Decorative Arts Center of Ohio -- Reese-Peters House - Blog

'Ohio: The Start of It All' offers inspiration, artistic celebration

9/2/2022

Housed at the Mazza Museum at The University of Findlay is the world ‘s largest collection of original artwork by children’s book illustrators, some of which offer an inspirational look at the Buckeye state’s greatness.

Beginning this month, a piece of that collection will travel to the Decorative Arts Center of Ohio and will showcase the soaring ambitions and creative spirit of Ohioans who have shaped history.

Ohio: The Start of It All will open September 24 and run through December 31 at DACO. The exhibit features a portion of one of the most diverse collections of original art from picture books and presents an artistic celebration of Ohio innovations that changed the world.

“Each of the pieces depicts a theme or item related to a particular Ohio fact, all of which reflect a unique way that Ohio shaped world history and culture,” Curator Dan Chudzinski said.

The exhibition focuses on five themes - inventions, sports, food, transportation and history. One piece in particular is sure to resonate with visitors, Chudzinski says. The artwork, created by Steven Kellogg using watercolor, graphite, pen and ink, is taken from Barney Bipple’s Magic Dandelions. It features a young boy in the early 20th century receiving a speeding ticket.

In 1899, the first police car was used in Akron, boasting a top speed of 18 miles per hour, and in 1904, Harry Myers received the first speeding ticket for going 12 miles per hour in an automobile on West Third Street in Dayton.

Other items in the 62-piece collection include two acrylic and mixed media artworks by Alice and Martin Provensen from The Glorious Flight, a book that won the 1987 Caldecott Medallion, and a watercolor and graphite piece by Jerry Pinkney from Ain’t Nobody a Stranger to Me. Pinkney was a Caldecott-winning illustrator as well before dying in 2021.

“It is my hope that viewers will leave this exhibition with a deeper appreciation for both Ohio history and picture book illustrations,” Chudzinski said. “In Ohio: The Start of It All, you will see 62 valid reasons to take pride in the Buckeye state.”

Support for the exhibition is provided by Patrick and Brenda Smith and the Fairfield County Foundation Wendel Family Fund.

Curator Dan Chudzinski will hold a Curator’s Talk at 2 p.m. Sunday, September 25, at the Wendel Center for Art Education. Register here.

Woody Guthrie In Song & Conversation: A Q&A WITH JEFF PUTNAM

7/26/2022

Folk music roots run deep in Jeff Putnam’s family, so even as a child, he was familiar with the music of Woody Guthrie.

Guthrie is a legendary singer and song writer, and considered one of the most significant figures in American folk music. Perhaps most widely known for his song, “This Land is Your Land,” Guthrie wrote hundreds of country, folk and children’s songs before dying in 1967 from complications of Huntington’s disease.

Thanks to artists like Putnam, however, Guthrie’s legacy lives on. Putnam will pay tribute to Guthrie in a special performance, Woody Guthrie In Song & Conversation, which will take place at 2 p.m. August 14 at the Wendel Center for Art Education.

Putnam, who lives in Knox County, has played folk and other genres of music for more than 50 years. He will perform on the guitar, banjo, fiddle and slide guitar.
Putnam shared how he tries to capture Guthrie’s distinct musical delivery in his performances, as well as what attendees at the Aug. 14 performance can expect.

How did you first came to admire the work of Woody Guthrie?

I grew up singing and playing folk music with my family, so, of course, I came across the music of Woody Guthrie very early. I remember playing “This Land Is Your Land” on ukuleles with my dad and siblings. That song was everywhere during the folk music revival of the 1960s in a somewhat sanitized, feel-good, patriotic anthem kind of way.

Not until I was an adult did I get to hear all Woody’s verses, and, like me, listeners at the show may be surprised to hear the biting social commentary of the later verses. I think also that I was unaware of the tragic aspects of his late-in-life hereditary illness until I saw the movie, “Alice’s Restaurant,” featuring his son Arlo. That movie contains a harrowing scene of Woody, incapacitated and institutionalized at the end of his life, being serenaded by his son, Pete Seeger, and others in the hospital. Strong stuff. My admiration for him only grew as I researched and performed his life story.

