Community Calendar

Global artists have sent in their wildest images, film, music and poems for Personaland's online art show

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 800 visual artists, filmmakers, musicians, and poets from 68 countries in 32 group art shows and 55 individual exhibitions, many with videos of artist profiles.  https://www.personaland.com

The Merwinsville Hotel is excited to be continuing the Glass Orb Scavenger Hunt thanks to a generous donation from the New Milford Commission on the Arts.

There are 25 area historic sites and organizations that are participating with the Hotel. Each site is hiding four numbered and dated one-of-a-kind glass orbs (three clear and one colored) either inside or outside on their property. Participants can search for and keep any glass orb that they find, but please limit one orb per person/family so everyone has a chance! Be sure to register your orb on the Merwinsville Hotel website where you can also upload a photo. Share your find on social media and don't forget to tag the organization where you found it!

The blown glass orbs that are numbered, dated for 2025, and stamped with “MHR 50”. In addition to the clear glass orbs, there are 25 colored orbs for 2025. Reminder: Because each organization's hours vary, be sure to check their websites before you head out on your hunt.

PARTICIPATING ORGANIZATIONS BY TOWN:

Bantam:

Bantam Cinema

Brookfield:

Brookfield Craft Center

Danbury:

Danbury Museum & Historical Society; Danbury Railway Museum

Gaylordsville - Celebrating its 300th Anniversary!

Browns Forge; Little Red Schoolhouse; Merwinsville Hotel Restoration, Inc.; The Washington Oak Park (DAR Roger Sherman Chapter)

Kent:

Connecticut Antique Machinery Association; Eric Sloane Museum; Kent Historical Society

Litchfield:

Litchfield Historical Society

New Fairfield:

New Fairfield Historical Society (at the Little Red Schoolhouse); Preserve New Fairfield

New Milford:

Gallery 25 & Creative Arts Studio; Harrybrooke Park; Merryall Center for the Arts; New Milford Historical Society; Pratt Nature Center; The Silo @ Hunt Hill Farm Trust; TheatreWorks; Village Center for the Arts

Sherman:

Sherman Historical Society

Washington:

Gunn Historical Museum

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Submissions now open! ASAP!’s 15th annual Celebration of Young Photographers invites students in grades 6-12 to submit their photographs for a chance to participate in a juried art exhibition. A panel of professional photographers selects 60 photos for a public exhibition, recognizing the top four photographers for their outstanding and thoughtful work based on the yearly theme.

Submissions: now - September 26, 2025

Theme: Transformation

Exhibition: Hartford Art School's Silpe Gallery. Sunday, November 2, 2025, 2:00-3:30 pm

Submissions and guidelines: visit asapct.org

We’ve turned our entryway into a mini art studio! Stop by anytime this month to participate in our community collage project. The theme of this month’s collage is “Summer” — the rest is up to you! Use our supplies or add your own. Participate once or multiple times. Just don’t forget to sign the guest book so we know which artists we have to thank for the final product!

The finished piece will be displayed at Off the Trail Cafe.

The Judy Black Memorial Park and Gardens is pleased to present a joint art exhibition, “Now Dark, Now Glittering,” featuring the works of Chris Barnard and Jeff Joyce. This show is on view beginning Friday, August 1.

An opening reception will be held at the park on Saturday, August 2 from 3 to 5 p.m. This event is free and open to the public.

Barnard was born in New York City and received his BA from Yale and his MFA from The University of Southern California (USC) in Los Angeles. Deeply informed by the pandemic and his parents’ decline, his need to engage with the natural world and create beauty led to many nature-based paintings, echoing his love for gardening. 

Joyce’s work is a meditation on nature. The pieces in this show, selected from a time span of nearly 20 years, are engaged with the landscape. They aim to demonstrate how cultural history mediates and defines the ways we perceive nature.

This show will remain on view through Sunday, August 24. Check our social media for weekly open hours: @judyblackpark on Instagram and Facebook.

Patrons 17 and under must be accompanied by an adult.

SCHEDULE

Thursdays

Tours leave at 4,5,6, 6:30, 7, 7:30

Fridays

Tours leave at 2, 3, 4, 5,6, 6:30, 7, 7:30

Saturdays & Sundays

Tours leave at 10, 10:30, 11, 11:30, 12, 12:30, 1, 1:30, 2, 2:30, 3

The iconic family-favorite board game comes to life! Enter the world of CLUE in the interactive and immersive experience, CLUE: A Walking Mystery.

Have you ever wanted to solve a cold murder case? Have you ever wanted to inhabit the world of CLUE and unravel its mystery like a real detective? This is your chance. CLUE: A Walking Mystery is an interactive, IRL version of the beloved board game. In this version, the murder was never solved, the mansion sold, and the furniture from all nine rooms has been auctioned off and scattered throughout downtown Torrington.

In this new spin on everyone’s favorite mystery game, guests step into the roles of descendants of the beloved CLUE characters: Mayor Green, Colonel Mustard, Solicitor Peacock, Professor Plum, Miss Scarlett and Chef White.

You are a newly minted detective sent to find clues in pieces of furniture that came from the iconic rooms in Tudor Mansion (the Library, the Billiard Room, the Ballroom, etc.) in order to solve the murder mystery and finally answer the questions:

WHO did it, WHERE, and with WHAT?

Online exhibition curated by Lani Ming Holloway with artwork by Maya Tihtiyas Attean, Laura Barr, Jordann McKenna, and Benoît Trimborn

exhibition dates:  August 1 – September 30, 2025, on www.kbfa.com

Stories told in light and silence

Poetry will make me violent

Violets outside our yard…

Why does the world have to be so hard?

Encompassing the hidden truths

 Of things unseen in what we view.

-       LMH

Kenise Barnes Fine Art is pleased to present the online exhibition Stories told in light and silence curated by Lani Ming Holloway featuring Maya Tihtiyas Attean, Laura Barr, Jordann McKenna, and Benoît Trimborn.

Maya Tihtiyas Attean is a Wabanaki artist raised on the Penobscot Reservation in Maine. Excerpted from her artist statement: “Through the lens of Wabanaki history and culture, my photographs intertwine forgotten truths within the landscape of what is now called Maine. My work explores the deep, complex relationships between the land, its people, and the lasting impact of colonization. The energy embedded in the landscape reverberates through my creations and reveals the scars left on both the earth and our bodies. My work invites contemplation on occupation and ownership, prompting reflection on who exploits the land and how systems of oppression have disrupted its balance.”

Maya’s work expresses the dichotomy the artist exists within, marrying mediums and different cultural techniques. “Does the Land Remember?” is an ongoing series photographing landscapes that hold the history of devastating events of colonization. The power of that residuum is felt in the images in a supernatural way, as the dualism of her lived experience is pronounced in the contrast of light and dark. Sunlight shimmers through the leaves as bright stars overhead look down upon the land, a fire burns. Maya’s work calls us to remember that nature feels the spirits.

Maya Tihtiyas Attean lives and works in Portland, Maine or Machigonne. She earned a BFA in Photography from Maine College of Art & Design, Portland. Her work is in the permanent collection of the Portland Museum of Art, Portland, ME and the Abbe Museum, Bar Harbor, ME.

Laura Barr’s work explores impermanence through oil paintings and oil pastel drawings on paper capturing passing moments in color, reflection on water, and light. Simplifying forms and illuminating the scale of special glimmers, her work considers the preservation of water and the protection of our environment. In Laura’s paintings in the exhibition, fireflies gleam in a starlit field and remind us that fireflies may not continue to glow on our planet, while a surfer catches the last evening wave the ocean offers, an Aurora Borealis dances in the night sky.

Laura Barr lives by the Thimble Islands in Branford, Connecticut. She earned her BFA from the School of the Museum of Fine Arts, Boston, MA and a BA in Fine Arts from Tufts University in Medford, MA and has studied at Tyler School of Art in Rome, Italy.

From Ithaca, NY, Jordann McKenna paints and photographs the quiet beauty in everyday life in work that contemplates mundanity and the softly fleeting feeling within light and shadows around her. In lushly applied oil paint, flames flicker and shadows play across the scene. Jordann’s work in this exhibition reflects the peaceful, ephemeral moods of interiors and intimate still lifes, either staged or spontaneous. Jordann McKenna works from photographs and from memory to create images that serve to process rather than recreate, expressing not only what is seen but what is felt, and celebrating the beauty in the ordinary.

Jordann McKenna earned a BS in Visual Arts from State University of New York at New Paltz, New Paltz, NY, and an MFA from Maine College of Art & Design in Portland, ME. She lives and works in Portland, ME.

Born in Strasbourg, France, and trained as an architect, Benoît Trimborn describes his work as “contemporary impressionism”. Viewing the world as an architect, Benoît’s large-scale oil paintings evoke what his artist statement calls the “morphology of the landscapes… like an architect, I see in it a breath, a light, a rhythm, which alone can constitute a principle of beauty. The elements represented compose atmospheres of which I try to faithfully convey the impression, as the musician faithfully follows the score. In this process, the contemplative attitude prevails, much more than the adventurous attitude. No message, no story should disturb the projection of the viewer...”

In Benoît’s meticulously painted large-scale landscapes, the absence of the figure instills a quietude in the story while light is the present form in all its magic. Reflections play like a musical score on the surface of the water and golden glimmers illuminate the forest and emanate from a sunset sky.

