Maine Antique Digest May 2015

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6-A Maine Antique Digest, May 2015
90 degrees, the cable bridges
could be eliminated. Brilliant!
Now the aisles were wider and
afforded some space for chairs
and decorative plants in the cen-
ter. The price for this maneuver,
however, was that some booths
had to be moved to the atrium
area. The other downside was
that some regular customers had
to rely on the program book map
to find their favorite dealers.
This year’s program book fea-
tured an abridged biography of
Timothy Garfield from the histo-
ry of the Garfield Farm Museum
and Inn in Campton Hills, Illi-
nois, the sponsor for the spring
show. Visit the website (www.
) to learn about
this historical site.
MADA
It is time to shed our winter
gear and snow tires, start travel-
ing around to see what’s new in
the year-round Maine shops, and
pay a visit to the seasonal shops
that are now reopening. Michael
and Lisa Fulginiti’s Cornish
Trading Company had its much
anticipated reopening on Friday,
April 3, which, continuing in the
tradition of the past 25 years,
saw a long line of customers
form early in the morning, wait-
ing for the doors to open. This
is a group shop with some 40
dealers who carry a really good
mix, and it is conveniently lo-
cated on Main Street in Cornish.
For more information, call (207)
On Saturday, April 25, at 9:30
a.m., the doors of Pumpkin Patch
Antiques, Searsport, Maine, will
open for the start of its 40th year.
The success of this longstanding
shop is primarily due to main-
taining consistently high stan-
dards for quality merchandise.
The antiques are displayed cre-
atively, curated carefully, priced
fairly, and represented honestly.
The shop was converted to the
multi-dealer concept 31 years
ago in order to enlist other pro-
fessional dealers whose areas
of interest broadened its appeal.
Adding to its well-established
18th- and 19th-century furniture,
art, and paint-decorated items,
the shop also includes books,
toys, canes, games, ethnic jewel-
ry, and the kind of unique folk art
pieces it’s famous for. For more
information, call (207) 548-6047
or e-mail <pumpkinpatch168@
>.
If you would like to check
out the wares of other Maine
Antiques Dealers Association
(MADA) dealers, contact infor-
mation and shop days and hours
are contained in the new 2015-
2016 MADA Membership Di-
rectory & Shop Guide, which is
hot off the press. If you wish to
receive a copy, please send a re-
quest to <cabot@waterfrontme.
com> or check out MADA’s
website (www.maineantiques.
org) where you can view the web
pages for all of its members and
can shop any hour of the day or
night on its online gallery.
It is with deep personal sorrow
that I must share the news of the
passing of Jane Carr, a personal
friend and a long-termand valued
member of MADA, on April 3.
Jane and her husband, Ed, ex-
hibited and ran shows for years,
and they had a lovely shop called
Country Squire Antiques in Gor-
ham. Jane was always gracious
and elegant, and her presencewill
be greatly missed. The family
will hold a private service, but
condolences may be shared with
Ed at 105 Mighty Street, Gor-
ham, ME 04038.
Elizabeth DeSimone
MADA
THE REFINEMENT OF
AMERICA
On Wednesday, May 13, staff
at Bayou Bend in Houston, Tex-
as, will lead a discussion of the
first part of Richard L. Bush-
man’s The Refinement of Amer-
ica: Persons, Houses, Cities,
which explores the evolution of
manners and gentility in the new
United States, and their connec-
tion with the development of
America’s democratic spirit. The
second part will be discussed in
September 2015.
Discussion sessions will be
held at 1:30 p.m. and 7 p.m. at
Bayou Bend. Admission is free.
For more information, visit the
7800.
GLASS COLLECTION
AT BEAUPORT
Kirk Nelson, president and
executive director of the New
Bedford Museum of Glass, will
present “Henry Davis Sleeper’s
American Glass Collection,” a
tour of glass finds and fantasies
from Henry Davis Sleeper’s col-
lection of American glass at His-
toric New England’s Beauport,
the Sleeper-McCann House,
75 Eastern Point Boulevard,
Gloucester, Massachusetts, on
Thursday, June 18.
