Pulled rugs are made from strips of rag or wool dyed to suit the maker, but these strips are pulled through coarse canvas on which a design has been traced, giving the modern artist great leeway. Instead of baskets of flowers which were so popular in the old rugs of this class, conventional and modern symbolic designs have been employed as well as modern colorings, and a high degree of professional finish can be attained in the home-made article. Some charming chair seats in delightful grays, roses, blacks, and yellows have been made by this process, and when attached to stiff little black chairs give a strongly individual touch to an interior.

Of the processes borrowed from other countries, batik making is one of the most effective. It has been used since earliest times in Java where the beauty of the textiles was glowingly reported by Dutch traders. Some time ago the Dutch government undertook a careful study of the process of batik making in order to introduce it into Europe, but the work requires a peculiar kind of skill which has never been successfully developed in Holland.

Before emersing the silk in the dye pot, patterns are carefully drawn in molten beeswax applied from a little copper kettle with a fine spout. If several colors are required, it is redipped again and again, those portions of the design not intended to take the new color being painted out each time in wax. The repeated dippings give the fabric an unusual quality of tone and texture, and the characteristic crackle produced by the crackling of the wax, is particularly adapted to break the monotony of large expanses of background.

The art of batik making was brought to this country in a highly developed state by Mr. Pieter Meyer, who spent his boyhood in Java, and he used it, in conjuction with a fellow artist, Bertram Hartmann, to produce large and striking decorative effects.

One very large and unusual batik, representing the Japanese goddess Kwannon gazing out across a melting infinity of gold and blue, has furnished the inspiration for the decorative treatment of an entire residence.

In the modern embroidery of Mr. and Mrs. Ralph Johannot of Los Angeles and that of the California needlewomen who have come under their influence, one is impressed anew with the possibilities of this venerable craft as a means of fresh and charming artistic expression. A new range of colors is established and a new breadth of composition. The mingling of turquoise and yellow, rose and violet, on the buff ground of a cushion, or hanging, in well defined and decorative stitchery lends a crisp, modern note to a room, which the faded French and Italian work is powerless to accomplish.

A fresh impetus has been brought into the old art of tapestry weaving also. In Mr. Lorenz Kleiser's adaptations of old designs for modern use there is a high degree of technical and artistic excellence and these, too, have a far greater decorative value for the modern home than the often disintegrating and moth-eaten originals which are so coveted. Mrs. Vanderhof, an American woman, has accomplished noteworthy feats on the tapestry loom, and in collaboration with one of our best decorative artists, Mr. Maxfield

Parrish, is planning to work out some entirely original and interesting developments.

Both wood block printing and stenciling are old Japanese processes, as is, also, the free hand painting of silk which has had an interesting revival.

Our present achievements in these arts have been dimmed somewhat through confusion with various crude and uncertain first attempts, but under the guidance of Mr. Arthur Dow of Teachers College, New York, a high degree of artistic and technical excellence has been developed. Appreciation of the merits of linens, light silks and cotton fabrics for hangings and upholstery is growing rapidly.

Some interesting attempts have been made to supply the mechanical parts of block printing and stenciling by machinery, leaving the colors and details to be filled in by the hand of the artist. This does away with a great deal of the hardness and monotony of the regulation printed goods and brings them within the reach of the pocket books of a greater number of people.

No textile renaissance, however, which is dependent for its existence upon whole or even partial handwork can ever be far-reaching in its results. No matter how stimulating the work of individual craftsmen may be, it is in the hands of the manufacturer that the ultimate power lies. While some of the American manufacturers have been far-sighted and broad-spirited enough to express modern influences, they are greatly in the minority. The great body of our manufacturers of decorative textiles seem still laboring in the Dark Ages, continuing to copy fifteenth- and sixteenth-century designs which are a far cry to the modern spirit.

It is high time that the American manufacturer should awake to the realization that the demand of to-day for a high standard in decorative textiles, necessitates their conception by artists and not by draughtsmen.

In the delightful silks and cotton fabrics designed and woven by the pupils of the Rhode Island School of Design, one welcomes a spirit of simplicity and frankness which is a relief from the ornateness of the old French and Italian influences. The life and character which they have brought into the work ought to be sufficient to establish the confidence of manufacturers in our native ability.

In Ceramics American activity is unrivaled. There are hundreds of individual potters throughout the country, reviving every type of pottery and glaze known in the history of the craft, with an art and skill which has not failed to attract attention.

"Porcelains and potteries are being turned out today in America that rank or out-rank the finest of the old Sevres and Saxon," says one European critic.

A response to the subtle qualities of pure form and texture, it is generally conceded, involves a higher order of esthetic appreciation than that of pictorial art. The making of pottery also necessitates not only a high degree of artistic ability, but a considerable amount of technical knowledge. To express the conception of his genius, the potter must be at once modeler, sculptor, painter and chemist. He must also possess invention and intuition so as to avoid the pitfalls scattered along his path, hazards which he meets at every turn in the preparation of his clays, in the working of them, and above all in their firing.