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.
