Month: March 2015

The Livingston Ripley Waterfowl Conservancy located in Litchfield Connecticut was founded by S. Dillon Ripley, considered to be one of the twentieth century’s outstanding figures in ornithology and conservation. Ripley began building an internationally known collection of waterfowl in Litchfield, Connecticut in the 1920’s. He started his first duck pond at age seventeen and taught ornithology at Yale while director of Yale’s Peabody Museum of Natural History. In 1964 Dillon became the Secretary of the Smithsonian Institution where he led the creation of numerous new museums, such as the National Air & Space Museum and the Hirshhorn Museum, and the development of the Smithsonian Magazine.

An avid aviculturist, Dillon Ripley is credited with being the first person to propagate successfully many threatened and endangered species in captivity, such as the red-breasted goose, nene goose, emperor goose and Laysan teal. Dr. Ripley also raised various endangered species in Litchfield for re-introduction to the wild.

Today, known as the Livingston Ripley Waterfowl Conservancy, this is one of the pre-eminent facilities for breeding rare and endangered waterfowl. The public is invited on self-guided tours on Saturday and Sunday beginning April 1 and running through November 30 from 10 a.m. – 4 p.m. Visitors to the Conservancy are invited to visit the aviaries at their leisure and enjoy the diversity of waterfowl on display. Information panels provide interesting insight about each species and Conservancy staff and volunteers are available to answer questions.

Visitors can also visit the duckery where ducklings and goslings are hatched and reared. Even during the fall and winter months there are often eggs incubating or chicks hatching as the southern hemisphere species often reproduce during Connecticut’s northern hemisphere winter.
October through May are the best months to observe male ducks in their breeding plumage. Male ducks of many species (but not all) molt their colorful breeding plumage towards the end of June and most resemble their respective females until late September when they molt into breeding plumage once again. Male swans and geese remain colorful throughout the year.

Admission is $10.00 per adult, which includes one child under the age of twelve. Additional children are $5.00 each. Please note that no pets are allowed on Conservancy grounds.

LRWC is located on Duck Pond Road in Litchfield. For more information http://www.lrwc.net. For area information www.litchfieldhills.com

“It’s gonna take a lotta love” is a group exhibition that explores ideas about inclusivity, authenticity, and commonality in an age of anxiety, isolated individualism, and virtually lived experience. The show is on view from March 7 – May 24, 2015, and is curated by Liza Statton and Terri C. Smith. A free public reception will take place on Saturday, March 7th from 6:00-8:00pm with member VIP reception from 5:00-6:00pm.

The artists in “It’s gonna take a lotta love” intentionally avoid many of the sensationalist strategies used by the culture and advertising industries, Rather than critiquing these methods of slick production, elaborate fabrication, and massive scale through ironic appropriation, they make art that focuses on the aesthetic and conceptual potential of the everyday.

These artists also share a type of tragic-comic vision of contemporary culture. Humor, joy, and melancholy, among others, mix easily in their work. Such emotional credibility creates a slippage between empathy and alienation. Some artists create this slippage by making and re-making objects using seemingly inconsequential materials.

Wayne White paints witty and sometimes biting phrases on found paintings of pastoral landscapes and rustic barns. Andy Coolquitt resituates familiar materials such as vinyl records, lightbulbs, synthetic shag fabric, and books-on-tape into installations that are inspired by functions and spaces outside of the gallery. His works articulate a tension between the familiarity of our real lives and the exclusive domain of the white cube gallery. Whiting Tennis creates drawings, paintings and sculptures that pit Modernist art’s fascination with pure form against an intentionally personal mode of a hobbiest aesthetic that wrestles with ideas of concealment and containment.

Other artists such as Jon Campbell, Stephen Vitiello, and Jeremy Deller create subtle interventions using everyday language and music. Deller’s poster “Attention all DJs” takes on the form of a handwritten sign with tongue-in-cheek instructions for DJs. Jon Campbell’s “four letter word flags” brightly declare words like “Yeah,” “Home,” and “Want.” By inserting his word flags between country, state, or corporate flags in a city, Campbell prompts passerby’s to ask if the words we all use are worthy of a public format usually saved for pagentry or branding. Stephen Vitiello’s sound works in “It’s gonna take a lotta love” appropriate commercial music from well known singers. With “Dolly Ascending” Vitiello slows down Dolly Parton singing “Stairway to Heaven” to the point where it sounds like choral music. In A.L. Steiner + Robbinschild’s “C.L.U.E. Part I” video two women perform dance infused movements in backdrops of natural and built environments, connecting color, action, attitude, and environment in a straightforward way that includes the audience in their choreographed antics.

