Category: Connecticut Travel

The members of the Merwinsville Hotel Restoration will host their 29th Annual Arts and Fine Crafts Show on Columbus Day Weekend at the Merwinsville Hotel located on 1 Brown’s Forge Rd. in Gaylordsville Connecticut. Gaylordsville. This iconic and historic railroad hotel is located in the northwest corner of New Milford and is conveniently located 15 minutes from Kent, Sherman, New Milford and the Harlem Valley/Wingdale Railroad Station.

This event will kick off with a gala preview “Meet the Artists” reception on Friday, October 7th from 6:30 to 8:30 p.m. In addition to a sneak peek at all the goodies for sale, there will be passed hors d’oeuvres prepared by the Community Culinary School of Northwestern CT, beverages, dessert and live music provided by Danny D. Tickets to the gala event are $25 at the door or $20 if you prepay using paypal.

The arts and crafts show opens to the public on Saturday, October 8 and runs through October 10 from 10 a.m. to 5 p.m. There is a $2 donation at the door that will go toward the restoration of this historic gem. There will be more than 75 quality arts and crafts vendors at the Merwinsville Hotel on all three days showcasing items such as: artwork, photography, jewelry, and fine artisan crafts.

For further information, please call 860-350-4443 or visit www.merwinsvillehotel.org. To sign up for our monthly newsletter and for more area events www.litchfieldhills.com

The Barnum Museum begins its line-up of Fall programs on Sunday, October 9th at 2 pm with an illustrated talk, From the Ends of the Earth: Yale’s Peabody Museum and 150 Years of Exploration, Discovery, and Education. The program will be presented by Dr. Richard Kissel, Director of Public Programs at Yale University’s Peabody Museum of Natural History in New Haven, Connecticut. That museum’s current exhibition celebrates the 150th anniversary of the institution. “Treasures of the Peabody: 150 Years of Exploration & Discovery” features 150 artifacts and specimens from the museum’s collections along with stories about the scientists and researchers who have shaped people’s understanding of life on Earth. More than mere curios, these objects represent key cornerstones in our understanding of the natural world. Dr. Kissel will bring these fascinating stories to life as he talks about the parade of personalities that have been part of the Peabody’s history–including Buffalo Bill and our own P.T. Barnum!

Don’t miss the opportunity to hear the amazing stories behind the acquisition of key artifacts such as the dog-sized dinosaur fossil found in Connecticut; a specimen collected by Charles Darwin on the voyage of the HMS Beagle; the first T. rex fossil ever discovered; Gargantua the gorilla; and much more. Dr. Kissel will also discuss the connection between O. C. Marsh, a nineteenth-century American paleontologist whose enormous collection was given to Yale in 1889, and P. T. Barnum, who was an avid collector of natural history specimens for his own museums.

Dr. Kissel is a paleontologist, science educator, and author with more than 20 years of experience within the museum field. He is also a featured scientist online at NOVA’s scienceNOW and the National Park Service’s National Fossil Day site, and a faculty member for the online Museum Studies Graduate Program at Johns Hopkins University.

The program will begin at 2 pm. It is free to members, and there is a suggested donation of $5 per person for others. The talk will be held in the People’s United Bank Gallery, located behind the historic Barnum Museum building at 820 Main Street, Bridgeport, CT. On-street parking is free on Sundays. Visit www.barnum-museum.org for more information or call (203) 331-1104 during business hours Monday through Friday.

To sign up for our monthly newsletter and for more area information www.visitfairfieldcountyct.com

For the exhibition Danger Came Smiling: Feminist art and popular music historian Maria Elena Buszek brings together work by contemporary artists who use popular music as a medium, subject, and reference point for activist messages. The show, which will be on view through– January 1, 2017, takes the title of an album by the pioneering, unabashedly feminist punk band Ludus, led by artist Linder Sterling, whose career—emerging in the first wave of punk in the 1970s—reflects the approaches in this exhibition.

By the late 1970s, visual artists like Robert Longo, Barbara Kruger, and Jean-Michel Basquiat started bands, and musicians like DEVO, Talking Heads, and Ann Magnuson treated their music as performance art, blurring the lines between popular music and visual art in ways that have profoundly affected contemporary art ever since. The “No Wave” culture that emerged in this era is rife with examples: performers were as likely to present their work at the Danceteria as the Whitney Museum, and venues like Club 57, The Pyramid, and the Mudd Club and galleries like Fun, Gracie Mansion, and Artists Space all hosted both exhibitions and concerts, where popular music was emerging as its own “new medium.”

Years later, writer and Mudd Club habitué Kathy Acker would advise the young feminist art student Kathleen Hanna: “If you want people to hear what you’re doing…you should be in a band.” Hanna proceeded to become a prime mover in what soon became known as the Riot Grrrl movement by way of her band Bikini Kill, and continues performing agit-pop in bands like Le Tigre and The Julie Ruin.

Hanna’s career is just the most visible of subsequent generations of feminist artists inspired by popular music, which this exhibition will address through the work of artists like Wynne Greenwood, Eleanor King, Shizu Saldamando, and Xaviera Simmons, who use punk, hip-hop, electronica, and jazz as part of their studio practice, and a reflection of their politics. The Franklin Street Works café will also include an audio portion that serves as a “curated mixtape” of music that relates to the artists and history on display in the exhibition.

