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Description
Hobbyist rug maker Robert Cawrse Cleverdon created and designed this wool stair runner in 1950. His family helped by cutting the woolen strips and clipping the ends, and his wife braided the edges. The stair runner contains pictorial panels illustrating various aspects of the life of Cleverdon and his family. One scene depicts the church where Cleverdon and his wife were married on Halloween in 1943; another depicts the family’s first home in Baltimore, Maryland. Other panels are dedicated to his children, with details representing where they were born and their favorite things. His daughter’s panel contains the Washington Monument and a cherry tree since she was born in Washington, D.C. The panel for his son, born in Boston, Massachusetts, contains the weathervane from the Massachusetts State House and a toy ship he loved as a child. This very personal object invites the viewer to think about what each panel may represent for the creator, and what a similar stair runner for one’s own life might look like. It illustrates how household decorations were made not just to beautify one’s space, but to create meaning. This stair runner was originally donated to the American Textile History Museum by the creator’s daughter, Suzanne Cleverdon, and was part large group transferred to Winterthur when the American Textile History Museum closed in 2017. Winterthur also received two other rugs made by Cleverdon: see objects 2017.0019.101.001 and .002.