the arts paper | july/august 2016

The Arts Paperartists next door 4 elm shakespeare 6 arts funding 8 the ac sounds off 12

a free publication of the Arts Council of Greater New Haven • newhavenarts.org July | August 2016

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staffCynthia Clair executive director

Debbie Hesse director of artistic services & programs

Megan Manton director of development

Nichole René communications manager

Lisa Russo advertising & events coordinator

Christine Maisano director of finance

Winter Marshall executive administrative assistant

David Brensilver editor, the arts paper

Amanda May Aruani design consultant

board of directorsEileen O’Donnell president

Rick Wies vice president

Daisy Abreu second vice president

Ken Spitzbard treasurer

Wojtek Borowski secretary

directorsLaura BarrSusan CahanRobert B. Dannies Jr.James GreggTodd JoklMark KaduboskiJocelyn MamintaJosh MamisGreg MarazitaRachel MeleElizabeth Meyer-GadonFrank MitchellJohn PancoastMark PotocsnyDavid SilverstoneDexter SingletonRichard S. Stahl, MD

honorary membersFrances T. “Bitsie” ClarkCheever Tyler

The Arts Council of Greater New Haven promotes, advocates, and fosters opportunities for artists, arts organizations, and audiences. Because the arts matter.

The Arts Paper is published by the Arts Council of Greater New Haven, and is available by direct mail through membership with the Arts Council.

For membership information call 203.772.2788.

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Elm Shakespeare

Classic Staged in Edgerton Park

4 Artists Next Door

Shawn Persinger Synthesizes Styles

8 The AC Sounds Off on ...

Finding an Authentic Voice

12The Funding Blues

Arts Leaders Weigh-In 6

july | august 2016

The Arts Paper

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• july | august 2016 newhavenarts.org • 3

Farewell to and from the Editor

With this issue, we say farewell to David Brensilver, our dynamic Arts Paper editor. We are sad to lose David but very pleased that he will remain a New Haven arts colleague, as he moves on to the Yale School of Music to become its communications officer. When David arrived at the Arts Council seven and a half years ago, we felt immensely for-tunate to welcome an artist with marketing chops, shaped by a Julliard education and experience working at Lincoln Center. David’s pas-sion for music runs from Rush to Frank Zappa to Beethoven to Mahler. His appetite for words has spawned writing pursuits ranging from novels to blogs and stories. The writer/musician has served us well.

David’s quest for the good story paired with his selection of a talented stable of writers has elevated the quality of the paper. He’s molded The Arts Paper into a vital channel for sharing the im-portance and impact of artists and arts organizations in our community. When I asked David about a favorite story, he couldn’t name just one. He recalled several from the last few months—a story about a musician with Tourette syndrome performing with the New Haven Symphony, Southern Connecticut State University writing professor Tim Parrish’s recounting of his memoir going viral in the aftermath of a violent tragedy, and a feature about artist Rick Lowe’s social practice preceding the artist coming to New Haven as a guest of Site Projects. We’re exceedingly

proud of David’s work and of the place The Arts Paper holds in a world of shrinking print media and diminishing arts coverage.

His Arts Council colleagues and I will miss David’s sar-castic humor and his winding tales, in addition to his edito-rial prowess. Thank you for all you have contributed to the Arts Council, David.

Cindy Clair

As arts coverage is pushed off the pages of newspapers everywhere, publications like The Arts Paper are becoming increasingly important. New Haven, as I’ve come to know over these past seven and a half years, is home to an incred-

ibly diverse and extraordinary commu-nity of artists. If we don’t tell their stories, and the stories of their work and how it connects us to one another and to the wider world, who will? These are stories that deserve to be told—that must be told.

When Cindy asked me to identify a few favorite Arts Paper stories from the past seven years, I first had to think about how I might even begin to do that. I arrived at the Arts Council in January 2009. The March 2009 issue of The Arts Paper was my first. This, the July-August 2016 issue is my 75th and last. I think it’s safe to say that while we’ve published in-

teresting stories all along, the publication has become more thoughtful and compelling over time.

I’d like to thank Cindy and the Arts Council staff (past and present) for their trust and confidence. I’d like to thank the writers with whom I worked to bring you insightful articles. And I’d like to thank you, dear reader, for your interest and support. And now, I become one of you.

David Brensilver

In the Next Issue …

july | august 2016

The Arts Paper

On the Cover

New Haven native Christian Sands and his quartet will headline the New Haven Jazz Festival on August 27. See story on page 14. Photo by Judy Barbosa.

