Connecticut Travel

It is hard to resist a glass of fine wine in a beautiful garden on a perfect summer evening. You can expect that and more at The Glebe House Museum’s festive garden party, Wine & Roses in the Gertrude Jekyll Garden on Hollow Road in Woodbury on Saturday, July 15 from 5:30 to 8:00 pm. Surrounded by bursts of summer flowers in the garden, bouquets of roses and live music, guests can sample Gertrude’s Garden, a white wine named for Gertrude Jekyll and bottled by Walker Road Vineyards in Woodbury. Hors d’oeuvres and other wine will also be served. There will be a silent auction of very special items chosen for this event. The museum will be open for the evening. Tickets for the garden party are $25.00 per person and all proceeds will support the Glebe House Museum & Gertrude Jekyll Garden.

Set in the picturesque Litchfield Hills in historic Woodbury’s village center, the museum welcomes visitors for a glimpse of Revolutionary War era Connecticut. The simple but elegant 18th century farmhouse is furnished as the home of the Reverend John Rutgers Marshall, his wife Sarah, their nine children and three slaves who lived in the “glebe” during the turmoil of the American War for Independence. The Glebe House was restored in 1923 under the direction of Henry Watson Kent, pioneer of early American decorative arts at the Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York. One of the early historic house museums in the country, The Glebe House opened its doors to the public in 1925, and is celebrating its 92nd anniversary this season.

In 1926, the famed English horticultural designer and writer, Gertrude Jekyll, was commissioned to plan an “old fashioned” garden to enhance the newly created museum. Ms. Jekyll had a profound influence on modern garden design and is widely considered the greatest gardener of the 20th century. Although a small garden, when compared with the 400 more elaborate designs she completed in England and on the Continent, the Glebe House garden includes 600 feet of classic English style mixed border with sweeps of red, yellow and gold and cool waves of lavender and blue hues, and foundation plantings. It is the only remaining example of her work in the United States today. The garden is open during daylight hours and the museum is open May-October, Wednesday through Sunday from 1-4 pm or by appointment.

To reserve tickets for WINE AND ROSES please call the Museum Director at 203-263-2855.

On Sunday, July 16, 2017, 2:30-4:30 p.m. at the Lockwood-Mathews Mansion Museum, 295 West Avenue in Norwalk, CT, legendary Textile Conservator and FIT Professor June Burns Bové will present, What to wear? How the Bride Decides, a talk on the fashion and social history of the wedding dress.

“Museum catalogers are usually happy to be assigned a wedding dress; the date is very certain,” Ms. Bové said, “But that is the only certainty, for the very act of saving the dress is proof of its value to the woman who wore it. It tells about her sense of style, her economic circumstances, and her social environment.”

There may be great differences between the attire of two brides married on the same day; one may wear French couture and the other, her best day dress, but the fashion lines are discernible. During the times between two great wars, American women looked to a number of sources for fashion news, starting with the colored engraving and then the photograph. Magazines directed to women were important, but so were newspapers with pictures of actresses and the social elite. Not all dresses were saved, nor are all dresses saved today. Brides often wore their dresses as reception dresses after the wedding or made children’s clothing from the fabric. Nowadays, dresses may be resold on eBay and Craigslist. We have the ones that were kept to tell us about that “one special day” and the world of the woman who wore it.

June Burns Bové earned a BA from Bucknell University in English and French Literature and an MA from New York University in Costume Studies. For twenty years a contract employee of the Costume Institute of the Metropolitan Museum of Art, June is Textile Conservator for Yeshiva University Museum and has been an adjunct assistant professor in the School of Graduate Studies of Fashion Institute of Technology since 1991 where her specialty is costume exhibition.

She has consulted for many museums and institutions including The Newark Museum, The New-York Historical Society, The New Jersey Historical Society, The Jewish Museum, the Morse Museum of Winter Park, Florida, The Merchant’s House of New York City, and the Art Department of the Port Authority of New York and New Jersey. In 2011 The Costume Society of America named her a Fellow of the Society.

This Salon includes a talk, refreshments, and a tour of the first floor of the Mansion; $15 for members, $20 for non-members per session. Refreshments are courtesy of Best in Gourmet. Please RSVP by Thurs, July 13, 2017. The chair of the Lecture Committee is Mimi Findlay of New Canaan.

