Rokeby MuseumRokeby Museum, PC Construction Announce 2021 Preservation Partnership
Ferrisburgh and South Burlington, VT – Rokeby Museum is pleased to announce that PC Construction has stepped up as the Museum’s 2021 Preservation Sponsor.
Under the partnership, the employee-owned construction firm will complete approximately $20,000 worth of preservation work on the over 200-year-old structures on the site, addressing some the urgent needs the Museum had not secured funding to accomplish. The high-priority projects will make buildings safer and more accessible by adding handrails and replacing deteriorated porches. Additional work includes structural repairs for the grainery, and removal and replacement of 1815 plaster on some of the buildings’ interior walls.
Read MoreA Social Justice Primer — “How to Be an Antiracist,” by Ibram X. Kendi
by Richard Bernstein, M.D., Rokeby Museum Trustee
“…as Kendi’s awareness grew and as his thinking developed, he realized that the statement, ‘I am not a racist,’ which is meant to absolve the speaker of racist feelings or thoughts, actually expresses a level of denial that he calls ‘the heartbeat of racism.’”
Ibram X. Kendi’s book, How to Be an Anti-Racist, details his journey and his growing awareness of how racism informs his own life and thoughts. Along the way, he has taught himself how to be an anti-racist, and through his book, he speaks of and to himself as much as to the reader.
Read MoreRighting the Erasure of Black History and Creating an Inclusive American Story
On February 2, 2021, Rokeby Museum hosted a virtual Black History Month Lecture that explored current efforts to recognize and right missing historical narratives in history. Three panelists joined the conversation to discuss their research and community work to uncover hidden and missing stories in our communities and fight for change to ensure these stories are not lost again.
Read MoreWhat Happens at Rokeby Museum in the Winter Months? A Closer look at our Collections Work
From mid-May to October, Rokeby Museum is open to the public to tour the historic 90-acre site and view our exhibits, but we recently had a patron ask what we do during the rest of year when visitors are not on site?
Rokeby has the privilege of being a multifaceted site, with historic buildings, a modern education center with exhibit space, and the caretaker of a vast collection of museum objects that represent four generations of the Robinson family. The off-season months provide an opportunity to plan for the next season, including programs and the seasonal exhibit. It also allows us to give special attention to the site and the collections.
Read More“Delightful, Complex, and Real People.”
Today’s readers will find both enjoyment and discomfort in Rowland Evans Robinson’s writings. Rokeby feels that Vermont poet and R.E.R. editor and enthusiast David Budbill (1940–2016) explores these dichotomies best in his preface to Danvis Tales: Selected Stories by Rowland E. Robinson:
I first read Rowland Robinson in the early 1970s when my friend Hayden Carruth urged Robinson upon me. I fell in love with him immediately, with his elegant and graceful prose, his precise eye for describing the minute details of the natural world, and with his delightful, complex, and real people.
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