Exhibition open Wednesday through Sunday from 10am to 4pm with free parking and admission EXCEPT Friday, April 18 (Good Friday); Saturday, April 19 (Holy Saturday); Sunday, April 20 (Easter); Saturday, June 7; Friday, July 4 (Independence Day); Thurday, November 27 (Thanksgiving); Wednesday, December 24 (Christmas Eve); and Thursday, December 25 (Christmas Day).
Many crèches, the three-dimensional representation of the Nativity scene, feature a diversity of settings and stable designs — the most common of which is an open-front wood structure. However, many artisans model their crèches after buildings and landscapes that are native to their homelands.
This exhibit includes a variety of crèches that showcase different examples of stables and mangers. In addition, it also highlights a handful of works whose settings have been customized for the figures they contain. One of these is the Neapolitan, which celebrates its 10th anniversary this year, by Cantone and Costabile of Naples, Italy. In addition, a brand-new crèche will be featured in this exhibit: The Nativity at New Haven's St. Mary’s Church, designed by US-based Navidad Nativities, Inc., with figures made in Italy by Original Heide.
Exhibit | Away in a Manger: The Creation of Nativity Scenes
You decide – explore multiple printmaking techniques and processes or deepen your practice in one area. Use etching, drypoint, woodcut, linocut, monotype, transfer prints, paper lithography, polymer plate lithography, collagraph, silk aquatint, transfer prints, or Chine-collé. Learn new techniques or connect printmaking to other artistic media.
Includes one 3-hour practice session per week during monitored practice hours.
The tuition for this class includes a materials fee of $20 for basic materials provided by CAW.
Intermediate and Advanced Printmaking
LAURA BARR | HERE AND THERE
Painting / Mixed Media
February 28-March 24, 2025 (Extended to April 7, 2025)
Bio
Laura Barr‘s work is distinguished by rich color, simplified form and light made material. Barr works in series, primarily in oil on canvas. She studied at Tufts University’s School of the Museum of Fine Arts, Boston. In addition to her BFA, she also holds a BA in Art History from Tufts University and studied at the Tyler School of Art in Rome, Italy.
Her work has been exhibited at Gallery Naga, Boston, MA, Prince Street Gallery, New York, NY, and other galleries in the northeast, including Kehler Liddell Gallery and the Ely Center of Contemporary Art in New Haven, CT, the Alexey von Schlippe Gallery, University of Connecticut at Avery Point, CT, and The Paul Mellon Art Center, Wallingford, CT. She is affiliated with 3 Walls Gallery, Brooklyn, NY, is an Associate Artist Member, Lyme Art Association, is a member of the New Haven Paint and Clay Club, and is an Elected Member, Connecticut Women Artists. Awards include Second Honorable Mention, New England Landscape, Lyme Art Association, 2023, New Haven Paint and Clay Club Active Member Memorial Award Honoring Emily Bett, 2023 and the Gantner Gallery Award, Essex Art Association, 2019. Her work is in many collections including Yale-New Haven Health Services, New Haven, CT, and The Shapiro Center for Writing, Wesleyan University, Middletown, CT.
Art Exhibition
Spring into Art at Susan Powell Fine Art
March 7 – April 26, 2025
Celebrate the changing season with Spring into Art, a breathtaking exhibition featuring works by twenty-five award-winning artists. This vibrant collection explores light in fresh and dynamic ways, offering unique perspectives across a variety of subjects, including landscapes, seascapes, still lifes, florals, and figurative works.
With each brushstroke, these talented artists push creative boundaries—refining, exploring, and redefining beauty in exciting new ways. Whether you're drawn to serene coastal scenes, rich floral compositions, or masterful figurative works, Spring into Art offers something for every art lover.
Participating artists include Thomas Adkins, Kathy Anderson, Del-Bourree Bach, Paul Batch, Paul Beebe, Zufar Bikbov, Kelly Birkenruth, Grace DeVito, David Dunlop, Laurie Flaherty, Vincent Giarrano, Brittany Haynes, Eric Jacobsen, Susan Jositas, Jim Laurino, Sarah Stifler Lucas, Jonathan McPhillips, Leonard Mizerek, Larry Preston, Deborah Quinn-Munson, Shauna Shane, Jeanne Rosier Smith, Kyle Stuckey, Katie Swatland, Laura Westlake, and Christopher Zhang.
The exhibition is on view through April 26, 2025. Visit us at Susan Powell Fine Art , open Tuesday–Saturday, 11 AM – 5 PM , or by appointment.
Susan Powell Fine Art - Spring into Art
This exhibition will be on view at the Yale Institute of Sacred Music’s Miller Hall at 406 Prospect Street, New Haven from March 27 - May 7 on Tuesdays, Wednesdays, and Thursdays from 12-4 p.m. View event site for full details.
Raised in the Eastern Orthodox faith, contemporary Bulgarian artist Svetlozar Parmakov is deeply familiar with its visual lexicon. Through his virtuosic, free-style draftsmanship he both references and reimagines Orthodox iconography, reclaiming its significance for a modern-day viewer. Parmakov applies his signature, free-style technique of hand-engraving and hand-coloring unglazed porcelain, a fine white ceramic material, to creating religious icons, paintings, and decorative vessels, all rendered with intricate detail and shimmering in muted silvers and golds.
In addition to the titular painting, Noah’s Garden, the exhibition features icons of Christ, the Virgin Mary, and saints such as St. George and St. Nicholas, paintings of natural scenes as well as bowls, platters, and vases with elaborate, allover geometric and vegetal patterns. Intimate in scale and meant to be appreciated up close, even handled, the works on view engage the senses, solicit sustained attention, and invite reflection. The delicately outlined and interlocking forms, together with the resplendent hues, recall stained-glass windows, but also a broader cross-cultural history of East-West artistic influences and exchange.
Parmakov’s art transcends time and technology further to draw on his homeland’s rich cultural heritage. His porcelain creations reactivate the magnificent ceramic production that flourished in the 9th and 10th centuries CE around the first two Bulgarian capitals of Pliska and Preslav located in the northeastern part of the country, where Parmakov spends his summers and fires his works. Besides their use for architectural ornamentation and luxury tableware, ceramics were utilized in the local icon painting tradition with ceramic icons ranging in size, shape, subject matter, and purpose. Through his choice of material and imagery, Parmakov recovers the splendor and impact of Bulgaria’s medieval decorative ceramic arts which have reached us largely in fragmentary state and gives us ways to encounter them whole again.
Artist’s Statement:
An enchanted world of porcelain, replete with filigree and fantasy. A dynamic, luminous space of plants, animals, and ornamental designs, all permeated by God’s presence. Works of art created through a unique process in a distinctive style, glowing in silver, gold, and platinum.
I would define my style as “decorative realism.” Ornamentation is foundational for my work, and I constantly expand and enrich my repertoire of decorative motifs. I seek to show that the ceramic medium transcends the applied arts, that it exists in the realm of the fine arts and that it can serve a spiritual purpose. I would be happy if the light with which my works are suffused touched the viewers’ souls.
-Svetlozar Parmakov, January 2025
Free and open to the public.
Exhibition curated by Liliana Milkova.
All are welcome to join us for an opening reception for this art exhibit on Wednesday,March 26 at 5 p.m.
We are excited to announce that the ISM will be linking its exhibitions to the Smartify app. The app is available as a free download from the App Store and Google Play, or you can access content through the Smartify webpage at app.smartify.org. The Smartify app will allow you to directly scan artworks that are on display, as well as QR codes that are placed around the exhibition, to receive more information. You will also be able to save your favorite artworks and share them to social media.
Contact: Anesu Nyamupingidza
Photo: Svetlozar Parmakov at work on Noah’s Garden (porcelain, 2025). Photo credit: Svetlozar Parmakov.
Noah’s Garden: The Porcelain Worlds of Svetlozar Parmakov
Join Artsplace and the Cheshire Chamber of Commerce for our official Ribbon Cutting Ceremony. We're celebrating our new location at 493 West Main Street, right in the heart of Cheshire. This is a free event beginning at 12pm on Wednesday, April 2nd. Lite bites will be served!
Artsplace Ribbon Cutting with the Cheshire Chamber of Commerce
This is a fun and very creative class where you learn to set up a workstation to create colored, painted paper sheets using gel plates, stencils and markers. Experiment with masking techniques using gauze, acrylics, and metallic paints, etc. After creating a variety of prints, choose your “Best and Brightest” as well as a few quieter designs. The instructor will help you work on layout design to create compositional unity before gluing. Then learn to prepare your support and to adhere each print. Finally, use gloss, satin or matte medium as a final sealer. You will have prints left to create more compositions on your own.
Regina Thomas’ collage and mixed media art is a mélange of visual stimuli, colors, and shapes involving different genres from the representational to the abstract. These multi-layered works portray her view of the world, never realistic, injecting her own narratives, metaphors, and icons. Regina works instinctually, and her desire is to stimulate and intrigue the viewer, make a connection, bringing their own experiences to the work.
Regina has lived and traveled throughout Asia and Europe. While in London, she attended Richmond University concentrating on the Art Disciplines as well as Studio classes. Upon her return to the states she continued refining her art through classes and workshops at RISD (Rhode Island School of Design), The New Art Center in Newton – MA, South Shore Art Center – MA, West Hartford Art League, Creative Arts Workshop/New Haven, CT, Yale University and The British Art Museum.
Regina has been included in many juried exhibitions in New England. Thomas shows in private galleries and has private collectors across the U.S., Europe, South America and Asia. Her most recent shows have been at The John Slade Ely House in New Haven, and The Spectrum Gallery in Centerbrook where she also holds classes in collage and mixed media art.
In Gallery - Gel Printing Quilt Monoprints
During the 1870s and ’80s, Cézanne divided his time between Paris and his native Provence, where he eventually resettled. There he began to paint the landscape motifs—views of rocky pine forests, a quarry, the Mediterranean coast, a half-ruined château, the valley beneath Mont Sainte-Victoire—in the distinctive style for which he is known. He showed his work little and had hardly any success commercially, but he attracted admirers among critics and writers. His still-life compositions became more audacious and his portraits more subtle.
Generously sponsored by the Martin A. Ryerson Lectureship Fund and the John Walsh Lecture and Education Fund.
Attend in person in the Gallery’s Robert L. McNeil, Jr., Lecture Hall or virtually on Zoom. No registration required for in-person attendance. The doors to the lecture hall open at 12:30 pm. Space is limited.
Registration required for virtual attendance; to register, visit https://yale.zoom.us/webinar/register/WN_n9I83GRmSaOD8i-5zLItXQ. On Zoom, closed captions will be available in English. All lectures will be filmed and archived to the Gallery’s YouTube channel.
Learn more about the lecture series.
Cézanne and the Pull of the South
Create an artist book using the concept of home as inspiration.
The book can explore a real or imagined home, the structure and architecture of a house, housing-related political issues, a psychological space, or anywhere your creativity leads.
Participants will be guided in designing pages—whether blank or filled with text, collage, painting, or drawing—before assembling them into a book that physically resembles a house.
Exercises will help generate content, and a tour of a university artists’ book collection will offer further inspiration.
A small amount of work outside of sessions may be needed to complete the book.
Throughout the process, all fundamental bookbinding skills will be taught.
No experience is necessary.
Enrollment in this class includes one 3 hour monitored open bench session a week.
What is Home? Making an Artists’ Book about House and Home
On April 2nd we will be dedicating our new permanent installation, the Artsplace Memorial Hall, which features artwork from beloved former students. Join us after our Ribbon Cutting Ceremony to honor our friends and family.
Artsplace Memorial Hall Dedication
Gel Plate Printing uses a gelatin based plate with paint to create amazing textures with ease. These prints can be stand alone monotype prints or collaged and layered with other prints.
Students will first learn how to make a gel plate matrix that they can keep and bring home for future use. Additional instructions will cover creating and layering colors and textures on the plate to build images, making stamps and stencils, and combining gel prints with other techniques such as paper lithography, chine-collé and collage.
This class is a great introduction to printmaking for the beginner and advanced students will surely learn new tips and techniques.
Includes one 3-hour practice session per week during monitored practice hours.
Printing with Gel Plates
Registration is now open for Spring Programs at Oddfellows Playhouse Youth Theater located at 128 Washington Street in Middletown! Beginning March 22, weekly classes in theater, dance, circus, and visual arts will be offered for toddlers to 20 year olds.
Saturday Classes with Meg Berritta begin on March 22 and serve children from 15 months to eight years old. Classes include Acrobabies (ages 15 months - 3 years with caregiver; 9:15 - 9:55 am); Circrobatics (ages 3 - 6, 10 - 10:45 am), Faerie Tale Theater (ages 3 - 6, 10:55 - 11:40 am), Circobatics (ages 5 - 8, 11:45 am - 12:30 pm), and Cirque+ (ages 7 to 12, 12:35 - 1:30pm)
After-School classes for ages 6 - 14 begin March 24 and will run for eight weeks this spring, culminating in a “Share Week” May 19 - 22. Most classes run 4:50 -5:50 pm.
Stage One classes for ages 6 - 8 include Creative Movement on Mondays, Circus I on Tuesdays, Slapstick Theater on Wednesdays and Story Theater from Around the World on Thursdays.
Stage Two classes for ages 9 - 11 include Intro to Scene Study on Mondays, Circus II on Tuesdays, Exploring Characters Through Theater Improv on Wednesdays, and Musical Theater (ages 9 to 14) on Thursdays
Stage Three classes for ages 12 - 14 include Comic Acting on Mondays (4:30 - 6pm), Intro to Scenic Design on Wednesdays (4:30 - 6pm), and Musical Theater on Thursdays (ages 9 to 14, 4:50 - 5:50 pm.)
Middletown Public School students may complement their class experience with Oddbridge, an extended day program which provides transport from Middletown schools to the Playhouse, a snack, and supervised arts activities, games and homework help before classes start. Oddbridge extends throughout the school year, providing special programs and field trips on early dismissal days or days when regular Oddfellows’ classes are not in session.
Our regular season will conclude with a special Oddbridge Mini Production, Robin Hood and the Sherwood Circus. This is a 2 week theater adventure for kids ages 6 to 14, with transportation provided directly from Middletown Public Schools (drop off option available for home schoolers or students from other school districts). Rehearsals will run May 27 - June 5 , Monday through Friday, 4:30 - 6 pm (8 days), with performances Thursday, June 5 and Friday, June 6 at 7 pm.
For more details on times, tuition and class descriptions, please go to www.oddfellows.org. If you have specific questions, email info@oddfellows.org or call (860) 347-6143. Financial Aid is available for all programs. It is Playhouse policy that the arts should be available to every young person regardless of ability to pay - no one is turned away for lack of funds.
Oddfellows Playhouse, founded in 1975, is Connecticut’s oldest and largest performing arts program for young people. Oddfellows programs are made possible with support from the Middletown Commission on the Arts; Connecticut Office of the Arts/DECD; City of Middletown; The Fund for Greater Hartford; American Savings Foundation; State of Connecticut Judicial Branch (Youth Violence Prevention); Middletown Youth Services Bureau; Community Foundation of Middlesex County; Liberty Bank Foundation; Middletown Health Department; Middlesex United Way; CHEFA Nonprofit Grant; and many generous individual donors.
Theater, dance and circus classes start March 22 in Middletown
Registration is now open for Spring Programs at Oddfellows Playhouse Youth Theater located at 128 Washington Street in Middletown! Beginning March 22, weekly classes in theater, dance, circus, and visual arts will be offered for toddlers to 20 year olds.