How long have you presented a portrayal of Guthrie?

I first portrayed Woody for a long-running Chautauqua living history series in Mount Vernon in 2010. I had an open invitation to “do” a historical figure, and it occurred to me that I could combine my interest in history with my musical interests and skills. Woody Guthrie seemed like a good choice because of the relative simplicity of his music, his appealing and vivid personality, and his propensity to pop up at key times and events in U.S. history.

I have since done versions of the show half a dozen times in Mount Vernon, at Kenyon College in Gambier, and in Columbus for the Columbus Folk Music Society’s 100th birthday celebration for Woody in 2012. I’m excited to get the chance to bring Woody and his story to DACO in connection with its fantastic exhibit on the Great Depression and the pandemic.

When portraying him, what are some aspects you strive to hit accurately?

Woody had a very distinctive musical delivery, which I do try to capture, although my voice is really too “pretty” for Woody. His phrasing and diction can be heard very clearly in the sound of the early Bob Dylan and others like Arlo Guthrie, Jack Elliot and even Bruce Springsteen, Billy Bragg and John Mellencamp.

As for authenticity, I walk a fine line between trying to sound like Woody and sounding “good,” which don’t always overlap. On two songs in particular, I do “hybrid” versions because Woody’s originals are problematic for different reasons. “Pastures of Plenty” I do on the banjo in Pete Seeger’s version because that’s the best known and it’s also rearranged in a minor key, which almost none of Woody’s originals are. So it adds variety to the mix. I also do “Vigilante Man,” a very powerful, lesser-known song, in the style of Bruce Springsteen and Ry Cooder just because their versions are terrific.

As for staying in character, I try to, even through the Q&A at the end of the show, but sometimes audience members will ask questions that I need to break character to answer.

What is your favorite Woody Guthrie song and why?

That’s a tough one. He wrote over a thousand (that we know of), but I’d say two I especially like are “Pretty Boy Floyd” and “Deportee.” The former tells the story of a Robin Hood-like bank robber of the 1930s who had the reputation of helping poor farmers who’d lost their homes in the Great Depression to what Woody saw as hard-hearted mortgage bankers. It contains the matchless lines “As through this world I’ve rambled, I’ve met lots of funny men/Some will rob you with a six-gun, and some with a fountain pen.”

“Deportee,” probably the last song Woody wrote, describes a plane crash in California that killed migrant agricultural workers being flown back to Mexico. Outraged that The New York Times article named the pilots but described the dead passengers as just “deportees,” Woody decided to memorialize them by “saying their names.”

In your experience portraying him and researching him, are there any interesting notes about him as a person or performer that you have come across that most may not realize?

He was a man of immense contradictions. His sympathy for society’s downtrodden was unlimited and his energy in fighting for their rights truly staggering. At the same time, he neglected, then abandoned his first wife and their children, alienated his second wife and family, and lost many of his oldest friends through outrageous and egregious behavior. His impulse control was practically nonexistent. Yet they all stuck with him through the 15 or so years of his decline and nursed him through his final sickness. In spite of his difficult personality, he was loved and cherished.

What can attendees expect to hear during your performance?

I’ll be doing nine songs, most of them well known. They include “Rambling Around,” “I Ain’t Got No Home,” “Pretty Boy Floyd,” “So Long, It’s Been Good to Know You,” “Vigilante Man,” “Do Re Mi,” “Pastures of Plenty,” “Deportee (Plane Wreck at Los Gatos,” and, of course, “This Land Is Your Land.” The structure of the show has a narrative of Woody’s colorful and peripatetic life during the 1930s and beyond, with songs from the different times and places interspersed. I suspect that Woody will also have something to say about how the lessons of the 1930s and Great Depression can also be applied to other historical periods in our nation’s history.

What role has music played in your life?

I play guitar and banjo mostly, and also some fiddle, mandolin, bass guitar and tin whistle. I enjoy folk, roots and Americana, but have also played in classic rock and bluegrass bands. I perform with my wife, Martha Morss. We especially like singing harmonies of musicians like the Everly Brothers, the classic old-time “brother” groups like the Delmores and Blue Sky Boys, and British Invasion stalwarts like the Beatles, Hollies, Searchers, and Peter and Gordon. I’m also a huge classical music fan.

