Keepsake Booklet: Marsolais Press & Lettercarving
DistributorDistributed by
Nick Benson
Date2012
MediumPaper
ClassificationsInformation Artifacts
Credit LineConnecticut Cultural Heritage Arts Program collections
CopyrightIn Copyright
Object number2015.196.14.3
DescriptionSouthern New England Traditional Arts Apprenticeship Program Year 14 ephemera.
Commemorative booklet made by Jesse Marsolais, Marsolais Press & Lettercarving, in honor of the apprenticeship with Nick Benson, 2011-2012.
The booklet was made in 2012 by Jesse Marsolais, apprentice to Nick Benson in stone inscription carving and lettering, to commemorate his apprenticeship. Presentated at the final event held at the John Stevens Shop, Newport Rhode Island, workshop of Nick Benson.
NotesSubject Note: The Southern New England Traditional Arts Apprenticeship Program is a CCHAP initiative since 1997 that fosters the sharing of community-based traditional (folk) artistic skills through the apprenticeship learning model of regular, intensive, one-on-one teaching by a skilled mentor artist to a student/apprentice. The program pairs master artists from RI, MA, or CT with apprentices from one of the other states, as a way to knit together members of the same community or group across state lines. Teaching and learning traditional arts help to sustain cultural expressions that are central to a community, while also strengthening festivals, arts activities and events when master/apprentice artists perform or demonstrate results of their cooperative learning to public audiences. The Connecticut Cultural Heritage Arts Program at the Connecticut Historical Society manages the program in collaboration with the Folk Arts Program at the Massachusetts Cultural Council and independent folklorist Winifred Lambrecht who has a deep knowledge of the folk arts landscape of Rhode Island. Primary funding for the program comes from the National Endowment for the Arts, with support also from the Connecticut Commission on the Arts, the Institute for Community Research, and the Connecticut Historical Society.Commemorative booklet made by Jesse Marsolais, Marsolais Press & Lettercarving, in honor of the apprenticeship with Nick Benson, 2011-2012.
The booklet was made in 2012 by Jesse Marsolais, apprentice to Nick Benson in stone inscription carving and lettering, to commemorate his apprenticeship. Presentated at the final event held at the John Stevens Shop, Newport Rhode Island, workshop of Nick Benson.
Biographical Note: Nicholas Benson carries on his family’s stone inscription carving trade at the John Stephens Shop in Newport, Rhode Island - a business that began in 1705. After apprenticing to his father at age fifteen and learning letter design and calligraphy in Europe, Nick led the shop in hand-carving headstones and commemorative plaques with traditional tools, gaining mastery and an international reputation for his work. Among many commissions, he carved the lettering for the Martin Luther King Memorial for which he developed an original font that draws on both classical Greek forms and contemporary sans serif script. In 2007 Nick won a National Heritage Fellowship, America’s highest award in the traditional arts, and in 2010 he received a Macarthur Foundation “genius” award. Nick participated in the Year 14 (2011-2012) Southern New England Traditional Arts Apprenticeship Program, teaching Jesse Marsolais, a young artist keen to develop his stone lettering skills in the traditional way. They focused on the techniques of stone inscription carving from design and lettering to layout and chiseling on stone, then finishing by gritting, drying, and oiling. Their apprenticeship was so successful that Nick took Jesse on part-time for jobs. In 2016 Jesse opened his own shop, Marsolais Press & Lettercarving, in Harwich, Cape Cod.
Artist Websites:
http://marsolaispress.com/
https://www.johnstevensshop.com/
https://www.macfound.org/fellows/class-of-2010/nicholas-benson
Additional materials exist in the CCHAP archive for these artists.
Cataloging Note: This project was made possible in part by the Institute of Museum and Library Services MA-245929-OMS-20.
Status
Not on view
