Amish Simplicity lives on in Stickley Inspired Furniture

The Amish have kept Mission furniture's integrity alive, honoring pioneers of the style like Gustav Stickley. Though not the originator, Gustav Stickley was definitely the master of Mission style in the Arts and Crafts era. Nine years his senior, Stickley's writings were so important they are said to have enormously influenced architect and furniture designer, Frank Lloyd Wright. Today they influence modern craftsmen in the Amish community to design and build heirloom quality Mission Craftsman furniture in premium hardwoods like oak, quarter sawn oak, cherry and maple.

Gustav Stickley (March 9, 1858 - April 21, 1942) was just like other boys of his era. His family's financial needs outweighed his educational needs. Gustav was removed from formal schooling in the eighth grade to become a stonemason alongside his father. When his father abandoned the family his mother moved them to Pennsylvania with her brother's family so her boys could begin working in their uncle's chair factory in order to support themselves.

Even in his early career, before his exposure to the Arts and Crafts Movement, Stickley created wooden furniture in the idiom of clean, simple lines. Using common hand tools and the woods he had at hand, early designs were bulky and straight lined. It was not until 1903 when he included architect, designer and artist Harvey Ellis that his furniture lost some its mass. Quite simply money or the lack of it, a struggle he would have until his death, may have helped inspire the designer-producer's styling of the Arts and Crafts Mission furniture.

Gustav's Stickley's lack of money kept him using the most basic of hand tools and lathes, just as the Amish. This also kept his furniture in the primitive designs that would later become the basis for his fame. Perhaps circumstance once again gave birth to an iconic artist and his inspiration. Coincidentally, Stickley's financial circumstances that affected his art would run parallel with the new Arts and Crafts movement slowly emerging out of Britain. This movement held high the philosophy of a back to the basics, beauty along with function, handmade quality artisan design. Stickley himself an organic idealist found his niche in the handcrafted ordinances of the Society of Arts and Crafts principles. A common man himself he made it possible to bring high quality furniture and accessories to the masses, eliminating the elitist feel of modern designs of the Victorian era; a problem other designers had not been able to overcome.

Obviously influenced by what he found in Europe on several trips Stickley successfully integrated the British Arts and Crafts Movement and Continental Art Nouveau style into a style distinctly American. He designed and influenced hundreds if not thousands of furnishings, handmade crafts and even architecture. Stickley held high the principles of living a harmonious lifestyle. "Make life better and truer by its perfect simplicity," was proven in his love of the simple but elegant oak tree. 95% of Stickley's designs, just as the Amish, were American white Oak. He particularly loved quarter sawn oak for its naturally beautiful rays and grains. His use of oak gave origin to the term "Mission Oak", still handmade by Amish artisans in America today.