A Trio of Openings at Island Museums
This Friday and Saturday, May 23 and 24, three of Nantucket’s museums will launch their 2008 summer exhibits.
Celebrations! An Exhibit of Traditional Nantucket Art will open at 10 am on Friday at the Nantucket Lightship Basket Museum, 49 Union Street. Dedicated to preserving the history of Nantucket lightship baskets as an art form, this small museum is filled with exquisite examples of this island craft. Included in their special summer exhibit is the David H. Wood collection of antique lightship baskets, antique ivory carvings, beautiful contemporary baskets, and whirligigs. Throughout the season, the museum also offers weaving demonstrations, lectures, workshops, and classes.
Also opening to the public this Friday is the Nantucket Historical Association’s exhibit: ’Sconset 02564: A Celebration of the Patchwork Village.
In collaboration with the ’Sconset Trust and the ’Sconset Civic Association, the exhibition will feature the history, the architecture, the personalities, and the “character” of this small settlement on the eastern shore of Nantucket. Siasconset has often been described as a village unique in all of New England, if not in all of America. The exhibit follows its evolution from a fishing station to a world-renowned summer resort.
Among the exhibits many artifacts, reproductions, and interactive displays are a model of the Nantucket Railroad from Steamboat Wharf to ’Sconset, along with a “Buy a Ticket to ’Sconset” photographic journey on the railroad; a model of the much beloved ’Sconset Pump made by Nelson “Snooky” Eldridge, “At the Pump” oral history interviews with ’Sconseters, a movie chronicling the 2007 move of Sankaty Light, history of the bluff houses, a digital interactive ’Sconset “family album” featuring family photographs of ‘Sconset residents.
A comprehensive, illustrated Exhibition Catalog, ’Sconset: A History, will also be available for sale—a wonderful encapsulation of this diverse and appealing exhibition —made possible with support from the Judy Family Foundation.
The exhibition opens on May 23 and will remain on display through November 11, in the Peter Foulger Gallery, Whaling Museum, 13 Broad St.
From working whaleships to pleasure boats, Nantucket is a mariner’s paradise. This summer, the Egan Maritime Institute has devoted its main floor of the Coffin School at 4 Winter Street to a special exhibit exploring the island’s boatbuilding industry.
Splash! Boatbuilding on Nantucket will open to the public on Saturday, May 24 at 10 a.m. A small admission charge will provide visitors with a pass to enter this exhibition at the Coffin School and the Shipwreck and Lifesaving Museum on the Polpis Road, when it opens in July.
courtesy of Chuck Colley
Splash! takes an in-depth look at boatbuilding on the island from the age of whaling through today. Visitors will learn the stories behind several famed island boatbuilders of the past. This includes the owners of “The Big Shop” on Chicken Hill where many whaleboats were built, Brant Point Shipyard, the little known Nantucket camels, whaleboat and catboat builder Barzillai Burdett, whaleboat builder William Chase, and the well-known catboat designer and builder Stanley Butler, as well as Cliff Mazerolle and Charlie Sayle Sr. and his sloop the Argonaut.
Also included in the exhibition are Mike Allen, builder of the Grey Lady Boats; Sanford Boat Company and Nantucket Boatworks the builders of the Alerion class sloop on Nantucket. Photographs, account books, boat building tools and parts, as well as a small children’s table for crafting their own boat are a part of this year’s exhibition.
Planned for later this summer are lectures and presentations, including a Nantucket boatbuilder’s gam and a talk by the world-renowned America’s Cup boatbuilder, Eric Goetz, of Bristol, Rhode Island. Splash! Boatbuilding on Nantucket will be open to the public from this Saturday to Monday, October 13, 2008 from 10 a.m. to 4 p.m. daily.
