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MCDEVITT AND TANCER ARTISTRY “REPURPOSES” ANTIQUES
By Gladys Blews Wilson
Jun 29, 2007, 12:32

Jo McDevitt

I’m a person who will paint on anything that doesn’t move,” says Jo McDevitt from her East Palestine, Ohio, studio, “The Paintin’ Parlor,”

She and her friend Mary Tancer spend hours painting chairs, tables window sash; glassware and stars; wagon spokes, lathe-turned birdhouses and angels, angels, angels. They’re building an inventory for the 2007 Shaker Woods Festival

On a rainy day in May, Jo is sorting and stacking pieces of star-shaped wood embellished with open work. She will paint these before fitting three together to make multi-sided stars. These are only one of the many new designs the two women will exhibit at Shaker Woods this summer.

“We paint both new and old things,” she continues. “I have a passion for repurposing antiques. You may not have heard that word before. It describes taking something that no one else wants and giving it a new lease on life.”

An original craft by Jo McDevitt.

She claims that each old piece tells her what it will become. One look at a row of chairs turns a visitor into a believer. Each chair is different. She had prepared some wooden chairs for their new life by hand painting sprays of appropriately elegant She replaces broken cane seats if the chair is solidly constructed. She fits other chairs with bowls instead of new seats. She fills these with silk vines and they become unique flower stands.

Jo is also stockpiling hand painted antique maple sugar buckets. Her painted designs include sprays of roses and other flowers that are formal and romantic as well as red and white striped buckets with blue star borders. These resemble a furled flag.

“Seasonal designs on buckets are popular, too – a snow scene or a humorous Santa for winter; stylized pumpkins for fall and hydrangeas that speak to me of summer. My all season buckets filled with pepper berries are my favorites.”

A pepper berry is a cluster of dried pink blossom-like berries thickly clustered among delicate twigs. She uses the berries in many ways.make A spray or two turns an old window frame into a primitive treasure and with others she makes a sturdy yet delicate-looking wreath. On the formal rather than primitive side, Jo paints designs on glassware that are lush and exotic

Jo’s friend Mary Tancer has been sharing a booth at Shaker Woods with Jo since the Apple Butter Festival launched the festival in the woods 25-years ago.

Mary Tancer

“I knew Mary from school days in East Palestine although I was a little older than she is” says Jo. “She attended my painting classes shortly after I opened “The Paintin’ Parlor.” Mary paints delicate flowers and birds on wood, lathe-turned birdhouses that are best mounted inside homes on an end table or sideboard. With a similar eye for detail, she paints historic figures on shoehorns with marble sized heads. She also turns wheel spokes and rolling pins into elongated Santa wall hangers.

“I’m especially partial to Mary’s angels,” Jo says. “She makes them in many sizes and from various materials and those who know her work recognize here hand painted designs on angel gowns. They’re very collectible.”

When Jo looks back over 35-years of award-winning accomplishments, she remembers the year she brought about the revival of feed sack art as one of her crowning artistic achievements.

“The texture of the sacks is similar to coarse linen and it seemed a shame to waste them. Pioneer women used them to make dresses among other utilitarian uses they found for them,” Jo says.

At first, she simply enhanced the original design but as the sacks became scarcer, she began to order new ones and create her own designs. One of her original designs featured a covered bridge within a heart with a label reading “Heart of American Feed.” She silk screened this basic design so that it looked like an old sack. Then, she brush painted riverbanks and skylines to surround it. She taught classes in feed sack painting and wrote several books that described the art form. These included patterns. Many people bought the painted sacks to frame and before long, a retail company asked her if she would license the design to them. She received royalties on them for many years.

Paper Maché Bag by Mary Tancer.

Through her membership in the National Association of Tole and Decorative Painters, she was honored to decorate hand painted ornaments for the Smithsonian Christmas tree that became part of their permanent collection. In the 1970s her skill in a wide variety of art forms won her consulting contracts with companies like Lee Wards and Grumbacher Paints. She taught classes and helped organize factories where hand painted ware was completed.

“The year of Sam and Sue Ferguson’s first Apple Butter Festival, Mary and I were looking for a local craft show where we could sell things we’d painted.”

Jo and Mary were happy to be part of a new festival and while they were packing up their leftovers at the end of the day, she remembers looking across a cornfield to a stand of trees on the horizon.

“I asked Sam if he owned the woods because I realized a craft festival in those woods would offer something beyond what anyone else had ever done before. I could tell he thought I was a bit off my rocker, but it was like an epiphany with me. I saw a vision of what the woods would look like.”

She convinced the Fergusons to give her idea a chance and volunteered to help them through the first year. Jo’s husband, George, joined them and Mary acted as their secretary.

“It has been my greatest joy to see the Shaker Woods Festival grow and expand until the ripples extend far beyond what any of us could have believed possible,” Jo says.

Jo and Mary price their varied collection of painted glass and wood from $1 to $300. They also enjoy sprinkling “freebies” among their sale items.

“It’s fun to see visitors approach the cashier at our booth to ask if their ‘find’ is really free. If someone hasn’t found a freebie, I like to tuck something extra into their bag.”

Find them in Booth 149.

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