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Shaker Sequentia is
the result of over ten years of research and hundreds of sketches by
the artist. According to Roger Gagne, the objective for his project
was to assemble the entire complex that once constituted Canterbury
Shaker Village including Church Family (the current site of the
museum), North Family, West Family and Second Family. In 1994 and
1995, Gagne’s exhibits, Soliloquy I & II gave visitors a flavor for
how the shakers lived at Church Family in the 19th Century. North
Family became the focus for his next exhibition because it had the
largest cluster of buildings and was therefore more similar to
Church Family scale.
Gagne’s first sketch
(1992) of the North Family site came from information and maps
outlined in David Starbuck’s Publication in The New Hampshire
Archeologist entitled “ Canterbury Shaker Village: Archeology and
Landscape.” After studying a historic photograph in the museum’s
collection, however, Gagne realized that the buildings were
orientated a bit differently than he had first believed.
Over the course of a
decade, the artist studied archival materials in the museum’s
collection as the basis for his artwork. While very little
documentary evidence survives from the North Family, Gagne ( a
former engineer with a background in architecture) was able to
extrapolate enough information to recreate the building to scale.
With permission from
the current owner of the property, Gagne surveyed the land and took
photographs of the landscape including foundations of non-extant
buildings. The project progressed as more historic photographs were
unearthed at the museum and the artwork continually changed to
accommodate new findings. |
