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The Winterthur Museum and Gardens in Wilmington, Delaware, was originally the estate and collection of decorative arts enthusiast Henry Francis du Pont (yes, one of those du Ponts). Today the 175-room museum features a collection of almost a million objects ranging from staircases and building facades to jewelry and soup tureens, as well as a library, archives, and a 60-acre garden nestled in 1000 acres of fields and gentle hills. Winterthur has long welcomed academics pursuing research in art history and conservation, but more recently began to support creatives interested in using the collections as fuel for projects in writing, performance, craft, or visual art through the Maker-Creator Fellowship. For any maker with research inclinations and an eye on American decorative arts or gardens, this fellowship is well worth checking out.  I was a Maker-Creator Fellow in September and October of 2024, continuing my ongoing research on carved wooden confectionery molds. I knew a number of people who had done the fellowship already but there were still a number of details that I didn’t fully grasp until I got there. Keeping in mind that the experience differs from person to person and will change as the fellowship program progresses, this post is intended to give you a clear enough picture to decide if this is an opportunity you may want to pursue. Fellows have the option of commuting to campus, and for those living nearby or undertaking shorter stays that might be a good idea, but I opted to rent a room ($600/month in 2024) on the estate. Foulsham House is a stone farmhouse with four private rooms, two-and-a-half shared bathrooms, a shared kitchen, and laundry facilities. One of the bedrooms would be large enough for a couple to share; all of the rooms have a writing desk, and there are more places to work in the den or living room. The house is basic but comfortable, although I was glad I brought my own pillow and some favorite kitchen gadgets for my relatively long stay.
From the house to the museum and library takes under 20 minutes on foot, or a few minutes by car and then a 5 minute walk from the staff parking lot. I walked in as often as possible (downhill to work, uphill heading home) and habitually took another stroll in the afternoon, easily clocking in 5 miles most days. It's possible to do the fellowship without having a car (taxi or Uber to campus and take advantage of the weekly grocery store shuttle) but I was glad to have mine. The campus café is nice but has limited hours and isn’t somewhere to eat everyday, and the surrounding area has plenty of stores and inviting dining options. The car also came in handy for visiting many of the other museums, gardens, and historic homes in the area, most of which let fellows in for free when they flash the Winterthur badge!
The museum itself splits roughly into two sections. There are the Galleries, a modern wing that holds exhibitions, and there is the House, a dizzying rabbit warren of furnished rooms. Fellows can conduct research in either, but access to the House is only possible on a guided tour, or one-on-one with a staff member. Each room has a book in which the objects in that room are listed and described; additional information is sometimes available through the online records. To see objects more closely or in better light, you can request that they be taken off display (not always possible) or out of storage; in my case the molds I wanted to examine were brought to a study room where I was able to handle them (with gloves) and photograph them with a staff member’s assistance.
Researchers have a dedicated desk in the shared Fellows’ Office, which is open until 10pm, and 24-hour(!) access to the library. The open stacks are full of books on history, art history, craft, and decorative arts that you can browse at will. The special collections hold rarer volumes, artists' books, and ephemera like printed games, paper theatres, and antique valentines, which can be seen by request with an advance appointment during normal library hours. The library also holds the archive of Henry Francis du Pont’s correspondence with the antiques dealers who helped him amass his collection. And for the greediest researchers, the library can even request books from other collections via interlibrary loan. I ended up with almost 500 pages of notes culled from nearly a hundred sources! (Adorably, the other side of the library wall is a reflecting pool and garden that's one of the estate's most popular wedding spots; on most Friday and Saturday nights that I chose to work late, I was a uninvited but unobtrusive guest, taking notes to a soundtrack of live chamber music and pausing to cheer along when the vows were completed. And yes, yearning for cake.)
A few points to note: Although meant for makers, this fellowship isn’t really set up for making. When I wanted to do some test carvings based on what I was seeing in the collection, I sat on the front steps at Foulsham House and used my lap as a workbench, occasionally pausing to wave at visitors as their tour buses sidled by. This of this as an opportunity to think, plan, and sketch as a prelude to studio time elsewhere. Winterthur staffers are enthusiastic about supporting the Maker-Creator Fellows and will bend over backwards to make connections and facilitate access—but they can’t work magic. If you go, be prepared with a clear list of goals, be ready to prioritize or pivot, and be patient: you may not get access to all 78 objects you want to see on the first day and for 8 hours a day thereafter. If your objects or staff helper aren’t available, maybe check out the library instead. If your library requests aren’t ready, it's your cue to take a walk in one of the most beautiful gardens you’ll ever have on your doorstep. Maker-Creators are just one part of the Winterthur ecosystem; it’s thrilling, inspiring, and instructive to work alongside not just other makers, but also doctoral candidates, professors, curators, and conservators. Go to the weekly Brown Bag talks where people present their research. Sneak peeks at whatever awesome special collections your fellow fellows are poring over in the library. Sponge up all the diverse expertise in the Office and offer your own in return. The people—staff, fellow residents, and even some of the visitors—are the secret sauce of this experience. Of course you can’t know ahead of time who they’ll all be or how you’ll get along, but you can bank on having some engrossing conversations. For several years, the Maker-Creator Fellowship was kind of a hidden gem, but the applicant pool continues to grow. This is a phenomenal chance for makers from around the world to get their hands on incredible research resources AND a monthly stipend, so if you want to be one of them, here's the good/bad news: the most recent deadline passed in January 2025. You're too late to whip up a last-minute application but you're just in time to start on a compelling, thoroughly-researched, and carefully-prepared application for the next round. For more information: https://www.winterthur.org/fellowships-available/ 
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