Treasures of Edwards Place: Giant Teacup

The Edwards family drank their fair share of tea at Edwards Place, but it is safe to say they never consumed 23 gallons at one sitting - yet in one of the upstairs bedrooms is a giant teapot big enough to hold nearly 400 cups of tea!





That particular pot never graced the Edwards's tea table, however. It was a originally belonged to Benjamin H. Ferguson, husband of Benjamin and Helen's daughter Alice. He was a glass and china merchant whose store in downtown Springfield did more than $40,000 worth of business annually. One of his suppliers, Alfred Meakin of Tunstall, England, sent him this teapot as a promotional item in 1893. It was meant to sit in Ferguson's store and attract attention to boost sales.


The teapot is 37 inches tall and 73 inches in circumference. It features hand-painted flowers and gold lustre lettering which proclaims "Presented by Alfred Meakin Tunstall, England, to B H Ferguson, Springfield, Ills. U.S.A." Somewhere along the line its handle was broken, but we still have the pieces and hope to have it restored at some point.


Meakin probably created a dozen or so of these teapots and sent one to each of the leading china wholesalers in the United States. Today only three are known: this one, one at Hohnecker's Gifts in Dubuque, Iowa made for Little, Bruce & Co., and one at the Cincinnati Museum Center made for the Dean and Kite Company.


Stop by Edwards Place for a tour between 11 a.m. - 2 p.m. and see this rare treasure for yourself!

Calling all Little Leaguers!

Bring your Little Leaguers to an event that is sure to be a home run for everyone in your family at the Springfield Art Association! Tomorrow, August 4, from 4 to 8pm, the SAA will open its studio doors to host a night of arts and crafts, to celebrate the “Play Ball” Exhibition (through August 21). This invitational is a first, but a sure hit of hands-on art activities for the family to enjoy together. You can even meet former MLB White Sox player Ron Kittle, as well as local player Jon Knoeldner, who will be here to sign autographs! Make your own baseball card, stitch a foam mitt; even paint with baseballs! Try your hand at carnival games and check out the wonderful line-up of art in the show while listening to music that’s sure to remind you of yesteryear’s trips to the ballpark!

Activities will be guided by Springfield Art Association faculty, staff and volunteers. Refreshments will be served and all children must be accompanied by an adult. No reservations are necessary. All activities held at the SAA campus, located at 700 N. Fourth Street in Springfield.

Bring the whole family and enjoy this triple play of art, fun and baseball at the SAA Park—what’s more, every Little Leaguer dressed in uniform will get a free hot dog! For additional information contact Katie Rasmussen, Education Coordinator, at 523-2631, or by e-mail: education@springfieldart.org.

Edwards Place Acquires Copies of 15 Historical Photos

Edwards Place tells the story of the Edwards Family: Benjamin and Helen, their three daughters Helen, Alice, and Mollie, and their grandchildren. Over a span of 63 years, from 1843 to 1909, members of this family lived, played, ate, entertained, prayed, laughed, cried, fought, and loved within its walls. As one walks through the rooms of Edwards Place and sees the family's belongings in the space that they once called home, they seem so close, despite being separated from us by more than a century.

Yet until recently, we didn't even know what the Edwards daughters or grandchildren looked like in their youth. That all changed thanks to the generosity of an Edwards family descendant. Benjamin and Helen Edwards's great-great-granddaughter recently made 15 historical images of the Edwards Family available to the Art Association, giving us a priceless window into the 19th century.








Of particular interest is a photograph of little Tom Condell, taken when he was four years old. Research into the Edwards family letters has enabled us to pinpoint the exact date it was taken: Wednesday, February 5, 1868, at S. P. Tresize's Enterprise Gallery in Springfield. Tom was living with his grandparents while his parents, Helen and Moses Condell, were setting up a farm in Kansas. Three days after the photo was taken, Helen Edwards wrote to her daughter: "Alice took Tom down on Wednesday last to Tresize's to have his picture taken. They are done this evening - so I shall probably be able to send you one. He is very well, and I think growing fat." A week later Alice wrote to her sister Helen: "We think Tom's pictures splendid, the one in which he is sitting is too sober, but still a good likeness...the suit he has on is the one Mrs Ferguson and I made him, he is more proud of it than you can imagine and is always delighted when he can put it on."

