The New Milford Farmers Market will be in the Parish Hall of St. John's Episcopal Church, 7 Whittlesey Avenue, New Milford.
NM WINTER FARMERS' MARKET
The Gunn Memorial Library Stairwell Gallery is pleased to present "Light, Color, and Mood," a solo show by Sergio Villaschi on display from November 30 through January 27.
In Light, Color, and Mood, Sergio Villaschi takes an artistic approach to photography, using light, color, and texture to create compelling still life and landscape images. Inspired by the mosaics and frescoes of his native Rome, Sergio's work blurs the line between traditional photography and fine art, giving each piece a distinct atmosphere and depth. His still life compositions are vibrant and layered, while his landscapes capture a quiet, serene quality.
Through techniques like "light painting" and Intentional Camera Movement, Sergio enhances his images with unique textures and moods. He invites viewers to see familiar subjects in a new way, with each photo offering a refined and thoughtful perspective.
Gunn Memorial Library Stairwell Gallery Presents: “Light, Color and Mood: A solo show by Sergio Villaschi”
The Litchfield Farmers Market is one of the few year-round markets in the Connecticut. The weekly Saturday market offers fresh seasonal produce, fruit, berries, herbs, sustainably sourced fish; artisanal cheeses, breads and baked goods, local honey, maple syrup and gifts - all raised, grown or crafted by 15+ local vendors.
The market occasionally hosts live music and supports non-profits from throughout the Litchfield area.
INDOOR MARKET - November through mid-June (intermittent Saturdays through the winter months -- check the website for dates.) Open Saturdays 10am - 1pm at the Litchfield Community Center located at 421 Litchfield Road, Litchfield, CT.
OUTDOOR MARKET - mid- June through October located at Center School, Litchfield.
Litchfield Farmers Market
“Cozy Up with a Good Book” Winter Reading Program, all ages, January 2 – March 20, 2025.
Stay warm this winter and Cozy Up with a Good Book in the Morris Public Library’s Winter Reading Program for all ages (January 2 – March 20, 2025). We explore various reading activities, new authors and genres in our reading journey this year.
Cross off the appropriate blocks in your Reading Card for each book you have read or listened to. One book may qualify for up to three categories (blocks). Return/e-mail your completed card by March 20 to qualify to win the Grand Cozy Prize. Reading Cards are available at the library or via morrispubliclibrary.net (starting January 2).
Have had an extra-cozy reading spree and completed several cards this winter? Enter more than one card into the drawing!
All reading levels have their own Reading Card and the Grand Cozy Prize!
Information: https://morrispubliclibrary.net or 860-567-7440.
"Cozy Up With a Good Book" Winter Reading Program
This three-session workshop will introduce innovative applications of smartphone photography. Uncover the secrets behind creative composition and explore a variety of photo editing techniques with any smartphone or tablet. Great for expanding your knowledge of the digital image and designed to address all levels of experience.
Instructor: Thaddeus Kubis
Saturdays, January 11, 18 & 25, 2025
10 AM - 1 PM
Ages: 15+
Members: $121.50
Non-Members: $135
Smartphone Photography
"Art4All": an exhibit of artworks on display that have been created by artists with special needs. This is a rare opportunity for them to share expressions of their imaginations and the world around them. The show presents a diverse collection of unique, beautiful pieces, ranging from works on paper to 3-D sculptures.
Artist George Manesoitis says, "Art helps me express my feelings and thoughts and relaxes my mind and body."
Nicolas Yurgaitis, another artist whose work will be exhibited says, "I enjoy trying new things, and i find that creating art in any form is very regulating for my neurodivergence and fun."
Artist Owen Haldin says, "I have stories in my head and i need to draw them."
"Art4All", an exhibit of work by artists with special needs
Drop-in between 10am and 2pm on Saturday to do some winter crafts!
Please register. Ages 2-12.
Winter Craft Day
Fun French Games and Conversation for Kids at the Gunn Library
The Gunn Memorial Library invites intermediate and advanced French-speaking children, ages 6-10, to join us for an hour of fun and interactive language practice! This engaging program combines games with French conversation, allowing young learners to improve their language skills while enjoying themselves.
Led by experienced facilitators, the session will encourage fluency, build confidence, and create a playful environment where kids can connect with fellow French speakers.
Don't miss this unique opportunity to immerse your child in the beauty of the French language. Registration is required—please visit our website to secure your spot! www.gunnlibrary.org/calendar/category/jrlib/2025-01/
Gunn Memorial Library Junior Program: Amusons-Nous!
The Cornwall Library is excited to begin its 2025 art shows with Hotspot, Kit White’s dramatic and innovative paintings prompted by recent California wildfires. As White worked on the paintings, his daughter in San Francisco was sending home vivid images of the lurid, smoke-filled air outside her taped-up windows. The paintings were his response to her apocalyptic scenario.
The show runs from January 11 until February 22 during normal library hours, except Mondays when the library is closed. The Artists Reception from 5 to 7 pm on January 11. Registration on the library website for the reception is requested.
Though at first the paintings can seem wholly abstract, close inspection reveals a black and white photograph of a wildfire embedded in each, creating a layered space that reveals itself slowly. The result is a startlingly eloquent reaction to the fire, and by extension to climate change.
The embedded image results from a unique process developed by the Eastman Company in Rochester. It begins with a digital photograph White manipulates and then transfers via inkjet printer onto a giant sheet of mylar. After White puts down a base layer of oil paint, he treats his canvas with a solution that lifts the photograph from the mylar onto the painted canvas. He then overlays the “ghost” image embedded in the painting with more oil paint. The effect is more akin to an 1860s-era glass plate photograph, with its imperfections, than to a crisp contemporary image, suggesting the porousness and mutability of memory.
White says “This particular method of working, with a spectral photo embedded in the painting, began with the Iran-Iraq war, when I started thinking that most people get their sense of the world from photographs, not direct experience. It seemed, then, that if I wanted to address the physical world, I had to acknowledge the role of photography in creating our sense of a place.”
Kit White is a New York-based artist and writer who studied Fine Arts at Harvard and was professor of Painting at the Pratt Institute for 21 years. He has had many solo exhibitions and his work is in the collections of museums including The Guggenheim Museum, The M, The Weisman Art Museum, The Johnson Art Museum, the Luther Brady Collection, (formerly, The Corcoran Museum), and others. In 1979, he received the Louis Comfort Tiffany Award for painting. He is the author of 101 Things to Learn in Art School and his work is the subject of a monograph, Kit White, Line Into Form, by critic Carter Ratcliff.
Hotspot
Show your support for our small local business by joining in the fun! Each day has a theme; participate for your chance to win a $50 BD Provisions gift card! Check our posts on social media (Facebook/Instagram) for more information!
Spirit Week at BD Provisions New Milford!
Every Saturday at 10:30am beginning 1/11
All ages welcome!
Saturday Storytime is BACK! Come to OWL for an all ages storytime in the children's room every Saturday at 10:30 then stay to play. In addition to our puppet theater, wooden blocks, and train set, we now have a dollhouse! We also have an ongoing Scavenger Hunt with a squishy prize for winners. During January our craft table is home to a GIANT coloring poster, as well as a special weekly craft for older children. And most importantly come in to browse our collection of print books, Nutmeg nominees, and Wonderbooks!
Saturdays at OWL–Stay to Play!
We are pleased to present our 2025 Winter Puppet Shows. Each of these shows are appropriate for all ages, though are designed for young children ages 4 and up. The shows start in the morning at 10:30 AM and last approximately 45 minutes with open-gym play time after the show until 12:00 PM.
Tickets are $10. Children under 2 are free.
Puppetry Festival - The Reluctant Dragon
Paintings by Amanda Acker, Sally Maca, and Melanie Parke
To everything turn, turn, turn
There is a season turn, turn, turn
And a time to every purpose under Heaven
A time to gain, a time to lose
A time to rain, a time of sow
A time for love, a time for hate
A time for peace, I swear it's not too late - The Byrds (excerpt)
It is December and we have moved inside for the winter. The birds have picked the garden clean of seeds, leaves have been raked, and firewood stacked against the promise of cold nights. We move inside to welcome quietude and time for reflection, planning for new growth and regeneration.
