Shaker “Spirit Drawings”

Every Wednesday on my Facebook author page, I do a Shaker Wednesday where I share a little Shaker history from some of the resource books I used when I was writing my Shaker novels. Earlier I had posted a picture of my latest Shaker book, The Refuge, alongside a picture I have of the Shaker Tree of Life. This picture has come to represent Shaker art. Somebody asked me about the picture’s history. So, I had planned to share it yesterday on Shaker Wednesday, but when I started digging around, I found more information than I could easily share on a Facebook post. I decided to do a blog post instead since I generally do one on Wednesday evenings.

Yes, last night was Wednesday and yes, I let that slip my mind until about 11 o’clock last night. I don’t know about you all, but this quarantining time has me having to think about what day it is. I should claim that as an excuse except I didn’t forget it was Wednesday yesterday morning. But I am working hard to write my new book and needed to get down a few extra words by working late last night. Okay, excuses over. On to Shaker art.

One of the interesting things about the Shaker art is that prior to what the Shakers called their Era of Manifestations in the 1840s and 1850s, they banned artwork as too worldly. But then in 1837 in a Shaker village in the east, some teenage girls had visions of going up into heaven where they danced with angels. Soon this phenomena spread through all the Shaker villages as many of the Shaker believers began having spiritual visions which were revealed in songs, drawings and dances. The people who received the visions were considered “instruments.”

If you read my Shaker book, The Blessed, you will know that I set that story during this period. My heroine instead of being one of the “instruments” was a commonsense woman who didn’t buy into the Shaker beliefs or their visions. She went to the Shakers because she was married to a preacher who embraced the Shaker way. I suppose when I was researching this period of Shaker history, I was something like Lacey in my view of some of the visions that were noted. One elder in one of the villages claimed to be under such a vision compulsion that he had to somersault everywhere. That’s just one of many odd things the Shakers claimed to have to do due to visions. Other stories said that older Shaker sisters would gather about young girls’ beds to record the visions and songs they spoke of in their sleep. It was a strange decade for the Shakers that eventually ended when the leaders began losing some of their control to young members claiming to have messages straight from their Mother Ann in heaven about what the communities should do. At that time, when the visions were no longer wanted or admired, they faded away and in many villages, the spirit drawings were hidden away.

From the beginning of the founding of the Shaker sect, the members had claimed to want to make their villages heavens on earth. The leaders often talked about the heavenly treasures they desired and their founder, Mother Ann, had many visions. However, their actual villages were built on the idea of working with their hands and giving their hearts to God. They eschewed anything fancy in their lives and wanted a unity of plainness. They thought extravagances such as ruffles on clothes or ornamentation on furniture would threaten their purity.

But when the members began having these vision, they considered them Spirit gifts that were then expressed in drawings, messages from deceased members, songs and dances. Many of the gift drawings that have survived until now were made by Shaker sisters in the Hancock Shaker Village in Massachusetts or at New Lebanon Shaker Village in New York. These “gift drawings” were based on the spiritual messages the artists received in visitations and were made using watercolors or transparent inks. Most of the time the artwork would not be signed.

Tree of Life

This particular painting was done by Hannah Cohoon who joined the Hancock Shaker Village in 1817 at the age of 29. At the time she had two young children. She first began doing her spirit drawings in 1845. She broke the traditional Shaker way of not signing their work and did sign her artwork.  She also used thicker paint of primary colors that were different from many of the other Shaker art. Most of her “gift drawings” featured trees.

Cohoon described how the vision came to her to create the Tree of Life drawing: “I received a draft of a beautiful Tree pencil’d on large sheet of plain white paper bearing ripe fruit. I saw it plainly. It looked very singular and curious to me. I have since learned that this Tree grows in the Spirit Land. Afterwards the Spirit showed me plainly the branches, leaves and fruit, painted or drawn upon paper. The leaves were check’d or cross’d and the same colours you see here. I entreated  Mother Ann to tell me the name of this tree which she did on Oct. 1st 4th hour P.M. by moving the hand of a medium to write twice over Your Tree is the Tree of Life.”

This painting has come represent Shakers. In recent years, some of Cohoon’s other paintings have sold for thousands of dollars. A similar painting to Tree of Life called Tree of Light or Blazing Tree sold at Sotheby’s for $299,500 to the Museum of American Folk Art in January, 1997.

So, now you know why that particular painting is so well known and is considered the best example of Shaker spirit drawings.

What do you think about the painting Tree of Life? Does it represent the Shakers to you?