Sleeper, a nationally noted
collector and interior decorator,
loved to use colored glass in the
rooms he designed at Beauport,
and glass plays an important role
in his color schemes. In the ear-
ly 20th century there were few
books on earlyAmerican glass to
guide collectors such as Sleeper.
On this tour, you’ll learn about
the discoveries Sleeper encoun-
tered as he built his wonderful
collection at Beauport.
The tours will be held from 10
to 11:30 a.m. and from 1:30 to
3 p.m. Tickets are $40. Advance
registration is required. Please
call (978) 283-0800 to register.
BARTOW-PELLMANSION
MUSEUM MEMBERS TRIP
The Bartow-Pell Mansion
Museum (BPMM) in the Bronx,
New York City, will have a spe-
cial members trip beginning at
11 a.m. on Saturday, April 25.
Members will have a special Sat-
urday guided tour of Bard Grad-
uate Center’s new exhibition,
Fashioning the Body: An Inti-
mate History of the Silhouette.
The show presents the many de-
vices and materials that women
and men have used to shape their
silhouettes from the 17th centu-
ry to today, alongside examples
of period garments that were
molded by these distinctive un-
derstructures. Registration is re-
quired at (718) 885-1461 or via
e-mail at >.
STEUBEN GLASS
The Cape Cod Glass Club
(CCGC) will meet on Tuesday,
May 5. Please note that this
meeting will be held at the Sand-
wich Public Library, Sandwich,
Massachusetts, beginning at 1
p.m.
Speaker Bill Mehlenbacher
will give a presentation on Steu-
ben glass. Mehlenbacher has
been a collector of Steuben glass
since 1970. He was secretary of
the Friends of Carder, which was
a support group for the Rockwell
Museum in Corning, New York.
The Carder collection of Bob
Rockwell’s Steuben was stored
there, but the collection is now in
the Carder Gallery of the Corn-
ing Museum of Glass. Mehlen-
bacher is currently a member of
the Carder Steuben Glass Club,
whose purpose is to promote in-
formation about Steuben glass.
CCGC, a not-for-profit chap-
ter of the National American
Glass Club, is dedicated to the
study and appreciation of glass
with an emphasis on Ameri-
can glass. The club meets from
October to December and from
March to June. Activities include
formal lectures, study sessions,
and visits to museums and work-
ing glassmakers.
The club is always open to
new members, and member-
ship is not limited to Cape Cod
residents. For further informa-
tion, contact the program chair-
man, Betsy Hewlett Lessig, at
(508) 776-9098 or e-mail her at
>.
ANNUAL SCRIMSHAW
WEEKEND
The New Bedford Whaling
Museum in New Bedford, Mas-
sachusetts, will host the 27th an-
nual Scrimshaw Weekend, May
15-17. This internationally re-
nowned event is the world’s only
regular forum where collectors,
dealers, curators, and folk art
and whaling history buffs share
their interests in the indigenous
art of whalers.
This year’s event will kick
off on Friday, May 15, with the
6th annual Nautical Antiques
Show, which features an exclu-
sive, high-quality sale of marine
antiques, including scrimshaw,
nautical instruments and tools,
whaling logbooks, ship models,
photos, paintings, prints, New
Bedford memorabilia, and much
more. The antiques show runs
from noon to 6 p.m. with early
admission at 11 a.m. and will
take place in the Jacobs Fam-
ily Gallery, the Cook Memo-
rial Theater, and the Resource
Room. Early admission for the
show is $10; regular admission
is $5; and admission is free of
charge for Scrimshaw Week-
end attendees, whaling museum
members, and with daily admis-
sion to the whaling museum.
The Friday evening opening
presentation, “The JFK Scrim-
shaw Collection: A New Deal
for Collectors,” begins at 8 p.m.
in the Cook Memorial Theater. It
will be given by Stuart M. Frank,
Ph.D., director, Scrimshaw Fo-
rensics Laboratory, and senior
curator emeritus, New Bedford
Whaling Museum.