Amanda Acker moves through her daily environment with affection towards her surroundings. In her words, “I see a scene and I think, oh I see you. I feel some sort of attraction, understanding, or curiosity. Sometimes I make a sound... Oooooo, ahhhhh, hello. It is really that simple. I choose to make paintings because it is the way I acknowledge, process, learn, and move around the place where I live”.
Technically, Acker is trying to make the thing look like the thing. Not so much in a photographic sense, but in the way it is seen and evoked. “Oooooo ahhhhh.” How do you make the chair, but in paint? How do you paint the water falling from the hose? How does the tree interact with the neighboring tree? That is when the artists really start to notice things, and more things, and how she falls in love with the world.
Amanda Acker is a self-taught artist whose work has been widely exhibited (in sold out shows) in Michigan and in CT. She lives and works in Michigan.
Pastoral and bucolic still life settings emerge from Melanie Parke’s life. The tenderness of each painting evokes the artist’s fondness for domestic setting and mementos of friendship. Melanie Parke reconstructs familiar interiors and filters them through the ideology of memory. Her subjects often center on flowers, birds, decorative objects, gardens, and intimate interior settings with an intent in creating safe places for pleasure. Sentiment crafts a domestic locus and seeks visual lushness by alternating tonal moods and vivid ornamentation.
Painting is a pleasure-seeking process for Parke and abstraction a vehicle with which to think and begin. The artist sets up the space intuitively in broad and textured gestures, then pieces together arrangements to compose a homespun narrative. Specific interiors and landscapes are implied. Shifting the emphasis to pattern, texture and tone, Parke works to destabilize notions of exacting representation. This is an effort to build on a sensation of memory which conjures both comfort and longing.
The artist’s work is exhibited widely and is in collections throughout the United States. She has been a visiting artist at The American Academy in Rome three times, and an artist in residence at Borgo Finocchieto Invitational Residency, Tuscany, Italy, Heliker - LaHotan Foundation, Cranberry Isles, ME, Acadia National Park, ME, Yosemite National Park, CA, and Dorland Mountain Colony, CA. Parke earned a BFA from The School of the Art Institute of Chicago, Chicago, IL and studied at Herron School of Art, Indianapolis, IN. Parke lives and works in a contemporary studio in rural Michigan surrounded by orchards, meadows, and birds.
Sally Maca explores the daily changes in atmosphere and light and their transformational effect on familiar streetscapes and landscapes. The artist is dedicated to capturing the moment when the mundane becomes transcendent, a transition often created by the heaviness of a passing storm, the glow of a streetlamp, or an otherworldly sunset.
Maca’s subjects mostly hyperlocal landscapes, inspiration gleaned from daily walks or a glance out her front door. The artist explores the soft geometry in the angles of tree branches, or the horizon line and the hard-edged, manmade lines of roads and utility wires; these disparate elements are woven into lyrical compositions. Maca is not focused on a specific representation of a neighborhood or landscape, but in isolating the elements of a location to bring a universality to the painting, enough so that a viewer realizes that they too have experienced that same feeling, somewhere else, at another time.
The small scale of the paintings is central to the work; not only does the size invite close inspection but it evokes an intimacy with the painting.
Please contact Lani Holloway, Associate Director, Lani@kbfa.com, 860 560 3085 with inquires or to arrange a preview of the exhibition.
Inside for the Winter
From January 17 through February 7, the David M. Hunt Library in Falls Village (CT) will host “Home Sweet Home,” an exhibition of cigar box art by the students at Lee H. Kellogg School. Madeleine Stern, Kellogg School’s Art Instructor received one cigar box for each student at the school from David M. Hunt Library’s ArtWall program and set up workshops for each grade level to explore the theme of “home.” Stern said, “Depending on the student’s creative interests these turned out to be representations of their own home, a place where they feel at home, or an imaginative exploration of the idea.”
Kellogg Emerging Artists: Home Sweet Home @ Hunt Library
MIXMASTER is a comprehensive exhibition dedicated to uncovering and celebrating the diverse talents of its artist members who are based in New England and the Tri-State region.
MIXMASTER 2025: Juried Members’ Exhibition
Gordon Parks: Homeward to the Prairie I Come
Opening Celebration January 19
January 19, 2025 – March 30, 2025Homeward to the Prairie I Come showcases the work of Gordon Parks (1912-2006), a pioneering photographer, poet, filmmaker, musician, and composer. After becoming LIFE Magazine’s first Black staff photographer in 1948, Parks captured diverse images of life in the 20th century. Paired with his lesser-known works of poetry, this exhibition positions Parks within the history of art and provides a catalogue of his wide-ranging interests beyond documentary photography.
Gordon Parks: Homeward to the Prairie I Come
Knitting and crochet workshop tickets sold separately
Beginner Knitting Class 11:30-12:30pm
In this class, you will learn the basic stitches of knitting – the knit stitch and the purl stitch – as well as how to read a yarn label, how to read a knitting pattern, and more! - 5 weekly classes, 1 hour each
Beginner Crocheting Class 1:30-2:30pm
In this class, you will learn the 6 basic crochet stitches, how to start a project and end a project, how to read a yarn label , how to read a crochet pattern, and more!
- 5 weekly classes, 1 hour each
All materials and supplies will be provided at the 1st class at a $25 fee
KNIT & CROCHET WORKSHOPS
Start saving your cardboard for our upcoming Duct Tape Derby at the Charlene Besse Sledding Hill.
Sound weird? That's because it is! A "duct tape derby" is a competitive event where participants race down a hill on a sled or vehicle they built primarily using cardboard and duct tape, often with creativity in design being a key factor in judging. There will be prizes for best decorated sled, fastest time down the hill, and more. (pending snow) ALL AGES ARE ENCORAGED TO PARTICIPATE!❄️
Sign in is until 11:30am
Ages Groups:
5-17 starts at 12
18+ immediately after
Duct Tape Derby
Come enhance your art skills with us! In this art lesson, youth (ages 11- 18) can come join us in the classroom to learn how to use pastels as a medium and begin to practice with them. They will practice blending, layering, and mixing pastel paint sticks. Students with previous pastel experience are also welcome to join and use this as a place to practice. All supplies provided.
Intermediate Youth Art Workshop: Practicing Pastels
🎨 Full Spectrum Community Art Show 🌈
We're thrilled to announce Full Spectrum, an exciting open juried art show featuring incredible works by artists from across Connecticut and parts of New York! From stunning pastels and digital paintings to vibrant watercolors, fiber art, acrylic pours, and oil paintings, this exhibition celebrates the diversity and creativity of our artistic community.
🗓 Show Dates:
Friday, Jan 17 - Sunday, Feb 2
📍 Location: Gallery 25 & Creative Arts Studio, 11 Railroad St., New Milford, CT
🎉 Opening Reception:
Saturday, January 18 from 2-4pm
(With a snow date on January 19)
✨ Awards Announcement: 3:30pm
Join us for an afternoon of art, wine, light refreshments, and the chance to meet the talented artists behind the stunning pieces! This is a free event open to the public, and we can't wait to see you there. 🥂
⏰ Gallery Hours:
Friday & Saturday: 12-6pm
Sunday: 10-4pm
📞 Contact Info: 860-355-6009
💻 Visit us online at: gallery25ct.com
Follow us on Facebook & Instagram for updates and sneak peeks!
We look forward to celebrating art and creativity with you all! 🌟
Full Spectrum Community Art Show
Free, Donations Welcome
* Pre-registration encouraged.
Enjoy...
Ice Sculptor Games, Winter Hay Rides, Crafts, Food, Family Fun, Fireside Storytelling, Fire Pits and so much more!
Participating organizations:
OWL Library, Litchfield Community Services Fund,Litchfield Audobon, The Litchfield Historical Society, The Litchfield Lions Club, Litchfield Boy Scouts, Litchfield Candy Store, White Memorial CC, and many more!
Snow Date: Saturday Feb 1, 1-3 PM
Fire & Ice Fun Fest
Join our Spring Production of Dinosaurs Before Dark as an actor or crew member! Be a part of a wonderful children’s theater community to build skills from acting and singing to art and team work.
- Ages K - 8
- 30-minute production
- Acting, singing, dancing or set design/tech parts available
- No experience needed!
- Three performances: 3/28, 3/29, 3/30
- more details on our website!
Auditions: Falls Village Children's Theater Spring Production
Introduction to Bookbinding with Terry Tougas – A Hands-On Workshop!
