Creators
by Louise Devenish

Phillip Lloyd Powell
Born: Germantown, Pennsylvania, August 26, 1919 – Died: New Hope, Pennsylvania, March 9, 2008
 
A Reminiscence

I was most fortunate and honored to spend an afternoon in October, 2007, with Phillip Lloyd Powell, a charismatic, free-spirited and joyous being with a magnetic personality, ready smile and wonderful blue twinkling eyes. Phill was deeply loved by all his friends and neighbors in the artistic community of New Hope, known for his great generosity and his well-deserved reputation as a talented and creative artisan of twentieth-century studio furniture.

“I was about sixteen,” Phill said, “when I first started making furniture – just a few pieces for my bedroom. I was so inspired after visiting the Philadelphia Museum of Fine Art and seeing an exhibition of Wharton Esherick’s work. I was just bowled over! Huge, massive, sculptures. I couldn’t believe my eyes! How could anyone handle a piece of wood that size? That was in the days before chain saws or modern machinery. I just couldn’t believe it!”
 
I, together with my friends, David Fuentes, a Nakashima conservation specialist, and Paula Egidi, an interior designer, were warmly greeted by Phill in his fairyland garden with its simulated waterfall and little bridge above a tiny stream. Phill, with his silver curly hair and purple sweater, was seated on a contemporary round back metal chair with caned back and seat chair in front of one of his own slate and metal-based tables, upon which sat a tray with glasses ready for our arrival. There was also an assortment of delicious cheeses and crackers as well as not one but two bottles of Veuve Clicquot champagne chilled and ready to bubble!

“In 1938,” Phill went on, “I was about eighteen and made my sister a ‘hope chest’ that I signed and dated using metal which I was also attracted to. I made it out of copper. I made everything in our basement at home, using hand tools. Since she passed away recently I now have that chest downstairs. I’ll take you all to see it later.”

Within a few minutes of our arrival it began to cloud over and we could feel raindrops, so we quickly gathered the delicacies and made our way up an outside narrow winding metal staircase that led four flights to the very top of Phill’s home, an actual silo that he had built piece by piece, ordered from a Sear’s catalogue in the mid ‘50’s. Once inside his cozy nest, way above the trees with a few vines actually pushing through the cracks in the windows, we found our seats and gazed at his celestial blue ceiling adorned with stars and sun gods hanging all around the perimeter of the room.

“I studied engineering at Drexel Institute of Technology and enjoyed it,” Phill said, “but by the time the second semester came around, I couldn’t afford to go back. A good friend and neighbor suggested I join the Army in ‘38. They were looking for recruits so off I went to play soldier. It was great – I didn’t have to think because they do it for you. At that time there wasn’t an Air Force, so the Army eventually became an Army/Air Force. They sent me to the University of Chicago to study meteorology since planes were becoming such a vital part of operations and therefore weather patterns were important. Soon there were more recruits than the Army anticipated, and I was lucky enough to be stationed in London where I saw a great deal of the sky – and the English theatre.
“In London I used to dream about where I would eventually settle when the war was over. New Hope, Pennsylvania kept coming up – the theatre, the antiques shops and restaurants. I felt it was home.”

After Phill’s tour of duty ended, he built his first house and showroom in 1951 on what was then Route 202, right on the main highway. In those days there were no interstate highways; everyone heading back to New York, or driving south, after the show at the Playhouse had no choice but to pass his place. Phill took full advantage of this, setting up shop outside and selling furniture to the many doctors and lawyers heading back to the city until sometimes as late as one AM. Phill collected $1500 checks for furniture that had been impossible to sell in New York City, keeping the shop lights on all night so anyone could see the furniture in the window. From the day he opened that shop he never had to work for another person in his life.

Eventually, the Playhouse fell into neglect because they couldn’t afford to bring in the big names anymore, while many of the older, famous actors had either died or moved away. Artists and professional people from New York or Philadelphia traveled increasingly to their weekend houses in New Hope, however, and more and more stayed full time. The decorators soon followed, having heard there were several notable craftsmen – George Nakashima, Wharton Esherick, and now Phill among them – whose work was unique and eminently saleable.