Music has been such a big part of my life. I can’t imagine how deprived I would have been without it. I’ve met many valued friends through music over the years, and I’m looking forward to meeting some new ones in Lancaster on August 14.

Cost for Woody Guthrie In Song & Conversation is $5 for DACO members and $10 for non-members for tickets purchased in advance. Cost at the door is $15. Registration is available online.

'CHRONICLES' SHOWS OUR RESILIENCE AMID NATIONAL STRUGGLES

6/1/2022

Above: Images by Dorothea Lange (left) and Autumn Bland (right)

Although two very different historic times, the Great Depression and the COVID-19 pandemic have had major impacts on American life and society.

Photographers were there to document the effects wrought by these experiences, and their impactful work is being showcased in a new exhibit at the Decorative Arts Center of Ohio.

Featuring photography from two times of national struggle, Chronicles: The Great Depression and the Pandemic highlights Depression-era photographers from the Works Progress Administration’s (WPA) Farm Security Administration (FSA) program and contemporary photographers reacting to the current COVID-19 pandemic.

For curators Christine Fowler Shearer and Arnold S. Tunstall, pairing these two historic times together for one exhibit offered an opportunity to showcase the resilience of the American people as they tackled the trials and tribulations placed before them.

“This exhibition is unique because it looks at a past major event in history, The Great Depression, and the most recent COVID-19 pandemic through the eyes of artists and photographers,” Shearer said. “I enjoyed curating this exhibition because of the ability to tie the past and present together into a narrative.”

The photographs chosen for the historical aspect of the exhibition feature the work of Great Depression photographers, but are presented in ways that are not normally seen, she says.

“The FSA photos were acquired by spending lots of time looking through the digital archives of the Library of Congress,” Shearer said. “I specifically chose works that were not well known from the Depression, and many of them have never been printed.”

While some images have connections to Lancaster and throughout Ohio, the majority of the photos are universal in theme and feeling, she says.

“They represent collectively the Depression era and can relate to most places and people in the Midwest,” Shearer said. “I wanted to show the wide range of styles while also showing the overall intent of the FSA photographers and their assignments.”

Two of the galleries will make juxtapositions between the past and the present by showcasing historic and contemporary artists together.

“I think overall it will be a jumping off point to learn from the past while making connections between past and future,” Shearer said.

Thematically, photographers from both eras have similar styles in how they tell stories, Tunstall says.

“The artists are working in very similar styles and working with similar modes of storytelling, using portraiture and the home to highlight the average citizen and to amplify the ‘noble American worker,’” he said. “The photographers also use landscape and vernacular buildings and signage to convey part of the story.”

Depression-era photographers include Esther Bubley, Jack Delano, Dorothea Lange, Russell Lee, Carl Mydans, Gordon Parks, Arthur Rothstein, Ben Shahn, John Vachon and Marion Post Wolcott.

Contemporary photographers include Autumn Bland, Donald Black, Jr., Angelo Merendino, Jane Alden Stevens and Shane Wynn.

Shearer and Tunstall say they hope visitors will walk away from the exhibit with a better appreciation for the value of documentary photography and how the style established by the FSA photographers in the ‘30s and ‘40s still influence photographers today.

“We hope visitors understand that history often repeats itself and we can learn from the past - both successes and failures - and that overall, the American people persevere in difficult times,” Tunstall said.

Chronicles: The Great Depression and the Pandemic runs through August 28, 2022.

Complementing this exhibition is the lecture, In Search of America: WPA Arts and the New Deal Culture, which will take place at 2 p.m. June 19. David Steigerwald, Professor of History at The Ohio State University, will explore works of WPA photography and the impact of these works on the culture of the New Deal. Register for this event.

An Artist Talk with photographer Shane Wynne will also take place at 2 p.m. August 7. Wynn will share the stories and process of her works that are included in the current exhibition. Register for this Artist Talk.

Haiku Rocks! in New Kids' Classes

2/24/2022

While writing haiku is a fun experience, this type of poetry is often a misunderstood genre, Ohio Arts Council Teaching Artist Jennifer Hambrick says.

