Elizabeth Pinborough and Dr. Kimberly Johnson, English

My goal was to study the Shaker aesthetic, the distinctive set of characteristics that define Shaker art and architecture. Through preliminary research, I had discovered that Shaker buildings where characterized by symmetry, straight lines, squareness, and simplicity, and I wanted to experience the aesthetic firsthand. The questions I was trying to answer were: Why is the Shaker aesthetic appealing to artists and to people from many different academic disciplines? What is my poetic interpretation of the Shaker aesthetic? I also wanted to read Shaker women’s autobiographical and spiritual writings that I could not get access to anywhere else.

I traveled to six Shaker communities throughout the Northeast, where I documented the Shaker aesthetic with photographs. This allowed me to see the communities’ unique applications of the Shaker aesthetic, as well as their core aesthetic similarities. My main destination, however, was the community of Sabbathday Lake, Maine, where the three remaining Shakers live. At Sabbathday Lake, I spent two days in the library reading the personal journals and creative writings of some of the women who lived there over the past two centuries.

I transcribed pages from the journal of a nineteenth-century Shaker sister named Ada S. Cummings, who taught school in the building where the Sabbathday Shaker Library is located today. I also read the unpublished journal of Eldress Aurelia Mace, a significant Shaker intellectual at Sabbathday Lake and mentor to Sister Cummings. The most exciting part of my research was being able to hold and read some Shaker gift drawings, which are inspired religious writings often presented in beautiful, artistic ways.

One of these drawings was small picture of an angel holding a trumpet, and it almost looked like a Shaker sister had doodled it in church. But the words coming out of its mouth were actually a poem about the purity of women: “Come forth lovely virgins. Come forth saith the Lord/ With your lamps trimmed and burning in haste meet my word.” The drawing was obviously intended to encourage the Shaker sisters to behave righteously, but the presentation was so much more memorable in drawn form.

At Sabbathday Lake, I felt that I came as close as it is possible to come to the true Shaker aesthetic. I learned that the Shaker aesthetic is a lived aesthetic. In other words, it is an aesthetic that came from the Shakers living virtuous lives. The Shakers strove to emulate Christ’s life by being peaceful, generous with their substance, and equal to one another. Because their lives were beautiful, simple, and orderly, they were able to create furniture and architecture that mirrored those characteristics. The Shakers’ lives are an essential part of their aesthetic, which I learned by seeing how Shakers live today.

Although I took numerous photographs at the other communities I visited, I didn’t take any photographs at Sabbathday Lake. I felt so much respect for the living Shakers that I thought it would be disrespectful to take pictures in their living room, so to speak. Although the Shakers did not formally create art, they lived their lives artfully. The Shaker aesthetic of beautiful living is completely different from the modern aesthetic that focuses on beautiful people and materialistic living.

After traveling to these communities, I wrote an eighteen-page paper that explains my findings in detail. This paper includes my personal experience with the Shakers, as well as the experiences of other Shaker scholars and hobbyists. In writing this paper, I discovered that the insights I have gained about a lived aesthetic can be applied to a study of the Mormon aesthetic. Many Latter-day Saint scholars, prophets, and lay members alike have lamented the lack of a respected Mormon aesthetic to match the truths of the Restoration. My theory is that the lives of the Latter-day Saints, like the lives of the Shakers, should be an important part of creating this aesthetic. I am in the process of writing a second paper, which will be a companion paper to the one I have already written about the Shaker aesthetic. I plan to submit these papers together for publication to Dialogue: A Journal of Mormon Thought and Literature and Belief.

Finally, through reading the journals of Ada Cummings and Aurelia Mace, I found the voice for my poems. By reading these journals I had hoped to find some insight into the female spiritual experience, which is an important part of Shaker history and the Shaker aesthetic. I found that insight, and I use the voice of a young Shaker woman to explore female spirituality in the context of the Shaker aesthetic in my poems. I have written a cycle of six poems, A Shaker Sister’s Hymnal, which I have submitted for publication to The Southern Review, Utah Quarterly, and Crab Creek Review.

Overall, this project has been a wonderful learning experience. It has yielded interesting insights into the Shaker aesthetic and promises to yield more insights as I study the Mormon aesthetic. I have gained greater understanding of another religion, while strengthening belief in my own. I am currently applying to graduate school in religious studies and English. The knowledge I have gained through this project will inspire me in my studies and creative writing for years to come.