Program Videos
Watch selected lectures from MESDA programs.
Clicking on links will take you to the videos uploaded to YouTube.
2017 MESDA Furniture Seminar
“Friendly Furniture: Identifying the Quaker Cabinetmakers of Early America”
March 24 & 25, 2017
“Quaker Furniture in Early America: An Introduction”
Robert Leath, Chief Curator and VP Collections & Research,
Old Salem Museums & Gardens, Winston-Salem, NC
“Faith and Family Intertwined: The Townsend and Goddard Workshops of
Newport, Rhode Island”
Dennis Carr, Carolyn and Peter Lynch Curator of American Decorative Arts and Sculpture,
Museum of Fine Art Boston, Boston, MA
“Superfluity and Excess?: Quakers and Their Furniture in Early Philadelphia”
Alexandra Kirtley, The Montgomery-Garvan Curator of American Decorative Arts at the
Philadelphia Museum of Art, Philadelphia, PA
“Inlaid Quaker Furniture of Southeastern Pennsylvania”
Lisa Minardi, Assistant Curator Winterthur Museum, Garden & Library, Winterthur, DE
“Friends in High Places: Quaker Furniture Makers in Virginia’s Northern
Shenandoah Valley”
Nick Powers, Curator of Collections, Museum of the Shenandoah Valley,
Winchester, VA
“Faith, Family, and Friends: The Quaker Furniture of North Carolina’s Cane
Creek Settlement”
June Lucas, Director of Research, Old Salem Museums & Gardens,
Winston-Salem, NC
“Friendly Furniture: The Quaker Cabinetmakers of Guilford County,
North Carolina, 1775–1825”
Robert Leath, Chief Curator and VP Collections & Research,
Old Salem Museums & Gardens, Winston-Salem, NC
“Celebrating Fifty Years of Southern Ceramics Studies”
October 28-30, 2016
“America’s Ceramic History Begins in the South”
Rob Hunter, Editor, Ceramics in America, Williamsburg, Virginia
“The Potter’s Eyeball: A Close Reading of North Carolina Pots”
Mark Hewitt, Potter and Author, Pittsboro, North Carolina
” ‘Refining’ Lead-Glazed Coarse Earthenware Identifications in the South: An Elemental Approach”
Lindsay Bloch, PhD, Visiting Scholar, University of North Carolina–Chapel Hill Research Laboratories of Archaeology, Chapel Hill, North Carolina
“Remmeys, Morgans, and Parrs: Differentiating the Style and Influence of Baltimore Stoneware’s Founding Families”
Luke Zipp, Partner, Crocker Farm Auction, Sparks, Maryland
” ‘…My Friend David Jarboe’: The Unfinished Portrait of an Alexandria Potter”
Angelika Kuettner, Assistant Curator of Ceramics, Colonial Williamsburg, Williamsburg, Virginia
“Eastern Connections: Early Stoneware in Northern Kentucky”
Brenda Hornsby Heindl, Ceramics Department Head, Jeffrey S. Evans & Associates, Mt. Crawford, Virginia
“A Vessel of Memory: Thomas Chandler’s Eastern Shore Landscape”
Angelika Kuettner, Assistant Curator of Ceramics, Colonial Williamsburg, Williamsburg, Virginia
“Reading the Fine Print in Edgefield, South Carolina”
Corbett Toussaint, Independent Scholar, Columbia, South Carolina
“Edgefield Face Vessels (1840–1880): A Collector’s Survey”
John Hoar, Independent Scholar and Collector, Huntsville, Alabama
“A Stove ‘Made…in the Manner of the Old Ones’: The Conservation and Relocation of an Eighteenth-Century Tile Stove”
Johanna Brown, Director of Collections & Curator of Moravian Decorative Arts, Old Salem Museums & Gardens, Winston-Salem, North Carolina
“Fifty Years of Collecting Southern Ceramics: MESDA and the Mariner Collection”
Robert Leath, VP for Collections & Research and Chief Curator, Old Salem Museums & Gardens, Winston-Salem, North Carolina
“Celebrating Fifty Years of Southern Furniture Studies”
March 18-19, 2016
Keynote Lecture “American Furniture: So What’s the Point of This Story?”
