About Scales of Care: Craft, Land, and Community
Please join us for a conversation with Venetia Dale, Michelle Millar Fisher, and Sarah Turner, who will explore how craft intersects with ideas of care—care expressed through artistic practice, care for landscapes and natural resources, and care for our communities and ourselves. Centered around Venetia Dale’s outdoor commission Within Time, on view at deCordova as part of the outdoor exhibition Nature Sanctuary, the discussion traces the artwork’s roots in domestic craft traditions, ecological stewardship, and the intimate labor of making.
Venetia Dale will share how she transformed cast houseplants into a site-responsive sculpture shaped by weather, forest ecology, and community stories. Together, the panelists will reflect on connections between craft, environmental care, and the multigenerational work of tending both people and places.
About the Speakers:
Venetia Dale is an artist, mother and educator living and working in Boston, Massachusetts. Dale pieces together fragments of mundane objects into sculptural works. The material history of pewter – as well as the anonymous stewards who keep things clean, fixed, and loved – are translated through her work as intimacies of domestic life that remind us of the generative potential of the everyday.
Dale was awarded the prestigious James and Audrey Foster Prize at ICA/Boston in 2023 and was the 2019 Polly Starr Thayer Visiting Artist at the Isabella Stewart Gardner Museum in Boston. Prior, she was a resident artist at the Kohler Factory in 2013 and at the Oregon College of Art and Craft in 2010. Dale exhibits nationally and her work is included in the permanent collections of the Metal Museum in Tennessee and John Michael Kohler Art Center in Wisconsin. Her most recent acquisition was by the Museum of Fine Arts, Boston, in 2022.
Originally hailing from Scotland, Dr. Michelle Millar Fisher writes, lectures, and creates exhibitions about the intersections of people, power, and the material world. She’s currently a curator at the MFA Boston and has worked in cultural institutions for two decades. She has a particular interest in craft, ranging from material-specific making and craft pedagogy to the craft of care work.
Sarah Turner works across the areas of institutional leadership, teaching, creative-practice and non-profit volunteerism. She has been dedicated to the fields of art, craft, design and trade for more than 25 years, working both in higher education and her own studio. Her work in educational leadership work is balanced by key opportunities to learn as a beginner. ‘Beginnership’ comes from her own studio practice, and more recently, from stewarding 53 acres of conserved forest in Western Massachusetts in partnership with Mount Grace Land Conservation Trust. She is currently a Critic at the Rhode Island School of Design.
deCordova’s programs are designed to welcome a wide range of ages and abilities. Please contact mnelson@thetrustees.org to discuss reasonable adaptations to benefit anyone in your group.
Pre-ticketing is required in order to anticipate capacity. Your ticket includes admission to deCordova’s campus, so please feel free to explore the grounds before or after the program. You’re welcome to picnic in the Park. Bring your own picnic or pick up a bite to eat at the Twisted Tree Café, and stop by The Store for a gift or souvenir.
Cancellation Policy: In the event The Trustees cancels a program due to severe weather, low enrollment, or other circumstances, we will notify registrants by email and issue a full refund or transfer to another scheduled program within two weeks of the cancellation. To cancel a reservation, please contact the Old Manse 7 days prior to the start of the program to receive a full refund. Refunds and transfers will not be granted for cancellations placed fewer than 7 days before the start of the program. As a general policy, The Trustees does not issue refunds for weather-shortened programs, in keeping with our standard approach to outdoor programs and the unpredictability of New England weather.
Questions? Want to become a Trustees member and enjoy free and/or discounted programs? Contact mnelson@thetrustees.org.
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