Two of the exhibiting artists, Andy Coolquitt and Jon Campbell, have been commisioned to make new works for “It’s gonna take a lotta love.” In the gallery, Coolquitt, whose assemblages reconsider the materials we unconsciously engage with, will be creating a new mixed media installation entitled “oo oo.” Australian artist Jon Campbell has been commissioned to make new works for the exhibition. His gallery contributions include a “four letter word” mural and a set list painting, which is based on a Melbourne band’s 1984 performance. Campbell extends his painting practice into the public sphere with an ambitious installation in Downtown Stamford, his first in the United States. Campbell, who is interested in representing “the overlooked and undervalued,” will design and exhibit flags and banners with the words: Hold, Home, Look, Play, Want, and Yeah. The works will be mounted on existing flagpoles in public parks, at office buildings, and on construction fences throughout Downtown.

Getting There: Franklin Street Works is located at 41 Franklin Street in downtown Stamford, Connecticut, near the UConn campus and less than one hour from New York City via Metro North. Franklin Street Works is approximately one mile (a 15 minute walk) from the Stamford train station. On street parking is available on Franklin Street (metered until 6 pm except on Sunday), and paid parking is available nearby in a lot on Franklin Street and in the Summer Street Garage (100 Summer Street), behind Target. The art space and café are open to the public on Wednesday, Friday, Saturday, and Sunday: 12:00pm – 5:00pm with extended hours on Thursdays, 12:00pm – 7:00pm. Franklin Street Works does not charge for admission during regular gallery hours.

On Saturday, March 28, the Danbury Museum & Historical Society will be hosting a living history lunch buffet with Herstory Theater as they present, Katy Leary & Mark Twain.

Katy Leary, born into an Irish-American family in Elmira, New York, served as the Clemens’ maid from 1880 until Samuel Clemens’ death in 1910. The performance will be based on A Lifetime with Mark Twain, a memoir dictated by Leary and published in 1925. to Mary Lawton. Lawton was a childhood friend of Clara Clemens, Mark Twain’s daughter. She, like everyone else, was devoted to Katy Leary whose quaint sayings, philosophies, and amusing accounts were a source of delight to all who heard them.

Herstory Theater has researched and developed the character of the irrepressible and expressive Leary and welcomes you to join Katy as she takes a walk down memory lane. Clemens called Leary, a “potent influence all over the premises” and “a pole star for steadiness” with “a good store of that veiled & shimmering & half-surreptitious humor which is the best feature of the “˜American’ brand.”

Herstory Theater is a wonderful theater company based in Connecticut and this is their third visit to the Danbury Museum & Historical Society. The programs and performances are history-filled, educational, inspirational and always enjoyed by guests.

Admission for this special history program and buffet luncheon provided by Two Steps Downtown Grille and Ciao Catering & Events is $25.00 per person. Reservations are recommended as space is limited. Seating will begin at 11:30 a.m. and lunch begins at 12 noon. The program starts at 12:30 p.m. Please phone 203.743.5200 or email info@danburymuseum.org to reserve your seat(s).

For more information about the museum www.danburymuseum.org and for area information www.litchfieldhills.com.

About the DMHSA:
The Danbury Museum & Historical Society was formed in 1947 to acquire, preserve, exhibit and interpret the history of Danbury. Situated in downtown Danbury, the museum preserves the John and Mary Rider House (c.1785), the Dodd Hat Shop (c. 1790), two one-room schoolhouses, the Marian Anderson Studio and the Charles Ives Birthplace. Huntington Hall, a modern exhibit building houses the museum offices, archives and research library.

