Connecticut Travel

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.

“What saves who how” is an an exhibition of Connecticut Artist/Acupuncturist Jessica Ifshin’s that are on display at Carole Peck’s Good News Restaurant & Bar from through April 18th, 2017. The Good News Restaurant & Bar is open from 11:30am to 10pm daily. Closed Tuesday and open from 12Noon to 10pm Sundays.

Ms. Ifshin’s paintings are the product of exploration in “color synergy which expresses fluidity of movement and the dynamic intensity of emotions” grabbing the attention, compelling the heart, mind, and soul to react to the emotions produced by the extremities of color blending and movement. As Ms. Ifshin states on her website, www.myartisyourart.com, she has found inspiration in “her studies in East Asian medicine in San Diego” and “became fascinated by the similarities between the movement of “qi” (vital life form, pronounced ‘chee’) in the body’s energetic meridians, the flowing nature of paint, and the shifts of energies and emotions that colors are capable of conveying when blended”.

Ms. Ifshin, a passionate student of art, studied at the liberal arts college State University of New York at Purchase. After graduation she backpacked through Poland, Hungary, the former U.S.S.R, and Czechoslovakia for two months.

During her travels, Ms. Ifshin was enlightened with truth about the mystery of art, that art is the “physical manifestation of the relationship between humanity and divinity”. Presently, Ms. Ifshin originally returned to the East Coast to bring her medicine to New Milford Hospital’s Diebold Family Cancer Center. Presently she is runs her own private practice: eastern body wellness in New Milford. Her work as an artist does not, yet it continues as life’s energy perpetually inspires her to capture the essence of emotions and produce the expression of her soul on canvas.

The Mattatuck Museum located on 144 West Main St. in Waterbury has announced the opening of four new shows on March 26 including: Luminous Garden, the art of Beth Galston, Black and White, photos from the collection of Kevin McNamara and Craig Nowak, sculptures by Federico Uribe and a show tracing the rivalry of the Yankees and Red Sox in Connecticut. The fist three exhibits run through July 16, the Yankee- Red Sox exhibit runs through December 3. The opening receptions for all the shows is March 26 from 2 p.m. to 4 p.m.

Black and White displays images from the collection of Kevin McNamara and Craig Nowak. It features photographs by masters of 20th and 21st century American photography including John Dugdale, Sally Mann, and Jock Sturges among others. Like many contemporary photographers, the artists in this exhibition make imaginative use of the camera’s power to document reality. Their pictures pose questions about identity, self-representation, history and truth.

Sculptor and conceptual artist Beth Galston creates site-based installations that are informed by many sources, including science, architecture, engineering, and nature. The immersive environment of Luminous Garden (Aerial) is an ephemeral light piece made of tiny yellow LEDs set in cast resin acorn caps. It is captivating because of it’s delicate beauty.

QUEDAMOS EN PAZ #3 reflects the work of Colombian-born, Miami-based artist Federico Uribe who trained as a painter, but in 1996 he abandoned paint brushes to make art with the objects of everyday life. In the At Peace series he creates sculptures from ammunition, his work informed both by his homeland Colombia, where violence is part of daily life, and the epidemic of gun crime in the United States where he has lived for 15 years.

Like most sports rivalries, picking a side in the Red Sox-Yankee rivalry is almost entirely geographic – and Connecticut is at the epicenter, more or less being split in two. Guest curated by sports lover Neil Scherer, this exhibition had its inception in the 2004 American League Champion Series. This was the infamous year that the Yankees won the first three games, leading everyone to believe the Yankees would sweep, only to leave America stunned as the Red Sox rebounded to win the remaining four games and their first World Series title in 86 years. Scherer was at the deciding seventh game. The exhibition tells this and other exciting stories about each team. This exhibition runs through December 3, 2017.

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Western Connecticut State University will host seven Saturday evening shows and viewings of prominent planetary and stellar objects in the night sky during public nights from Feb. 25 through May 20 at the WCSU Planetarium and Observatory on the university’s Westside campus, 43 Lake Ave. Extension in Danbury.

WCSU Observatory presentations will include a one-hour planetarium show followed by telescope viewing of the moon, Jupiter and prominent star systems, clusters and nebulae visible during the late winter and spring months. The Observatory, located atop a hill near Pinney Hall, offers viewings through a 20-inch, computer-controlled Ritchey-Chretien reflector telescope.

Admission is free and the public is invited. Limited parking is provided adjacent to the observatory, with additional parking available on University Boulevard.
Planetarium shows are appropriate for adults and older children, and will be canceled only in the event of hazardous road conditions or severe weather that would pose a safety risk. The viewing period will not be offered during public nights when cloud cover prevents sky observations. For updates to confirm plans for a scheduled public night, call (203) 837-8672 on the day of the event.

• March 25: The planetarium show will start at 7 p.m., with sky observation following from 8 to 10 p.m. Visible objects will include the M44 star cluster and the double stars Algieba and Mizar.

• April 8: The planetarium show will start at 7 p.m., with sky observation following from 8 to 10 p.m. Visible objects will include the waxing gibbous moon, Algieba, Mizar and Jupiter.