Judy Sirota Rosenthal ~ [email protected] ~ www.sirotarosenthal.com ~ 203-281-5854

Photography

Intimate and Timeless

In the September issue of The Arts Paper, we’ll meet Connecticut State Troubadour Kate Callahan, who’ll appear at the Connecticut Folk Festival and Green Expo on

September 10 in Edgerton Park. Photo courtesy of the artist.

july | august 2016

The Arts Paper


Synthesizing Musicartists next door

guitarist and composer shawn persinger blends highbrow and lowbrow music hank hoffman

hawn Persinger plays weird mu-sic. He says so himself.

In his playing and composition, Persinger deftly combines strands

of finger-style folk music, jazz, progressive rock, pop, country, and avant-garde classi-cal influences. And he does it all with a flair that’s accessible rather than intimidating.

“When I say I play ‘weird music,’ some-one who listens to normal music says, ‘Play something weird,’ and I play something weird. And they go, ‘Oh wow, that was re-ally weird and I didn’t like that!’” Persinger, who has a sharp sense of humor, said in an interview.

He has dubbed his acoustic finger-style guitar compositions “modern/primitive gui-tar,” a nod to both the American primitive style of folk playing associated with guitar-ist John Fahey and to the modern/primitive visual-arts movement pioneered by Jean Dubuffet, Picasso, and others.

In reality, while some of Persinger’s music is challenging, it’s hardly outside the conventions of 20th century classical composition. Academically schooled musi-cologists don’t find his work weird at all. He employs difficult rhythms and dissonance within a technically challenging framework. But he is also very song-driven, partial to compositional brevity and verse/chorus/verse/chorus/bridge structures more akin to pop music.

And not all of the music he plays is weird. Persinger admires strong song craft. Depending on the musical project he’s involved with, he could be playing rock ‘n’ roll and country (The Luck Pushers), 1980s covers (The Future Heavies), or Jackson Browne songs (Running on Empty). But when he’s playing solo or with his critically acclaimed but currently-on-hiatus duo Prester John with mandolinist David Miller, it’s another story.

“Harmonically, I’m interested in close voicing harmonies—seconds and fifths,” Persinger said. Most chord triads are built with the root, third, and fifth notes of a scale. By substituting, for example, the second for the third, Persinger achieves “diatonic dissonances.” Even though all the notes are in the key, the chord “sounds a little sour.”

“You can find tons of really ‘bad sound-ing chords,’” Persinger said, making finger quotes to emphasize the subjectivity of that judgment, “but I do believe the human ear goes, ‘There’s something about that I’m willing to accept’ because all those notes are clearly related somehow.”

Playing with Miller in Prester John, the musical program is diverse. “We can play a normal pop song and then, on a dime, play something incredibly complex and weird,” Persinger said. “Our biggest chagrin was we thought we could find a bigger audience for that.”

Solo or with Miller, Persinger explores

his modern/primitive music. Persinger described the modern/primitive approach as an attempt to synthesize (seeming) con-tradictions.

“It’s sloppy but precise and complex but catchy,” Persinger said. “I’m using a rela-tively primitive tool—an acoustic guitar, which is a piece of wood with strings on it—to do things with it people haven’t done very much.

“I wanted to take all the energy and power of [guitar-ist] Leo Kottke and marry it with Frank Zappa and King Crimson. I thought surely someone has done that. Why wouldn’t you do that?” Persinger recalled. But he only found hints of that fusion in other gui-tarists’ work. “My tastes are not only fringe but disparate fringe.”

He’s driven by a desire to learn as much as possible when it comes to the guitar. He joked that he has “learned a lot of songs out of spite”—to demonstrate that a touted guitarist’s chops aren’t as impressive as some think. “Fifty percent of the time I feel justified—it’s not that great, not that interesting—but I’m glad I learned it,” said Persinger.

“One of the things I struggle with as a

guitar player is really wanting to do some-thing special but also knowing that there’s so much that’s already been done that the odds are stacked against you,” Persinger said.

As an example, he offered his “favorite piece of music of all time,” the Symphonic Dances from West Side Story.

Composer Leonard Bernstein, Persinger said, was doing everything Persinger as-

pires to achieve. The music is filled with dissonance but sports catchy melodies on top. It meshes a lowbrow pulp romantic plot with adventurous musical flourishes. But Bernstein did it more than 50 years ago.

“What’s the point? You can’t do better than that!” exclaimed Persinger.

“But you’ve got to try.”One of the ways he challenges himself is

by using the computer to compose about half his works. With the software, he can notate “complex rhythms I might not play ‘naturally.’ Then I have to learn them,” he noted in an email.

“It’s really fun to write something on the computer and then have to learn what the computer does effortlessly,” he said. “The computer also allows me to play along with

difficult phrases and rhythms at slower tempos at the touch of a button. This is ex-tremely helpful when rhythms—it’s almost always the rhythms—are complex.”

In addition to composing and performing, Persinger has carved out a career teaching and writing about music and the guitar. Persinger wrote The 50 Greatest Guitar Books, a reference and tutorial work, as well as Bebop Jazz Guitar, which contains tran-scriptions for a dozen classic bebop tunes.