Saturday Classes with Meg Berritta begin on March 22 and serve children from 15 months to eight years old. Classes include Acrobabies (ages 15 months - 3 years with caregiver; 9:15 - 9:55 am); Circrobatics (ages 3 - 6, 10 - 10:45 am), Faerie Tale Theater (ages 3 - 6, 10:55 - 11:40 am), Circobatics (ages 5 - 8, 11:45 am - 12:30 pm), and Cirque+ (ages 7 to 12, 12:35 - 1:30pm)
After-School classes for ages 6 - 14 begin March 24 and will run for eight weeks this spring, culminating in a “Share Week” May 19 - 22. Most classes run 4:50 -5:50 pm.
Stage One classes for ages 6 - 8 include Creative Movement on Mondays, Circus I on Tuesdays, Slapstick Theater on Wednesdays and Story Theater from Around the World on Thursdays.
Stage Two classes for ages 9 - 11 include Intro to Scene Study on Mondays, Circus II on Tuesdays, Exploring Characters Through Theater Improv on Wednesdays, and Musical Theater (ages 9 to 14) on Thursdays
Stage Three classes for ages 12 - 14 include Comic Acting on Mondays (4:30 - 6pm), Intro to Scenic Design on Wednesdays (4:30 - 6pm), and Musical Theater on Thursdays (ages 9 to 14, 4:50 - 5:50 pm.)
Middletown Public School students may complement their class experience with Oddbridge, an extended day program which provides transport from Middletown schools to the Playhouse, a snack, and supervised arts activities, games and homework help before classes start. Oddbridge extends throughout the school year, providing special programs and field trips on early dismissal days or days when regular Oddfellows’ classes are not in session.
Our regular season will conclude with a special Oddbridge Mini Production, Robin Hood and the Sherwood Circus. This is a 2 week theater adventure for kids ages 6 to 14, with transportation provided directly from Middletown Public Schools (drop off option available for home schoolers or students from other school districts). Rehearsals will run May 27 - June 5 , Monday through Friday, 4:30 - 6 pm (8 days), with performances Thursday, June 5 and Friday, June 6 at 7 pm.
For more details on times, tuition and class descriptions, please go to www.oddfellows.org. If you have specific questions, email info@oddfellows.org or call (860) 347-6143. Financial Aid is available for all programs. It is Playhouse policy that the arts should be available to every young person regardless of ability to pay - no one is turned away for lack of funds.
Oddfellows Playhouse, founded in 1975, is Connecticut’s oldest and largest performing arts program for young people. Oddfellows programs are made possible with support from the Middletown Commission on the Arts; Connecticut Office of the Arts/DECD; City of Middletown; The Fund for Greater Hartford; American Savings Foundation; State of Connecticut Judicial Branch (Youth Violence Prevention); Middletown Youth Services Bureau; Community Foundation of Middlesex County; Liberty Bank Foundation; Middletown Health Department; Middlesex United Way; CHEFA Nonprofit Grant; and many generous individual donors.
Theater, dance and circus classes start March 22 in Middletown
Open Mic Nites
Where Artistic Expression Thrives
Second Wednesday of each month
Performers sign-ups start at 6pm
Performances begin at 7pm
Open Mic Nites
Use circular needles to knit a hat in the round.
We will be covering fundamental skills including casting on, knitting in the round, fixing mistakes like dropped stitches, casting off, and blocking your work. If you can knit a hat, you can knit almost anything! This is the perfect class for beginners and those looking to refresh their knitting skills.
Knit a Hat in the Round
On Wednesday, April 2, Horizons at Foote will host Raise Every Voice: Paint a Picture, our largest community gathering and fundraiser of the year. Accomplished artists from diverse backgrounds will engage in a conversation on equity in the arts and art education. Join us to be part of our "community canvas" art piece!
Our panel includes:
- Kwadwo Adae, New Haven based, Ghanian-American visual artist and muralist.
- Faustin Adeniran, contemporary artist from Lagos, Nigeria working in New Haven.
- Jasmine Nikole, award-winning artist, Foote School alumni, and Horizons at Foote art teacher.
- nico w. okoro, independent arts consultant, curator, educator, and writer, will moderate the conversation.
Raise Every Voice: Paint a Picture
Join Adam for an inspiring gathering with members of the local woodworking community! At this meetup, we'll come together to brainstorm, share projects, and exchange ideas in a welcoming and collaborative environment.
What to Expect:
Creativity and camaraderie as we connect with fellow woodworkers. Whether you're a seasoned woodworker or just starting out, everyone is welcome to join the conversation, share their projects, and gain inspiration from others. Bring along your latest project, ideas, and questions as we engage in lively discussions and brainstorming sessions.
Goals of the Meetup:
The primary goal of this meetup is to foster a sense of community within the woodworking world and to facilitate the sharing of creative ideas. By coming together, we aim to inspire one another, offer support and encouragement, and strengthen the bonds within our local woodworking community.
Whether you're looking for feedback on a project, seeking inspiration for your next woodworking endeavor, or simply eager to connect with like-minded individuals, this meetup is the perfect opportunity to engage with the woodworking community and ignite your passion for craftsmanship.
Come join us as we celebrate the art of woodworking and embark on a journey of creativity, collaboration, and connection.
What to Bring:
Snacks/BYOB to share, photos of your project or the project if it’s portable, or just yourself.
Instructor: Adam Work
You must click below and REGISTER to attend at:
https://www.makehaven.org/civicrm/event/info?id=309&reset=1
Scroll to the bottom of the page and complete the information under Register (gray box) and hit submit. You will receive an acknowledgement by email. Questions? Email info@makehaven.org
Plane & Simple: Carving Out Community Connection
Veteran book arts expert Gisela Noack brings her many years of skill and experience in restoration and conservation to students working on their own advanced bookbinding or restoration projects.
Enrollment in this class includes one 3-hour monitored open bench session per week.
This class will take place in a studio accessed by a flight of stairs. For any accommodations please send a confidential email to registrar@creativeartsworkshop.org
Advanced Hand Bookbing
Veteran book arts expert Gisela Noack brings her many years of skill and experience in restoration and conservation to students working on their own advanced bookbinding or restoration projects. Enrollment in this class includes one 3-hour monitored open bench session per week. This class will take place in a studio accessed by a flight of stairs. For any accommodations please send a confidential email to registrar@creativeartsworkshop.org
Advanced Hand Bookbinding
Create a small mosaic wall hanging with Mexican Smalti, a beautiful handmade glass which comes in a wide variety of rich and vibrant colors.
Students will learn how to cut Smalti using nippers or a hammer and hardie (chisel), arrange the pieces to create an image of their choosing, and attach the Smalti using the direct method with Wellbond glue.
This class is suitable for both beginners and experienced mosaic artists.
Tuition for this class includes a fee of $50 for materials provided by CAW.
Mexican Smalti Mosaics
Join us at Old Heidelberg Bar inside Graduate by Hilton New Haven every Wednesday at 7:30 PM for Big Boy Trivia! Get your game faces on and be ready to compete!
Old Heidelberg Trivia Night
A new exhibition to be installed at the Schwarzman Center, “Shining Light on Truth: Black Lives at Yale & in New Haven,” will illuminate ongoing research that recovers the essential role of Black people throughout Yale and New Haven history. The exhibition puts back at the center of local storytelling people who have always been central to local history. It celebrates Black community building, resistance, and resilience on campus and in New Haven.
The show will include nearly one hundred images of Yale’s earliest Black students from the 1800s and early 1900s, many of whom had deep New Haven connections. The Schwarzman exhibition will also feature compelling reproductions of photographs of New Haveners who were custodians of Yale. The Luke, Grimes, Creed, Park, and Bassett families, among the many people key to founding and sustaining Yale, will be heralded in the show.
“Shining Light on Truth: Black Lives at Yale & in New Haven” will showcase the proposal, made and thwarted in 1831, to build a Black college in New Haven. It will also highlight the successful efforts of Black students in the 1960s to establish the Afro-American Cultural Center and Afro-American Studies at Yale.
This exhibition brings forth knowledge kept alive in archives and memory for many centuries—even when the dominant culture chose to ignore, bury, or forget. It extends the work of the Yale and Slavery Research Project and follows from the exhibition, “Shining Light on Truth: New Haven, Yale and Slavery,” at the New Haven Museum from February 16, 2024 – March 1, 2025.
The exhibition team includes David Jon Walker ’23 MFA, lead designer, and Michael Morand ’87 ’93 M.Div., lead curator, with Timeica Bethel ’11, Rob Brown, Jennifer Coggins, Tubyez Cropper, Mohamed Diallo ’26, Regina Mason, Hope McGrath, Carlynne Robinson, and Charles Warner, Jr.
Shining Light on Truth: Black Lives at Yale & in New Haven
Emily Mager Band
03 Apr
07:00
Join us for live music!
Emily Mager Band
The 6-Square Jam Art Exhibit & Sale is a community-wide, all-inclusive art show in which everyone, no matter your level of artistic skill, is invited and welcome to participate.
We invite entries that are 6 inches by 6 inches square (no more than 2 inches thick). Work in any medium you like. Submissions accepted April 1-April 30. See complete rules, instructions and entry form at westvilleartwalk.org under the start your art tab or email criticaldave@frontiernet.net with 6-Square in the subject line.
This exhibit opens May 6 at the Kehler Liddell Gallery in the Westville neighborhood of New Haven. It is part of the Westville Artwalk and is an annual fundraiser for WVRA (Westville Village Renaissance Alliance).
Explore your creativity, make art and, most of all, have fun.
Call for Art-6-Square Art Jam and Exhibition
Beginner workshops are perfect for you to grab your friends, grab a drink and come make tiny trees! We’re bringing the awesome art of bonsai out of the hedged in gardens and into the streets! Or at least into your favorite bars/breweries/pubs. Bonsai Bar is a night of fun you don’t want to miss. Learn the fundamental skills and techniques behind the art of bonsai while enjoying a night out with friends! Our teachers will introduce core concepts and guide your experience as you pot, prune, and design your very own bonsai tree! Our Guarantee: These tiny trees are so hardy we guarantee you can keep yours alive, or we’ll replace it.
This workshop will be hosted at Valor Wines. Located in North Haven Connecticut, we are a family owned and operated micro winery with generations of experience in wine making. This nurtured passion allows us to make unique and distinctive wines using grapes from all over the world. It was a long fight to start one of the first micro wineries in CT, and we were excited to finally open our doors in September 2021. Our passion for wine making blends respect for tradition with boundless curiosity for what is possible. We believe knowing your roots can uncork the potential to think outside the bottle. Making us uniquely situated to create one of a kind small batch wines which will invoke both familiar comfort and striking intrigue. Come visit us in our state of the art facility, where industrial meets medieval romance.
Under 21 policy: Please contact Valor Wines for details regarding underage entry
For more about Bonsai Bar and what to expect at our classes, visit our website at: https://bonsaibar.com/products/valor-wines
Bonsai Workshop at Valor Wines
The artists of Gallery One are pleased to present the Artistic License exhibition as they celebrate creativity and freedom of expression. Whether it be a painting, photograph, collage or sculpture, the artists push the boundaries of subject and technique to deliver powerful visual narratives. The show is on view at the Gallery at the Guilford Art Center from March 14 through April 6 with an opening reception on Sunday, March 16 from 2pm to 4pm.
Exhibiting artists include: Ann Knickerbocker (Old Saybrook), Brian McClear (West Hartford), Diana Rogers (Clinton), Jill Vaughn (Ivoryton), Karen Israel (West Hartford), Michael Fanelli (Clinton), Rick Silberberg (Ivoryton), Rosemary Cotnoir (Westbrook), T. Willie Raney (Ivoryton), Victor Filepp (New London), and guest artists Judith Barbour Osborne (Chester) and David Acheson (Ivoryton).
“How fortunate we are as artists to have the freedom of artistic license to explore, experiment, provoke or challenge. As I add layers to my work, I feel as if I have permission to open door after door, after door,” said T. Willie Raney.
"To have artistic license we only need the courage to throw out the conventions that restrict imagination and go beyond the chatter,” said Jill Vaughn. “What inspires us and feeds our soul? Maybe it is an artist's fresh look at what is already in front of us."
The Guilford Art Center is located at 411 Church Street in Guilford, CT. The exhibit is free and open to the public. Gallery hours are Monday through Saturday, 10am to 4pm and Sunday, 12pm to 4pm. For more information, visit www.galleryonect.com or contact us at galleryonect@gmail.com.
"Artistic License" Exhibition
March 22 – September 7, 2025 | Exhibition open Wednesday through Sunday from 10am to 4pm with free parking and admission EXCEPT Friday, April 18 (Good Friday); Saturday, April 19 (Holy Saturday); Sunday, April 20 (Easter); Saturday, June 7; and Friday, July 4 (Independence Day).
Separated by 2,781 miles and on two different continents, Iraqi and Nigerian Christians share similar stories of persecution. From 2014-2018, portions of Northern Iraq were under the control of the militant group Islamic State of Iraq and Syria (ISIS), and many religious minorities, including Christians, experienced persecution and violence as a result. In the northern and central portions of Nigeria, violence towards Christians and other minority groups has also increased in recent years at the hands of Boko Haram and other groups.
The Blessed Michael McGivney Pilgrimage Center is honored to share the stories of those displaced in Iraq and Nigeria through Among the Persecuted and Displaced — a collection of photographs taken by Stephen Rasche. The Knights of Columbus has sponsored some of Rasche’s work in both countries, bringing to light the atrocities inflicted on those persecuted for their faith.
Learn more: https://www.michaelmcgivneycenter.org/exhibits/among-the-persecuted-and-displaced/
Exhibit- Among the Persecuted and Displaced: Photographs from Iraq and Nigeria
Exhibition open Wednesday through Sunday from 10am to 4pm with free parking and admission EXCEPT Friday, April 18 (Good Friday); Saturday, April 19 (Holy Saturday); Sunday, April 20 (Easter); Saturday, June 7; Friday, July 4 (Independence Day); Thurday, November 27 (Thanksgiving); Wednesday, December 24 (Christmas Eve); and Thursday, December 25 (Christmas Day).
Many crèches, the three-dimensional representation of the Nativity scene, feature a diversity of settings and stable designs — the most common of which is an open-front wood structure. However, many artisans model their crèches after buildings and landscapes that are native to their homelands.
This exhibit includes a variety of crèches that showcase different examples of stables and mangers. In addition, it also highlights a handful of works whose settings have been customized for the figures they contain. One of these is the Neapolitan, which celebrates its 10th anniversary this year, by Cantone and Costabile of Naples, Italy. In addition, a brand-new crèche will be featured in this exhibit: The Nativity at New Haven's St. Mary’s Church, designed by US-based Navidad Nativities, Inc., with figures made in Italy by Original Heide.
Exhibit | Away in a Manger: The Creation of Nativity Scenes
Chair seated exercise class for seniors. Relax the mind, body and soul through gentle chair seated exercise using the breath via zoom.
Chair seated exercise
LAURA BARR | HERE AND THERE
Painting / Mixed Media
February 28-March 24, 2025 (Extended to April 7, 2025)
Bio
Laura Barr‘s work is distinguished by rich color, simplified form and light made material. Barr works in series, primarily in oil on canvas. She studied at Tufts University’s School of the Museum of Fine Arts, Boston. In addition to her BFA, she also holds a BA in Art History from Tufts University and studied at the Tyler School of Art in Rome, Italy.
