Pleasant Hill Shaker Village

Shaker Village of Pleasant Hill is the largest National Historic Landmark in Kentucky, preserving 34 historic structures on nearly 3000 acres of land. Over the 117 years of Shaker habitation at Pleasant Hill work and worship were intrinsically linked so that Thomas Merton noted, ” The peculiar grace of a Shaker chair is due to the fact that is has been made by someone capable of believing that an angel might come and sit on it.” My intention for this project was to visually communicate the spirituality of the Shakers through emotive images of their objects, structures, and interiors. The stillness of the spaces, the presence of graceful light, and the intimacy of the everyday materials of Shaker lives stirred a profound experience of spirit that I hoped would show through in the images. These photographs, along with 180 other black and white images, are part of my upcoming book, Shaker Work: Images from the Pleasant Hill Village and Collections, to be released in Spring, 2024 by the University Press of Kentucky.