Ready to dive into the creative world of bookbinding? Join Terry Tougas for an exciting 3-hour workshop where you’ll learn the art of crafting your own handmade book! Whether you're a beginner or experienced crafter, this class is designed to inspire and equip you with the skills to make beautiful, custom books.
Date & Time:
Saturday, January 25th
1:00 PM – 4:00 PM
Cost $40 (all materials included)
Registration is required at Gallery25CT.com or https://square.link/u/UWsM326G
In this hands-on class, Terry will guide you through the essential bookbinding techniques, including stitching and gluing, as you create your very own book. You'll leave with a finished project and the confidence to continue crafting on your own. With Terry’s expertise and easygoing teaching style, you’ll discover the joy of making something from scratch and connect with fellow creative minds.
This workshop is perfect for anyone curious about bookbinding—no experience needed, just bring your creativity! Spaces are limited, so reserve your spot today and get ready for an afternoon of learning, creating, and crafting with Terry Tougas.
Don’t miss this chance to unlock your creative potential!
Gallery 25 and Creative Arts Studio
New Milford Commission on the Arts
11 Railroad St., New Milford, CT 06776
860-355-6009 * gallery25ct.com
Open Friday & Saturday 12-6 and Sunday 10-4
Follow us on Facebook and Instagram Gallery 25 and Creative Arts Studio
Introduction to Bookbinding with Terry Tougas
Exhibition featuring : Matthew J. Best, Mark Buku, Stanwyck Cromwell, Vincent Dion, Lois Goglia, Mark Guglielmo, Sam Posey, John Simboli, Laura J. Stern and Lydia Viscardi.
Exhibition runs from January 10 - February 22, 2025.
Opening reception Friday, January 10 and Artist talk Friday February 7.
Pushing the Envelope
Unlock the skills to draw from life and consider ways in which you can see, think, and sketch. Discover the excitement that comes from drawing anything and everything. Designed for teens, this workshop will lay the groundwork for observational artmaking.
Instructor: Bryn Brunnstrom
Saturdays, January 18 & 25, 2025
1 - 4 PM
Ages: Teens
Members: $85.50
Non-Members: $95
Observational Drawing for Teens
Join us at the Library for refreshments with our current artist, Susan Grisell. Her exhibition A Visual Diary is on display until the end of February.
Art Reception with Susan Grisell
Marlene Deitrich said, “It’s the friends you can call up at 4 a.m. that matter.”
We all have those friends, the ones who understand you when you think no one will, who gently break your heart about love because you know they speak truth, the ones who pick leopard bras when all you want is a pink bow, who surprise you with an alligator in a garden, the ones who might talk you into a misdemeanor or two when necessary.
Becca, Tammy, and Kim are those kinds of 4 a.m. Friends, with humor and heart — the ties that bind. A myriad of iconic moments, people, and fashion from the 1970s onward propel these friends through six short plays as they fight, argue, support, and love through some of life’s most challenging hurdles, growing from their teens to their sixties.
The Table Reading Series is produced by Gracewell Productions.
Table Reading: 4 a.m. Friends
The library is hosting New Milford community agencies, such as the United Way, TheaterWorks, The Wheels Program, Housatonic Resources Recovery, Friends of New Milford Library, and more. These organizations will share their missions and information with the public. Come and learn about all the valuable resources New Milford has to offer and how you can help make our town a little better!
Global Community Engagement Day
Yarn Bomb Community Gatherings are taking place at Five Points Arts Center throughout the winter and spring - free and open to the public of all ages, skills and techniques welcome!
Wednesdays (weekly)
2 - 4 PM
Jan 8 - May 28
Saturdays
2 -4 PM
January 11 & 25
February 8 &22
March 8 & 22
April 12 & 26
May 10
Yarn Bomb Community Gatherings
To the galleries we go! For this art class, join a group as we sketch our way around the galleries. All experience levels are welcome to take part in this practice. We will begin by warming up with quick sketches of art in the galleries, and spend the rest of the session working on a close-up study of an art piece of your choice. All materials will be provided.
Sponsored by Linford & Mildred White Charitable Fund
Adult Art Workshop: Group Gallery Sketching
The David M. Hunt Library and the Falls Village/Canaan Historical Society are partnering for an evening of local trivia at the Center on Main on Saturday, January 25th from 5-7 pm. $5 per person to play, BYO food and drinks. Come test your knowledge about Falls Village. the Northwest Corner and Connecticut!
Local Trivia at the Center on Main
Women, Wine, & Wheel
Saturday, January 25th, 6:30-9:30PM
What could be more fun than a bunch of friends laughing and learning the pottery wheel?
This is a two-day course (plus a day for glazing) you will throw one piece of pottery on the wheel, & trim the base during the second visit. Your third visit you can glaze your piece at your leisure once it's out of the kiln where you get to pick your colors and make it unique and special,. BYOB and a snack to share if you'd like. $129 Each. Preregistration is required.
Needs a minimum of 4 people to run this class.
Village Center for the Arts
12 Main Street, New Milford, CT
(860) 354-4318
https://www.villagecenterarts.org/things-to-do-calendar
Women, Wine, & Wheel
Saturday, January 25th, at 7 PM, Center Line Duo are back at 2nd Home Restaurant/Lounge! It's been too long since they've been here, and we're thrilled to have them back again. Great music, drinks, food, and fun. Come down and enjoy!
For reservations call 860-238-4500 or email us at momanddad@2ndhomelounge.com
See our complete event list - https://2ndhomelounge.com/events/
Google Street View
https://goo.gl/maps/eC7A4ZDEjenNqzpb6
https://goo.gl/maps/NWGK4NRyk6MNfmWZ6
2nd Home Lounge
524 Main Street, Winsted
2ndhomelounge.com
Join our mailing list - https://2ndhomelounge.com/email-sign-up/
Center Line Duo at 2nd Home Restaurant/Lounge
"Talismans" – is an online art show of the objects, people or ideas which guide us.
Visual artist, video, music ands poetry.
Launches January 10
Personaland is an artist-driven global village transforming the world of art by using technology to bridge time zones and cultural boundaries. Our mission is to promote humanity, creativity, and community through a mix of entertainment, enchantment, and imagination.
Since its 2018 launch, Personaland, in its global reach, has showcased over 750 visual artists, filmmakers, musicians, and poets from 66 countries in 30 group art shows and 55 individual exhibitions, many with videos of artist profiles
Talismans
We are having a snowman building contest throughout our city! The rules are simple,
build your creation, give it a name, snap a photo, and email erin_demers@torringtonct.org! We made the time frame big (just in case snow is limited) so you will have plenty of time to get outside and get building.
All snow creations will be entered into each category.
We will have a public vote where everyone will be able to see all of the fantastic builds throughout Torrington! Get thinking and get building!
Snowman Building Contest Jan 26-Feb 7
Thomaston Restaurant Week is almost here and it’s your opportunity to try as many restaurants as your schedule allows for one incredibly low fixed price. Ever wonder about that restaurant you’ve heard about or driven by all those times? Thomaston Restaurant Week 2025 is your chance to give it a try at a reduced cost. This inaugural event is proudly organized by the 150th Anniversary Committee in partnership with Litchfield.co.
Thomaston Restaurant Week
Treat yourself to a day of creative expression and discovery! On Sunday, January 26, from 9am to 4pm, Whiting Mills artists Karann Schaller of Sunlight Artistry and Dana Rau, Author and Artist, are hosting Art Play Day. Sign up to enjoy a full day to play with art. Your registration includes:
*Two 2½-hour workshops
*Morning coffee, tea, and treats
*Art goody bag
*Lunch
*Time to chat, share, and reflect with fellow artists and attendees.
(Recommended for ages 14 and up.)
It’s sure to be an inspiring day. For details, visit http://www.danameachenrau.com/classes
or https://www.sunlightartistry.com/shop to read more and register.
Art Play Day
🎨 Full Spectrum Community Art Show 🌈
We're thrilled to announce Full Spectrum, an exciting open juried art show featuring incredible works by artists from across Connecticut and parts of New York! From stunning pastels and digital paintings to vibrant watercolors, fiber art, acrylic pours, and oil paintings, this exhibition celebrates the diversity and creativity of our artistic community.