“While some may think haiku shoehorns them into writing just three lines, it’s more than that, because it encourages simplicity and cleaning your mind, relaxing and being in the moment,” the award-winning poet said.

Hambrick will host two classes in the coming weeks at the Decorative Arts Center of Ohio that give participants a glimpse into this historical and popular form of poetry.

These include a Haiku Rocks! course from 2 to 3 p.m. April 3 for children ages 9 to 12, as well as a What Is Haiku? course from noon to 1:30 p.m. April 10 for teens age 12 to 18.

“Each of these workshops is going to guide the participants to be in the moment, to tap into their own experiences, to look a little bit backward and connect some past experiences when writing these lovely poems,” Hambrick said.

The Haiku Rocks workshop will also serve as an introduction to haiku for many participants, focusing on how to write this type of poetry and incorporate sensory experiences.

“The participants will be given a smooth rock to write their haiku on with colored sharpies,” Hambrick said. “They can then take the rocks home or leave them somewhere in the community.”

While writing poetry can be intimidating, haiku offers an opportunity for someone to write something short that packs a punch, she says.

“I think a lot of times folks are a little bit afraid to write poems, that maybe they learned that poems need to rhyme or be very long,” Hambrick said. “They won’t have that experience with haiku. It’s a shorter genre but also rooted in sensory experiences. It’s about bringing your own memories and experiences in the world into these poems, so there’s nothing really scary or intimidating about haiku.”

In recent years, Ohio has emerged as a hotbed of haiku activity, Hambrick says.
“There has been increasing interest among adults in the state,” she said. “It’s a genre that is defined by fun.”

It’s also a way to learn more about a different culture, since haiku emerged centuries ago in Japan as the opening part of a longer poem called regna.

Hambrick is also one of four award-winning poets from Central Ohio who will read and discuss poems inspired by the Hindsight exhibition. This special event will take place from 2 to 3 p.m. April 10, and joining Hambrick are Chiquita Mullins Lee, Pat Snyder Hurley and Linda Fuller-Smith.

'HINDSIGHT' Artists Preserve Memories Through Paintings, Objects

1/28/2022

Below: Curators Andrew Richmond and Hollie Davis

Capturing the simplicity of earlier days in rural Ohio, memory painters offer unassuming visual interpretations of life in the Midwest. Their work will be on display in a new exhibit at the Decorative Arts Center of Ohio, called HINDSIGHT: The Art of Looking Back. The exhibition will run January 29 through April 24.

For curators Andrew Richmond and Hollie Davis, the exhibit is an opportunity to pull back the curtains and see the many layers of stories that each piece tells.
“We are in a public moment, where we are looking at nostalgia and monuments, and the context in which the storyteller tells the story changes constantly,” Richmond said.

Often compared with the work of the New York-born Anna Mary Robertson “Grandma” Moses, whose paintings feature nostalgic interpretations of the New England landscape, the Ohio painters in Hindsight offer similar snapshots of life in the Buckeye state.

Artists featured in the exhibit include Leuty McGuffey Manahan, Paul Patton, Harold Everett Bayer, Charles Owens and Tella Kitchen. Richmond says Menahan’s work serves as a great example of how a painting can share a deeper story that goes beyond face value.

“She’s painting warm and fuzzy memories of churning butter and cutting ice, but it wasn’t really that fun,” he said. “This is back-breaking, grinding work.”

Davis says many of the paintings in the exhibition show how living during a particular time period could be difficult. Many of the nostalgic paintings can also be relatable to exhibition visitors today.

“We also chose examples that you can see are not so subtle,” she said. “In Manahan’s painting, Mother’s Day, the house is in complete disarray and kids are everywhere. A woman is in the middle of it working away. (The artist) was not sold on the nostalgia of the good old days, either.”

In addition to paintings, the exhibition will include three-dimensional “memory objects,” including photographs of colonial-style interiors and gardens taken by the early 20th-century New England minister Wallace Nutting, as well as some of Nutting’s reproduction of colonial-era furniture.

