FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE:
Contact: Sandra Betner Public Relations
(215) 913-9706; e: sandy@sandrabetnerpr.com
HOLIDAY EVENTS
at CONNECTICUT ART TRAIL MUSEUMS
September 12, 2006, CT … Children and adults can connect to art, heritage and history while enjoying traditional holiday events offered by nine of the fourteen distinguished museums and historic sites on the Connecticut Art Trail.
All museums are linked from the Connecticut Art Trail website www.arttrail.org. For questions on the programs, please contact each museum directly.
1. The Aldrich Contemporary Art Museum, Ridgefield
Contact: Amy Grabowski, http://www.aldrichart.org/
203-438-4519; e: agrabowski@aldrichart.org
Art & Design: An Aldrich Holiday Trunk Sale
November 2, 2006 – 6:30-8:30 p.m.
Ahhh, the holidays. A time forgiving, a time for receiving, and above all, a time for shopping. The Aldrich is doing its part by hosting ART + DESIGN: An AldrichHoliday Trunk Sale. Held during our monthly cocktail party, the eveningwill also feature exhibition tours, refreshments, and music.
We’ve invited some of the area’s hottest and established artists and designers to offer their modern, handmade items, includingjewelry and bags, textiles and pottery. Stop by, meet the designers and browse this unique selection of items for your friends and families or yourself!
Aldrich Undercover: A “Secret” Exhibition & Benefit Art Sale
November 17, 2006 – Preview 6:30-8:00 p.m., General Admission 8:00-10:00 p.m.
Think you can spot a masterpiece? ALDRICH UNDERCOVER will feature hundreds of original works by some of the most highly-collected contemporary artists working today, all available for purchase. ALDRICH UNDERCOVER will be held one night only, on Friday, November 17, 2006.
Each work will be sold for $300 and only after purchase will the identity of the artist who created the work be revealed. All proceeds will benefit The Aldrich. Preview tickets are $100 which guarantee early admission and thus first opportunity to view and purchase the art. Regular admission tickets are available at the door for $35. For tickets and information call 203.438.4519.
Hundreds of artists who have previously exhibited at the Museum have been invited to create unique works of art on identical 8 x 10 inch paper provided by The Aldrich. Each original work will be signed on the back, with no identifying marks on the front, so it can be displayed anonymous. Artist Chairs: Sol LeWitt, Ann Hamilton, Damian Loeb.
2. Bush-Holley Historic Site, Cos Cob/Greenwich
Contact: Dana Ruston, http://www.hstg.org/
203-869-6899, ext. 12; e: druston@hstg.org
Antiquarius 2006: December 1-3; December 6, 2006
Saturday, December 2, 11:00 a.m. – 6:00 p.m./Sunday, December 3,11:00 a.m. – 5:00 p.m.
Admission $15
Antiquarius, now in its 49th year, is the primary fund raiser for The Historical Society of the Town of Greenwich and includes a Gala Preview Party for The Greenwich Show, an antiques and collectibles show; the popular Holiday House Tour, luncheon and Holiday Boutique. We invite you to experience an updated and new approach, “a time to celebrate style and design,” giving you access to 43 top exhibitors with exquisite furnishings, couture, art, jewelry and decorative pieces.
Antiquarius benefits the children’s art and history education programs for The Historical Society of the Town of Greenwich. It is our organization’s primary fundraiser.
Black And White Gala Preview Party – Friday, December 1 – 6:30 p.m. to 9:30 p.m.
With a 6:00 p.m. Early Admission for Sponsors, Angels, Benefactors and Patrons.
Greenwich Civic Center, Old Greenwich, Connecticut
Come for a sneak preview at our Black and White themed party where you’ll get a first look at Antiquarius from Georg Jensen jewelry and Chanel & Lilly Pulitzer vintage clothing to exquisite collections of French Art Deco, Biedermeier and Bauhaus furnishings. Mingle with friends, bid in the silent auction, savor the sensational food of Plum Pure Foods, and make this a must stop this holiday season.
Holiday House Tour - Wednesday, December 6 - 10:00 a.m. to 4:00 p.m.
We provide the map and 6 gracious homeowners provide the viewing pleasure and their very own sense of style and design for this favorite annual outing. This year, step into these featured houses for ideas and inspiration that will last well beyond the season. Lunch served at the Greenwich Country Club and The Milbrook Club from 12:00 p.m. – 2:00 p.m. Reservations required.
Puppet Show - Friday, December 8, 2006 - 4:00 p.m. & 6:00 p.m.
Program TBD
Vanderbilt Education Center
Cost: TBD
Gingerbread House Workshop - Saturday, December 9, 2006 - 12:00 - 2:00 p.m.
Family Fun Day
Vanderbilt Education Center
$30, $25 for members (per house)
Annual Candlelight Tour and Holiday Festivities - Sunday, December 10, 2006 – 3:00 – 7:00 p.m.
