Salisbury Association gears up for ‘samplers’ exhibit

Lou Bucceri, left, chatted with Bill Morrill at the Academy Building last month on the subject of vintage artillery.

Patrick L. Sullivan

Salisbury Association gears up for ‘samplers’ exhibit

The next exhibit at the Salisbury Association’s Academy Building will be about samplers.

Specifically, the extensive collection of Alexandra Lally Peters of Sharon and New York, which includes over 150 samplers — mostly American — dating from 1698 to 1850.

Jane Sellery was taking a look at the logistics of the display space on Saturday, Jan. 18.

Referring to a catalog of the Peters collection, she explained that samplers are usually needlepoint on linen, although there are some variations.

She pointed to the most familiar type, an alphabet, by way of orientation.

“Samplers were a status piece in the home,” she said.

The exhibit will begin at the end of February, but the dates are not yet final. The show will include a talk by Peters.

Meanwhile, a visit to the Academy Building is always interesting, because there is no way to predict who or what will wander in.

The previous day, Friday, Jan. 17, when a reporter wandered in, Bill Morrill was consulting with the Association’s Lou Bucceri about plans to head to Saratoga in the spring to consult with artillery experts at the Saratoga National Historic Park in the ongoing quest to nail down the provenance of the six-pounder cannon that stands in a corner of the Academy building.

While this somewhat circuitous discussion unfolded, two men, one youngish and sporting contemporary casual wear, the other seasoned and tending toward blaze orange and buffalo plaid, came in to take a gander at the current show on Holley knives.

And after the cutlery enthusiasts departed, a man and his elderly mother came in, on the trail of a family portrait.

If you’re keeping score, that’s two visits on successive days for a combined total of about an hour, and covering the following topics:samplers, Revolutionary War cannons, knives, portraiture and men’s fashion.

Latest News

Revisiting ‘The Killing Fields’ with Sam Waterston

Sam Waterston

Jennifer Almquist

On June 7 at 3 p.m., the Triplex Cinema in Great Barrington will host a benefit screening of “The Killing Fields,” Roland Joffé’s 1984 drama about the Khmer Rouge and the two journalists, Cambodian Dith Pran and New York Times correspondent Sydney Schanberg, whose story carried the weight of a nation’s tragedy.

The film, which earned three Academy Awards and seven nominations — including one for Best Actor for Sam Waterston — will be followed by a rare conversation between Waterston and his longtime collaborator and acclaimed television and theater director Matthew Penn.

Keep ReadingShow less
The art of place: maps by Scott Reinhard

Scott Reinhard, graphic designer, cartographer, former Graphics Editor at the New York Times, took time out from setting up his show “Here, Here, Here, Here- Maps as Art” to explain his process of working.Here he explains one of the “Heres”, the Hunt Library’s location on earth (the orange dot below his hand).

obin Roraback

Map lovers know that as well as providing the vital functions of location and guidance, maps can also be works of art.With an exhibition titled “Here, Here, Here, Here — Maps as Art,” Scott Reinhard, graphic designer and cartographer, shows this to be true. The exhibition opens on June 7 at the David M. Hunt Library at 63 Main St., Falls Village, and will be the first solo exhibition for Reinhard.

Reinhard explained how he came to be a mapmaker. “Mapping as a part of my career was somewhat unexpected.I took an introduction to geographic information systems (GIS), the technological side of mapmaking, when I was in graduate school for graphic design at North Carolina State.GIS opened up a whole new world, new tools, and data as a medium to play with.”

Keep ReadingShow less
Love letters from Goshen

The marquee at Goshen Players for “A Goodnight Kiss.”

Cinzi Lavin

"A Goodnight Kiss,” premiering June 6 at Goshen Players Playhouse, is a dramatization of real Civil War-era love letters. Written by award-winning playwright Cinzi Lavin and directed by regional theater veteran Kathleen Kelly — both Litchfield County residents — it serves to reminds us that while wars are waged by nations, it is the people who live through them, their lives forever changed.

At the center of “A Goodnight Kiss” is the relationship between Sarah Jane “Jennie” Wadhams, a college student in New Britain, and Sergeant Major Frederick Lucas, a young soldier stationed in Alexandria. Lavin discovered the story of the letters by the couple in a 2002 book by Ernest B. Barker called “Fred and Jennie: A Civil War Story.” Lavin, who holds a certificate in applied history from the University of London and has performed at the White House, read all 90 letters the couple exchanged between 1863 and 1867. “It was like falling into another time,” she recalled. “You hear the dialect, the moral concerns, the humor. Jennie once said someone ‘must think she’s some pumpkins.’ I had to keep that.”

Keep ReadingShow less