Monday Answer.
The woman was Esther Stevens Brazer who earlier was Esther Stevens Fraser of Cambridge, Boston, Massachusetts. She uncovered colonial stencils on the walls and floor of her home in Cambridge (the Hicks House). Having studied decorating at Columbia University she knew the history of stencil decoration for walls and floors and recognized that the stencil designs were a portion of lost art of early America. Until her death in 1945, Esther Stevens Brazer was an avid researcher, chronicler and teacher of what otherwise might have been "forgotten arts". She recorded many decorative designs of the 18th and 19th century and their methods of reproduction. "The Brazer Guild" founded in her memory by students of her work, is known today as the Historical Society of Early American Decoration.
Floors are but one of the disciplines of which she left an invaluable record. Her collection, of stencils, wood blocks, designs, and their locations is now at the American Museum of Folk Art.
Over time she wrote �Early American Decoration� which details the various stencils available for floors, walls, as well as the designs used in practically every �colonial� home on painted furniture, Theorem paintings, clock faces, tin ware, and other paraphernalia. Note these are not the giant brush stroke pieces that pass as most of the stencils today. These are cut finely with intricate designs, shading, with different but registered patterns for each color used.
Brazer foretold that "Colonial interior decoration will come into its own as a delightful background for daily living."
FLOOR STENCILING
Floors predated walls as the first surface in a house to be decorated. The practice is thought to have been widespread but subsequently lost through wear, repainting and fire. In the earliest years they were hand painted.
Over the span of 100 years, this fashion, which began in only the most affluent of seaport mansions and inns, spread into surrounding rural homes.
Colonists suffering their daily hardships remembered fondly the beauty and comforts of their European homelands and were well aware of fashions abroad. A 1739 booklet published in England exhibited geometric and floral floor patterns popular there at that time. Enterprising young artisans were prepared to embellish many grand homes in the New World by this means. They also grained and sponged, painted over mantels, fireboards, tavern signs and walls.
Stenciling of floors was a way to simulate woven carpet, floor cloths and parquet floors without that expense. The whole was protected with varnish which, over time, mellowed to a rich yellow/brown causing the black, red, green and white paints to appear as the finest inlay of variegated woods set in background colors of yellow ochre, grey, "Indian red", and green. We can create this look today by antiquing. The combination most often used, and no doubt most economical, was black on pumpkin pine, either natural or painted yellow ochre. During the Clipper Ship era, circa 1810-1870, the canvases from ripped sails were stenciled and used on floors for ornamentation, warmth and cleanliness.
Today in addition to traditional wood floors and canvas, stencils are being used on plywood, tiles, low loop industrial carpet, sisal, concrete and vinyl floor coverings.