THE INSTITUTE OF TEXAN CULTURES
ORAL HISTORY PROGRAM
1985 TEXAS FOLKLIFE FESTIVAL
INTERVIEW WITH: Joseph and Margaret Rasnick
DATE: August 3, 1985
PLACE: Oral History Office, ITC
INTERVIEWER: Al Lowman
L: We're here to talk a little bit, get a little background
information, in stenciling. About your interest in
stenciling. How did you get this interest originally?
MR: We used to go to New York. My parents are from
New York. And we would go through houses; we'd tour as
we went. As a child I saw stenciling and I always
thought it was just terrific but I didn't really know
what it was_ A few years ago, several years ago, we
were going to r e model our house and my mother had just
come in from the hill country_ She had done some
stenciling on pillows_ And when I saw the pillows, I
said, "That's it. That's what. I've wanted in my house
for all these years."
And so we got every book we could find and my mother
taught us what she knew about stenciling and we started
stenciling_
RASNICK ,.,
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L: Is there a subs tantial body of literature on stenciling?
How to do it, and the like?
JR: There's more and more all the time You go to
local bookstores or the library, you'll find a number of
books published recently.
HR: When we first started, we could only find about four or
five.
JR: And perhaps a magazine article here or there. Up until
seven, eight, ten years ago, it was virtually unknown.
Especially in this part of the country. It's been going on
in the New England states for quite a while. They're
discovering old homes with the original 1700, 1800
stenciling. Trying to restore them; trying to copy; the
patterns, that sort of thing.
We see a lot of that now. A lot of the original
mozambique(?) stenciling you can find.
You can find it in almost any issue of Early American
Life.
HR: Oh yeah. Country Living .. _ It's had a come back.
L: What particular source did you rely on to get you
started in the right direction, when you were doing your
house?
HR: He was in camp at the time and I was going to surprise
him. I went to the library and checked out every book I could
find in. And a lot of them were 1940 books.
L: That late, huh?
JR: I think we have one book that was published in '37.
HR: I read up. There were so many conflicting ways of
RASNICK
MR: doing it. Some people said, "Never start in the
middle." Some people said , "Always start in the middle of
the wall." Then I took the things that. my Mom had told me
about being sure not to get too much paint on the brush.
The ac tual technique of applying the paint and cutting the
stencil, my mother showed me.
But then we kind of perfected it and developed our own
style and what we thought was the original way of doing it,
from books.
L: I had supposed that stenciling was a very popular art
form maybe in the last century; thought perhaps it had gone
into a decline and then it was a relatively recent revival.
But you are referring to books published in the 40's. It
must have been fairly strong all along .
MR: One particular book that I read, __ . it must have
been quite an old woman . . . s he had actually met Moses
Eaton's family and had talked to them. Most of the
stenciling in New England was done between 1800 and 1840.
There i s evidence of stenciling done as ear l y as 1778 in the
United States. But it really didn't become popular until the
1840's. And that's when people were more pros perous , started
having nicer houses and wall paper was real hard to come by.
JR: Only the very affluent could affort the hand- printed
wall paper . . _
MR: People started traveling from farm house to farm house
doing stenciling_ They were called itinerant stencilers.
That's what Moses Eaton was. He was probably the bes t-known
stenciler.
~:)
RASNICK
MR: They used paper stencils; heavy paper stencils, they
would use oil . _ _
JR: Oil or shellac.
MR: Sometimes painted. And they would cut their stencils
out of that. They would carry that and the pigment and the
brushes. They would get to the house and ask for skimmed
milk to mix their pigments with and then they would stencil
with that.
JR: Stencil with milk paint, which is extremely durable.
In fact, there are very few modern chemical strippers, paint
strippers, that will take the stuff off.
MR: I believe that you're right. I believe that after
1840's into the 1900's I don't believe stenciling was very
popular at all.
JR: At that time, people were trying to modernize; tas tes
were c hanging; Industrial Revolution was at full tilt_
MR: Wall paper was being made here and it was a lot more
inexpensive than _ _ _
JR: The old ways being shoved back in the background. Just
recently, probably in the las t 25, 30 years , it's really
been revived. People are trying to revive it as an art
form_
L: Can you think of any reason why there would be this
revival and interest in the last 25 y ear s? Has any
particular thing stimulate d it to your knowledge?