Her work has been exhibited at Gallery Naga, Boston, MA, Prince Street Gallery, New York, NY, and other galleries in the northeast, including Kehler Liddell Gallery and the Ely Center of Contemporary Art in New Haven, CT, the Alexey von Schlippe Gallery, University of Connecticut at Avery Point, CT, and The Paul Mellon Art Center, Wallingford, CT. She is affiliated with 3 Walls Gallery, Brooklyn, NY, is an Associate Artist Member, Lyme Art Association, is a member of the New Haven Paint and Clay Club, and is an Elected Member, Connecticut Women Artists. Awards include Second Honorable Mention, New England Landscape, Lyme Art Association, 2023, New Haven Paint and Clay Club Active Member Memorial Award Honoring Emily Bett, 2023 and the Gantner Gallery Award, Essex Art Association, 2019. Her work is in many collections including Yale-New Haven Health Services, New Haven, CT, and The Shapiro Center for Writing, Wesleyan University, Middletown, CT.
Art Exhibition
Spring into Art at Susan Powell Fine Art
March 7 – April 26, 2025
Celebrate the changing season with Spring into Art, a breathtaking exhibition featuring works by twenty-five award-winning artists. This vibrant collection explores light in fresh and dynamic ways, offering unique perspectives across a variety of subjects, including landscapes, seascapes, still lifes, florals, and figurative works.
With each brushstroke, these talented artists push creative boundaries—refining, exploring, and redefining beauty in exciting new ways. Whether you're drawn to serene coastal scenes, rich floral compositions, or masterful figurative works, Spring into Art offers something for every art lover.
Participating artists include Thomas Adkins, Kathy Anderson, Del-Bourree Bach, Paul Batch, Paul Beebe, Zufar Bikbov, Kelly Birkenruth, Grace DeVito, David Dunlop, Laurie Flaherty, Vincent Giarrano, Brittany Haynes, Eric Jacobsen, Susan Jositas, Jim Laurino, Sarah Stifler Lucas, Jonathan McPhillips, Leonard Mizerek, Larry Preston, Deborah Quinn-Munson, Shauna Shane, Jeanne Rosier Smith, Kyle Stuckey, Katie Swatland, Laura Westlake, and Christopher Zhang.
The exhibition is on view through April 26, 2025. Visit us at Susan Powell Fine Art , open Tuesday–Saturday, 11 AM – 5 PM , or by appointment.
Susan Powell Fine Art - Spring into Art
This exhibition will be on view at the Yale Institute of Sacred Music’s Miller Hall at 406 Prospect Street, New Haven from March 27 - May 7 on Tuesdays, Wednesdays, and Thursdays from 12-4 p.m. View event site for full details.
Raised in the Eastern Orthodox faith, contemporary Bulgarian artist Svetlozar Parmakov is deeply familiar with its visual lexicon. Through his virtuosic, free-style draftsmanship he both references and reimagines Orthodox iconography, reclaiming its significance for a modern-day viewer. Parmakov applies his signature, free-style technique of hand-engraving and hand-coloring unglazed porcelain, a fine white ceramic material, to creating religious icons, paintings, and decorative vessels, all rendered with intricate detail and shimmering in muted silvers and golds.
In addition to the titular painting, Noah’s Garden, the exhibition features icons of Christ, the Virgin Mary, and saints such as St. George and St. Nicholas, paintings of natural scenes as well as bowls, platters, and vases with elaborate, allover geometric and vegetal patterns. Intimate in scale and meant to be appreciated up close, even handled, the works on view engage the senses, solicit sustained attention, and invite reflection. The delicately outlined and interlocking forms, together with the resplendent hues, recall stained-glass windows, but also a broader cross-cultural history of East-West artistic influences and exchange.
Parmakov’s art transcends time and technology further to draw on his homeland’s rich cultural heritage. His porcelain creations reactivate the magnificent ceramic production that flourished in the 9th and 10th centuries CE around the first two Bulgarian capitals of Pliska and Preslav located in the northeastern part of the country, where Parmakov spends his summers and fires his works. Besides their use for architectural ornamentation and luxury tableware, ceramics were utilized in the local icon painting tradition with ceramic icons ranging in size, shape, subject matter, and purpose. Through his choice of material and imagery, Parmakov recovers the splendor and impact of Bulgaria’s medieval decorative ceramic arts which have reached us largely in fragmentary state and gives us ways to encounter them whole again.
Artist’s Statement:
An enchanted world of porcelain, replete with filigree and fantasy. A dynamic, luminous space of plants, animals, and ornamental designs, all permeated by God’s presence. Works of art created through a unique process in a distinctive style, glowing in silver, gold, and platinum.
I would define my style as “decorative realism.” Ornamentation is foundational for my work, and I constantly expand and enrich my repertoire of decorative motifs. I seek to show that the ceramic medium transcends the applied arts, that it exists in the realm of the fine arts and that it can serve a spiritual purpose. I would be happy if the light with which my works are suffused touched the viewers’ souls.
-Svetlozar Parmakov, January 2025
Free and open to the public.
Exhibition curated by Liliana Milkova.
All are welcome to join us for an opening reception for this art exhibit on Wednesday,March 26 at 5 p.m.
We are excited to announce that the ISM will be linking its exhibitions to the Smartify app. The app is available as a free download from the App Store and Google Play, or you can access content through the Smartify webpage at app.smartify.org. The Smartify app will allow you to directly scan artworks that are on display, as well as QR codes that are placed around the exhibition, to receive more information. You will also be able to save your favorite artworks and share them to social media.
Contact: Anesu Nyamupingidza
Photo: Svetlozar Parmakov at work on Noah’s Garden (porcelain, 2025). Photo credit: Svetlozar Parmakov.
Noah’s Garden: The Porcelain Worlds of Svetlozar Parmakov
Instructed by Annie Sailer
39 Putnam Ave, Floor 2, Hamden, CT
Annie Sailer Adult Beginner-Intermediate Dance Class
From the 1890s until his death in 1906, Cézanne continued to live a solitary and hugely productive life. He painted Provençal scenes in an ever-broader, summarizing style, aided by studies in watercolor. He returned to ambitious figural subjects that had occupied him intermittently for years: groups of nude bathers in landscapes, local men playing cards, even subjects from classical antiquity. His last portraits, almost all of local people, are full of sober empathy. Solo exhibitions in Paris in 1895 and 1907 finally revealed to the public, and to younger artists, the greatness of his work. Pablo Picasso remarked that, thereafter, “Cézanne’s influence gradually flooded everything.” Henri Matisse called him “father of us all.”
Generously sponsored by the Martin A. Ryerson Lectureship Fund and the John Walsh Lecture and Education Fund.
Attend in person in the Gallery’s Robert L. McNeil, Jr., Lecture Hall or virtually on Zoom. No registration required for in-person attendance. The doors to the lecture hall open at 12:30 pm. Space is limited.
Registration required for virtual attendance; to register, visit https://yale.zoom.us/webinar/register/WN_n9I83GRmSaOD8i-5zLItXQ. On Zoom, closed captions will be available in English. All lectures will be filmed and archived to the Gallery’s YouTube channel.
Learn more about the lecture series.
Cézanne’s Last Years and Great Projects
Join us for a captivating journey through the world of photography, where moments are not just frozen in time but come alive right in your hands. Learn to tell your stories through image making. Gain a mentor, free camera equipment and more.
Take control of the camera you possess. Learn how to sustain yourself as a fine art photographer & commercial photographer. Learn to shoot like the pros.
WABI Focus Fellowship - Teen Photography Program
Join us for a captivating journey through the world of photography, where moments are not just frozen in time but come alive right in your hands. Learn to tell your stories through image making. Gain a mentor, free camera equipment and more.
Take control of the camera you possess. Learn how to sustain yourself as a fine art photographer & commercial photographer. Learn to shoot like the pros.
WABI Focus Fellowship - Teen Photography Program
Imagine a future you are excited to live in, that you can't wait to get to. If it's difficult, you're not alone. Dystopic visions of the future dominate popular culture, but what if we empower each other with hope by letting ourselves dream? That's why Yale Planetary Solutions is launching Sci X Sci-Fi, a new conversation between those crafting visions and building worlds with those innovating and inventing.
Science fiction author and science journalist Annalee Newitz will lead a panel discussion on what it will take to create a thriving, sustainable future for all – in cities new and old – and pathways for technology and creativity to combine to make that vision a reality. This event, which is free and open to the public, will take place at the New Haven Free Public Library and conclude the first edition of the Yale Planetary Solutions Sci X Sci-Fi series and will be followed by light refreshments.
Learn more about Sci X Sci-Fi and see the full schedule: https://planetarysolutions.yale.edu/news/imagine-write-invent-and-build-sustainable-future-sci-x-sci-fi-march-31-april-3
Re-Writing Our Climate's Future by Embracing Creativity and Optimism
🎨 Unlock Your Child’s Creativity at The Giggling Pig! 🖌️
Looking for the perfect art class for your child? The Giggling Pig offers engaging, age-appropriate programs designed to nurture creativity, build skills, and encourage self-expression in a fun and supportive environment!
✨ Beginner Class (Ages 4-6) – 1 Hour
Introduce your little artist to the fundamentals of art! Through guided instruction, kids explore blending, composition, and different techniques while having fun and developing their unique style.
🎭 Intermediate Class (Ages 7-9) – 1.5 Hours
A deeper dive into creativity! Students work more independently, experimenting with clay, watercolor, acrylic, mixed media, and more. They’ll learn composition, values, and color theory while creating detailed artwork.
🎨 Advanced & Junior Advanced (Ages 8-16) – 2 Hours
Designed for pre-teens and teens, this class allows students to explore their artistic passions at their own pace. From composition and shading to blending and detailed projects, this class is perfect for young artists looking to grow.
📅 Classes held weekly—pre-registration required! Weekly attendance encouraged but not required.
💰 Class packs available for savings opportunities!
Join us at The Giggling Pig, where imagination comes to life! 🌟
📍 Reserve your child’s spot today!
Art Class for Kids Ages 4-16
Registration is now open for Spring Programs at Oddfellows Playhouse Youth Theater located at 128 Washington Street in Middletown! Beginning March 22, weekly classes in theater, dance, circus, and visual arts will be offered for toddlers to 20 year olds.
Saturday Classes with Meg Berritta begin on March 22 and serve children from 15 months to eight years old. Classes include Acrobabies (ages 15 months - 3 years with caregiver; 9:15 - 9:55 am); Circrobatics (ages 3 - 6, 10 - 10:45 am), Faerie Tale Theater (ages 3 - 6, 10:55 - 11:40 am), Circobatics (ages 5 - 8, 11:45 am - 12:30 pm), and Cirque+ (ages 7 to 12, 12:35 - 1:30pm)
After-School classes for ages 6 - 14 begin March 24 and will run for eight weeks this spring, culminating in a “Share Week” May 19 - 22. Most classes run 4:50 -5:50 pm.
Stage One classes for ages 6 - 8 include Creative Movement on Mondays, Circus I on Tuesdays, Slapstick Theater on Wednesdays and Story Theater from Around the World on Thursdays.
Stage Two classes for ages 9 - 11 include Intro to Scene Study on Mondays, Circus II on Tuesdays, Exploring Characters Through Theater Improv on Wednesdays, and Musical Theater (ages 9 to 14) on Thursdays
Stage Three classes for ages 12 - 14 include Comic Acting on Mondays (4:30 - 6pm), Intro to Scenic Design on Wednesdays (4:30 - 6pm), and Musical Theater on Thursdays (ages 9 to 14, 4:50 - 5:50 pm.)
Middletown Public School students may complement their class experience with Oddbridge, an extended day program which provides transport from Middletown schools to the Playhouse, a snack, and supervised arts activities, games and homework help before classes start. Oddbridge extends throughout the school year, providing special programs and field trips on early dismissal days or days when regular Oddfellows’ classes are not in session.
Our regular season will conclude with a special Oddbridge Mini Production, Robin Hood and the Sherwood Circus. This is a 2 week theater adventure for kids ages 6 to 14, with transportation provided directly from Middletown Public Schools (drop off option available for home schoolers or students from other school districts). Rehearsals will run May 27 - June 5 , Monday through Friday, 4:30 - 6 pm (8 days), with performances Thursday, June 5 and Friday, June 6 at 7 pm.
For more details on times, tuition and class descriptions, please go to www.oddfellows.org. If you have specific questions, email info@oddfellows.org or call (860) 347-6143. Financial Aid is available for all programs. It is Playhouse policy that the arts should be available to every young person regardless of ability to pay - no one is turned away for lack of funds.
Oddfellows Playhouse, founded in 1975, is Connecticut’s oldest and largest performing arts program for young people. Oddfellows programs are made possible with support from the Middletown Commission on the Arts; Connecticut Office of the Arts/DECD; City of Middletown; The Fund for Greater Hartford; American Savings Foundation; State of Connecticut Judicial Branch (Youth Violence Prevention); Middletown Youth Services Bureau; Community Foundation of Middlesex County; Liberty Bank Foundation; Middletown Health Department; Middlesex United Way; CHEFA Nonprofit Grant; and many generous individual donors.
Theater, dance and circus classes start March 22 in Middletown
Registration is now open for Spring Programs at Oddfellows Playhouse Youth Theater located at 128 Washington Street in Middletown! Beginning March 22, weekly classes in theater, dance, circus, and visual arts will be offered for toddlers to 20 year olds.
Saturday Classes with Meg Berritta begin on March 22 and serve children from 15 months to eight years old. Classes include Acrobabies (ages 15 months - 3 years with caregiver; 9:15 - 9:55 am); Circrobatics (ages 3 - 6, 10 - 10:45 am), Faerie Tale Theater (ages 3 - 6, 10:55 - 11:40 am), Circobatics (ages 5 - 8, 11:45 am - 12:30 pm), and Cirque+ (ages 7 to 12, 12:35 - 1:30pm)
After-School classes for ages 6 - 14 begin March 24 and will run for eight weeks this spring, culminating in a “Share Week” May 19 - 22. Most classes run 4:50 -5:50 pm.
Stage One classes for ages 6 - 8 include Creative Movement on Mondays, Circus I on Tuesdays, Slapstick Theater on Wednesdays and Story Theater from Around the World on Thursdays.
Stage Two classes for ages 9 - 11 include Intro to Scene Study on Mondays, Circus II on Tuesdays, Exploring Characters Through Theater Improv on Wednesdays, and Musical Theater (ages 9 to 14) on Thursdays
Stage Three classes for ages 12 - 14 include Comic Acting on Mondays (4:30 - 6pm), Intro to Scenic Design on Wednesdays (4:30 - 6pm), and Musical Theater on Thursdays (ages 9 to 14, 4:50 - 5:50 pm.)
Middletown Public School students may complement their class experience with Oddbridge, an extended day program which provides transport from Middletown schools to the Playhouse, a snack, and supervised arts activities, games and homework help before classes start. Oddbridge extends throughout the school year, providing special programs and field trips on early dismissal days or days when regular Oddfellows’ classes are not in session.
Our regular season will conclude with a special Oddbridge Mini Production, Robin Hood and the Sherwood Circus. This is a 2 week theater adventure for kids ages 6 to 14, with transportation provided directly from Middletown Public Schools (drop off option available for home schoolers or students from other school districts). Rehearsals will run May 27 - June 5 , Monday through Friday, 4:30 - 6 pm (8 days), with performances Thursday, June 5 and Friday, June 6 at 7 pm.
