A Day at Canterbury Shaker Village

    I was thrilled to have my prose, an excerpt from a historical novel in progress about the Shakers, selected to be part of the show Shaker Traditions: Contemporary Translations. It was the first time I've ever been part of a juried art show. I went to the opening a few days ago and had the pleasure of reading a bit of my work while also being inspired anew by my surroundings. Inspired to get back to work on the book which I had set aside awhile ago to work on something else. I will return to it soon.


      While at opening day I took advantage of the opportunity to work with other writers in a poetry workshop led by a lovely poet and pediatrician named Kelley J. White. She has published a book of poems (link below) inspired by shaker artifacts and challenged us to try it. We were shown a number of artifacts from the museum's collection and it was a little girl's shaker cloak, white with a satin lining, that caught my attention. Our instructor challenged us to write a quick haiku to share with the class. I share mine with you here.


                                                                       
                 A lovely white cloak
                 A pretty smiling girl
                 One I created


         The show at Canterbury Shaker Village in New Hampshire will be up until December and is worth a visit. You can find some gorgeous goods in the gift shop, but here are the souvenirs that I brought home. Picked the beans myself in the Shaker garden, where they still grow things to share with those in need as the Shakers always did. It is still a sacred place in so many ways.

https://www.amazon.com/Two-Birds-Flame-Inspired-Shaker/dp/098252143X/ref=sr_1_3?ie=UTF8&qid=1470874229&sr=8-3&keywords=kelley+white+poems

Gleanings

Gleanings from Old Shaker Journals by Clara Endicott Sears

     Reading this on line as part of the great amount of research I'm doing for my current novel.

Yesterday I completed a couple of hours on the subject of New England women's underwear in the nineteenth century. A lot more involved than it may sound not just because of changing fashion trends over those decades, but because of the differences among the classes. I want to know what the poor and rural young woman had going on under her skirt because it is so important to me that my historical fiction be quite historically accurate. Most of the information available is, not surprisingly, about what was under the abundant skirts and hoops of the wealthy class. Fun work, but frustrating, almost gets my panties in a bunch. (Sorry, I couldn't resist.)

      On a related note, I am also trying to figure out what term residents of New England had for the outhouse in the latter half of the 1800's. I doubt they referred to it as the outhouse, and think privy is too British, but haven't seen any other references. Please respond if you have any ideas.

                                         1850's split bloomers

Miscellaneous Musings

      The other night someone (thank you Lesley) asked me to post another installment of my new novel on this blog. It was such a welcome complement! I was thrilled. And it was gratifying too since I have been hard at work on it all week; immersed full time in research for it and having reached an 8300 word count as of this morning. It is easily the most exciting writing project I have ever embarked on. That is because I love historical fiction so much, and doing the research for it is just joy for me.
       It all began with the interest two of my best girlfriends, a poet and a photographer who often collaborate with each other (thank you Kate and Sarah), had taken in Shaker history and architecture. I had always had a simmering interest in that subject but hadn't had a chance to indulge it much. Their enthusiasm was quite catching and I soon joined them on an overnight trip to the last operating Shaker village in the world at Sabbathday Lake in Maine. On our way north we whetted our appetites at the exhibit of Shaker artifacts at the Portland MFA which was stunning.The next day we were so fortunate to be able to attend Sunday worship and meet all of the surviving Shakers afterward over coffee and cookies and a grace one would expect to find there.
     My interest in writing something when we started out, maybe just an article, had blossomed into a full blown book idea before we had left Portland and was taking shape throughout the weekend. I have been devouring books ever since for accurate background information.
     Last night I hosted my gf's to a Shaker study dinner. I served them an authentic menu of Shaker recipes, well, except for the wine. We had garden salad (a strange combination of spinach, carrots and cauliflower) with Shaker herb dressing, followed by oyster stew with homemade bread, while listening to shaker hymns on my laptop. Then we watched the 1989 Ken Burns documentary called The Shakers,
 which I think they all found as fascinating as me.
     So you know what 2012 will be devoted to for me ~ the study of devout and ecstatic celibacy! Stay tuned. Here are a few photos I took on our field trip a couple of weeks ago. We weren't allowed to use our cameras indoors.