JR: I think trying to preserve a lot of the old ways_
There's a great interest in antiques; preserving old
furniture; restoring old houses . In fact, that's probably
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RASI'UCK
'••"•" J
JR: what brought most of the old stenciling to light_
People would go into old houses, built a couple of hundred
years ago, and start tearing the modern wall paper or the
s heet rock, whateve r was up there, off of the plaster walls
and they'd find the stenciling there_ It looked really neat _
MR: It was original_
JR: It was original to the period_
MR: If you like antiques, twenty years ago, you could pick
up antiques anywhere and everywhere_ It's just becoming
more popular_ Everybody wants antiques _ Stenciling is just
a part of nostalgia_
JR : There 's a move t o the country look, also_ Decorating
with the country look; the country look; getting back to
nature type of thing_ This stenciling is r eally something
that t he poorer people used to decorate their house_
MR: Same thing now!
L: You've just zeroed in on the point I was about to make_
We have just established he r e a few mi nutes ago that this
was a thing that was popularly , commonly, done by people who
were in reduced circumstances , t o use an old Victorian
expression_
R: Right_
L: Then as soon as they got a l ittl e bit of money in their
pockets , they came in, obviously, covered over this and
upgraded to s omething a little tonier_
R: Right_
L: So here are these descenda nts now going back __ _
RS: ___ and uncovering all this _
RASNICK
L: And uncovering all this. Was there any particular
ethnic group where this pursuit seemed to really flower? As
it were?
HR: England and France is where it __ _
JR: I think that's where most of it came from.
HR: In every culture, though_
JR: A lot of people tried to attribute stenciling to the
Germans and the Pennsylvania Dutch. You go up in to the
Pennsylvania Dutch region; up in the New England area, you
will see a lot of barns are painted with the big hex sign
and the symbols and the hearts, the squiggles and curlicues.
But most of that was free hand painting_ And still is free
hand painting_ You find very little evidence of actual
stenciling in those areas.
HR: Maybe now you see them. It's not Dutch __ _
JR : It's really English with the French influence .
HR: I'm sure they did s t enciling e verywhere. Japan_
Everybody stencils on a lot of clothing in Thailand and
Nigeria_
JR: Back in the 6th century , they've found evidence of
stenciling.
HR: In fact there was a king ___ Gerry Doyle gave us a
really nice book for Christma~and there was a king in
Italy, 6th century who stenci l ed his name . He had a gold
stenci l and he would stencil his name instead of writing it.
I thought that was really interesting_ Stenciling has been
around forever.
JR: They' ve f ound stenciling in Egyptian tombs_
t:.
RASNICK
L: Who did most of the stenciling in the early phases?
MR: Now that is one area that i s very difficult to find
anything written on_ The people we've talked to and just
the information we've gathered from the settlers who came
from the eas t and they brought that with them_ It was a
very inexpens ive way to brighten up a drab existence _ I
guess a drab home_ Same reason we do it today, I think_
L: The Anglo settlers from the old South moving in this
direc tion, brought it with them from the old South_
JR: Probably _ I'd say from around the Virginia area_
MR: We assume_ We have not read _
L: ___ which you have built in this room from an
historical standpoint?
MR: We're from Beaumont_ We 've looked in our libraries and
there was just nothing on Texas on stenciling_ We 've talked
t o Gerry Doyle and a l ot of older people_ I've heard
there's some old stenciling in Round Top [Faith Bybee ' s old
houses--EGM]_ Just from the older people we've talked to,
they just assume when settlers came from the east _ _ _
JR: It's hard to pin it down to any one ethnic group,
though, h e re in Texas _
L: I would say the first stenciling I ever heard of was
Round Top_ Most notably at Wineda le Inn_ A German named
Weiderhof did the stenciling in that area_ I had not heard
of it being used elsewhere in Texas_ That i s not to say it
wasn't _ Have you been to Winedale Inn and Round Top?
MR: No_ In fact, I was invited to go to an antique s how by
an antique dealer in Beaumont. I was n't able to go but that
?
RASNICK
MR: was the reason I was going just to see the stenciling_
From the people we~ve talked to~ trying to get some
information, that' s the only place that we've heard of that
has the real old stenciling_ It's really kind of hard. I
guess somebody should write a book. I don't know if it
would be a very big book.
