Textile Talks
Drop-In Gam is now featuring Textile Talks each month!
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These cute wool rabbits were made by Gwen Gaillard, owner of the Opera House Restaurant and founder of the Opera House Cup Regatta, and sold at the Nantucket Looms shop, circa 1980.
Wool rabbits, gift of Patricia Anathan, 2016.24.1 and 2016.24.2.
Photo: Informal portrait of Gwen Gaillard, taken inside The Opera House, circa 1950. P374B.
#nantucket #behindtheseams #easter #wool #fromthecollection
With our upcoming exhibition, Behind the Seams: Clothing and Textiles on Nantucket, opening in a little over a month, we continue to reshare clips from our Symposium: Nantucket Needlework that was held at the Friends Meeting House in September 2019.
Erica Wilson’s kits, catalogs, books, and press images often reflected her summer life in Nantucket. She took inspiration from the island and also helped foster a renewed interest in the teaching and execution of handwork. In this clip, Dr. Anne Hilker considers the ways in which Erica and Nantucket nurtured each other by looking at her career, embroideries, and stitching legacy.
Watch the full presentation on our YouTube channel! Link here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=C8DW84_AHiA
#nantucket #needlework #summerofseams #behindtheseams #nantucketisland #ericawilson
Excited to share one of our first Community Quilt Panels made by our Little History Explorers!
Interested? Join us in our Community Quilt project, corresponding with the 2025 featured exhibition, Behind the Seams: Clothing and Textiles on Nantucket.
The project invites Nantucket community members to contribute a panel to a conceptual quilt. A celebratory display of works of art will be revealed at the NHA’s Community Day, slated for Wednesday, August 6. Additional Community Quilt panel contributions and displays will continue into the fall at NHA programs and events and conclude with an exhibition finale celebration in October that will include an auction of a selection of the Community Quilt panels.
The Community Quilt project invites contributors to interpret what the Nantucket community means to them through the decoration of a wooden diamond, to be displayed as a mosaic representing a quilt. All art mediums are welcome, from fabric to paint and more, with the NHA providing an 8”x8” wood panel to each contributor to use as a base for their artwork, thanks to generous support of materials from Nantucket Create
Learn more & participate: https://nha.org/community-quilt-project/
Enjoy this serene oil painting with wave-like brushstrokes from the Greater Light Collection. On the back in the upper right corner is, “Bathing Beach / Nantucket 1929” with signature, “Katherine D. Pagon”.
Greater Light was the summer home of Gertrude and Hanna Monaghan, two independent, educated, unmarried Quaker sisters from Philadelphia. Gertrude (1887–1962), a professional artist, and Hanna (1889–1972), an actress and author.
Their personal aesthetic blended art and whimsy with an appreciation of the handcrafted—whether woven, carved, forged, or painted—creating a strongly expressive environment suited to their tastes.
They chose to devote their lives to art, as an expression of their faith. They were Quakers, but of a decidedly different mold from the earlier Quaker population of Nantucket. Rather than rejecting art, they embraced it.
Hanna Monaghan, the surviving sister, bequeathed Greater Light and its contents to the NHA in 1972. It now operates each summer as a Historic Site for visitors to enjoy and for creative programming celebrating arts and more to be held.
Painting by Katharine Dunn Pagon, 1929. Bequest of Hanna D. Monaghan, 1998.1021.1
#nantucket #greaterlight #nantucketart #fromthecollection #museumart
Complete your daffodil 🌼 wardrobe for Daffy Weekend with a handwoven daffodil cuff bracelet at our workshop with @nantucketbracelets on Friday, April 25 🗓️
No piece of jewelry better represents Nantucket than the Nantucket Basket Bracelet!
Students will hand-weave a bracelet in traditional Nantucket Lightship-style basket weaving with reed and cane and complete with your daffodil inspired end cap or hydrangea!
SIGN UP 🔗 https://nha.org/learn/decorative-arts/courses/daffodil-woven-cuff-with-scrimshaw-endcap/
#nantucket #nantucketisland #ackdaffy #ackbasket #nantucketlightshipbasket
Happy National Poetry Month! To celebrate we pulled a few of our favorite Nantucket poems out of the archives.
Poem 1 - ‘In Nantucket’ by Fred Winslow Rust
Poem 2 - ‘Seaside Time’ by Josephine Smith Brooks
Poem 3 - ‘Nantucket’ by Lillian McCarthy
Poem 4 - ‘Nantucket on a Bicycle’ by Fred Winslow Rust
#NationalPoetryMonth #poetry #nantucket #nantucketisland #fromthearchives
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