Monday, September 25, 2006
Shaker exhibit on display in Liberal Arts Center
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USI’s Center for Communal Studies is sponsoring an exhibit of Shaker artifacts and photographs on display in the case near the north entrance of the Liberal Arts Center. The exhibit was designed by Susan Jackson Keig, a Chicago-based graphic designer who has created projects for the Center for Communal Studies and for Shakertown at Pleasant Hill, Kentucky. Keig will present the Center for Communal Studies Lecture Series, “A Lifestyle by Design: The Shakers of Pleasant Hill, Kentucky,” at 7 p.m. Thursday, November 30, in Kleymeyer Hall in the Liberal Arts Center. “Shaker artifacts are recognized world-wide for quality and craftsmanship. I am proud that USI’s Center for Communal Studies can sponsor what I believe to be the first exhibit of authentic Shaker materials in the Evansville area,” said Dr. Donald Pitzer, director of the Center for Communal Studies. “I hope that many will take advantage of this rare opportunity to view the exhibit and to hear Susan Keig speak on campus.” Keig grew up near Pleasant Hill and has assisted with restoration development at the site for the past four decades. In an interpretive poster included in the exhibit, she writes, “For those who belong to this religious and celibate sect, one of the major tenets of Shaker belief is that its members live literally in heaven on earth. This means creating a world that is orderly, clean, and free of distraction. Every building they erect, every object they make – down to its shape, color, and function – is designed to be heavenly. “As the Trappist monk and scholar Thomas Merton said, ‘The peculiar grace of a Shaker chair is due to the fact that it was built by someone capable of believing that an angel might come down and sit on it.’ In Shaker villages, perhaps more than other places, God was in the details, and the details had to be perfect.” The Shakers are officially known as the United Society of Believers in Christ’s Second Appearing. “They were called Shakers because in their worship they shook and danced and stomped. They would dance with their palms down to shake off the evil, and then shake with their palms up to receive the blessing.” The Shakers were 18th century religious dissenters against the Anglican church in England. They came to America under the leadership of Ann Lee, an illiterate factory worker from Manchester. Lee was imprisoned for demonstrating against the church, and she and her husband and several followers immigrated in 1774, first settling in New York and New England. “Her followers believed she was the female Christ and that she represented the second advent of the spirit of God that would usher in a heavenly kingdom on earth,” Pitzer said. Along with the Harmony Society of George Rapp, the Shakers became one of the major religious communal groups in America, building 19 settlements with some 30,000 members between 1774 and the present. Several Shakers still practice the faith at Sabbathday Lake, Maine. The tenets of the order were celibacy, pacifism, equality of the sexes and races, communal sharing of goods, and separation from the world (greed, lust, and competition). Lee died in 1784, before the Shakers adopted communal living. After 1800, they began moving west and established two communities in Kentucky - one at Pleasant Hill and another near Bowling Green called South Union. They also established West Union, just north of Vincennes, Indiana. “The Harmony Society sent some of their people to visit the Shakers, and even lived with them a time to learn English. They had quite a contact with the Shakers,” Pitzer said. Original and reproduction artifacts in the exhibit include a Shaker seed box, broom, spice box, chair, stool, peg board, and medicine bottles, among other items. The exhibit will be on display throughout fall 2006. For more information, contact Pitzer at the Center for Communal Studies at 812/464-1727. |
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