L: Just for your information, interest, what have you,
there is a book tha t's going to be publis hed, I think by A
and M Press. I don't know if it will make the fall list or
not but it c ertainly will make the spring list _ _ - on
Victorian interiors in Texas. It's been written by Buie
Harwood who taught interior design at North Texas State and
I think, l ater, at UT. I have wo rked with her on some
advisory committees for the Texas Histrical Commmission.
She is enormously knowledgeable and is doing this book.
Knowing, it will be defended and will stand t he tes t of
time_ No need l ater to c ome along and c l ean up after h e r_
We may all learn something from the historical standpoin t
anyway_
MR: I hope so.
L: In general, do you want to descr ibe f or the tape here,
the s t eps involved in stenciling, which I think you've got
nailed up out there in your booth_ Te ll us a lit tle bit
about h ow you do it and t he pitfalls that you encounter as
you go th rough the process_
MR: First , you get a design_ You get that fr om anywhere;
you design your own.
JR: Might come out of a book; or off o f an old wall; wall
::::
RASNICK
JR: paper; or some fabric that you want to complement, or
whatever.
MR: We use acetate; mat acetate. And as we s aid, the
earliest people used paper stencils ___ Moses Eaton even
had some copper stencils. The older ones really used paper;
heavy paper stencils. They're not very durable and that's
why we use acetate.
You trace your design, put your stencil paper on glass
and cut with an exacto knife. The reason we used glass is
because it's a hard surface and it's easy to turn the
acetate on it. You usually hold your blade still and turn
the acetate and that's one of the pitfalls. When you try to
cut a c ircle, moving your hand, it's very difficult. If you
hold your blade in one spot and turn the stencil, it's very
easy to c ut c urves and c irc les.
See, you cut your s tencil, a separate stencil for each
col o r_ If you ha ve 3 colors, you cut 3 stenc ils. And it's
best to ha ve e ach piece of acetate the same s ize so they
jus t register_
If you're going to apply your stenc il to a wall , let's
say for example it' s going around a door. It' s really a
good idea, if you want the s t encil to be two inches away
from the door, you cut your acetate so that it lines up on
the door. In that way, it's even a ll t he way down; you
don't have to use yard sti cks and all that. It's a lot
eas ier to do.
When you're applying the paint, you dab your sten cil
brus h, which is a round, flat brus h in the paint and then
·:;
RASNICK
MR: you dab most all the paint off. That is the major, A-1
pitfall for beginners , too much paint in your brus h.
JR: Your brush should be almost dry.
MR: It's just a dry brush. Then you dab all the paint off
the brush; almost all the paint off the brush, until when
you touch it, you can hardly see paint on your fingers. And
then you do a dabbing motion on through the stenci l on to
the wall . In gives a real powdery effect .
Then you just continue with the stencil until the whole
design is done.
L: Why such a dry brush?
JR: Otherwise the thing will bleed under the stencil and
you won't get a nice crisp outline.
MR: In fact, some of the old stencils that were found in
Moses Eaton's tool kit; s ome of the stencils that were
found, were mitered; beveled, I mean, on the edge so that it
would give a real crisp, nice c l ean cut . If you put a lot
of paint on your brus h, it' s almost invariably going to
in fact . . . in the three years we've been here, I bet we've
heard three hundred people tell us , '' I tried that and it just
goes all under the s tenci l and I just made a wreck of my
wal l" and it.'s simple
L: Too much paint.
JR: An interesting thing about modern stenci ling; today's
idea of what a s tencil should look like. Most people want
the faded, worn , powdery l ook. But back in the days of the
gas lamps and very drab interiors , they wanted something to
brighten their room as much as possible so that the
l U
RASNICK
JR: patterns, the colors that they put on the walls , were
usually very bright_ And dense_
MR: It was the pigments that they could get_
JR: Greens and reds and yellow_
MR: Black, believe it or not_ Lots of black _
JR: Blacks_ Very seldom blue_
MR: Very large stencils , also.
