Milestones
Reasonable people adapt themselves to the world. Unreasonable people attempt to adapt the world to themselves. All progress, therefore, depends on unreasonable people.
– George Bernard Shaw
Frank purchases his first photograph
Frank attends the AIPAD photography fair and purchases Italian photographer Mimmo Jodice’s Picolo Abito. He officially catches the photography collecting bug.
Frank and Ellen go on their first date
Frank and Ellen see Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid at the North Carolina Museum of Art. The Cassilhaus partnership – Ellen Cassilly and Frank Konhaus – is born.
Georges Rousse comes to Durham
Frank and Ellen invite French photographer and installation artist Georges Rousse to come to Durham, NC for a public art project. One month, 11 installations, 150 volunteers, and a documentary film later, this wildly successful community project becomes a tipping point for downtown Durham redevelopment and the inspiration for the Cassilhaus artist residency program.
Conceptualization of Cassilhaus begins
Starting with a Play-Doh model, architect Ellen and Frank begin to conceptualize and design Cassilhaus.
End of quest to find Sally Mann's Candy Cigarette
After seven years looking for a print of Sally Mann’s beloved photograph, Candy Cigarette, Frank finally lands a print and adds it to the Cassilhaus collection.
Frank starts writing the Cassilhaus blog
Frank begins a detailed construction blog that morphs into the main Cassilhaus blog that continues to this day.
Breaking ground
Construction begins on the house and continues for ten months. Frank and Ellen move in at the end of 2008.
Cassilhaus featured in NYT
Highlighting the residency program and Ellen's architecture, the newly minted Cassilhaus is featured in a full spread in The New York Times: “Art and Life Meet at the Ideal Spot” by J. Michael Welton.
Walter Angehrn becomes the first artist in residence
Swiss artist Walter Angehrn spends a month at Cassilhaus in the new pod and kicks the tires of the new residency idea.
First official curated exhibit: MJ Sharp's Super Yummie
Longtime friend and photographer MJ Sharp shows her recent photographic work in an exhibition titled, playfully, Super Yummie. The title comes from a studio visit in which Frank was selecting images and putting them in the "yummie" and "super yummie" piles.
First non-visual artist in residence
While Frank and Ellen originally envisioned the residency as being specifically for visual artists, in March of 2010 they welcome poet and writer Marilyn Kallet. This transformative experience led to entirely new constituencies of people coming to Cassilhaus and quickly led Frank and Ellen to open the doors to dancers, writers, choreographers, musicians, theatrical directors, curators, etc.
Patrick Dougherty creates a site-specific installation
Frank and Ellen commission Chapel Hill artist and well-known sculptor Patrick Dougherty to create a site-specific stick installation inside of Cassilhaus.
First outside curator for an exhibit
Huston Paschal, former photography curator at the North Carolina Museum of Art, co-curates with Frank an exhibit titled “Life Still.” It is the first time we invite an outside curator to work in our exhibition program.
First date at Cassilhaus
On April 9th, 2011, Seamus invited Kerri, an artist and educator, to attend a performance by the Mallarme Chamber Players at Cassilhaus. It was their first date. Frank happened to snap this photo of them that day – their first photograph together. Flash forward a few years and now they are married and expecting their first child!
Activist in residence
Frank and Ellen came out strongly against Amendment One – a ban on gay marriage in North Carolina – and invite the regional director from the Human Rights Campaign, Karin Quimby, to Cassilhaus to lead an effort against it.
First MFA intern, Lisa McCarty
Collaborating with the Duke MFA-EDA program and UNC’s MFA in Studio Art, we began an annual full-year internship program at Cassilhaus. The inimitable Lisa McCarty becomes our first intern.
Cassilhaus inaugurates charitable framing program
With the start of the internship program, we also initiated an annual charitable framing program. Frank teaches our interns basic framing skills and the intern practices by framing simple prints which are then gifted to a different local non-profit organization of their choice each year.
Artist in residence Chris McCaw engages the community
While we ask all of our visiting artists to engage with the larger community in some way, San Francisco based photographer Chris McCaw really took this to the next level. McCaw’s interest in modifying a Cirkut camera from the early 1900s leads to a collaboration with the UNC Department of Physics and Astronomy. The department creates an accredited class with graduate and undergraduate students specifically devoted to building Chris’ camera and control software!
Five year artist in residence reunion
To celebrate five years of visiting artists, we throw a weekend-long party and invite back all of the former artists in residence. It is a blast!
Love is always in the mix at Cassilhaus
Photographer Caroline Hickman Vaughan meets her future wife, Jane Hamborsky, at an opening reception at Cassilhaus. Later as a surprise Caroline and Jane give Frank and Ellen a beautiful vintage print, Self Portrait, Father, Mother, as thanks for introducing them to one another.
Curator Camp
During curator Mark Sloan’s residency, he suggests a ‘curator camp’ as his way of engaging the community. We invite over twenty five curators from all across the southeast and host a day-long conversation about the particular challenges facing curators today. Cassilhaus Contemporary Curator Camp continues as an annual gathering. Insert archery/lanyard joke here.
