Henry Plummer - Stillness and Light: The Silent Eloquence of Shaker Architecture

Acknowledgments

F rom the outset I would like to thank Linda Oblack, editor at Indiana University Press, who responded to my initial inquiry with great enthusiasm and support, and has continued to provide enormous help in the conception and development of this book. My thanks also to Miki Bird for her careful editing of the text, and to Pamela Rude for a book design wonderfully attuned to the subject matter.

For their gracious assistance in making this book possible, especially the prolonged photography that was undertaken over various seasons during the past twenty years, but concentrated primarily between 2004 and 2008, I would like to thank: Shaker Village at Pleasant Hill (Kentucky), Shakertown at South Union (Kentucky), Shaker Heritage Society at Watervliet (New York), the Darrow School (formerly Mt. Lebanon Shaker Village, New York), Hancock Shaker Village (Massachusetts), Canterbury Shaker Village (New Hampshire), Enfield Shaker Museum (New Hampshire), and the United Shaker Society at Sabbathday Lake (Maine). For their personal assistance, and at times consultation or accompaniment, on numerous visits, I want to thank: Larrie Curry, Philip McIntosh, and Georgie Riddell at Pleasant Hill; Tommy Hines at South Union; Starlyn D'Angelo at Watervliet; Christian Goodwillie and Laura Wolf at Hancock; Nancy Wolf at the Darrow School; Funi Burdick, Tom Johnson, and Elizabeth Pappas at Canterbury; Arthur Gagnon at Enfield; and Sister Francis, Brother Arnold, and Leonard Brooks at Sabbathday Lake. Several individuals were indispensable in making it possible to witness the magic of Shaker light at twilit hoursLeonard Brooks, Christian Goodwillie, and Philip McIntoshwho cheerfully opened buildings up at the extreme hours of dawn and dusk, often in the dark, and patiently sat through hours of photography in dim light.

Several research awards contributed immeasurably to this project, including grants from the Campus Research Board, and the College of Fine and Applied Arts, at the University of Illinois. For these, I would like to thank David Chasco, Director of the School of Architecture, and Robert Graves, Dean of the College of Fine and Applied Arts.

For his gift of photography, and insight into the human spirit, I owe a lifelong debt of gratitude to Minor White, from whom I first learned to see myself as well as another, more evocative reality through the lens of a camera.

Above all I thank my wife, Patty, companion and partner on all my journeys to Shaker sites, from Kentucky to Maine, who filled these travels with love and good spirits, and willingly shared her always remarkable insights and perceptionswithout her this book would never have been.

Henry Plummer is an architect and photographer, and currently Professor of Architecture at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign, where he is also an associate of the Center for Advanced Study. Among his books are Poetics of Light, Light in Japanese Architecture, and The Architecture of Natural Light.

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