Trips visit sites of interest with professionals and individuals who create, collect, and care for the decorative arts and design

Walking Tours highlight the architecture and design of New York City

Exhibition Tours examine the decorative arts and design exhibited at the BGC

Discovery Days welcome children and their adult companions to explore exhibitions through discussion and hands-on activities

Concerts complement exhibitions by highlighting relationships between the decorative arts and music

For further information about the BGC’s Exhibition-Related Education Programs or to register, please contact us:

By Phone: 212-501-3011/3013/3023
By Fax: 212-501-3097
By TTY: 212-501-3012
By E-mail: programs@bgc.bard.edu

UPCOMING PROGRAMS

Simple Gifts: Tracing the Shaker Influence

Thursday, May 15, 2008

Music reverberated throughout Shaker culture and religious experience. From the late 18th through the 20th centuries, Shaker brethren and sisters composed thousands of songs and hymns, some of which are among the most lyrical and tuneful in American music. Songs received through inspiration were considered revelations, or spiritual “gifts,” and were preserved in notation by scribes. They were aware that so many songs could not be retained only through oral tradition. Singing amidst Shaker gift drawings on exhibition at the BGC, and continuing at DOROT, the Phoenix Quartet will perform a selection of traditional Shaker songs, as well as works by more recent American composers, including Aaron Copland and Richard Pearson Thomas, who were inspired by this rich musical legacy.

$25 general
$20 seniors and students

Time:	6:00 pm - 9:00 pm
Location:	The BGC, 18 West 86th Street, and DOROT, 171 West 85th Stree
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The Shaker Legacy: A Personal Perspective

Thursday, May 29, 2008

During the past 200 years, the United Society of Believers in Christ’s Second Appearing, commonly called Shakers, has contributed to diverse professions and social-justice movements, including agriculture, medicine, mechanical invention and improvement, music, craft, furniture design, women’s rights, and racial and religious equality. The nation’s most industrialized Shaker community, Canterbury Shaker Village in New Hampshire, has outlived all of its sister colonies except the Sabbathday Lake community, still active in Maine. Canterbury has always been an economic and intellectual force, and a center of reform, within the Shaker world. In this lecture, historian Darryl Thompson introduces the influential achievements of the Shakers, with particular emphasis on those of the Canterbury Shakers. Thompson will also discuss his own experiences as a 31-year resident of Canterbury.

$20 general
$15 seniors and students

Time:	6:00 pm - 8:00 pm
Location:	Bard Graduate Center, 38 West 86th St, NY, NY
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COMMUNITY DAY
The Making of an Oval Box

Saturday, May 31, 2008

The oval box is one of the most valued Shaker handicrafts, appreciated for its utilitarian simplicity and refined form. Traditionally made from cherry wood fastened with copper tacks, oval boxes served as versatile containers for food, supplies, and tools. In this interactive demonstration, craftsman Michael French will make an oval box, discussing the preparation of his materials and showing the process by which wood is bent and joined with an overlapping joinery technique. A tour of the exhibition with BGC gallery outreach coordinator Laura Rau, a performance of Shaker songs by the Phoenix Quartet, and hands-on artmaking activities will also be offered.

$3 adults and children over 12
Free to children under 12

Time:	12:00 pm - 4:30 pm
Location:	Bard Graduate Center, 18 West 86th St, NY, NY
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Visions Made Tangible: Shaker Gift Drawings

Thursday, June 5, 2008

Although early Shaker tradition eschewed the display of pictures, the creation of gift drawings attests to the Believers’ acceptance of images of the celestial world. For the Shakers, “gifts” in the form of drawings revealed the actual presence of divinity. Most of these drawings were made by a small group of Shaker women during the Era of Manifestations, a period of spiritual revival in the mid-19th century. For this study day, Shaker specialist Gerard C. Wertkin will present an illustrated lecture on gift drawings, followed by a tour of the BGC exhibition. After lunch at the BGC, participants will visit the American Society for Psychical Research, the oldest psychical research organization in the United States, where director Patrice Keane will give a tour of the society’s library and discuss Shaker manuscripts from its collection.

$100 general
$75 seniors and students

Time:	10:30 am - 3:30 pm
Location:	the BGC, 18 W 86th Street, and the ASPR, 5 W 73rd Street
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