JR: What we're seeing today in the old stencils, is that
they have worn; they have faded with time_ The light really
has done its job on them_ And that's what people like_ They
like that old patina; that old look_ Consequently the
newer, if you go into a new house that's been recently
stenc iled, the stencils will have a very powdery, airy look
to them, rather than the bright, garish stencils_
MR: There are really garish color combinations in the old
stenciled hous es; especially in New England_
L: That's not pa rticula rly surprising_ They're learning
more and more all the time about the Victorian wall papers;
discovering the wall pa pers of the Victorian age were
nowhere near as drab as people had been led to believe_
JR: Probably bits and pieces that had been covered and
pres erved, they're really bright_
L: There are one or two companies who are specializing 1n
making Victorian wal l pape r s to the old patterns and to
the old colors used_ They're really exotic_
MR: I can imagine_
L: The colors of the buildings themselves_ They were
restoring the Methodist church in my home town of San Marcos
.1. J.
RASNICK
L: here a couple of years ago. Proof posi tive was offered
that the building, originally a sanctuary, originally had
been painted yellow with a kind of a brick colored roof back
in 1893. But it had been white with a silver roof for so
long when the better evidence was presented that it really
should be mustard, sort of a mustard color, with a brick
colored roof, the color was so repellent to a majority of
the folks that they decided no way; they wanted white with a
silver roof_ The point is that the building is just too dam
big a s tructure to be white with a silver roof_ It looks
like somebody plopped a big wedding cake over there.
The old timers knew what they were doing when they had
two rather contrasting colors. The two colors contrasted
very pleasantly_ So the old Victorian houses weren't just
frame buildings with some paint s lapped on them. They were
innovative and I'm sure it would be equally true of the
interiors and with their stenciling_
JR : Reds and greens together.
MR: And the things we've read indicated that a lot of walls
were ochre, the mustard color. And then sometimes they were
rubbed, like antiqued with a grain. Which sounds terrible.
But apparently it was popular.
JR: I imagine they used whatever natural pigments were at
hand.
MR: What was that that they used?
JR: Certain types of minerals: for example, reds, t he rust
you get from iron oxides.
MR : There was some plant we were reading about one time
1 :~·
RASNICK
MR: that they got the ochre from; I believe it was the
ochre . I've always been int erest ed in dying fabrics,
pigments . I never did get into it.
L: How l ong have you been doing this now?
MR: About eigh t years.
JR : Seven or eight years.
L: In that length of time, have others taken up this hobby,
if tha t i s what is to be?
JR: People that we know?
L: Well, just generally.
JR: Sure. Lots.
L: Folks out t here in the fie ld now who are coming here .
JR : I was just talking t o some people who live in
Fredericksburg, Virginia (I was in Virginia l ast week), they
said t hat you see it everywhere. People are advertising 1n
the news paper that they 'll stenc il your home or they 're
selling floor c l oths o r something like that. Stenciling i s
becoming r eally big_
MR: J ust within the l ast five to ten years .
JR: Stenciling ___ if you go into a store to look at
their wa ll p aper , you're limi ted to what they have on hand.
But t he stenciling, you 're only limited by your imagination .
L: Do you a ll do this comme r cially?
MR: We have done several homes . In fact one of the houses
we 've done is Sonny Gilbert's old home i n Beaumont; i t' s on
Cal der .
JR: Built in 1905 , something like that.
MR: Or ' 02 . It's been restored by an a ntique deal e r there.
I. ,~;
RASNICK
MR: We stenciled her antique s tore_ Now we've stenciled a
bedroom and it's going to be in Texas Homes in the spring, I
believe_ The house is the Johnson house_
JR : I don't think the house was stenciled originally_
MR: It was not_ She has an old wedding trunk that's signed
and dated_ She sells Texas period pieces and she's quite
well known_ Sue Johnson_ She wanted us to take designs off
the trunk and decorate from that_
JR: The trunk was
MR: It was really an interesting job_ It was scarey but
fun and it really turned out pretty_ She has a cornice
boards and we did the cornice boards and down the windows to
match this black and green and red trunk that she had_ So
that was interesting_
JR: The trunk was dated 1830_ So it was f rom the same
period that a lot of stenciling
MR: The trunk was hand painted; I don't believe it was
stenciled . We drew the stencils; we just took the designs
off_
JR: We took tracings of the designs off the trunk and made
stencils from that.
MR: Just recently, we did a brand new, beautiful n ew home_
It was our first one that we've done that didn't have
old- looking, or old original Moses Eaton patterns_ And it
was fun_ It was like bows and tulips and stuff that we had
never done.
