Yankee Copper Knocker’s Daughter To Offer Program

Nancy Lee Schulz has been a Newtown resident since 1969. She has been a student of an art form her family has been working for three generations, and she will share her work and offer demonstrations of copper knocking during a special program at The Matthew Curtiss House on Sunday, September 28. Mrs Schulz will be at the Curtiss House from 10 am to 4 pm.

Back in 1926 Nancy’s grandfather, Andrew Tucker, came to the United States from Hungary with his brothers. Andy and his three brothers worked in the Tucker Studio. The Tuckers were metal workers: blacksmiths, welders, light makers, railing makers and copper knockers.

Andy had three sons, including Nancy’s father. They worked in the Andrew Tucker and Sons Studio in Black Rock, around the corner from the house where the family lived. (There is a restaurant there now, The Ash Creek Saloon.)

When the installation of I-95 forced the demolition of the first studio, the family built a new studio on Kings Highway Cutoff, again just around the corner from where the family lived on Ash Creek. Andy Tucker designed the new studio based on his love of California architecture. The family joked that the new studio actually looked like an old-fashioned Howard Johnson’s.

Nancy’s grandmother made ceramics in a corner of the studio. There was also a forge and a foundry in the red roofed stucco building.

When his brothers drifted away into their own lives, Ike Tucker kept on in the business as The Yankee Copper Knocker. Mr Tucker brought to the business his fine art training from Yale Art School. The work he did reflected his great sense of design.

Mr Tucker also had a sense of history. He researched colonial metal work and did wrought iron work, made post lamps, as well as outdoor and indoor lighting fixtures in traditional colonial style. He also did work for Sturbridge Village.

Nancy (Turner) Schulz spent many days at her father’s studio when she was growing up, learning the trade her father and his father had become masters in.

In 1990 Mrs Schulz decided to continue her family’s business with the help of her father, Ike Tucker. She had found a copper grasshopper in the barn and asked if her father would teach her how to create copper pieces as he had done. That collaboration lasted nine years. During that time Ike taught his daughter copper knocking, woodcarving, whittling, and how to sculpt using plastalene, a non drying clay.

Mrs Schulz – who has adopted the moniker The Yankee Copper Knocker’s Daughter – carved wooden molds for some of her own copper designs. For others she made models in plastalene. From the model she created a plaster mold, which she then took to a foundry to have cast into a metal mold. Mrs Schulz took her show on the road and did craft fairs for five years.

In addition to copper knocking and woodcarving, Mrs Schulz also does beadwork. She makes small bead knit purses like the ones she had from her grandmother and bead ribbons she learned to make from a Mohawk Indian, Dave Richmond. She has other bead designs as well.

Mrs Schulz is a life coach. She has her doctorate in psychology, and says her core desire is to help people find their purpose and joy in life.

When she visits The Matthew Curtiss House later this month, The Yankee Copper Knocker’s Daughter will be demonstrating the skill and art of copper knocking. Her appearance will be part of an open house at the Curtiss House and also part of a brand-new historical society offering, The Newtown Fall Antiques Show & Sale (see related story).

In addition to showing her copper pieces, demonstration their creation and answering questions about her work, Mrs Schulz will be offering pieces for purchase. Admission to the Curtiss House and the demonstration-program is free.