As a teacher, he offers individual instruc-tion, posts online lessons in “weird guitar,” and leads groups in learning the funda-mentals of Beatles songs. You may have thought the lovable mop-tops represented the apotheosis of melodic music, but the Fab Four could also be pretty weird, accord-ing to Persinger.

Persinger’s love for the guitar took hold when he was young, through the music of Kiss and AC/DC. “I got a guitar and a Mel Bay book,” Persinger recalled, referring to the ubiquitous beginner’s guitar manual. It depicted the fingering for an open G chord on the first page. “I saw that and said, ‘No! Who does that?’”

A friend showed him how to play “Rock You Like a Hurricane,” a 1984 hit by the German group The Scorpions. “It was the first recognizable riff I could play all the way through. As soon as I learned that, I went, ‘I can do that!’” he said. Persinger sang the crunchy chord change to me and then offered a variation of it. “That’s all I’ve done my whole life. I like that song, I learn it and then just rip it off!” n

S

Shawn Persinger. Photo by Greg Horowitz.

“I wanted to take all the energy and

power of [guitarist] Leo Kottke and marry it with Frank Zappa and King Crimson.”

—Shawn Persinger

july | august 2016

The Arts Paper


the roundtable

Fostering Community Through a Shared Creative Pursuit

matthew garrett

The Photo Arts Collective (PAC) was founded a lifetime ago, in a land where the use of digital photography was just beginning to spread, and only die-hard photo nerds walked around with a cam-era in their pocket at all times. Many things have changed in the intervening 20 years, yet the PAC has continued to gather on the first Thursday of the month ever since that initial meeting in May 1996.

With more than 200 meetings behind us, we have a lot to reflect on, to the point that it’s tempting to follow the example set by our most recent guest presenter, who said something to the effect of “I started to put together a retrospective group of images from the archives, but it was just too much—so I concentrated on recent stuff.” Our guest then proceeded to show loads of very strong images, with many of them taken over the previous few weeks. It was a powerful reminder that history does not always need to be based on old news.

Nevertheless, that temptation to focus on the recent must be balanced with the arc of a longer story.

The Photo Arts Collective started with a burst of energy born from the excitement that local photographers experienced when seeing one another at annual Arts Council of Greater New Haven exhibitions and events like Images and Somewhat Off the Wall. There was a small group of people who acted on the widely-shared sentiment that getting together once or twice a year was simply not enough, and they had the grand idea to create a new collective under the Arts Council’s umbrella, where we’ve been allowed to flourish, experiment, and re-define ourselves more than once.

From that ignition point, we grew into a bonfire of event and exhibition planning, and later settled down into the roaring fire that we now comfort-ably enjoy. There was a lot of organiza-tional soul-searching—and four venue changes—along the way, but we ulti-mately found a rhythm that is sustain-able and continues to serve our audience well. And, remarkably, it seems that our audience has never been identical for any two meetings—ever.

In looking again at the list of our most recent guest presenters, the very notice-able pattern is that quite a few of them are people who were at that first meet-ing, or arrived soon thereafter. And to a certain degree, that was the point of this whole endeavor.

For two decades now, PAC has been delivering on its promise to “cultivate and support a community of photog-raphers.” That goal has been the first item in our mission statement since the beginning, and so it shall be in the end—whenever that may be.

As it turns out, the Photo Arts Collec-tive has actually been about people, and community, this entire time. n

Matthew Garrett is a longtime member of the Photo Arts Collective steering com-

mittee and for many years wrote a monthly column, focused on PAC activities, for

The Arts Paper.

photo arts collective celebrates 20 years

A flier advertising the first meeting of the Photo Arts Collective. Image courtesy of the PAC steering committee.

Current members of the Photo Arts Collective steering committee, left to right: Terry Dagradi, Penny Cook, Marjorie Wolfe, Matthew Garrett, Bob Wilton, Maryann Ott, and Rod Cook. Not pictured is Rob Lisak. Photo courtesy of the PAC steering committee.

The Photo Arts Collective is an Arts Council program that aims to cultivate and support a community of individuals who share an interest in photography, through workshops, lec-tures, exhibitions, portfolio reviews, group critiques, and events. The Photo Arts Collective meets the first Thursday of the month at the Kehler Liddell Gallery, 873 Whitney Ave., New Ha-ven, at 7 p.m. To learn more, send email to [email protected]. The collective does not meet in July and Au-gust. Photo Arts Collective meetings will resume in September.

july | august 2016

The Arts Paper


Elm Shakespeare Stages A Midsummer Night’s Dream in Edgerton Park

allan appel

Last summer, Hank Hoffman interviewed Rebecca Goodheart, who’d just assumed her role as the Elm Shakespeare Company’s new producing director, succeeding James and Margaret Andreassi. Hoffman’s story, “A New (Haven) Champion of the Bard,” appeared in the October 2015 issue of The Arts Paper.