For more details on times, tuition and class descriptions, please go to www.oddfellows.org. If you have specific questions, email info@oddfellows.org or call (860) 347-6143. Financial Aid is available for all programs. It is Playhouse policy that the arts should be available to every young person regardless of ability to pay - no one is turned away for lack of funds.
Oddfellows Playhouse, founded in 1975, is Connecticut’s oldest and largest performing arts program for young people. Oddfellows programs are made possible with support from the Middletown Commission on the Arts; Connecticut Office of the Arts/DECD; City of Middletown; The Fund for Greater Hartford; American Savings Foundation; State of Connecticut Judicial Branch (Youth Violence Prevention); Middletown Youth Services Bureau; Community Foundation of Middlesex County; Liberty Bank Foundation; Middletown Health Department; Middlesex United Way; CHEFA Nonprofit Grant; and many generous individual donors.
Theater, dance and circus classes start March 22 in Middletown
In The Dance, photographer Joel Furtek presents photos of wildlife, motorsports, rowing, and aviation to explore the rhythms around us. He plays with scale and sampling to highlight the relationships between movement and rest, power and calm, potential and kinetic energy. Vivid color and stark contrast run throughout the exhibit.
The artist’s opening reception with refreshments will be held from 5-7PM on Thursday, April 3 at the New Haven Lawn Club; the exhibit is open to the public from 9AM-5PM seven days a week through June 15.
"The Dance" Photo Exhibit Artist's Reception, New Haven Lawn Club
Space is limited so reserve your spot today!
Discover the timeless art of Ukrainian egg decorating at our Pysanky Workshop, hosted in the historic setting of The Shore Line Trolley Museum!
Pysanky, the traditional craft of decorating eggs with intricate wax-resist patterns, is a celebration of heritage, creativity, and storytelling. In this hands-on workshop, participants will learn the history and symbolism of pysanky, as well as techniques to craft their own beautiful, keepsake eggs.
Suitable for ages 12 and up, and led by an experienced instructor, the session is designed for both beginners and those looking to refine their skills.
Bring 2 clean, uncooked eggs! All other materials will be provided, dyes, kistka (stylus), and beeswax. Enjoy a fun, creative afternoon while surrounded by the unique charm of the trolley museum’s historic exhibits!
Whether you're new to pysanky or a seasoned artist, this workshop is a wonderful way to celebrate tradition and creativity while connecting with the museum's rich history. We can’t wait to see you there!
Ukrainian Egg Decorating (Pysanky) Workshop
Come read your poem or a favorite, sing a song, play a tune …the mic is yours!
OPEN MIC
Poets, -Artists-Singers-Songwriters-Acoustic or stand up performances! welcome to our Open Mic held on the First Thursday of each month at the Scranton Library in Madison 108 Boston Post Road in Madison, CT.
OPEN MIC
What’s the difference between cement and concrete? What do all of the letters mean on the bags of mortar? Why are my bricks cracking after they’ve been just been repointed?
Join New Haven Preservation Trust and MakeHaven for this workshop which is intended to introduce homeowners and DIYers to basic concepts of masonry repair for older buildings including selection of appropriate tools, products, and methods for the job. Attendees will gain confidence in tackling simple projects around the house – or evaluating the credentials of a professional masonry firm hired for more complex work. A variety of examples featuring rubble stone, brick, and block construction methods will guide discussion.
This program is intended for a general audience with no prior knowledge or experience needed. Thanks to a partnership with MakeHaven and the New Haven Preservation Trust, this will be a free event!
Please kindly RSVP so that we can provide enough seating in the upstairs classroom. In the event that you register and are unable to attend this session, please notify administration@nhpt.org as soon as possible so that we can make your spot available to somebody else.
Instructor: Oliver Gaffney
You must click below and REGISTER to attend at:
https://www.makehaven.org/civicrm/event/info?id=397&reset=1&reset=1
Scroll to the bottom of the page and complete the information under Register (gray box) and hit submit. You will receive an acknowledgement by email. Questions? Email info@makehaven.org
Don't Get Mixed Up! Practical Tips and Tricks for Masonry Repairs
Internationally renowned historian, writer, filmmaker, playwright, and activist Dr. Marcus Rediker will present, “Rethinking the Amistad Story” at the New Haven Museum (NHM), on Thursday, April 3, 2025. Reception at 5:30 pm., program at 6 p.m. Registration is required for the free program and available here. The program will stream live on Facebook and later be shared on the NHM YouTube channel.
This is a rare local opportunity to meet the historian whose work transformed the understanding of the Amistad revolt and was central to the recent re-interpretation of the permanent New Haven Museum exhibit, “Amistad: Retold,” which opened in 2024. Rediker will discuss who the African rebels were, how they waged the uprising, and what the ordeal meant to them. He will explore the legacies of the Amistad Revolt as a powerful example of resistance to oppression that was, as he says, a “deeply human affair about real people, under real circumstances, making life-and-death decisions in real time.”
The local history of Amistad will also be discussed: what happened in the interactions between the Amistad Africans and the mostly white abolitionists in the New Haven jail; how the two groups together built a local and diverse social movement to support the legal battle; and how groups like the Amistad Committee subsequently kept the history of the event alive in popular memory.
Rethinking the Amistad Story
Learn basic metalsmithing for making jewelry, developing new skills, or strengthen existing ones. Weekly demonstrations introduce tools and techniques required for working with nonferrous sheet metal and wire. Demonstrations may include sawing, filing, cold-connecting, soldering, surface embellishment, forging, shaping, fold forming, finishing, and patina coloring.
The tuition for this class includes a fee of $40 for basic materials provided by CAW.
Metalsmithing/Jewelry
New Haven, CT — "Once on This Island" is a captivating musical that tells the enchanting story of Ti Moune, a young girl from the Caribbean who embarks on a journey of love and self-discovery. Set against the backdrop of a vibrant island, the tale weaves together themes of hope, sacrifice, and the power of love, as Ti Moune defies social boundaries to pursue her heart's desire. With infectious rhythms and heartfelt melodies, this production invites audiences to experience the magic of storytelling through music and dance.
Once on this Island runs April 3rd - April 4th at New Haven Academy (444 Orange Street, New Haven, CT 06511). Performances take place Thursday and Friday at 7:35pm, and Saturday at 11:05am & 7:35pm. Appropriate for middle school students and above. The production features a full band of both NHPS students & professional musicians, all led by the incomparable Kevin James - NHPS Graduate (Music Director) and is choreographed by the incomparable - Ms. Carissa Kee - another NHPS graduate.
Tickets are $15 (adults) / $7 (students) IN ADVANCE and $20 (adults) / $7 (students) AT THE DOOR (there is a small service charge attached to all online orders). For more information visit www.nhadrama.org . To book tickets at Will Call, call our box office Monday - Friday 2:45pm - 7:00pm (203) 444-7269. To book online, visit www.nhadrama.org
Once on this Island
Join us for a mesmerizing journey into the art of laser lantern making! Bring your unique design ideas to life as you learn the ins and outs of utilizing a laser cutter to intricately craft your lantern masterpiece. In this hands-on class, you'll not only design and cut your lantern but also master the basics of wiring to bring your creation to life with a warm, radiant glow.
What to Expect:
This workshop invites participants to unleash their creativity by designing and crafting a personalized lantern. Bring your own design or create one on the spot; either way, you'll discover the magic of using a laser cutter to precision-cut your lantern's intricate patterns. As the finishing touch, you'll delve into the world of basic wiring to illuminate your lantern, creating a captivating masterpiece that reflects your unique design sensibilities.
This class takes place over two consecutive Thursdays:
April 3rd - Lantern design
April 10th - Laser cutting, LED lighting inclusion
Skills You'll Acquire:
- Laser Cutter Proficiency: Master the art of using a laser cutter, from setting up your design on the computer to executing precision cuts. Explore tips and tricks for optimal results.
- Design Fundamentals: Understand the principles of creating a design suitable for laser cutting, ensuring your lantern reflects your artistic vision.
- Material Selection: Gain insights into selecting the right materials for your lantern, considering both aesthetic and functional aspects.
- Basic Wiring Techniques: Learn the essentials of basic wiring, enabling you to illuminate your lantern with confidence. Understand how to connect LEDs or other lighting elements safely.
- Safety Protocols: Acquire knowledge about safety protocols when using a laser cutter, ensuring a secure and enjoyable crafting experience.
Who Should Attend:
This workshop welcomes creative enthusiasts of all levels. Whether you're a seasoned designer or a first-time crafter, the workshop is designed to cater to your artistic aspirations.
What's Provided:
All necessary materials and equipment, including access to a laser cutter, will be provided. Bring your design ideas and let your imagination run wild!
Instructor :Sean Bender
You must click below and REGISTER to attend at:
https://www.makehaven.org/civicrm/event/info?id=417&reset=1&reset=1
Scroll to the bottom of the page and complete the information under Register (gray box) and hit submit. You will receive an acknowledgement by email. Questions? Email info@makehaven.org
Laser-Cut LED Lantern: Design & Build Workshop
A new exhibition to be installed at the Schwarzman Center, “Shining Light on Truth: Black Lives at Yale & in New Haven,” will illuminate ongoing research that recovers the essential role of Black people throughout Yale and New Haven history. The exhibition puts back at the center of local storytelling people who have always been central to local history. It celebrates Black community building, resistance, and resilience on campus and in New Haven.
The show will include nearly one hundred images of Yale’s earliest Black students from the 1800s and early 1900s, many of whom had deep New Haven connections. The Schwarzman exhibition will also feature compelling reproductions of photographs of New Haveners who were custodians of Yale. The Luke, Grimes, Creed, Park, and Bassett families, among the many people key to founding and sustaining Yale, will be heralded in the show.
“Shining Light on Truth: Black Lives at Yale & in New Haven” will showcase the proposal, made and thwarted in 1831, to build a Black college in New Haven. It will also highlight the successful efforts of Black students in the 1960s to establish the Afro-American Cultural Center and Afro-American Studies at Yale.
This exhibition brings forth knowledge kept alive in archives and memory for many centuries—even when the dominant culture chose to ignore, bury, or forget. It extends the work of the Yale and Slavery Research Project and follows from the exhibition, “Shining Light on Truth: New Haven, Yale and Slavery,” at the New Haven Museum from February 16, 2024 – March 1, 2025.
The exhibition team includes David Jon Walker ’23 MFA, lead designer, and Michael Morand ’87 ’93 M.Div., lead curator, with Timeica Bethel ’11, Rob Brown, Jennifer Coggins, Tubyez Cropper, Mohamed Diallo ’26, Regina Mason, Hope McGrath, Carlynne Robinson, and Charles Warner, Jr.
Shining Light on Truth: Black Lives at Yale & in New Haven
The 6-Square Jam Art Exhibit & Sale is a community-wide, all-inclusive art show in which everyone, no matter your level of artistic skill, is invited and welcome to participate.
We invite entries that are 6 inches by 6 inches square (no more than 2 inches thick). Work in any medium you like. Submissions accepted April 1-April 30. See complete rules, instructions and entry form at westvilleartwalk.org under the start your art tab or email criticaldave@frontiernet.net with 6-Square in the subject line.
This exhibit opens May 6 at the Kehler Liddell Gallery in the Westville neighborhood of New Haven. It is part of the Westville Artwalk and is an annual fundraiser for WVRA (Westville Village Renaissance Alliance).
Explore your creativity, make art and, most of all, have fun.
Call for Art-6-Square Art Jam and Exhibition
Are you looking to improve your throwing skills? Seeking to center your clay and yourself? Do you need a hand with hand building?
This class offers an opportunity to work towards your goals in clay and further your individual projects with differentiated instruction.
Wear clothes that can get dirty and closed toe shoes.
Pottery tool kits are available for sale in the studio for $27. Cash or check only. Firing fees are $3/pound. Cash or check only.
Includes one 3-hour weekly practice session during monitored practice hours on a first-come, first-served basis.
Centering With Clay: Focusing on Foundations
This one-man comedic show, adapted from a full-length comedy which won the Neil Simon Festival New Play Contest, centers on Kevin Beeker, a guy who wants to tell the audience why he missed his dad’s retirement party twelve years earlier. Equipped with anecdotes of how his crazy family drove him away, this one man show deliciously and entertainingly portrayed by playwright Kevin Daly, discovers that maybe he’s been looking at it the wrong way. Maybe it’s not about whose fault it is-- and it’s more about the time that was lost while he was busy blaming others. A humorous look at life full of zany situations that we find ourselves in and poignant look towards a hopeful future as we learn and grow along the way, this production is a must see!
Where is Everybody?
The artists of Gallery One are pleased to present the Artistic License exhibition as they celebrate creativity and freedom of expression. Whether it be a painting, photograph, collage or sculpture, the artists push the boundaries of subject and technique to deliver powerful visual narratives. The show is on view at the Gallery at the Guilford Art Center from March 14 through April 6 with an opening reception on Sunday, March 16 from 2pm to 4pm.
Exhibiting artists include: Ann Knickerbocker (Old Saybrook), Brian McClear (West Hartford), Diana Rogers (Clinton), Jill Vaughn (Ivoryton), Karen Israel (West Hartford), Michael Fanelli (Clinton), Rick Silberberg (Ivoryton), Rosemary Cotnoir (Westbrook), T. Willie Raney (Ivoryton), Victor Filepp (New London), and guest artists Judith Barbour Osborne (Chester) and David Acheson (Ivoryton).
“How fortunate we are as artists to have the freedom of artistic license to explore, experiment, provoke or challenge. As I add layers to my work, I feel as if I have permission to open door after door, after door,” said T. Willie Raney.
"To have artistic license we only need the courage to throw out the conventions that restrict imagination and go beyond the chatter,” said Jill Vaughn. “What inspires us and feeds our soul? Maybe it is an artist's fresh look at what is already in front of us."
The Guilford Art Center is located at 411 Church Street in Guilford, CT. The exhibit is free and open to the public. Gallery hours are Monday through Saturday, 10am to 4pm and Sunday, 12pm to 4pm. For more information, visit www.galleryonect.com or contact us at galleryonect@gmail.com.
"Artistic License" Exhibition
March 22 – September 7, 2025 | Exhibition open Wednesday through Sunday from 10am to 4pm with free parking and admission EXCEPT Friday, April 18 (Good Friday); Saturday, April 19 (Holy Saturday); Sunday, April 20 (Easter); Saturday, June 7; and Friday, July 4 (Independence Day).
Separated by 2,781 miles and on two different continents, Iraqi and Nigerian Christians share similar stories of persecution. From 2014-2018, portions of Northern Iraq were under the control of the militant group Islamic State of Iraq and Syria (ISIS), and many religious minorities, including Christians, experienced persecution and violence as a result. In the northern and central portions of Nigeria, violence towards Christians and other minority groups has also increased in recent years at the hands of Boko Haram and other groups.
The Blessed Michael McGivney Pilgrimage Center is honored to share the stories of those displaced in Iraq and Nigeria through Among the Persecuted and Displaced — a collection of photographs taken by Stephen Rasche. The Knights of Columbus has sponsored some of Rasche’s work in both countries, bringing to light the atrocities inflicted on those persecuted for their faith.
Learn more: https://www.michaelmcgivneycenter.org/exhibits/among-the-persecuted-and-displaced/
Exhibit- Among the Persecuted and Displaced: Photographs from Iraq and Nigeria
Exhibition open Wednesday through Sunday from 10am to 4pm with free parking and admission EXCEPT Friday, April 18 (Good Friday); Saturday, April 19 (Holy Saturday); Sunday, April 20 (Easter); Saturday, June 7; Friday, July 4 (Independence Day); Thurday, November 27 (Thanksgiving); Wednesday, December 24 (Christmas Eve); and Thursday, December 25 (Christmas Day).
