This quote from John Ruskin (1819-1900), English art critic and writer, is a message worth heeding today.

Excerpt from the First Roycrofter by Charles Hamilton

         "It has been written that every institution is but the lengthening shadow of one man.  There could be no better proof to the truth of this than the buildings along East Aurora's South Grove Street, founded in 1895 and known as the Roycroft Campus....These buildings stand as a multi-monument to the man who conceived them----Elbert Hubbard---and his beloved Roycrofters.  With Hubbard, those men and women left their mark on the Arts & Crafts Movement in America.  Together, their works and their artistic, fraternal, and industrious spirit still beckon their modern counterparts to move to the Campus and create tomorrow's treasured pieces of art."