Photo courtesy NYT/Kristen Tomkowid
On a Thursday afternoon in late summer Frances McDormand, the actor, and Suzanne Bocanegra, a conceptual artist, were testing out a Shaker cradle for adults. The exhibit of these little-known furniture items that they put together for Shaker Museum’s pop-up gallery was days from opening in the Kinderhook Knitting Mill — a converted historic space in Columbia County, N.Y.
McDormand climbed into the handsome, coffin-size lidless wooden box — one of several, along with a baby cradle and rocking chairs on display. She was lying on her back with her arms crossed over her chest. Her position was moribund, her mind alert.
Collections Manager
Sharon Duane Koomler is a Shaker scholar and traditional letterpress printer living in upstate New York. She has academic degrees in American Folklore from Indiana University and Western Kentucky University. Sharon has worked at Shaker Museums from Kentucky to New Hampshire as an educator, curator, consultant, and director. She has written and published on Shaker material culture and spirituality, and lectured widely on Shaker art, life, and belief. Sharon has a particular interest in the under-researched social aspects of Shaker life and ways in which Shakers practiced inclusion and intentionality.