With this one simple image, several touching family scenes from more than 140 years ago is brought to life: a small boy putting on his favorite suit; a young aunt taking her nephew into a bustling post-Civil War town to have his photograph taken; a family sitting together and examining the pictures; two women writing to a loved one far away to report the progress of her small son.

The photographs also include images of Edwards daughters Helen and Mollie; daughter Alice's husband Benjamin Ferguson; grandchildren Tom, Eddie, and Helen; and a group photo of Benjamin Edwards's uncles and aunts. There are also two photographs of the interior of Edwards Place taken in the 1890s. Both of these will be used in the future to inform the recreation of Edwards Place's 19th century appearance. All these photographs allow us to finally put faces to the names we know so well and carry us a step closer to bringing Edwards Place to life for visitors.

SAA...Springfield Art...Appropriation?

My favorite word in the language of art history is the verb appropriate. I know, it’s strange to love a word that means, “to take [something] for one's own use, typically without the owner's permission” (Merriam Webster), but hear me out. And prepare yourself—because we’ve done just that at the SAA.

In the everyday world (say, not citing scholarly quotes in a final paper), stealing ideas for our own, original use doesn’t sound like the greatest of ideas (not to mention the lawsuits and potential expulsion as consequences). But in art, I feel it’s all we do; we look to what’s been done before and assess them, borrow their ideas, shift things around, et voilà! By transforming an existing idea or place or familiarity with an object—Campbell’s soup cans, anyone?—you have something extravagant, new and fortifying!

As artists of young and old continue to appropriate the already-existing or everyday into a new work of art, so does the Art Association with its educational programming. Perhaps some of you are familiar with Art Outreach, an in-the-classroom arts appreciation program, with more than 70 thematic portfolios. Established in 1973, these portfolios, with 10 to 12 prints in each, explore a certain artist, pairing or artists, or movement in art history; for example, we have an “Impressionism” portfolio, a portfolio on Frida Kahlo & Diego Rivera; and more general information portfolios, like “Transportation,” “Women Artists,” or “Sports.” Any educational organization in the Sangamon County can check out these portfolios, free of charge. Not sure who Claude Monet was? Don’t worry; we’ve got you covered with information packets, additional reading information, and supplementary craft projects for the classroom, already included for your presentation.

Although we have more than 40 schools utilizing the program, we decided to appropriate the materials and wonderful information already in Art Outreach’s possession and introduce them to another audience—those that homeschool. But to appropriate means to add something new, right? So we did, by hosting the Art Outreach program in our spacious Condell studio, or Gallery, with a presentation and an art project that visually reinforces the lesson or theme. We named it “Third Thursday,” as it occurs the third Thursday of every month. The Art Association also researched the various national cultural & heritage months and paired them with a portfolio; for example, Third Thursday discussed the “Harlem Renaissance” for African American History Month in February, and “Landscape & Seascape” for April’s Earth Day.

All of our presentations are available under the “Art Outreach” tag on our site, or by clicking here. We do ask that anyone interested in coming to the Third Thursday presentations please call ahead. There is also a $6/student registration fee to cover the expense of supply materials for each craft. Come down to the SAA and appropriate Art Outreach into your homeschool curriculum! Our next presentation is August 19 at 1pm.

Benjamin and Helen Edwards Went to the Lincoln Wedding

Abraham Lincoln's wife's sister Elizabeth was married to Benjamin Edwards's brother Ninian. On paper this looks like about six degrees of separation, but in antebellum Springfield this meant that the Lincolns and Edwardses were practically family. In fact, Benjamin and Helen Edwards were among the small handful of guests invited to the Lincolns' wedding.

Lincoln and Mary had first gotten together sometime in late 1840, but early the following year they seem to have broke up. Historians are not sure why the split occurred, but there are several theories, ranging from a suggestion that Lincoln may have fallen in love with another woman to the idea that Ninian and Elizabeth might not have approved of him. Whatever the case, Lincoln and Mary's acquaintance was not renewed until the summer of 1842. Fearing the town gossips, they decided not to meet openly, but instead met in secret at the home of their mutual friends, Simeon and Eliza Francis.

