Magdalena Briner the Prolific Rug Hooker

In past posts there have been lots of information, pictures of her rug designs that I've hooked, and I posted a picture of the book written by Evelyn Lawrence and Kathy Wright about the life, times and works of Magdalena.  What I haven't posted yet is a rug that was discovered after the printing of that book.


I knew that Evelyn was hooking it but was held to secrecy until such time as the pattern was given to Barb Carroll of Woolley Fox to sell and the existence of the rug was made public.  So the rug has been duplicated by Evelyn, pattern given to Barb to sell and a picture of it was on Woolley Fox's web site just before their face lift.  And, unfortunately it might still be a few days before Barb's site is back up because of the numerous pictures and information can be transferred to the new web page.  Yeah, I really need a Woolley Fox fix too but will have to wait like the rest of you.


Anyway, since not all my followers are on the RugHookingDaily group which discusses the Magdalena rugs, thought I'd share this information with the rest of you.  


This is a picture of the original rug hooked by Magdalena Briner.  I forget the dimensions and since Barb's site is not up cannot access that information right now. But if you thought the Domestic Zoo was big, HA, this one is even larger.

And this is the rug which was duplicated by Evelyn Lawrence.  Evelyn started hooking it before she had the opportunity to see the original in person so she had to guess how the colors would have been new and before fading and wear.  

I commend Evelyn for her devotion to bringing out all the folk art hooked rugs by this spectacular woman Magdalena.  And perhaps that enthusiasm has impacted me too; maybe that is why I've tried to stay true to the designs originally done by her.


Yes, I know it is okay to do an adaptation of a public domain, copyright free piece as long as you give the original designer credit.  And of course I would do that.  But I'm still finding it hard to pull a motif from one rug and another from another rug to make something different, even tho I would still say "inspired by the designs of Magdalena Briner".  Believe me when I say that I'm not making judgements on anyone who does that.  And, yet I did do half of her 1885 horse rug so in a way I did alter her design.... so maybe I'll get there yet.  But it is a struggle since I am in awe of the amount of work that woman did in the 1800's.


To use thoughts posted by Ter'e on RHD, I wonder how many other hookers there are who have a style which could be researched and bring out even more wonderful works of hooking folk art.