Benoît Trimborn’s work is in the permanent collection of Galerie Ariel Sibony in Paris, France, Absolute Art Gallery in Bruges, Belgium, and Galerie Bertrand Gillig in Strasbourg, France. He lives and works in Strasbourg, France.

Please contact Lani@kbfa.com, 860 560 3085 with inquiries.

Shipping is available worldwide throughout the exhibition.  

Join us for a walking tour of our farm and get an inside look at our regenerative farming practices. This is a great opportunity to ask questions, connect with your local farmer, and see firsthand how we raise:

• Pastured poultry
• Forest-raised pork
• Potatoes grown the old-world style

Come curious and ready to explore — we love sharing how and why we farm the way we do.

This is a FREE event. Proper shoes required.

Our second of two monthly food collections to assist local food banks.

Wednesday, August 20 from 10 a.m. to noon in front of St. John's Episcopal Church on the New Milford green.

Please donate non-perishable foods and personal hygiene items.

We'll unload them from your car and deliver them to Our Daily Bread Food Bank.

Thanks for your continued support.

Join us in celebrating the incredible talent of photographers from near and far at this year’s EXPOSURES 2025 at Gallery 25 in the Historic Train Station from August 21-Sept 7!

We’re honored to showcase a stunning collection of photographs that capture moments, moods, and stories through the lens of truly gifted artists.

Opening Reception

Saturday, August 23

2–4 PM

Gallery 25 | 11 Railroad Street, Downtown New Milford

Come support local art, meet the photographers, and enjoy an inspiring afternoon surrounded by creativity. All are welcome! Bring your friends and family!

Let’s fill the gallery with community and appreciation for the power of photography. See you there!

Don’t miss our fantastic Annual Book Sale and the opportunity to browse through an amazing selection of books, 75% of them hardcover, donated from Norfolk’s private libraries and others. Proceeds benefit the Norfolk Library Associates and the Library’s free cultural programs they fund.

Over 30,000 beautiful books are all carefully sorted into over 30 categories. There are hundreds of art and photography books, cookbooks, oversized garden books, travel and children’s books. Other overflowing categories include History, Biography, Literature, Religion & Philosophy, Social Science (includes Self-help), Animals, Business & Law, Music & Theater, Technology, Science, Health, Politics, Foreign Languages, and thousands of volumes of recent and rare fiction. About 500 “rare and vintage” books will be priced to sell in one day. ABSOLUTELY no early or special access prior to the sale.

Saturday, August 23, 10:30 a.m. – 5:00 p.m. 

Sunday, August 24, 10:30 a.m. – 9:00 p.m. All books under the tent are free from 3:00 – 9:00 p.m.  

Monday, August 25, 7:00 a.m. – 7:00 p.m. Unlimited free books under the tent.

Bring a truck, and tell your friends. Boxes are provided, and credit cards are accepted.

Enjoy the works of

Photographer Sarah Blodgett & Basket Weaver Tina Puckett

About the Artists 

Sarah Blodgett

Sarah Blodgett is a photographer from the Hudson Valley in New York. Born in New York City, daughter of a professional advertising photographer, she bought her first camera at the age of ten and has been shooting ever since. A commercial & portrait photographer professionally since 1993, her passion now lies with creating images of wildlife and natural areas. Her primary focus is on birds as well as landscapes, seascapes, still lives and florals. She also offers speaking programs to accompany her work with a focus on ecology and preservation of the natural world around us.

 https://westernconnecticut.blogspot.com/2025/07/art-lovers-covered-bridge-woven-hand_30.html

Tina Puckett

American Master Weaver Tina Puckett is a self-taught Artist. who has been weaving since 1981. For over 40 years the woven arts have been evolving and each one is indescribably dynamic and colorful. The character of each piece is an expression of Tina's imagination and her sense of color that she applies to the weaving and structural form. Throughout Tina’s career she has exhibited her woven arts at museums, art galleries, libraries and art shows. Also, has been featured in magazines, books, newspapers, TV and on different platforms on the web.

Artist Statement

My woven pieces from baskets to wall sculptures, ceiling hangers, to furniture has evolved and is the way I define myself as an artist, and as a woman. I am fulfilling my dreams that started out with my imagination as a set designer. My creative path took a turn. It was not set design—but the woven arts with its many forms and functions where I found the passion for my life’s work.

The natural beauty of Bittersweet always sparks my imagination and is at the heart of the many pieces I weave. My imagination guides all that I do and it has become very attuned to the harmony of shapes, forms, and colors of the vines and reeds. I am also influenced by the beauty of our natural world and wonder how to weave it.

My palette for color is very much influenced by this experience of growing up in South America. I mix my own dyes and enjoy building a palette for the reeds that will shape textures and forms with color into a

​ one of a kind woven art!

Join us in welcoming the brand new L.A. Rick's food truck at the winery! Serving all of your favorites from the west coast!

Bismuth is a Boston-based artist known for her self-portrait photographs. Her work explores and challenges ideas surrounding identity and its fragile nature, politics and trans expression through a satirical and spontaneous approach. 

Recently, Bismuth has taken up oil painting as her primary medium, in which she creates numeric and interactive landscapes. 

Dismembered, showing at Peggy Mercury, will be her debut solo exhibit and will showcase her self-portrait images alongside painted works. Co-curated with James Boehmer and Gregory Fricke, the show will display Bismuth's current fascination with fragmentation and isolation, and so much more.

Peggy Mercury

Kent Barns

9 Maple Street, Unit 2

Kent, CT 06757

IG @itspeggymercury

For more information email us at hithere@peggymercury.com

Missed our GoGo Party? Have no fear, our Flower Power Fest will be bringing you back to all of the feels of the 60’s again!

Dress in your best 1960’s outfit and join us for our Flower Power Fest at the vineyard!

Featuring:

• Live Music outside by Clearview Band
• Food by L.A. Rick’s Food Truck
• $15 Rainbow Sherbet Shades Floats
• Music inside

Docent led house tours of Miss Edith's Cottage at Topsmead run the second & fourth weekends of the month through October 12th, 2025. First Come, first served. Tours start at noon and run for approximately 30 minutes; last tour at 4:30 p.m. Free but donations are appreciated to support maintenance of cottage interior/exterior including gardens, the scholarship fund, and educational programming. Meet at the front door of the cottage. For GPS directions, designate Buell Road as your destination. We look forward to seeing you!

🎨✨ August Light: A Sherman Artists Exhibition @ Kent Art Association

🗓 August 8–30

🎉 Opening Reception: Friday, August 8 | 6–8 PM

Celebrate the glow of late summer at August Light, a stunning exhibition presented by Sherman Artists at the Kent Art Association. This show features an inspiring collection of artwork in all genres and mediums—from painting and photography to sculpture and fused glass.

Join us for the opening reception on August 8 to meet the artists, enjoy refreshments, and explore this vibrant showcase of creativity.

🖼️ See something you love? Take it home!

Purchasing a piece directly supports local artists and helps keep the creative spirit thriving in our community.

Free and open to the public. Come be inspired—and maybe leave with something beautiful.

Kenise Barnes Fine Art is thrilled to announce our midsummer exhibition focused on three artists whose keen observation and connection to the natural world invites us to pause and appreciate.

Margot Glass focuses primarily on drawing, using various traditional methods and materials as a foundation for her work, including traditional silverpoint and 14k goldpoint, homemade organic inks and oil and acrylic painting with mixed mica using fine point crow quill pens in place of brushes.

Glass is inspired by the tradition of idealizing nature in art and design as ornament across cultures while seeking to observe and represent her subjects as accurately as possible in all their irregularity and imperfection.

Central to her work is the exploration of ephemeral, fragile subjects, focusing primarily on weeds or ‘waste plants’, and other plants generally considered to be undesirable, to recognize their beauty in all their imperfection and asymmetry. Her focus on these marginal plants is guided by the question of what we value, what we consider ‘belonging’ to mean, and to highlight the beauty of what is present in the disrupted landscape that we find ourselves in today.

Margot Glass grew up in New York City, and studied art at The Art Students' League, Brown University, Rhode Island School of Design, and Fashion Institute of Technology. Glass’s work has been widely exhibited in the United States and internationally. She is a recipient of a Massachusetts Cultural Council STARS Artist Residency; Lost and Found Lab Artist-in-Residence and an Oak Spring Garden Foundation Interdisciplinary Fellowship. Her work is in private and public collections including the Hunt Institute for Botanical Documentation at Carnegie Mellon, PA, Weatherspoon Art Museum, NC, Oak Spring Garden Foundation, VA, Fidelity Investments Corporate Art Collection, MA, Hotel Del Coronado Collection, CA, Allentown Art Museum, PA, Midwest Museum of American Art, Elkhart, IN, the Beth Rudin deWoody Collection, among others. She currently lives and works in Western Massachusetts.

Richard Klein has been copper plating organic objects for over three decades utilizing found objects that are intrinsically fragile and impermanent. The process allows Klein to encase natural objects in a thin coating of metallic copper, permanently preserving them. The alchemical transformation being both practical and poetic. 

