A nearly pristine example of a chair made in the 1870s, maple and wool with dark stain and varnish. Miller Collection.
:Something about the Shakers keeps pulling me back for another look. Is it the spare, linear aesthetic, prized equally by modernists and traditionalists? Is it their perplexing identity as "Celibate, Christian, Communists" (words that appear, starkly, side-by-side on the communal monument in Enfield, Conn.) or a sense that the Shakers embody a perplexing mix of Puritanism, Transcendentalism and the go-getter, outward-bound American spirit?
There is nothing in the realm of Americana quite like the Shakers, both in substance and in the ways we come to know them. The closer we look, the more we know, the more the Shakers seem like a quirky, not-so-distant relative — at once different, but so familiar that something would be lost in not knowing them; something inspiring and reaffirming of the American story.
With "Inspired Innovations: A Celebration of Shaker Ingenuity," author and collector M. Stephen Miller has directed, stage-managed and choreographed a tribute and excursion into all things Shaker that represents a high water mark in Shaker scholarship, a milestone in the art of collecting, a triumph of curatorship and a bold departure for New Britain Museum of American Art where this performance remains on view until April 11. For Miller, this is the culmination of a journey that began with a casual visit to Hancock Shaker Village in 1977 (the exhibition will be remounted there during that museum's 2011 operating season). It is a journey of remarkable observational intensity, passion and vision — the indispensable element in any successful museum production.
This freestanding chest comes from New Hampshire, where blanket chests were in use after 1860, and is made of pine with cherry knobs and brass and bone fittings. Miller Collection.
Miller, a retired periodontist whose office was just down the street from the New Britain Museum, assembled a project team that included a former nurse, a private detective, a newspaper publisher, an FBI agent, a rock musician and several well-known Shaker scholars, including Jerry Grant, Scott Swank and Christian Goodwillie. One of the advantages of being a serious collector is that you have good reasons to get to know everyone, and everyone — dealers and museums, especially — wants to know you.
The project and its approach mirror one another, interweaving private (mostly Miller's own) and institutional collections, professional and amateur scholars and a communal spirit that put the vision first — a vision that honors more than a half-century of work by the many hands who have sorted through the evidence, preserved treasures, nurtured the development of village restorations and, as the dedication reads, "striven to tell the Shakers' story truthfully and fairly."