In April, the New Haven Independent’s Allan Appel interviewed Goodheart about the company’s production of Shakespeare’s A Midsummer Night’s Dream, which will be staged in Edgerton Park August 18-Sep-tember 4. Appel also talked with Goodheart about her plans for the company, now that she’s been at its helm for a year. What fol-lows is Appel’s Q&A-style interview, which was originally published in the New Haven Independent. We thank Appel and New Haven Independent editor Paul Bass for sharing it with us.

s every New Haven Bard-o-phile knows, every August for the past generation, Elm Shakespeare

Company (ESC) has given us high-level, exuberant, and pay-anything-you-wish-but-please-contribute-something-really-almost-free Shakespeare in Edgerton Park.

Now ESC founders Jim and Margie An-dreassi have passed the company’s leader-ship baton on to a single person, Rebecca Goodheart. This is Goodheart’s first sea-son as its producing director, meaning that she wears the hats of both the artistic and business leader of the company. In August, she’ll present A Midsummer Night’s Dream, directed by Tina Packer, the distinguished founder of Shakespeare & Company in Lenox, Mass., and Jim Andreassi’s mentor.

The Independent sat down with Good-heart to talk about her plans for ESC; the new partnership with Southern Connecti-cut State University, which finally is giving ESC an artistic home; her own career as an actor and voice teacher; how heavy lies the head that wears both the art and business crowns as producing director; and what she thinks of the theater scene in New Haven. Goodheart said it’s going to be different—watch out for those statues and nymphs leaping about the bushes of the park—and yet also the same as the Midsummer that Andreassi staged 19 years ago when ESC was just a baby.

That’s because, as Goodheart said, they all have the same actor-centered “Shake-speare DNA” derived from the teachings of Tina Packer.

Here are highlights from that interview:Independent: Who is Rebecca Good-

heart and how has she come to ESC?Goodheart: Jim Andreassi and I had

both spent much time at Shakespeare & Company in Lenox, the 10th-largest Shakespeare festival in the country. It’s the home of a very particular actor-audience aesthetic, bringing Elizabethan ideals into

performance. You are an Elizabethan actor! It means you’re trained with dance and the connection to the divine; with fights and the connection to violence; with clowns and buffooning; joy and silliness and con-nection to the earth; and connection to language on a word-by-word basis. Tina founded Shakespeare & Company and created an aesthetic that changed people’s lives. I love the way Jim puts it: He and I are from the same Shakespeare DNA … Tina’s DNA.

Independent: But you’ve told me that after your training in Lenox and before ESC you founded a Shakespeare festival in Maryland, most recently worked with the San Francisco Shakespeare festival, and are associated with one, at least as a con-sultant, as far away as Prague. Do you see yourself as much a producer as an actor and teacher of actors?

Goodheart: I started out as an actor. I acted in New York for 10 years, in the 1990s. I went to NYU and studied with Stella Adler. I was always connected with language. I come from Washington, D.C. I grew up with the Folger Library. [I always felt] psychological realism was limiting. What I love about theater is the expan-sion of what it means to be human. I’d always found that in Shakespeare. I was at Shakespeare & Company for five years, with Tina, my mentor. They kicked me out of the nest. Go create [they said]. That lead me to the Blackfriars Playhouse in Staunton, Va., an original-practices theater, where I learned what we can learn about performing today from [performing in] Shakespeare’s day.

I’m also trained in Kristin Linklat-er’s voice training—the idea that your thought-feeling-impulse is connected with your breath and language connects to that

in your body. Teaching is wonderful, but at the end of the day I am a producing artist. I have to be in the mix of it. I love being the person who has the vision that holds the community. No other job I’ve ever done takes as much of me as being a producing director.

Independent: Can you say a little about possible tensions between the two?

Goodheart: I’m both the mom and dad, both Margie [Andreassi] and Jim. One side of my brain is holding on to the finan-cials, the strategic planning, and the other side is creating amazing art and working with artists and developing curriculum for the teaching artists all within the context of serving a community. At its core the danger is there’s a tension between a good artistic director and a good managing di-rector. The artistic director says, “Let’s go to the moon.” The managing director says, “It’s not in the budget.” We have an amaz-ing board and great oversight [that helps with this tension]. The solution is you sur-round yourself with visionary artists who say, “Let’s go the moon” … and you frame the conversation about possibility, vision, magic, and then you say, “All right and how do we do this with the budget we have?”

Independent: So what might we see that’s new?

