Opening Reception: November 18 from
2 - 5pm
Showing through December 31, 2017
Craft in Toyland opens on Saturday, November 18 at Grovewood
Gallery in Asheville, just in time for the holidays. This group exhibition will
showcase handcrafted toys and games – all American made! Also on display will
be a collection of antique wooden toys from the heyday of Tryon Toy Makers
& Wood Carvers, on loan from Tryon, North Carolina resident Rick Dunn.
An
opening reception will take place on November 18 from 2 – 5pm, free and
open to the public. This show will remain on view through December 31, 2017.
Craft in Toyland will feature works by 10 artists and craftspeople
from across the country, including toys by local makers Paul Frehe, Greg
Krolick, Sarah Owen, and Alicia Williams of Heartwood Rocking Horses. This
exhibit will also showcase works by Julia Calhoun, Elizabeth Swing of
Emergolde, Joe Godfrey, Delilah Iris, Lumpy Buttons, and Wolfum. All
handcrafted toys and games will be available for sale, with the exception of
Rick Dunn’s collection of antique toys.
For nearly 20 years, Dunn has been collecting wooden toys made by the
renowned Tryon Toy Makers & Wood Carvers, a children’s toy and fine craft company
established in 1915 by two enterprising, artistic women: Eleanor Vance and
Charlotte Yale. The Tryon toys were the finest made in the United States at
that time, and today, the surviving toys and woodcarvings are highly sought
after by collectors.
Before starting Tryon Toy Makers & Wood Carvers, Vance and Yale
lived in Asheville’s Biltmore Village, where they, along with Edith Vanderbilt, founded and ran what
would become Biltmore Industries, a successful woodworking and weaving
business. In 1917, a couple of years after Vance and Yale moved to Tryon, Mrs. Vanderbilt sold the business to
Fred Seely, Edwin Wiley Grove’s son-in-law, and it was relocated to a site adjacent to The
Grove Park Inn, where Grovewood Gallery is housed today. While learning the ropes of the
weaving trade, Seely frequently corresponded with Vance and Yale, seeking
advice and also trading information on new fads in techniques.
Today, Julia Calhoun, who is one of the featured artists in Craft in
Toyland, is working to keep the Tryon Toy Makers & Wood Carvers’ artisan
legacy alive. She is the 4th individual owner of the business and has recently
begun bringing the enterprise back with the production of some of the earliest
toys designed by Vance and Yale, working from antique sets and photographs. She
will be showcasing a reproduction of a wooden circus set, an early item in the
company’s history that is extremely rare. “The only one we know of is in the
North Carolina Museum of History in Raleigh,” Julia says. “A second one was located a few years
ago in Boston but sold before our local collector could get to it. I had to
draw my pieces from a photo of the one in the Museum.”
If you plan on seeing the exhibit, and want to learn more
about Eleanor Vance and Charlotte
Yale, you can take a guided history tour, which starts at
the Biltmore Industries Homespun
Museum located next door to Grovewood Gallery. The tour
touches on Vance and Yale’s time spent in Asheville, before they relocated to
Tryon and founded their new company. Tours are offered Wednesday - Saturday at
1pm and will run through the end of December. You can learn more by visiting www.grovewood.com/history-tours.
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