🗓 Show Dates:
Friday, Jan 17 - Sunday, Feb 2
📍 Location: Gallery 25 & Creative Arts Studio, 11 Railroad St., New Milford, CT
🎉 Opening Reception:
Saturday, January 18 from 2-4pm
(With a snow date on January 19)
✨ Awards Announcement: 3:30pm
Join us for an afternoon of art, wine, light refreshments, and the chance to meet the talented artists behind the stunning pieces! This is a free event open to the public, and we can't wait to see you there. 🥂
⏰ Gallery Hours:
Friday & Saturday: 12-6pm
Sunday: 10-4pm
📞 Contact Info: 860-355-6009
💻 Visit us online at: gallery25ct.com
Follow us on Facebook & Instagram for updates and sneak peeks!
We look forward to celebrating art and creativity with you all! 🌟
Full Spectrum Community Art Show
August 15, 2024 – August 17, 2025
Celebrating the year-long loan of three Georgia O’Keeffe paintings, this exhibition unites the Mattatuck Museum’s collection with O’Keeffe’s life and work through common themes.
These unique spotlight exhibitions celebrate the year-long loan of three Georgia O’Keeffe paintings and will unite the Mattatuck Museum’s collection with O’Keeffe’s life and work through common themes, creating a unique dialogue between her work and other celebrated artists. Each unique pairing will be curated and narrated by a different member of the Museum’s curatorial department and offer a distinctive perspective on the Mattatuck Collection in relation to the works and story of Georgia O’Keeffe.
Exhibitions: O’Keeffe In Conversation
Paintings by Amanda Acker, Sally Maca, and Melanie Parke
To everything turn, turn, turn
There is a season turn, turn, turn
And a time to every purpose under Heaven
A time to gain, a time to lose
A time to rain, a time of sow
A time for love, a time for hate
A time for peace, I swear it's not too late - The Byrds (excerpt)
It is December and we have moved inside for the winter. The birds have picked the garden clean of seeds, leaves have been raked, and firewood stacked against the promise of cold nights. We move inside to welcome quietude and time for reflection, planning for new growth and regeneration.
Amanda Acker moves through her daily environment with affection towards her surroundings. In her words, “I see a scene and I think, oh I see you. I feel some sort of attraction, understanding, or curiosity. Sometimes I make a sound... Oooooo, ahhhhh, hello. It is really that simple. I choose to make paintings because it is the way I acknowledge, process, learn, and move around the place where I live”.
Technically, Acker is trying to make the thing look like the thing. Not so much in a photographic sense, but in the way it is seen and evoked. “Oooooo ahhhhh.” How do you make the chair, but in paint? How do you paint the water falling from the hose? How does the tree interact with the neighboring tree? That is when the artists really start to notice things, and more things, and how she falls in love with the world.
Amanda Acker is a self-taught artist whose work has been widely exhibited (in sold out shows) in Michigan and in CT. She lives and works in Michigan.
Pastoral and bucolic still life settings emerge from Melanie Parke’s life. The tenderness of each painting evokes the artist’s fondness for domestic setting and mementos of friendship. Melanie Parke reconstructs familiar interiors and filters them through the ideology of memory. Her subjects often center on flowers, birds, decorative objects, gardens, and intimate interior settings with an intent in creating safe places for pleasure. Sentiment crafts a domestic locus and seeks visual lushness by alternating tonal moods and vivid ornamentation.
Painting is a pleasure-seeking process for Parke and abstraction a vehicle with which to think and begin. The artist sets up the space intuitively in broad and textured gestures, then pieces together arrangements to compose a homespun narrative. Specific interiors and landscapes are implied. Shifting the emphasis to pattern, texture and tone, Parke works to destabilize notions of exacting representation. This is an effort to build on a sensation of memory which conjures both comfort and longing.
The artist’s work is exhibited widely and is in collections throughout the United States. She has been a visiting artist at The American Academy in Rome three times, and an artist in residence at Borgo Finocchieto Invitational Residency, Tuscany, Italy, Heliker - LaHotan Foundation, Cranberry Isles, ME, Acadia National Park, ME, Yosemite National Park, CA, and Dorland Mountain Colony, CA. Parke earned a BFA from The School of the Art Institute of Chicago, Chicago, IL and studied at Herron School of Art, Indianapolis, IN. Parke lives and works in a contemporary studio in rural Michigan surrounded by orchards, meadows, and birds.
Sally Maca explores the daily changes in atmosphere and light and their transformational effect on familiar streetscapes and landscapes. The artist is dedicated to capturing the moment when the mundane becomes transcendent, a transition often created by the heaviness of a passing storm, the glow of a streetlamp, or an otherworldly sunset.
Maca’s subjects mostly hyperlocal landscapes, inspiration gleaned from daily walks or a glance out her front door. The artist explores the soft geometry in the angles of tree branches, or the horizon line and the hard-edged, manmade lines of roads and utility wires; these disparate elements are woven into lyrical compositions. Maca is not focused on a specific representation of a neighborhood or landscape, but in isolating the elements of a location to bring a universality to the painting, enough so that a viewer realizes that they too have experienced that same feeling, somewhere else, at another time.
The small scale of the paintings is central to the work; not only does the size invite close inspection but it evokes an intimacy with the painting.
Please contact Lani Holloway, Associate Director, Lani@kbfa.com, 860 560 3085 with inquires or to arrange a preview of the exhibition.
Inside for the Winter
Gordon Parks: Homeward to the Prairie I Come
Opening Celebration January 19
January 19, 2025 – March 30, 2025Homeward to the Prairie I Come showcases the work of Gordon Parks (1912-2006), a pioneering photographer, poet, filmmaker, musician, and composer. After becoming LIFE Magazine’s first Black staff photographer in 1948, Parks captured diverse images of life in the 20th century. Paired with his lesser-known works of poetry, this exhibition positions Parks within the history of art and provides a catalogue of his wide-ranging interests beyond documentary photography.
Gordon Parks: Homeward to the Prairie I Come
MIXMASTER is a comprehensive exhibition dedicated to uncovering and celebrating the diverse talents of its artist members who are based in New England and the Tri-State region.
MIXMASTER 2025: Juried Members’ Exhibition
The Cornwall Library is excited to begin its 2025 art shows with Hotspot, Kit White’s dramatic and innovative paintings prompted by recent California wildfires. As White worked on the paintings, his daughter in San Francisco was sending home vivid images of the lurid, smoke-filled air outside her taped-up windows. The paintings were his response to her apocalyptic scenario.
The show runs from January 11 until February 22 during normal library hours, except Mondays when the library is closed. The Artists Reception from 5 to 7 pm on January 11. Registration on the library website for the reception is requested.
Though at first the paintings can seem wholly abstract, close inspection reveals a black and white photograph of a wildfire embedded in each, creating a layered space that reveals itself slowly. The result is a startlingly eloquent reaction to the fire, and by extension to climate change.
The embedded image results from a unique process developed by the Eastman Company in Rochester. It begins with a digital photograph White manipulates and then transfers via inkjet printer onto a giant sheet of mylar. After White puts down a base layer of oil paint, he treats his canvas with a solution that lifts the photograph from the mylar onto the painted canvas. He then overlays the “ghost” image embedded in the painting with more oil paint. The effect is more akin to an 1860s-era glass plate photograph, with its imperfections, than to a crisp contemporary image, suggesting the porousness and mutability of memory.
White says “This particular method of working, with a spectral photo embedded in the painting, began with the Iran-Iraq war, when I started thinking that most people get their sense of the world from photographs, not direct experience. It seemed, then, that if I wanted to address the physical world, I had to acknowledge the role of photography in creating our sense of a place.”
Kit White is a New York-based artist and writer who studied Fine Arts at Harvard and was professor of Painting at the Pratt Institute for 21 years. He has had many solo exhibitions and his work is in the collections of museums including The Guggenheim Museum, The M, The Weisman Art Museum, The Johnson Art Museum, the Luther Brady Collection, (formerly, The Corcoran Museum), and others. In 1979, he received the Louis Comfort Tiffany Award for painting. He is the author of 101 Things to Learn in Art School and his work is the subject of a monograph, Kit White, Line Into Form, by critic Carter Ratcliff.
Hotspot
Exhibition featuring : Matthew J. Best, Mark Buku, Stanwyck Cromwell, Vincent Dion, Lois Goglia, Mark Guglielmo, Sam Posey, John Simboli, Laura J. Stern and Lydia Viscardi.
Exhibition runs from January 10 - February 22, 2025.
Opening reception Friday, January 10 and Artist talk Friday February 7.
