While looking through embroidered items for auction recently, I stumbled upon the work of Dorothy Strauser. This jolly piece was described as embroidered which to my eye it jolly well wasn't - and so, drawn in and intrigued, I decided I need to know more about its maker. In fact, in the auctioneer's notes even the name of the artist was incorrectly spelled and so I became duty bound to put the record straight for Dorothy - all the more so since she passed away in 2005 aged 96 and couldn't answer for herself.
You can see here that a mark of her works is her initials: DFS. The F is for her maiden name, not her middle given name, which commenced with C. Dorothy, fondly called Dot, lived most of her life in East Stroudsburg where she was known as a gifted watercolor artist and maker of hooked rugs. She was born in 1908 in Hazleton to Grover and Mary Ferry. She married Sterling Strauser in 1928, her high school sweetheart, and they both went on to attend Bloomsburg University.
Dorothy was a self-taught artist who made hooked rug pictures from textiles she collected and dyed herself. Her works like
World Peace above are much sought after. Besides being artists, Dorothy and Sterling were collectors and supporters of American folk art. In recognition of their efforts, authors Chuck and Jan Rosenak dedicated to the couple their exhaustive Encyclopedia of Twentieth-Century American Folk Art and Artists in 1991; the Folk Art Society of America awarded Dorothy and Sterling its Annual Award of Distinction in 1993; and Dorothy won COTA’s award for the visual arts in 2003. They have one daughter, Jill, born in 1933.
