Category: Connecticut Travel

Celebrate April with two art themed events and a tag sale at the Silvermine Art Center located on 1037 Silvermine Road in New Canaan. The month of April kicks off with the popular one night stand series, this one in honor of spring is themed painting flowers with watercolors and takes place on April 7 from 7 pm to 9 pm. Participants will create lovely little flower paintings while learning the basic techniques of watercolors. There is something so lovely about painting fresh flowers in watercolor. Through demonstrations, create washes, work from the color wheel for mixing shadows participants will learn other watercolor techniques to create fresh flower paintings.

The one night stand series is a unique opportunity to experience various forms of fine art in a relaxed and fun atmosphere, without the long commitment. These mini evening workshops are perfect for participants with no experience in the arts or for those who have experience but not in that area of study. Each session will have a different instructor and a different art experience. You can invite your spouse, friends and family to spend time together while creating works of art and enjoying each other’s company. You are welcome to bring a bottle of wine and some snacks, and be creative. These workshops are for ages 17 and up only. Art materials will be provided for all workshops and all levels are welcome.

The next event is the highly anticipated annual art materials and equipment sale that is taking place on April 22 in the school building from 10 am to 4 pm. This sale is the perfect time to purchase a variety of donated art materials and equipment at a really good price. Some of the items that will be available are a variety of sizes and shapes of frames, stretcher bars, paints, (oil, acrylic, watercolor or pastels), cameras, ceramic equipment, sculpture supplies and art books. The best part of this sale is that all proceeds go to the Silvermine School for Children.

The final April event is another one night stand class, this one is on crackle bowls on the potters wheel. This session is open to both beginners and those who have been on the potter’s wheel before. This workshop will kick up the wow factor on your pottery creations. Not only will instructors go over all the basic skills to form the raw clay into a bowl but they will use a liquid glass solution to make a wonderful textured crackle finish on the outside of your bowl. Lastly color will be added by using tinted liquid clays called slips. Project will take approximately six weeks to be fired.

For more information visit the Silvermine Arts Center online. Remember to sign up for the monthly newsletter of travel tips and deals published by Western Connecticut Convention and Visitors Bureau.

The Aldrich Contemporary Art Museum located on 258 Main Street in Ridgefield is pleased to present Suzanne McClelland: Just Left Feel Right. Spanning twenty-five years, Just Left Feel Right focuses on works from specific periods of her career that share a distinctive commonality, capturing the eruptive and disparate voices of a shifting American vernacular and its rippling effect on the way we communicate in our hyperkinetic time.

McClelland is most widely known for her deft use of linguistics and her sensually textured surfaces. She mines the ways in which communities speak, collecting language and choosing words that trend, are debated, heard on street corners, and absorbed from streaming news feeds; words that are rich in meaning, that reach and multiply, that drop in and out of everyday life. The words she selects hover between materials; letters press up against each other, run off the surface, join together, dissolve, loop, and collide into and onto themselves. Employing a wide range of materials, her compositions have a rhythm and beat as they perform, throb, and swagger, capturing the cadences of our speech, mimicking the physicality of how people express themselves. Pauses, utterances, and hysteria, the inflection of tone and the modulation of our tempo, bodily expressions and gesticulations, all are translated into painterly rhythmic compositions modeled after oratory repartee.

McClelland seizes these audible sensations, stealing words right out of the mouth, but also embodying our micro-expressions. In 2012, she began to incorporate numbers into her work as a reaction to the data onslaught of the Internet age. A mind-numbing rush of streaming lists for everything and anything are published on the Web. McClelland, a collector of messaging, in particular emotive and directional information, began researching the data that represents the individual and vice versa. This endless data stream is how twenty-first century society forecasts outcomes: from steady news spills that flood the imaginations, to engineering distorted images about identity and body type, and (in)forming biased estimates and postures. With the rise of social media as a primary source of content, opinion is now often misread as “news.”

This survey will include McClelland’s formative painting My Pleasure (1990); a seminal painting from the series Right (1993), originally shown as part of a group of paintings in the 1993 Whitney Biennial; the painting series Rap Sheet (2010-13), portraits of early female rap and hip hop artists during the “Roxanne Wars” in the Bronx; the painting series Action Objects (2010); paintings from the series Left (2011); the debut of three new paintings from the Before Tomorrow series (2015-16); and the premiere of a new site-engaged installation, third party (2016-17), which will incorporate materials such as glass, ceramic, and paint. Just Left Feel Right will also include many other never-before-exhibited works from past and current series.