“We try to bring interesting objects in,” Richmond said. “In the past, we had extensive interpretive labels. With this one, there’s going to be basic information. It’s really a chance for people to get in and engage with the objects on their own terms, to think about them and their memories, and how we preserve and consolidate our own memories.”

A native Ohioan, Richmond received a bachelor’s degree in history from Kenyon College and a master’s degree in American Material Culture from the Winterthur Museum and the University of Delaware. After more than a decade in the world of antiques and art auctions, he is now a certified personal property appraiser and decorative arts adviser.

With a passion for Ohio decorative arts, Andrew has lectured and published widely on the subject. His previous exhibitions were Equal in Goodness: Ohio Decorative Arts, 1788-1860 (2011), A Tradition of Progress: Ohio Decorative Arts, 1860-1945 (2015), and An Ohio Childhood: 200 Years of Growing Up (2016, co-curated with Davis).

Hailing from the mountains of central West Virginia, Davis is a librarian by training, having received degrees in English from West Virginia Wesleyan University and library and information science from the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign. After years working in public libraries, she began working for an online antiques auction price database, which she now owns.

In addition to co-curating An Ohio Childhood, Hollie provided significant research and writing assistance for both Equal in Goodness and A Tradition of Progress. She is the lead author of “Beneath the Surface,” a monthly column about working and living with “old stuff” in the Maine Antiques Digest.

Above: Mother's Day by Leuty McGuffey Manahan.

Three Centuries of Valentines on display at DACO

1/27/2022

Reflecting nearly 150 years of valentines, a new exhibition at the Decorative Arts Center of Ohio is sure to steal the hearts of visitors.

The exhibition, “Valentines: Tokens of Love,” will run Jan. 29 through Feb. 27 and will feature hundreds of Valentine’s Day cards and mementos ranging from the late 1700s to the 1950s.

Two special Curator’s Talks will take place in February with Dr. George Johnson, who curated the exhibition with his wife, Jeanne. The talks will take place at noon and 2 p.m., Feb. 13, just in time for Valentine’s Day. Cost is $10 for members or $5 for members with prepaid registration. Admission at the door is $15. Register here for the noon talk and here for the 2 p.m. talk.

Dr. Johnson shared some of the ways suitors declared their love and how the act of giving a Valentine evolved into a favorite children’s activity every year.

What are some of the highlights from the exhibition that visitors can look forward to seeing? We will have Valentines from the 1700s, 1800s and 1900s on the main floor. One of the earliest ones has a date of 1823 and a letter that goes with it. They will be grouped by decades. Visitors will see how they change over the years - graphically, artistically and historically. As we get into the 1850s and 1860s, we see that they begin to get mass-produced as opposed to hand-crafted.

What did mass production of Valentine’s Day cards look like during this time? They were made in a workshop, almost like an assembly line, and usually done by ladies who would have a bunch of materials around them to make the cards. It wasn’t a machine or assembly line like you’d see today. The ladies got to pick and choose the materials as they assembled them. There’s a certain element of style that’s all the same, but there is also a lot of variety and small elements that are different.

How did the inkwork vary over the years? Mostly all of the older Valentines were hand-done and the writing on them is in ink calligraphy. In the 1930s, there was copper-plate printing. Images were printed as an outline, the same as you would see in a newspaper, then hand-water colored with other pieces added to it, such as gold or silver paper trim, dried flowers and embellishments like that.

When did we start to see manufacturers use modern-day practices to create Valentines? When we move into the 1870s and 1880s, they created mechanical Valentines. You’ll see layers to them and wheels that spin, and hidden messages were a big thing. It’s hard sometimes to put yourself into the mind of a suitor. I like to think that they were thinking, “I want to tell her I love her, but I don’t want her dad to get bent out of shape.” The messages were hidden, and the boy could tell the girl where to look.

Did Valentines ever go above and beyond in meaning? Valentines were proposals, and often had a gold ring in the paper. There were even proposals for elopements. One of the most interesting is a Valentine from 1820 that was a puzzle purse. They would tell people’s futures by sharing messages on the sides of them. A tab or silk cord would allow it to expand. It’s all paper engineering. I like that time period because they were very clever with their structure and design.