Pushing the Envelope
Come join us for a fun-filled evening at the Woodridge Lake Club House for a Friendraiser!
This is a great opportunity to :
- Learn about Goshen Community Care's programs and services
- Meet our board members, staff, and volunteers
- Learn how you can get involved in our work.
Light refreshments will be served. All are welcome!
Goshen Community Care Friendraiser
Date: Sunday, January 26
Time: 3:00 to 4:00 p.m.
Location: The Litchfield History Museum (7 South Street)
Cost: FREE
Registration Required - Space is limited
In conjunction with our upcoming exhibit “Litchfield Remembers: The American Bicentennial and Beyond”, the Litchfield Historical Society is excited to host a special conversation series that invites you to share your memories and reflect on the moments that have shaped our community.
The series begins on Sunday, January 26 at 3:00 p.m. for a conversation about Litchfield’s 1976 Bicentennial celebrations where community members are invited to share their stories and experiences of when Litchfield celebrated America’s 200th anniversary. The facilitated conversation will use photos taken during the town’s parades and festivities to help spark memories.
The conversations will be held at the Litchfield History Museum, 7 South St. Litchfield, CT. Please register in advance, as space is limited. The event is free, and donations are appreciated.
Upcoming sessions:
February 9 - Historic National Events
March 9 - Impactful Community Members
Litchfield Remembers: 1976 Bicentennial
Endowed by WSO’s Board Chair, Thomas C. Clark, through the enduring collaboration with Yale School of Music, WSO presents an award winning young artist chamber ensemble. Stay tuned for the announcement.
Waterbury Symphony Orchestra presents - Litchfield Series: Clark Chamber Concert
"Talismans" – is an online art show of the objects, people or ideas which guide us.
Visual artist, video, music ands poetry.
Launches January 10
Personaland is an artist-driven global village transforming the world of art by using technology to bridge time zones and cultural boundaries. Our mission is to promote humanity, creativity, and community through a mix of entertainment, enchantment, and imagination.
Since its 2018 launch, Personaland, in its global reach, has showcased over 750 visual artists, filmmakers, musicians, and poets from 66 countries in 30 group art shows and 55 individual exhibitions, many with videos of artist profiles
Talismans
We are having a snowman building contest throughout our city! The rules are simple,
build your creation, give it a name, snap a photo, and email erin_demers@torringtonct.org! We made the time frame big (just in case snow is limited) so you will have plenty of time to get outside and get building.
All snow creations will be entered into each category.
We will have a public vote where everyone will be able to see all of the fantastic builds throughout Torrington! Get thinking and get building!
Snowman Building Contest Jan 26-Feb 7
Thomaston Restaurant Week is almost here and it’s your opportunity to try as many restaurants as your schedule allows for one incredibly low fixed price. Ever wonder about that restaurant you’ve heard about or driven by all those times? Thomaston Restaurant Week 2025 is your chance to give it a try at a reduced cost. This inaugural event is proudly organized by the 150th Anniversary Committee in partnership with Litchfield.co.
Thomaston Restaurant Week
David Zinni is a longtime Southbury resident who began painting in 2018 after retiring from a career as a mechanical engineer. Always interested in painting, the opportunity to pursue the art came with his retirement. With no formal art education and a little studio training from local artists, Dave began working with acrylics and later oils. Dave’s technical background and love of nature led him to create realistic paintings with great detail. He finds his inspiration from the beauty of local landscapes, seascapes and wildlife. His works are based his own photography while hiking the local parks and land preserves. The exhibit is a collection of local landscapes and birds based on his many hikes and walks through scenic Southbury, Woodbury and Middlebury. His art has been featured in Southbury Makers Spotlight, at Southbury Library, Naugatuck’s Whitmore library and several charity auctions.
Instagram: @dajzinni_painting
“Hiking the Bury towns” Paintings by David Zinni
"Art4All": an exhibit of artworks on display that have been created by artists with special needs. This is a rare opportunity for them to share expressions of their imaginations and the world around them. The show presents a diverse collection of unique, beautiful pieces, ranging from works on paper to 3-D sculptures.
Artist George Manesoitis says, "Art helps me express my feelings and thoughts and relaxes my mind and body."
Nicolas Yurgaitis, another artist whose work will be exhibited says, "I enjoy trying new things, and i find that creating art in any form is very regulating for my neurodivergence and fun."
Artist Owen Haldin says, "I have stories in my head and i need to draw them."
"Art4All", an exhibit of work by artists with special needs
Live on Zoom:
Monday Scholars combines the best of online learning and engaging discussion!
Join us for the full 9-weeks or drop in to explore your favorite topics. Each week, we will watch two lectures together and then engage in lively conversation afterwards. The conversation will be facilitated by OWL's Caroline Ugurlu.
From its inception, the United States has been a maritime nation. Ever since the first use of sea power during the American Revolution, the growth, the trajectory, and the international standing of the United States has been deeply tied to its maritime role and its naval forces.
The story of the United States Navy offers essential perspectives on how the United States came to be, the unfolding of its history, the experiment of American democracy, and the nation’s transformation into a global superpower. Beyond all of this, the history of the US Navy is a spellbinding and deeply poignant human story—a chronicle of extraordinary commitment, ingenuity, valor, sacrifice, and patriotism, spanning the 250 years of its existence.
Your guide is Professor Craig L. Symonds of the US Naval Academy, a celebrated maritime historian who brings to the table astonishingly detailed and far-reaching knowledge of US naval history, coupled with a flair for engrossing storytelling.
11/18: British Origins & American Revolution
11/25: Early Navalists & War of 1812
12/09: Pirates of the Caribbean & Navy Expeditions
12/16: Civil War
12/23: Civil War continued & Spanish American War
12/30: Battleship Age, WW1, and WWII
01/06: WWII continued
01/13: WWII continued
01/20: Hyman Rickover and the Nuclear Navy &The Gulf of Tonkin and War in Vietnam
01/27: How the Navy Reformed After Vietnam & Projecting Naval Power in the Middle East
02/03: America's 21st-Century Missions at Sea & China's Threats to US Naval Supremacy
More about the Professor: Craig L. Symonds is a Professor Emeritus of History at the US Naval Academy and a former Ernest J. King Distinguished Professor of Maritime History at the US Naval War College. He earned a PhD in History from the University of Florida and is the author or editor of more than two dozen books. His book Decision at Sea: Five Naval Battles That Shaped American History won the Theodore and Franklin D. Roosevelt Prize in Naval History. He also wrote Lincoln and His Admirals: Abraham Lincoln, the U.S. Navy, and the Civil War, which won several awards.
Monday Scholars: The History of the U.S. Navy from its Origins through the Korean War
Start your week with some after-school fun! Join us for Monday Afternoon Gaming at the library every Monday from January 6th to March 31st, 3:30 to 4:30 PM.
Students in grades 4 and up can play Nintendo Switch games from our collection, including:
- FIFA – Kick off the fun with exciting soccer matches.
- Mario Kart – Race your friends and leave them in the dust.
- Pokémon – Catch ‘em all and explore the Pokémon universe.
- Kirby – Team up with Kirby for colorful adventures.
- Sonic – Speed through levels with Sonic and friends.
- Mario Party – Challenge your friends to mini-game madness.
…and so much more!
With a variety of games to choose from, there’s something for everyone. It’s the perfect way to unwind, have fun, and connect with friends after school.
Space is limited, and registration is required, so be sure to sign up early!
Please sign up on our website - https://www.gunnlibrary.org/series/monday-afternoon-gaming-grades-4-up/
Monday Afternoon Gaming (Grades 4 & Up)
Frank Tosto creates local and NYC scenes using graphite and colored pencil. Don't miss this wonderful, innovative art show.
Frank Tosto Art Show
We've got a new group starting up! Make & Mingle Mondays is a hobby group for people of all ages to join together twice a month to share their current hobbies and crafts. No need to register beforehand, drop ins welcome!
All hobbies are welcome to participate
5:30-7:30pm on the 2nd and 4th Monday of the month (except holidays)
Torrington Armory Kitchen
Make & Mingle Mondays
"Talismans" – is an online art show of the objects, people or ideas which guide us.
Visual artist, video, music ands poetry.
Launches January 10
Personaland is an artist-driven global village transforming the world of art by using technology to bridge time zones and cultural boundaries. Our mission is to promote humanity, creativity, and community through a mix of entertainment, enchantment, and imagination.