The Aldrich Contemporary Art Museum is open 10 a.m. – 5 p.m. Mon. – Sat. and noon to 5 p.m. on Sunday. To sign up for a monthly newsletter on events and deals for Litchfield Hills and Fairfield County visit www.litchfieldhills.com

The New England Carousel Museum is hosting a new series, Museum After Hours that will be held on the first Thursday of each month in 2017. Each month there will be a different educational presentations or workshop. The public is invited to join scholars and experts to learn about the art and history of carousels, the carvers, the artists, and your favorite carousels.

To kick off this series, on April 6, the program will focus on Tim Murphy who created some of Connecticut’s favorite carousels at his shop in the Savin Rock district of West Haven, CT. This program will take a close look at some of his creations including the Lighthouse Point Park and Lake Compounce carousels. The highlight of this program is Museum Subject Specialist, Cate Mahoney who will enthusiastically share her knowledge on this manufacturer and carver, and his magnificent carousels.

Museum After Hours will be held from 6:30-7:30 PM with a wine and cheese reception taking place 6:00-6:30 PM. Admission to this series is included with general admission, and as always museum members are free.

To register call 860-585-5411 or email manager@thecarouselmuseum.org or register online

For a free monthly newsletter on things to do and see and travel tips on Litchfield Hills and Fairfield County visit www.litchfieldhills.com

The Lockwood-Mathews Mansion Museum opens its spring-summer season on Wed. April 5, 2017, 12-4 p.m., with new programs and extended tour hours. LMMM will be opened to the public through Jan. 8, 2018 and feature a 45 minute tour as well as a new and extended, 90 minute tour; both tours will be available by reserving online, through the Museum’s website, or by calling 203-838-9799 ext. 4. The 45 minute tour will include the first floor of the Mansion and the Servants’ Quarters, while the 90 minute tour will be more extensive and include the Mansion’s second floor bedroom suites and family room. Walk-ins will be welcomed subject to availability. All new exhibitions will be part of the tours’ admission.

New Exhibition
Wedding Traditions and Fashion from the 1860s to 1930s
Wed. April 5, -Sun. Nov. 12, 2017
Curated by Kathleen Motes Bennewitz
Opening Reception: Thurs. April 6, 2017, 5:30-7:30 p.m. $10 non-members $5 members
Gen. Admission: $10 Adults, $ 8 seniors, $6 children 8-18 years old/45 minute tour
Gen. Admission: $20 adults, $18 seniors, $16 children 8-18 years old/90 minute tour

From simple, at-home ceremonies to lavish events modeled on Queen Victoria’s, to weddings of young heiresses of Gilded Age fortunes that commanded social-page attention, this exhibition will explore the evolving nature of weddings and the socio-economic changes of this timeless tradition during the 19th and early 20th centuries. The Dining and Drawing Rooms of the Mansion will display luxurious artifacts and accessories, as well as elaborate wedding gowns, while the Servants’ Quarters of the Museum will highlight ceremonies of immigrant brides who, once settled in the United States, desired to follow American customs and fashions.

New Exhibition
Right Angle Bliss
Contemporary Photography Exhibit
Curated by Gail Ingis-Claus
Wed. April 5, 2017-Thurs., July 6, 2017
Opening Reception: April 27, 2017, 5:30-7:30 p.m. $10 non-members $5 members
Gen. Admission: $10 adults, $8 seniors, $6 children 8-18 years old/45 minute tour
Gen. Admission: $20 adults, $18 seniors, $16 children 8-18 years old/90 minute tour
From vows taken in magnificent settings, to cutting edge images that will redefine rituals and boundaries, this exhibition will feature six up-and-coming as well as award-winning photographers that highlight today’s diversity of cultures and customs in wedding ceremonies throughout the United States. Right Angle Bliss will capture the tenderness, whimsy, beauty, and grit of the promised, “I Do”, and visually redefine this time-honored tradition through the lenses of photographers: Stephanie Anestis, David Bravo, Sarah Grote, Kathy Harris, Airen Miller, and Karol Setlak.
Heavenly Notes: St. Mary’s at the Mansion

Sun. May 7, 2017, 2-4 p.m.
Reservations Required – Limited Seating
Admission: $30 (third row and up) -$50 (second row seating), $100 (front row seating)
Reception: $10 per person