The Center for Contemporary Printmaking located on 299 West Ave. in Norwalk is once again hosting the biennial International Miniature Print Exhibition in its galleries from June 4-August 27. The Gallery is open Tuesday 9 a.m. to 9 p.m., Wed. – Sat. 9 a.m. to 5 p.m. and Sun. from noon to 5 p.m. The gallery is closed on Monday.

The highlight of this juried exhibition and competition is that all artwork is limited to works that are no more than four square inches or 25.8 square cm. in size. The purpose of this show is to encourage artists to explore the miniature print format. It is also an opportunity for artists and the public to view the current concerns of printmakers from around the world. Since its inception in 1997, the competition has attracted entries by more than 1500 artists from around the world.

This year, the first prize winner is Dorothy Cochran from New Jersey, the second place winner is Michaela Winter from Germany and the third place winner is Christine S. Aaron from New York. For a complete list of award winning artists as well as artists accepted to display their work in this exhibition visit the website. This is truly an international show with works on display from artists living in: Denmark, China, Croatia, the U.K., Greece, France Ireland, to name a few, as well as many participants from the U.S.

This year, the Juror is Freyda Spira, Associate Curator, Department of Drawings and Prints, The Metropolitan Museum of Art. Spira earned her Ph.D. from the University of Pennsylvania, and specializes in Early Modern German art, works on paper, and Reformation imagery. She has authored several articles and books, including: Daniel Hopfer and Early Etched Armor in Augsburg; Imperial Augsburg: Renaissance prints and drawings, 1475-1540 with Greg Jecmen; Dürer and Beyond: Central European drawings before 1700 in The Metropolitan Museum of Art with Stijn Alsteens; and The Power of Prints: The Legacy of William M. Ivins and A. Hyatt Mayor (2016). She is currently working on an exhibition about Renaissance etching.

Go back in time with the Fairfield History Museum located on 370 Beach Street as they once again offer the historic walking tours — “The Burning of Fairfield”! On this tour, you will experience the Town’s burning as if you were there by walking in the foot steps of local residents that experienced the attack. Participants will learn about the events surrounding the attack on Fairfield at the time of the American Revolution.

The tour begins with costumed tour guides at the classic Fairfield town green with its lovely Congregational Church and colonial homes. Stroll back in time while exploring the history and events surrounding the attack on Fairfield by the British on July 7-8, 1779.

Listen to the Proclamation from British General William Tryon and Admiral Collier, to the people of Connecticut. Hear the anguished words of Eunice Burr, as she witnesses the ransacking and destruction of her home, at the site where it happened.
Young William Wheeler’s voice speaks to you of his family’s struggle to evacuate the town and his feelings of pride at the heroic actions of the local militia and the Fort at Black Rock as they work to fend off the Crown Forces.

Think about the somber after action report of Reverend Andrew Eliot as he reflects on the events of those two days in July, and their meaning for the town and its future.

It is recommended that you register for this tour in advance to guarantee your spot on the tour. Tickets may be purchased online; adults are $10 and Students are $5. The tours are offered on July 9 12:30 pm – 2 pm.

The Aldrich Contemporary Art Museum located on 258 Main Street in Ridgefield is pleased to present Tony Matelli’s Hera, a monumental sculpture, as part of the Main Street Sculpture series, which offers an opportunity for artists to create site-specific work for The Aldrich’s most public site, the front lawn.

Matelli singular, larger-than-life-size outdoor figurative sculpture will be on display through October 21, 2017. This work is an extension of Matelli’s Garden Sculptures series, initiated in 2015, in which he defaces garden statuary of classical or religious icons and subverts material expectation. Based on an ancient Greek statue of Hera and poised atop a pedestal, the statue, fabricated out of cast stone, is painstakingly aged to mimic a centuries old patina. An imposing nine-feet tall and sited on a three-foot tall pedestal, the neo-classical figure will be juxtaposed with flawlessly hand-painted cast bronze watermelons, whole, halved, and quartered, that balance upon her head, within the creases and folds of her drapery, and at her feet. These faux-perishables, poised upon the intentionally eroded and debased figure, are presented in an eternal state of freshness. In doing so, Matelli stages opposing entropic forces, the synthetically preserved, and the forcibly decayed.