Since its 2018 launch, Personaland, in its global reach, has showcased over 750 visual artists, filmmakers, musicians, and poets from 66 countries in 30 group art shows and 55 individual exhibitions, many with videos of artist profiles
Talismans
We are having a snowman building contest throughout our city! The rules are simple,
build your creation, give it a name, snap a photo, and email erin_demers@torringtonct.org! We made the time frame big (just in case snow is limited) so you will have plenty of time to get outside and get building.
All snow creations will be entered into each category.
We will have a public vote where everyone will be able to see all of the fantastic builds throughout Torrington! Get thinking and get building!
Snowman Building Contest Jan 26-Feb 7
Thomaston Restaurant Week is almost here and it’s your opportunity to try as many restaurants as your schedule allows for one incredibly low fixed price. Ever wonder about that restaurant you’ve heard about or driven by all those times? Thomaston Restaurant Week 2025 is your chance to give it a try at a reduced cost. This inaugural event is proudly organized by the 150th Anniversary Committee in partnership with Litchfield.co.
Thomaston Restaurant Week
David Zinni is a longtime Southbury resident who began painting in 2018 after retiring from a career as a mechanical engineer. Always interested in painting, the opportunity to pursue the art came with his retirement. With no formal art education and a little studio training from local artists, Dave began working with acrylics and later oils. Dave’s technical background and love of nature led him to create realistic paintings with great detail. He finds his inspiration from the beauty of local landscapes, seascapes and wildlife. His works are based his own photography while hiking the local parks and land preserves. The exhibit is a collection of local landscapes and birds based on his many hikes and walks through scenic Southbury, Woodbury and Middlebury. His art has been featured in Southbury Makers Spotlight, at Southbury Library, Naugatuck’s Whitmore library and several charity auctions.
Instagram: @dajzinni_painting
“Hiking the Bury towns” Paintings by David Zinni
“Cozy Up with a Good Book” Winter Reading Program, all ages, January 2 – March 20, 2025.
Stay warm this winter and Cozy Up with a Good Book in the Morris Public Library’s Winter Reading Program for all ages (January 2 – March 20, 2025). We explore various reading activities, new authors and genres in our reading journey this year.
Cross off the appropriate blocks in your Reading Card for each book you have read or listened to. One book may qualify for up to three categories (blocks). Return/e-mail your completed card by March 20 to qualify to win the Grand Cozy Prize. Reading Cards are available at the library or via morrispubliclibrary.net (starting January 2).
Have had an extra-cozy reading spree and completed several cards this winter? Enter more than one card into the drawing!
All reading levels have their own Reading Card and the Grand Cozy Prize!
Information: https://morrispubliclibrary.net or 860-567-7440.
"Cozy Up With a Good Book" Winter Reading Program
Connect with fellow clay enthusiasts in this handbuilding workshop custom designed to address all levels of experience. Practice essential techniques in coil building, pinch pots, slab construction, and surface decoration to develop your own unique style.
Instructor: Alice Pulliam
Tuesdays, January 14, 21, 28, February 4, 11, 18, 25 & March 4, 2025
10 AM - 1 PM
Ages: 18+
Members: $360
Non-Members: $400
Handbuilding Clay Creations
The Cornwall Library is excited to begin its 2025 art shows with Hotspot, Kit White’s dramatic and innovative paintings prompted by recent California wildfires. As White worked on the paintings, his daughter in San Francisco was sending home vivid images of the lurid, smoke-filled air outside her taped-up windows. The paintings were his response to her apocalyptic scenario.
The show runs from January 11 until February 22 except Mondays, when the library is closed. The Artists Reception from 5 to 7 pm on January 11. Registration on the library website for the reception is requested.
Though at first the paintings can seem wholly abstract, close inspection reveals a black and white photograph of a wildfire embedded in each, creating a layered space that reveals itself slowly. The result is a startlingly eloquent reaction to the fire, and by extension to climate change.
The embedded image results from a unique process developed by the Eastman Company in Rochester. It begins with a digital photograph White manipulates and then transfers via inkjet printer onto a giant sheet of mylar. After White puts down a base layer of oil paint, he treats his canvas with a solution that lifts the photograph from the mylar onto the painted canvas. He then overlays the “ghost” image embedded in the painting with more oil paint. The effect is more akin to an 1860s-era glass plate photograph, with its imperfections, than to a crisp contemporary image, suggesting the porousness and mutability of memory.
White says “This particular method of working, with a spectral photo embedded in the painting, began with the Iran-Iraq war, when I started thinking that most people get their sense of the world from photographs, not direct experience. It seemed, then, that if I wanted to address the physical world, I had to acknowledge the role of photography in creating our sense of a place.”
Kit White is a New York-based artist and writer who studied Fine Arts at Harvard and was professor of Painting at the Pratt Institute for 21 years. He has had many solo exhibitions and his work is in the collections of museums including The Guggenheim Museum, The M, The Weisman Art Museum, The Johnson Art Museum, the Luther Brady Collection, (formerly, The Corcoran Museum), and others. In 1979, he received the Louis Comfort Tiffany Award for painting. He is the author of 101 Things to Learn in Art School and his work is the subject of a monograph, Kit White, Line Into Form, by critic Carter Ratcliff.
Hotspot
The Morris Public Library offers Story and Music Time for participants ages 9 mo. - 5 y.o every Tuesday at 10 am.
Please call to ask if a spot is available: 860-567-7440.
Sing songs, read a story, do a craft!
Story and Music Time
Community members are invited to stop by the library between 11 am and noon each Tuesday for a cup of coffee and a chat with their neighbors.
Coffee and Conversation
MIXMASTER is a comprehensive exhibition dedicated to uncovering and celebrating the diverse talents of its artist members who are based in New England and the Tri-State region.
MIXMASTER 2025: Juried Members’ Exhibition
Gordon Parks: Homeward to the Prairie I Come
Opening Celebration January 19
January 19, 2025 – March 30, 2025Homeward to the Prairie I Come showcases the work of Gordon Parks (1912-2006), a pioneering photographer, poet, filmmaker, musician, and composer. After becoming LIFE Magazine’s first Black staff photographer in 1948, Parks captured diverse images of life in the 20th century. Paired with his lesser-known works of poetry, this exhibition positions Parks within the history of art and provides a catalogue of his wide-ranging interests beyond documentary photography.
Gordon Parks: Homeward to the Prairie I Come
The Gunn Museum and Makerspace present a series of craft workshops inspired by artifacts from the Museum's collections. These hands-on workshops blend creativity, history, and art, providing participants with a unique learning experience.
January: Wood Block Stamp Carving with CNC Machines
In January, participants will step into wood carving, using the Makerspace’s CNC machine to design and create their own wood block stamps. Drawing inspiration from the work of Washington’s own Herbert Faulkner, a renowned painter and wood carver, participants will craft personalized stamps to embellish tote bags, coasters, or note card sets. It's a perfect way to explore art and craftsmanship while connecting with local history!
This program is offered to adults 18 and older. Registration is required for each session. Please visit www.gunnlibrary.org/calendar to sign up!
Gunn Memorial Library Makerspace and Museum Adult Program - Crafting History: Wood Block Stamp Carving with CNC Machine
Frank Tosto creates local and NYC scenes using graphite and colored pencil. Don't miss this wonderful, innovative art show.
Frank Tosto Art Show
Children will explore with paint, oil pastels, clay and other medium to create their own masterpieces. They will complete and take home a different art project each week!
Requirements:
Clothes that you don't mind getting paint on!
Coordinator:
Roberta Baker
Crafty Art for Kids
Three town libraries - Roxbury, Bridgewater, and Washington - collaborate to present you with two sessions: Introduction to AI with Mary McPheat.
Online event (Zoom link is provided when you register on our website)
To register, visit any three libraries' websites:
*Minor Memorial Library @ www.minormemoriallibrary.org
*Gunn Memorial Library @ www.gunnlibrary.org/
*Burnham Library @ www.burnhamlibrary.org/
Session #1: Concepts, Demos, and Safety
January 28, 2025, 6:00-7:30 PM
This session will briefly introduce artificial intelligence in just 60 minutes, covering key concepts, generative AI, and privacy considerations. It features demos to help you grasp the technology's power and hopefully spark some creative thinking about its possibilities.
