Our everyday lives evaporate, but writing remains. This workshop is a reflection on the impressions we leave behind, and an inspiration to begin or deepen habits of journaling. Using diaries, handwritten notes in cookbooks and other records from the HCM collections, we will step into a few lives, and consider the facts they chose to save.
Diarists may simply note chores and the weather, only occasionally touching on broader topics. But every snapshot, each sentence offers a window into another person’s life. We’ll study the archives/remnants of people who were not famous and those who were a little better known. Reading their words will help us explore the significance of journals and diaries as we commit to our own reflective practices.
Join us for an afternoon of being in the present with the past. No writing experience is necessary, and seasoned diarists are welcome! Through reading, we will step into the shoes of another person, and through exercises, we will focus on witnessing our own lives, and write. You’ll leave with inspiration to begin or continue creating a diary/journal.
If you have a notebook and pen you like to use, or prefer to write digitally, bring these along. Otherwise, we will have paper and pens available.
Registration is FREE
AMY HALLORAN spent her teenage years prowling the ghost town that was Troy in the 1980s. The first manager of the Troy Waterfront Farmers' Market, she ran the food pantry and community meals program at Unity House. Her love for food, and for the people who grow and make it, led her to write a book about the revival of regional grain production, The New Bread Basket. She is working on a book about history: her own, her city's, and that of bread baking in Troy and America.
THANK YOU TO OUR FUNDERS:
The Arts Center of the Capital Region
National Endowment for the Arts
New York State
The Hart Cluett Museum is operated by Historic Rensselaer County (Rensselaer County Historical Society), a dynamic not-for-profit educational organization established in 1927 to connect local history and heritage with contemporary life. We enrich the present and advocate for the future by bringing the region's past to life, recognizing every face and every story. In pursuit of this mission, we collect, preserve, study, interpret, and make accessible a broad variety of objects and documents. We also conduct educational programs that inspire public enthusiasm for our roots and bolster the entrepreneurial appetites of our community.
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