Shaker Traditions: Contemporary Translations

Shaker Traditions: Contemporary Translations
W elcome
PROFESSIONAL ARTISTS
This exhibit is a collection of creative works by professionals, creative citizens and students who found inspiration
at Canterbury Shaker Village. These contemporary voices are paired with historic Shaker artifacts that represent
elements of the ongoing dialogue between the Shaker legacy and the human spirit.
We invite you to eavesdrop on the conversations in these two rooms and find your own inspiration among the
Canterbury Shakers. The following narrative begins to the left of the entrance and continues clockwise.
Funi Burdick, Executive Director / Exhibit Curator
Shawl • Stone Wall Shawl • Sarah Bohorquez, Hampstead, New Hampshire
Silk neckerchiefs • 19th century • Museum collection, 1984.2821.1 (cream), 1988.702.1 (pink)
Painting • Une Visite Vous Convaincra • Dominique Boutaud • Oil on canvas and collage
The topic of the painting is written in French on the piece of metal included in the paint
“UNE VISITE VOUS CONVAINCRA,” which means “ONE VISIT WILL CONVINCE YOU.”
It is what I think when I visit your village. It is a beautiful place full of authenticity where the
Dominique Boutaud, artist
history meets the present, a place that I keep in my dreams.
Painting • The Village Fence • Barbara McClintock
Painting • Painting of Meeting House • Cora Helena Sarle • Canterbury, New Hampshire
Gift of Miriam Hill 2014.1.1
Bathing oneself in the sights and sounds of the natural world
is a restorative tonic for the soul, the mind or in the case of Cora
Helena Sarle, the body. Paintings, writing, photographs or
other creative works that emerge are simply healing given
Funi Burdick, Curator
physical form.
Chair • Laura Swanson • Sculpture and stop-motion video • 2011 • Found child's chair, alpaca blend wool, charmeuse,
faux leather, nylon, lace, buttons, elastic, rubber, thread, glue • Runtime: 2m49s
My husband found this child’s school chair on the street in Providence, RI and brought it home
as a gift (as it was the perfect size for my body). I wanted to use it in an artwork, but I wanted
to avoid feelings of nostalgia, which I think depersonalizes it, removes its utilitarian function,
and objectifies it. Instead, I wanted to anthropomorphize/humanize it by designing modest and
sophisticated clothing for it. The video gives the viewer a glimpse of what they are unable to see
Laura Swanson, artist
via the sculpture.
Upholstered platform rocking chair • Mt. Lebanon, New York • Late 19th century • Museum Collection 1984.638.1
Child’s arm chair • Twill-patterned chair tape seat and back
Mt Lebanon, New York • 19th century
Museum collection 1983.489.1
Child’s arm chair • Splint-woven seat and back • Mt Lebanon, New York
19th century • Museum Collection 1983.474.1
Child’s straight chair • Chair tape seat • Mt. Lebanon, New York
19th century • Gift of Margaret Hudson 2003.7.5
The definition of ‘function’ is not static. Just as a hard,
vertical chair prompted a return to work, so too could
an upholstered (or ‘dressed’) rocker prompt reflection.
Funi Burdick, Curator
www.shaker.org
Shaker Traditions: Contemporary Translations
PROFESSIONAL ARTISTS
The interconnection between form and motif,
organization and spiritual awakening, and control
and creativity is embodied in the Shaker quatrefoil—
a perfectly symmetrical four leaf clover that
Funi Burdick, Curator
symbolizes a radiant heavenly sphere.
Reed baskets • Lynn Martin Graton
My baskets are a combination of pure
function and pure enjoyment of texture and line.
Lynn Martin Graton, artist
Large 2-drawer work table (possibly for ironing)
Canterbury or Enfield, New Hampshire • 19th century
Museum Collection 1984.889.1
Round basket with square bottom, leather lined (on table) • 19th century • Museum Collection 1987.533.1
Round basket (on table) • 19th century • Used by Sisters Ethel Hudson and Mary Alice McCoy
Museum Collection 1996.767.1
Black ash baskets (in plexi case) • Shaker Feathers • Alice Ogden
Small round basket with quatrefoil twill pattern • Mt. Lebanon, New York • late 19th - early 20th century
Museum Collection 1988.748.1
Small feather basket with lid • Ash • 19th century • Museum Collection 1984.2962.1
To take what is classically
Shaker—the image of a cow or the
turning of wood—and to make it
your own is at once a modern
translation and a faithful allegiance
to the tradition of Shaker
Funi Burdick, Curator
innovation.