Goodheart: My first obligation, my first job, is to honor and fulfill the incredible legacy of Jim and Margie and what the original board of directors created. Our gift to the community will always be the summer outdoor Shakespeare. That said, we are growing and deepening our educa-tional programs. This year we are on target to serve double the number of students we served before. We are adding a program for the seven-to-13 year-olds that we never served before, and summer camps in three

different locations [in New Haven]. We are expanding our teen programs, our teen troupe with a 12-week course that puts on a performance each semester. And we’re deepening the scholars’ program where each student will have a direct, one-on-one mentoring relationship with an actor or crew. The [student] actor will be re-sponsible for a “rehearsal understudy” for learning all the mentor’s lines and blocking in Midsummer Night’s Dream … and half the [student] actors will be on stage each night—this year they’ll be fairies—and the other half will learn about the front of the house and put on their own pre-show entertainment during the one-and-a-half hours [of picnicking] beforehand.

Independent: And what is the relation-ship with Southern about?

Goodheart: We’ve been homeless and now Southern gives us, as Theseus says [in Midsummer], a “local habitation.” I got to be the person who ran that football over the goal line, although it had been in process for three years. Using their car-pentry shop, sharing resources in terms of rehearsal space is old. I’d like to see us building more costumes of our own. We do borrow and rent and we have great rela-tionships with Southern, Yale Drama, Yale Rep, Long Wharf, and the Shubert. This partnership allows us to do more creating of what goes on stage. What’s new is we will have an office here year-round, and we’ll be working with Southern students. I’ll be teaching or directing. They are help-ing us sponsor Tina Packer coming to New Haven. We wouldn’t have been able to do something of this level of international attention, Women of Will, without the rela-tionship to Lyman.

Independent: So why did you choose A Midsummer Night’s Dream for your first

goodheart talks about vision for that production and company’s future

ARaphael Massie, center, stars as Bottom and Elisa Albert, left, and Brianna Bauch, right, play fairies in Elm Shakespeare Company’s production of A Midsummer Night’s Dream.

Photo by Mike Franzman.

july | august 2016

The Arts Paper


show, and will you be directing it?Goodheart: Tina will direct. For the

first two years [while I hold the company together] I’ll bring in great directors. [As to Midsummer] there’s a reason it’s done more than the other Shakespeare plays. It allows us to make the most of the spec-tacular outdoor venue, the beautiful park. The rehearsal process is quite short, three weeks, and structure of the play allows us to rehearse all three subplots simulta-neously, so it buys rehearsal time. I can’t reveal our casting yet, but there are about 15 reasons why any one play is chosen. It’s a great play the actors and the audience have come to love at Elm. Tina and I were speaking also that we are in a time of great contentiousness in our world, whether heart-sickening violence, our raucous political environment. Shakespeare in the Park is a gift we give to New Haven. The play begins in strife, in war, and ends in a place of harmony and peace. The play ends with “hand in hand, with fairy grace, we will sing and bless this place.” From there Puck turns to the audience and says: “Do you think this is a dream? Give me your hand, and it can be yours.” We’re going to be playing a lot with the park as a magical world.

Independent: Tell me your impressions of New Haven and the theater scene here, as a newcomer.

Goodheart: I keep falling more and more in love with New Haven. It’s a community that certainly values great art. It’s [also] a community that is really engaged in issues of the 21st century. I was so moved at the Community Foundation’s annual meeting to find out the way New Haven embraces refugees. I was so proud in that moment.

I’m a sucker for all the stone work down-town. I wasn’t prepared for the physical beauty of downtown. I can see West Rock from where I live, and every night those rocks are a different color. Here’s the question we have to ask, and listen: What is our place in this community? There are great arts institutions in New Haven fulling [different] needs. Long Wharf, what they do they do brilliantly. Shubert, Collective Consciousness …

I want to do what we do and we can do better than anyone else that’s a service. I wouldn’t say no [to putting on non-Shake-speare plays], but I think the question becomes: Is that what New Haven needs us to do? The tag line we use is “we bring classics to all of New Haven.” Everyone deserves great theater and a connection to these plays that have changed lives for 400 years. I feel like there is a place for me to contribute to the larger conversations. There can be places where artists are val-ued as the “entertainment.” In New Haven there’s an opening where I [and ESC] can [by being considered more than “enter-tainment”] add to the conversation. Isn’t that what everybody wants in their life? n

Allan Appel’s interview with Rebecca Goodheart was originally published by the New Haven Independent and is reprinted

here with permission.

Read Hank Hoffman’s piece about Rebecca Goodheart at issuu.com/artscouncil9/docs/

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Edgerton as InspirationWhen Tina Packer, who’ll direct Elm

Shakespeare Company’s production of A Midsummer Night’s Dream (August 18-Sep-tember 4), first visited Edgerton Park last fall, she was inspired by the setting. Not just the natural beauty of the place, but its history and the stories that surround Ed-gerton, the mansion that stood there until 1865, when it was torn down. Eli Whitney had originally owned the property and built a home called Ivy Nook, where his niece Caroline lived. Industrialist Frederick Brew-ster bought the property in 1906, razed the house, and built Edgerton for his wife, Margaret. Upon her death, per Brewster’s wishes, that house was torn down and the property was given to the City of New Haven.

