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Conferences, Forums, and Workshops at Colonial Williamsburg
The office of Conferences, Forums and Workshops presents a broad range of high-quality programs that address issues of historical and contemporary significance as well as focusing on the decorative arts, material culture, historic trades and horticulture. Skilled professionals at Colonial Williamsburg are joined by distinguished members of the academic and professional communities to present these programs.
Join us for the Garden Symposium, Working Wood, the Antiques Forum, and other programs for a rewarding learning experience.
Please bookmark this site and check back frequently for new offerings. Special conference rates are available for programs at the official hotels of Colonial Williamsburg. To make room and dining reservations, call (757) 220-7255 Monday through Friday, from 8:30 a.m to 5 p.m.
Program Information and Online Registration
2010
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September 10-11
Friends of Colonial Williamsburg Collections Tenth Annual Meeting and Study Trip
This meeting is for Friends donors and their guests. Online registration will be available in July. To become a Friend of Colonial Williamsburg Collections click here.
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October 17-20
Reconstructing Richard Charlton’s Coffeehouse
In the spring of 2008, Colonial Williamsburg set out to reconstruct Richard Charlton’s 1760s Coffeehouse. The project was to be one of the most important reconstruction efforts on the Historic Area’s Duke of Gloucester Street in half a century. Generously funded by Forrest E. Mars, Jr. and Deborah Mars, the project was on a fast track, with a completion date set for November 2009.
Rebuilding the coffeehouse presented a myriad of opportunities and challenges. It was to be the only one of its kind in the United States. Important political events took place there. Programming opportunities were exciting. Archaeological and structural findings provided insights into the building’s design and construction, but details were challenging. Recovered artifacts, period prints, probate inventories, and other documents suggested room usages, furnishings, and activities, but fitting them to the specific site and date required curatorial insights and judgments. A building that was to reflect the original structure as closely as possible also had to house a modern beverage service, sophisticated mechanical systems, and features conforming to the dictates of building codes.
This conference explores how these opportunities and challenges were approached and met. Archaeologists and architectural historians discuss their findings and how they guided the design and details of the building. Historic Trades carpenters, masons, and blacksmiths; modern architects, carpenters, engineers, and mechanics; and project managers relate and demonstrate how the plans on paper were transformed into a building. Curators and conservators explain their research and the processes of furnishing the coffee room, dining room, office, and kitchen. Program planners show how programs reflecting the every-day activities at a coffeehouse and the exceptional events that took place in Mr. Charlton’s Coffeehouse were developed, rehearsed, and presented.
Lectures and demonstrations in the Hennage Auditorium of the Wallace Museum will be complemented by special tours in behind-the-scenes locations essential to the project. Historic Trades demonstrations in the Historic Area will show many of the processes used to fabricate building components and furnishings. Special tours and programs at the Coffeehouse will illustrate the role of the building and its clients in momentous events leading to the Revolution. And, of course, there must be coffee (and hot chocolate, tea, and wine)—a chance to relax over samplings of beverages, at receptions, and at a concluding banquet.
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November 10-11
Colonial Williamsburg Holiday Symposium
2011
January 12-15 and 16-19
Working Wood in the 18th Century
Cabinetmakers Look to the East: Asian Influences on 18th-Century English and American Furniture-
February 20 - 24 (Note: new dates)
63rd Antiques Forum
Decorative Arts Forensics: How We Know What We KnowIn the world of art and antiques, everything depends upon history and integrity. Who really made the object and where? What is its condition? Has it been altered? Is it the real McCoy? Advances in techniques for historical research and scientific investigation have opened new avenues of verification for curators, collectors, and scholars in recent years. At the 63rd annual Colonial Williamsburg Antiques Forum, Decorative Arts Forensics: How We Know What We Know, you are invited to learn more about this fascinating subject.
The 2011 Forum will bring together a group of widely recognized authorities on the remarkable furniture, metals, ceramics, glass, clocks, musical instruments, and buildings of the 18th and 19th centuries. More than twenty curators, collectors, conservators, and historians will present recent findings in a series of fully illustrated lectures and video-assisted workshops. Scheduled speakers include Robert Hunter, editor of Ceramics in America, Lynne Dakin Hastings, vice president for museum programs at James Madison’s Montpelier, and noted antiques dealer and auctioneer Leigh Keno.
In addition to the formal program, Forum guests may register for optional hands-on workshops with the Colonial Williamsburg collections and private tours of historic homes in the region. Please plan to join us February 20-24, 2011, for Decorative Arts Forensics: How We Know What We Know.
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March 13-16
Costume Accessories: Head to Toe
In March of 2011, The Colonial Williamsburg Foundation will host a symposium on the subject of costume accessories. The symposium serves as a complement to an exhibit in the Dewitt Wallace Decorative Arts Museum entitled Fashion Accessories from Head to Toe. The exhibit will feature Williamsburg’s collection of men’s and women’s hats, gloves, purses, handkerchiefs, pockets, shoes, stockings, jewelry, and wigs from about 1650-1850. These objects will be arranged mostly chronologically along with large-scale reproductions of period images showing similar pieces being used.
Invited scholars from the United States, Canada, and England will present 10 lectures over two and one-half days; a day of hands-on workshops and related behind-the-scenes tours will follow. This symposium is intended to explore the production, consumption, and historic value of these varied objects of personal adornment.
While the study of historic dress tends to begin with the examination of changing cut, silhouette, textile, and decoration, it is the details of costume accessories that are often the most reflective of time, place, and person. Accessories are generally precious, ephemeral, or both. Many incorporate the newest fashions and trends more quickly than the clothing that they accompany, yet certain pieces are classics used by successive generations. They are frequently the product of the most current technologies and employ a bewildering range of materials. Costume accessories become mirrors of social and economic, ethnic and cultural, public and personal concerns. They are intimate; they are fascinating. When viewed with an historian’s eye they are vastly revealing and invaluable details in the story of dress and adornment.
Program details should be posted by September 1, 2010.
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April 10-11
Garden Symposium
2012
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January 22-25 and 26-29
Working Wood in the 18th Century
Note: The program is the same number of days as previous years but is scheduled later in January and the days of the week have changed.
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February 19-23
64th Antiques Forum
* Brochure downloads require Adobe Reader
Colonial Williamsburg Foundation
Post Office Box 1776
Williamsburg, VA 23187-1776
Fax: (757) 565-8921
Telephone: (757) 220-7255
Toll free: (800) 603-0948
Email: dchapman@cwf.org
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