Many crèches, the three-dimensional representation of the Nativity scene, feature a diversity of settings and stable designs — the most common of which is an open-front wood structure. However, many artisans model their crèches after buildings and landscapes that are native to their homelands.
This exhibit includes a variety of crèches that showcase different examples of stables and mangers. In addition, it also highlights a handful of works whose settings have been customized for the figures they contain. One of these is the Neapolitan, which celebrates its 10th anniversary this year, by Cantone and Costabile of Naples, Italy. In addition, a brand-new crèche will be featured in this exhibit: The Nativity at New Haven's St. Mary’s Church, designed by US-based Navidad Nativities, Inc., with figures made in Italy by Original Heide.
Exhibit | Away in a Manger: The Creation of Nativity Scenes
LAURA BARR | HERE AND THERE
Painting / Mixed Media
February 28-March 24, 2025 (Extended to April 7, 2025)
Bio
Laura Barr‘s work is distinguished by rich color, simplified form and light made material. Barr works in series, primarily in oil on canvas. She studied at Tufts University’s School of the Museum of Fine Arts, Boston. In addition to her BFA, she also holds a BA in Art History from Tufts University and studied at the Tyler School of Art in Rome, Italy.
Her work has been exhibited at Gallery Naga, Boston, MA, Prince Street Gallery, New York, NY, and other galleries in the northeast, including Kehler Liddell Gallery and the Ely Center of Contemporary Art in New Haven, CT, the Alexey von Schlippe Gallery, University of Connecticut at Avery Point, CT, and The Paul Mellon Art Center, Wallingford, CT. She is affiliated with 3 Walls Gallery, Brooklyn, NY, is an Associate Artist Member, Lyme Art Association, is a member of the New Haven Paint and Clay Club, and is an Elected Member, Connecticut Women Artists. Awards include Second Honorable Mention, New England Landscape, Lyme Art Association, 2023, New Haven Paint and Clay Club Active Member Memorial Award Honoring Emily Bett, 2023 and the Gantner Gallery Award, Essex Art Association, 2019. Her work is in many collections including Yale-New Haven Health Services, New Haven, CT, and The Shapiro Center for Writing, Wesleyan University, Middletown, CT.
Art Exhibition
Spring into Art at Susan Powell Fine Art
March 7 – April 26, 2025
Celebrate the changing season with Spring into Art, a breathtaking exhibition featuring works by twenty-five award-winning artists. This vibrant collection explores light in fresh and dynamic ways, offering unique perspectives across a variety of subjects, including landscapes, seascapes, still lifes, florals, and figurative works.
With each brushstroke, these talented artists push creative boundaries—refining, exploring, and redefining beauty in exciting new ways. Whether you're drawn to serene coastal scenes, rich floral compositions, or masterful figurative works, Spring into Art offers something for every art lover.
Participating artists include Thomas Adkins, Kathy Anderson, Del-Bourree Bach, Paul Batch, Paul Beebe, Zufar Bikbov, Kelly Birkenruth, Grace DeVito, David Dunlop, Laurie Flaherty, Vincent Giarrano, Brittany Haynes, Eric Jacobsen, Susan Jositas, Jim Laurino, Sarah Stifler Lucas, Jonathan McPhillips, Leonard Mizerek, Larry Preston, Deborah Quinn-Munson, Shauna Shane, Jeanne Rosier Smith, Kyle Stuckey, Katie Swatland, Laura Westlake, and Christopher Zhang.
The exhibition is on view through April 26, 2025. Visit us at Susan Powell Fine Art , open Tuesday–Saturday, 11 AM – 5 PM , or by appointment.
Susan Powell Fine Art - Spring into Art
This exhibition will be on view at the Yale Institute of Sacred Music’s Miller Hall at 406 Prospect Street, New Haven from March 27 - May 7 on Tuesdays, Wednesdays, and Thursdays from 12-4 p.m. View event site for full details.
Raised in the Eastern Orthodox faith, contemporary Bulgarian artist Svetlozar Parmakov is deeply familiar with its visual lexicon. Through his virtuosic, free-style draftsmanship he both references and reimagines Orthodox iconography, reclaiming its significance for a modern-day viewer. Parmakov applies his signature, free-style technique of hand-engraving and hand-coloring unglazed porcelain, a fine white ceramic material, to creating religious icons, paintings, and decorative vessels, all rendered with intricate detail and shimmering in muted silvers and golds.
In addition to the titular painting, Noah’s Garden, the exhibition features icons of Christ, the Virgin Mary, and saints such as St. George and St. Nicholas, paintings of natural scenes as well as bowls, platters, and vases with elaborate, allover geometric and vegetal patterns. Intimate in scale and meant to be appreciated up close, even handled, the works on view engage the senses, solicit sustained attention, and invite reflection. The delicately outlined and interlocking forms, together with the resplendent hues, recall stained-glass windows, but also a broader cross-cultural history of East-West artistic influences and exchange.
Parmakov’s art transcends time and technology further to draw on his homeland’s rich cultural heritage. His porcelain creations reactivate the magnificent ceramic production that flourished in the 9th and 10th centuries CE around the first two Bulgarian capitals of Pliska and Preslav located in the northeastern part of the country, where Parmakov spends his summers and fires his works. Besides their use for architectural ornamentation and luxury tableware, ceramics were utilized in the local icon painting tradition with ceramic icons ranging in size, shape, subject matter, and purpose. Through his choice of material and imagery, Parmakov recovers the splendor and impact of Bulgaria’s medieval decorative ceramic arts which have reached us largely in fragmentary state and gives us ways to encounter them whole again.
Artist’s Statement:
An enchanted world of porcelain, replete with filigree and fantasy. A dynamic, luminous space of plants, animals, and ornamental designs, all permeated by God’s presence. Works of art created through a unique process in a distinctive style, glowing in silver, gold, and platinum.
I would define my style as “decorative realism.” Ornamentation is foundational for my work, and I constantly expand and enrich my repertoire of decorative motifs. I seek to show that the ceramic medium transcends the applied arts, that it exists in the realm of the fine arts and that it can serve a spiritual purpose. I would be happy if the light with which my works are suffused touched the viewers’ souls.
-Svetlozar Parmakov, January 2025
Free and open to the public.
Exhibition curated by Liliana Milkova.
All are welcome to join us for an opening reception for this art exhibit on Wednesday,March 26 at 5 p.m.
We are excited to announce that the ISM will be linking its exhibitions to the Smartify app. The app is available as a free download from the App Store and Google Play, or you can access content through the Smartify webpage at app.smartify.org. The Smartify app will allow you to directly scan artworks that are on display, as well as QR codes that are placed around the exhibition, to receive more information. You will also be able to save your favorite artworks and share them to social media.
Contact: Anesu Nyamupingidza
Photo: Svetlozar Parmakov at work on Noah’s Garden (porcelain, 2025). Photo credit: Svetlozar Parmakov.
Noah’s Garden: The Porcelain Worlds of Svetlozar Parmakov
Photographer Phyllis Crowley asks CAN YOU FREE A MIND? in this new exhibit at City Gallery. Her latest collection of work will be on view from April 4 - April 27, with a Reception and Artist Talk on Sunday, April 6, 2 p.m. - 4 p.m. The artist will also be in the Gallery on Sunday, April 27 to meet with visitors and answer questions. City
Gallery is located at 994 State Street, New Haven, CT 06511. Gallery hours are
Friday - Sunday, 12 p.m. - 4 p.m., or by appointment. For more, contact City
Gallery, info@city-gallery.org, www.city-gallery.org.
CAN YOU FREE A MIND? — A Photographic Essay at City Gallery
Welcome our latest exhibition, A Breath, A Pause, An Eternity, a Collapse featuring the oil paintings of Lillian Bayley Hoover in the Workshop Gallery on view until April 27, 2025 in The Workshop Gallery, Building 3 of Ball & Socket Arts.
Regular Gallery Hours from 12-4 pm on Fridays, Saturdays, and Sundays.
Artist Statement:
My creative practice begins with encounters in the landscape, often bearing witness to human interventions there. Themes include human claims over the land, as well as the relationship between the built environment and what is considered by many to be “wild.” This work reflects an active landscape: a living participant in the events of our time, as well as a record of time itself. These paintings often look like photo collages, as competing visual languages and surfaces evoke the interruptions or barriers that mediate our connection with nature. On occasion, portions of the picture plane appear to be torn away or excised, drawn elements are partially obscured behind layers of clear gesso, or the surface is built up to create a subtle bas-relief before paint is applied. The result suggests an unstable world in which an alternate scene may be concealed behind the painted image.
These paintings probe the impact of human activity on "nature," what the record etched onto our planet's surface reveals, the ongoing processes by which planetary and biological systems shape one another, and how humanity's brief presence will reverberate into the future. My goal is to create accessible visual narratives that locate our moment within the broader context of “deep time,” encouraging viewers to consider our place in these larger systems and whether our estrangement from the natural world might arise from not considering ourselves within this framework.
This somewhat melancholy work serves as witness to a fraught moment in time. Part meditation, part metaphor, part elegy, these paintings channel the joy and despair which characterize our species’ precarity. In the face of humanity’s uncertain future, I hope this work will foster connection and fellowship for those who cherish our living earth.
About the Artist:
Lillian Bayley Hoover's work is in public collections including the Baltimore Museum of Art, Weatherspoon Art Museum (Greensboro, NC), and the DC Commission on the Arts and Humanities. She is the recipient of a Pollock-Krasner Grant, the Bethesda Urban Partnership's Trawick Award, multiple grants from the Maryland State Arts Council, a travel grant from Philadelphia’s Center for Emerging Visual Artists, and fellowships to attend residencies at Vermont Studio Center, Monson Arts Center, and Virginia Center for the Creative Arts. Her work has been featured on the cover of New American Paintings. She has had solo exhibitions at MoCA Arlington (Arlington, VA), Goya Contemporary (Baltimore, MD), BlackRock Center for the Arts (Germantown, MD), and VisArts (Rockville, MD), among other venues. Hoover holds an MFA from Maryland Institute College of Art and a BFA from University of North Carolina Asheville. She teaches at Towson University.
https://lillianhoover.com/home.html
Image features: this simple learning, by Lilliian Bayley Hoover
A Breath, A Pause, An Eternity, A Collapse: The Paintings of Lillian Bayley Hoover
For the 19th year in a row, the First Congregational Church of Madison, 26 Meetinghouse Lane (on the Green) is sponsoring lunchtime organ concerts at the church during five Fridays in Lent. The public is invited to come into the sanctuary or listen outside on the Green as the music is broadcast through our steeple speakers and enjoy a half-hour recital of music performed on the historic 1929 M.P. Möller organ by local organists. This series is sponsored in part by the New London County Chapter of the American Guild of Organists. The recitalists this year are:
• March 21st: Angela Salcedo , Organ Lecturer at UCONN and Director of Music Ministries at the First Church of Christ, Congregational in Glastonbury
• March 28th: Joshua Ehlebracht , Director of Music at St. Paul’s on the Green, Norwalk
• April 4th: Walden Moore , retired Director of Music at Trinity Church, New Haven
• April 11th: Ezequiel Menéndez , professor of Organ at College of the Holy Cross, Worcester, MA and retired Director of Music and Organist at St. Joseph’s Cathedral, Hartford
• April 18th: Nathan Bayreuther , Director of Music Ministry at First Congregational Church of Madison
Built by the M. P. Möller company of Hagerstown, Maryland and installed at the First Congregational Church of Madison, Connecticut during the winter of 1929-1930, its completion was lauded in both local and national press as a triumph for the congregation and community. Since then, it has become one of the most renowned organs in Connecticut having remained unaltered as a symphonic organ – built to closely resemble a symphonic orchestra, the style of the day – in its original configuration for almost a century. Restored in 2019, it is played nearly every day and is kept in prime condition for services and recitals, drawing admiration from musicians and listeners across the region.
In December, 2019, the Organ Historical Society voted to bestow the prestigious Historic Pipe Organ Award to the instrument and the church. This award recognizes specific, unaltered pipe organs as having historical, cultural, and musical significance. It acknowledges the organ’s enduring legacy as an exceptional and worthy instrument.
More about the instrument with video clips may be found at https://www.fccmadison.org/organ.
Five Fridays Lenten Concert Series
Join us on the first Friday of the month for a one-hour, in-person tour of the Leslie P. and George H. Hume American Furniture Study Center at the Collection Studies Center, Yale West Campus. See more than 1,300 examples of American furniture and clocks from the 17th century to the present in this facility, which opened in 2019, as well as an outstanding collection of contemporary wood art.
Registration required.
Furniture Study Highlights Tour
This class provides step-by-step instruction for those seeking the fundamentals of watercolor painting. Class includes demos and structured exercises. Participants learn color mixing, dark and light and basic color theory principles. Different brush stroke techniques are addressed for specific effects i.e. wet on wet & dry stubble applications. Participants paint from still life setups and/or photo references from home. Everyone is encouraged to work on an ongoing painting at home to help solidify techniques learned in class. This piece may be brought into class on the last day for an open critique session. Material list sent upon registration. Instructor will work with you at your level even if you have taken watercolor in the past. Material list available upon registration.
Chris Kunze graduated from Rhode Island School of Design with a BFA in Painting/Illustration. He has had a long & successful career in Advertising and Promotion. His illustrations and designs have been used in books, magazines, newspapers, product packaging and logo design.
Chris’ fine art has always remained important throughout his career as a commercial artist.
He has had many solo and group shows in New York City, Westchester County and lower Connecticut, showcasing his oil paintings, watercolors and illustrations. Chris was part of an ongoing show at the Arthur Kalaher Fine Art in Sag Harbor, NY from 2011-2019. In 2018 he had a solo show of his watercolors at Teatown Lake Reservation.
In 2019 Chris began his participation in Arthouse.NYC’s “Healthcare Heroes Show”.
He has memorialized several healthcare workers who lost their lives during the height of the Covid pandemic. These oil portraits were given to their families and were on view at the
Big Plaza Screen in New York City.
Teaching is a passion that has come to the forefront in the past 15 years for Chris. He has been teaching a plethora of subjects among them drawing, oil painting, watercolors, and more at local Westchester art schools. He is currently teaching at Scarsdale Adult School.
Chris grew up in Europe and Westchester County. He currently resides in Salem, Connecticut.
Watercolor Continues - Beginner & Beyond
In this dynamic Movement and Meditation class, children aged 7-11 will embark on a journey of self-discovery, learning essential tools for their physical, emotional, and mental well-being. Led by Jacqueline Kelsey, an experienced yoga instructor this class combines playful yoga poses, fun breathing techniques, and guided mindfulness exercises to help children build strength, flexibility, and focus while promoting a calm and centered mind. Through creative and age-appropriate activities, kids will develop body awareness, balance, and coordination, all while engaging in relaxation techniques. These learning experiences can be applied to dance, sports and other movement oriented activities.
This class is designed to nurture the whole child, fostering both their physical and emotional health. Movement and meditation are essential for children’s development, as they improve concentration, emotional regulation, and social skills, while also supporting better sleep and overall energy levels. By practicing mindfulness and movement from a young age, children gain tools that help them navigate challenges and develop a positive relationship with their bodies. This approach nurtures not only their growth but also instills a lifelong appreciation for self-care, making it a vital practice for every child’s well-being.
