6-4-08
Walpole Historical Society Shows NH Heritage Arts
By Chuck Bingaman, Contributing Writer
Walpole’s Historical Society is hosting a “Discovering Heritage Arts in New Hampshire” show at the Academy building on Main Street on Wednesdays and Saturdays through June.
Some of the heritage arts illustrated in the show are stonewall building, sheep raising and wool production, basket making, contra dancing, French Canadian soirees, blacksmithing, dog sledding and fly tying.
Created by the New Hampshire State Council on the Arts, the exhibit features eight cultural heritage arts associated with the Granite State. It has been developed for families and is appealing for children from third grade up and to adults.
Walpole Historical Society volunteers Carol Christian and Dutchie Perron have creatively enhanced the Council exhibit with tools, furniture and other related objects from the Society’s collection and with borrowed pieces from Society members. These added features include a spinning wheel and tools for wool production near the display stand on sheep shearing, blacksmith tools and products near the blacksmithing display, and an old fiddle and dancing clogs near the French Canadian soiree display. In addition Joe and Peggy Dion have loaned an entire collection of fly tying tools and materials.
State Arts Council Traditional Arts Coordinator Lynn Martin Graton of Concord set up the exhibit last week. She said “Its purpose is to encourage kids—and adults—to value these cultural traditions in their communities. They include traditional crafts, music, ways of making things, and dance.”
Graton added, “With all the major changes we are facing in our country—climate change, increasing fuel prices, etc.—I think there’ll be a wave of nostalgia for and a higher value placed on our older, simpler skills and traditions.”
The exhibit is based upon a new interactive feature of the State Arts Council’s educational resource, the New Hampshire Folklife web site. Graton developed the traveling exhibit using artwork created by New Hampshire illustrators. Artists were asked to include particular tools, processes and forms in the images. A text panel with explanations of the key elements then accompanies each image. One important goal is to expand our idea of literacy to include language special to traditional arts. “These words are part of our heritage and help us understand the complexity of our traditions,” says Graton. To see the “Heritage Arts Build-A-Picture Activities, you can visit the Learning Center section of the New Hampshire Folklife website at www.nh.gov/folklife.
Graton traced the origin of the New Hampshire Folklife Website to the 1999 Smithsonian Folklife Festival that featured presentations of traditional culture on the National Mall in Washington DC and for which Walpole’s Merv Stevens played a leading role. The festival program featured several Walpole participants including the Graves family who presented oxen, Doug Faxon who demonstrated stone wall building, and Bensonwood who sponsored the raising of a 40’x60’ timber framed barn. The program was restaged in 2000 at the Hopkinton State Fairgrounds. After these two major events, the State Arts Council sought to continue to promote the important folklife traditions of New Hampshire and to provide an educational resource for teachers, students and the general public through the development of a website.
The traveling exhibit now on display at the Walpole Historical Society is another way the State Arts Council is seeking to promote appreciation for our traditions and tradition bearers in local communities. The exhibit will tour several community sites this summer and fall. The Tracy Memorial Library in New London will host the exhibit in July.
The Walpole Historical Society is open from 1:00 to 3:00 p.m. Wednesdays and Saturdays and by special appointment other days. Telephone the Society at 756-3449 to arrange tours other than in regular hours. The Society will also be open special hours to be announced during Walpole Old Home Days June 25 to 29.
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