Marquis Who’s Who, the world’s premier publisher of biographical profiles, is proud to present Mary Hill “Polly” Forcier with the Albert Nelson Marquis Lifetime Achievement Award. An accomplished listee, Ms. Forcier celebrates many years’ experience in her professional network, and has been noted for achievements, leadership qualities, and the credentials and successes she has accrued in her field. As in all Marquis Who’s Who biographical volumes, individuals profiled are selected on the basis of current reference value. Factors such as position, noteworthy accomplishments, visibility, and prominence in a field are all taken into account during the selection process.
MB Historic Décor is a business that developed by chance after Dr. and Mrs. Forcier purchased a house that was built in 1790. Interested in decorating her new space with wallpaper, she realized that it was just too expensive. She asked a researcher from Vermont, who also belonged to the Pioneer Chapter of the HSEAD*, if she could borrow a few wall stencils and began stenciling the hallways of her home instead. Ms. Forcier also began traveling throughout the northeast from the 1980s onward, documenting and recording historic stencils, collecting them, and decorating homes.
Pioneering the industry, Ms. Forcier formed in 1994, the niche business MB Historic Décor, to provide for others, historically accurate stencils along with paints and brushes needed for stenciling walls, ceilings, and floors. Customers to this site can choose from 700+ stencils that date from 1740 into the 1900s, and were originally made and used by the artisans of those years. An additional goal has been to encourage individuals to start their own stenciling businesses using this collection. Ms. Forcier’s daughter, Vivian Bisbee, is the company’s current owner. She is happy to assist with guidance and supplies.
Polly was inspired early on by her mother, Mary Bradford, who painted and stenciled in the 1940s and saved for her daughter all of her painting supplies as well as a book by author Esther Stevens Brazer, entitled Early American Decoration. These became instrumental in Polly’s creative career. She remembered her mother with gratitude years later when she named her business, “MB Historic Décor”.
Prior to the start of the COVID-19 pandemic, Ms. Forcier was an active volunteer at her church, served as a Guardian ad Litem for a number of years, and as mentor to children. She has also completed stenciling pro bono for her local post office and friends, and murals in the style of the itinerant painter, Rufus Porter. These in the oldest house in Norwich, VT, for TV personality, Bob Vila, and in her own homes.
Ms. Forcier studied Early American Decoration under Lillian Lehto at the League of New Hampshire Craftsmen. By 1983, Ms. Forcier began teaching floor cloth stenciling at “The League”, at Lebanon College, at the Fletcher Farm School for the Arts and Crafts in Ludlow, Vermont, and in her own studio.
