The grace and beauty of a Shaker community are captured in the photographs of Stephen Williams at the Michener Museum.
By: Ilene Dube
Modern life is so harried and hurried, so cluttered and cacophonous. Even in a hospital waiting room you can’t escape TV and in-your-face commercials, airheads broadcasting the inconsequences of their lives on cell phones.
But a Berwyn, Pa.-based photographer has found peace, serenity, solitude, simplicity and beauty in Sabbathday Lake, Maine, where a small community of Shakers well, OK, make that four Shakers lives according to centuries-old beliefs.
In the world of these photographs on view at the Michener Museum of Art in Doylestown, Pa., through July 8 white clapboard meeting houses reflect the presence of the sun and absorb the gently moving shadows of trees; shirts dry on a line; tomatoes and squash, fresh from the earth, line a table; windows allow a crosshatch of light on a wooden floor; plants sit on a shelf, absorbing nourishment from the sun; bread rises.
There’s not a whole lot of action going on, and that’s just the point.
Observing the world through the eyes of Stephen Guion Williams, one can feel the Shaker principle that we are in a lost and sinful world before the second coming. Shakerism, founded in England in the mid-1700s, was so named because of the ecstatic worship services. The "Shaking Quakers" shook and trembled because, it was believed, sin was being purged from their earthly bodies.
After being imprisoned and/or fined for their noisy exuberance, Shakers exported the religion to the U.S. Practicing celibacy, separation from the world, communal ownership and pacifism, they established 19 communities throughout the states. The one at Sabbathday Lake, founded in 1794, is the only surviving active Shaker community (others exist as historical re-creations), with its remaining four residents. A religion in which every member must practice celibacy doesn’t pave the way for future generations.
Mr. Williams first learned about this community when, as an 8-year-old, he accompanied his father on one of his many visits to Sabbathday Lake. The senior Mr. Williams had begun collecting Shaker artifacts and eventually established The Shaker Museum and Library in Old Chatham, N.Y.
The younger Mr. Williams was learning to use a camera just as he was learning about the Shaker community, and the two interests were perfectly compatible. "From photography I learned the importance of observation and the art of evaluating the frame," he has written in a collection of the photographs, A Place in Time: The Shakers at Sabbathday Lake, Maine (David R. Godine, $18.95). "From my time among the Shakers, I learned simplicity of thought and balance of form."
Of the 22 black-and-white images in this exhibit, most are gelatin silver prints made in the darkroom, but seven are made from scanned negatives reproduced digitally with an inkjet printer on a rag paper similar to that used for watercolor. Although the traditional printing technique seems perfectly suited to the simplicity and grace of Shaker existence, Mr. Williams is pleased with the digital prints, comparing them to platinum silver prints.
Mr. Williams, who published an earlier work on the Shakers in 1975, chose to revisit the subject matter because "I discovered I had matured as both a person and photographer." He had hoped to illustrate changes in the community but "I discovered little change… over 30 years I arrived at a way to tell the story from my interpretation as to what it would be like to be in a community like this. I portrayed what I felt the harmony, beautiful objects illustrating simplicity as a way of life. I wanted the book to be a complete document of what I consider a beautiful place."
Having spent a good amount of time among the Shakers, Mr. Williams has experienced their service for worship. "It’s a quiet, respectful ceremony with readings from the Bible, and like a Quaker meeting, you can say what you like. It’s unpretentious."
Friends from the community join the four Shakers for these services, and extemporaneous singing follows, as people join in without a hymnal.
These Shakers are not isolated, says Mr. Williams; they do watch TV and discuss world events and pray for peace but they live according to their own tenets.
One striking image from the collection, "Chapel Doors, Sunday Morning," depicts twin entryways to the room. Devoted to God and community, the celibate Shakers sit at separate tables and enter the chapel from separate contemplation rooms.
The Shakers numbered their strongest in the mid-1800s, when there were many converts and adopted children. Today, the conversion process requires a three- to five- year trial period as candidates explore the new way of living.
"It’s difficult to assume this life they must give up worldly goods and work for the community. The individuality we hold so dear in our society is given up. They are living this life of purity," says Mr. Williams.
"The Shakers… were admired for their neat, efficient farms, the excellence of their products, their innovative technology and the genius for invention that marked their history," writes Gerard Wertkin, former director of the American Folk Art Museum, in the forward to the book. "They pioneered the packaging of garden seeds for sale, produced a wide variety of pharmaceutical products and were widely acknowledge as progressive farmers, builders and manufacturers."
In 1984, after a distinguished career as a photographer he founded The Photography Place in the Philadelphia region, had images published in Life, Camera and The New York Times, and served as a photography professor at Rosemount College and the University of Delaware Mr. Williams returned to school to become a family therapist. He practices a home-based type of therapy, and says his background in photography and observational skills enable him to read things in the home environment that provide clues to his clients.
He feels gratified to be able to make a small difference in problems ranging from school truancy to drug abuse, and estimates he has about a 20 percent success rate, defining success as "a shift in a family’s thinking on how to solve the problem."
"Every day is frustrating, and every day is full of joy," Mr. Williams says.
The photographer in him is still active, though he doesn’t get to spend much time with the Shakers these days. He did return for a recent book signing. "I can go up there any day and there is a consistent way of life that is held on to and remains the same, and there’s a certain beauty in that. I miss them, it’s been a part of my life since I was 8 years old.
"If you go there and visit, you get a feeling that it’s not ending, it’s continuing."
A Place in Time: The Shakers at Sabbathday Lake, Maine, photographs by Stephen G. Williams, is on view at the James A. Michener Art Museum, 138 S. Pine St., Doylestown, Pa., through July 8. Museum hours: Tues.-Fri. 10 a.m.-4:30 p.m., Sat. 10 a.m.-5 p.m., Sun. noon-5 p.m. General admission costs $6.50, $6 over age 60, $4 student, members and children under 6 free. For information, call (215) 340-9800. On the Web: www.michenerartmuseum.org