The New Canaan Historical Society located on 13 Oenoke Ridge Road in New Canaan CT has an new costume exhibit that ends in May 2015 called “As we were”. The exhibit connects two historical events, the first meeting to found the Historical Society, and the wedding of two prominent founders, Edna Hoyt Rogers and Henry Benjamin Rogers.

Edna Hoyt Rogers was a lifelong New Canaan resident and granddaughter of the founder of Hoyt’s Nurseries. She was involved in the Congregational Church as early as 1872, where at the age of 14, she helped raise money for a new organ. During the next 58 years, she worked to maintain the simple architectural design of the Church. Edna was further interested in, “Trying to keep undesirable developments from marring the beauty of the village,” which was of great importance to her. In 1901, she helped organize New Canaan’s Centennial Celebration.

Her husband, Henry Benjamin Rogers, grew up in Darien and in young adulthood became a clerk for New Canaan’s mercantile store, Comstock & Co. In 1860, he joined the firm of Comstock, Rogers & Co., where he and Albert S. Comstock sold and manufactured clothing. Upon Comstock’s retirement in 1876, Henry continued the business under the name H.B. Rogers & Co., until it was sold and turned into a shoe factory in 1903. Also active in the Congregational Church, Henry was a deacon as well as Sunday School Superintendent for 37 years.

Edna Hoyt Rogers and Henry Benjamin Rogers were married in her parent’s house on 477 Carter Street on November 10, 1888. Edna Hoyt’s father, Edwin Hoyt, built the home in 1859 by mixing together lime, gravel, and cobble stones from his own property. He created an affordable, concrete home that stood 26 feet high and contained three stories, 18 rooms, three halls, and two bathrooms.

A year later, Edna and Henry attended the first meeting regarding the formation of the New Canaan Historical Society in August of 1889. As descendants of the town’s founders, the family joined 62 others to discuss an organization that would gather and preserve New Canaan history. The meeting took place at the Comstock-Bensen house on 46 Main Street.

The Comstock-Bensen House, built in 1841, came under the ownership of Albert Comstock in 1871. Albert was a partner in the clothing firm of Comstock & Rogers, Co, where he and Henry B. Rogers manufactured men’s clothing. His wife was a founder and early president of the New Canaan Historical Society, while Albert was one of its first directors. It was in this house that the first of many Historical Society meetings were held.

As We Were ties together two snapshots of the year 1889, when New Canaan began to create and maintain its historical narrative. The exhibit features clothing like those that would have been worn at the Historical Society’s first meeting. Edna Hoyt Rogers wedding dress, as well as other dresses that would have been worn at a 19th century wedding reception, are also on display.

This exhibit will be open until May 2015. For more area event information www.visitfairfieldcountyct.com For information on the New Canaan Historical Society http://nchistory.org.

The Easter Bunny will once again pay a visit to the Danbury Railway Museum and you can take a ride in a vintage train through the historic railyard to visit him. This popular annual family event will take place on Saturday & Sunday, March 28 & 29, and Friday & Saturday, April 3 & 4. Museum hours are 10:00-4:00 on Friday and Saturday; noon-4:00 on Sunday.

Trains leave every 30 minutes from 12:30 to 3:30. Admission is $10.00 (age 2 and over); each child will receive a small gift from the Bunny. Reservations are suggested and may be made by visiting the museum’s Web site at http://www.danburyrail.org.

The short train ride in a fully-restored 1953 New Haven RR Rail Diesel Car (Budd RDC), will take visitors past the fully operational turntable, over 70 vintage railroad cars and locomotives, and many unique pieces of railroad history, including a Boston & Maine steam locomotive built in 1907. The train ride will stop at the Easter Bunny’s special railroad car. The museum’s beautifully restored circa-1910 Railway Post Office (RPO) car will also be open.
Of course, the exhibits inside the restored 1903 Danbury station will be open, along with a coloring station, temporary tattoos, Thomas® play table, and the operating model train layouts. A fully-stocked gift shop will also be open.

The Danbury Railway Museum is a non-profit organization, staffed solely by volunteers, and is dedicated to the preservation of, and education about, railroad history. The museum is located in the restored 1903 Danbury Station and rail yard at 120 White Street, Danbury, CT. For further information, http://www.danburyrail.org or call the museum at 203-778-8337.