Sheldon Museum picks Skenyon as new leader

The Henry Sheldon Museum Board of Trustees has hired Stephanie Skenyon, PhD, as the museum’s new executive director. She succeeds Bill Brooks, who led the Sheldon Museum for nearly 10 years and retired this winter.

The museum recently won a large federal grant to help continue a long list of infrastructure repairs that are substantially refurbishing its 1 Park St. home.

March is here and if you need some distraction to get through this month, check out the new exhibits and events coming up at Edgewater, Brandon Artists Guild and the Henry Sheldon Museum.

Professor Rachel Hope Cleves will discuss her experiences unearthing the histories of sex and gender in archives large and small, and how she turns those archival discoveries into award-winning articles and books.

The Henry Sheldon Museum presents a lecture by historian Christine DeLucia on Feb. 9, at 7 p.m., via Zoom.

In this talk, historian Michelle Smiley will discuss American daguerreotype portraiture, its uses as both as a scientific instrument and as a means of picturing loved ones, as well as the photographic portrait as a medium of democratic participation, part … (read more)

The virtual program will feature holiday favorites played on Henry L. Sheldon’s historic Chickering piano.

Bill Brooks has helmed Middlebury’s Henry Sheldon Museum for only 10 of its 137 years, but his many contributions have made an immeasurable impact on how locals and visitors will perceive Addison County for many decades to come.

In this lecture, Sarah Anne Carter explores the creation and use of the “Mrs. M.——’s Cabinet” period room project at the Milwaukee Art Museum, which she collaboratively created during her time with the Chipstone Foundation.

MIDDLEBURY — The Henry Sheldon Museum of Vermont History has long been a key component of holiday tradition in Middlebury and Addison County. But the pandemic forced the institution to be closed during last holiday season, and indeed it was shuttered for … (read more)

The Henry Sheldon Museum presents a lecture by Graham C. Boettcher, Director of the Birmingham Museum of Art on Nov. 10, at 7 p.m., via Zoom.

The meeting will feature Alexander Wolff, journalist and historian, author of his recently acclaimed “Endpapers: A Family Story of Books, War, Escape, and Home.”

The show features paintings by Jill Madden and photographs by Caleb Kenna capturing colorful “sightlines” within the Green Mountains of Vermont.

What is “the elephant in the room” at museums? What topics do cultural heritage organizations shy away from, obscure or feel ill-equipped to address?

Really? Henry L. Sheldon collected cartoons over 120 years ago? Yes! Last winter, in the midst of the pandemic, the Sheldon Museum was contacted by a known New Yorker cartoonist, Ed Koren. He explained that he was in possession of two bound volumes of Sun … (read more)