75th Anniversary Celebration and Open House
Bush-Holley by Candlelight: Bush-Holley Historic Site
Free
3. Florence Griswold Museum, Old Lyme
Contact: Tammi Flynn, http://www.florencegriswoldmuseum.org/
860-434-5542, ext. 109; e: tammi@flogris.org
The Magic of Christmas: A Connecticut Tradition
November 18, 2006 through January 7, 2007
Tuesday – Saturday: 10:00 a.m. – 5:00 p.m.; Sunday: 1:00 - 5:00 p.m.
Open Mondays November 20-December 18 10:00 a.m. – 5:00 p.m.
Closed Thanksgiving Day, Christmas Day, New Year’s Day
Visitors to the Magic of Christmas Celebration will be enchanted by lavish Fantasy Trees, delighted by the return of the popular Miss Florence's Artist Tree, a 12-foot tree decorated with wooden palettes painted by over 70 artists, and dazzled by endless programs and events. The Griswold House, closed for restoration during last year's Magic of Christmas, will be decorated in keeping with Miss Florence's decor around 1910, the height of the Lyme Art Colony.
Miss Florence's Artist Tree has become a holiday icon. Wooden palettes painted by over 70 artists highlight a 12-foot tree. Palettes are added yearly. The idea of artists painting on palettes relates directly to the Museum's history as the center for the Lyme Art Colony, and alludes to the doors and wooden wall panels the artists painted throughout Miss Florence's house over a hundred years ago.
4. Hill-Stead Museum, Farmington
Contact: Cynthia Cagenello, http://www.hillstead.org/
860-677-4787, ext. 111; cagenelloc@hillstead.org
Wreath Ramble
Sunday, November 12, Noon – 4 pm.
Gather nature’s bounty —pampas grass, bittersweet, milkweed pods, ferns, berries, boughs and twigs and assemble your wreath in the warmth of the Makeshift Theater. Expert volunteers provide wreath forms, materials and user-friendly instructions. Participants of all ages are able to create distinctive wreaths. Bring garden clippers and wear gloves, outdoor clothing and comfortable walking boots. $7 per wreath for members and Let*s GO! card holders, $10 for non-members.
An American Collector’s Christmas
November 21, 2006 – January 7, 2007, Tuesday - Sunday 11 am – 4 pm.
Experience what noted American novelist Henry James meant when he proclaimed Hill-Stead “an exquisite palace of peace, light and harmony." Enjoy a rare glimpse into the holiday environment of a well-to-do New England family at the turn-of-the-20th-century. View dozens of rarely exhibited decorative art objects, books, prints and photographs from the Alfred Atmore Pope collection, exhibited among original furnishings. Admire the dining room table elaborately set with such items as an English dinner service, cut crystal, gold candelabras and a yellow jasperware Wedgwood tea set. Decorative swags festoon the mantles and green wreaths accent 42 interior windows. Gifts sealed with wax, straight pins and stamps peek out from beneath the boughs of ornamented evergreen trees. Personal Pope family items Museum admission charged, complimentary to members.
Meet the Family
Sunday, December 3, Noon – 4 pm.
Leisurely tour the country house, decorated for the holidays with simple wreaths, evergreen swags, holly sprigs and handmade ornaments. After being greeted at the door by a butler and maid, linger in the dining room where the table has been elegantly set for 10. Signs of the holidays abound—crystal stemware and silver tea sets in the dining room, the Popes’ original punch bowl in the drawing room, opened gifts on bedside tables, evening frocks laid out on canopied beds, and games and gifts displayed under evergreen trees. Converse with museum interpreters portraying members of the Hill-Stead family, their household staff and such illustrious visitors as artist Mary Cassatt, novelist Grace Flandreau and collector Louisine Havemeyer. Eavesdrop on true stories gleaned from family diaries and archival correspondence. Meet Theodate, herself, and Hill-Stead’s butler, Earnest, who offers an insider’s perspective on life at Hill-Stead. Museum admission charged, complimentary to members.
5. Mattatuck Museum Arts and History Center, Waterbury
Contact: Christine Jewell, www.mattatuckmuseum.org
(203) 753-0381, ext. 10; email: info@mattatuckmuseum.org
16th Annual Festival of Trees and Traditions
Friday, November 24 - Saturday, Dec. 2, 2006
Monday - Saturday 10 a.m. to 4:45 p.m.; Sunday, 12 p.m. - 4:45 p.m.
The Mattatuck Museum presents its annual holiday festival, one of Greater Waterbury's best-loved traditions. The galleries are filled with elaborately decorated trees, wreaths and displays representing holiday traditions, themed areas and more. Hundreds of school, community groups and volunteers decorate trees, wreaths or gift boxes to "deck the galleries." All proceeds support the museum's community and educational programs.
Admission: General adult admission, $8.00. Museum member’s admission, $7.00. Children under 12/ Group rates, $5.00.
