Floyd Elias Brewer (1899-1984) Margreth Victoria Brewer (1899-1994)

Floyd Elias Brewer (1899-1984)

Margreth Victoria Brewer (1899-1994)

“Art is like an octopus, It has many arms reaching in all directions, and every arm is important and necessary for the cultural development of any community.”

That statement started an article entitled “Fine Art and Architecture” written by Floyd and Margreth Brewer in 1972.

But who were they?  If you lived in Gig Harbor in 1960 you probably were aware of them.  Or if you were an elementary school or middle school student, although your memory may be foggy you definitely knew them.  But for those of us who didn’t live here then, or were in school here either, let’s get to know them now.

Floyd was born in Coin, Iowa to Elias “Life” Brewer and Goldie L. Showers Brewer.  His father died in 1902 when he was 3, and he and his mother moved to Lincoln, Iowa to live with her brother.  At age 15, he moved to Northboro where he lived alone according to the Iowa State Census 1915.  His mother also lived in Northboro and worked as a clerk.  Three years later, in August 1918 he enlisted for WWI in the US Army as a Corporal and served until May 1919. 

For the next ten years he sold magazines, worked in groceries but always playing around with art.  He decided to become serious about art in 1930 and moved to Minneapolis where he attended the Minneapolis School Art, St. Paul School Art, where he studied with Cameron Booth (1892-1980).  He later traveled to Europe and studied with Hans Hoffmann (1880-1966), Fernand Leger (1881-1955) and Wassily Kandinsky (1866-1944), and also to Mexico studying with Diego Rivera (1886-1957).

iPhone picture of one of Floyd's painting recognizing the name cultures in the USA

Despite a long, active career as a painter, he also became interested in tapestry.  He was able to see many possibilities of design and color reproduced in a contemporary vein through tapestry.  

He and Margreth met while living in Minneapolis.  They had both attended an art show, and Margreth at first thought Floyd was a guard at the show.  Margreth was not at that time involved in the art world, but instead was a serious musician, specializing on the piano.  They continued to live in Minneapolis throughout the ‘50s until moving to Gig Harbor, Washington.

At the suggestion of Byron Knapp while the couple were visiting in Seattle they came to see Gig Harbor.  Like some many people they fell in love with the area.  They purchased property on the south side of Pioneer Street (7512 Pioneer Street) where they built their house designed by Floyd.  You would recognize the house easily when driving west towards SR16.  It is a two story, very rectangular structure set back from the street with a second story studio balcony extending over a first floor porch.  On the lower portion of the balcony is a very large peace symbol which is wired so that, should the homeowner wish, it can be turned on.

An article in The Peninsula Gateway written I believe in 1983 gives us an idea of their life in Gig Harbor.  This article was written before his death in July 1984.  It addressed the Children’s Art Exhibit held annually in their home from 1966 until 1974 when his health started to fail.  In fact, this entire blog is the result of one of those students who participated in one of the annual exhibits, and suggested a blog.  This former student recalled “He reminded me of a beatnik, with a goatee and a beret.”  Sounds like a perfect description of a 1960s artist, don’t you think?

The children’s art work was selected at five elementary schools by about 50 teachers hung by two Peninsula High School students and in 1975 one Goodman student in Brewer’s studio and open for viewing May, June and July during those years.  Harold Best, a Peninsula School District superintendent wrote a letter of appreciation citing the Brewers active part in fostering creative art and art appreciation among the young people in the community.

Clover Park Vocational Technical Institute’s educational television station came to visit the studio, known as Floymar Studio, and filmed Floyd discussing his paintings and tapestries.  The television station used the resulting film in teaching art throughout the state to some 25,000 students in 200 elementary schools.  (Floymar is made up from both Floyd and Margreth’s names because they were in all respects, a team.)

Floyd and Margreth also wrote an illustrated book “Art is for You”; I only found one copy in my search and it is an “in library” use only at Tacoma Public Library Main Branch, Northwest Room.  I would have loved to be able to share it with you.

iPhone picture of photocopied Picture of book

But he also wrote a column every two weeks or so in the Tacoma News Tribune Sunday papers for more than five years.  Before coming to Gig Harbor when he was still living in St. Paul he also wrot occasional articles for publications there.  One such article was his “Sketches from Mexico” in the Globe Magazine.

Many, though not all, of his tapestries were liturgical: some for a church in Minneapolis, Augustana Lutheran Church in Denver, Colorado and closer to home, Peninsula Lutheran Church in Gig Harbor.  In 1962 some were shown during liturgical week art exhibit at the Century 21 World’s Fair in Seattle, 1962.  Another, “All People Asking God for Peace” hung in Gig Harbor City Hall.  Brewer’s “Seamount” tapestry hung in Dr. Bill and Gretchen Wilbert’s Gig Harbor Vision Center on Uddenberg Lane.  

iPhone picture of Seamount (believe that is Margreth Brewer)

In the collection of materials on the Brewers at the Tacoma Public Library Northwest Room there is a very moving letter from a woman in Ethiopia.  She was working with with local weavers making hand loomed fabric and ornamental borders.  The women did not have looms but instead set up a few poles to hold the 2-harness rigging and bamboo reed and the weaving falls into their lap.  As a result they are restricted to doing only 10-12 inches at a time to avoid tightness in the weave itself.  Her husband, a builder, was supervising the construction of a Youth Hostel for the Lutheran World Federation.  It is only natural that she was asking the Brewers for help in obtaining more harnesses for the weavers, as well perhaps of markets for their finished fabrics.

Brewer has been referred to as a cosmic artist.  As he himself stated “I don’t believe you should just go out and copy something—like the liberal arts colleges teach you.”  His philosophy is that the artist’s work must be a part of the soul. This philosophy is evident in his study of Jeremiah; a piece of dark brown driftwood approximately 65 inches long, 8 inches wide and 3 inches thick.  The piece of driftwood was found one rainy day when the Brewers were driving south from Long Beach along the Washington coast to Canby Beach where the Columbia River empties into the Pacific Ocean.  They stopped the car and were walking along the shore looking for driftwood or rocks.  That’s when Floyd spotted this particular piece.  Severely weather beaten but having the characteristics of the human body.  “Immediately it reminded me of Jeremiah, the Old Testament prophet, and how it could be used in a collage-painting.”

The project took him a year to complete and the end result is a work about 70 inches high and 24 inches wide with the driftwood figure a little to the left and above center — putting an important object exactly in the center makes the design to static.

Lest you are thinking Floyd was just an average artist perhaps I should include a few of the museums where his work has been exhibited:  Mexico City; New York; Chicago; Kansas City, MO; Topeka, KS; Minneapolis; St. Paul, MN; Davenport, IA; and elsewhere.  He is listed in the Who’s Who of American Art and in Iowa Artists of the First Hundred Years.  

Notes:

• Tacoma Public Library Northwest Room
• The Peninsula Gateway
• Tacoma News Tribune
• ancestry.com
• Harbor History Museum

© 2012 Harbor History Museum. All rights reserved.