Peter Kenny, Co-President, Classical American Homes Preservation Trust, New York, NY
“The Swisegood School of Cabinetmaking: Rethinking the Story”
June Lucas, Director of Research, Old Salem Museums & Gardens, Winston-Salem, North Carolina
“From Cradle to Gallows: The Account Book of John C. Burgner”
Daniel Kurt Ackermann, Curator, MESDA, Winston-Salem, North Carolina
“Brackets, Beads, and Boxed Lopers: The Colonial Scottish Cabinetmaking School of Richmond and Petersburg”
April Strader Bullin, Director of Museum Programs, Winston-Salem, North Carolina
“Dutch Town Furniture: Charleston’s German School Cabinetmakers”
Gary Albert, Editor of the MESDA Journal, MESDA, Winston-Salem, North Carolina
“The Nine Lives of Robert Deans: A Cabinetmaker and Master Builder in Edinburgh, Charleston, and London 1740-1780”
Robert Leath, VP for Collections & Research and Chief Curator, Old Salem Museums & Gardens, Winston-Salem, North Carolina
MESDA’s 50th Anniversary Celebration
Celebrating MESDA and its Impact on the Field of American Decorative Arts Studies
October 24, 2015
“The Museum of Early Southern Decorative Arts: In the Beginning…”
Carolyn J. Weekley, Juli Grainger Curator Emerita, Colonial Williamsburg Foundation, Williamsburg, Virginia
“The MESDA Research Program: History, Impact, and Potential”
Dale L. Couch, Curator of Decorative Arts, Georgia Museum of Art, Athens, Georgia
“The MESDA Summer Institute and its Impact”
J. Thomas Savage, Director, Museum Affairs, Winterthur Museum, Garden, & Library, Winterthur, Delaware
“Southern Furniture Studies: MESDA’s Impact on the Field”
Ronald L. Hurst, VP of Collections, Conservation, and Museums and Carlisle H. Humelsine Chief Curator, Colonial Williamsburg Foundation, Williamsburg, Virginia
“From the MESDA Research Files to the Craftsman Database”
Sumpter Priddy, Sumpter Priddy III, Inc., American Antiques & Fine Art, Alexandria, Virginia
“MESDA Publications: Excellence in Print and Online”
Carroll Van West, Director, Center for Historic Preservation, Middle Tennessee State University, Murfreesboro, Tennessee
“50 Years of MESDA: A Colorful Past, a Bright Future”
Robert Leath, VP for Collections & Research and Chief Curator, Old Salem Museums & Gardens, Winston-Salem, North Carolina
Selections from Saturday Seminar: Virginia Stoneware
“No Stone(ware) Left Unturned: Recent Findings in Virginia Stoneware”
January 9, 2013
“A River Runs Through It”: A Regional Perspective on American Stoneware
Robert Hunter, Editor, Ceramics in America, Williamsburg, Virginia
The Story of the Discovery of the DuVal Pottery: Sowing the Seed for Three Decades of Research and Collecting James River Valley Stoneware
Dr. Bradford L. Rauschenberg, Director of Research Emeritus, MESDA, Old Salem Museums & Gardens
“In a New York State of Mind”: Schermerhorn and Wilson’s Roles in Shaping Eastern Virginia’s Nineteenth-Century Stoneware Tradition
Kurt C. Russ, Independent Scholar and Director, Southern Shenandoah Valley Branch, Preservation Virginia
A Family Affair: Stoneware Traditions of the Shenandoah Valley
Jeffrey S. Evans, President, Principal Auctioneer & Specialist, Jeffrey S. Evans & Associates, Mt. Crawford, Virginia
Selections from the 2012 MESDA Summer Institute
The Backcountry
The Legend of Little Jimmy Webb’s Dressing Table
Morgan Pierce
MESDA’s Shenandoah Valley Arm Chair, 1730-1780
Gillian Maguire
“What the Fraktur?”: A Story of the Dutch Fork, South Carolina
Courtney Magill
Art in Clay Symposium
Revolution and Revelation in North Carolina Earthenware Studies
April 15-16, 2011
Videos from the Art in Clay Symposium were made possible through a generous gift by an anonymous donor
The Potter’s Art: Turning, Shaping and Decorating the Pottery of “Art in Clay”
Mary Farrell, Westmoore Pottery, Seagrove, North Carolina
The Potter’s Art: The Making of a Moravian Squirrel Bottle
Michelle Erickson, Potter and Ceramic Artist, Yorktown, Virginia
The Loy Family: Pioneer Potters of the Piedmont
