ABOUT THE ANTIQUES FORUM
New Lives for Old Things: Refashioning Southern Material Culture
August 8–11, 2024
410 Chartres Street in the French Quarter
Amidst constantly evolving trends and artistic innovations, one thing remains the same: the past is never gone. People of the Gulf South have always found ways to reuse and adapt older objects to fit new purposes. From columned Greek Revival mansions to clothing, each new generation has recycled and revised historic aesthetics to suit its own time. Museums and memory institutions have also influenced the maintaining and repurposing of historic objects.
The 2024 New Orleans Antiques Forum will discuss the long lives of objects in historic practices and current concepts. Sessions will address the reasons objects are given second lives—cultural heritage, economic necessity, sustainability—as well as the skills required for adaptive reuse—craft techniques and creative repair methods. The endurance of antiques and heirlooms is a testament to the Gulf South’s rich heritage of skillful creativity.
Registration Information
Registration for the 2024 New Orleans Antiques Forum is limited and opens to HNOC members on Monday, June 3, at 9:30 a.m. (CDT) and to the general public on Monday, June 10, at 9:30 a.m. (CDT). Single-day registration is available for Friday, Saturday, or Sunday, or attendees can register for the full forum for a discounted price. The champagne reception is included for all attendees. Tickets for optional activities must be purchased separately.
Registration Options
Forum Registration
- Single-day Friday sessions $150
- Single-day Saturday sessions $150
- Single-day Sunday sessions $50
- Full Forum $300 (save $50)
- Young participants (ages 21–30) enjoy half-price tickets for single-day admissions.
Optional Activities
- Preconference Activity (limited to forum registrants) $100
- Brunch at Arnaud’s $85
Parking
Parking is not included with forum admission. A discounted rate of $15 per day will be available to forum participants. Information about how to access this rate will be included in your registration confirmation.
Hotel Accommodations
Discounted rooms are available at the Hotel Monteleone, 214 Royal Street, just a few blocks from THNOC. To receive the discounted rate, make your reservations by following this link before July 1, 2024 or call the hotel at (800) 535-9595 and identify yourself as a participant in The Historic New Orleans Collection Antiques Forum. Hotel parking is available for an additional fee.
SCHEDULE
8:30 a.m.
Registration
9:30 a.m.
Welcome
Daniel Hammer, The Historic New Orleans Collection
9:45 a.m.
Introduction
Tom Savage, moderator, Colonial Williamsburg Foundation
10:15 a.m.
A Virginian in the Court of Poland
Neal Hurst, Colonial Williamsburg Foundation
In 2023, the Valentine Museum in Richmond, Virginia, transferred twenty garments belonging to diplomat Lewis Littlepage to the Colonial Williamsburg Foundation. Littlepage was born in 1762 in New Kent County, Virginia. He attended the College of William and Mary and later served with John Jay at the Court of Spain during the American Revolution. By 1786 he was admitted to the Court of Poland, where he served as a chamberlain to King Stanisław II until 1795. With war raging across Europe and the Third partition of Poland, Lewis was forced to leave the court and finally returned home to Virginia in 1801. His clothing provides a unique glimpse into a single person’s wardrobe and his constant adaptive reuse of garments both in Europe and America.
11 a.m.
Break
11:15 a.m.
Clothing as Currency
Dr. Laura F. Edwards, Princeton University
In the nineteenth century, textiles were not just necessities or desirable consumer goods; they also circulated as currency. That was particularly true for people who had difficulty acquiring property or credit. The federal system’s decentralized structure enabled this: lax financial regulation allowed textiles to circulate just like the mediums of exchange that bore the imprimatur of states and the federal government. If anything, the people who used textiles as currency improved on the systems of exchange overseen by their government. Textiles stored value reliably. There was considerable consensus as to their value. They were extremely liquid. And they were attached to people through longstanding practices acknowledged in law. Through use, people turned textiles into banknotes—which is where textiles eventually ended up anyway, since banknotes were made of rags. Spinners, weavers, seamstresses, dressmakers, tailors, and even washerwomen were all, essentially, printing money.
noon
Lunch (on your own)
1:45 p.m.