What have been some of your favorites from your collection? In the 1900s to 1920s, the most popular Valentines were fold-down or fold-out Valentines. They were mechanical, creating a very three-dimensional piece. Simple ones had two layers and more complicated ones had six or seven layers. These allowed you to look through the 3D piece and were very fragile. They were usually made in Germany at this point in time and the background of the card was printed separately. Workers picked the images and assembled them with flowers. These are some of my favorites because they are very elaborate and come in all different shapes, from taxis and boats to carriages, children, birds and angels.

When did school Valentines become popular? In the 1930s to 1950s, most of the Valentines we have are school Valentines. Before that, Valentines were for adults. Into the 1950s, kids began exchanging them at school and building Valentine boxes for classmates. Some of them that are my favorites from that time period are homemade ones from the 1930s. They tell a story of those people badly affected by depression and those who still had money. You can see each of the classes in the Valentines they gave to each other.

Do any of the class Valentines stand out to you? One that sticks out in my mind is a small Christmas card that was recycled for a Valentine’s Day card. I find those very poignant. That’s what that kid had to give. Some others are cut out of catalogs and others are nice commercially made pieces from the time. It really shows the stratification of classes during the Great Depression. World War II Valentines depicted what was going on in the war. Some were sent from camps where soldiers were stationed up until they were deployed. Some sent them to wives, and the return address is a camp or APO. So those are always interesting. The historian in you always wonders if that is the last card that she got and if he made it home.

daco welcomes reeves as weekend manager

1/16/2022

The Decorative Arts Center of Ohio is pleased to welcome Mary Anne Reeves as our new Weekend Manager. She is responsible for all museum and museum shop operations during our weekend hours.

With a graduate degree in art history, she worked for 16 years at the Ohio Historic Preservation office in Athens, Ohio, where she still resides. Over the course of her career, Reeves has taught courses related to architecture and history at Ohio University, Hocking College, Rio Grande University and Columbus State Community College.

Reeves says she’s excited to work at DACO, where she’s been a loyal patron for many years. “I was drawn to DACO because it combines my love of art, architecture and meeting new people," she said.

Welcome to DACO!

DACO Names Schorr Director of Art Education

12/30/2021

The Decorative Arts Center of Ohio (DACO) has named Lisa Schorr its new Director of Art Education. The promotion comes after nearly 15 years of teaching a variety of art classes at the Wendel Center for Art Education at DACO.

“Lisa is well-known in our community as a passionate and dedicated teacher and artist. We are thrilled to have her leading our arts education program here at DACO,” says Executive Director Jason Crabill. “Whether she is running our children’s summer camp programs or meeting with her group of loyal Wednesday Watercolor students, Lisa puts a special touch on everything she does. We are looking forward to bringing new and innovative education programming and partnerships to DACO under Lisa’s leadership.”

Schorr brings to DACO a strong foundation of art skills, which take many varied forms. She found her gift at a young age, channeling her creativity into painting, among other mediums, and as a hairstylist. After giving teaching a try, she knew she had found her passion. She studied with many artists to continue to build her foundation.

“Anything that makes people light up is my favorite thing to teach,” Schorr says. “No matter what I am teaching, if (the students) are enjoying it, it’s worth every minute.”

Schorr’s responsibilities include developing an ongoing art education curriculum, hiring teaching artists and instructors and coordinating partnerships with local schools and organizations. She will also create educational opportunities that enhance each DACO exhibition.

“I feel very privileged to be such an integral part of the Decorative Arts Center of Ohio,” says Schorr. “We have such a deep-rooted history here, but we are also working with the future. Kids and young adults are learning new things here.”
Among her goals in her new role are introducing new classes in areas that DACO has not recently explored and ensuring that the community feels home at DACO.

“I want as many people as possible to experience art education at DACO and learn something new or improve their artistic skills. Maybe they will even discover something new inside of them,” says Schorr.

'A Victorian christmas' arrives at daco

11/2/2021

Visitors to the Decorative Arts Center of Ohio (DACO) will travel back in time to experience “A Victorian Christmas” this holiday sea

The exhibition, which opens Nov. 6, 2021, will run through Jan. 2, 2022. Curators George Johnson and Randall Thropp carefully considered each component of the exhibition to maintain its authenticity.