Tracing the American South
Tom Rankin and Rachel Boillot curate an exhibit of southern photography from the Do Good Fund collection and create the first publication for an exhibit at Cassilhaus. Thanks to our amazing curators and Alan Rothschild of the Do Good Fund for making this exhibition possible and to Mary Jane Rivers for funding the publication.
Cassilhaus hires first employee
With the addition of more programming, website enhancements, and behind-the-scenes maintenance at Cassilhaus, Frank and Ellen hire their first official employee, Jessina Leonard. They call her Saint Jessina.
Cassilhaus Travel Fellowship
In partnership with the Duke MFA-EDA program and the Center for Documentary Studies at Duke University, we initiate the Cassilhaus Travel Fellowship, a biennial $10,000 award that supports MFA graduate students in their artistic research and studio practice beyond the classroom. Alina Taalman is awarded the inaugural fellowship for her work in Estonia and her 16mm digital video entitled Kolmas Punkt (The Third Point).
Zanele Muholi
Visual activist and photographer Zanele Muholi – and their three collaborators – arrive from South Africa for a jam-packed residency at Cassilhaus. In the span of the month, Zanele creates dozens of self-portraits and we put together an exhibit of their and their collaborators’ work at the Durham Fruit.
Frank goes on sabbatical
With an eye toward learning best practices and increasing our impact in the community, Frank embarks on a five-month sabbatical journey to visit community arts organizations and residency programs across the US that share similar programming and structural characteristics to our own. It is life-changing!
Ellen becomes a Fellow of the American Institute of Architects
Ellen writes an intensive career-spanning application documenting her commitment to be a community-oriented sustainable architect. After an intensive review process, she is one of just 3% of AIA members to be awarded this prestigious fellowship.
New education initiatives
As a result of Frank's sabbatical, we launch a new initiative to collaborate with the education team at the Nasher Museum of Art. Our first event is a huge success – the Nasher Teen Council meets with our visiting artist, Gabriel Garcia Roman.
Zanele Muholi in Times Square
Self-portraits made by Zanele Muholi (AIR '16) in the driveway at Cassilhaus are projected in Times Square as a part of Performa17, a visual arts performance biennial that takes over NYC.
Durham Public School Teacher Workshop
As a continuation of our education initiatives, we host a full-day retreat for Durham Public School art teachers and together consider both how to bring more students to Cassilhaus and how we can provide more support to DPS teachers and students.
Frank teaches Photo Collecting 101
Frank teaches a course about collecting photography for the Osher Lifelong Learning Institute at Duke. The course covers the why, what, and how of collecting fine art photography, exploring the motivations and mechanics of collecting, as well as the presentation, care, and documentation of collections.
Tuscan Garden Patio
After nine years of thinking and designing, the Tuscan garden patio comes out of Ellen's head and becomes reality thanks to Michele DeRose Landscaping, Architectural Trees and the fabulous metal artist, Cassandra Gooding. The patio is a new favorite gathering space, whether it be for a school group's lunch break, an intimate concert venue, or a hands-on weaving workshop, as pictured above.
New Cassilhaus Logo Designed by Ellen Steinberg
Creative Director Ellen Steinberg fell out of the sky onto planet Cassilhaus and designed a stunning new identity package for us.
Burk Uzzle’s Remains becomes the 500th piece added to the Cassilhaus Collection
Legendary NC-based photographer Burk Uzzle started his powerful new series of downed Confederate monuments with the statue brought down by protestors in Durham, NC.
Cassilhaus Artist in Residence 10 Year Reunion
We celebrated the 10th anniversary of our Artist in Residence program by inviting all 43 artists we have hosted since May of 2009 back to Cassilhaus and 20 of them took us up on it and we had one of the most spectacular weekends of our lives!
First Live Performance Collaboration with Nasher Museum, Naama Tsabar, and 21 local female/female-identifying musicians
Cassilhaus AIR and musician/composer/sculptor/performance artist Naama Tsabar organizes Composition 21, an outdoor musical performance featuring original compositions played by 21 local female/female-identifying musicians in collaboration with the Nasher Museum of Art at Duke University.
First Prop Two-Seater Bathroom Built in the Gallery
Ellen Steinberg (of Cassilhaus logo fame above) curates a lifetime retrospective exhibition of her designer/illustrator father Sid Steinberg’s graphic design work called The Sid Show. One show artifact was the actual guest bathroom door from her childhood home featuring his infamous Piss Shit painting. She asked how Frank would hang it in the gallery and he said as a joke “why don’t we build a bathroom and put the door on it??” Ellen thought it was a great idea…
Zoom Into Thesis
Cassilhaus intern and Duke MFA|EDA candidate Cassie Klos becomes the first to defend her thesis exhibition to her master’s committee via Zoom online video conference. Cassie is the 4th Cassilhaus intern to mount their thesis show at Cassilhaus.
Cassilhaus Projects
Cassilhaus launches our Cassilhaus Projects publishing imprint. The Uncommon catalogue for the Elizabeth Matheson exhibition sets the bar high for future publications.
First Cassilhaus Exhibition to Travel
Landmark exhibition UNCOMMON: Elizabeth Matheson Photographs 1970-2018 travels to Upstairs Artspace in Tryon, NC.