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Roycroft Renaissance Keeps Arts & Crafts Traditions Alive

Posted by Julie Jaskol on Sep 12th 2025

Roycroft Renaissance Keeps Arts & Crafts Traditions Alive

Contemporary artists carry on ideals of East Aurora creative community

By Julie Jaskol | September 12, 2025

They started arriving in the tiny town of East Aurora, New York, around 1897. Artists, bohemians, and freethinkers flocked to Roycroft Shops to create objects of beauty and usefulness in the Arts & Crafts tradition, using their “heads, hands, and hearts.”

In 1900, the New York Times called Roycroft “the most delightful artistic atmosphere in America.” At its peak, 500 people lived and worked there, handcrafting fine books, furniture, and leather and copper objects.

Over it all presided Roycroft’s founder Elbert Hubbard, sporting long hair, a broad-brimmed hat, and a floppy bow tie, frequently astride a horse. He called himself Fra Hubbard, tending to his flock of devoted artisans.

An enthusiastic capitalist and salesman who had achieved his first success selling soap, Hubbard was an unlikely devotee of the Arts & Crafts movement, which was a reaction against the increasing industrialization of the late 19th century. But during a trip to England, he was deeply moved by a visit to William Morris’ Kelmscott Press, which handcrafted beautiful, illuminated books.

Hubbard returned to his East Aurora home inspired by Arts & Crafts design and hand-made objects that spoke of the artisan who shaped them rather than the soulless stamp of the machine. And he thought he could sell them.

He founded Roycroft Press in 1895 to create heirloom-quality books like William Morris did. Before long, it grew into a campus of workshops, with an inn for the many visitors who came to learn about the Arts & Crafts movement and to buy the goods made in the shops.

To mark his goods, Hubbard created a distinctive logo based on a medieval design, with an “R” symbolizing Royal Craft, or Roycroft. Instead of putting it discreetly on the bottom or back of objects, he had it emblazoned on the front, testament to his flair for marketing.

Initially, Roycroft Shops built furniture for the inn, but falling back on his mail-order soap-selling experience, Hubbard sold furniture, lighting, and other objects by catalog as well. Roycroft Shops notably supplied furnishings for the landmark Grove Park Inn in Asheville, North Carolina, to this day a landmark of Arts & Crafts design.

Hubbard’s creative community persevered for decades, even after Hubbard and his second wife, suffragist and socialist Alice Moore, perished in 1915 on the RMS Lusitania. After their deaths, Hubbard’s son led the community until 1938, when the declining popularity of the Arts & Crafts style, combined with the lingering effects of the Depression, forced him to declare bankruptcy.

Today the Roycroft campus is a National Historic Landmark, housing a museum, an inn (in its original location), and shops. Visitors come for lectures, events, and exhibitions about the Arts & Crafts movement.

A portrait of Roycroft campus founder Elbert Hubbard around 1905.
A group of women at work on the Roycroft campus around 1900.

A portrait of Elbert Hubbard made circa 1905, and a group of women at work on the Roycroft Campus in East Aurora, New York circa 1900.

And, perhaps most importantly, the Roycrofters-at-Large Association (RALA), founded in 1976 by a group including Hubbard’s granddaughter Nancy Hubbard, maintains the tradition of artisanship with members throughout North America accredited to use the distinctive Roycroft Renaissance mark (this time with a double “R”) on their handmade goods.

“This is what people dream about,” Florida-based illustrator Rebekah Lazaridis said. She was accepted as a RALA artisan in April 2025. “Not just being excellent in your craft but surrounded by like-minded people who deeply care about their work.”

There are currently about 80 Roycrofters-at-Large, working in a variety of media, including metalwork, woodwork, ceramics, glass, leather, printing, painting, photography, fabric, sculpture, and book arts. Prospective artisans must be sponsored by current members. Members begin as artisans, and then through annual juried review they may attain master artisan status after five years. Artisans earn the right to use the Roycroft Renaissance mark on their work.

“I’m very, very humbled,” Lazaridis said. “It means a lot to me because I feel like it’s a big badge of honor.”