In collaboration with the Parish of St. Mary’s in Norwalk, CT, Lockwood-Mathews Mansion Museum will feature, Heavenly Notes: St. Mary’s at the Mansion, a rare fundraising concert highlighting the church’s outstanding choir. Repertoire will feature music from the Victorian and Edwardian eras led by Organist and Choirmaster David Hughes. As described in Florence Mathews’ diary, there was a longstanding relationship between St. Mary’s and the Mathews family, as the church was central to the life of the many servants who lived and worked at the Mansion during the Edwardian era. Built in 1848, and originally located on Chapel Street in Norwalk, St. Mary’s burned to the ground and was replaced by a magnificent Gothic Revival stone church in 1871 on West Avenue, half a mile from the Lockwood-Mathews Mansion.

The Oliver Wolcott Library is hosting an art show exhibiting the work of two local artists in their gallery through April 28.

Marcey Hladik is a native of Litchfield who started painting as an adult, taking her first lessons in oil painting from her mother-in-law, Edith Hladik, an accomplished artist and teacher. Since her retirement, Marcey has spent more time engaging her creativity through the use of acrylic and, most recently, watercolor paint, attending classes with Rose Petruzzi and Betsy Rogers Knox. Painting fills one facet of Marcey’s desire to “craft,” and her other means of being creative is through knitting – both mediums incorporating color in expression.

Torrington native Joyce Lawton is a self-taught artist who began painting at a very early age. Watercolors and acrylics are her forte. She is well known in the area for her paintings of birds, animals, landscapes, seascapes, children and homes. In addition, she creates custom ceramic tile paintings for backsplashes and showers. Joyce also enjoys teaching acrylic painting. She has shown her work at local venues including Charlotte Hungerford Hospital.

The paintings are on view in the Jamie Gagarin Community Room and Gallery: March 2- April 28, 2017. Opening reception on Thursday, March 2 from 5:00 – 7:00 p.m. At the Oliver Wolcott Library, 160 South Street, Litchfield, CT. 06759. 860-567-8030, www.owlibrary.org.

If you are in an artistic mood this spring, why not learn art from a pro at Rossi Studios on 27 East Main Street in Torrington. Rossi Studios is the New England workshop of narrative artist/designer Karen Rossi. Highly regarded for her original metal sculptures, she also licenses and imports her whimsical characters of hobbies and professions, known as Fanciful Flights™. A growing brand, Rossi Studios is constantly introducing many programs.

In April and May participants can study with professional artist Karen Rossi at her studio and discover the world of art, famous artists and learn new techniques from drawing and painting to building sculptures. Saturday classes offered in April and May are geared for kids ages 7 and up and start at 10 a.m. The cost for the classes is $10. At 12 noon, Karen is offering classes for Adults (tweens and up) at the cost of $15. There is even a parent and child class offered at 2 p.m. for kids ages 3 and up at $10 per project.

The classes in April begin on April 1 where participants will learn how to adorn a small wooden chest with mosaics. The Jan Brett: Mitten/The Gingerbread Baby/The Three Snow Bears Activity Class takes place on April 8. The most recognizable part of Jan Brett’s illustrations is the way she frames her images and participants will learn how to transform their stories by framing photos and art pieces with a custom decorated frame!

The April 15 the class Nature’s Paint Brush celebrates Earth Day. Participants will learn how to create unique paintings using paint brushes made from elements of nature such as leaves, sticks, flowers, and herbs. On April 22 the artwork of Victoria Kann is explored In Victoria Kann’s Pinkalicious, readers learn the importance of balance in life. When things get a little too pink, Pinkalicious has to get more of pink’s complementary color, green. Bring a little more balance to your life by painting and building a stick statue using your favorite color and it’s complementary match. In anticipation of Cinco de Mayo, at the April 29 class, participants will make mini piñatas, colorful masks, and paper cut-out pennants.

There are three Saturday classes in May. On May 6 in anticipation of Mother’s Day the art of Kevin Henkes will be explored. Students will learn how to sculpt paper to create their own bouquet of chrysanthemums by creating various unique paper version of the flower. These creations are a perfect gift for moms, grandmothers, or teachers! On May 13 students will start by painting a watercolor background and will then be instructed to draw line art flowers over the dried watercolors to create a beautiful simplistic effect. On May 20, students will learn how to create a paper mosaic flag using various cut paper and will learn about how to create value using paper cut outs.