On the morning of November 4, 1842, Lincoln stopped Ninian Edwards in the street and announced that he and Mary would be married that evening at the Episcopal Church. Ninian replied that this would never do; Mary was his ward, and she must be married from his home. He went home and broke the news to Elizabeth, then seven months pregnant with their second child, that she had until the end of the day to arrange an entire wedding. Then Ninian went straight to his brother Benjamin's house.

He was greeted by Benjamin's wife, Helen. "My wife wants you all to come to our house this evening," Ninian announced. When Helen asked what was going on, Ninian explained that Mary and Lincoln would be married in his parlor that evening, adding "I left Elizabeth crying, but [neighbor] Mrs. Levering has gone in to see if she can help her." Elizabeth later told Helen that she was hurt Mary had not confided in her about the romance, nor given her much time to prepare a proper wedding celebration.

"Mary, you have not given me much time to prepare much of a wedding entertainment for our friends," Elizabeth had told her, "I shall have to send to old Dickey for some gingerbread and beer." Mary, still smarting from a comment someone had made earlier about Lincoln's humble background, tartly replied "Well, that is good enough for plebeians, I suppose."

With Helen Edwards's help, Elizabeth pulled together a simple yet elegant wedding. Helen later recalled that although the bride had neither veil nor flowers in her hair, "The wedding was what might be called a pretty one, simple yet impressive." Only 30 or so people attended, mostly family and close friends. When Helen died in 1909, she was the last adult living who had attended the Lincoln wedding.

For more stories of Springfield's 19th century social life, including the connections between the Edwards and Lincoln families, come to Edwards Place for a tour!

Finding the Energy to Create

People often say to me that they aren’t creative or they don’t have the time or energy to be creative. Everyone is creative, some are just more aware of it than others. I understand that finding time to take an art class or focus to make something can be a challenge in our hectic and demanding lives; but the simple act of being creative shouldn’t be a step outside the norm, it should be a state of being. Has our overly mechanized and logical society set creativity apart from the norm? Maybe, but I don’t buy into this idea.
Creativity is sparked by the simple act of paying attention and doing or seeing things differently. It’s a choice. If you want to make this choice, first, break the routine! Rote actions put our creative brains to sleep. If we don’t ask our creative forces for input on a regular basis, they go to sleep. That doesn’t mean they aren’t there for the asking, but if you haven’t used them in a while, they might be a little groggy.
Invigorate your creative juices by giving yourself the gift of a simple creative challenge. Do one thing to break your routine and challenge yourself to pay attention to one visual element that you find pleasing. For example, go for a walk, take a route that isn’t the way that you always go and pay close attention to the sights and sounds around you. Chose one characteristic to zero in on, like observing the various textures you encounter. Texture surrounds us physically and visually; yet we are rarely aware of it. Look closely, stop to touch surfaces, compare colors and recognize patterns. Taking time to really see and feel the textures in your surroundings should allow your brain to make new connections, develop new pathways and spark some ideas. If, on a regular basis, you step outside your routine to observe and experience some aspect of your surroundings in a new and different way; you will stimulate your creative forces and develop creative energy. Who knows what inspiration may come your way.

A Big KaBOOM! in Enos Park

The SAA is located in the heart of Enos Park, a neighborhood just immediately north of downtown Springfield. Enos Park was once known as the "Jewel of Springfield," and is made up of residents, and local businesses within the border of 3rd & 9th Streets and Carpenter & North Grand.

Recently, the Springfield Parks & Recreation Department informed the SAA of a very special donation to Enos Park. KaBOOM! Playground, and another corporate sponsor, awarded the neighborhood a brand new playground for its Gehrmann Park, located along the 3rd Street corridor. What's more is, the Art Association and its incredible Summer Art Campers were invited by both the SPRD and KaBOOM! to participate in its Design Day. The representatives from both organizations wanted input from their most celebrated constituents--the kids! Today, the Van Gogh-Gos camp visited Gehrmann Park with the representatives from each organization, along with the SAA Executive Director Betsy Dollar and the Steve Combs, the President of the Enos Park Neighborhood Association. Together, they all discussed the potential blueprint of the playground, and what equipment campers and kids throughout the neighborhood would most enjoy using to make it a well-visited space.

For more information on the playground itself, please visit KaBOOM!'s website here, or learn more about the Enos Park Neighborhood, past and present, here.