Basketry Weaving: Preserving Houma Indian Heritage for Generations
Janie Verret Luster, tradition bearer of the United Houma Nation and Louisiana, Douglas Fazzio, artist, and Brenda Dardar Robichaux, former principal chief of the United Houma Nation
Janie Verret Luster is widely recognized for her coiled half-hitch baskets, made using an intricate weaving technique lost to the Houma for a generation. Reintroduced by Luster in the 1990s, the hitch-coil method with a half-hitch knot is considered limited in North America to Louisiana’s largest tribe of Indigenous peoples. Luster will be in conversation with artist Douglas Fazzio and former Principal Chief of the United Houma Nation Brenda Dardar Robichaux about the rediscovery and revival this lost technique, the traditions of the tribe’s basket weavers of the past and present, and their hope for the future generations of Houma weavers.
2:45 p.m.
New Acquisitions and Highlights from the Collection
Lydia Blackmore and Nina Bozak, The Historic New Orleans Collection
The Historic New Orleans Collection actively collects books, documents, art, and artifacts relating
to the history and culture of New Orleans, Louisiana, and the Gulf South. Curators Nina Bozak and
Lydia Blackmore will present some recent highlights of the collection.
3 p.m.
Break
3:15 p.m.
Simply Riveting: Broken and Mended Ceramics
Angelika R. Kuettner, Colonial Williamsburg Foundation
For centuries, craftspeople and merchants have boasted their skills and promoted “infallible” products to repair many objects, including ceramics. Glues, cements, and rivets of various materials promised new life to the prized family vase and the useful cooking pot alike. This beautifully illustrated will place broken and mended ceramics in historical context by examining museum objects, paintings, prints, newspapers, letters, almanacs, and archaeological fragments.
4 p.m.
Curator-led exhibition tours and insider experiences at the Historic New Orleans Collection
5 p.m.
Champagne Reception
9 a.m.
Registration
9:30 a.m.
Welcome
Daniel Hammer
9:45 a.m.
Introduction
Tom Savage
10 a.m.
Elements of a Home: Curious Histories behind Everyday Household Objects
Amy Azzarito, author and material culture historian
The objects that fill our homes say a great deal about who we are and what (and whom) we value. Our favorite pieces are often those with stories, such as the rocker purchased to soothe a now-grown child. Every domestic object has a personal history, but also a forgotten history. How did the fork become a requisite item for the dining table, or when did knobs evolve for doors? Learning these stories can give us a newfound appreciation for even the most quotidian objects that occupy our domestic sphere. You won’t look at your “stuff” in quite the same way again.
10:45 a.m.
Break
11 a.m.
DAGS Field Work Updates: Shadows-on-the-Teche Revisited
Sarah Duggan, The Historic New Orleans Collection
Decorative Arts of the Gulf South (DAGS) project manager Sarah Duggan will share about graduate summer interns’ recently completed cataloging along Bayou Teche. They are the second consecutive DAGS team to focus on Shadows-on-the-Teche, a National Trust Historic Site in New Iberia, Louisiana. The abundance of original artifacts and family archives at the site make it an ideal case study for investigating the histories of both free and enslaved people.
11:15 p.m.
Soul of the Home: Designing with Antiques
Tara Shaw, antique dealer and designer
Traveling through the pages of her 2020 book Soul of the Home, Tara Shaw will share how to select the best antiques and how to use them in a variety of decor schemes. Her distinctive vision offers a modern take on using antiques in interior design. Shaw will reveal her favorite antique-hunting spots throughout Europe and the United States, relate anecdotes from years of treasure hunting, and decode just how to choose the right pieces and pair pieces from different periods and display them in a contemporary interior.
12:15 p.m.
Lunch (on your own)
2 p.m.
