Four times a year, fashion designer Donna Karan dispatches her models down the runway wearing jewelry designed by Robert Lee Morris.
The belts and bracelets they wear-indeed many belts and bracelets that Jodie Foster, Cher, Sonia Braga, Madonna and Axl Rose wear-are largely inspired by the hinges and handles and sinewy vases in Morris` Manhattan home. For 12 years the designer has been an avid collector of American Arts and Crafts furniture, or Mission oak.
”It`s a 99 percent Mission house, with the exception of the dog house and the TV set,” said Morris, who shares a bright 1,600-square-foot SoHo loft with Peewee, a cockateel; Kitty, an Abyssinian; Chet, a Boston terrier; and Pinkie, a boxer.
The dogs usually ignore the doghouse. They favor snuggling up on old Beacon blankets, which are draped over the sofa.
”Everything else revolves around it,” said Morris. ”It`s almost 90 years old and like brand new. The joints are as solid as when they were first built.”
Morris fell hard for the Arts and Crafts style about 12 years ago when he acquired a sideboard, dining table and six chairs by Gustav Stickley, which date from about 1905.
Identity found
”It began to change me as soon as I got into my house,” he said.
”Before that, I had no identity with my living quarters and was always at odds with the style of the things in my house. It was as if someone had given me the answer I was looking for.”
Now there is quantity as well as the quality. Morris` bed is by Stickley. So are the two folding screens that separate the bedroom from the living rooms. One is L & J G Stickley; the other, which has a cut-out nailhead pattern, is, he said, ”very early and very rare Gustav.”
Cheek-by-jowl on one side of the apartment are Arts and Crafts bookcases, armoires, small desks, Morris chairs, stools, a magazine rack, an umbrella stand, a number of coat racks, a nine-drawer tall chest by Harvey Ellis for Gustav Stickley and its mate, a four-drawer chest with a tilting mirror.
”And under it all is an element of coziness, of the good things in life, the cottage, the warmth of the family unit, home,” Morris said.
From its solid sculptural shapes to its hand-hammered copper and iron hardware, the Stickley furniture has proved to be as inspirational as it is functional.
”I`m a metalsmith, not a jeweler,” said the 44-year-old designer. ”I don`t set stones, and I don`t make jewelry-jewelry.”
12 collections a year
Morris puts together 12 collections a year, approximately one every four weeks: four for Donna Karan, four for under the Robert Lee Morris label and four for Japanese licensees.
He views himself as coming from the tradition of the weaponmaker, the toolmaker and the blacksmith.
”From that mechanical ability to make things comes my interest in challenging myself to make as many different things as I can,” he said.
Except for some die-hard hanging plants, which seem to hark back to hippie days, Morris` sophisticated mix of artifacts includes Navajo rugs and Beacon blankets, his newest obsession.
Antique baskets, teapots and painted screens reflect his interest in Japanese crafts. Phoenician spearheads from 2,500 B.C. and Teco ceramics, which date from 1905 to 1910, have also inspired the designer`s gold-plated brass and sterling silver pieces.
Crosses, daggers, peace symbols, keys and padlocks are all part of the designer`s vocabulary. ”They are symbols of faith, of hope, of mystery,” he said. ”I try to imbue the objects that I make with magic, a spirit that is permanently in the piece, just like it`s in this pottery and furniture.”
He`s a romantic. ”Arts and Crafts is one step away from medieval castles, the legends of King Arthur and the myths of chivalry and
knighthood,” he said.
Began life as nomad
Castles were about the only places Morris did not live in while growing up. His father, an Air Force pilot, and his mother, a fashion model, led a nomadic existence.
”Every five months, every year, we were always moving, moving, moving,” recalled Morris.
Morris was born in Nuremberg, Germany, in 1947, where his father was testifying in the war crimes trials. In the mid-1950s, in Japan, he became
”entrenched in Japanese country life.”
He took lessons in a variety of traditional crafts, including flower arranging, paper folding and dollmaking. His business instincts also emerged: He started selling American greeting cards. ”I had hundreds of dollars worth of orders,” he said.
While a student at Beloit College in Wisconsin, Morris thought he would become a filmmaker. Instead, after graduation, he and a dozen friends set up a commune on an abandoned farm in the cornfields of Wisconsin.
On the way, Morris taught himself to make jewelry and started selling his work at what he called ”pre-craft fairs.”
After a year, the farm burned, and Morris moved to Bellows Falls, Vt., where he opened a shop called File and Hammer. ”It was real craftsy silver and brass and gold,” he said.
As a sideline he sold biodegradable cleansing products and became the local sign painter.
And then he was discovered.
In the mid-1970s his pieces became the best sellers at Sculpture to Wear, a store in the Plaza Hotel in Manhattan. When it closed in 1977, Morris opened his own shop, Artwear, on the Upper East Side, then moved it to SoHo in 1978. Lately, Morris` furniture collecting has slowed down, somewhat.
”I really don`t have any room left,” he said with a sigh. ”But I`m about to do my new showroom in Mission. Now there`s an opportunity to buy more stuff.”
He smiled.