On Saturday, registration be-
gins at 9 a.m., with opening
remarks at 10 a.m. Saturday’s
presentations will include “Pan-
bones and Whale Teeth: The
Scrimshaw of Two English Mas-
ters of the Genre,” presented
by the Hon. Paul E. Vardeman,
J.D.; “Farmer Goes a-Whaling:
Non-Scrimshaw in the Fabulous
Collection of Frederick Allen,”
presented by Richard Donnel-
ly, Scrimshaw Forensics Lab-
oratory; “Glimpses Behind the
Scrimshaw: Those Pesky Scrim-
shandering Whalemen and Some
of the Other Stuff They Did,”
presented by Stuart M. Frank;
“More Yankee Scrimshaw from
Polynesia,” presented by Mary
Malloy, Ph.D., professor of hu-
manities, Sea Education Asso-
ciation, and of museum studies,
Harvard University; “Campaign:
The Kennedy Library and JFK
Scrimshaw Collection”; “An-
nual Market Report,” presented
by Andrew Jacobson; and the
inaugural plenary meeting of
the Antique Scrimshaw Collec-
tors Association, presented by
Parke Madden, president of the
Antiques Scrimshaw Collectors
Association.
Saturday evening will feature
a gala banquet in the Jacobs
Family Gallery. The gala begins
with a cash bar at 6 p.m., with
dinner at 7 p.m. The evening
concludes with a presentation by
Stuart M. Frank, Ph.D., “Farthest
Refuge: Visions of St. Helena,
the Penultimate Resting Place of
Bonaparte, and the Advent of the
Napoleonic Scrimshaw.”
Sunday will feature an off-site
field trip to Northeast Auctions
of Portsmouth, New Hampshire,
to view the scrimshaw collec-
tion of the late Thomas Mittler
of Michigan, one of the largest
and most comprehensive private
collections ever assembled. It
has been catalogued, soon will
be published in an illustrated
book by Nina Hellman, and has
been consigned to Northeast
Auctions to be sold in several
sessions over the coming months
and years. This once-and-only
viewing of the whole collection
will include a bonus preview
of Northeast Auctions’ spring
sale scheduled for the following
week. The field trip is open only
to registrants at the 2015 Scrim-
shaw Weekend, and their spouse
or guest, and will be limited.
Registration for the three-day
weekend is $295 ($330 after May
1) for whaling museum mem-
bers and $335 ($370 after May
1) for nonmembers. Registration
includes regular admission to the
Nautical Antiques Show, all ses-
COFFEE MILL
ENTHUSIASTS
The Association of Coffee
Mill Enthusiasts (ACME) will
hold its biennial convention in
Columbus, Ohio, June 11-13. A
tour of the Ohio Village and His-
tory Center is planned for Fri-
day, June 12. Speakers are lined
up for Saturday, June 13, and the
presentations will include talks
on Internet sales of antique cof-
fee grinders, fresh finds, ongo-
ing research, and the history of
coffee houses. The convention is
capped by the President’s Dinner
and Auction on Saturday night.
Central Ohio is home to many
antiques shops, including some
mega-malls, so attendees are
urged to arrive a day or two early
for antiquing opportunities.
ACME was established in
1994 for the purpose of preserv-
ing the history of and to encour-
age the collecting of domestic
and international antique coffee
mills. ACME is a nonprofit col-
lectors’ club created as a cen-
tral repository for the sharing
of knowledge, and for securing
authentic parts pertaining to the
repair and restoration of antique
coffee mills. ACME member-
ship consists of 200 from the
United States, plus several other
countries, and ACME has been
directly or indirectly responsi-
ble for a significant number of
publications on the subject. Its
membership includes the au-
thors of three books on antique
coffee grinders; the club owns
the rights to and has reissued
The MacMillan Index of Antique
sions Friday through Saturday,
and the gala banquet on Satur-
day evening. The Saturday din-
ner and evening program may be
purchased separately for accom-
panying guests at $75 per per-
son. The Sunday field trip is an
additional $70 per person, which
covers the cost of transportation
and includes a lunch outing. Full
scholarships are available to uni-
versity-level students, courtesy
of Northeast Auctions.
For more information or to
register for the event, call (508)
997-0046, ext. 100, or visit the
Seminars
“The correct term is diminutive, Harold, not teenie-weenie!”