Session #2: Making Use of AI in Your Business
February 25, 2025, 6:00-7:30 PM
This session provides an overview of Artificial Intelligence (AI), its capabilities, and its practical business applications. Participants will learn about the AI landscape, explore various tools and platforms, and understand how AI can support businesses in growth and efficiency.
BIO: Mary McPheat is recognized for her strategic insight into enhancing operational workflows and ability to harness technology to improve organizational performance. As Founder and CEO of Grounded Logic, a firm focused on operational excellence and integrating generative AI and tech-enabled solutions, she elevates team dynamics and business delivery standards. In addition to leading Grounded Logic, Mary imparts her knowledge by teaching and guiding students to navigate and apply AI in modern
Gunn Memorial Library - Intro to AI
The Popular Book Club will meet at the Morris Public Library on Tuesday, January 28, and 6:30 PM to discuss the timeless classic "The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn" by Mark Twain.
After he and his good buddy Tom Sawyer had uncovered a small fortune, Huckleberry Finn finds himself restrained by the demands of an overbearing guardian. Never one to be confined by the proprieties of society, Huck bolts from this dull life in pursuit of a more exciting and mischievous life.
Witty and poignant, The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn is often cited as the preeminent “Great American Novel.” So join this willful vagabond as he sails down the Mighty Mississippi and discovers one thrilling adventure followed by another.
E-book and e-audio are available via Libby app.
New registrations and book requests: 860-567-7440 or https://morrispubliclibrary.net/library-calendar-event.../
Popular Book Club
Join our Fun Fiction Book Club. The pick for the month is Kiss the Girl by Zoraida Cordova. Stop by the circulation desk for a copy or listen to the audiobook on Hoopla.
Fun Fiction Book Club
"Talismans" – is an online art show of the objects, people or ideas which guide us.
Visual artist, video, music ands poetry.
Launches January 10
Personaland is an artist-driven global village transforming the world of art by using technology to bridge time zones and cultural boundaries. Our mission is to promote humanity, creativity, and community through a mix of entertainment, enchantment, and imagination.
Since its 2018 launch, Personaland, in its global reach, has showcased over 750 visual artists, filmmakers, musicians, and poets from 66 countries in 30 group art shows and 55 individual exhibitions, many with videos of artist profiles
Talismans
We are having a snowman building contest throughout our city! The rules are simple,
build your creation, give it a name, snap a photo, and email erin_demers@torringtonct.org! We made the time frame big (just in case snow is limited) so you will have plenty of time to get outside and get building.
All snow creations will be entered into each category.
We will have a public vote where everyone will be able to see all of the fantastic builds throughout Torrington! Get thinking and get building!
Snowman Building Contest Jan 26-Feb 7
Thomaston Restaurant Week is almost here and it’s your opportunity to try as many restaurants as your schedule allows for one incredibly low fixed price. Ever wonder about that restaurant you’ve heard about or driven by all those times? Thomaston Restaurant Week 2025 is your chance to give it a try at a reduced cost. This inaugural event is proudly organized by the 150th Anniversary Committee in partnership with Litchfield.co.
Thomaston Restaurant Week
David Zinni is a longtime Southbury resident who began painting in 2018 after retiring from a career as a mechanical engineer. Always interested in painting, the opportunity to pursue the art came with his retirement. With no formal art education and a little studio training from local artists, Dave began working with acrylics and later oils. Dave’s technical background and love of nature led him to create realistic paintings with great detail. He finds his inspiration from the beauty of local landscapes, seascapes and wildlife. His works are based his own photography while hiking the local parks and land preserves. The exhibit is a collection of local landscapes and birds based on his many hikes and walks through scenic Southbury, Woodbury and Middlebury. His art has been featured in Southbury Makers Spotlight, at Southbury Library, Naugatuck’s Whitmore library and several charity auctions.
Instagram: @dajzinni_painting
“Hiking the Bury towns” Paintings by David Zinni
“Cozy Up with a Good Book” Winter Reading Program, all ages, January 2 – March 20, 2025.
Stay warm this winter and Cozy Up with a Good Book in the Morris Public Library’s Winter Reading Program for all ages (January 2 – March 20, 2025). We explore various reading activities, new authors and genres in our reading journey this year.
Cross off the appropriate blocks in your Reading Card for each book you have read or listened to. One book may qualify for up to three categories (blocks). Return/e-mail your completed card by March 20 to qualify to win the Grand Cozy Prize. Reading Cards are available at the library or via morrispubliclibrary.net (starting January 2).
Have had an extra-cozy reading spree and completed several cards this winter? Enter more than one card into the drawing!
All reading levels have their own Reading Card and the Grand Cozy Prize!
Information: https://morrispubliclibrary.net or 860-567-7440.
"Cozy Up With a Good Book" Winter Reading Program
"Art4All": an exhibit of artworks on display that have been created by artists with special needs. This is a rare opportunity for them to share expressions of their imaginations and the world around them. The show presents a diverse collection of unique, beautiful pieces, ranging from works on paper to 3-D sculptures.
Artist George Manesoitis says, "Art helps me express my feelings and thoughts and relaxes my mind and body."
Nicolas Yurgaitis, another artist whose work will be exhibited says, "I enjoy trying new things, and i find that creating art in any form is very regulating for my neurodivergence and fun."
Artist Owen Haldin says, "I have stories in my head and i need to draw them."
"Art4All", an exhibit of work by artists with special needs
Wednesdays at 10:30am : January 8,15, 22, 29
Perfect for up to 36 months, but fun for everyone!
Lots of rhymes, a sprinkling of songs, and one or two shared board books round out this library program that is perfect for little ones who need to get those wiggles out. Stay to play! After the rhymes, stay for some unstructured play time with other kiddos.
Rhyme Time & Playgroup
MIXMASTER is a comprehensive exhibition dedicated to uncovering and celebrating the diverse talents of its artist members who are based in New England and the Tri-State region.
MIXMASTER 2025: Juried Members’ Exhibition
Gordon Parks: Homeward to the Prairie I Come
Opening Celebration January 19
January 19, 2025 – March 30, 2025Homeward to the Prairie I Come showcases the work of Gordon Parks (1912-2006), a pioneering photographer, poet, filmmaker, musician, and composer. After becoming LIFE Magazine’s first Black staff photographer in 1948, Parks captured diverse images of life in the 20th century. Paired with his lesser-known works of poetry, this exhibition positions Parks within the history of art and provides a catalogue of his wide-ranging interests beyond documentary photography.
Gordon Parks: Homeward to the Prairie I Come
The Cornwall Library is excited to begin its 2025 art shows with Hotspot, Kit White’s dramatic and innovative paintings prompted by recent California wildfires. As White worked on the paintings, his daughter in San Francisco was sending home vivid images of the lurid, smoke-filled air outside her taped-up windows. The paintings were his response to her apocalyptic scenario.
The show runs from January 11 until February 22 during normal library hours, except Mondays when the library is closed. The Artists Reception from 5 to 7 pm on January 11. Registration on the library website for the reception is requested.
Though at first the paintings can seem wholly abstract, close inspection reveals a black and white photograph of a wildfire embedded in each, creating a layered space that reveals itself slowly. The result is a startlingly eloquent reaction to the fire, and by extension to climate change.
The embedded image results from a unique process developed by the Eastman Company in Rochester. It begins with a digital photograph White manipulates and then transfers via inkjet printer onto a giant sheet of mylar. After White puts down a base layer of oil paint, he treats his canvas with a solution that lifts the photograph from the mylar onto the painted canvas. He then overlays the “ghost” image embedded in the painting with more oil paint. The effect is more akin to an 1860s-era glass plate photograph, with its imperfections, than to a crisp contemporary image, suggesting the porousness and mutability of memory.
White says “This particular method of working, with a spectral photo embedded in the painting, began with the Iran-Iraq war, when I started thinking that most people get their sense of the world from photographs, not direct experience. It seemed, then, that if I wanted to address the physical world, I had to acknowledge the role of photography in creating our sense of a place.”
Kit White is a New York-based artist and writer who studied Fine Arts at Harvard and was professor of Painting at the Pratt Institute for 21 years. He has had many solo exhibitions and his work is in the collections of museums including The Guggenheim Museum, The M, The Weisman Art Museum, The Johnson Art Museum, the Luther Brady Collection, (formerly, The Corcoran Museum), and others. In 1979, he received the Louis Comfort Tiffany Award for painting. He is the author of 101 Things to Learn in Art School and his work is the subject of a monograph, Kit White, Line Into Form, by critic Carter Ratcliff.
