Popular Woodworking 2006-02 № 153, страница 71

Shaker Desmn

An examination of the furniture built by the Western communities expands our notions of what is 'Shaker.'

he re stored Shaker community at Pleasant Hill, Ky., gives admirers of Shaker architecture, furniture and life an opportunity to get very close to the source of that admiration. Guests can stay in rooms once home to Shaker Brothers and Sisters. They can walk a gravel boulevard that once was a part of a turnpike connecting the Pleasant Hill community to the outside world. They can tour the gardens and fields that once put food on Shaker tables. They can even dine in the Village Trustees' Office in much the same way as 19th-century visitors to Pleasant Hill once dined in the company of the community's Shakers.

Although the rooms in which visitors stay are furnished with reproductions of Pleasant Hill originals, it's possible to move from room to room in the Centre Family Dwelling and look firsthand at original Pleasant Hill chairs, tables and casework.

In such a setting, it's possible to immerse the senses in the Shaker

experience; and for makers and/or admirers of Shaker-inspired furniture, that's an opportunity not to be missed.

Furniture by Law

Although Mother Ann Lee, the Prophetess who led the very first group of Shakers into the American wilderness of New York State, did not herself write, her views on all things Shaker eventually became codified in the "Millennial Laws" published years after her death. Although most of the material in the 1845 laws refers to issues of worship and personal conduct, some of it touches on the subject of furnishings for Shaker dwellings and can provide modern students of Shaker design some insight into Mother Ann's thinking. The following line from the "Millennial Laws," for example, provides a theoretical underpin

ning for the design of furniture and architecture: "Beadings, mouldings, and cornices which are merely for fancy may not be made by Believers."

During the following century, this and other similar directives guided the hands of Shaker craftsmen as they designed and constructed the buildings and furnishings for their environments. In addition, when the Shakers purchased goods from the outside world - as was the case, for example, with many of the timepieces so necessary in the regimented lifestyle of these communalists - they stripped away superfluous ornamentation before adopting those items into their culture.

But Shaker furniture didn't spring fully formed from the directives of Mother Ann Lee. That furniture was firmly rooted in the country furniture of the period in

by Kerry Pierce

Kerry is the author of "Authentic Shaker Furniture" (Popular Woodworking), "Making Shaker Woodenware" (Sterling) and numerous other books. He teaches Shaker chairmaking at the Marc Adams School of Woodworking.

which it was built. The first Pleasant Hill makers - Kentuckians who migrated to the region from Eastern states - brought with them the design vocabularies of country furniture in those Eastern states. Later, as Kentucky craftsmen in the outside world began to develop an identifiable regional style, that style, too, was added to the Pleasant Hill mix. What resulted was an aesthetic that is identifiable both as Shaker - in most cases - and Western. ("Western" in this context refers to communities in the Western extremity of the Shaker nation, including the Pleasant Hill and South Union communities in Kentucky.)

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Popular Woodworking February 2006