Featured in the exhibition are an assortment of Christmas trees adorned with authentic 19th-century Victorian ornaments from Johnson’s personal collection
.
“Queen Victoria and Prince Albert had nine children, and for Christmas, they set up a tree for each of their children,” Johnson said. “So we’re going to put up eight trees plus one Christmas pyramid, which is a German tradition.”

A Christmas pyramid is a carousel-like structure that can vary in size and dates back more than 200 years. The pyramid that is part of the “A Victorian Christmas” exhibition will feature four different platforms, with a windmill at the top.

“Victoria’s grandfather and great-great grandfather were German, and Prince Albert was German, so German Christmas trees were no stranger to them,” Johnson said. “Princess Victoria wrote in a diary about going to her grandparents’ house and seeing their decorations.”

In addition to authentic Victorian ornaments, electric candles will adorn each of the trees to replicate the use of real candles used during the 19th century time period. Victorian-era toys will sit under the trees, with nearby mantles decorated with antique Christmas decorations.

Visitors will also get a glimpse of what men and women may have worn to celebrate the holidays through the incorporation of costumes found in a popular exhibit at the museum.

Thropp, who curated the “Distinctly Paramount: Fashion & Costume from the Paramount Pictures Archive” exhibition that runs through Jan. 2, 2022 at DACO, selected a handful of costumes from the small and big screens to showcase in the Victorian Christmas exhibition.

“I am excited to be a small part of this year’s Victorian Christmas exhibition at DACO,” he said. “Five Paramount costumes will be added to the first floor that represent The Alienist, Angel of Darkness and So Evil My Love.”

“A Victorian Christmas” will be open during regular museum hours. At least two formal tours are planned, and docents will be on hand to provide information about this exhibition during regular museum hours.

Docent’s Love of the Arts Drives Passion for Volunteering

7/27/2021

Barb Sater.

“Many first-time visitors are surprised to discover the House is the museum of DACO,” she said.

Although her professional background isn’t in the arts, Barbara L. Sater says it was her love of the arts that brought her to the Decorative Arts Center of Ohio.

A retired registered nurse, Sater is one of several volunteers at DACO who come from a variety of backgrounds, all with one thing in common - their appreciation for the arts and willingness to learn.

Sater, a docent volunteer since 2013, has lived in Lancaster for more than 40 years. During one of her visits to DACO, an exhibition of “Christmases Past” that featured toys from the 1950s and 60s piqued her interest in volunteering, she says.

“I was very impressed with the docents and appreciated their enthusiasm and pride in the museum and the (Reese-Peters) House,” she said.

As a docent, Sater’s role is to make works of art meaningful, accessible and inspiring to visitors, she says.

“I interact with all visitors coming through the exhibition on my scheduled day, introducing them to the event and generally getting them started on their tour of our four galleries located on the second floor of the Reese-Peters House,” she said.

Sater also provides historical tours of the property to showcase the preservation of architecture and the collections of the Reese-Peters House.

As a volunteer, Sater also participates in ongoing docent training that includes semi-annual updates about the museum and curator-led docent training for each of the three exhibitions per year.

She says her most memorable experience as a volunteer has been the Paramount costumes exhibitions, not only because of the interesting exhibits alone, but also due to the sheer number of visitors coming through the museum each day to experience it themselves.

“Visitors are in awe of the costumes, their craftsmanship and history,” Sater said.

She remembers a “dapper looking” 98-year-old gentleman who toured the current “Distinctly Paramount” exhibition in particular as someone who made an impression on her because of his joy in seeing men’s fashion on display.

“He told the story to the tour group of meeting designer Emilio Pucci when he himself happened to be wearing a Pucci-designed suit,” she said.

For Sater, volunteering offers an opportunity to be part of a group of people who share an interest in decorative arts, architecture and heritage of the Reese-Peters House.

“Volunteering is the lifeblood of organizations such as DACO,” she said. “It’s critical that we pass the baton to the next generations so they may continue the enthusiasm, excitement and commitment to our community’s heritage.”

To volunteer at DACO, visit our Volunteer Portal.