Connecticut Travel

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

Get up, turn off your electronic devices and come on down to Stepping Stones Museum for Children for a free day of play on Saturday, September 17. In honor of Nickelodeon’s 13th Annual Worldwide Day of Play, BooZoo™, the museum’s fictional puppy mascot for early childhood learning and literacy, is hosting an action-packed day with free museum admission and activities throughout Mathews Park. The event will feature outdoor field games, interactive sports and fitness demonstrations, awesome educational activities and amazing live performances – all for free and guaranteed to keep your family moving.

Join Stepping Stones to celebrate what we do best – play. There will be a fun magic show and a special gymnastics performance. Children can take a martial arts or Pound® for Families class, get your groove on at our rocking dance party featuring local bands in the Celebration Courtyard and participate in their favorite lawn games on the Great Lawn at Mathews Park. There will also be a park-wide book walk where visitors can exercise their bodies and their brains as well as a “Fish Parade” with artist James Grashow and our neighbors from the Center for Contemporary Printmaking. There will be plenty of experts on hand from the community and other sponsor organizations to provide ideas on ways families can take charge of their health. Additionally, all canine friends, accompanied by owners, are welcome to take part in special Worldwide Day of Play pooch programming that will take place in the Celebration Courtyard and Community Garden.

Now in its 13th year, Nickelodeon’s Worldwide Day of Play is an entire day dedicated to active play. The day is part of a larger movement to reduce childhood obesity and reinforce lessons about the tremendous benefits of healthy lifestyles among children. Stepping Stones is proud to serve as a local host of this event for the ninth time.

“We are thrilled to be hosting the Worldwide Day of Play here at Stepping Stones for the ninth time,” said Robert Townes, Director of Community Advocacy for Stepping Stones Museum for Children. “As a children’s museum, we recognize and value the important role of play in a child’s development. We are dedicated to helping the families that we serve maintain their commitment to healthy living. With our focus on our Healthy Children, Healthy Communities® initiative, our status as a Let’s Move! Museums and Gardens institution, our increased emphasis on healthier options in our cafe, our tremendous array of special programming and our beautiful park location, Stepping Stones is truly the perfect stage for a spectacular day of health-based family fun.”

Make the most of this day-long worldwide movement all about the power of play. For more information, call 203 899 0606 or visit www.steppingstonesmuseum.org/dayofplay.

Important local support of the Worldwide Day of Play at Stepping Stones Museum for Children is being provided by Silver Medal Sponsor Yale New Haven Children’s Hospital; Bronze Medal Sponsors People’s United Bank and Subway® and Blue Ribbon Sponsors Coastal Orthopaedics, The Golf Performance Center, Melissa & Doug and Outdoor Sports Center.

This special day of free play is a component of the museum’s Open Arms Accessibility Initiative. For more area information www.visitfairfieldcountyct.com

In the 17th century European travelers to the Middle East collected examples of marbled paper and bound them into alba amicorum, which means “books of friendship” in Latin, and is a forerunner of the modern autograph album. Eventually the technique for making the papers reached Europe, where they became a popular covering material not only for book covers and end-papers, but also for lining chests, drawers, and bookshelves. The marbling of the edges of books was also a European adaptation of the art.

This fall, the Wilton Historical Society is offering a marbling workshop for children ages 6 – 12 on Saturday, September 17 from 11:00 – 12:30. While swirling inks, and dipping paper into solution, they will learn about the history of marbling, which has been practiced for hundreds of years. Putting their freshly marbled paper to good use, kids can make a book cover, either for a book they bring, such as a journal, or for a book provided by the Society. And for a snack – marble cake!

Wilton Historical Society Members $10 per child, maximum $25 per family; Non-members $15 per child, maximum $35 per family. Please register: info@wiltonhistorical.org or call 203-762-7257. Wilton Historical Society, 224 Danbury Road, Wilton, CT 06897.

For more area information www.visitfairfieldcountyct.com