Connecticut Cultural Heritage Arts Program collections, 2015.196.14.1, Connecticut Historical S…

Images(2)

Connecticut Cultural Heritage Arts Program collections, 2015.196.14.2, Connecticut Historical S…

Brochure: Marsolais Press & Lettercarving

DistributorDistributed by Nick Benson

Date2011-2012

MediumPaper

ClassificationsInformation Artifacts

Credit LineConnecticut Cultural Heritage Arts Program collections

DescriptionSouthern New England Traditonal Arts Apprenticeship Program Year 14 ephemera relating to Nick Benson and Jesse Marsolais.

2015.196.14.1: brochure, Marsolais Press & Lettercarving
2015.196.14.2: business card, Marsolais Lettercarving

Prints were made by Jesse Marsolais, apprentice to Nick Benson in stone inscription carving during Year 14, 2011-2012.

Object number2015.196.14.1-.2

CopyrightIn Copyright

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.

Subject Note: Nicholas Benson carries on his family’s stone inscription carving trade at the John Stevens Shop in Newport, Rhode Island - a business that began in 1705. Nick apprenticed at age fifteen to his father John Benson, a renowned stone lettering carver, and later learned letter design and calligraphy in Europe. Since 1993 Nick has led the shop in hand-carving headstones and commemorative plaques with traditional tools, gaining mastery and an international reputation for his work. In addition to hand-carving gravestones, Nick has designed and carved the inscriptions for the National WW II Memorial, and carved the lettering for the Martin Luther King Memorial in an original font that draws on both classical Greek forms and contemporary sans serif script. Nick was awarded the 2003 Fellowship in Folk Arts by the Rhode Island State Council on the Arts. In 2007 he 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 letterpress 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. He lectures in graphic design at the Yale School of Art and creates as Marsolaisletterworks in Connecticut.
Artist Websites:
https://news.yale.edu/2017/10/02/human-tradition-written-stone
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iPNHaFOGe4I
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.

Subject Terms