In his most recent work, the artist juxtaposes electroplated natural findings with photo gravures of urban landscapes addressing our relationship with nature simultaneously reminding us that we are nature and that our detachment from nature is the source of much of the destruction to our planet. In particular, the artist’s interest in both fungi and copper hint at the convergence of natural and technological evolution: fungi, through their mycelium, connect virtually all terrestrial plant life, acting as natural communication networks; while copper is the material that the human-made electrical and digital networks depend on. 

Richard Klein is the former exhibitions director of The Aldrich of Contemporary Art Museum, Ridgefield, CT. His work has been shown widely in US and is in the public collections of Norton Family Collection, Santa Monica, CA, De Cordova Sculpture Park and Museum, Lincoln, MA, Connecticut Artists Collection, Hartford, CT and has been featured in The New Criterion, Two Coats of Paint, Hyperallergic, Art Forum, The Brooklyn Rail and Art New England to name a few. The artist lives and works in CT.

Francis Sills’s work is grounded in the perceptual-based, realist tradition. The artist works directly from observation in nature. In dealing with the intricacies and challenges of working from observation and the sustained experience of intense, visual scrutiny, the artist comes to understand and know his world. The flora series is an ongoing group of paintings utilizing the flowers and plants from the artist’s home garden. Sills recently been adding various shaped mirrors to the set ups, which both multiply the forms and fracture the space. Sills’ paintings are dense and subtle, revealing specific nuances of color, light, and form. Often, the underlying geometry and architecture of the composition are apparent in the application of paint, the artist’s analytic thinking about structure and his methodology still evident in the finished work.

Sills’s work has been exhibited throughout the United States, has been featured in publications such as Wall Street International Magazine, American Art Collector, The New York Times, I Like Your Work Podcast, and can be found in The Fine Art Program and Collection at Montefiore Einstein, New York, NY. Francis Sills earned his MFA at Parsons School of Design, New York, NY and BFA at Syracuse University, Syracuse, NY. The artist lives and works in South Carolina.

Please contact Lani Holloway, Associate Director, Lani@kbfa.com, 860 560 3085 with inquires or to arrange a preview of the exhibition.

50+ acts. 4 stages. 3 days of music, camping, and community.

That’s what’s in store at the 7th annual Black Bear Music Fest, happening August 22–24 at the scenic Harwinton Fairgrounds in Harwinton, CT.

This summer celebration of Americana music brings together national headliners, rising regional talent, and some of Connecticut’s favorite local bands — all spread across a beautiful, tree-lined fairground that transforms into a vibrant field of sound, food, and family-friendly fun.

🎶 The Music

The lineup spans blues, rock, folk, roots, and bluegrass, featuring:

• Shawn Mullins, Grammy-nominated and known for the platinum hit “Lullaby”
• Howie Day, whose hit “Collide” still pulls heartstrings
• David Wilcox and Jeffrey Gaines, acclaimed for their deeply personal and powerful performances
• The Alpaca Gnomes, Bridgeport’s jam-fueled, 7-piece folk-rock favorite
• The Dreadnoughts, bringing their rowdy blend of folk-punk and sea shanties
• And so many more! Explore the full lineup »

Whether you’re here for the headliners or discovering new favorites, the weekend is packed with nonstop sound and serious heart.

🎪 More Than Music

Formerly a fall tradition in Goshen, Black Bear now shines in the August sun with:

• Local food trucks and craft beverages
• Artisan vendors and handmade goods
• Family-friendly workshops and creative activities
• Tent and RV camping options
• The fan-favorite Bearwear merch building

It’s the kind of festival that feels less like a giant crowd and more like a music-loving village.

🎟️ Tickets & Admission

Get your tickets here!

• 1-Day Pass: $70
• 2-Day Pass: $130
• 3-Day Pass: $170
• Tent Camper Pass: $215
• RV Camper Pass: $260
• Kids 17 & under: FREE

Rain or shine. All ages welcome!

Today is the day! We will draw our second raffle winner for the adult summer reading program at noon.

Clay & Fruit: A Juicy Ceramic Workshop

Get your hands dirty and your creativity flowing in this playful clay workshop where we’ll be sculpting fruit-inspired plates and bowls! Whether you're into bold bananas, perky peaches, or zesty lemons, you’ll learn hand-building techniques to turn your favorite fruits into functional ceramic art. Perfect for beginners and seasoned makers alike—come create something sweet, sculptural, and one-of-a-kind!

August 24

12 - 2 pm

Ages 10+

$45 per person

Includes: 1.5 lbs of clay - firing of up to 3 finished pieces, and one return visit to glaze.

Village Center for the Arts Presents: our Annual

Summer Camp Art Show "Concepts of Creation"

at The Silo 44 Upland Road, New Milford, CT.

Saturday, August 23rd 6:30-8:30PM, and Sunday, August 24th, 12:00-4:00PM.

During Saturday's opening gala event guests are invited to enjoy a selection of light snacks and beverages.

This is a free event and all are welcome.

Village Center for the Arts is thrilled to invite the community to our Annual Summer Camp Art Show, a colorful celebration of creativity, imagination, and all the incredible artwork created by our talented campers.

Each summer, our studio bursts to life with the energy and joy of young artists discovering the magic of making art. This special exhibition showcases the wide variety of pieces created during camp—from expressive pottery wheel pieces, clay sculptures, detailed drawings, charcutier development to inventive mosaics.

Every piece reflects the heart of each child in our camps: fun, freedom, and fearless creativity.

Our Half-Day campers will also be featured, with a charming collection of artwork they created during their weekly themed sessions—including painting, collage, paper mache, and mixed media projects that reflect their creative spirit and growing skills.

This free event is open to the public, and we encourage families, friends, and community members to come experience the joyful results of a summer spent exploring the arts.

Please join us in celebrating the hard work and imagination of our campers.

We can’t wait to share their art with you!

www.villagecenterarts.org

(860) 354-4318

Join us in the Junior Room for this transit and vehicle-themed storytime, followed by a craft. Children of all ages are

welcome to participate. Registration appreciated, please call or email us (kmljuniorroom@biblio.org) for more information, or register online.

Opening Reception. Friday, July 25 6-8 PM

7 Water ST, Torrington, CT

Visit 3 historic sites in Gaylordsville on Sundays in July and August. The Gaylord School (one room schoolhouse), Browns Forge and Merwinsville Hotel all welcome visitors from 2 pm to 4 pm each Sunday in July and August. Gaylord School is located on Gaylord Rd and the Forge and Hotel are on Browns Forge Rd. While exploring keep your eyes peeled for the elusive orbs hidden at these sites.

Gaylord School in Gaylordsville is open for visitors every Sunday in July and August from 2pm to 4pm. The one room schoolhouse is the longest running schoolhouse in Connecticut. It was opened in 1740 and was in use until 1967.

Historic 1842 railroad hotel open for tours every Sunday. See our newly restored ballroom, museum and gallery spaces, and period decorated rooms. Lovingly restored since the restoration began in 1971.

Luigi BOCCHERINI String Quartet in A Major, G. 206

Stefano SCODANIBBIO Due canzoni messicane 

Gonzalo CASTELLANOS YUMAR Fantasía

Alfonso FUENTES Clarinet Quintet (World Premiere)

Wolfgang Amadeus MOZART Clarinet Quintet in A Major, K. 581

Tickets: $30-65, Under 19 Free

Musicmountain.org or 860-824-7126 for tickets and more information

Come early for a free pre-concert talk at 2PM

Alfonso Fuentes and the Making of a World Premiere 

Pre-Concert Talk with composer Alfonso Fuentes, including sound and video samples, and Q&A. 

The David M. Hunt Library in Falls Village CT will host AugustFest in the Village on Sunday, August 24, from 4 to 6PM. Held outdoors on the library’s shady lawn, this fundraiser will feature grilled brats from Nodine’s Smokehouse, craft beers from Norbrook Farm Brewery, hot pretzels from The Falls Village Inn, a silent auction, and live music by Vance Cannon and Friends! A vegetarian option and lemonade will also be served, and each guest will receive a limited-edition Hunt Library cup.

This event is one of the library’s biggest fundraisers and is the perfect open-air occasion to get out and catch up with your Falls Village community neighbors and friends. Tickets are $30; $5 for children under 12. 

ACCLAIMED MAGICIAN BELINDA SINCLAIR PERFORMS HER THEATRICAL MAGIC WITH CAPTIVATING SLEIGHT OF HAND, FUSING ALLEGORY WITH HISTORICAL STORIES ABOUT MAGIC IN THE HANDS OF WOMEN, AND HOW THEY CONVINCED US ALL THAT MAGIC WAS REAL AND THAT OUR POTENTIAL IS GREATER THAN WE THINK IT IS

Global artists have sent in their wildest images, film, music and poems for Personaland's online art show

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 800 visual artists, filmmakers, musicians, and poets from 68 countries in 32 group art shows and 55 individual exhibitions, many with videos of artist profiles.  https://www.personaland.com

The Merwinsville Hotel is excited to be continuing the Glass Orb Scavenger Hunt thanks to a generous donation from the New Milford Commission on the Arts.

There are 25 area historic sites and organizations that are participating with the Hotel. Each site is hiding four numbered and dated one-of-a-kind glass orbs (three clear and one colored) either inside or outside on their property. Participants can search for and keep any glass orb that they find, but please limit one orb per person/family so everyone has a chance! Be sure to register your orb on the Merwinsville Hotel website where you can also upload a photo. Share your find on social media and don't forget to tag the organization where you found it!