As a prospective member seeking accreditation, Lazaridis was mentored by other artists through the rigorous jury process. “It’s pretty heavy-duty, but I had three Roycroft women supporting me,” she said. She met them through the annual Arts & Crafts Conference at the Grove Park Inn. “I wanted to become a Roycrofter, but I didn’t think I was ready,” she recalled. “They took me to lunch and said, ‘No, you’re ready.’”

RALA’s mentorship and rigor deeply appeals to master artisan Julie Leidel, who lives in Colorado. “What I love about Roycroft is it’s an art movement dedicated to growth and expansion within your artistic skill set,” she says. “I want each of my paintings to have more excellence, more artistry, and more connection. I really want to represent Roycroft well. I wear that designation with pride.”

Leidel has been creating art for more than 30 years and taking her work to Arts & Crafts and national art festivals. She has been a Roycrofter since 2016, and was elevated to master artisan in 2021. “I'm in love with my Roycroft family, how we interact with one another and our collective commitment to craft and excellence,” she says. “This movement is about incorporating head, heart, and hand into our craft and encouraging a masterful side to what we create. Iron sharpens iron, and that's the gift we bring to each other.”

“The jury is about giving feedback, accolades, and guidance to our community.” she says. “It’s really beneficial to know I have support and constructive criticism, and that we’ve all agreed to help each other grow.”

Detail of a quail illustration by Roycroft Renaissance artisan Rebekah Lazaridis.
Detail of the Roycroft Renaissance double R mark on Ron VanOstrand's copperwork.
Detail of Roycroft Renaissance master Julie Leidel's painting

Details from a quail illustration by Rebekah Lazaridis, the “double R” Roycroft Renaissance mark on Ron VanOstrand's copperwork and the texture and colors from Julie Leidel's painting “Stand Still in the Forest.”

For Ron VanOstrand, a master artisan in metal who is based in East Aurora and currently serves as vice president of RALA, the importance of the Roycroft Renaissance is not just the creative development of the individual artisan. “It’s really about promoting the ideals of the Roycroft movement, handcraft vs. machine-made,” he said.

In a way RALA recreates the Old-World crafts guilds. “They had an apprentice system of people doing these things all their lives, concentrating on one thing and mastering it,” VanOstrand said. “These days people are handicapped, almost, by phones and iPad drawings. Objects get soulless and lose their humanity.”

He believes an educated consumer understands the Roycroft Renaissance certifies that an object is handmade and worth the cost. “Collectors look for that mark,” VanOstrand said. “I think it’s highly valuable. It’s only put on work that is the highest quality, and it certifies that the maker is judged yearly or every five years to keep artisan or master artisan designation.”

There is one difference from the heyday of Roycroft Shops. “People don’t use the mark as a design element a lot of times, like Hubbard did,” he said. “I put the mark on the bottom.”

He also points out that the use of mark is media-specific. “I can’t be accredited in metal and use it in pottery, for instance,” VanOstrand said. “Several artisans have marks in many areas.”

Although Roycroft Renaissance artists must use traditional methods to handcraft their art, not all their work has to be in the Arts & Crafts style. And there has been one deliberate exception to the traditional method rule: the inclusion of a digital photographer.

“That took about five years of discussion,” VanOstrand said with a laugh. Ultimately RALA decided the photographer’s method required significant hand manipulation to achieve its final form. “He can only put the mark on the original, the mark can’t go on a print,” says VanOstrand. “You really have to look at the process they’re going through.”

For Leidel, the advent of AI-created images makes the Roycroft Renaissance more important than ever. “We’re at another tipping point,” she said. “This is our next Industrial Revolution. There could be a big resurgence in wanting art that’s really, truly, created by a person.”  

Rebekah Lazaridis agrees. “In the era of AI, being a Roycrofter is just as important as it was in the early 20th century,” she said. “Not that we’re refusing to be part of the future, but we’re taking a stance and saying ‘No, this is important.’ We’re still here, making things with our head, hands, and heart.”

Julie Jaskol lives in Los Angeles and writes about art and architecture. She is co-author of City of Angels: In and Around Los Angeles.