Hudson Heritage Association Offers Winter Course on Decorative Arts

UPDATE: Registration Deadline Extended!
Make your reservation by phone until 2/21 and pay at the door. Call 330-805-0865 for more information.

Following up on the highly successful series it offered last winter, Hudson Heritage Association has announced that it will sponsor a four-week course that will examine the history of decorative arts in America. The course, which will examine the evolution of furniture styles, textiles, ceramics, glass sliver and other metals in context of society at large, will begin Monday, February 22. The four-class course will be taught by Christie Borkan, an authority on American and Ohio architecture who has taught and lectured at Hiram College. All classes will be held at Hudson’s First Congregational Church from 7-8:30 p.m.

“We received overwhelmingly positive response to last year’s course, which focused on American architectural styles found in the Connecticut Western Reserve,” said Julie Ann Hancsak, president of Hudson Heritage Association. “We are thrilled to have Christie join us again to discuss how everyday objects helped create the distinctive interiors that so many homes in Hudson still reflect.”

The course will begin by examining furniture, materials and construction techniques used in different time periods, beginning with pilgrim furniture and furniture popular in the thirteen American colonies. Over the following weeks, Ms. Borkan will discuss the styles popular in the new republic, the romantic styles of the Victorian era and the progression to the pre-modern styles found in the 19^th century and up to World War I. The course will also examine the concurrent evolution of silver design, glass and ceramic styles and decorative textile production. Unlike some courses that focus on the economic value of these objects as collection items, Ms. Borkan’s course will examine the items as representations of the era in which they were created.

Christie Borkan holds an undergraduate degree in art history and served as a Fellow in the Winterthur program for early American culture in Delaware, where her thesis research centered on historic paint in Western Reserve buildings. She has worked as a curatorial assistant in ancient art at the Cleveland Museum of Art, and as a researcher of paintings and automobiles for the Western Reserve Historical Society. Most of her career has been spent teaching art history, focusing primarily on American and Ohio architecture, and American furniture. Her restoration projects include stenciling in three houses at Hale Farm, stenciling in the Sarah Benedict House of the Cleveland Restoration Society, preserving historic paint at James A. Garfield’s law office at Lawnfield, as well as painting and paint consulting for numerous historic projects. She is a native of Wellington, Ohio, and has been at Hiram since 1977, first as a student and then as a teacher.

Registration for the Decorative Arts course is $75 per person for the full series of classes. Hudson Heritage Association members may register at a discounted rate of $65 per person. Class size is limited and registration for the course will close February 15. Individuals may attend individual classes by paying $20 per class at the door, based on space availability. For more information about registering for the course and to download a course syllabus, visit hudsonheritage.org/class, or call 330-805-0865.