Whitney and Wallace: Reckoning with the Past through Architectural Reinterpretation
Dr. Ashley Rogers, Whitney Plantation, with Theoangelo Perkins and Nell H. Gottlieb, The Wallace Center for Arts and Reconciliation
This session will explore historic sites of enslavement reinterpreted as places of learning and reconciliation. Ashley Rogers, executive director of Whitney Plantation (Wallace, Louisiana), will discuss ways in which the architectural reinterpretation of Whitney educates the public about the history and legacies of slavery in the United States. Theoangelo Perkins and Nell Gottlieb, co-founders of the Wallace Center for Arts and Reconciliation (Harpersville, Alabama) and both descendants of the enslaved and enslavers of the plantation, will discuss the ways in which the reinterpretation of the Wallace Center promotes reconciliation, healing, and repair with artistic and conversational programming through the lens of its extant structures, “ghost buildings,” and open-air site-specific sculptures.
2:45 p.m.
Break
3 p.m.
“In the Single Brothers’ House a Necessary Change Was Made:” The Changing Uses and Material Culture of a Communal Building in Salem, North Carolina
Johanna M. Brown, Old Salem Museum and Gardens and Museum of Early Southern Decorative Arts
The Single Brothers’ House was built in 1769 by the Moravian Church in Salem as a residence for the unmarried men and boys of the Moravian community, founded in 1766. The building also included work and worship spaces. In the ensuing centuries, the use of the building changed, and additions were made. These changes and the acculturation of the Moravians over time are reflected in the Moravian material culture made and used by the people who occupied the building.
3:45 p.m.
Book signings with Tara Shaw and Amy Azzarito, explore the French Quarter, and visit French Quarter Museum Association museums
9 a.m.
Registration
10 a.m.
Introduction
Tom Savage
10:15 a.m.
New Lives for Old Buildings: Reimagining 533 Royal Street
Lydia Blackmore and Daniel Hammer
In 2023, The Historic New Orleans Collection embarked on a major capital project to restore and reimagine the historic museum campus at 533 Royal Street. Comprising five properties on Royal and Toulouse Streets with historic architecture dating between 1794 and 1890, the buildings have seen generations of adaptation, renovation, restoration, and preservation work. Daniel Hammer and Lydia Blackmore will share the history of the buildings, the ongoing process of research and design, and the goals of future accessibility and sustainability on the site.
11 a.m.
Break
11:15 a.m.
A Religious Experience: The Transformation of Hotel Peter + Paul
Tracie Ashe, practis
The renovation and restoration of Hotel Peter + Paul was a years-long team endeavor to bring four derelict Archdiocese of New Orleans buildings back into commerce as a boutique hotel. The presentation will focus on the architectural, interior design, and interior finishes efforts made to transform these disparate buildings into a cohesive, immersive experience for guests, including furniture sourcing and repair and custom painted finishes throughout the interior. Design challenges involved creative spatial programming in four very different buildings, accommodating a hotel’s various needs, and ensuring the historic nature of the structures was celebrated and enhanced by the new use.
noon
Closing Remarks
Tom Savage
12:30 p.m.
Brunch (optional, with additional charge)
Arnaud’s Restaurant, 813 Bienville Street
Events are held in the Boyd Cruise Room, Williams Research Center, 410 Chartres Street, unless noted otherwise.
Optional Activities
Preconference Activity: The Evolving French Quarter
Thursday, August 8
$100 per person, food and beverages included
The French Quarter is the oldest neighborhood in the city of New Orleans. Originally planned in 1722, the very same block grid has been through major transformations throughout its history. Participants in this optional preconference activity will be escorted through the French Quarter to experience its historic structures. Peek into private homes repurposed for modern living. Relax in private courtyards once used as workspaces for cooking and washing. Explore and learn about the objects and collections in historic house museums. We will end the day at a private reception at the Riverview Room, overlooking the historic French Quarter. Participants will be escorted in small groups by private guides in small tour buses. Food and beverages will be provided throughout the day. This experience is only available for participants of the New Orleans Antiques Forum.
