Annabelle Selldorf’s design for the new Shaker Museum in Chatham, New York, offers a powerful architectural response to the Shaker community’s unique vision and history. This design not only embodies the Shakers’ aesthetic principles of simplicity, utility, and beauty but also contextualizes them within the Utopian values that characterized the religious sect’s philosophy and way of life.
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.