Woodcut print • Elizabeth Mayor
Basket • Woodland Tapestry
Sharon Dugan
Pounded black ash splint, birch
rims, waxed linen
Wooden still life • A still life of sorts Marcel Durrette • Three turned ash pieces displayed on a thin slab of
walnut (ash from a tree at Canterbury Shaker Village)
I met my first wood turner here at the Shaker Village so it seems only natural that I ‘put
my hands to work and my heart to God.’ Just as making something well was in itself, ‘an
act of prayer’ to the Shakers, I find great peace and joy while turning. Religion would call
that grace.
Marcel Durrette, artist
Straight or side chair with original woven chair tape • Canterbury, New Hampshire • 19th century
Gift of Robert Wilson 2009.7.1
www.shaker.org
Shaker Traditions: Contemporary Translations
PROFESSIONAL ARTISTS
Hand hooked woolen rug
Shaker Fields • Kelly Rolfe
The Shaker tradition of movement
during worship is seen in the
tremor-like waves of movement in
the fields just below the Meeting
Kelly Rolfe, artist
House.
Poems • Simple Gifts dance call,
What Peter Ayres brought from Niskeyuna
Dudley Laufman (National Heritage Fellowship Award recipient)
Simple Gifts excerpted from Traditional Barn Dances
Framed print • Shaker Sisters and children dancing
Page from Every Saturday: An Illustrated
Journal of Choice Reading, March 28, 1870
Gift of Margaret Hudson A2003.9.11
Poems • 350. Painting, Oil on Academy Board
28. Sister’s Kerchief, White Silk, Folded and Displayed
199. Dipper, Maple and Pine,
73A. Ephemera: four lines of handwritten music
410. Stonecutter’s Slate Sampler, Upper and Lowercase
Kelley Jean White • Poems excerpted from Two Birds in Flame
Stone sampler • Attributed to Henry C. Blinn
19th century
Museum Collection
What story could your house tell about you when the artifacts of your life have been
Funi Burdick, Curator
removed or sold to others?
Bumblebee teapot basket • JoAnne Russo
Poem • Bee Hunt • Dudley Laufman
(National Heritage Fellowship Award recipient)
Photograph • Sister Alice Howland and Bees
Canterbury, New Hampshire
20th century • Reprint
Gift of Charles “Bud” Thompson A1992.2.1
Three Beehive or bee skeps • Woven straw
19th Century
Hand-woven wall hanging • Spring – Summer – Apples – Winter
Arlene Ilgenfritz
Simple words to tell a story.
www.shaker.org
Arlene Ilgenfritz, artist
Shaker Traditions: Contemporary Translations
PROFESSIONAL ARTISTS
Sculpture • Underneath my works • Cait Finley • Bamboo, plastic, found material, foam, reflective beads, false flowers,
acrylic paint, wood
Underneath my works’ vibrant colors and lavishly textured surfaces, there is a certain calm.
The calm is created through repetitive action used to put form to natural phenomenon. The
piece …for the exhibition uses muted colors, simple whites, raw wood and bone, to create a
Cait Finley, artist
conversation about death, decay, rebirth and the cyclical nature of existence.
Handstitched cotton work • You and Me (I Fall to Pieces), If You Want to Sing Out, Sing Out • Anna Von Mertens
from the You and Me series • 2011
Each work in the series You
and Me has the same source
image: how current circulates
around two magnetic poles,
yet the focus of each work is
different. Together they tell a
story of the attraction and
repulsion, immersion and
escape, negotiated as part
of a relationship.
In relation to the Shaker
sensibility, I am interested in
the details that surface when
a gesture is repeated. I am
interested in the handmade and
therefore the presence of the
body. I am interested in how
simple is not the same as easy.
With precision there is no place
to hide, but what is presented
can come forward that much
Anna Von Mertens, artist
stronger.
Poem (on wall) • Shaker Ghosts • Dudley Laufman (National Heritage Fellowship Award recipient)
Music stand • Commercially manufactured, used by the Canterbury Shakers • Museum Collection 2002.379.1
Poems (on wall) • Being a Garden, The evening horses • Dudley Laufman (National Heritage Fellowship Award recipient)
Poems (on wall) • Getting Wood, Knowing • Dudley Laufman (National Heritage Fellowship Award recipient)
Hooked rug • Shaker Tree of Life • Pat Peck
Historical fiction (on table with chair) • Murder in the Village • Mark Travis
www.shaker.org