Small Quantities of Intensities
William E. + Clara Rust Brigham
Art + Design Archives
Project Category
Collection-based archival research
Exhibition | Film
Year
2022 - 2023
Location
Providence, RI
In 1915, artists William E. Brigham (1885-1962) and his wife Clara Rust Brigham (1879-1954) purchased the 3.5 acre plot for their future home in Providence, Rhode Island. For over fifty years, their address, 460 Rochambeau, would be a site of collaborative explorations in sustainable design and interdisciplinary art making ranging from jewelry, metalwork, woodwork, ironwork, painting and textiles.
William, a graduate of Rhode Island School of Design (RISD), taught Theory of Design + Craft at the Cleveland School of Art before meeting his wife, Clara and returning to RISD to serve as head of the Department of Decorative Design. Working within the archives of Rhode Island School of Design's Archives and the collection at the RISD Museum of Art, their story is reactivating and reconnected into a larger narrative of art and design unknown until now.
460 Rochambeau
In the 1800s, Blackstone Boulevard, located on the East Side of Providence was populated with farmland and private estates; 460 Rochambeau was first cultivated as farmland — the date 1849 is carved into the stone wall that still surrounds the property.
By the 1860s Providence businessman Robert H. Ives purchased the land to construct a farmhouse, greenhouses and gardens. In 1915, the Brighams commissioned local architect Eleazer Bartlett Homer (1864-1929) to design a 9,200 square-foot two-story Mediterranean-style villa. A professor of architecture at MIT (1887-1901), Homer then served as Director of RISD (1900-1907) while having his own architectural practice working on both public and private commissions across New England.
As the Brigham's creative practices expanded, they commissioned a small museum to be added to the house with a glassed atrium near the carriage house and duo greenhouses. They combined ecological sustainability within the landscape propagating native plants in a series of sunken and elevated gardens, vined arbors, orchards, and reflection pond amongst salvaged statuary and architectural ruins.
In the 1800s, Blackstone Boulevard, located on the East Side of Providence was populated with farmland and private estates; 460 Rochambeau was first cultivated as farmland — the date 1849 is carved into the stone wall that still surrounds the property.
By the 1860s Providence businessman Robert H. Ives purchased the land to construct a farmhouse, greenhouses and gardens. In 1915, the Brighams commissioned local architect Eleazer Bartlett Homer (1864-1929) to design a 9,200 square-foot two-story Mediterranean-style villa. A professor of architecture at MIT (1887-1901), Homer then served as Director of RISD (1900-1907) while having his own architectural practice working on both public and private commissions across New England.
As the Brigham's creative practices expanded, they commissioned a small museum to be added to the house with a glassed atrium near the carriage house and duo greenhouses. They combined ecological sustainability within the landscape propagating native plants in a series of sunken and elevated gardens, vined arbors, orchards, and reflection pond amongst salvaged statuary and architectural ruins.
William E. Brigham
Born to a metalsmith and jeweler in North Attleboro, MA, William studied at RISD and Harvard before starting the arts and crafts department at the Cleveland School of Art, where he met Clara. An innovative and influential figure in the Arts and Crafts communities of Boston, Providence, and Cleveland, he worked in jewelry design, metalsmithing, illustration, watercolor, theatrical set and costume design.
He taught at RISD from 1914 until he retired in 1927 to work on his own projects, a luxury afforded to him from the inheritance of his wife, Clara. Exhibited in galleries and museums across the US, Brigham was a contributing editor for Craft Horizons magazine and continued lecturing regionally about the importance of access for all through artistic and creative thinking.
As the Brigham's creative practices expanded, they commissioned a small museum to be added to the house with a glassed atrium near the carriage house and duo greenhouses. They combined ecological sustainability within the landscape propagating native plants in a series of sunken and elevated gardens, vined arbors, orchards, and reflection pond amongst salvaged statuary and architectural ruins.
Leo Narducci has crafted an extensive and innovative career in fashion for over sixty years to craft modern looks for the American woman, both timeless and unique. Growing up in his parent's garment factory in Brockton, Massachusetts, Narducci went on to graduate from the Rhode Island School of Design in 1960 and moved to New York City. Starting out at Loomtog's, then designing for the label Guy D by Leo Narducci. He quickly made an impression on the fashion world, winning one of several 1965 Coty Fashion Awards with a new group of young designers changing fashion. In 1966, after meeting fashion entrepreneur Ben Shaw, he launched his own label, Narducci, Inc., a division of Geoffrey Beene, Inc.
Seldom are we given the opportunity to sit with someone and hear them speak about the lived experiences that made them who they are today. Interviews from Narducci's friends and colleagues include fashion and textile designers, illustrators, historians, buyers, stylists, museum curators, journalists, and former editors of Glamour, Harper’s Bazaar, and Mademoiselle Magazine. This part of fashion history is seemingly told through the more famous names of its day, however it omits the many artists and designers who critically connected and contributed to the fashion world, breaking boundaries and paving the way for the creative innovations of today.
Clara Rust Brigham
Clara was a lumber heiress from a Cleveland family whose fortune contributed to her privilege and access, as well as her ability to support the arts and create organizations centered around craft and community. She was the founder and chair of the Weavers’ Guild of Rhode Island and Director of Italian needlework at Federal Hill House, in addition to numerous board activities centered around community, art, and gardening. Clara founded Villa Handicrafts, a small group of highly skilled craftspeople that produced jewelry, metalwork, woodwork, ironwork, and textiles.
William and she worked on this enterprise collaboratively. Known for building their own countermarche 8-harness floor looms and tools, they experimented in sustainability through contemporary design, weavings, tapestries, rugs, curtains, bedspreads, upholstery, and wearable textiles. Their use of new materials was said to provide “a new interpretation of the old to the modern,” and the objects produced at 460 Rochambeau were “a result of the creative imagination stimulated by nature about us.”
Design According to Leo Narducci Book Project
Fashion influences culture; designers reflect this in their work. Leo Narducci may not be a household name, however women across the globe wear his clothes and his impact in fashion history is undeniable. He championed the modern woman and made high-end designs accessible and affordable.
A figure at the epicenter of a cultural revolution, Leo mentored generations of young designers, dressed celebrities from Broadway to Hollywood, and yet he never forgot his roots. Leo Narducci's story is ultimately one about discovery, creativity, perseverance, and reinvention. A story uniquely his own and told for the first time.