The blown glass orbs that are numbered, dated for 2025, and stamped with “MHR 50”. In addition to the clear glass orbs, there are 25 colored orbs for 2025. Reminder: Because each organization's hours vary, be sure to check their websites before you head out on your hunt.

PARTICIPATING ORGANIZATIONS BY TOWN:

Bantam:

Bantam Cinema

Brookfield:

Brookfield Craft Center

Danbury:

Danbury Museum & Historical Society; Danbury Railway Museum

Gaylordsville - Celebrating its 300th Anniversary!

Browns Forge; Little Red Schoolhouse; Merwinsville Hotel Restoration, Inc.; The Washington Oak Park (DAR Roger Sherman Chapter)

Kent:

Connecticut Antique Machinery Association; Eric Sloane Museum; Kent Historical Society

Litchfield:

Litchfield Historical Society

New Fairfield:

New Fairfield Historical Society (at the Little Red Schoolhouse); Preserve New Fairfield

New Milford:

Gallery 25 & Creative Arts Studio; Harrybrooke Park; Merryall Center for the Arts; New Milford Historical Society; Pratt Nature Center; The Silo @ Hunt Hill Farm Trust; TheatreWorks; Village Center for the Arts

Sherman:

Sherman Historical Society

Washington:

Gunn Historical Museum

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Submissions now open! ASAP!’s 15th annual Celebration of Young Photographers invites students in grades 6-12 to submit their photographs for a chance to participate in a juried art exhibition. A panel of professional photographers selects 60 photos for a public exhibition, recognizing the top four photographers for their outstanding and thoughtful work based on the yearly theme.

Submissions: now - September 26, 2025

Theme: Transformation

Exhibition: Hartford Art School's Silpe Gallery. Sunday, November 2, 2025, 2:00-3:30 pm

Submissions and guidelines: visit asapct.org

Don’t miss our fantastic Annual Book Sale and the opportunity to browse through an amazing selection of books, 75% of them hardcover, donated from Norfolk’s private libraries and others. Proceeds benefit the Norfolk Library Associates and the Library’s free cultural programs they fund.

Over 30,000 beautiful books are all carefully sorted into over 30 categories. There are hundreds of art and photography books, cookbooks, oversized garden books, travel and children’s books. Other overflowing categories include History, Biography, Literature, Religion & Philosophy, Social Science (includes Self-help), Animals, Business & Law, Music & Theater, Technology, Science, Health, Politics, Foreign Languages, and thousands of volumes of recent and rare fiction. About 500 “rare and vintage” books will be priced to sell in one day. ABSOLUTELY no early or special access prior to the sale.

Saturday, August 23, 10:30 a.m. – 5:00 p.m. 

Sunday, August 24, 10:30 a.m. – 9:00 p.m. All books under the tent are free from 3:00 – 9:00 p.m.  

Monday, August 25, 7:00 a.m. – 7:00 p.m. Unlimited free books under the tent.

Bring a truck, and tell your friends. Boxes are provided, and credit cards are accepted.

We’ve turned our entryway into a mini art studio! Stop by anytime this month to participate in our community collage project. The theme of this month’s collage is “Summer” — the rest is up to you! Use our supplies or add your own. Participate once or multiple times. Just don’t forget to sign the guest book so we know which artists we have to thank for the final product!

The finished piece will be displayed at Off the Trail Cafe.

The Gunn Memorial Library is pleased to present the captivating floral photography of Nina McKitty, on view in the Stairwell Gallery from August 9th to October 4th.

Drawing inspiration from nature, travel, and the artistic traditions of both East and West, Nina McKitty brings a joyful and thoughtful lens to her digital photography. Her work explores the delicate beauty of flowers—each image carefully composed, captured, and refined in her studio to evoke both surprise and delight in the viewer.

Originally gifted a digital camera by her husband, McKitty transformed a curiosity into a profound creative journey. Over the past 15 years, she has immersed herself in the art and craft of digital photography, studying under acclaimed artists and continuously evolving her techniques. Her photographs are printed and framed by hand using archival materials, merging technical precision with artistic expression.

A former nurse practitioner and consultant, McKitty turned to photography in retirement, channeling her lifelong passions for nature and visual storytelling into a rich new chapter as a digital artist. Since 2019, her work has been featured in numerous exhibitions, including shows at the Metropolitan Museum of Art Employee Gallery, Kent Art Association, and Washington Art Association.

For Kids 6-10

$200 *Financial Hardship Discounts available!

Join us for an imaginative adventure where kids will create their own worlds using upcycled materials! From sketching maps and designing flags to building 3D sculptures and clay creations, each day brings new ways to explore and bring their ideas to life. With games, crafts, and a celebratory art show, this camp is packed with creativity, fun, and discovery!

Online exhibition curated by Lani Ming Holloway with artwork by Maya Tihtiyas Attean, Laura Barr, Jordann McKenna, and Benoît Trimborn

exhibition dates:  August 1 – September 30, 2025, on www.kbfa.com

Stories told in light and silence

Poetry will make me violent

Violets outside our yard…

Why does the world have to be so hard?

Encompassing the hidden truths

 Of things unseen in what we view.

-       LMH

Kenise Barnes Fine Art is pleased to present the online exhibition Stories told in light and silence curated by Lani Ming Holloway featuring Maya Tihtiyas Attean, Laura Barr, Jordann McKenna, and Benoît Trimborn.

Maya Tihtiyas Attean is a Wabanaki artist raised on the Penobscot Reservation in Maine. Excerpted from her artist statement: “Through the lens of Wabanaki history and culture, my photographs intertwine forgotten truths within the landscape of what is now called Maine. My work explores the deep, complex relationships between the land, its people, and the lasting impact of colonization. The energy embedded in the landscape reverberates through my creations and reveals the scars left on both the earth and our bodies. My work invites contemplation on occupation and ownership, prompting reflection on who exploits the land and how systems of oppression have disrupted its balance.”

Maya’s work expresses the dichotomy the artist exists within, marrying mediums and different cultural techniques. “Does the Land Remember?” is an ongoing series photographing landscapes that hold the history of devastating events of colonization. The power of that residuum is felt in the images in a supernatural way, as the dualism of her lived experience is pronounced in the contrast of light and dark. Sunlight shimmers through the leaves as bright stars overhead look down upon the land, a fire burns. Maya’s work calls us to remember that nature feels the spirits.

Maya Tihtiyas Attean lives and works in Portland, Maine or Machigonne. She earned a BFA in Photography from Maine College of Art & Design, Portland. Her work is in the permanent collection of the Portland Museum of Art, Portland, ME and the Abbe Museum, Bar Harbor, ME.

Laura Barr’s work explores impermanence through oil paintings and oil pastel drawings on paper capturing passing moments in color, reflection on water, and light. Simplifying forms and illuminating the scale of special glimmers, her work considers the preservation of water and the protection of our environment. In Laura’s paintings in the exhibition, fireflies gleam in a starlit field and remind us that fireflies may not continue to glow on our planet, while a surfer catches the last evening wave the ocean offers, an Aurora Borealis dances in the night sky.

Laura Barr lives by the Thimble Islands in Branford, Connecticut. She earned her BFA from the School of the Museum of Fine Arts, Boston, MA and a BA in Fine Arts from Tufts University in Medford, MA and has studied at Tyler School of Art in Rome, Italy.

From Ithaca, NY, Jordann McKenna paints and photographs the quiet beauty in everyday life in work that contemplates mundanity and the softly fleeting feeling within light and shadows around her. In lushly applied oil paint, flames flicker and shadows play across the scene. Jordann’s work in this exhibition reflects the peaceful, ephemeral moods of interiors and intimate still lifes, either staged or spontaneous. Jordann McKenna works from photographs and from memory to create images that serve to process rather than recreate, expressing not only what is seen but what is felt, and celebrating the beauty in the ordinary.

Jordann McKenna earned a BS in Visual Arts from State University of New York at New Paltz, New Paltz, NY, and an MFA from Maine College of Art & Design in Portland, ME. She lives and works in Portland, ME.

Born in Strasbourg, France, and trained as an architect, Benoît Trimborn describes his work as “contemporary impressionism”. Viewing the world as an architect, Benoît’s large-scale oil paintings evoke what his artist statement calls the “morphology of the landscapes… like an architect, I see in it a breath, a light, a rhythm, which alone can constitute a principle of beauty. The elements represented compose atmospheres of which I try to faithfully convey the impression, as the musician faithfully follows the score. In this process, the contemplative attitude prevails, much more than the adventurous attitude. No message, no story should disturb the projection of the viewer...”

In Benoît’s meticulously painted large-scale landscapes, the absence of the figure instills a quietude in the story while light is the present form in all its magic. Reflections play like a musical score on the surface of the water and golden glimmers illuminate the forest and emanate from a sunset sky.

Benoît Trimborn’s work is in the permanent collection of Galerie Ariel Sibony in Paris, France, Absolute Art Gallery in Bruges, Belgium, and Galerie Bertrand Gillig in Strasbourg, France. He lives and works in Strasbourg, France.

Please contact Lani@kbfa.com, 860 560 3085 with inquiries.

Shipping is available worldwide throughout the exhibition.  