The gallery is open Tues. – Sun. 12 noon to 5 p.m. and is located on 45 Franklin Street in Stamford. There are 3-hour parking meters just outside the entrance to the gallery on Franklin Street that are free after 6 p.m., and 25 cents per 15 minutes before 6 p.m. There is also a lot with an attendant on Franklin Street just a couple of doors down on the right side of the street (closer to Broad Street) from Franklin Street Works. Rates are variable. There are also a number of parking garages nearby. The nearest are:Target Entrance on Broad; $1 for the first 2 hours, then $2/hour, $11/day. Summer Street Garage Entrances on Lower Summer, Broad or Washington Blvd. Northbound; $1/hour, $9/day, there is also an evening rate of $3/evening
Sat. & Sun. are free until 5pm.

For more area information www.visitfairfieldcountyct.com

The Greenwich Historical Society is hosting an event with the celebrated television reporter, Lesley Stahl, on October 5 from 6 p.m. to 7:30 p.m. at the Greenwich Country Club located on 19 Doubling Road in Greenwich.

Who wouldn’t want to spend an evening with Lesley Stahl, celebrated television reporter and recent New York Times bestselling author of Becoming Grandma: The Joy and Science of the New Grandparenting. Ms. Stahl will share her views on the current political landscape, family and the future.

As one of America’s most recognized and experienced broadcast journalists, Lesley Stahl’s career has been marked by political scoops, surprising features and award-winning foreign reporting. She has been a 60 Minutes correspondent since March 1991, with the 2016-2017 season marking her 26th on the broadcast.

Prior to joining 60 Minutes, Stahl served as CBS News White House correspondent during the Carter and Reagan presidencies and part of the term of George H. W. Bush. Her reports appeared frequently on the CBS Evening News, with Walter Cronkite, Dan Rather and later on other CBS News broadcasts. During that time, she also served as moderator of Face the Nation, CBS News’ Sunday public affairs broadcast. She has received numerous awards for her journalistic achievement including a Lifetime Achievement Emmy in 2003.

There are limited VIP tickets for a pre-event reception and book signing are available for $1,000. General admission tickets are $250. A copy of Stahl’s new book is included in the ticket price.
Reservations required and can be purchased online. Proceeds from the event will go to support the Greenwich Historical Society’s Fund for Program Enrichment, newly established to support program initiatives, including education, exhibitions, public programs, digital collections and preservation.

For more area information www.visitfairfieldcountyct.com

The Sharon Historical Society located on 18 Main Street on the stately Sharon Green is hosting a new exhibition through October 28 called “Distaff in Sharon: A Tribute to Melva Bucksbaum”.

The exhibition at The Gallery @the SHS takes its inspiration from the ground breaking 2013 show curated by Ms. Bucksbaum at the Granary in Sharon titled “The Distaff Side, ” a diverse exhibition of paintings, sculpture, photography, and video by more than 100 female artists from the collections of Ms. Bucksbaum and her husband, Sharon resident Raymond Learsy.

The show at The Gallery @the SHS features work by local women artists Debra Bilow, Zelina Blagden, Tina Chandler, Karen LeSage, Ellen Moon, Catherine Noren, Sally Pettus and Kate Stiassni.

After visiting the show at the Sharon Historical Society, plan to stop in at the Sharon Audubon Center located on 325 Cornwall Rd. in Sharon. Here you can explore more than 3,000 acres of land that offers 11 miles of trails to explore. There is a small hands on natural history museum in the main Visitors Center and a Children’s adventure center as well as a store. You will also find Raptor aviaries, the herb garden and a beautiful bird and butterfly garden.

Each year the Sharon Audubon Center admits more than 300 birds, mammals and retiles to their wildlife rehabilitation program with the ultimate goal of caring for them and releasing them back into the wild.

For more area information on what to see and do visit www.litchfieldhills.com

The Bruce Museum located on One Museum Dr. in Greenwich will sizzle with excitement this spring and summer during their showing of Electricity, a special exhibition developed by The Franklin Institute. Electricity brings the science and history of electricity to life through engaging hands-on interactive displays including Plasma Tubes, Jumping Rings, Solenoid, and Jacob’s Ladder. Visitors will learn the fundamental principles behind electricity such as magnetic fields, electric charges, and battery technology. Sparks will fly (safely) as museum goers examine concepts such as static electricity, attraction and repulsion, sparking, magnetic motion.

Crowd-pleasing favorites include the lightning tendrils of purple, pink, and blue extended by the Plasma Tube and the Jumping Ring, which allows guests to wield electrical discharge, repelling a ring into the air. Visitors will learn how flowing currents relate to magnetic fields and how their own body can become a battery. The exhibition also highlights the applications and uses of electricity, how electricity gets into your home, sustainability, and electrical safety.

Electricity will be on view in tandem with Electric Paris in the art galleries. This exhibition explores the way artists depicted older oil and gas lamps and the newer electric lighting that began to supplant them around the turn of the twentieth century. Whether nostalgic renderings of gaslit boulevards, starkly illuminated dance halls or abstracted prisms of electric street lamps, approximately 50 artworks will be shown by such artists as Edgar Degas, Mary Cassat, Pierre Bonnard, Henri de Toulouse-Lautrec, Childe Hassam, Edouard Vuillard, James Tissot and Charles Marville.

About the Bruce:
The Bruce Museum is a regionally-based, world-class museum promoting an appreciation of art and an understanding of science in more than a dozen changing exhibitions annually and with permanent galleries that feature the natural sciences. Each year, the Bruce Museum provides cultural, educational and experiential exhibitions and programs that appeal to a broad cross-section of people throughout Fairfield and Westchester Counties. The Museum welcomes approximately 80,000 visitors, including 13,000 school aged children annually and has over 6,000 public program attendees.

For more area information www.visitfairfieldcountyct.com