The Art of History in Framingham: Medium & Memory
For months, I was immersed in the collection at the Framingham History Center. With more than 20,000 artifacts in the vaults, the process began with our docent, Barbara Rosenberg, who did the heavy lifting of going through the collection and narrowing down objects for us. From there, we organized the selections into eight mediums: photography, painting, performing arts, literary arts, sculpture, accessories, textiles, and music.
Once the objects were chosen, we reached out across Framingham and invited local artists to create new work inspired by something from the archives. The mediums did not have to match. We wanted to give contemporary artists the freedom to have an open conversation with local history.
Among the artists we collaborated with were Kendall Winston, a textile artist and Framingham State University graduate, who created a beautiful floral work inspired by Margaret Kendall and one of her paintings; Pam Bonaguide, who researched Miriam Van Waters and created a sculpture inspired by her work with mothers and children at the women's prison; and local mixed media artist Larisa Gotovkina, who responded to a 1920s poster of “Margie and her maids” by incorporating a violin into her piece. Writer Bracken MacLeod also responded to a photograph by Wallace Nutting by creating an original short story inspired by the image.
Then there is my own piece, Historia de una Madre (“A Mother’s Story”).
It features two photographs of my great grandmother: one with her daughter (my grandmother) and another of her sitting on a chair reading a book. While I was researching and working on the piece, a family secret surfaced. I discovered that my grandmother had been adopted, which suddenly broke the direct lineage I had always believed connected her to my great grandmother.
In one of the photographs, I gave my grandmother a birdcage, given the mystery surrounding her biological parents.
To process this discovery, I added a strand of red yarn to the piece, creating a metaphorical connection through the space that art gives us to reconnect with that lost lineage and with the parts of our family history that are unknown to us.
I built the work inside a cigar box that opens and closes, mirroring the historic brooch displayed next to it in the gallery, which contains human hair. Before photography, keeping a lock of a loved one's hair in jewelry was one way people held onto their memory. Today, we use photographs. Placing Historia de una Madre in conversation with that hair brooch felt like a bridge between these two ways of remembering and the very human need to hold onto the people we love.
The exhibition opened at the Framingham History Center, Edgell Memorial Library, on August 27, 2026.