Charis, with custom “wallpaper” printed on vinyl for the “Boyhood” exhibition.
I am honored and privileged to have made the interpretive exhibition design for “Edward Hopper’s Boyhood on the Hudson River & Emerging Artistic Identity” at Edward Hopper House Museum & Study Center (on view November 3, 2022 - March 26 , 2023). Curated by Carole Perry and Kathleen Motes Bennewitz, with Lynne Z. Bassett, I collaborated with the Executive Director at the museum to bring to life the environment for the show.
While growing up in the family home built by his maternal grandparents, Edward Hopper’s aesthetics and outlook on life emerged. The exhibition’s curators have contextualized the artist's childhood drawings, school notebooks, boyhood memorabilia, artmaking materials, and artworks by family members framed within the rooms in which young Edward lived. These aspects provide a glimpse into Hopper’s early years, insights into his life at home, the influence of his proximity to the busy waterfront and commercial district of his hometown Nyack on the Hudson River. This exhibition sheds new light on the beginning of the path that led him to become one of the defining American artists of the 20th century.
Since 2016, I’ve been proud to be on the team at Edward Hopper House. We are grateful to the Whitney Museum of American Art for loaning key artworks, the Arthayer R. Sanborn Hopper Collection Trust, and Sanborn-Hopper Family Archive. I am especially grateful to two of Nyack’s best print-houses: Chris at Harrington Press and Jacque at Concept Print, for helping me materialize our vision.
While more info about the exhibition may be found on Edward Hopper House Museum & Study Center’s website, I wanted to share notes here about what inspired me.
Custom “Wallpaper”
To lean the smaller room of the gallery towards its original use as a Victorian-era parlor, I was inspired by historic wallpaper maker Bradbury & Bradbury’s “Westwind Enrichment” pattern from their Aesthetic Movement Roomset. I customized my design (“East Lind Enrich Mint”) to include paintbrush and letter “H” motifs, and coordinated my colorway to the house’s existing trim and exhibition color scheme.
My sister Christine Carmichael was an interior designer who specialized in historic renovations and restorations with special attention towards the Victorian and Craftsman eras. As I was growing up, I watched her customize the ceiling and wall papers for the restoration of the John Lind House in New Ulm Minnesota. Being a Docent at the John Lind House was one of my first jobs!
Didactic Panels
Kathie Bennewitz, the Executive Director at Edward Hopper House Museum & Study Center, conceived of this exhibition. She sparked the ideas for the interpretive aspects to enrich the visitor’s engagement with the artwork and artifacts. Collaborating with Kathie to distill the historic imagery and text was a pleasure!
Installation view of the exhibition in the main gallery: “Edward Hopper’s Boyhood on the Hudson River & Emerging Artistic Vision.”
Collateral
As the Visual Communications Manager at Edward Hopper House Museum & Study Center, I create the collateral for the events and exhibitions. For this exhibition, our Executive Director empowered me to pull together a more expansive experience for the visitor. From the poster announcement, exterior banner, hallway entry map mural with coordinating Walking Tour webpages, and “Looking Through Hopper’s Window” map (accessible in Hopper’s bedroom), I am proud of how these graphics guide the viewer into the environment in which Hopper grew up.
When I was in college, I create a guidebook of the sites of historical interest in Brown County as an internship with the Brown County Historical Society. Discovering, researching, mapping, photographing, compiling, and publishing historical markers of my home’s history was incredibly rewarding. Revisiting this process at Edward Hopper House in Rockland County felt “like home”.
Final checks before sending "Marking Time" to print, May 2005