Celebratory Brunch at Arnaud’s Restaurant
Sunday, August 11 • 12:30–2 p.m. $85 per person
Celebrate the conclusion of the 16th New Orleans Antiques Forum. Socialize, meet the speakers and staff, and enjoy classic Creole cuisine in one of the city’s most prestigious restaurants.
Menu
1st Course
Shrimp remoulade—a duet of Louisiana gulf shrimp with white remoulade sauce and Arnaud’s Creole remoulade sauce
2nd Course
Panko-crusted gulf fish—chive hollandaise, gulf shrimp and vegetables Parisiennes
3rd Course
Praline bar—flourless chocolate cake topped with praline Bavarian, served with chocolate feuilletine and apple caramel sauce
Includes house wine and champagne, mimosas, Bloody Marys, milk punches, as well as soft drinks, iced tea, hot tea, and coffee
SPEAKERS
Tom Savage
In 2021, Tom Savage was appointed director of educational travel and conferences for the Colonial Williamsburg Foundation, following a sixteen-year career at Winterthur Museum, Garden, and Library as director of museum affairs and director of external affairs. From 1998 to 2005 he was senior vice president and director of Sotheby’s Institute of Art, where he directed the Sotheby’s American Arts Course, and from 1981 to 1998 he served as curator and director of museum of the Historic Charleston Foundation. A native of Virginia, Savage received a BA in art history from the College of William and Mary and a master’s degree in history museum studies from the Cooperstown Graduate Program of the State University of New York. Savage currently serves on the board of governors of the Decorative Arts Trust. He is a former trustee of the Royal Oak Foundation, the Attingham Summer School, and the Sir John Soane’s Museum Foundation. In addition, he served as a presidential appointee to the Committee for the Preservation of the White House from 1993 to 2002.
Neil Hurst
Neal Hurst is the curator of textiles and historic dress at the Colonial Williamsburg Foundation. He received his BA in history from the College of William and Mary and his MA from the Winterthur Program in American Material Culture at the University of Delaware. He served as assistant curator on the inaugural exhibition for the Museum of the American Revolution in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania. In August of 2016, Neal joined the curatorial team at Colonial Williamsburg, and he has recently opened a new exhibition entitled Elegance, Taste, and Style: The Mary D. Doering Fashion Collection (2024).
Dr. Laura F. Edwards
Laura F. Edwards is the Class of 1921 Bicentennial Professor in the History of American Law and Liberty in the history department at Princeton University. She is a prize-winning author who focuses on the legal history of the nineteenth-century United States, with an emphasis on people’s interactions with the law. Her most recent book, Only the Clothes on Her Back: Clothing and the Hidden History of Power in the Nineteenth-Century United States (2022), combines legal history with material culture to reconstruct the parts of the legal system that afforded property ownership to those without property rights.
Janie Verret Luster
Janie Verret Luster is a cultural preservationist of the United Houma Nation hailing from the tiny community of Bayou DuLarge in Terrebonne Parish. She is a dedicated practitioner of diverse tribal customs, including crafts such as palmetto basketry, alligator garfish scale jewelry, and Spanish moss dolls; environmental conservation; and Indigenous foodways. She is also fluent in Louisiana Houma-French, the creole language spoken by her tribe for nearly three centuries. Luster comes from a long line of traditional healers and artists. When the Houma faced discrimination and forced assimilation, her parents steadfastly maintained their tribal culture. They passed their customs to Luster, and she, in turn, has shared them with her children and grandchildren.