Dr. Linda F. Carnes-McNaughton, Curator and Archaeologist, Fort Bragg CRMP
The Moravian Archaeological Context
Dr. Michael O. Hartley, Director of Archaeology, Old Salem Museums & Gardens, Winston-Salem, North Carolina
Building Traditions: Reinterpreting Craftsmanship and Design in the Southern Backcountry
Philip Zea, President, Historic Deerfield, Deerfield, Massachusetts
German Migration: Settlement and Culture in Colonial America
Dr. Aaron Fogleman, Professor, Northern Illinois University, DeKalb, Illinois
Eighteenth-Century Moravian Theology and Iconography
Dr. Craig D. Atwood, Moravian Theological Seminary, Bethlehem, Pennsylvania
The Moravian Potters in North Carolina
Johanna Brown, Director of Collections and Curator of Moravian Decorative Arts, Old Salem Museums & Gardens, Winston-Salem, North Carolina
Slipware from the St. Asaph’s District: Family Lines, Craft Traditions, and Cultural Identity
Luke Beckerdite, Independent Scholar and Editor of American Furniture, Williamsburg, Virginia
German Potters Adapting to an American Market: Making Staffordshire Teapots in Wachovia
Robert Hunter, Editor of Ceramics in America, Yorktown, Virginia
The Quaker Potters of North Carolina
Hal Pugh, Independent Scholar, New Salem Pottery, Randleman, North Carolina
PODCASTS
Watch and listen to select MESDA programs, lectures, and symposia on your computer, mp3 player, or mobile device.
Subscribe to MESDA Podcasts with your preferred podcast client:
Or copy our RSS feed – http://www.MESDA.org/mesdapodcasts – into your favorite podcasting software.
Selections from the 2011 MESDA Summer Institute
Cityscape and Savage States: Multiple Identities within a Mid-18th century Charleston Powder Horn (7/28/2011)
Nick Powers, MESDA Summer Institute Student
Download as Quicktime video (m4v)
Perusing the Shelves: MESDA’s Charleston Bookcase and Gentleman’s Status in 18th century Charleston (7/28/2011)
Grant Quertermous, MESDA Summer Institute Student
Download as Quicktime video (m4v)
Sacred or Secular: The Life of a Mahogany Stretcher Table in Charleston (7/29/2011)
April Strader Bullin, MESDA Summer Institute Student
Download as Quicktime video (m4v)
Selections from the 2011 MESDA Furniture Seminar
New Insights in Tennessee Furniture (3/26/2011)
Tracey Parks, Independent Scholar, Lebanon, Tennessee
Download as Quicktime video (m4v)
Beautiful Specimens, Elegant Patterns: Deming and Bulkeley’s New York Furniture for the Charleston Market (3/26/2011)
Robert Leath, Vice President Collections and Research, Chief Curator
Download as Quicktime video (m4v)
A Yankee Invasion: New York Furniture in the American South (3/26/2011)
Matthew A. Thurlow, Winterthur Museum
Download as Quicktime video (m4v)
Selections from the MESDA Saturday Seminar: The Art and Craft of the Gunsmith in North Carolina
Salem’s Gunsmiths and the Vogler Family of Artisans (1/29/2011)
Blake Stevenson, Manager of the Vogler Gunsmith & Silversmith Shops
Download as Quicktime video (m4v)
Selections from 2010 MESDA Summer Institute
A Brief History of the Museum of Early Southern Decorative Arts (7/13/2010)
Daniel Kurt Ackermann, Associate Curator
Download as Quicktime video (m4v) or audio only (mp3)
More Than a Pot, A Kettle, and a Large Frying Pan: Decorative Arts of 17th-Century Virginia (7/14/2010)
Robert Leath, Vice President, Collections and Research, and Chief Curator
Download as Quicktime video (m4v) of audio only (mp3)
Learning Likeness: The Pastel Portraiture of Felix Sharples and Hester Van Bibber (8/4/2010)
Sarah Hale, Summer Institute Student
Download as Quicktime video (m4v) or audio only (mp3)
A Small Southern Cupboard: A Practical Piece in Imagined Contexts (8/5/2010)
Noël Harris Freeze, Summer Institute Student
Download as Quicktime video (m4v) or audio only (mp3)
The War Within an 18th Century Silver-Hilted Sword (8/5/2010)
Joseph H. Larnerd, Summer Institute Student
Download as Quicktime video (m4v) or audio only (mp3)