Our second of two monthly food collections to assist local food banks.

Wednesday, August 20 from 10 a.m. to noon in front of St. John's Episcopal Church on the New Milford green.

Please donate non-perishable foods and personal hygiene items.

We'll unload them from your car and deliver them to Our Daily Bread Food Bank.

Thanks for your continued support.

Beginning in June, the Mattatuck Museum will be open on Mondays! As The Monday Museum, we’re thrilled to offer our visitors a cultural destination at the start of the week—whether you’re looking to kick off your Monday with a movie, join a tour, or enjoy a quiet moment with art.

Chess players of all ages are invited to join our Monday night Chess Club. Sharpen your skills and make new friends while you enjoy a friendly game. Players should already be familiar with the basics of how to play. Registration is helpful, but not required.

The Heart of the World: A Journey to Tibet’s Lost Paradise tells the story of Ian Baker’s decades-long quest for the literary and geographical sources of Shangri-la, a mythical paradise in the remotest regions of the Himalayas. His research led him on multiple journeys in Tibet as well as into esoteric Tibetan texts describing beyul, or hidden-lands. Tibetan prophecies proclaim that the greatest of these legendary hidden-lands lies in the world’s deepest gorge, at the eastern edge of the Himalayan range, veiled by a colossal waterfall in the depths of the forbidding Tsangpo gorge.

After years of research and investigation, Buddhist scholar and world-class climber Ian Baker and his team made worldwide news by reaching the bottom of the Tsangpo gorge and finding a magnificent 108-foot-high waterfall –

the legendary grail of both Western explorers and Tibetan seekers and the prophesied door to the innermost hidden-land of Beyul Pemakö, the Hidden Land Arrayed Like Lotuses.

Ian Baker, PhD, is an author, anthropologist, and cultural historian. He is the author of several books on Himalayan and Tibetan cultural history, environment, art, and medicine, including The Heart of the World: A Journey to Tibet’s Lost Paradise and Tibetan Yoga: Principles and Practices. He was recognized by The National Geographic Society as one of seven ‘Explorers for the Millennium’ for his fieldwork connected with the Tibetan tradition of hidden-lands (beyul) and the discovery of the lost ‘Falls of the Tsangpo’, the subject of his book, The Heart of the World: A Journey to Tibet’s Lost Paradise, which explores the geographical and literary sources of the legend of Shangri-la in the remotest regions of the Himalayas.

Join us for our bi-monthly gardening discussion group.

Sponsored by The Harwinton Grows Seed Library

Global artists have sent in their wildest images, film, music and poems for Personaland's online art show

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 800 visual artists, filmmakers, musicians, and poets from 68 countries in 32 group art shows and 55 individual exhibitions, many with videos of artist profiles.  https://www.personaland.com

The Merwinsville Hotel is excited to be continuing the Glass Orb Scavenger Hunt thanks to a generous donation from the New Milford Commission on the Arts.

There are 25 area historic sites and organizations that are participating with the Hotel. Each site is hiding four numbered and dated one-of-a-kind glass orbs (three clear and one colored) either inside or outside on their property. Participants can search for and keep any glass orb that they find, but please limit one orb per person/family so everyone has a chance! Be sure to register your orb on the Merwinsville Hotel website where you can also upload a photo. Share your find on social media and don't forget to tag the organization where you found it!

The blown glass orbs that are numbered, dated for 2025, and stamped with “MHR 50”. In addition to the clear glass orbs, there are 25 colored orbs for 2025. Reminder: Because each organization's hours vary, be sure to check their websites before you head out on your hunt.

PARTICIPATING ORGANIZATIONS BY TOWN:

Bantam:

Bantam Cinema

Brookfield:

Brookfield Craft Center

Danbury:

Danbury Museum & Historical Society; Danbury Railway Museum

Gaylordsville - Celebrating its 300th Anniversary!

Browns Forge; Little Red Schoolhouse; Merwinsville Hotel Restoration, Inc.; The Washington Oak Park (DAR Roger Sherman Chapter)

Kent:

Connecticut Antique Machinery Association; Eric Sloane Museum; Kent Historical Society

Litchfield:

Litchfield Historical Society

New Fairfield:

New Fairfield Historical Society (at the Little Red Schoolhouse); Preserve New Fairfield

New Milford:

Gallery 25 & Creative Arts Studio; Harrybrooke Park; Merryall Center for the Arts; New Milford Historical Society; Pratt Nature Center; The Silo @ Hunt Hill Farm Trust; TheatreWorks; Village Center for the Arts

Sherman:

Sherman Historical Society

Washington:

Gunn Historical Museum

Edit

Submissions now open! ASAP!’s 15th annual Celebration of Young Photographers invites students in grades 6-12 to submit their photographs for a chance to participate in a juried art exhibition. A panel of professional photographers selects 60 photos for a public exhibition, recognizing the top four photographers for their outstanding and thoughtful work based on the yearly theme.

Submissions: now - September 26, 2025

Theme: Transformation

Exhibition: Hartford Art School's Silpe Gallery. Sunday, November 2, 2025, 2:00-3:30 pm

Submissions and guidelines: visit asapct.org

We’ve turned our entryway into a mini art studio! Stop by anytime this month to participate in our community collage project. The theme of this month’s collage is “Summer” — the rest is up to you! Use our supplies or add your own. Participate once or multiple times. Just don’t forget to sign the guest book so we know which artists we have to thank for the final product!

The finished piece will be displayed at Off the Trail Cafe.

The Great Outdoors

August 26, 27, 28

For children ages 7 - 12

Let your child spend their Summer days in a Creative Way at Create Escape Studio's Summer Art Program!

This program will run 3 days a week, Tuesday, Wednesday & Thursday from 9 am - 12 pm

Each session will include a variety of projects each week, such as 

• Pottery Painting • Acrylics on Canvas 

• Hand building with clay 

• Mosaics 

• Glass (depending upon the maturity of the group) as well as other projects appropriate to the participant's ability and interests. 

This program includes instruction and all materials for projects. 

Each week, we will average 2 projects per day. (Some projects may take multiple days, and some projects may require a return visit (at no additional cost) to glaze.)

The cost of the program: $170 per child per session

 Tuition includes all supplies & staff guidance

Note: 5 participants per session are required for that session to run.

Projects shown in promotional graphics are not guaranteed to be offered at the program session. Actual projects will be selected and modified according to the participants' skill levels.

The Gunn Memorial Library is pleased to present the captivating floral photography of Nina McKitty, on view in the Stairwell Gallery from August 9th to October 4th.

Drawing inspiration from nature, travel, and the artistic traditions of both East and West, Nina McKitty brings a joyful and thoughtful lens to her digital photography. Her work explores the delicate beauty of flowers—each image carefully composed, captured, and refined in her studio to evoke both surprise and delight in the viewer.

Originally gifted a digital camera by her husband, McKitty transformed a curiosity into a profound creative journey. Over the past 15 years, she has immersed herself in the art and craft of digital photography, studying under acclaimed artists and continuously evolving her techniques. Her photographs are printed and framed by hand using archival materials, merging technical precision with artistic expression.

A former nurse practitioner and consultant, McKitty turned to photography in retirement, channeling her lifelong passions for nature and visual storytelling into a rich new chapter as a digital artist. Since 2019, her work has been featured in numerous exhibitions, including shows at the Metropolitan Museum of Art Employee Gallery, Kent Art Association, and Washington Art Association.

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!

DRIFTLINES, a dual exhibition featuring new works by painter Heather Neilson and photographer Babs Perkins, explores the meditative connections between memory, place, premonition, and afterthought.  The two artists are local to the Northwest Corner of Connecticut with studios at Whiting Mills in Winsted. DRIFTLINES will be on display through Friday, September 12.

A reception for the artists will take place on Saturday, August 16, 5-7PM and an artist’s talk featuring the two artists in conversation is scheduled for Thursday, September 4 at 5:30PM. 

Does your child have lots of energy? Come have fun on our front lawn with Mrs. Carissa from DBA Dance Studio! Dance and get out all the wiggles in this high energy program for young ones! Enjoy all the silly songs and movements!

Ages 0-7. Please register @harwintonlibrary.org/events (each session is separate registration)

Online exhibition curated by Lani Ming Holloway with artwork by Maya Tihtiyas Attean, Laura Barr, Jordann McKenna, and Benoît Trimborn

exhibition dates:  August 1 – September 30, 2025, on www.kbfa.com

Stories told in light and silence

Poetry will make me violent

Violets outside our yard…

Why does the world have to be so hard?

Encompassing the hidden truths

 Of things unseen in what we view.

-       LMH

Kenise Barnes Fine Art is pleased to present the online exhibition Stories told in light and silence curated by Lani Ming Holloway featuring Maya Tihtiyas Attean, Laura Barr, Jordann McKenna, and Benoît Trimborn.

Maya Tihtiyas Attean is a Wabanaki artist raised on the Penobscot Reservation in Maine. Excerpted from her artist statement: “Through the lens of Wabanaki history and culture, my photographs intertwine forgotten truths within the landscape of what is now called Maine. My work explores the deep, complex relationships between the land, its people, and the lasting impact of colonization. The energy embedded in the landscape reverberates through my creations and reveals the scars left on both the earth and our bodies. My work invites contemplation on occupation and ownership, prompting reflection on who exploits the land and how systems of oppression have disrupted its balance.”