Douglas Fazzio
Douglas Fazzio is a tribal member of the United Houma Nation. Born in 1966 in Houma, Louisiana, Fazzio was a commercial fisherman and boat captain, and in 1995 he was severely injured in an offshore accident and had to undergo multiple back surgeries. While he was recuperating, he learned to carve from his cousin Roy Parfait, a well-known woodcarver in the United Houma Nation. Fazzio began by carving dolphins and fish, then started building model replicas of large shrimp boats. He currently creates many carvings, builds various types of boats, weaves baskets, and makes dream catchers and jewelry with garfish scales. Fazzio is a dedicated husband, father, and grandfather, and he has volunteered after hurricanes to help his community. He enjoys spending time with his family and friends, and he never passes up an opportunity to go fishing.
Brenda Dardar Robichaux
Brenda Dardar Robichaux, born in 1958, in New Orleans, Louisiana, is a prominent figure in the United Houma Nation, having served as the principal chief. She spent her childhood in the south end of Golden Meadow, and has lived most of her adult life in Lafourche Parish and Raceland. Robichaux’s connection to Louisiana’s wetlands is deeply rooted in her family’s history and traditions. Her grandfather was a trapper, hunter, and farmer who used plants from the local environment for traditional medicine. Her father was a fisherman and oysterman, further strengthening her ties to the land and the wetlands. As the former principal chief of the United Houma Nation, Robichaux has been a vocal advocate for the preservation of the wetlands and the cultural identity of her community. She has expressed concern about the impacts of environmental changes and coastal land loss on her community.
Lydia Blackmore
Lydia Blackmore is the decorative arts curator at the Historic New Orleans Collection. She earned an MA and certificate in museum studies from the Winterthur Program in American Material Culture at the University of Delaware; she also holds a degree in history from the College of William and Mary. As curator, Blackmore oversees research, acquisition, and preservation of decorative and fine art collections. She manages the Decorative Arts of the Gulf South project and is coordinating preservation projects at the historic 533 Royal Street campus. In ten years at HNOC, Blackmore has curated or co-curated several exhibitions, including Making Mardi Gras (2022), A Vanishing Bounty (2024), and Unknown Sitters (2024). Outside of the Collection, she is a member of the board of trustees of the Historic BK House & Gardens.
Nina Bozak
Nina Bozak, curator of rare books at the Historic New Orleans Collection, previously worked in the special collections of both Tulane and Dillard Universities. She received her MLIS from the Palmer School of Library and Information Science at Long Island University with a concentration in rare books and special collections, after which she worked at Swann Auction Galleries and Bauman Rare Books in New York, before joining the staff of HNOC in 2010. In addition to her work with HNOC’s rare books, Bozak is also a curator for its performing and literary arts collections.
Angelika R. Kuettner
Angelika R. Kuettner was promoted to associate curator of ceramics and glass at the Colonial Williamsburg Foundation in 2019. Prior to graduate school at William and Mary, she worked as the curatorial assistant at the Reeves Center at Washington and Lee University. Kuettner has published and lectured on a variety of topics including the ceramic-manufacturing partnership of Benjamin Leigh and John Allman in eighteenth-century Boston, mended ceramics in early America, silver lusterware in Federal America, and free Black potter David Jarbour. She served as co-editor of the 2017 issue of Ceramics in America and was a contributing author to the 2021 publication The Material World of Eyre Hall: Four Centuries of Chesapeake History. Most recently, she co-authored the article “English Delft for Colonial Tavern Tables in King William County and Williamsburg, Virginia,” which appeared in the 2023 issue of Ceramics in America. She currently serves on the board of the American Ceramic Circle.
Amy Azzarito
Amy Azzarito is an author and material culture historian. She uses physical objects to trace the past. Her latest book, Elements of a Home (2020), reveals the fascinating stories behind more than sixty everyday household objects. She is a PhD candidate at the University of York, United Kingdom, where her dissertation examines the economics of jewelry for 18th century British women. She lives just outside San Francisco with her husband and five-year-old daughter.
