The Cape Ann Museum is pleased to present Still Life: a Fabricator’s Banquet, a one-day contemporary art installation by Elizabeth Alexander at the historic White-Ellery House. The House will be open that day as part of 17th Century Saturdays, an Escapes North program. This program is free and open to the public. Bring the kids to try their hand at paper cutting!  

Until recently a resident of Gloucester, Elizabeth Alexander is a sculptor and installation artist. She earned an MFA in sculpture in 2009 from Cranbrook Academy of the Arts in Bloomfield, Michigan and a BFA with distinction in sculpture in 2004 from Massachusetts College of Art. Her artwork is “motivated by discovery” and her need to create “enchanted interventions” out of everyday things. In 2011 she was awarded the prestigious Massachusetts Cultural Council fellowship award and participated in the Museum of Fine Arts “Best of Boston 40-ennial.” She is an adjunct faculty member at Montserrat College of Art and has participated in many group and two-person shows at a wide range of venues including Mass Art’s Bakalar & Paine Galleries, The Wentworth-Coolidge Mansion Museum, the Isabella Stewart Gardener Museum, Pont-Aven Contemporary Gallery in France and Gallery AL in South Korea. Her work has been highlighted and reviewed by numerous publications including The Boston Globe, Art New England, The New England Journal of Aesthetic Research, and Berkshire Fine Arts.

The White-Ellery House is one of a handful of surviving First Period buildings in Massachusetts. The house was placed on the National Register of Historic Sites because of its design, materials, and workmanship, and its plank frame construction. The house was built in 1710 for the Reverend John White, Gloucester’s first settled minister, and exhibits an elegance and refinement commensurate with White’s esteemed position in the community. The second owner of the house was James Stevens, who kept it as a tavern until 1740, at which time it was sold to the Ellery family. In 1949, when plans were unveiled showing Route 128 traversing the Town Green, the house was taken by the City of Gloucester by eminent domain, turned over to the Cape Ann Historical Association, and moved safely out of the path of the highway. The present location of the White-Ellery House is at 245 Washington Street.