Maya’s work expresses the dichotomy the artist exists within, marrying mediums and different cultural techniques. “Does the Land Remember?” is an ongoing series photographing landscapes that hold the history of devastating events of colonization. The power of that residuum is felt in the images in a supernatural way, as the dualism of her lived experience is pronounced in the contrast of light and dark. Sunlight shimmers through the leaves as bright stars overhead look down upon the land, a fire burns. Maya’s work calls us to remember that nature feels the spirits.

Maya Tihtiyas Attean lives and works in Portland, Maine or Machigonne. She earned a BFA in Photography from Maine College of Art & Design, Portland. Her work is in the permanent collection of the Portland Museum of Art, Portland, ME and the Abbe Museum, Bar Harbor, ME.

Laura Barr’s work explores impermanence through oil paintings and oil pastel drawings on paper capturing passing moments in color, reflection on water, and light. Simplifying forms and illuminating the scale of special glimmers, her work considers the preservation of water and the protection of our environment. In Laura’s paintings in the exhibition, fireflies gleam in a starlit field and remind us that fireflies may not continue to glow on our planet, while a surfer catches the last evening wave the ocean offers, an Aurora Borealis dances in the night sky.

Laura Barr lives by the Thimble Islands in Branford, Connecticut. She earned her BFA from the School of the Museum of Fine Arts, Boston, MA and a BA in Fine Arts from Tufts University in Medford, MA and has studied at Tyler School of Art in Rome, Italy.

From Ithaca, NY, Jordann McKenna paints and photographs the quiet beauty in everyday life in work that contemplates mundanity and the softly fleeting feeling within light and shadows around her. In lushly applied oil paint, flames flicker and shadows play across the scene. Jordann’s work in this exhibition reflects the peaceful, ephemeral moods of interiors and intimate still lifes, either staged or spontaneous. Jordann McKenna works from photographs and from memory to create images that serve to process rather than recreate, expressing not only what is seen but what is felt, and celebrating the beauty in the ordinary.

Jordann McKenna earned a BS in Visual Arts from State University of New York at New Paltz, New Paltz, NY, and an MFA from Maine College of Art & Design in Portland, ME. She lives and works in Portland, ME.

Born in Strasbourg, France, and trained as an architect, Benoît Trimborn describes his work as “contemporary impressionism”. Viewing the world as an architect, Benoît’s large-scale oil paintings evoke what his artist statement calls the “morphology of the landscapes… like an architect, I see in it a breath, a light, a rhythm, which alone can constitute a principle of beauty. The elements represented compose atmospheres of which I try to faithfully convey the impression, as the musician faithfully follows the score. In this process, the contemplative attitude prevails, much more than the adventurous attitude. No message, no story should disturb the projection of the viewer...”

In Benoît’s meticulously painted large-scale landscapes, the absence of the figure instills a quietude in the story while light is the present form in all its magic. Reflections play like a musical score on the surface of the water and golden glimmers illuminate the forest and emanate from a sunset sky.

Benoît Trimborn’s work is in the permanent collection of Galerie Ariel Sibony in Paris, France, Absolute Art Gallery in Bruges, Belgium, and Galerie Bertrand Gillig in Strasbourg, France. He lives and works in Strasbourg, France.

Please contact Lani@kbfa.com, 860 560 3085 with inquiries.

Shipping is available worldwide throughout the exhibition.  

Join us for Story Time on Tuesdays and Thursdays at 10:30 for new books, free play, and fun crafts!

Music and Rhyme for Children from Birth to 3s! A program for babies and their caretakers that incorporates music, rhythm, stories, and nursery rhymes to spur language development, body awareness, pre-reading skills, self-confidence, and cooperation. Gathering at 10:15, the program begins at 10:30.

Registration appreciated, drop-ins welcome!

Do you like to hike? Or do you want to get into hiking more? Join our Parks and Recreation Director, Matt, and Parks and Recreation Intern, Sam, for the Emery Park Summit Hiking Club! Matt and Sam will lead a group hike at Emery Park up to the summit and lookout of Leonard Mountain. 

This program is for all ages. All hiking abilities are welcome. Hikes will be canceled at Director’s discretion (inclement weather/thunderstorms, hazards on trial, major flooding, etc). 

Opening Reception. Friday, July 25 6-8 PM

7 Water ST, Torrington, CT

Freshwater wetland ecosystems dot the landscape at White Memorial and 'throughout the state. Come learn about the unique wildlife species, the characteristics of types of wetlands, types of plants found there, and more. Join White Memorial Conservation Center staff and two animals they'll bring along.

For more information and RSVP, call 860-355-6075.

The Gunn Museum and Makerspace present a series of craft workshops inspired by artifacts from the Museum’s collections.

We’re crafting with wax seals at this month’s workshop! Learn about the history of these items, see some examples from the Museum’s collections, and create seals with your initials using a custom die carved on the Makerspace CNC machine! When you register, please let us know which letter you’d like on your seal.

Ages 18+

Registration Required: https://www.gunnlibrary.org/calendar/crafting-history-wax-seals/

All participants must have a signed GML Makerspace waiver on file. Please arrive a few minutes early to complete this paperwork if this is your first Makerspace program.

Knit and Stitch is a social group for adults who enjoy any type of fiber arts. From knitting & crochet, creative stitching, embroidery & needlepoint, felting, tatting & quilting, to spinning and weaving. Come and enjoy some time with others that share your love of fiber arts. Bring something to work on and something to show and tell. If you have any questions, please call the Library.

Join us at Honeybee Books and Tea for our weekly Open Mic Night!

With a full technical assortment of equipment, we are more than happy to welcome:

• Musicians
• Poets
• Stand-up Comedy
• Reading Excerpts
• Dance
• Puppetry
• Whatever Makes You Buzz

We ask that attendees arrive promptly at 6:00 pm to respect performers. For more information, check out our website or stop by in-store.

The Popular Book Club will meet at the Morris Public Library on Tuesday, August 26 at 6:30 PM. The group will discuss "The 100-Year-Old Man Who Climbed Out the Window and Disappeared" by Jonas Jonasson.

After a long and eventful life, Allan Karlsson ends up in a nursing home, believing it to be his last stop. The only problem is that he's still in good health, and in one day, he turns 100. A big celebration is in the works, but Allan really isn't interested (and he'd like a bit more control over his vodka consumption). So he decides to escape. He climbs out the window in his slippers and embarks on a hilarious and entirely unexpected journey, involving, among other surprises, a suitcase stuffed with cash, some unpleasant criminals, a friendly hot-dog stand operator, and an elephant (not to mention a death by elephant).

It would be the adventure of a lifetime for anyone else, but Allan has a larger-than-life backstory: Not only has he witnessed some of the most important events of the twentieth century, but he has actually played a key role in them. Starting out in munitions as a boy, he somehow finds himself involved in many of the key explosions of the twentieth century and travels the world, sharing meals and more with everyone from Stalin, Churchill, and Truman to Mao, Franco, and de Gaulle. Quirky and utterly unique, The 100-Year-Old Man Who Climbed Out the Window and Disappeared has charmed readers across the world.

E-audio is available via Libby app.

New registrations and book requests: 860-567-7440 or

https://morrispubliclibrary.net/library-calendar-event.../

Join us in the Community Room for our monthly Fun Fiction Book Club! Refreshments and Ice Breaker Game from 6:30 pm - 7:00 pm. 7:00 pm we start chatting about the book! This program is free and open to the public. No registration required! The book is available at the Circulation Desk. Refreshments provided by The Friends of The Thomaston Public Library. This month we will be reading Beach Read by Emily Henry.

Global artists have sent in their wildest images, film, music and poems for Personaland's online art show

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 800 visual artists, filmmakers, musicians, and poets from 68 countries in 32 group art shows and 55 individual exhibitions, many with videos of artist profiles.  https://www.personaland.com

The Merwinsville Hotel is excited to be continuing the Glass Orb Scavenger Hunt thanks to a generous donation from the New Milford Commission on the Arts.

There are 25 area historic sites and organizations that are participating with the Hotel. Each site is hiding four numbered and dated one-of-a-kind glass orbs (three clear and one colored) either inside or outside on their property. Participants can search for and keep any glass orb that they find, but please limit one orb per person/family so everyone has a chance! Be sure to register your orb on the Merwinsville Hotel website where you can also upload a photo. Share your find on social media and don't forget to tag the organization where you found it!

The blown glass orbs that are numbered, dated for 2025, and stamped with “MHR 50”. In addition to the clear glass orbs, there are 25 colored orbs for 2025. Reminder: Because each organization's hours vary, be sure to check their websites before you head out on your hunt.

PARTICIPATING ORGANIZATIONS BY TOWN:

Bantam:

Bantam Cinema

Brookfield:

Brookfield Craft Center

Danbury:

Danbury Museum & Historical Society; Danbury Railway Museum

Gaylordsville - Celebrating its 300th Anniversary!

