United States of America -- Oregon -- Multnomah County -- Portland
Scope and Contents:
The folder includes worksheets.
General:
A 1922 Tudor-style house with three acres, listed on the National Historic Register, required extensive renovation by the current owners to preserve the original craftsmanship. The grounds were in need of reconditioning as well, including an original Japanese garden whose pond had to be re-dug, rocks repositioned, and plantings restored with more than 40 different Japanese maple trees. Landscape architect Craig Kiest's (ASLA) plan includes garden rooms, paths and hardscape, described by the owner as a classic design that features their plant collections. A circular driveway in front of the house surrounds a boxwood knot garden punctuated with container plantings. The uphill walk to the garden runs along a wall with espaliered camellias and is overlooked by a balcony for viewing the knot garden that has a wrought iron railing assembled from old gates found on the property. A serpentine rose border with more than one hundred plants is a colorful connector along the back driveway between the house and garage. An orchard, perennial bed, soccer field and upper lawn are arrayed between the house and the streets that border this corner lot.
Several bluestone terraces with stone steps and balustrades accommodate the terrain behind the house and lead to a formal garden that is on an axis with the dining room. A pergola planted with wisteria japonica crosses the entrance to the formal garden. In this garden surrounded by a hedge of holly there are boxwood parterres centered by a circular patch of lawn with an enormous restored stone planter with white Iceland roses and white alyssum in the summer. Large cast iron planters on bluestone platforms contain Japanese maples. The formal garden terminates in a seating area backed by a semi-circle of four columns and an old planting of English holly. Other features include a grotto with granite semi-circular steps and a grindstone, a wall fountain with a bronze frog, and an Italianate cobblestone patio with beds of hydrangea. Frogs and dragonflies are recurring motifs in the iron hardware on the buildings and in garden ornaments. Flowering vines and container gardens, climbing roses, and a rose and wild geranium parterre add color to the vigorous greenery that grows in this favorable climate.
The Japanese garden features the colorful Japanese maple tree collection and a pond stocked with koi. Additional trees from the earlier garden include copper beech, gingko, and Japanese umbrella pine. There is a raised vegetable garden for berries, grapes, pumpkins and artichokes with a custom made wooden fence, and wooded areas underplanted with hosta and other shade-tolerant perennials. A large lawn bisecting these forests leads to a rectangular reflecting pool with a colonnade that was found buried in an old laurel hedge on the property and restored.
Persons associated with the garden include Percy Smith family (former owners, 1922-1994); Craig Kiest, ASLA (landscape architect, 1997-1999); Dave Sexton (gardener, 1999-present)
Related Materials:
Josselyn Garden related holdings consist of 1 folder (26 digital images)
Collection Restrictions:
Access to original images by appointment only. Researcher must submit request for appointment in writing. Certain items may be restricted and not available to researchers. Please direct reference inquiries to the Archives of American Gardens: aag@si.edu.
Collection Rights:
Archives of American Gardens encourages the use of its archival materials for non-commercial, educational and personal use under the fair use provision of U.S. copyright law. Use or copyright restrictions may exist. It is incumbent upon the researcher to ascertain copyright status and assume responsibility for usage. All requests for duplication and use must be submitted in writing and approved by Archives of American Gardens.
Smithsonian Institution, Archives of American Gardens, The Garden Club of America collection.
Sponsor:
A project to describe images in this finding aid received Federal support from the Smithsonian Collections Care Initiative, administered by the National Collections Program.
The papers of woodturner Bob Stocksdale and fiber artist Kay Sekimachi measure 19.5 linear feet and 0.125 GB and date from circa 1900 to 2015. Found are biographical materials, correspondence, writings, professional files, exhibition files, project files, personal business records, printed and digital material, scrapbooks, photographic material, and artwork. Of note are records from Sekimachi's forced internment during World War II at Tanforan Assembly Center and Topaz War Relocation Center from 1942 to 1944.
Scope and Contents:
The papers of woodturner Bob Stocksdale and fiber artist Kay Sekimachi measure 19.5 linear feet and 0.125 GB and date from circa 1900 to 2015. Found are biographical materials, correspondence, writings, professional files, exhibition files, project files, personal business records, printed and digital material, scrapbooks, photographic material, and artwork. Of note are records from Sekimachi's forced internment during World War II at Tanforan Assembly Center and Topaz War Relocation Center from 1942 to 1944.
The bulk of biographical materials are from Kay Sekimachi with some originating from her time spent in forced internment at Topaz and Tanforan camps. These records include identification cards, War Relocation Authority printed materials, and school records. Also found are awards, resumes, and blank stationery. Some materials are from Stocksdale's 85th birthday and memorial service.
