IT TAKES A VILLAGE

The exuberant, complicating drawings of the Shakers.

- JACKSON ARN

“Anything but Simple: Gift Drawings and the Shaker Aesthetic,” at the American Folk Art Museum, is a splendidly offbeat way to celebrate our country’s favorite strict-yet-serene religious splinter group. More traditional festivities might include hanging your laundry from wooden clothespins, a Shaker invention; or sweeping your house with a broom, which was given its modern form by Brother Theodore Bates, in 1798; or contemplating the heavenly glory of labor, so long as you do not let your thoughts interfere with the labor itself.

The Shakers came to America two hundred and f ifty years ago. Their founding leader, an Englishwoman named Ann Lee, preached Quaker ideals, like pacifism and gender equality, but added collective ownership, a work ethic to embarrass Balzac, and, trickiest of all for a utopia trying to grow, celibacy. Shaker missionaries recruited eloquently, and by the middle of the nineteenth century thousands of believers lived in villages as far south as Florida. Today, the religion has a grand total of two members—not that expansion is the only measure of success. No society chooses its legacy, and the fact that “Shaker” never became a slur like “Puritan” or a punch line like “Amish” has a lot to do with the slender, unembellished loveliness of their furniture. Shaker chairs are among the few art works that I would describe as tenderly severe. Looking at one hurts my back and soothes every other part of me.