Hotspot
Exhibition featuring : Matthew J. Best, Mark Buku, Stanwyck Cromwell, Vincent Dion, Lois Goglia, Mark Guglielmo, Sam Posey, John Simboli, Laura J. Stern and Lydia Viscardi.
Exhibition runs from January 10 - February 22, 2025.
Opening reception Friday, January 10 and Artist talk Friday February 7.
Pushing the Envelope
$5 Per Person, Waterbury public school, magnet school, and charter school students get in FREE
Hang out with your friends, try a relaxing craft, get creative with graphic design, or chill on a beanbag! All teens aged 13-18 are welcome, with supplies and snacks provided.
To pre-register please call (203) 753-0381, extension 130
Support provided by United Way of Greater Waterbury and Elisha Leavenworth Foundation. .
Teen Time
Three One Acts written by Mikayla Delos- Santos one of our finalists in the Tales from the Brookside Playwright Competition. Students will learn scene study and fine tine their acting skills. Limited space available. Showcase performance March 19th. Ages 9 10 18
TWKids Winter Workshop - Exploring One Act Short Plays
Join us at Howard's Bookstore for a weekly poetry group. Come through and share poems, just listen, or spend time writing.
Every Wednesday 6PM-7PM
Poetry Group
Beginner Crocheting Class
- Come learn in a class designed just for you…a beginner!! You will learn the 6 basic crochet stitches, how to start a project and end a project, how to read a yarn label so you can buy yarn on your own after classes end, how to read a crochet pattern, and more!
- 6 weekly classes, 1.5 hours each
- All materials and supplies will be provided at the 1st class
- Requirements: None
Instructor: Andrea Dener
Instructor Bio: My name is Andrea Dener and I call myself The Yarn Farmer because I love knitting and crocheting fun items inspired by the farm and food...like carrot scarves, pumpkin hats, and chicken coasters!
I've been knitting and crocheting since I was 10 years old and love both crafts but LOVE TEACHING THEM EVEN MORE so I became certified to teach both by the Craft Yarn Council of America!
I look forward to bringing out the 'inner knitter' and 'inner crocheter' in you!
Beginner Crocheting Class
Your long-awaited local open mic at Howard's is here!
Kicks off after Poetry Group
Weekly, Wednesdays 7pm - ???
CALLING ALL SINGERS AND SONGWRITERS!
Saddle up and come to town with your original music to share with lovers and listeners.
Acoustic acts are encouraged, but all instruments and genres are welcome.
If you have any questions about gear, etc, dm us here or reach out to John ( 860-560-3688 )
Kick back and feel welcome to bring or order in grub from around town.
Support small business while supporting small artists in “nobody’s cafe!”
No cover - free event.
No drugs or drinking please. Thank ya!
Open Mic
"Talismans" – is an online art show of the objects, people or ideas which guide us.
Visual artist, video, music ands poetry.
Launches January 10
Personaland is an artist-driven global village transforming the world of art by using technology to bridge time zones and cultural boundaries. Our mission is to promote humanity, creativity, and community through a mix of entertainment, enchantment, and imagination.
Since its 2018 launch, Personaland, in its global reach, has showcased over 750 visual artists, filmmakers, musicians, and poets from 66 countries in 30 group art shows and 55 individual exhibitions, many with videos of artist profiles
Talismans
We are having a snowman building contest throughout our city! The rules are simple,
build your creation, give it a name, snap a photo, and email erin_demers@torringtonct.org! We made the time frame big (just in case snow is limited) so you will have plenty of time to get outside and get building.
All snow creations will be entered into each category.
We will have a public vote where everyone will be able to see all of the fantastic builds throughout Torrington! Get thinking and get building!
Snowman Building Contest Jan 26-Feb 7
Thomaston Restaurant Week is almost here and it’s your opportunity to try as many restaurants as your schedule allows for one incredibly low fixed price. Ever wonder about that restaurant you’ve heard about or driven by all those times? Thomaston Restaurant Week 2025 is your chance to give it a try at a reduced cost. This inaugural event is proudly organized by the 150th Anniversary Committee in partnership with Litchfield.co.
Thomaston Restaurant Week
David Zinni is a longtime Southbury resident who began painting in 2018 after retiring from a career as a mechanical engineer. Always interested in painting, the opportunity to pursue the art came with his retirement. With no formal art education and a little studio training from local artists, Dave began working with acrylics and later oils. Dave’s technical background and love of nature led him to create realistic paintings with great detail. He finds his inspiration from the beauty of local landscapes, seascapes and wildlife. His works are based his own photography while hiking the local parks and land preserves. The exhibit is a collection of local landscapes and birds based on his many hikes and walks through scenic Southbury, Woodbury and Middlebury. His art has been featured in Southbury Makers Spotlight, at Southbury Library, Naugatuck’s Whitmore library and several charity auctions.
Instagram: @dajzinni_painting
“Hiking the Bury towns” Paintings by David Zinni
“Cozy Up with a Good Book” Winter Reading Program, all ages, January 2 – March 20, 2025.
Stay warm this winter and Cozy Up with a Good Book in the Morris Public Library’s Winter Reading Program for all ages (January 2 – March 20, 2025). We explore various reading activities, new authors and genres in our reading journey this year.
Cross off the appropriate blocks in your Reading Card for each book you have read or listened to. One book may qualify for up to three categories (blocks). Return/e-mail your completed card by March 20 to qualify to win the Grand Cozy Prize. Reading Cards are available at the library or via morrispubliclibrary.net (starting January 2).
Have had an extra-cozy reading spree and completed several cards this winter? Enter more than one card into the drawing!
All reading levels have their own Reading Card and the Grand Cozy Prize!
Information: https://morrispubliclibrary.net or 860-567-7440.
"Cozy Up With a Good Book" Winter Reading Program
Bring your little ones to Bouncing Babies at the Gunn Memorial Library for a developmentally stimulating and emotionally rewarding program with Miss Denise. It is perfect for children from birth to two years old, and their caregivers and siblings of all ages are welcome to join in the fun!
Spend 30 minutes with us, singing songs, sharing stories, and learning together. Our engaging activities will introduce and reinforce essential skills like name recognition, sign language, counting, and more! Stick around afterward for unstructured playtime, where kids and caregivers can socialize.
Don't miss this joyful gathering designed to support early learning and play!
Please register @ https://www.gunnlibrary.org/calendar/category/jrlib/2025-01/
Gunn Memorial Junior Library Program - Bouncing Babies with Miss Denise
Join us for Story Time on Tuesdays and Thursdays at 10:30 for new books, free play, and fun crafts!
Story Time
Thursdays at 10:30 am: 1/2, 9, 16, 23, 30
Perfect for 3-5 year olds, but fun for everyone!
Join Mrs. Tricia for a classic library storytime--books, songs, bubbles, and more! Come for early literacy skills, social connections, and fun! We will focus on one special picture book author each week.
Preschool Storytime
MIXMASTER is a comprehensive exhibition dedicated to uncovering and celebrating the diverse talents of its artist members who are based in New England and the Tri-State region.
MIXMASTER 2025: Juried Members’ Exhibition
Gordon Parks: Homeward to the Prairie I Come
Opening Celebration January 19
January 19, 2025 – March 30, 2025Homeward to the Prairie I Come showcases the work of Gordon Parks (1912-2006), a pioneering photographer, poet, filmmaker, musician, and composer. After becoming LIFE Magazine’s first Black staff photographer in 1948, Parks captured diverse images of life in the 20th century. Paired with his lesser-known works of poetry, this exhibition positions Parks within the history of art and provides a catalogue of his wide-ranging interests beyond documentary photography.
Gordon Parks: Homeward to the Prairie I Come
Trip Highlights:
Docent-Guided Tour – Enjoy a personalized tour of the museum’s highlights, including the special exhibition: Paper, Color, Line: European Master Drawings – A stunning showcase of European artistry.
Lunch & Shopping at Blue Back Square – Before our museum visit, explore the charming Blue Back Square to enjoy lunch and shopping on your own.
Transportation Included – Round-trip transportation to/from LLC.
Reserve Your Spot Today!
Spaces are limited! Pre-registration & Pre-payment required.
Don’t miss this opportunity to experience art, history, and community in a day of fun and discovery!
