Because of the slow internet at the Holiday Inn in Boxborough Ma (hard to understand as it sits right next to Cisco); I didn’t get to do any blog posting this week while at seminar. Hubby and I have arrived home this evening and over the next few days, I’ll post a few photos and [...]
Tags: Hancock Shaker Village·Harvard·Meeting House·Shaker·Shakers
Recently the Boston Area Shaker Study Group met at Hancock Shaker Village for lunch and leisure time, and then trekked to the Benjamin Osborn House located in Mt. Washington, MA. The Osborn House was the first stop on Mother Ann Lee’s “missionary” trip in New England in 1781. [...]
As my fellow Seminar attendees know, the title of a Shaker hymn from Hancock ca 1850 which we sang in farewell to one another ’til next we meet. Sunday morning brought two final presentations for this year’s seminar:Â Rob Emlen presented “Picturing a Shaker Village:Â How the public imagined the Shaker Landscape in 1835″ and [...]
Tags: Canturbury Shaker Village·covered bridge·Hancock Shaker Village·Shaker
I sit typing in a room used since 1857 as a spiritual meeting place by the Shakers of this community. How fascinating to sit in the middle of this room using wireless and a laptop in a space once used to observe one’s spiritual beliefs. I sit and imagine how odd it feels and wonder [...]
Tags: scholarship·Shaker·Shaker cooking
This past Wednesday I went over to Pittsfield to Berkshire Community College to attend a seminar presented by Dr. Stephen Brookfield on critical thinking. After spending the morning at a local Head Start program, I carved out an extra few minutes (not as easy as it sounds as it’s a 1 1/2 hour drive each [...]
Tags: Dr. Stephen Brookfield·gardens·Hancock Shaker Village·Shaker
While at our Shaker Seminar (see previous week’s postings), we visited the museum of another communal society: the Oneida Community. While there I picked up a couple of books. I’ve just finished reading My Father’s House: An Oneida Boyhood by Pierrepont B. Noyes. It was written as a memoir – I expect it might be [...]
What a great day! Sitting and listening at conferences is always somehow wearying and exhilarating at the same time! Today’s lectures started with two that were really a pair as they were presented by the authors of a great new book about a particular Shaker collector couple: Book: Gather up the Fragments: The Andrews Shaker [...]
Tags: Hancock Shaker Village·Shaker
What a long, interesting and educational day! After a continental breakfast in the dorms (I always wish there was protein at American continental breakfasts), we headed off to the library at Hamilton College (a short walk up the hill). There we enjoyed a presentation of the Shaker holdings by Randy Ericson. We saw some really [...]
Today we enjoyed breakfast at our B&B – The Phoenix Inn – and then made our way to the Fenimore Art Museum. There was a fascinating exhibit of Jewish immigrant wood carvers of the early 20th century in New York showing their work both of carousel horses and Torah arks for synagogues: fascinating. And an [...]