Letters and extensive greeting cards are from friends, family, and professional acquaintances. Correspondents include Norman Anderson, Peter Collingwood, Jack Lenor Larsen, Sam and Alfreda Maloof, Forrest L. Merrill, Miné Okubo, Barbara Shawcroft, and others.
Writings and notes are scattered and include two interviews with Kay Sekimachi, hanging instructions, and notes. Writings by others are by Jack Lenor Larsen, Tran Turner, and Yoshiko Uchida.
Sekimachi's and Stocksdale's professional activities are documented through files relating to their participation at conferences, awards ceremonies, and lectures. Also found are fiber samples, order forms for materials and equipment, and notes on techniques and design by Kay Sekimachi. Exhibition records include extensive documentation on Marriage in Form, In the Realm of Nature, and Loom and Lathe as well as files for various solo and group exhibitions for both Sekimachi and Stocksdale. Gallery and institution files include material on multiple or unnamed exhibitions. Exhibiton documentation may include correspondence, writings, proposals, printed material, financial and loan records, condition reports, and photographs. Project files contain material for proposed book projects, a retrospective, and portfolio, by and about Sekimachi and Stocksdale. Also found are three commissions files for works by Sekimachi. A proposed retrospective on the work of Bob Stocksdale by Kay Sekimachi includes a digital sound recording of recollections.
Personal business records include sales books, purchase records for works of art by others, appraisals, contracts, consignment receipts, and insurance records.
Published books, clippings, exhibition announcements and catalogs, magazines, and newsletters are found within printed materials. Of note is a publication by the San Francisco Chronicle entitled "This World" which features illustrations by Miné Okubo.
Four scrapbooks compiled by Kay Sekimachi date from 1937 to 1944. Most of the scrapbooks contain printed material from magazines and other sources with images such as children, valentines, food, birds, clothing, and may include scattered sketches and notes by Sekimachi. One scrapbook dates from the end of Sekimachi's internment at Topaz and relocation to Cincinnati, Ohio. This scrapbook includes sketches and printed materials concerning local and global events. Loose material found in this series was likely meant to be pasted into a new or the forth scrapbook. These materials include relocation information, Japanese-American publications, maps, clippings, sketches, and printed programs.
The bulk of photographic materials consist of slides of various vacation locations and homes and date from the 1960s to the 1980s. Also found are scattered portraits of Kay Sekimachi and Bob Stocksdale, as well as a photo of Miné Okubo with Roy Leeper and Cecil Thompson. Artworks are largely by Kay Sekimachi and include watercolor and pencil sketches as well as designs for fabrics and a weaving portfolio. Watercolor and pencil sketches are of Tanforan Assembly Center and date from circa 1942.
Arrangement:
The collection is arranged as 11 series.
Missing Title
Series 1: Biographical Material, circa 1920-2003 (1.5 linear feet; Box 1-2)
Series 2: Correspondence, 1943-2014 (7.6 linear feet; Box 2-10)
Series 3: Writings and Notes, 1960s-2008 (0.2 linear feet; Box 10)
Series 4: Professional Files, 1950s-2011 (1.1 linear feet; Box 10-11, 22)
Series 5: Exhibition Files, 1951-2015 (2.9 linear feet; Box 11-14, ER01; 0.125 GB)
Series 6: Project Files, circa 1900-2004 (0.3 linear feet; Box 14)
Series 7: Personal Business Records, 1970s-2010 (0.7 linear feet; Box 14-15)
Series 8: Printed Material, 1943-2011 (2.3 linear feet; Box 15-17, 22)
Series 9: Scrapbooks, 1937-1946 (0.9 linear feet; Box 17, 21)
Series 10: Photographic Material, circa 1950-2001 (0.9 linear feet; Box 18)
Series 11: Artwork, 1942-circa 1970 (1.1 linear feet; Box 18-20, 22-23)
Biographical / Historical:
Bob Stocksdale (1913-2003) was a woodturner active in California. He was known for bowls he formed from rare types of wood. Kay Sekimachi (1926- ) is a Japanese-American fiber artist and educator also active in California. She began her career in weaving on and off the loom and was part of the New Basketry movement.
Born in Indiana, Bob Stocksdale began his interest in carving by whittling with a pocket knife. Later, he created his own lathe with a washing machine motor and turned items such as baseball bats. During World War II, he was a conscientious objector and worked at various camps performing forestry work. It was in one of the camps that he turned his first bowl on a lathe.