Elizabeth Bolster, the wardrobe super-visor at the Yale School of Drama, has worked with the Elm Shakespeare Com-pany for years. A Midsummer Night’s Dream will be the 14th consecutive production on which she’s worked. To her, the legend that surrounds Edgerton is a love story punctu-ated by “the idea that Frederick Brewster built this house for his wife and because of his love for her he tore it down.”

In June, Bolster, the production’s set designer, was working to “figure out a way to represent the mansion that used to be there.”

“It’ll probably be more of an abstrac-tion,” she said.

Tina Packer, the founder of Shakespeare & Company in Lenox, Massachusetts, said, “I love working with the environment as it is.” Pointing out that she spent years setting the Bard’s work at the Mount, a property once owned by Edith Wharton, Packer said of Edgerton, “I was really inter-ested in the history of that house and also who lived there and what sort of life did they lead.”

Packer is inspired to play with what’s there and what’s not, and to use the stories that were created there, and the stories that unfold in A Midsummer Night’s Dream, to create a realm in which time and place are ambiguous. That timeless realm, Packer said “is where our imaginations go anyway.”

In Packer’s vision, A Midsummer Night’s Dream will evoke the period in which Edg-erton stood. It will of course hark back to Greek and Roman times. And it will visit the modern day. Like the story itself, and like all of Shakespeare’s work, it’ll have a timeless quality, as does Edgerton Park, which, in the end, belongs to the mod-ern-day mechanicals. n

The southeast façade of Edgerton, the mansion Frederick Brewster built in 1909 for his wife, Margaret. Per Brewster’s will, the mansion, which was designed by Designed by Robert Storer Stephenson, was torn down upon Margaret’s death. In

1965, Brewster gave the property, now Edgerton Park, to the City of New Haven. Photo (detail) courtesy of the New Haven Museum.

Tina Packer. Photo by Kevin Sprague.

july | august 2016

The Arts Paper


Arts Funding Round-Up lucile bruce & david brensilver

On June 3, Gov. Dannel Malloy signed into law an amended state budget for the next fiscal year. Beginning July 1, the new budget reduces funding for the arts and culture and makes cuts to many other state departments and programs, as well. This article focuses on arts funding and how our local arts and cul-ture leaders are viewing current fiscal trends.

Who should pay for the arts? “We tend to think of arts funding as char-

ity,” Mary Lou Aleskie, executive director of the International Festival of Arts & Ideas, said. “It’s not charity. It’s investment.”

Arts funding comes from a complex mix of sources, typically earned income (ticket sales), public (government) support, foun-dation grants, and gifts from individual donors. As John Fisher, executive director of the Shubert Theater, explained, percentages vary for every organization depending on its model. Museums, for example, are very low on the earned-income side, while the Shubert earns 80 percent to 85 percent of its revenue through ticket sales.

Even the Shubert, though, receives public support—last year, a state budget line item of slightly less than $300,000. Should federal, state, and local government continue to invest in the arts, including in tough fiscal times?

Some Americans resist the idea of public arts funding. Ours is a free market economy, they say. Shouldn’t artists and arts organiza-tions make money the old fashioned way—by earning it? Others prefer to minimize the government’s role in paying for any programs intended to create a social good. On the other end of the spectrum, some believe it’s imper-ative that federal, state, and municipal gov-ernment help pay for the arts—for the survival of the sector itself, and because this is the only way to even the playing field across local communities that vary widely in their financial and other resources. These supporters differ, though, on how much support is warranted and how funds should be allocated.

In Europe, where a mixed-market model is preferred to pure capitalism, the value of arts and culture is not debated and govern-ment plays a fundamental role in supporting the arts. Germany’s culture budget was 1.28 billion ($1.63 billion) in 2014. Announcing an 8 percent budget increase for 2013, the German culture minister called the arts “an essential investment in the future of our soci-ety.” France’s cultural budget was 42.43 billion ($309 billion) that same year. *

By contrast, the 2016 budget for the Na-tional Endowment for the Arts totaled just under $148 million. Robert Lynch, president of Americans for the Arts, stated that the amount was “moving in the right direction with a $2 million increase ... However, this proposed funding level still does not meet the needs of the 95,000 nonprofit arts organiza-tions and state and local arts agencies across the country nor does it reflect the value of the arts to help power our nation’s annual eco-nomic growth reflected in U.S. Bureau of Eco-nomic Analysis data showing the arts to be an annual $698.7 billion industry or 4.32 percent of the U.S. gross domestic product.”

