On a Thursday afternoon in late summer Frances McDormand, the actor, and Suzanne Bocanegra, a conceptual artist, were testing out a Shaker cradle for adults. The exhibit of these little-known furniture items that they put together for the Shaker Museum’s pop-up gallery was days from opening in the Kinderhook Knitting Mill — a converted historic space in Columbia County, N.Y.
McDormand climbed into the handsome, coffin-size lidless wooden box — one of several, along with a baby cradle and rocking chairs on display. She was lying on her back with her arms crossed over her chest. Her position was moribund, her mind alert.
“That’s too rough,” she said to Bocanegra about her friend’s rocking technique, while a soothing soundtrack (composed by David Lang) of Shaker-inspired lullabies played. “Try to pay attention to the music.” Bocanegra slowed her rocking and McDormand nodded as a wisp of a smile overtook her face. She sighed. “Lying down in here like this — you just feel very secure,” she said.
“Hands to work, hearts to God,” the often used Shaker motto, applies to everything from farming and cooking to the emotionally demanding responsibility of elder care. Because they were celibate, Shakers didn’t have many infants around — although there were some older children who came when new members joined. And so the large cradles they used for comforting older adults in infirmaries were more common than ones for babies. And there were plenty of elders to care for in Shaker communities because of the notable longevity among this hardworking health-conscious sect.
“People continued to govern as they aged and young people turned to their elders for advice,” said McDormand, who once performed in a show inspired by early Shaker spirituals with the Wooster Group, the New York experimental theater company.
When she first saw a Shaker cradle in a book of photographs, something clicked. “They put so much energy into the beautiful things they made, and they were ready to comfort their people when the time came,” she said. She thought about being able to grow old in a caring community and about the regrets she had for not being around for her adoptive parents when they died. She also thought about the time she spent at the bedside of a dying friend.
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