With a lifelong passion for health, wellness, and community support, Jacqueline brings a unique blend of personal experience, professional training, and compassionate leadership to her work with young children. Her background in recovery services, holistic healing, and yoga therapy has allowed her to develop a deep understanding of emotional regulation, mindfulness, and movement as tools for self-expression and resilience. Through her work with Hartford Hospital, Rushford, and various wellness programs, she has guided individuals in developing healthy coping skills and building physical and emotional self-awareness. Teaching yoga to children allows Jacqueline to integrate these same principles—encouraging self-confidence, emotional balance, and physical well-being through movement, breathwork and creative mindfulness exercises.
Her experience in managing community-based programs, including working with neurodiverse young adults and leading family wellness initiatives, has strengthened her ability to create engaging, inclusive, and nurturing environments. She believes in the power of yoga to teach children the value of self-care, focus, and emotional regulation—skills that support lifelong well-being. With certifications in integrative health, recovery coaching, yoga therapy, and corrective exercises, she is committed to helping young students develop body awareness, self-discipline, and a strong foundation for emotional resilience. Her approach blends structure with play, making yoga both fun and meaningful while fostering a safe space where children feel empowered to explore, grow, and thrive.
Dates: Fridays, April 4, 11, 18 and 25
Yoga and Movement for Ages 7-11
In this dynamic Movement and Meditation class, children aged 7-11 will embark on a journey of self-discovery, learning essential tools for their physical, emotional, and mental well-being. Led by Jacqueline Kelsey, an experienced yoga instructor this class combines playful yoga poses, fun breathing techniques, and guided mindfulness exercises to help children build strength, flexibility, and focus while promoting a calm and centered mind. Through creative and age-appropriate activities, kids will develop body awareness, balance, and coordination, all while engaging in relaxation techniques. These learning experiences can be applied to dance, sports and other movement oriented activities.
This class is designed to nurture the whole child, fostering both their physical and emotional health. Movement and meditation are essential for children’s development, as they improve concentration, emotional regulation, and social skills, while also supporting better sleep and overall energy levels. By practicing mindfulness and movement from a young age, children gain tools that help them navigate challenges and develop a positive relationship with their bodies. This approach nurtures not only their growth but also instills a lifelong appreciation for self-care, making it a vital practice for every child’s well-being.
With a lifelong passion for health, wellness, and community support, Jacqueline brings a unique blend of personal experience, professional training, and compassionate leadership to her work with young children. Her background in recovery services, holistic healing, and yoga therapy has allowed her to develop a deep understanding of emotional regulation, mindfulness, and movement as tools for self-expression and resilience. Through her work with Hartford Hospital, Rushford, and various wellness programs, she has guided individuals in developing healthy coping skills and building physical and emotional self-awareness. Teaching yoga to children allows Jacqueline to integrate these same principles—encouraging self-confidence, emotional balance, and physical well-being through movement, breathwork and creative mindfulness exercises.
Her experience in managing community-based programs, including working with neurodiverse young adults and leading family wellness initiatives, has strengthened her ability to create engaging, inclusive, and nurturing environments. She believes in the power of yoga to teach children the value of self-care, focus, and emotional regulation—skills that support lifelong well-being. With certifications in integrative health, recovery coaching, yoga therapy, and corrective exercises, she is committed to helping young students develop body awareness, self-discipline, and a strong foundation for emotional resilience. Her approach blends structure with play, making yoga both fun and meaningful while fostering a safe space where children feel empowered to explore, grow, and thrive.
Yoga and Movement for Ages 7-11
🎨 Unlock Your Child’s Creativity at The Giggling Pig! 🖌️
Looking for the perfect art class for your child? The Giggling Pig offers engaging, age-appropriate programs designed to nurture creativity, build skills, and encourage self-expression in a fun and supportive environment!
✨ Beginner Class (Ages 4-6) – 1 Hour
Introduce your little artist to the fundamentals of art! Through guided instruction, kids explore blending, composition, and different techniques while having fun and developing their unique style.
🎭 Intermediate Class (Ages 7-9) – 1.5 Hours
A deeper dive into creativity! Students work more independently, experimenting with clay, watercolor, acrylic, mixed media, and more. They’ll learn composition, values, and color theory while creating detailed artwork.
🎨 Advanced & Junior Advanced (Ages 8-16) – 2 Hours
Designed for pre-teens and teens, this class allows students to explore their artistic passions at their own pace. From composition and shading to blending and detailed projects, this class is perfect for young artists looking to grow.
📅 Classes held weekly—pre-registration required! Weekly attendance encouraged but not required.
💰 Class packs available for savings opportunities!
Join us at The Giggling Pig, where imagination comes to life! 🌟
📍 Reserve your child’s spot today!
Art Class for Kids Ages 4-16
Inaugurated in 1867, Street Hall—today part of the Yale University Art Gallery—housed the first collegiate school of art in the country. Its curriculum permitted students from a variety of disciplines to sketch from live models and original works of art. Take part in this centuries-old practice by joining us for an evening of guided sketching. Generously sponsored by the Martin A. Ryerson Lectureship Fund.
Open to all ages and levels of drawing experience. Materials will be provided.
Sketching in the Galleries
***Multi-Day Event-4 week workshop****
Embark on a journey into the world of 3D design with our "Mastering SOLIDWORKS: Fundamentals of 3D Part Modeling" workshop. SOLIDWORKS stands as the industry standard for 3D design, and this workshop is your gateway to unlocking its vast potential. Whether you're charting a course for a STEAM career or simply eager to dive into the realm of 3D modeling, this fundamentals module is tailored for those new to 3D solid modeling.
What to Expect
In this hands-on four-week workshop, you’ll learn the essentials of creating 3D parametric models in SOLIDWORKS. Through a combination of engaging lectures, guided demonstrations, and hands-on tutorials, you’ll build a strong foundation in 3D modeling, culminating in the creation and 3D printing of your own part files.
📅 Schedule: This class meets four consecutive Fridays, from March 14 – April 4, 2025. (8 total hours of instruction)
Skills You'll Acquire:
🔹 2D Sketching & Constraints – Learn to create fully constrained 2D sketches, the foundation of 3D solid models. Understand key sketching techniques and constraints for accurate designs.
🔹 3D Solid Modeling – Convert 2D sketches into precise 3D models using fundamental SOLIDWORKS tools.
🔹 Feature Editing & Refinements – Apply rounds, chamfers, and other treatment features to enhance the form and functionality of your designs.
Creating Hole Features – Learn how to add different hole types and understand their applications in real-world designs.
🔹 Advanced 3D Features (Time Permitting) – Explore swept and lofted features to expand your modeling capabilities.
Who Should Attend
This workshop is ideal for:
✅ Beginners who are new to 3D modeling and want to learn SOLIDWORKS.
✅ Students, professionals, and hobbyists looking to develop technical design skills.
✅ Anyone interested in 3D printing and parametric modeling.
What’s Provided & Requirements
🔹 Participants must bring a laptop with SOLIDWORKS installed.
🔹 A limited number of laptops are available for loan—please email events@makehaven.org in advance if you need one.
***Join us and bring your 3D design aspirations to life!
Instructor: Matthew Burke
You must click below and REGISTER to attend at:
https://www.makehaven.org/civicrm/event/info?id=336&reset=1&reset=1
Scroll to the bottom of the page and complete the information under Register (gray box) and hit submit. You will receive an acknowledgement by email. Questions? Email info@makehaven.org
From Pixels to Print: Introduction to 3D Design & Fusion 360
On Friday, April 4th at 6PM New England Brewery sets the stage for camaraderie and unforgettable music, all to benefit this year’s Folk Festival and Green Expo.
On stage to support this fund raiser:
Benny Mikula CT singer song writer, better known as the Lone Gnome and member of the Alpaca Gnomes, is a compelling acoustic performer. His soulful lyrics are passionate and touching and is electric energy brings it all home. He is well known and loved by his audiences.
Lara Herscovitch CT singer song writer, poet, performer gem and a CT State Troubadour from 2009-2010. She leads with authenticity, integrity, humor and heart,reflecting courage, authenticity, adventure, healing, love and loss, the hero’s journey, faith and freedom in her performances. She is also the band leader of the Highway Philosophers trio.
Pierce Campbell also a CT State Troubadour 2007-2008, has a long and varied musical history as a songwriter and solo performer. He is equally comfortable playing jazz, rock and role and performing as a solo artist. Pierce fronts the bands The Kerry Boys, The Exrtas and 60’s Satisfaction.
For 32 years the not for profit CT Folk, has presented this a free festival bringing spirited emrging and more established musical performers to the crown jewel of New Haven’s park system, Edgewood Park in Hamden. The Green Expo turns 20 this year and has been a penultimate resource for environmental knowledge, couched in the spirit of fun, especially for kids in the Green Kids Zone.
Join us and sit back and enjoy a great night of music while sipping one of NEBCO’s famous brews. The best part is knowing you will be supporting the 2025 CT Folk Festival and Green Expo. We can not do it without you! Save the date Sept 6th 2025.
For tickets through Eventbrite https://bit.ly/ctfolkfest
Two Troubadours and The Lone Gnome CT Folk Festival Fundraiser April 4th
Looking to have some fun, meet some new friends, and play some games with other adults that'll get your creativity flowing? Check out First Friday Art Games with Megan Jeffery! Enroll now for our April 4th date....and tell your friends!
First Friday Art Games
R.E.S.P.E.C.T. is an electrifying tribute celebrating the music of the legendary Queen of Soul, Aretha Franklin. This concert experience takes audiences on a journey of love, tragedy, courage, and triumph. Featuring a live band and supreme vocalists, come experience a night of music by one of the greatest artists of all time.
The concert features all your favorite hits in one evening, including "Natural Woman,” “Think,” “I Knew You Were Waiting for Me,” “Chain of Fools,” “Respect,” and many more. You’ll be out of your seat and dancing in the aisles as you lose yourself in the music that inspired a generation.
R.E.S.P.E.C.T.
Edgewood Afterschool Drama Club presents Willy Wonka, Jr. at Hill Regional Career High School April 4th, 5th, and 6th.
Tickets are available at edgewood-drama.ticketleap.com
Edgewood School Drama Club presents Willy Wonka, Jr.
Dinner and a scare!
“TRACKS OF TERROR” will be hosted by Thomas Gormley (Archangel of the Paranormal) and Charles F. Rosenay!!! (Tours of Terror, ParaConn), The Shaman and The Showman LLC. Other psychics and mediums may join us as well.
Our dinner experience will be a little more special at the horror-themed TRANSILVANIA RESTAURANT in East Haven, where you will be transported to the Romanian land of Dracula. If you’ve been there before, you know how unique it is. If not, this will truly be a great lead-up to the night activities. After the meal and orientation, we venture to our next destination, with whatever entities lurk on the grounds. First, we will gather inside the actual museum before venturing off on the escorted exploration of the trolley track route. The entire event will go from 7pm until about 10:30pm. Participation is strictly limited. Waivers are required.
Don’t miss this rare and raw opportunity. Because of the sensitivity of this event, the popularity of a more known location, and since space is so limited, please lock in your reservation as soon as possible. All ages welcome but under 16 must be accompanied by an adult. $99 per person.
PRE-REGISTRATION IS REQUIRED FOR THIS EVENT
Tracks of Terror: The 2025 Trolley Ghost Hunt
New Haven, CT — "Once on This Island" is a captivating musical that tells the enchanting story of Ti Moune, a young girl from the Caribbean who embarks on a journey of love and self-discovery. Set against the backdrop of a vibrant island, the tale weaves together themes of hope, sacrifice, and the power of love, as Ti Moune defies social boundaries to pursue her heart's desire. With infectious rhythms and heartfelt melodies, this production invites audiences to experience the magic of storytelling through music and dance.
Once on this Island runs April 3rd - April 4th at New Haven Academy (444 Orange Street, New Haven, CT 06511). Performances take place Thursday and Friday at 7:35pm, and Saturday at 11:05am & 7:35pm. Appropriate for middle school students and above. The production features a full band of both NHPS students & professional musicians, all led by the incomparable Kevin James - NHPS Graduate (Music Director) and is choreographed by the incomparable - Ms. Carissa Kee - another NHPS graduate.
Tickets are $15 (adults) / $7 (students) IN ADVANCE and $20 (adults) / $7 (students) AT THE DOOR (there is a small service charge attached to all online orders). For more information visit www.nhadrama.org . To book tickets at Will Call, call our box office Monday - Friday 2:45pm - 7:00pm (203) 444-7269. To book online, visit www.nhadrama.org
Once on this Island
Thomas C. Duffy, Music Director. “Dust” for wind ensemble and brass quintet by Jennifer Jolley, feat. Seraph Brass (all-female quintet).
● Jennifer Jolley wrote “Dust” in reflection of her time in Lubbock, TX, when she served on the faculty at Texas Tech University School of Music. During periods of isolation during the COVID-19 pandemic, she took long drives and immersed herself in the landscape, climate, and history of the vast state. From high plains, to rolling prairies, to verdant grasslands, from being caught in brief, intense hail showers and dust storms and the scorching sun, she came to know Texas through its ambient and tactile qualities. As she puts it, “Texas is extreme in that way, in every way. It’s immense and intimate, precarious and nurturing, vital and violent all at once.”
Seraph Brass was founded by trumpet soloist Mary Elizabeth Bowden (Yale School of Music M.M. 2006) with a mission to showcase the excellence of women brass players and highlight musicians from marginalized groups, both in personnel and in programming. In addition to performances and residencies, Seraph performs as a 10-piece ensemble, as soloists with symphony orchestras and wind bands, and in collaboration with other chamber artists. Seraph Brass performs a diverse body of repertoire, ranging from original transcriptions to newly commissioned works and core classics. More information on Seraph Brass (https://www.seraphbrass.com/)
● Viet Cuong wrote “Deciduous” after his father’s death, comparing the experience of grief and healing to the cycle of life, where there is the loss of one’s ‘leaves,’ after which the leafless winter eventually is followed by a spring.
● “Second Suite in F for Military Band” by Gustav Holst is based on English folk songs and dance. Each of its four movements possesses its own distinctive character—from slow and tender to lively and complex—ending with a resetting of the well-known tune ‘Greensleeves.’
Other music: “The Other Side Silence – Finale” (Stephen Roberts), “Like an Altar with 9000 Robot Attendants” (Ryan Lindveit), “Stand the Storm” (Julian Work), “Frozen Flame March” (T. C. Duffy)
Yale Concert Band April 4 Concert to feature Seraph Brass (all-women quintet), guest artists
A new exhibition to be installed at the Schwarzman Center, “Shining Light on Truth: Black Lives at Yale & in New Haven,” will illuminate ongoing research that recovers the essential role of Black people throughout Yale and New Haven history. The exhibition puts back at the center of local storytelling people who have always been central to local history. It celebrates Black community building, resistance, and resilience on campus and in New Haven.
The show will include nearly one hundred images of Yale’s earliest Black students from the 1800s and early 1900s, many of whom had deep New Haven connections. The Schwarzman exhibition will also feature compelling reproductions of photographs of New Haveners who were custodians of Yale. The Luke, Grimes, Creed, Park, and Bassett families, among the many people key to founding and sustaining Yale, will be heralded in the show.
“Shining Light on Truth: Black Lives at Yale & in New Haven” will showcase the proposal, made and thwarted in 1831, to build a Black college in New Haven. It will also highlight the successful efforts of Black students in the 1960s to establish the Afro-American Cultural Center and Afro-American Studies at Yale.