“Times were different then,” Phill said. “It was very Bohemian, laid back, an easy pace. I built that showroom on Route 202 by myself and lived above it. Friends of mine from Philadelphia would give me furniture they couldn’t sell in the city as they were ‘dead stock’ – like Eames’ chairs and some Knoll and Herman Miller pieces. I also got some lighting in the style of Noguchi – do you know Noguchi? He was one of my idols – and adopted the American culture, just as my friend George Nakashima, did.”

Around that time, a 20-year-old student by the name of Paul Evans stopped by Phill’s place on his way back to Sturbridge Village where he was studying to be a silversmith. He was taken with the Knoll and Miller pieces, and especially the metal tables lined up outside, fascinated with the way Phill used metals. Paul had not yet experimented with iron and the other metals Phill was working with at the time; he knew only silver. That first discussion led to Paul leaving Sturbridge Village for New Hope – and a close, enduring friendship with Phill, who was fourteen years older and encouraged Paul to take up iron and other metal work.

“He just happened to be in the right place at the right time!” Phill said. I took him to “Sears” to buy tools as he had nothing – and no money either. Unfortunately he was denied credit so a friend of mine lent him his credit card and Paul learned on the job. We moved into a new studio together on Main Street, which is where the action was then. There were many more artists moving to New Hope and on the weekends there were lots of tourists walking up and down the street, going into the galleries. Paul and I quickly moved to selling and making metal furniture. We made metal tables often using local slate for the tops, as well as our custom pieces: Paul’s metal cabinets and wonderful sculptures, and my Phillip Powell chairs, which I named ‘New Hope chairs’ – the cushions and webbing were all shaped by hand.

“People started coming from all over – even big name decorators all the way from Chicago. The word was out!  We both looked at our craft as creating art rather than making furniture, and that’s how it is today. People see our creations as works of art, not just furniture. My friend John Sollo was here last week looking for another silver screen just like the one behind you. ‘Don’t you have anything else for me?’ he said. ‘I can sell all of it – I can’t get enough of it!’ Paul’s pieces bring high prices now too.”

As I sipped my champagne and listened to Phill, I thought of what he had told us earlier about seeing Wharton Esherick’s work for the first time when Phill was just 16, and how that inspiration changed his life – and how it seamlessly mirrored Paul Evans’ experience of seeing Phill’s work that fateful day he headed back to Sturbridge Village.

“In 1958,” Phill continued, “it was thanks to the work of Mrs. Ailleen Vanderbilt Webb that I met Wharton Esherick at the Museum of Contemporary Craft where we both were exhibiting – and so many others. She was my angel. We used to call her ‘Mrs. Arts and Crafts’ because she almost single-handedly championed the cause for struggling artisans and crafts people after the war, providing the capital for the exhibitions and the venues. I have to hand it to her.”

As do we all. The war had interrupted a lot of lives and some had returned home without a college education. Mrs. Vanderbilt Webb took it upon herself to found The American Crafts Council and America House, which was a private residence she had purchased and donated for exhibition space for all types of artists and craftsmen working with textiles, ceramics, and furniture. Quite generously, she even went to far as to give classes to help the financially struggling artists learn how to promote and market themselves.

“We all exhibited at America House,” Phill went on, “in 1961. Now that was a great show – everyone was there! It was like winning the Academy Awards and it put me on the map! Esherick was there too, though he was getting older and unable to do all the work. He started to refer some of his clients to me and that made me very happy because he believed in my work – he’s my real idol.

“Look at the picture on the cover of this catalogue, everyone. That’s Wharton Esherick’s music stand on the front. He designed that for one of his big clients at The Curtis Institute of Music. Now look at the back cover – it’s my hanging cabinet that I made with Paul Evans. It makes me so proud, yet so humble to be sharing the cover with Esherick.”

Looking back to that very special afternoon with Phill, I felt proud, and deeply humbled to, to be counted amongst his friends.

The following spring, Phill braved the elements on a rainy, stormy night to celebrate a friend’s birthday on the evening of March 7, 2008. Coming home very late, he said good night to his friends and proceeded to climb the silo’s soaked and slippery spiraling metal staircase that he had built with his own hands. He made it halfway up before he lost his footing and fell to the ground, only to be found the next morning still lying on the ground by a neighbor friend.

Phill died in hospital the next day surrounded by his friends. A wonderful human being that touched so many lives with love and joy. He is remembered dearly by all of us.