Hudson Museum Announces Three New Exhibits
Contact: Gretchen Faulkner, 581-1904; George Manlove, 581-3756
ORONO — The Hudson Museum at the University of Maine has three new exhibits, featuring illustrations from a children’s book by Maine artist Robert Shetterly, fabric collections from the Kuna Indians of the San Blas Islands of Panama and an exhibit celebrating the legacy of former UMaine anthropologist Richard Emerick, founding director of Hudson Museum.
“Celebrating Richard G. Emerick: The Man and his Legacy,” will be up until May 2007, according to Gretchen Faulkner, museum director, and is part of the Museum’s celebration of its 20th Anniversary.
Emerick, a professor of anthropology, came to UMaine in the late 1950s and taught more than 40,000 students during his 40-year teaching career.
With collections he had gathered through field work with native Havasuapai in the American Southwest, with the peoples of Ponape and Kapingamarangi in Micronesia, and the Iglulingmuit of Northern Foxe Basin in the Canadian Arctic, Emerick created an anthropology museum in the attic of South Stevens Hall. In 1986, he moved the museum to the newly completed Maine Center for the Arts, launching the Hudson Museum. When he retired as director of the Hudson Museum in 1990, a gallery on the Museum’s third level was named in Emerick’s honor.
The new exhibit honoring Emerick features objects that he collected in each of the areas of his field work. He focused on documenting traditional lifestyles in regions of the world that were undergoing rapid change and modernization, collecting everyday objects such as tools, containers, weapons, utensils and models of modes of transportation.
His collections from Micronesia include fishing gear, clubs, and axes, as well as necklaces, fans and dance paddles, household mats, and outrigger canoe models. During his work with the Havasupai, he acquired baskets, ladles and food-processing equipment. From the Iglulingmuit, he gathered clothing, tools, hunting and fishing gear, including fish hooks and harpoons, plus carvings from walrus tusk and other objects.
A second exhibit, “Molas: The Jane Gruver Collection,” also will be on display until May 2007.
For more than 30 years, Jane Gruver of North Dakota and her husband Daniel Gruver lived and worked among the Kuna of the San Blas Islands of Panama. Jane Gruver acquired a deep appreciation and understanding of the making of Kuna mola-making, and collected the dozens of brightly colored fabric panels that comprise the exhibit. She has donated molas to the Hudson Museum since 1994 as a way of recording and preserving the art form and the lifestyles of the Kuna people.
The design motifs range from local flora, fauna and sea life to everyday scenes, including Kuna legends and myths. Through these images, the Kuna capture their world in vibrant color.
The third exhibit, “Muwin and the Magic Hare by Robert Shetterly,” will be on display through Jan. 5, 2007, features 12 images created by Robert Shetterly of Brooksville, Maine and published in his 1993 children’s book, “Muwin and the Magic Hare.”
The book is a story of Muwin, the Black Bear, and Mahtoqehs, the Great Magic Hare of the North Woods, and draws upon a traditional Passamaquoddy tale from Dream Time — a time after the earth, water, sun, moon and stars were made. People and animals could talk with each other and beings with magical powers were able to transform themselves from one form to another.
According to the Passamaquoddy tale, Muwin tracks the magical trickster hare from his den on the march, over the heath, to the bay, and back to his winter den. Mahtoqehs eludes him, transforming himself in Passamaquoddy men and women. They entertain Muwin with ancient tales and feed him snowshoe hare, and then disappear while Muwin is sleeping.
More information about the exhibits and the Hudson Museum can be found on the website http://www.umaine.edu/hudsonmuseum, or by calling the museum at 581-1901. Museum hours are Tuesday through Fridays, 10 a.m.-4 p.m. and Saturdays, 11 a.m.-4 p.m. Exhibits are free.