Spanning sculpture and painting, Matelli’s hyperreal practice embodies the human condition. Suspended in changing physical states or transformative stages of existence, his work concerns the very circumstance of actuality, joining the ordinary with the speculative in order to assess cultural worth: what people keep or abandon, what appears to be in or out of place, and what seems pleasing or distasteful. Often provocative and hallucinatory, Matelli’s work expresses excess, neglect, decomposition, and regeneration, the upturned and the adrift, the romantic and the surreal. At The Aldrich, Matelli’s colossal sculpture of a familiar mythological figure may read as a modern memento mori, or as a devotional offering to a saccharine present, cast against a corrosive past. Ridgefield, a Revolutionary-era Colonial town with a landmarked Main Street, is a befitting location for this tragicomic siting, as Matelli’s ancient giant testifies to history as theatrical backdrop.

Tony Matelli (b. 1971, Chicago) received his BFA from the Milwaukee Institute of Art & Design in 1993 and his MFA from the Cranbrook Academy of Art in 1995. Recent solo exhibitions include the State Hermitage Museum, St. Petersburg, Russia; the Davis Museum, MA; Künsterlerhaus Bethanien, Berlin; and the Palais de Tokyo, Paris. A mid-career survey, Tony Matelli: A Human Echo, premiered at the ARoS Aarhus Kunstmuseum, Denmark in 2012 and traveled to the Bergen Kunstmuseum, Norway in 2013. His work is in numerous public collections including the FLAG Art Foundation, NY; ARoS Aarhus Kunstmuseum, Aarhus, Denmark; and the National Centre of Contemporary Art, Moscow, Russia, among others. He lives and works in New York City.

Summer in Litchfield Hills and Fairfield County is awash with the colorful blooms of summer and the Connecticut Historic Garden Commission that cultivates our love of historic gardens has declared June 25 as Connecticut Historic Garden Day! This special state-wide celebration will take place rain or shine from 12 noon – 4 p.m. The historic gardens in Litchfield Hills and Fairfield County are planning special events and activities to celebrate their gardens and to make your visit even more fun. Below is a list of historic gardens that are celebrating the wealth of CT’s beautiful blooms!

Bethelehem, Bellamy-Ferriday House & Garden. Discover the treasures of the Bellamy-Ferriday estate. Stroll through the formal parterre garden designed by Eliza Mitchell Ferriday between 1915 and 1918. Grounds admission is free; regular admission applies for historic house tour.

Woodbury, Glebe House Museum and The Gertrude Jekyll Garden, Garden volunteers will be giving tours through the Gertrude Jekyll Garden and answering your questions about Miss Jekyll’s design and the history of the garden at The Glebe House Museum. Admission to the garden is free, but donations are suggested. Refreshments will be served. Call 203-263-2855 for more information or visit www.glebehousemuseum.org.

Derby, Osborne Homestead Museum. Visitors can enjoy tours of the museum’s lovely Colonial Revival gardens and learn about flower and tree legends and Frances Osborne Kellogg’s favorite flowers. After strolling through the gardens, visitors can visit the historic house museum and learn about Frances Osborne Kellogg’s passion for gardening and land conservation. Complimentary museum and garden tours will be offered every half hour on the hour.

Bridgewater, Promisek at Three Rivers Farm. Promisek gardeners will be on hand to answer questions about the Beatrix Farrand-designed garden and the history of the land. Violinists from The Hartt School will perform from the garden terrace, and iced tea will be provided. For those wishing to sketch, draw or paint, please do! Admission is $5 per person.

Wilton, Weir Farm National Historic Site. Celebrate Connecticut’s Historic Gardens Day at Weir Farm National Historic Site, where gardens and art go hand-in-hand! From 12pm to 4pm, park staff and Garden Gang volunteers will offer short informal talks in the Sunken Garden and Secret Garden about each garden’s history, flowers, restoration, and ongoing preservation. In addition to the talks, visitors can spend an afternoon painting en plein air in the only national park dedicated to American painting. Join a professional art instructor from 1 to 4pm for informal art instruction using the park’s free-to-use watercolor supplies! Be sure to see inside the visitor center for a special exhibition featuring contemporary paintings, photographs, and prints inspired by the park’s gardens, buildings, and landscape.