• April 22: The planetarium show will start at 8 p.m., with sky observation following from 9 to 11 p.m. Visible objects will include Algieba, Mizar and Jupiter.

• May 6: The planetarium show will start at 8 p.m., with sky observation following from 9 to 11 p.m. Visible objects will include the waxing gibbous moon, Jupiter and the M13 star cluster.

• May 20: The planetarium show will start at 8 p.m., with sky observation following from 9 to 11 p.m. Visible objects will include Jupiter and the M13 star cluster.

“Love Action Art Lounge” is a group exhibition at that features works that are generated from or encourage convivial social scenes, freedom of expression, and interpersonal connectivity. Through installations inspired by underground music clubs, written scores that instruct audiences, performed celebratory rituals, and videos that simultaneously world-build and critique existing sociopolitical systems, “Love Action Art Lounge” becomes its own hang out space that reflects the people-positive, aspirational, and, at times transgressive, attributes of its artists and collectives. Love Action Art Lounge will be on display through May 7 at Franklin Street Artworks 41 Franklin St. in Stamford. Gallery Hours are Tues. – Sun. 12 a.m. – 5 p.m.

Curated by Franklin Street Works’ Creative Director, Terri C Smith, the exhibition will be on view from January 28 – May 7, 2017. Exhibiting Artists: Chloë Bass, Katie Cercone, Go!PushPops, Elisa Garcia de la Huerta, Riley Hooker, House of Ladosha, Carmelle Safdie, Christopher Udemezue, and Laura Weyl.

The exhibition will also include a commissioned event with Bruce High Quality Foundation University on March 25th as well as educational programming throughout the exhibition. “Love Action Art Lounge” is supported by a generous two-year grant from The Andy Warhol Foundation for the Visual Arts and with support from Connecticut Office of the Arts.

The social as it’s explored in ‘Love Action Art Lounge,’ looks at a variety of approaches to and tactics for encouraging social connection in art, including aspirational world-building, critique of oppressive systems, participatory ritual, and poetic instructions to prompt interpersonal exchanges. “Love Action Art Lounge” will feature three videos created by House of Ladosha along with two works by individual members commissioned for the show — a takeaway poster by Riley Hooker and a photograph by Christopher Udemezue.

There will also be two videos on view made individually by Go!PushPops members Katie Cercone and Elisa Garcia de la Huerta. As part of the exhibition programming, Go! Push Pops has organized a hip hop yoga CHAKRA workshop for youth of Stamford in collaboration with UNDAKOVA, which will culminate in a live-action performance as a kinetic sculpture embodying the rainbow of chakras and the celestial serpent of consciousness.

Two projects in “Love Action Art Lounge” – one by Chloë Bass and one by Carmelle Safdie — encourage visitors to connect socially through real, fictitious, and/or hybrid situations that include prompts and immersive design. Carmelle Safdie’s “Nightlife Design” project navigates from architectural proposals to pop music, imagining idealized spaces for collective audio-visual engagement.

This ongoing project was inspired by the artist’s reflection on her communal creative experience as a musician and a desire to establish a utopian space for such social expressivity. In her 2016 music video, “Discovery of The Shape,” she uses interior design — created as part of an artist residency at a New York City bar — as the stage for a fabricated party where her friends perform various roles in a nightclub scene. At Franklin Street Works, the video is installed amidst sculptural lounge furniture, and its original dance track activates a full-scale prototype for a light-up dance floor. Additional components include drawings that sequence through the patterning of dance floor lights and a new series of phosphorescent paintings that translate these sequences into a gridded system.

“Love Action Art Lounge” will also include a score-based, interactive installation by Chloë Bass, which includes a test kitchen installation that directly interfaces with the daily workings of Franklin Street Works’ café. The project is one of several Bass has created to connect people via performance scores and food. “The project,” says Bass, “is designed to question intimacy in one-on-one relationships. The kitchen will serve as a gathering and decompression space in contrast to the more ‘party’ aspects of the exhibition.” The project includes text prompts printed on café cups, napkins, and plastic cutlery that encourage interconnection, safe place making, and solidarity via phrases such as, “We make sense of things by being together,” and “We need each other more than ever.” For the exhibition, Café goers will pick up their printed cups in the gallery as part of making their order at the café.

While all of the exhibiting artists in “Love Action Art Lounge” approach the social from distinct and varied perspectives, they, arguably, share what Yates McKee, the author of Strike Art: Contemporary Art and the Post-Occupy Condition, describes, when writing about Occupy Wall Street, as “…a horizontal pedagogical space in which viewers themselves might be prompted to imagine and perhaps eventually enact their own sense of social transformation.” While this exhibition has a celebratory and social tone, it is not escapist in its intentions. In keeping with Chloë Bass’s statement, “When I make art, it’s not a balm or a distraction. It’s an invitation to come closer,” “Love Action Art Lounge” explores how ecstatic actions and supportive, accepting prompts can set the stage for personal expression and, through a caring social space, spark interest in learning about each other and expanding our common ground.