This exhibition brings forth knowledge kept alive in archives and memory for many centuries—even when the dominant culture chose to ignore, bury, or forget. It extends the work of the Yale and Slavery Research Project and follows from the exhibition, “Shining Light on Truth: New Haven, Yale and Slavery,” at the New Haven Museum from February 16, 2024 – March 1, 2025.
The exhibition team includes David Jon Walker ’23 MFA, lead designer, and Michael Morand ’87 ’93 M.Div., lead curator, with Timeica Bethel ’11, Rob Brown, Jennifer Coggins, Tubyez Cropper, Mohamed Diallo ’26, Regina Mason, Hope McGrath, Carlynne Robinson, and Charles Warner, Jr.
Shining Light on Truth: Black Lives at Yale & in New Haven
A Family Variety Show featuring Magic, Stage Illusions, Juggling, and Acrobatics with performers from the likes of Cirque du Soleil, Ringling Brothers and Barnum & Bailey!
Don't miss this incredible spectacle and terrific family entertainment at the Legacy!
"Amazing Juggling... Elegant Acrobatics... Breathtaking"
-Nuvo Magazine, Indianapolis, IN
Happens on the following Dates:
- Apr 5, 2025, 10:00am to 11:00am Timezone: EDT
- Apr 5, 2025, 1:00pm to 2:00pm Timezone: EDT
Colorful Hat Circus & Variety Show
The 6-Square Jam Art Exhibit & Sale is a community-wide, all-inclusive art show in which everyone, no matter your level of artistic skill, is invited and welcome to participate.
We invite entries that are 6 inches by 6 inches square (no more than 2 inches thick). Work in any medium you like. Submissions accepted April 1-April 30. See complete rules, instructions and entry form at westvilleartwalk.org under the start your art tab or email criticaldave@frontiernet.net with 6-Square in the subject line.
This exhibit opens May 6 at the Kehler Liddell Gallery in the Westville neighborhood of New Haven. It is part of the Westville Artwalk and is an annual fundraiser for WVRA (Westville Village Renaissance Alliance).
Explore your creativity, make art and, most of all, have fun.
Call for Art-6-Square Art Jam and Exhibition
Registration is now open for Spring Programs at Oddfellows Playhouse Youth Theater located at 128 Washington Street in Middletown! Beginning March 22, weekly classes in theater, dance, circus, and visual arts will be offered for toddlers to 20 year olds.
Saturday Classes with Meg Berritta begin on March 22 and serve children from 15 months to eight years old. Classes include Acrobabies (ages 15 months - 3 years with caregiver; 9:15 - 9:55 am); Circrobatics (ages 3 - 6, 10 - 10:45 am), Faerie Tale Theater (ages 3 - 6, 10:55 - 11:40 am), Circobatics (ages 5 - 8, 11:45 am - 12:30 pm), and Cirque+ (ages 7 to 12, 12:35 - 1:30pm)
After-School classes for ages 6 - 14 begin March 24 and will run for eight weeks this spring, culminating in a “Share Week” May 19 - 22. Most classes run 4:50 -5:50 pm.
Stage One classes for ages 6 - 8 include Creative Movement on Mondays, Circus I on Tuesdays, Slapstick Theater on Wednesdays and Story Theater from Around the World on Thursdays.
Stage Two classes for ages 9 - 11 include Intro to Scene Study on Mondays, Circus II on Tuesdays, Exploring Characters Through Theater Improv on Wednesdays, and Musical Theater (ages 9 to 14) on Thursdays
Stage Three classes for ages 12 - 14 include Comic Acting on Mondays (4:30 - 6pm), Intro to Scenic Design on Wednesdays (4:30 - 6pm), and Musical Theater on Thursdays (ages 9 to 14, 4:50 - 5:50 pm.)
Middletown Public School students may complement their class experience with Oddbridge, an extended day program which provides transport from Middletown schools to the Playhouse, a snack, and supervised arts activities, games and homework help before classes start. Oddbridge extends throughout the school year, providing special programs and field trips on early dismissal days or days when regular Oddfellows’ classes are not in session.
Our regular season will conclude with a special Oddbridge Mini Production, Robin Hood and the Sherwood Circus. This is a 2 week theater adventure for kids ages 6 to 14, with transportation provided directly from Middletown Public Schools (drop off option available for home schoolers or students from other school districts). Rehearsals will run May 27 - June 5 , Monday through Friday, 4:30 - 6 pm (8 days), with performances Thursday, June 5 and Friday, June 6 at 7 pm.
For more details on times, tuition and class descriptions, please go to www.oddfellows.org. If you have specific questions, email info@oddfellows.org or call (860) 347-6143. Financial Aid is available for all programs. It is Playhouse policy that the arts should be available to every young person regardless of ability to pay - no one is turned away for lack of funds.
Oddfellows Playhouse, founded in 1975, is Connecticut’s oldest and largest performing arts program for young people. Oddfellows programs are made possible with support from the Middletown Commission on the Arts; Connecticut Office of the Arts/DECD; City of Middletown; The Fund for Greater Hartford; American Savings Foundation; State of Connecticut Judicial Branch (Youth Violence Prevention); Middletown Youth Services Bureau; Community Foundation of Middlesex County; Liberty Bank Foundation; Middletown Health Department; Middlesex United Way; CHEFA Nonprofit Grant; and many generous individual donors.
Theater, dance and circus classes start March 22 in Middletown
Registration is now open for Spring Programs at Oddfellows Playhouse Youth Theater located at 128 Washington Street in Middletown! Beginning March 22, weekly classes in theater, dance, circus, and visual arts will be offered for toddlers to 20 year olds.
Saturday Classes with Meg Berritta begin on March 22 and serve children from 15 months to eight years old. Classes include Acrobabies (ages 15 months - 3 years with caregiver; 9:15 - 9:55 am); Circrobatics (ages 3 - 6, 10 - 10:45 am), Faerie Tale Theater (ages 3 - 6, 10:55 - 11:40 am), Circobatics (ages 5 - 8, 11:45 am - 12:30 pm), and Cirque+ (ages 7 to 12, 12:35 - 1:30pm)
After-School classes for ages 6 - 14 begin March 24 and will run for eight weeks this spring, culminating in a “Share Week” May 19 - 22. Most classes run 4:50 -5:50 pm.
Stage One classes for ages 6 - 8 include Creative Movement on Mondays, Circus I on Tuesdays, Slapstick Theater on Wednesdays and Story Theater from Around the World on Thursdays.
Stage Two classes for ages 9 - 11 include Intro to Scene Study on Mondays, Circus II on Tuesdays, Exploring Characters Through Theater Improv on Wednesdays, and Musical Theater (ages 9 to 14) on Thursdays
Stage Three classes for ages 12 - 14 include Comic Acting on Mondays (4:30 - 6pm), Intro to Scenic Design on Wednesdays (4:30 - 6pm), and Musical Theater on Thursdays (ages 9 to 14, 4:50 - 5:50 pm.)
Middletown Public School students may complement their class experience with Oddbridge, an extended day program which provides transport from Middletown schools to the Playhouse, a snack, and supervised arts activities, games and homework help before classes start. Oddbridge extends throughout the school year, providing special programs and field trips on early dismissal days or days when regular Oddfellows’ classes are not in session.
Our regular season will conclude with a special Oddbridge Mini Production, Robin Hood and the Sherwood Circus. This is a 2 week theater adventure for kids ages 6 to 14, with transportation provided directly from Middletown Public Schools (drop off option available for home schoolers or students from other school districts). Rehearsals will run May 27 - June 5 , Monday through Friday, 4:30 - 6 pm (8 days), with performances Thursday, June 5 and Friday, June 6 at 7 pm.
For more details on times, tuition and class descriptions, please go to www.oddfellows.org. If you have specific questions, email info@oddfellows.org or call (860) 347-6143. Financial Aid is available for all programs. It is Playhouse policy that the arts should be available to every young person regardless of ability to pay - no one is turned away for lack of funds.
Oddfellows Playhouse, founded in 1975, is Connecticut’s oldest and largest performing arts program for young people. Oddfellows programs are made possible with support from the Middletown Commission on the Arts; Connecticut Office of the Arts/DECD; City of Middletown; The Fund for Greater Hartford; American Savings Foundation; State of Connecticut Judicial Branch (Youth Violence Prevention); Middletown Youth Services Bureau; Community Foundation of Middlesex County; Liberty Bank Foundation; Middletown Health Department; Middlesex United Way; CHEFA Nonprofit Grant; and many generous individual donors.
Theater, dance and circus classes start March 22 in Middletown
🎨 Unlock Your Child’s Creativity at The Giggling Pig! 🖌️
Looking for the perfect art class for your child? The Giggling Pig offers engaging, age-appropriate programs designed to nurture creativity, build skills, and encourage self-expression in a fun and supportive environment!
✨ Beginner Class (Ages 4-6) – 1 Hour
Introduce your little artist to the fundamentals of art! Through guided instruction, kids explore blending, composition, and different techniques while having fun and developing their unique style.
🎭 Intermediate Class (Ages 7-9) – 1.5 Hours
A deeper dive into creativity! Students work more independently, experimenting with clay, watercolor, acrylic, mixed media, and more. They’ll learn composition, values, and color theory while creating detailed artwork.
📅 Classes held weekly—pre-registration required! Weekly attendance is encouraged but not required.
💰 Class packs available for savings opportunities!
Join us at The Giggling Pig, where imagination comes to life! 🌟
📍 Reserve your child’s spot today!
Art Class for Kids ages 4-9
The artists of Gallery One are pleased to present the Artistic License exhibition as they celebrate creativity and freedom of expression. Whether it be a painting, photograph, collage or sculpture, the artists push the boundaries of subject and technique to deliver powerful visual narratives. The show is on view at the Gallery at the Guilford Art Center from March 14 through April 6 with an opening reception on Sunday, March 16 from 2pm to 4pm.
Exhibiting artists include: Ann Knickerbocker (Old Saybrook), Brian McClear (West Hartford), Diana Rogers (Clinton), Jill Vaughn (Ivoryton), Karen Israel (West Hartford), Michael Fanelli (Clinton), Rick Silberberg (Ivoryton), Rosemary Cotnoir (Westbrook), T. Willie Raney (Ivoryton), Victor Filepp (New London), and guest artists Judith Barbour Osborne (Chester) and David Acheson (Ivoryton).
“How fortunate we are as artists to have the freedom of artistic license to explore, experiment, provoke or challenge. As I add layers to my work, I feel as if I have permission to open door after door, after door,” said T. Willie Raney.
"To have artistic license we only need the courage to throw out the conventions that restrict imagination and go beyond the chatter,” said Jill Vaughn. “What inspires us and feeds our soul? Maybe it is an artist's fresh look at what is already in front of us."
The Guilford Art Center is located at 411 Church Street in Guilford, CT. The exhibit is free and open to the public. Gallery hours are Monday through Saturday, 10am to 4pm and Sunday, 12pm to 4pm. For more information, visit www.galleryonect.com or contact us at galleryonect@gmail.com.
"Artistic License" Exhibition
March 22 – September 7, 2025 | Exhibition open Wednesday through Sunday from 10am to 4pm with free parking and admission EXCEPT Friday, April 18 (Good Friday); Saturday, April 19 (Holy Saturday); Sunday, April 20 (Easter); Saturday, June 7; and Friday, July 4 (Independence Day).
Separated by 2,781 miles and on two different continents, Iraqi and Nigerian Christians share similar stories of persecution. From 2014-2018, portions of Northern Iraq were under the control of the militant group Islamic State of Iraq and Syria (ISIS), and many religious minorities, including Christians, experienced persecution and violence as a result. In the northern and central portions of Nigeria, violence towards Christians and other minority groups has also increased in recent years at the hands of Boko Haram and other groups.
The Blessed Michael McGivney Pilgrimage Center is honored to share the stories of those displaced in Iraq and Nigeria through Among the Persecuted and Displaced — a collection of photographs taken by Stephen Rasche. The Knights of Columbus has sponsored some of Rasche’s work in both countries, bringing to light the atrocities inflicted on those persecuted for their faith.
Learn more: https://www.michaelmcgivneycenter.org/exhibits/among-the-persecuted-and-displaced/
Exhibit- Among the Persecuted and Displaced: Photographs from Iraq and Nigeria
Exhibition open Wednesday through Sunday from 10am to 4pm with free parking and admission EXCEPT Friday, April 18 (Good Friday); Saturday, April 19 (Holy Saturday); Sunday, April 20 (Easter); Saturday, June 7; Friday, July 4 (Independence Day); Thurday, November 27 (Thanksgiving); Wednesday, December 24 (Christmas Eve); and Thursday, December 25 (Christmas Day).
Many crèches, the three-dimensional representation of the Nativity scene, feature a diversity of settings and stable designs — the most common of which is an open-front wood structure. However, many artisans model their crèches after buildings and landscapes that are native to their homelands.
This exhibit includes a variety of crèches that showcase different examples of stables and mangers. In addition, it also highlights a handful of works whose settings have been customized for the figures they contain. One of these is the Neapolitan, which celebrates its 10th anniversary this year, by Cantone and Costabile of Naples, Italy. In addition, a brand-new crèche will be featured in this exhibit: The Nativity at New Haven's St. Mary’s Church, designed by US-based Navidad Nativities, Inc., with figures made in Italy by Original Heide.
Exhibit | Away in a Manger: The Creation of Nativity Scenes
Calling actors, writers, artists, and filmmakers. Join this free, hands-on, fast-paced, collaborative filmmaking experience. You’ll walk away with sharpened skills, new connections, and a wrapped short film. All levels of experience are welcome! You’ll meet other creatives, form teams, and by the end of the day, you’ll have made a short film.
What to expect:
- We start at 10 AM and the beginning is the most important part of the day. Even if you can’t stay for the whole event, be there at the start.
- No experience required. This is about building skills, having fun, and creating together. You may be paired with people at different skill levels, and that’s part of what makes it great!
- Driving to other locations may be required.
- How long does it last? The event runs until the films are done—but expect to stay for at least four hours. Just be sure to communicate to your team when you have to leave.
What to bring:
- Your ideas!
- Some simple camera, audio, or light gear, if you have it and want to use it (but it’s not required).
- Your own packed lunch, and snacks, or plan to grab food during the meal break. (Meals are not provided.)
Come be part of New Haven’s Filmmaking Day—let’s make movies together!
https://www.facebook.com/share/15MV3tLuWJ/?mibextid=wwXIfr
Hang Out & Film
New Haven, CT — "Once on This Island" is a captivating musical that tells the enchanting story of Ti Moune, a young girl from the Caribbean who embarks on a journey of love and self-discovery. Set against the backdrop of a vibrant island, the tale weaves together themes of hope, sacrifice, and the power of love, as Ti Moune defies social boundaries to pursue her heart's desire. With infectious rhythms and heartfelt melodies, this production invites audiences to experience the magic of storytelling through music and dance.
Once on this Island runs April 3rd - April 4th at New Haven Academy (444 Orange Street, New Haven, CT 06511). Performances take place Thursday and Friday at 7:35pm, and Saturday at 11:05am & 7:35pm. Appropriate for middle school students and above. The production features a full band of both NHPS students & professional musicians, all led by the incomparable Kevin James - NHPS Graduate (Music Director) and is choreographed by the incomparable - Ms. Carissa Kee - another NHPS graduate.