6. New Britain Museum of American Art, New Britain
Contact: Paula Bender, http://www.nbmaa.org/
(860) 223-6867; e: benderp@nbmaa.org
Annual Display of Culturally Diverse Holiday Trees and Other Holiday Decorations
December 5 – January 8
Concora To Go Chorale Group Will Present a Holiday Selection of Live Music
December 10, 3-4:00 p.m.
7. Wadsworth Atheneum Museum of Art, Hartford
Contact: Susan Hood
860-838-4058; e: susan.hood@wadsworthatheneum.org
Annual Festival of Trees & Traditions
December 2-10, 10-5:00 daily (Closed Monday, December 4)
Admission: $3 in addition to museum admission
One of Connecticut’s most popular holiday events, Festival of Trees & Traditions, returns for the 33rd year. The 2005 Festival attracted more than 13,000 visitors of all ages.
Contributing designers create trees, wreaths and garlands, and tabletop decorations, arranged in Yuletide vignettes on the first floor of the museum, which are also available for purchase.
For folks small to tall, there is a variety of entertainment. Live music is presented on the half hour in Avery Court beginning at 10:30 a.m. The hands-on crafts and reading corner found in Candy Lane is designed especially for children, and allows them to explore holiday traditions around the world. Candy Lane activities are offered on weekends from 10 a.m. to 4 p.m. and on weekdays from 10 a.m. to 1 p.m. Children may use a “Child’s Play” Art Smart Card to follow visual clues in the galleries to encounter works of art inspired by child-like imagination and creativity.
The Museum Shop Holiday Boutique stocks unusual ornaments, hostess gifts, Santa’s, folk art, and stocking stuffers for children.
Festival of Trees & Traditions is included in museum admission and is sponsored and organized by the museum’s volunteer Women’s Committee.
8. Weir Farm National Historic Site, Wilton
Contact: Amy Allen, www.nps.gov/wefa
(203) 834-1896; e: allen@weirfarmartcenter.org
Lengthening Shadows: The Legacy of J. Alden Weir
A performance held at the Ridgefield Playhouse
December 3, 2006, 4:00 p.m.
This new theatrical event is based on the diaries and letters of American Impressionist J. Alden Weir, one of Ridgefield’s most famous artists, told in their own words from friends, family, and the fellow artists who helped lay the foundation of America’s modern art movement.
A benefit for the preservation of Weir Farm NHS, Connecticut’s only
national park and the only national park devoted to American painting.
For information and tickets, please contact the box office at (203) 438-5795.
9. Yale University Art Gallery, New Haven
Contact: Amy Porter; http://artgallery.yale.edu.
203.432.0611, e: amy.porter@yale.edu
Renovated LOUIS KAHN BUILDING, re-opening December 10, 2006, presents gallery’s stellar collections and restored experience of architect’s intentions
December 10 – forward. Normal gallery hours: Tuesday through Saturday, 10:00 am to 5:00 pm (Thursday until 8:00 pm, September through June); Sunday, 1:00 to 6:00 pm; closed Mondays and major holidays.
When the Yale University Art Gallery reopens its Louis Kahn building in December 2006, following an extensive three-year renovation, it will offer visitors a new and dramatically enhanced experience of its collections. Significant new acquisitions will be on view, along with many of the treasures that have long drawn scholars, students, and the public to the museum.
The Louis Kahn building, the Gallery’s main facility—named after its celebrated architect—originally opened in 1953 and is an internationally recognized landmark of modernist architecture. Over the years, the building’s expansive, open spaces were diminished as it was divided into smaller galleries, classrooms, offices, and study rooms. The renovation, designed by Polshek Partnership Architects, restores Kahn’s design to its original purity and integrity while introducing up-to-date building systems to ensure the proper display and preservation of the Gallery’s encyclopedic collections.
In addition, the new installation will feature many extraordinary works from the Gallery’s collection that have rarely if ever been displayed, providing visitors with a much broader view of the breadth and depth of the Gallery’s holdings. Numbering over 185,000 objects and ranging from Neolithic times to the present, the collection is considered among the finest and most comprehensive of any university museum in the country. The Gallery will reopen on December 10 with masterworks from the African, Asian, early European, and modern and contemporary collections, as well as three special exhibitions: Jasper Johns: From Plate to Print; Making a Mark: Four Contemporary Artists in Print; and Responding to Kahn: A Sculptural Conversation. The reopening of the Kahn building will also be accompanied by a new and greatly expanded audio guide, available free of charge to all visitors.
Discover Connecticut’s artistic treasures …fourteen world-class museums and historic sites and the lively communities in which they reside. From bucolic farms, art studios and former artists’ boarding houses to grand and modern art museums in vibrant downtowns, the Connecticut Art Trail showcases diverse, quality collections rich in history and heritage. Discover European masterpieces, American Impressionism, ancient art and contemporary culture…all within Connecticut’s borders.
Visit http://www.arttrail.org/ for information on each museum, including Trail Getaways with itineraries including lodging, dining, and area attractions near each museum.
Smb/press release holiday events 2006
9/12/06
