On Tuesday, June 9th from 5:30 to 7:30 p.m., you are invited to the Windsor Historical Society’s free opening reception for its newest exhibition Windsor Barn Stories by Windsor photographer Lowell Fewster.  Enjoy wine and hors d’oeuvres as you view the exhibition, which features interior and exterior photographs of six Windsor barns plus aerial maps showing where Windsor’s remaining barns are located.   Parking is available in the First Church and Windsor Discovery Center parking lots and around Palisado Green. At 6:30 p.m. following the Society’s short annual meeting (where the new slate of Board members will be voted upon by members present), Lowell Fewster will present a DVD entitled Windsor Barns:  Enduring, Disappearing, Producing, share a personal barn story or two and ask for barn stories from the audience.  A special 2010 calendar featuring Fewster’s barn photographs will be available for advance purchase at $10.99.

 

For almost three hundred years, barns were an essential part of most home lots, housing animals, vehicles and farm equipment.  As the automobile replaced horse-drawn transportation and small-scale farming declined, Windsor’s barns began to disappear, falling victim to the weather, disuse and disrepair. 

 

For photographer Lowell Fewster, barns tell an important story about life and commerce in Windsor as well as exhibiting aesthetic beauty.  Barns were practical, functional buildings and close examination of a barn’s architectural features can tell the story of its original and subsequent uses.  Some barns have been re-made and rehabilitated while others have disappeared.  Additional Windsor barns have stories associated with them like the shade tobacco magnate who used the cupola in his barn as an observation deck where he could oversee the working habits of tobacco workers he employed.  Then there was the barn where methane from cow manure was piped into the house to light gas lamps inside.

 

Official history records little about Windsor barns. In an attempt to gather barn reminiscences for the record, viewers are invited to record and post their own Windsor barn stories or reminiscences as part of the exhibition. 

 

Photographer Lowell Fewster grew up in a Kodak family in Rochester, New York, and started taking pictures at the age of six.  Photography remains one of his greatest life joys.  Fewster’s goal with this exhibition is to provide and preserve data through his photographs and notes that will help those in the future looking for information about Windsor barns. 

 

Faces of Windsor: 1840 to the Present will remain on view in the Society’s north gallery.