The exhibit uses historic photographs, artifacts, and first-hand accounts to explore 260 years of Cornwall’s relationship with its forests, showing how and why the town transformed from forest to farm and back to forest. The exhibit will also explore changing attitudes about the forest, from the 18^th century view of woods as a source of timber to more recent concepts of the forest as a setting for recreation and as a vital ecosystem.

The Inaugural season of the Lisbon Farmers Market will kick-off on Thursday June 28, from 3:30pm until 6:30 pm on the grounds of the Lisbon Community Center (The Barn). It is located a tenth of a mile south of the Lisbon Town Hall on Burnham Highway (Route 169). It will run every Thursday evening through early October. The Lisbon Farmers Market will have a variety of vendors offering fresh, locally grown produce, eggs, meat, honey and dairy products as well as a variety of artisans selling quality hand-crafted items. Lisbon resident Donna Harris will be the Market Master. Please plan to stop by the Lisbon Farmers Market to help support our local farmers and pick up some fresh Connecticut grown products for your family. If you would like information on becoming a vendor, please contact Donna Harris at 860-608-2050,email info@lisbonfarmersmarket.com or visit us on Facebook.

In the Rio Grande River Valley of central New Mexico and eastern Arizona, the Pueblos, a people spread over 19 communities, continue to practice their ancient art of pottery-making.  Descendents of the Anasazi, the Pueblo People, still use the traditional coiling methods and decorative patterns that have distinguished their work for centuries..

This exhibit compares and contrasts the unique style of each Pueblo community and highlights individual artists who have shaped this timeless craft.

 The museum is open Monday through Saturday from 10:00am - 5:00pm* and Sunday 12:00pm to 5:00pm *      *Last admission 4:30pm

Opening Reception: Friday, August 10, 6-8pm

Artist Demonstration Day: Saturday, August 4^th, 1-3:30pm.

Please see attached images.

The Connecticut Pastel Society, a statewide fine arts organization with national

outreach, is pleased to be returning to the Lyme Art Association for their 2012

Signature Member’s Exhibition.  This juried exhibition of more than 50 paintings

created by the Society’s premier members will be on display and for sale from

August 3 through September 22 in the Goodman Gallery at the Lyme Art

Association, 90 Lyme Street, Old Lyme, CT. Tuesday-Saturday 10-5pm, Sunday, 1-5pm.

This year’s exhibition will include a first time ever trio Artist Demonstration Day

on August 4^th, 1:00-3:30 pm.  The public as well as fellow artists are encouraged

to attend this free opportunity to see how a painting comes to life.  You will have

the opportunity to either experience a still life demonstration by Alain Picard,

a cityscape by Janet A. Cook and a macro landscape by Karen Israel.  The

artwork created by these three well known artists, will be graciously

donated and offered for sale at our premier silent auction throughout the six weeks of the

exhibition.  Bids will commence at the Opening Reception on August 10th at 6 pm

and end at 4 pm on the final day of the exhibit, September 22^nd.  Bids will be accepted

throughout the exhibit, either on the auction bid sheet accompanying the

paintings or by phone to the LAA at 860-434-7802.  All proceeds

from the auction will benefit the Connecticut Pastel Society.

The black VHS tape, a brick-like relic of the pre-digital age, is a dark talisman of analog video culture.  Now a mysterious and outmoded technology that necessitates a physical ritual of loading the tape into the jaws of a temperamental VCR, the widespread marketing of a home video system of video cameras, recording decks, and cassette tapes in the 1980s represented a sea change in how individuals engaged with television.

VHS The Exhibition, which is the brainchild of guest curator Rebecca Cleman, will explore the use of this format for artistic experimentation.  The exhibition will include works by Robert Beck, Sadie Benning, Dustin Guy Defa, James Fotopoulos, and Trevor Shimizu. Artworks will be accompanied by ephemera from ‘80s-era home video culture, such as the glitchy computer-generated, anti-corporate corporate spokesman Max Headroom, to give a broad perspective on the cultural shifts created by this technological phenomenon in entertainment, life, and art.  

Artists have used video for personal ends since the release of the first consumer-grade video cameras in the 1960s.  This equipment gave them a way to intervene and critique the hegemony of television, often by focusing on themes and subjects that were excluded from mainstream broadcasts.  For many of these artists, it was important to characterize these interventions as alternative modes of professional production that could subvert the matrix of corporate television.  A later use of amateur home video equipment could also be described as anti-television and countercultural – but the innately low quality of VHS, related to its mass-market appeal, further illustrates how artists self-reflexively work with antiquated technology to provoke art mythologies of value, authenticity, and permanence. 

More than being formalist explorations of VHS’s inherent qualities, the works in this exhibition engage the psychological associations of the medium, especially those that reflect the fragility of institutions, whether of self, family or society. The ability to watch TV shows on one’s own schedule or to forego the broadcasters altogether to watch self-procured or self-produced content made the experience of television more private and interactive.  Cleman adds, “As an alternative to sanctioned broadcasts, home video enabled the broad distribution of unwholesome entertainment, marking the VHS tape as a carrier of ungovernable, possibly even corrosive content.  The ominous VHS tape of dubious origin, referenced in dark-themed films like Hideo Nakata’s Ringu, David Lynch’s Lost Highway, or the forthcoming horror film V/H/S, evokes an unconscious confusion of sex, violence, and death.”  Drawing connections such as these, Cleman positions VHS The Exhibition as an exploration of the cultural impact of home video on both a public and personal front.

The exhibition will be on view from September 6 through October 14, 2012. A free, public reception is scheduled during the show’s second week, Thursday, September 13 from 5:00 – 8:00 pm.

Matthew Garrett extracts his imagery from unremarkable environments, isolating the visual murmurs of our surroundings. The images themselves don’t rest in one place--or on one thought--as they bounce from the slightly cryptic, to the strictly abstract and over to the plainly beautiful, before returning to more vernacular descriptions in which things are exactly as they appear to be.

Gerald Saladyga sees landscape painting not as a romantic representation of the past, but as an ongoing inspiration from an ever-changing environment. His current series of landscapes began in 2008 and culminated in 2012 with a present a view of the planet as a cartoon of itself, perhaps too real to be funny or too unreal to be taken seriously.

In the ongoing celebration of Silvermine’s 90th anniversary, this historical exhibition consists of a selection of prints made by a selection of Guild Artist members, both past and present made during this time period.  The exhibiting artists are connected through Milestone Graphics, the oldest printmaking workshop in Connecticut, owned by Jim Reed, a Guild artist who is serving as advisor.                            

Gallery Hours:  Wednesday through Saturday: 12 p.m. to 5 p.m;. Sunday: 1 p.m. to 5 p.m.

Juried by Cynthia Roznoy, Curator at the Mattatuck Museum Arts & History Center, this show incorporates three different themes:  “Double Vision,” Symbol and Reality,” and “Impermanent Markers.”                   

Gallery Hours:  Wednesday – Saturday: 12 p.m. – 5 p.m.; Sunday: 1 p.m. – 5 p.m.

Exhibit runs from August 5^th through September 16^th, 2012

Showcasing the current works of the distinguished artist/teachers of the Silvermine School of Art.  The exhibition represents every style and medium including painting, drawing, printmaking, photography, mixed media, sculpture, ceramics, jewelry and silversmithing.  All art work in the exhibit is available for sale.

The exhibit runs from August 23rd through September 16th.

GALLERY HOURS: Wednesday – Saturday: 12p.m. – 5 p.m.; Sunday: 1 p.m. – 5 p.m.