Current arts funding in Connecticut How you land on the above question—who

should pay for the arts?—will determine in

part how you feel about this fact: State gov-ernment support for the arts in Connecticut is declining steadily.

Nationally, the arts sector has been re-bounding in many places from Great Reces-sion lows, yet the recovery has not arrived in Connecticut. The last several years have seen a steady reduction in State of Connecticut arts funding. The downward trend continues in the budget just passed: Arts funding through the Connecticut Department of Economic and Community Development (CEDC) has been cut by more than $600,000, and most “man-dated legislative grants” (i.e. “line items”) allo-cated to a limited number of arts and cultural organizations across the state were reduced from 2016 amounts by 12 percent. In New Haven, the following organizations receive line-item funding: the Shubert Theater, Long Wharf Theater, Arts Council of Greater New Haven, International Festival of Arts & Ideas, Neighborhood Music School, Yale Repertory Theatre, and Arte, Inc.

In addition, the governor vetoed the Con-necticut Humanities Council’s grants budget, eliminating $1.7 million in program support for large and small cultural organizations across the state. In recent years, Humanities Council grants helped to fund a variety of cultural programs and collaborations in New Haven, including at the International Festival of Arts & Ideas, Long Wharf Theater, Artspace, The Institute Library, New Haven Museum, A Broken Umbrella Theater, and the Yale Pea-body Museum of Natural History. Humanities Council investment in New Haven totaled more than $100,000 in 2015-16 alone.

Across New England, state support for the arts is rising in Massachusetts, Rhode Island, and Maine; staying the same in Vermont; and dropping in New Hampshire and Connecticut. According to a recent fiscal analysis by the National Assembly of State Arts Agencies, Connecticut saw one of the largest percent-age drops in the nation in its legislation appro-priations to the arts: -33.2 percent between fiscal years 2015 and 2016, excluding line items. With line items, the figure is still steep: -19.3 percent, underscoring the importance of line-item dollars to the overall fiscal picture of the arts sector in our state. When it comes to legislative appropriations, Connecticut relies more heavily on line items that any other state in the nation.

Funding challenges for local organizationsA number of additional factors combine

to create a difficult fiscal environment for the arts today. Leaders across New Haven spoke candidly about the various challenges facing the sector. Here’s a summary, in no particular order.

1. Limits of foundation givingAt private foundations, money for general

operating support of the arts is increasingly scarce. “Foundations are trying to coordinate their initiatives to create a certain kind of im-pact,” Josh Borenstein, Long Wharf Theatre’s managing director, said. “It’s more and more difficult to find money that is not tied to spe-cific programs.”

Ian Alderman, co-founder and artistic direc-tor of A Broken Umbrella Theater and an artist with a full-time “day job”—he co-owns Alder-man-Dow Iron & Metal Co., Inc., a New Hav-en-based scrap metal yard—said his company

has no paid staff and thus cannot compete for larger national grants.

The same is true for Collective Conscious-ness Theatre, New Haven’s theater company specializing in social change. Dexter Single-ton, its executive artistic director, said his company is ready to scale up from a small to midsize organization, but funding realities have made that impossible to date. Collective Consciousness and A Broken Umbrella have annual budgets of $50,000 to $75,000, de-pending on the year.

2. Disappearing corporate dollarsDwindling corporate support has been a

significant loss for the arts sector. As Fisher explained, mergers and acquisitions over time—such as in the banking industry—have swallowed up smaller businesses, drawing resources out of New Haven into other cities and states where corporations are headquar-tered.

When corporations do give, Borenstein noted, they tend to give in-kind—such as donations of medicine to clinics. “It’s really important,” he said, “but it doesn’t help Long Wharf Theatre.”

Yale University, the largest employer in New Haven and a nonprofit institution, gives little direct financial support to local arts or-ganizations; it offers some in-kind donations (including space, Woolsey Hall, to the New Haven Symphony Orchestra). However, Yale supports its own cultural institutions, helping to anchor the city as an arts destination.

Recently, the Community Foundation for Greater New Haven completed a study that demonstrated the need for new capitalization and audience development and diversification strategies in and around New Haven’s arts sector. Foundation CEO Will Ginsberg agreed. “There’s not a lot of corporate philanthropy in New Haven,” and, “I’d like to see a greater sense of connection and continuum between what we think of as Yale arts and New Haven arts.”

A Broken Umbrella has benefitted from a number of “space angels,” local property owners who’ve donated space for them to create and perform site-specific new works based on local history. For A Broken Umbrella and other small organizations, locally based in-kind donations are key. Singleton put it this way: “When we start a new production, the first thing we do is look at all that we need and ask, ‘What can we borrow?’”

3. No regional/county funding

“Most of our regional-theater colleagues nationally receive at least $25,000 from their counties, and some more,” Borenstein said. He believes, like Fisher and others, that Connecticut is at a particular disadvantage because it doesn’t have a regional or county governance system.