Browns Forge; Little Red Schoolhouse; Merwinsville Hotel Restoration, Inc.; The Washington Oak Park (DAR Roger Sherman Chapter)

Kent:

Connecticut Antique Machinery Association; Eric Sloane Museum; Kent Historical Society

Litchfield:

Litchfield Historical Society

New Fairfield:

New Fairfield Historical Society (at the Little Red Schoolhouse); Preserve New Fairfield

New Milford:

Gallery 25 & Creative Arts Studio; Harrybrooke Park; Merryall Center for the Arts; New Milford Historical Society; Pratt Nature Center; The Silo @ Hunt Hill Farm Trust; TheatreWorks; Village Center for the Arts

Sherman:

Sherman Historical Society

Washington:

Gunn Historical Museum

Edit

Submissions now open! ASAP!’s 15th annual Celebration of Young Photographers invites students in grades 6-12 to submit their photographs for a chance to participate in a juried art exhibition. A panel of professional photographers selects 60 photos for a public exhibition, recognizing the top four photographers for their outstanding and thoughtful work based on the yearly theme.

Submissions: now - September 26, 2025

Theme: Transformation

Exhibition: Hartford Art School's Silpe Gallery. Sunday, November 2, 2025, 2:00-3:30 pm

Submissions and guidelines: visit asapct.org

We’ve turned our entryway into a mini art studio! Stop by anytime this month to participate in our community collage project. The theme of this month’s collage is “Summer” — the rest is up to you! Use our supplies or add your own. Participate once or multiple times. Just don’t forget to sign the guest book so we know which artists we have to thank for the final product!

The finished piece will be displayed at Off the Trail Cafe.

Online exhibition curated by Lani Ming Holloway with artwork by Maya Tihtiyas Attean, Laura Barr, Jordann McKenna, and Benoît Trimborn

exhibition dates:  August 1 – September 30, 2025, on www.kbfa.com

Stories told in light and silence

Poetry will make me violent

Violets outside our yard…

Why does the world have to be so hard?

Encompassing the hidden truths

 Of things unseen in what we view.

-       LMH

Kenise Barnes Fine Art is pleased to present the online exhibition Stories told in light and silence curated by Lani Ming Holloway featuring Maya Tihtiyas Attean, Laura Barr, Jordann McKenna, and Benoît Trimborn.

Maya Tihtiyas Attean is a Wabanaki artist raised on the Penobscot Reservation in Maine. Excerpted from her artist statement: “Through the lens of Wabanaki history and culture, my photographs intertwine forgotten truths within the landscape of what is now called Maine. My work explores the deep, complex relationships between the land, its people, and the lasting impact of colonization. The energy embedded in the landscape reverberates through my creations and reveals the scars left on both the earth and our bodies. My work invites contemplation on occupation and ownership, prompting reflection on who exploits the land and how systems of oppression have disrupted its balance.”

Maya’s work expresses the dichotomy the artist exists within, marrying mediums and different cultural techniques. “Does the Land Remember?” is an ongoing series photographing landscapes that hold the history of devastating events of colonization. The power of that residuum is felt in the images in a supernatural way, as the dualism of her lived experience is pronounced in the contrast of light and dark. Sunlight shimmers through the leaves as bright stars overhead look down upon the land, a fire burns. Maya’s work calls us to remember that nature feels the spirits.

Maya Tihtiyas Attean lives and works in Portland, Maine or Machigonne. She earned a BFA in Photography from Maine College of Art & Design, Portland. Her work is in the permanent collection of the Portland Museum of Art, Portland, ME and the Abbe Museum, Bar Harbor, ME.

Laura Barr’s work explores impermanence through oil paintings and oil pastel drawings on paper capturing passing moments in color, reflection on water, and light. Simplifying forms and illuminating the scale of special glimmers, her work considers the preservation of water and the protection of our environment. In Laura’s paintings in the exhibition, fireflies gleam in a starlit field and remind us that fireflies may not continue to glow on our planet, while a surfer catches the last evening wave the ocean offers, an Aurora Borealis dances in the night sky.

Laura Barr lives by the Thimble Islands in Branford, Connecticut. She earned her BFA from the School of the Museum of Fine Arts, Boston, MA and a BA in Fine Arts from Tufts University in Medford, MA and has studied at Tyler School of Art in Rome, Italy.

From Ithaca, NY, Jordann McKenna paints and photographs the quiet beauty in everyday life in work that contemplates mundanity and the softly fleeting feeling within light and shadows around her. In lushly applied oil paint, flames flicker and shadows play across the scene. Jordann’s work in this exhibition reflects the peaceful, ephemeral moods of interiors and intimate still lifes, either staged or spontaneous. Jordann McKenna works from photographs and from memory to create images that serve to process rather than recreate, expressing not only what is seen but what is felt, and celebrating the beauty in the ordinary.

Jordann McKenna earned a BS in Visual Arts from State University of New York at New Paltz, New Paltz, NY, and an MFA from Maine College of Art & Design in Portland, ME. She lives and works in Portland, ME.

Born in Strasbourg, France, and trained as an architect, Benoît Trimborn describes his work as “contemporary impressionism”. Viewing the world as an architect, Benoît’s large-scale oil paintings evoke what his artist statement calls the “morphology of the landscapes… like an architect, I see in it a breath, a light, a rhythm, which alone can constitute a principle of beauty. The elements represented compose atmospheres of which I try to faithfully convey the impression, as the musician faithfully follows the score. In this process, the contemplative attitude prevails, much more than the adventurous attitude. No message, no story should disturb the projection of the viewer...”

In Benoît’s meticulously painted large-scale landscapes, the absence of the figure instills a quietude in the story while light is the present form in all its magic. Reflections play like a musical score on the surface of the water and golden glimmers illuminate the forest and emanate from a sunset sky.

Benoît Trimborn’s work is in the permanent collection of Galerie Ariel Sibony in Paris, France, Absolute Art Gallery in Bruges, Belgium, and Galerie Bertrand Gillig in Strasbourg, France. He lives and works in Strasbourg, France.

Please contact Lani@kbfa.com, 860 560 3085 with inquiries.

Shipping is available worldwide throughout the exhibition.  

Music and Rhyme for Children from Birth to 3s! A program for babies and their caretakers that incorporates music, rhythm, stories, and nursery rhymes to spur language development, body awareness, pre-reading skills, self-confidence, and cooperation. Gathering at 10:15 on the green behind the Visitor Center, the program begins at 10:30.

In case of inclement weather or other adverse conditions, this event will move inside to the Junior Room.

Registration appreciated, drop-ins welcome!

Roxbury Land Trust’s Mine Hill Preserve is on the National Register of Historic places – and for good reason! It contains significant stone and brick structural remains associated with a cold fired blast furnace that reached peak production following the Civil War. There are nine selfguided interpretive stations along the trail, which includes a variety of habits from riverine vegetation and open fields to broadleaf woodlands. The trail passes nearby iron mine tunnels and charcoal hearths associated with the furnace. Bats now hibernate in the mine shafts and a maturing forest covers land once cleared for charcoal. This will be a 6 mile hike rated B with 1,014 ft. Elev. gain.

Please wear hiking footwear, and bring as needed: poles, bug spray, backpack, personal first aid and meds, water and snacks. No pets allowed.

We will be having a picnic after the hike (optional), if you decide to stay please bring something to share and a chair.

Leader: Grace - 203-984-9912

Sorry, no pets allowed.

We do ask for a contribution of $3 per hike or $15 per year to cover meetup.com fees and our annual social events, picnics, parties, etc...

DRIFTLINES, a dual exhibition featuring new works by painter Heather Neilson and photographer Babs Perkins, explores the meditative connections between memory, place, premonition, and afterthought. The two artists are local to the Northwest Corner of Connecticut with studios at Whiting Mills in Winsted. DRIFTLINES will be on display through Friday, September 12.

A reception for the artists will take place on Saturday, August 16, 5-7PM and an artist’s talk featuring the two artists in conversation is scheduled for Thursday, September 4 at 5:30PM. 

Opening Reception. Friday, July 25 6-8 PM

7 Water ST, Torrington, CT

The final offering of the National Council on Aging's Aging Mastery Program, a 10-week series that focuses on 10 topics such as nutrition, financial fitness, exercise, sleep, healthy relationships, and more. With a different guest speaker each week. Limited to 20. Light supper served.

Meets Wednesdays at 5 p.m. Runs until 6:15-6:30 p.m.

$25 for the series. Payment received confirms RSVP.

For more information, call 860-355-6075.

Senior center is located at 40 Main St.

Stop by to get help using your tech gadgets, basic computer help or to explore e-books, e-audio, movies, comics, languages & more.

OR

Schedule an appointment.

“Ending Redlining through a Community-Centered Reform of the Community Reinvestment Act,” book talk and signing with Morris author Josh Silver, Wednesday, August 27, 6:30 PM

 This author talk describes a new book, Ending Redlining through a Community-Centered Reform of the Community Reinvestment Act, and will explore how and why members of Congress and community-based organizations developed the CRA law that emphasizes community participation in stopping redlining and rebuilding neighborhoods experiencing discrimination.

This talk will explain:

 ·        What is redlining and how it devastates communities

·        Why CRA is relevant for rural areas and smaller towns as well as urban neighborhoods

·        How and why CRA was devised as a means to rectify redlining through community empowerment

·        The successes and limitations of CRA

·        An overview of the legislative and regulatory history of CRA since its enactment in 1977

·        Recommendations for updates to CRA, its application to other industries, and the current threats to CRA

Please register with the library: 860-567-7440 or https://morrispubliclibrary.net/library-calendar-event-registration/

Global artists have sent in their wildest images, film, music and poems for Personaland's online art show

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 800 visual artists, filmmakers, musicians, and poets from 68 countries in 32 group art shows and 55 individual exhibitions, many with videos of artist profiles.  https://www.personaland.com

The Merwinsville Hotel is excited to be continuing the Glass Orb Scavenger Hunt thanks to a generous donation from the New Milford Commission on the Arts.