Sarah Duggan
Sarah Duggan is the project manager of the Decorative Arts of the Gulf South (DAGS) project at the Historic New Orleans Collection, an initiative that documents and shares information about pre-1865 material life in Louisiana, Mississippi, and Alabama. She leads DAGS’s work through data management, cataloging fieldwork, archival research, and two internship programs. In 2021 she co-curated the exhibition Pieces of History: Ten Years of Decorative Arts Field Work. Duggan holds a master’s degree from the Winterthur Program in American Material Culture at the University of a Delaware, and a bachelor’s in history and religious studies from the College of William and Mary.
Tara Shaw
Tara Shaw’s design principles stem from more than thirty years of success as an antiques importer and designer. Shaw is a respected supplier of European antiques for a host of AD100 and Elle Decor A-listers; has a custom furniture line, Maison; and licensed product lines with Restoration Hardware and Century Furniture. She is the author of Soul of the Home (2020) and is working on her second book for Abrams. Shaw has a global design business, and her work has been featured in Veranda, Elle Decor, Wall Street Journal, World of Interiors, and numerous other shelter magazines.
AD100
Dr. Ashley Rogers
Dr. Ashley Rogers is the executive director of the Whitney Plantation, a museum and memorial in Wallace, Louisiana, dedicated to educating the public about the history and legacies of slavery. She opened the museum in 2014 and has been instrumental in developing the interpretation of the site. She is an advocate for inclusive and social justice–focused museum practice, and she currently serves on the American Alliance of Museums’ working group on voluntary repatriation, restitution, and reparations. She holds a PhD in history from Louisiana State University, where her dissertation focused on Jim Crow plantations and Cancer Alley in Louisiana.
Theoangelo Perkins
Theoangelo Perkins is cofounder and board president of the Wallace Center for Arts and Reconciliation. He was the first Black mayor of Harpersville, Alabama and is now in his fourth term, and also serves his community as a minister, a former teacher, and a realtor. An alumnus of the University of Alabama at Tuscaloosa, Perkins majored in English and history. After working in the field of education for several years, he went into both pastoring and politics. Perkins also serves on numerous boards and commissions in central Alabama and is the proud father of two daughters.
Nell Gottlieb
Nell Gottlieb is cofounder and executive director of the Wallace Center for Arts and Reconciliation. Gottlieb is also a practicing artist, addressing settler colonialism from her family legacy of enslavement.
Johanna Metzgar Brown
Johanna Metzgar Brown is the chief curator and director of collections, archaeology, and research at Old Salem Museums and Gardens and the Museum of Early Southern Decorative Arts (MESDA) in Winston-Salem, North Carolina. She has a BA in American studies and anthropology from Salem College and an MA in history museum studies from the Cooperstown Graduate Program in Cooperstown, New York. She has written for a variety of publications including Ceramics in America, the Journal of Early Southern Decorative Arts, The Magazine Antiques, and Antiques and Fine Art and lectures regularly on Moravian and southern material culture.
Daniel Hammer
Daniel Hammer is dedicated to preserving the history and culture of New Orleans through his work as president and CEO of the Historic New Orleans Collection, where he has worked for nineteen years, serving in various capacities including head of reader services and deputy director. Daniel earned a bachelor’s degree in German literature from Reed College and a master’s degree in historic preservation from Tulane University School of Architecture. He currently serves as chair of the French Quarter Museum Association and as a member of the board of the Vieux Carré Commission Foundation and the New Orleans Jazz & Heritage Foundation Advisory Council.
Tracie Ashe
A graduate of Tulane University’s School of Architecture, Tracie Ashe has been practicing architecture in New Orleans for more than twenty years. Her firm–practis–is 100 percent woman-owned and has built a reputation for thoughtful, creative, and deliberate work that celebrates historic architectural fabric with a view to modern use, sustainability, materials, and systems. Their work aligns place with purpose, allowing old and new to seamlessly compliment and contrast each other. Since 2018, she has served on the Architectural Review Committee of the city’s Historic District Landmarks Commission and was recently featured in Biz New Orleans magazine’s Top Real Estate Influencers issue.
SPONSORS
Leslie and Hunter Pierson III
