Shakers

drab drab drab 

reddish drab
sandy drab
silver drab
sage drab
salmon drab
dove drab
beaver drab
glove drab


reading old dye books
the name tells all

"Imagine. Colours of the past, escaping from the pages of old dye and pattern books. Persian blue, Raven, dainty blue, pomegranate flower, spiny lobster, winesoup, dove breast, golden wax, grass green, green sand, rotten olive, modest plum, agate...finding their way to streets of our cities, enlivening all we wear, all allied to dissipate the bleakness of the times."

From Dominique Cardon's introduction to 'The Dyer's Handbook Memoirs on Dyeing by a French Gentleman-Clothier in the Age of Enlightenment' 
[Oxbow Books, 2016, pgs xi-xii]

+technicolor additions to Edward Deming Andrews text about dyes used by the Shakers at Watervliet 

working on  prototype for
an upcoming project
 
thanks Josef Albers
“Why colored paper instead
of pigment and paint”
 
-paper provides innumerable colors
-sources are easily accessible
   (HTSI magazine)
--makes an inexpensive paper ‘palette’
-unnecessary mess, quick easy juxtaposition
--no spoiled or paint mixing failures
--no big equipment, but paste and cutter
--no drying time
--ease of solving problems
 
[from Josef Albers, ‘Interaction of Color:
50th Anniversary Collection,’ Yale University Press
2013, pgs. 6-7]

looking for brightneess
in rainbows and revision structures
on hand knit shawls dyed with goldenrod,
gathered at wasteplaces
stitched into circles emanating sunlight

Miriam Cantor-Stone and I are thrilled to have our collaboration, meetinghouse, published in Early American Literature.

Thanks to Moonbow for inviting us to make this collaboration.  
Thanks to Shaker Heritage Society for giving artists support and the space to do so.
Thanks to Early American Literature -- it has been a true pleasure to work with all of you. 

And a podcast to follow -- with interviews and performance excerpts.  

“Color is space.” 
Ethel  Adnan


“Color is an essential part of construction.”
Elizabeth Burns-Meyer


.madder .cochineal.goldenrod.indigo.logwood

[‘The Beauty of Light:  Interviews with Ethel Adnan,’ Etel Adnan & Laure Adler translated by Ethan Mitchell, Nightboat Books]

[Burns-Meyer from ‘The Book of Colour Concepts,’ Alexandra Loske and Sarah Lowengard, Taschen Books]

drawers over cupboards
cupboards over drawers
rulers
buckets
clothes hangers
& a mop made with reused woven tape

reds & yellows from a recent tour
with Jerry Grant, Shaker Museum | Mount Lebanon

banner: a long strip of cloth bearing a slogan or design, hung in a public place or carried in a demonstration or procession

these didn’t start as banners
yet, as a way to mark color on cloth
indigo, madder & coreopsis

later, hung on a Shaker cupboard
finally sewn into a series of twelve,
a perfect circle/perfectly round.
shaker studies 01-12
.
.
pardon the pun, but coming full circle,
dyeing these cloths lead me down a
path exploring the Shaker’s use of color

four years later, study 06 hangs as a banner in Williamstown, MA
and on Saturday, I will present my paper ’Prismatic Utopia,’ a threefold
exploration of Shaker color—practical, temporal & spiritual
at the Deerfield Fall Forum

Eyes on Art Town, 37 artists’ banners found in downtown Williamstown
A Rich & Varied Palette: Coloring New England’s Past at Historic Deerfield, 13/14 September

[a perfect circle/perfectly round. shaker studies.06, 2021 Indigo on muslin, coreopsis and indigo on found textile, dyed cotton thread]

The title is from a quote by two Shaker Brethren, Calvin Green & Seth Y. Wells (1823)—“A circle may be called a perfect circle when it is perfectly round.”

this is what research looks like-notes on a wall, folders on a table, books stacked high

this is how research is defined as a noun: the systematic investigation into and study of materials and sources in order to establish facts and reach new conclusions

this is how research is defined as a verb: investigate systematically

looking forward to presenting my research Prismatic Utopia at the Deerfield Fall Forum ‘A Rich and Varied Palette: Coloring New England’s Past’ 13/14 September.

“Historic Deerfield’s 2024 Fall Forum, A Rich and Varied Palette: Coloring New England’s Past, convenes a group of leading researchers and scholars to explore the vast subject of color and its history. Research and publication in the history of color has been growing in recent decades, but few studies have examined color’s impact on specific cultural regions, such as New England. The program’s lectures will focus on the diverse topics of global colorants and textiles, lithoprints in 1840s New England, painted furniture at the Bath Academy, japanned furniture, Shakers’ color use and meanings, New England’s textile bleaching industries, chrome yellow and pink as pigments, and the paints and finishes of the Rockingham (Vermont) meeting house.”

More info HERE for in person or virtual registration.

Thanks to Merriam Webster for the definitions and to Historic Deerfield for the opportunity.  

Simultaneous
Synchronicity
Shaker Color
Sonia Delaunay
Sunrising
 
morning reading of Delaunay’s 
“magnetic language of colors”
“transcribing the poem into colors”
in Pascal Rousseau’s essay
 
“Not images, or objects in the 
traditional sense, but colours, lines
sensations, feelings. Pure inspiration.”
Sonia Delaunay
 
“And when light expresses itself fully,
everything is coloured.” Guillaume Apollinaire

[quotes and Delaunay images from
Sonia Delaunay, Tate Publishing, 2014]
 
[stack of shaker boxes from JKRussel Antiques]

Arrival Day, August 6, 1774

”Thus, after enduring the storms and dangers of the sea, in an old, leaky ship, which had been condemned as unfit for the voyage, and came very near foundering at sea, they all arrived safe in New York, on the sixth of August following.  This account was attested by the captain, and by many witnesses, both believers and unbelievers.”

This year marks the 250th anniversary of Arrival Day, when Shaker founder Mother Ann Lee and eight followers arrived in the harbor of New York.  Eventually, they would settle in Niskayuna (Albany, NY).

Mother Ann Lee described as ‘clothed with the sun.”



“Appendix: A Brief History of the Rise and Progress of The United Society,” written by Calvin Green and Benjamin S. Youngs, in the 1855 ‘The Testimony of Christ’s Second Appearing.’

text & typeface

words on the side of the road
as in the Shaker “Wayside Pulpit”
words found in advertisements 
as in the work of Corita Kent
words about to be printed
at Melanie Mowinski’s studio
words printed, read, used, perused
aptly, just begin

--Wayside Pulpit included in 'Unexpected Shaker' a pop-up show in Kinderhook, NY until 8/25
--Corita Kent, ‘bell bound’ found in ‘Corita Kent and the Language of Pop’
--Melanie Mowinski, Press:LetterPress

french yellow oxide
chrome yellow
red ochre deep
red lead
chrome green
prussian blue
.
. 
color matching
Shaker Color Palette
.
.
So excited to be presenting
my paper Prismatic Utopia at
Historic Deerfield’s Fall Forum,
A Rich and Varied Palette:
Coloring New England’s Past,
September 13/14 2024

Info on Fall Forum found here,  Historic Deerfield

Second image Susan Buck's shaker pigments for
Shaker Museum | Mount Lebanon. Thanks to 
Jerry Grant for his amazing stewardship of artists
seeking Shakers. And to Susan Buck for our recent
conversation regarding Shaker color and her paint
research.