Gary Graham Old Manse artist's residency lecture at deCordova Museum
Gary Graham lecture and discussion of his Old Manse artist's residency
In June 2024 artist and fashion designer Gary Graham and historian Megan Marshall discussed Tnamurya, Graham’s clothing collection inspired by the historic Old Manse and the previous generations of women who resided there. Presented at deCordova Museum and Sculpture Park in Lincoln, MA, the ticketed, public event included a presentation about the collection, as well as conversation about past lives inspiring modern day clothing, and an investigation into the deep history of transcendentalism in the region.
Tnamurya was the anagram Ralph Waldo Emerson used in his journals to reference his Aunt Mary (Mary Moody Emerson.) During a 2022 Concord, MA artist residency Gary researched a new Gary Graham collection and met with conservators and program directors regarding a future art installation at the Old Manse. The Old Manse is most notable as the house where Ralph Waldo Emerson wrote his essay Nature and Nathaniel Hawthorne wrote Mosses from an Old Manse, just steps from the Old North Bridge where the “Shot heard ’round the World” took place on the fateful night of April 19, 1775.
Graham's work focused on the women who either lived at the Old Manse or influenced the aforementioned writers, as well as the generations of children reared here, including Mary Moody, Sophia Hawthorne, Sarah Alden Bradford Ripley, and Margaret Fuller.