TO SEE A RECORDING OF THIS LECTURE ON YOUTUBE, CLICK HERE.

Tuesday, December 6, 2022
7:00–8:00 pm
Free Admission

Registration is required 24 hours in advance. To receive a Zoom link to the event, click here, or call 267.502.2600.

With Glencairn Museum closed for major infrastructure replacement, the Blessed Michael McGivney Pilgrimage Center will recreate Glencairn’s annual Christmas exhibition, World Nativities, for the New Haven community. Bethany J. Sheffer, curator of Christmas in the Castle, will present an illustrated talk via Zoom about this exciting new exhibition (November 11, 2022–February 5, 2023). Members of Glencairn Museum’s staff will also be on hand to discuss some of the almost 50 Nativities that will be on loan from the Glencairn collection. Both museums have annual Christmas exhibitions and have been loaning Nativities to each other for many years.

To plan a visit to see the Christmas in the Castle exhibition in New Haven, Connecticut, visit the Blessed Michael McGivney Pilgrimage Center for information.

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Thursday, December 2, 2021

7:00–8:00 pm

Free Admission

Mark Sfirri's presentation, given on December 2, 2021 for Glencairn Museum, is now available for viewing on Vimeo and YouTube.

Reservations are required 24 hours in advance. To receive a Zoom link to the event, click here or call 267.502.2600.

Mark Sfirri, an artist, professor, author, and curator, will present an illustrated talk via Zoom on the life and art of Hanna Weil Fischer-Binder. In the 1950s, Raymond and Mildred Pitcairn commissioned Fischer-Binder, a multi-talented Bucks County artist, to carve three sets of wooden Nativity figures for the East Room of the Eisenhower White House. The three scenes (the Wise Men gazing at the Star of Bethlehem, the Annunciation to the Shepherds, and the Nativity) were located beside the Christmas tree. Fischer-Binder also made Nativity figures for members of the Pitcairn family. Earlier in her artistic career, from the 1920s until the late 1930s, she was known for her ivory carvings in her native country, Germany. Sfirri will explain Fischer-Binder’s personal history, how she ended up in Bucks County, and how her career eventually led her to carve the wooden Nativity figures she made for the Eisenhower and Pitcairn families.

Mark Sfirri is co-curator of a current exhibition at the James A. Michener Art Museum in Doylestown, PA, Daring Design: The Impact of Three Women on Wharton Esherick’s Craft. Hanna Weil Fischer-Binder is one of the artists featured in this exhibition.

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Free Admission

An illustrated presentation about Glencairn’s exhibition of Pennsylvania barn art by Patrick J. Donmoyer, guest curator. Donmoyer has spent over a decade researching and photographing decorated barns throughout Southeastern Pennsylvania. His survey of decorated Pennsylvania barns reveals a diverse and colorful tradition of folk art that illustrates trends in Pennsylvania German folklore, especially as it pertains to beliefs and practices associated with the agricultural lifestyle, religious expression, and observations of the heavens.

Free Admission

Presented in partnership with the History and Social Sciences Department at Bryn Athyn College
Sponsored by The Cole Foundation for Renewing the Culture

In this talk, William Ian Miller considers terms for peace and justice in order to get at contemporary society’s approach to them as concepts. Framed by biblical texts, Miller traces origins and developments in several historical cultures drawing on a wide range of sources: literary, historical, legal, and religious. His analysis reveals the light and dark sides to our notions of justice and how we think it best achieved. Rich in insight and humor, Dr. Miller’s lecture promises to be engaging and informative.

$10 Adults, $8 Seniors/Students with ID, free for Museum Members.

As an expression of faith and identity, cultures throughout the world engage in ritual as an effective means to create and define meaningful interactions, spaces and outcomes. This talk will explore the historical and cultural roots of traditional customs, rituals, and folkways known among the Pennsylvania Dutch as Braucherei, or powwowing. Blessings, inscriptions, objects, and procedures will provide an overview of ritual traditions used primarily for the healing and protection of humans and their domesticated animals. Descriptions of powwowing throughout three centuries will demonstrate the ways in which ritual is still very much an active force in the present, human endeavor to heal physical and existential concerns and satisfy the hunger for meaning in everyday life.