Milly working in her Saucon Valley studio while her parrot, Lola, looks on. Photo by Milly’s son, George Holton

The Museum will host a Dynamic Conversation titled “’Fearless Enthusiasms’: The Life and Art of the Remarkable Milly Johnstone” on Saturday, March 22, 2025, starting at 1 p.m. The program will begin with a presentation about Mildred “Milly” Johnstone (1900-1988), a pioneering fiber artist and wife of Bethlehem Steel director William H. Johnstone. Milly was a member of international artistic and intellectual circles and a decades-long spiritual seeker who practiced Zen Buddhism and the Japanese Tea Ceremony. Her needlepoints of the 1950s and 1960s are imaginative pieces based on her visits to Bethlehem Steel and her meticulous research into steelmaking, even as she challenged the corporate culture into which she married.

Carol Shiner Wilson, Ph.D., will give a slideshow and talk and then welcome Milly’s niece Margaret Thomas Buchholz and goddaughter Mira Nakashima, who will share memories of their close relationships with Johnstone.

Admission to the Museum and to the Dynamic Conversation is free, but seats are limited, so please rsvp now if you wish to attend.

RESERVE YOUR SEAT HERE

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Before the Dynamic Conversation, Museum curator Claire McRee will give a brief gallery talk at 12:15 p.m. about the more than a dozen works by Johnstone that are in in the Museum’s collection. You can attend the free gallery talk without staying for the Dynamic Conversation, and no rsvp for the gallery talk is necessary.
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Carol Shiner Wilson, Ph.D., is a recognized authority on the life and art of the remarkable Milly Johnstone. She has taught English, French, and Women’s Studies and served sixteen years as Dean of the College for Academic Life, Muhlenberg College. Her academic honors include Phi Beta Kappa and awards from the National Endowment for the Humanities and the American Philosophical Society. She has published with Oxford University Press and the University of Pennsylvania Press. Many of her articles and presentations are close examinations of women’s needlework in literature within historical and cultural contexts, 1650 through the 20th century. An avid reader, Carol serves as an evaluator of fiction and narrative nonfiction for the national Chautauqua Book Prize.

TOP: Mildred T. Johnstone (American, 1900-1988) and Pablo Burchard (Chilean, 1875-1964), Alice in a Wonderland of Steel, 1949, linen plain weave with wool, angora and metallic thread. Allentown Art Museum: Gift of Mildred T. Johnstone, 1977 (1977.019.002)