JR: Pure ly modern_
HR: More modern_ And that was interesting _
l/1.
RASNICK
L: What were you stenciling on? In all of these cases?
MR: In the Hoffer's house, the las t house we did, we
s tenc iled on just a regular textured wall. The painters
went in and did their thing and we went in and did our thing
right after them_
L: In other words, on stucco or plaster _ _ ?
JR: Right, plaster board.
MR: It was textured with a little dot. We've also
stenciled on stucco. It's hard to do heavy stucco, but it's
not imposs ible .
JR: It's an interesting texture.
MR: It's an interesting combination, the heavy stucco and
the stenciling _ We've also, like in the Johnson house, we
stenciled on the cornice boards _
L: (Offers iced tea)
JR: You can s tencil on, as I t ell the people at the booth,
you can stencil anything that will stand still long enough,
really_ You can stencil wood and you can stencil f abri c .
L: Of course , at the Winedale Inn, they stenci l ed on wood_
MR: As far as homes are concerned, we stencil on just
whatever surface is there.
L: Flom-s
JR: A l ot of the early settlers, home owners, again we re
not a ffluent e nough to afford the Persian rugs from Europe
and so to brighten up their homes , the wooden fl oor s we re
painted, very often with this mustard col ored background;
ochre background_ And the patterns we re stenc iled on the
floors. Usually pinwheels or stylized flowers , or something
1 r:
.,!.._.I
RASNICK
MR: like that. That kind of brightened things up.
And more often than that, floor cloths were done on canvas.
JR: Along the coast, we had a great number of sailing
ships. Canvas was often readily available. And so the
canvas was painted; the design was stenciled on the canvas
and then was, perhaps, shellacked.
MR: In fact, George Washington had one . We read somewhere
that George Washington had in his r ecords that he had
purchased a floor cloth for $14.50 or something and had it.
I don't know if it was when he was younger or _ I'm not
sure when but I thought that was interesting because you
think of floor cloth as being the poor man' s Oriental rug
but you don't think of George Washington as being a poor
man; you don't want him to be, anyway. We've done floors;
very interesting.
JR: We have floor cloths in our home_ And it's really kind
of neat because you can walk on them; if you spill something
on them, you just use commer c ial cleaner like 409, or
something like tha t. You just wipe up the spill and go
right on. They are coated with polyeurthene var nish.
MR: So we do our f l oors just like floor cloths.
L: I really don't know what a floor cloth is.
MR: Out back there, we have some in the booth .
JR: It's a piece of canvas that has several coats of
regular water-based paint; l atex paint.
background color , whatever pleases you.
L: You run it wa ll to wall ... ?
You choose your
And then .
16
RASNICK
MR: Not always_ Throw rugs, also.
JR : You can make it as large as you want. You are limited
by the size of canvas you can get. Most are , say three by
five or four by six . They're just area rugs in front of the
sink o r maybe a s mall one to put your pet ' s bowl on .
MR: I don' t think George had anything like that .
L: I've got to come and take a l ook at that tomorrow_
MR: They're really interesting_ We've done a lot of those.
No one wan ts to buy them fo r their floors. They wa nt to
hang them . They're really pretty hanging_
JR : No one wants to walk on them .
MR: They're very, very durable for wa lking on. That' s what
they originally ___ in fact , I've h eard that t hey were the
for e runner o f lino l eum_ They feel like linol eum_ They 're
as functional as linoleum_
JR: I doubt very serious l y that floor cloths found t heir
way down here t o Texas _
MR: I doubt it, t oo , s imply bec aus e _
L: Li noleum , oil cloth, table covers_
MR: Thes e are very much like oil c l oth _ The information
that we have i s that _ _ _ y ou r ead about them and you see
pictures, painti ngs of fl oor c loths , t he little lady sitting
and you can see the fl oor cloth in the background; in the
painting_ Of course, t here a re no photographs and there
aren't any left becaus e they were used up_ And a lot of
time s they would take rug s _
JR: - _ _ wh en t he nap was worn down .
MR: And they would paint it and s t e nci l it. And they would
J ...
RASNICK
MR: have a fl oor c l o th. They were real interesting. Floor
cloths I think, are one of the most interesting things we've
done.
END OF TAPE I, Side 1, about 27 minutes
END OF INTERVIEW
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