The 2nd Annual INTERSECTION AUSTERLITZ event: “Costume & Culture: Designs for Life” takes place on Saturday, September 17, 2016 from 9:00am through 4:30pm. This year the special program celebrates fashion and fabrics with workshops, exhibits, demonstrations, presentations and tours.
The day of activities begins with a welcome at the new Austerlitz Town Hall, then moves to the Spencertown Academy Arts Center, followed by a visit to Old Austerlitz (where you are invited to have lunch on the grounds). The afternoon concludes at Millay at Steepletop.
All three venues are located within minutes of one another and will stay open until 4:30pm.
Advance reservations are closed. $35 tickets may be purchased at all the venues on Saturday and include all activities and programs except the boxed lunch. Attendees are welcome to bring their own and enjoy a picnic on the grounds of Old Austerlitz.
Click on the link to see a copy of the brochure: 2016 Intersection Austerlitz-Trifold
Special Presentations and Treats EXCLUSIVELY for Passport Holders:
10:00am: Spencertown Academy Arts Center
Milliner Victoria DiNardo will lead a hands-on workshop to create a headband/mini-fascinator. Materials supplied will be a covered headband, ribbon, feathers, fabric flowers and netting, needles, thread, and glue. Attendees are welcome to bring any ornament or materials they may want to use to create their custom piece.
Advance Preview of: “HAT, HATS, AND MORE HATS!” — A three-part gallery showing, featuring the works and tools of Victoria DiNardo, Milliner, Sarah Conly, Costume Designer, and Elizabeth Walters, Feather Entrepreneur.
12:00pm: Old Austerlitz Grounds
Enjoy your gourmet boxed lunch.
1:00pm: The Morey-Devereaux Barn at Old Austerlitz
Wearing period costume and speaking in the first person, Phyllis Chapman brings a distinguished American woman and the shift to industrialization to life in her interactive presentation, “Lucy Larcom: A New England Mill Worker in the 19th Century.”
Lucy Larcom, later to become a noted poet, abolitionist, and educator, began her working life in a New England textile factory in the 1830s. As a young mill worker, Lucy tells about the working and living conditions that many young farm girls experienced in the early days of America’s Industrial Revolution, as they hoped to make a better life for themselves. Using rear screen projection images, as well as props and creative hands-on activities for the audience, Chapman demonstrates the tasks involved in textile production, the development of mechanization, and the structure of a mill, which was perhaps the most significant “machine” invented by Americans.
Chapman’s “
Vintage Visitors” program introduces audiences to illustrious American women, through first-person narrative, stories, activities, costume and artifacts, to provide a richer understanding of our history and culture.
2:30pm: Steepletop
Sarah Parker, a Lecturer in English at Loughborough University in the UK will speak about Millay’s use of fashion and photography to forge an iconic celebrity image. Edna St. Vincent Millay is sometimes called a “Rock Star” poet because she achieved celebrity status like no other poet of her time.
3:30pm to 4:30pm: Steepletop
Refreshments will be served following the lecture.
Various exhibitions, demonstrations and activities will be available to the public for free at all locations.
Also at Old Austerlitz, please enjoy the following:
Ongoing — 10:00am to approx. 4:00pm:
FLAX: Michelle Parrish will give ongoing demonstrations about the processing of flax into linen, such as braking, scutching, and hetcheling. Antique tools and examples of flax fibers at different stages will be available for all to see. 
Parrish is a member of the New England Flax and Linen Study Group, and has been growing flax for over ten years. An educator, weaver, spinner, and plant-based dyer, she grows plants for fiber and dye, and documents her projects on her blog (localcolordyes.com).
WOOL: Friends of the Society will demonstrate wool carding and spinning, as well as how to use a drop-spindle.
TEXTILES IN THE HOUSE:
The 1794 Morey-Devereaux House will be open for self-guided tours as well as:
- A special exhibit on loan from the Columbia County Historical Society: An assortment of meticulously hand-sewn miniature dresses (approx. 18 inches tall), undergarments, and hats made of wool, linen, and other fabrics, including replicas of dresses worn by Angelica Van Buren and Abigail Adams. You are invited to compare the finery donned by elite ladies of the 19th Century with the more humble wool and linen garments fashioned for the less-privileged women of the time.
- Exhibitions and displays throughout the House: Wool and linen clothing, bedding, and artifacts from private area homes and from the collection of the Austerlitz Historical Society.
1:00 to 2:00pm: Jennifer Touchstone will lead a free “hands-on” wet-wool felting activity suitable for children, as well as interested adults. Using natural wool fiber, plus shaped river stones, participants will create colorful and non-scratch felted rock paperweights.
Touchstone is a fiber artist and illustrator. She has most recently been focusing on needle-felted baby mobiles, which she sells through her online shop. She lives and works in Old Chatham.
And more…
Picnic tables and grounds will be available for luncheon and strolls throughout the day.
Please visit our Blacksmith’s Shop with working forge; look at the farm implements on display in the Carriage Shed; explore the 1794 reconstructed Morey-Devereaux Barn (closed from 1:00-2:00pm for our special Passport-Holders-Only Presentation).
Intersection Austerlitz is an annual event hosted by the Austerlitz Historical Society, The Edna St. Vincent Millay Society at Steepletop and the Spencertown Academy Arts Center.
Click on the link to see a copy of the brochure: 2016 Intersection Austerlitz-Trifold
www.oldausterlitz.org
www.millay.org
www.spencertownacademy.org