Tickets are $15 (adults) / $7 (students) IN ADVANCE and $20 (adults) / $7 (students) AT THE DOOR (there is a small service charge attached to all online orders). For more information visit www.nhadrama.org . To book tickets at Will Call, call our box office Monday - Friday 2:45pm - 7:00pm (203) 444-7269. To book online, visit www.nhadrama.org
Once on this Island
Explore the galleries with our free, self-guided activities, designed to help visitors look more closely at art and enjoy their time together in the museum. On hand are activity sheets, sketchbooks, and pencils, as well as felt and yarn kits that you can either bring into the galleries or take home. Stop by our table in the lobby, and try as many as you’d like!
Self-Guided Activities for Families and Friends
LAURA BARR | HERE AND THERE
Painting / Mixed Media
February 28-March 24, 2025 (Extended to April 7, 2025)
Bio
Laura Barr‘s work is distinguished by rich color, simplified form and light made material. Barr works in series, primarily in oil on canvas. She studied at Tufts University’s School of the Museum of Fine Arts, Boston. In addition to her BFA, she also holds a BA in Art History from Tufts University and studied at the Tyler School of Art in Rome, Italy.
Her work has been exhibited at Gallery Naga, Boston, MA, Prince Street Gallery, New York, NY, and other galleries in the northeast, including Kehler Liddell Gallery and the Ely Center of Contemporary Art in New Haven, CT, the Alexey von Schlippe Gallery, University of Connecticut at Avery Point, CT, and The Paul Mellon Art Center, Wallingford, CT. She is affiliated with 3 Walls Gallery, Brooklyn, NY, is an Associate Artist Member, Lyme Art Association, is a member of the New Haven Paint and Clay Club, and is an Elected Member, Connecticut Women Artists. Awards include Second Honorable Mention, New England Landscape, Lyme Art Association, 2023, New Haven Paint and Clay Club Active Member Memorial Award Honoring Emily Bett, 2023 and the Gantner Gallery Award, Essex Art Association, 2019. Her work is in many collections including Yale-New Haven Health Services, New Haven, CT, and The Shapiro Center for Writing, Wesleyan University, Middletown, CT.
Art Exhibition
Spring into Art at Susan Powell Fine Art
March 7 – April 26, 2025
Celebrate the changing season with Spring into Art, a breathtaking exhibition featuring works by twenty-five award-winning artists. This vibrant collection explores light in fresh and dynamic ways, offering unique perspectives across a variety of subjects, including landscapes, seascapes, still lifes, florals, and figurative works.
With each brushstroke, these talented artists push creative boundaries—refining, exploring, and redefining beauty in exciting new ways. Whether you're drawn to serene coastal scenes, rich floral compositions, or masterful figurative works, Spring into Art offers something for every art lover.
Participating artists include Thomas Adkins, Kathy Anderson, Del-Bourree Bach, Paul Batch, Paul Beebe, Zufar Bikbov, Kelly Birkenruth, Grace DeVito, David Dunlop, Laurie Flaherty, Vincent Giarrano, Brittany Haynes, Eric Jacobsen, Susan Jositas, Jim Laurino, Sarah Stifler Lucas, Jonathan McPhillips, Leonard Mizerek, Larry Preston, Deborah Quinn-Munson, Shauna Shane, Jeanne Rosier Smith, Kyle Stuckey, Katie Swatland, Laura Westlake, and Christopher Zhang.
The exhibition is on view through April 26, 2025. Visit us at Susan Powell Fine Art , open Tuesday–Saturday, 11 AM – 5 PM , or by appointment.
Susan Powell Fine Art - Spring into Art
This exhibition will be on view at the Yale Institute of Sacred Music’s Miller Hall at 406 Prospect Street, New Haven from March 27 - May 7 on Tuesdays, Wednesdays, and Thursdays from 12-4 p.m. View event site for full details.
Raised in the Eastern Orthodox faith, contemporary Bulgarian artist Svetlozar Parmakov is deeply familiar with its visual lexicon. Through his virtuosic, free-style draftsmanship he both references and reimagines Orthodox iconography, reclaiming its significance for a modern-day viewer. Parmakov applies his signature, free-style technique of hand-engraving and hand-coloring unglazed porcelain, a fine white ceramic material, to creating religious icons, paintings, and decorative vessels, all rendered with intricate detail and shimmering in muted silvers and golds.
In addition to the titular painting, Noah’s Garden, the exhibition features icons of Christ, the Virgin Mary, and saints such as St. George and St. Nicholas, paintings of natural scenes as well as bowls, platters, and vases with elaborate, allover geometric and vegetal patterns. Intimate in scale and meant to be appreciated up close, even handled, the works on view engage the senses, solicit sustained attention, and invite reflection. The delicately outlined and interlocking forms, together with the resplendent hues, recall stained-glass windows, but also a broader cross-cultural history of East-West artistic influences and exchange.
Parmakov’s art transcends time and technology further to draw on his homeland’s rich cultural heritage. His porcelain creations reactivate the magnificent ceramic production that flourished in the 9th and 10th centuries CE around the first two Bulgarian capitals of Pliska and Preslav located in the northeastern part of the country, where Parmakov spends his summers and fires his works. Besides their use for architectural ornamentation and luxury tableware, ceramics were utilized in the local icon painting tradition with ceramic icons ranging in size, shape, subject matter, and purpose. Through his choice of material and imagery, Parmakov recovers the splendor and impact of Bulgaria’s medieval decorative ceramic arts which have reached us largely in fragmentary state and gives us ways to encounter them whole again.
Artist’s Statement:
An enchanted world of porcelain, replete with filigree and fantasy. A dynamic, luminous space of plants, animals, and ornamental designs, all permeated by God’s presence. Works of art created through a unique process in a distinctive style, glowing in silver, gold, and platinum.
I would define my style as “decorative realism.” Ornamentation is foundational for my work, and I constantly expand and enrich my repertoire of decorative motifs. I seek to show that the ceramic medium transcends the applied arts, that it exists in the realm of the fine arts and that it can serve a spiritual purpose. I would be happy if the light with which my works are suffused touched the viewers’ souls.
-Svetlozar Parmakov, January 2025
Free and open to the public.
Exhibition curated by Liliana Milkova.
All are welcome to join us for an opening reception for this art exhibit on Wednesday,March 26 at 5 p.m.
We are excited to announce that the ISM will be linking its exhibitions to the Smartify app. The app is available as a free download from the App Store and Google Play, or you can access content through the Smartify webpage at app.smartify.org. The Smartify app will allow you to directly scan artworks that are on display, as well as QR codes that are placed around the exhibition, to receive more information. You will also be able to save your favorite artworks and share them to social media.
Contact: Anesu Nyamupingidza
Photo: Svetlozar Parmakov at work on Noah’s Garden (porcelain, 2025). Photo credit: Svetlozar Parmakov.
Noah’s Garden: The Porcelain Worlds of Svetlozar Parmakov
Photographer Phyllis Crowley asks CAN YOU FREE A MIND? in this new exhibit at City Gallery. Her latest collection of work will be on view from April 4 - April 27, with a Reception and Artist Talk on Sunday, April 6, 2 p.m. - 4 p.m. The artist will also be in the Gallery on Sunday, April 27 to meet with visitors and answer questions. City
Gallery is located at 994 State Street, New Haven, CT 06511. Gallery hours are
Friday - Sunday, 12 p.m. - 4 p.m., or by appointment. For more, contact City
Gallery, info@city-gallery.org, www.city-gallery.org.
CAN YOU FREE A MIND? — A Photographic Essay at City Gallery
Welcome our latest exhibition, A Breath, A Pause, An Eternity, a Collapse featuring the oil paintings of Lillian Bayley Hoover in the Workshop Gallery on view until April 27, 2025 in The Workshop Gallery, Building 3 of Ball & Socket Arts.
Regular Gallery Hours from 12-4 pm on Fridays, Saturdays, and Sundays.
Artist Statement:
My creative practice begins with encounters in the landscape, often bearing witness to human interventions there. Themes include human claims over the land, as well as the relationship between the built environment and what is considered by many to be “wild.” This work reflects an active landscape: a living participant in the events of our time, as well as a record of time itself. These paintings often look like photo collages, as competing visual languages and surfaces evoke the interruptions or barriers that mediate our connection with nature. On occasion, portions of the picture plane appear to be torn away or excised, drawn elements are partially obscured behind layers of clear gesso, or the surface is built up to create a subtle bas-relief before paint is applied. The result suggests an unstable world in which an alternate scene may be concealed behind the painted image.
These paintings probe the impact of human activity on "nature," what the record etched onto our planet's surface reveals, the ongoing processes by which planetary and biological systems shape one another, and how humanity's brief presence will reverberate into the future. My goal is to create accessible visual narratives that locate our moment within the broader context of “deep time,” encouraging viewers to consider our place in these larger systems and whether our estrangement from the natural world might arise from not considering ourselves within this framework.
This somewhat melancholy work serves as witness to a fraught moment in time. Part meditation, part metaphor, part elegy, these paintings channel the joy and despair which characterize our species’ precarity. In the face of humanity’s uncertain future, I hope this work will foster connection and fellowship for those who cherish our living earth.
About the Artist:
Lillian Bayley Hoover's work is in public collections including the Baltimore Museum of Art, Weatherspoon Art Museum (Greensboro, NC), and the DC Commission on the Arts and Humanities. She is the recipient of a Pollock-Krasner Grant, the Bethesda Urban Partnership's Trawick Award, multiple grants from the Maryland State Arts Council, a travel grant from Philadelphia’s Center for Emerging Visual Artists, and fellowships to attend residencies at Vermont Studio Center, Monson Arts Center, and Virginia Center for the Creative Arts. Her work has been featured on the cover of New American Paintings. She has had solo exhibitions at MoCA Arlington (Arlington, VA), Goya Contemporary (Baltimore, MD), BlackRock Center for the Arts (Germantown, MD), and VisArts (Rockville, MD), among other venues. Hoover holds an MFA from Maryland Institute College of Art and a BFA from University of North Carolina Asheville. She teaches at Towson University.
https://lillianhoover.com/home.html
Image features: this simple learning, by Lilliian Bayley Hoover
A Breath, A Pause, An Eternity, A Collapse: The Paintings of Lillian Bayley Hoover
Instructed by Annie Sailer
39 Putnam Ave, Hamden CT
Annie Sailer Adult Intermediate Dance Class
In this class learn to create layers of soft pastels to build up a recognizable image or object. Blocking in values from light to dark and understanding light to hard application on paper. In the beginning of class, simple still life set ups will be used i.e. two pieces of fruit in a bowl, etc. The light source and an investigation of color ranges that can be applied to any given object will also be explored. There will be demonstrations of techniques that will help all levels. Pastels are a wonderful opportunity for those who want to continue to hone their drawing skills with the new dimension of color. Finally, fixative spraying will be reviewed including how many layers are necessary. The last two classes will focus on one more complicated still life set up in an effort to create a completed piece of artwork. Material list available upon registration.
Chris Kunze graduated from Rhode Island School of Design with a BFA in Painting/Illustration. He has had a long & successful career in Advertising and Promotion. His illustrations and designs have been used in books, magazines, newspapers, product packaging and logo design.
Chris’ fine art has always remained important throughout his career as a commercial artist.
He has had many solo and group shows in New York City, Westchester County and lower Connecticut, showcasing his oil paintings, watercolors and illustrations. Chris was part of an ongoing show at the Arthur Kalaher Fine Art in Sag Harbor, NY from 2011-2019. In 2018 he had a solo show of his watercolors at Teatown Lake Reservation.
In 2019 Chris began his participation in Arthouse.NYC’s “Healthcare Heroes Show”.
He has memorialized several healthcare workers who lost their lives during the height of the Covid pandemic. These oil portraits were given to their families and were on view at the
Big Plaza Screen in New York City.
Teaching is a passion that has come to the forefront in the past 15 years for Chris. He has been teaching a plethora of subjects among them drawing, oil painting, watercolors, and more at local Westchester art schools. He is currently teaching at Scarsdale Adult School.
Chris grew up in Europe and Westchester County. He currently resides in Salem, Connecticut.
Introduction to Pastels
We welcome you into the studios of our Cohort 06 Fellows and our Tower residents for a glimpse of the work they are making at NXTHVN! Studios open, Saturday, April 5th and Sunday, April 6th, 1:00 - 5:00 p.m. Free and open to the public.
Youth & Family Program
Saturday, April 5, 2PM
Children and families are invited to participate in an activity related to the exhibition, All At Once | Reflected Through Glass.
All At Once | Reflected Through Glass Walkthrough
Sunday, April 6, 2PM
NXTHVN’s Curatorial Fellow Rigoberto Luna will be available in the gallery to talk to guests about his current exhibition, All At Once.
NXTHVN
169 Henry St.
New Haven, CT 06511
https://www.nxthvn.com/calendar/
hello@nxthvn.com
NXTHVN Open Studios / April 5th and 6th / 1 - 5 PM
Edgewood Afterschool Drama Club presents Willy Wonka, Jr. at Hill Regional Career High School April 4th, 5th, and 6th.
Tickets are available at edgewood-drama.ticketleap.com
Edgewood School Drama Club presents Willy Wonka, Jr.
Oscar-nominated filmmaker Raoul Peck’s Ernest Cole: Lost and Found is a 2024 documentary chronicling the life and work of Ernest Cole—one of the first Black freelance photographers in South Africa. Cole’s early pictures were shocking at the time of their first publication, revealing to the world Black life under apartheid. He fled South Africa in 1966 and lived in exile in the United States, where he photographed extensively in New York City as well as the American South, fascinated by the ways this country could be at times vastly different from, and at other times eerily similar to, the segregated culture of his homeland. During this period, he published his landmark book of photographs denouncing apartheid, House of Bondage, which, while banned in South Africa, cemented Cole’s place as one of the great photographers of his time, at the age of 27. After his death, more than 60,000 of his 35-millimeter film negatives, formerly thought to have been lost, were inexplicably discovered in a bank vault in Stockholm. Telling his own story through his writings, the recollections of those closest to him, and the lens of his uncompromising work, the film is a reintroduction of a pivotal Black artist to a new generation. Generously sponsored by Jane P. Watkins, M.P.H. 1979.
Offered in conjunction with the exhibition David Goldblatt: No Ulterior Motive. Exhibition co-organized by the Art Institute of Chicago and the Yale University Art Gallery, in collaboration with Fundación MAPFRE, Madrid.
Ernest Cole: Lost and Found (2024)
A Timeless Tribute to One of Music’s Most Beloved Duos! Join us April 5 for "We’ve Only Just Begun: The Music of the Carpenters” - featuring Marc Deaton, special guests and a jazz combo.
Following the huge success of his tributes to Burt Bacharach and Michel Legrand in 2023, and Freedom, the music of George Michael and Elton John in 2024, tenor Marc Deaton takes audiences on a nostalgic journey through some of the most cherished songs of the 1970s, featuring timeless classics like Close to You, Rainy Days and Mondays, and Superstar.
Tickets are $45 and available at madisonlyricstage.org.
We've Only Just Begun: The Music of The Carpenters
Come join us for an evening filled with laughter and wit. Comedian Crystal R. Emery debuts at the Bregamos Community Theatre! In Crystal's past life, she has been a filmmaker, storyteller, and a renowned speaker. This new book in her life starts her career as a stand-up comedian. On January 21, 2025 Michelle Buteau invited her to do an opening set for her show at the Bell House in Brooklyn, New York. Crystal captivated the audience with her humor, wit, and storytelling. Now, she is bringing her talents home to New Haven. Don't miss this evening of entertainment and laughter. Get your tickets today!