After the war, Stocksdale settled in the Bay Area of California where he established his own woodturning shop in his basement. He concentrated on making bowls out of rare woods. His work has been recognized throughout the world and in 1998, he received the American Association of Woodturners Lifetime Achievement Award. In 2003, he received the James Renwick Alliance Masters of the Medium Award.
Kay Sekimachi was born in San Francisco, California in 1926. As a high school student, she was forcibly interned through Executive Order 9066 issued by President Franklin D. Roosevelt which incarcerated approximately 120,000 Japanese and Japanese-American citizens during World War II. Along with her mother and siblings, Kay lived at Tanforan Assembly Center and later moved to Topaz War Relocation Center in Utah. She continued her schooling at Topaz and after 1944, was resettled in Cincinnati, Ohio.
After graduating from high school, Kay Sekimachi enrolled at the California College of Arts and Crafts and the Haystack Mountain School of Crafts where she learned the craft of weaving under Trude Guermonprez and Jack Lenor Larsen. Her early works were tapestries and garments. She later used her weaving techniques as part of the New Basketry movement to create baskets and boxes out of fibers. Also an educator, Kay taught weaving at San Francisco Community College. She received the American Craft Council Gold Medal for Consummate Craftsmanship in 2002.
After the dissolution of his first marriage through which he had two children, son Kim and daughter Joy Stocksdale, Bob married Kay Sekimachi in 1972. The two had been acquainted for many years as they were both craft artists living in the Bay Area. Although they married later in life, Kay and Bob travelled the world and exhibited their art together in many exhibitions including Marriage in Form and Loom and Lathe.
Bob Stocksdale died in Oakland, California in 2003. Kay Sekimachi continues to exhibit her work and lives in Berkeley, California.
Related Materials:
Also found in the Archives of American Art are an oral history interview of Bob Stocksdale conducted February 16-March 21, 2001, by Signe Mayfield and an oral history interview of Kay Sekimachi [Stocksdale] conducted July 26-August 6, 2001, by Suzanne Baizerman. Both interviews were conducted in Berkeley, California, during the Archives of American Art's Nanette L. Laitman Documentation Project for Craft and Decorative Arts in America.
Provenance:
The Bob Stocksdale and Kay Sekimachi papers were donated in 2003, 2004, and 2015 by Kay Sekimachi Stocksdale as part of the Nanette L. Laitman Documentation Project for Craft and Decorative Arts in America.
Restrictions:
Use of original papers requires an appointment and is limited to the Archives' Washington, D.C. Research Center. Contact Reference Services for more information. Use of original audiovisual recordings with no duplicate access copy requires advance notice.
Rights:
The Archives of American Art makes its archival collections available for non-commercial, educational and personal use unless restricted by copyright and/or donor restrictions, including but not limited to access and publication restrictions. AAA makes no representations concerning such rights and restrictions and it is the user's responsibility to determine whether rights or restrictions exist and to obtain any necessary permission to access, use, reproduce and publish the collections. Please refer to the Smithsonian's Terms of Use for additional information.
The collection has been digitized and is available online via AAA's website.
Collection Rights:
The Archives of American Art makes its archival collections available for non-commercial, educational and personal use unless restricted by copyright and/or donor restrictions, including but not limited to access and publication restrictions. AAA makes no representations concerning such rights and restrictions and it is the user's responsibility to determine whether rights or restrictions exist and to obtain any necessary permission to access, use, reproduce and publish the collections. Please refer to the Smithsonian's Terms of Use for additional information.
Collection Citation:
Jackson Pollock and Lee Krasner papers, circa 1914-1984. Archives of American Art, Smithsonian Institution.
Sponsor:
Funding for the processing and digitization of this collection was provided by the Terra Foundation for American Art.
An interview of Marguerite Wildenhain conducted 1982 March 14, by Hazel Bray, for the Archives of American Art.
Wildenhain speaks of her early interest in pottery; studying at the Bauhaus; the Bauhaus philosophy; her apprenticeship as a potter under Max Krehan; studying under Gerhard Marcks; becoming the first woman master potter in Germany in 1926; fleeing the Nazis to Holland; coming to the United States; moving to California and teaching at the California College of Arts and Crafts; craftsmanship as a way of life; and her sources of inspiration.
Biographical / Historical:
Marguerite Wildenhain (1896-1985) was a potter from Guerneville, California.
General:
Originally recorded on 2 sound cassettes. Reformatted in 2010 as 4 digital wav files. Duration is 2 hrs., 7 min.
Provenance:
This interview is part of the Archives of American Art Oral History Program, started in 1958 to document the history of the visual arts in the United States, primarily through interviews with artists, historians, dealers, critics and others.