There are 25 area historic sites and organizations that are participating with the Hotel. Each site is hiding four numbered and dated one-of-a-kind glass orbs (three clear and one colored) either inside or outside on their property. Participants can search for and keep any glass orb that they find, but please limit one orb per person/family so everyone has a chance! Be sure to register your orb on the Merwinsville Hotel website where you can also upload a photo. Share your find on social media and don't forget to tag the organization where you found it!

The blown glass orbs that are numbered, dated for 2025, and stamped with “MHR 50”. In addition to the clear glass orbs, there are 25 colored orbs for 2025. Reminder: Because each organization's hours vary, be sure to check their websites before you head out on your hunt.

PARTICIPATING ORGANIZATIONS BY TOWN:

Bantam:

Bantam Cinema

Brookfield:

Brookfield Craft Center

Danbury:

Danbury Museum & Historical Society; Danbury Railway Museum

Gaylordsville - Celebrating its 300th Anniversary!

Browns Forge; Little Red Schoolhouse; Merwinsville Hotel Restoration, Inc.; The Washington Oak Park (DAR Roger Sherman Chapter)

Kent:

Connecticut Antique Machinery Association; Eric Sloane Museum; Kent Historical Society

Litchfield:

Litchfield Historical Society

New Fairfield:

New Fairfield Historical Society (at the Little Red Schoolhouse); Preserve New Fairfield

New Milford:

Gallery 25 & Creative Arts Studio; Harrybrooke Park; Merryall Center for the Arts; New Milford Historical Society; Pratt Nature Center; The Silo @ Hunt Hill Farm Trust; TheatreWorks; Village Center for the Arts

Sherman:

Sherman Historical Society

Washington:

Gunn Historical Museum

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We’ve turned our entryway into a mini art studio! Stop by anytime this month to participate in our community collage project. The theme of this month’s collage is “Summer” — the rest is up to you! Use our supplies or add your own. Participate once or multiple times. Just don’t forget to sign the guest book so we know which artists we have to thank for the final product!

The finished piece will be displayed at Off the Trail Cafe.

The Gunn Memorial Library is pleased to present the captivating floral photography of Nina McKitty, on view in the Stairwell Gallery from August 9th to October 4th.

Drawing inspiration from nature, travel, and the artistic traditions of both East and West, Nina McKitty brings a joyful and thoughtful lens to her digital photography. Her work explores the delicate beauty of flowers—each image carefully composed, captured, and refined in her studio to evoke both surprise and delight in the viewer.

Originally gifted a digital camera by her husband, McKitty transformed a curiosity into a profound creative journey. Over the past 15 years, she has immersed herself in the art and craft of digital photography, studying under acclaimed artists and continuously evolving her techniques. Her photographs are printed and framed by hand using archival materials, merging technical precision with artistic expression.

A former nurse practitioner and consultant, McKitty turned to photography in retirement, channeling her lifelong passions for nature and visual storytelling into a rich new chapter as a digital artist. Since 2019, her work has been featured in numerous exhibitions, including shows at the Metropolitan Museum of Art Employee Gallery, Kent Art Association, and Washington Art Association.

Get ready to go big! The New Hartford Artisans Guild is thrilled to announce our upcoming Big

Works Art Show, celebrating artwork that makes a bold statement. This is your chance to showcase

your largest, most impactful pieces—the only requirement is that one dimension must be at least

24 inches. Whether it’s towering canvases, sweeping landscapes, or grand sculptural forms, we

want to fill the gallery with work that commands attention. Don’t miss this opportunity to take up

space and let your creativity shine on a larger scale!

 The Gunn Museum announces a new exhibit American Perspectives: Peril and Possibilities. This exhibit is part of our American Revolution 250 celebrations.

The exhibit tells the story of the impossible dream, a revolution against the world’s mightiest Empire that would create a new nation built on the ideals of freedom, liberty and opportunity. The exhibit discusses Connecticut and our community including during the war.

DRIFTLINES, a dual exhibition featuring new works by painter Heather Neilson and photographer Babs Perkins, explores the meditative connections between memory, place, premonition, and afterthought. The two artists are local to the Northwest Corner of Connecticut with studios at Whiting Mills in Winsted. DRIFTLINES will be on display through Friday, September 12.

A reception for the artists will take place on Saturday, August 16, 5-7PM and an artist’s talk featuring the two artists in conversation is scheduled for Thursday, September 4 at 5:30PM. 

Online exhibition curated by Lani Ming Holloway with artwork by Maya Tihtiyas Attean, Laura Barr, Jordann McKenna, and Benoît Trimborn

exhibition dates:  August 1 – September 30, 2025, on www.kbfa.com

Stories told in light and silence

Poetry will make me violent

Violets outside our yard…

Why does the world have to be so hard?

Encompassing the hidden truths

 Of things unseen in what we view.

-       LMH

Kenise Barnes Fine Art is pleased to present the online exhibition Stories told in light and silence curated by Lani Ming Holloway featuring Maya Tihtiyas Attean, Laura Barr, Jordann McKenna, and Benoît Trimborn.

Maya Tihtiyas Attean is a Wabanaki artist raised on the Penobscot Reservation in Maine. Excerpted from her artist statement: “Through the lens of Wabanaki history and culture, my photographs intertwine forgotten truths within the landscape of what is now called Maine. My work explores the deep, complex relationships between the land, its people, and the lasting impact of colonization. The energy embedded in the landscape reverberates through my creations and reveals the scars left on both the earth and our bodies. My work invites contemplation on occupation and ownership, prompting reflection on who exploits the land and how systems of oppression have disrupted its balance.”

Maya’s work expresses the dichotomy the artist exists within, marrying mediums and different cultural techniques. “Does the Land Remember?” is an ongoing series photographing landscapes that hold the history of devastating events of colonization. The power of that residuum is felt in the images in a supernatural way, as the dualism of her lived experience is pronounced in the contrast of light and dark. Sunlight shimmers through the leaves as bright stars overhead look down upon the land, a fire burns. Maya’s work calls us to remember that nature feels the spirits.

Maya Tihtiyas Attean lives and works in Portland, Maine or Machigonne. She earned a BFA in Photography from Maine College of Art & Design, Portland. Her work is in the permanent collection of the Portland Museum of Art, Portland, ME and the Abbe Museum, Bar Harbor, ME.

Laura Barr’s work explores impermanence through oil paintings and oil pastel drawings on paper capturing passing moments in color, reflection on water, and light. Simplifying forms and illuminating the scale of special glimmers, her work considers the preservation of water and the protection of our environment. In Laura’s paintings in the exhibition, fireflies gleam in a starlit field and remind us that fireflies may not continue to glow on our planet, while a surfer catches the last evening wave the ocean offers, an Aurora Borealis dances in the night sky.

Laura Barr lives by the Thimble Islands in Branford, Connecticut. She earned her BFA from the School of the Museum of Fine Arts, Boston, MA and a BA in Fine Arts from Tufts University in Medford, MA and has studied at Tyler School of Art in Rome, Italy.

From Ithaca, NY, Jordann McKenna paints and photographs the quiet beauty in everyday life in work that contemplates mundanity and the softly fleeting feeling within light and shadows around her. In lushly applied oil paint, flames flicker and shadows play across the scene. Jordann’s work in this exhibition reflects the peaceful, ephemeral moods of interiors and intimate still lifes, either staged or spontaneous. Jordann McKenna works from photographs and from memory to create images that serve to process rather than recreate, expressing not only what is seen but what is felt, and celebrating the beauty in the ordinary.

Jordann McKenna earned a BS in Visual Arts from State University of New York at New Paltz, New Paltz, NY, and an MFA from Maine College of Art & Design in Portland, ME. She lives and works in Portland, ME.

Born in Strasbourg, France, and trained as an architect, Benoît Trimborn describes his work as “contemporary impressionism”. Viewing the world as an architect, Benoît’s large-scale oil paintings evoke what his artist statement calls the “morphology of the landscapes… like an architect, I see in it a breath, a light, a rhythm, which alone can constitute a principle of beauty. The elements represented compose atmospheres of which I try to faithfully convey the impression, as the musician faithfully follows the score. In this process, the contemplative attitude prevails, much more than the adventurous attitude. No message, no story should disturb the projection of the viewer...”

In Benoît’s meticulously painted large-scale landscapes, the absence of the figure instills a quietude in the story while light is the present form in all its magic. Reflections play like a musical score on the surface of the water and golden glimmers illuminate the forest and emanate from a sunset sky.

Benoît Trimborn’s work is in the permanent collection of Galerie Ariel Sibony in Paris, France, Absolute Art Gallery in Bruges, Belgium, and Galerie Bertrand Gillig in Strasbourg, France. He lives and works in Strasbourg, France.

Please contact Lani@kbfa.com, 860 560 3085 with inquiries.

Shipping is available worldwide throughout the exhibition.