It’s a huge factor. The majority of public support for the arts in the United States comes from county and municipal govern-ments. Not only does Connecticut lack a county-government structure, but municipal-ities in the state don’t have the constitutional power to levy taxes, limiting resources at the local level. The City of New Haven offered a small competitive-grants program this year with a maximum award amount of $5,000. The city employs a two-person arts-and-cul-ture staff and pays for holiday celebrations such as fireworks and tree lighting on the New Haven Green. But the city’s overall arts budget

is small and has not increased in recent years.Nationally, state and municipal funding

has risen since 2012. In 2015, appropriations to state and jurisdictional arts agencies in-creased 13.7 percent (from FY2014). Direct expenditures on the arts by county and city governments rose 8.1 percent. **

4. Declining state supportAs described above, state support for the

arts is declining in Connecticut—both the competitive grants process and budget line items, which continue to be the subject of debate.

“I would argue for more line items, not less,” Fisher said. “If larger institutions go away, it’s going to make it that much harder for every-one else.”

Line items, he explained, provide much-needed general operating support. “You really need some base support to ensure stability,” Fisher said. Organizations receiving line items file applications and reports; they are account-able to the Department of Economic and Community Development.

“We receive less state funding than our peers around the country,” Borenstein noted. “Our colleagues around the country receive a median of $110,000 through competi-tive state grants. We are getting $65,000” through the line item for producing theaters.

While many agree on the importance of line items, Daniel Fitzmaurice, executive di-rector of Creative Arts Workshop, does not. Creative Arts Workshop, for all intents and purposes, operates without public support

state and local realities today

Dexter Singleton Mary Lou Aleskie

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The Arts Paper


and has no plans to change that.“I don’t typically count state funding in our

discussions about how I see funding this orga-nization in the future,” Fitzmaurice said. “I feel lucky that I can have that perspective.”

“We think it’s great that the larger institu-tions receive line items,” Singleton said. “It’s important for the state to take care of our cultural gems, those larger organizations that serve a lot of adults and young people in our state.

“I just think the little guys are forgotten about,” he lamented. “Especially in a tough state like Connecticut, where there’s not a lot of funding to go around. There aren’t enough grants.”

Like Singleton, Alderman also supports line items for larger organizations. Both A Broken Umbrella and Collective Consciousness have received state funding through the competi-tive-grants process.

“We’re incredibly grateful for the support the state has given us in the past,” Alderman said. “We would not be where we are today without it.”

State grants, distinct from line items, have

helped younger companies grow, develop new work, and reach new audiences. Decreases in state grant funding are likely to hit smaller, more experimental organizations like Collec-tive Consciousness and A Broken Umbrella especially hard. Public support also helps individual artists who live in Connecticut and organizations like the International Festival that offer ample free programming.

“We feel very fortunate to have a line item from the state,” Dan Gurvich, Neighborhood Music School’s executive director, said.

“We’re one of the 10 largest community arts schools in the nation, but we’re the only one that’s not located in a New York, a Chicago, or a Philadelphia,” Gurvich said, ex-plaining that his organization can’t charge as much for tuition as institutions in bigger cities. “That’s where the state is so helpful.” Without state funding last year, Gurvich said, Neigh-borhood Music School wouldn’t have been able to provide 525 students with need-based financial aid or tuition waivers.

Like other local arts leaders, Gurvich is grateful to the state legislators who’ve se-cured arts funding and have fought in Hartford against line-item cuts, and he worries about the security of the state funding his organiza-tion receives. “We know that it’s perpetually in jeopardy,” he said. “It would be a huge blow for us to lose that funding.”

State funding has also been important to the festival’s operations for years, yet that funding has always been vulnerable, Aleskie said, pointing out that “there is no utopian

model that we can all just look to and aspire to.”

Borenstein believes Maryland offers a model worth looking at. “They have a struc-ture where anchor organizations, as long as they meet certain criteria, receive substantial funding,” he said. “It’s tiered, so organizations at different stages of their lifecycles receive different amounts.

“The arts sector is really not sustainable without ongoing support from the public sec-tor,” Borenstein concluded. “That’s the reality.”

5. Increased importance of individual donors“I think what you’re seeing is an increased

need to cultivate individual donors,” Boren-stein said. “All arts organizations are subsi-dized to some degree, and individual donors are becoming an even more important source of support for the arts.”

The danger here, as described in a recent article in The Atlantic ***, is that wealthy individuals may focus their giving on larger arts institutions instead of smaller communi-ty-based groups positioned to achieve imme-diate, direct social impact.

And cultivating individual donors takes time. “As other revenue sources decline,” Borenstein said, “we are under continued pressure to identify and raise money from new donors. It’s labor intensive. We can’t out-source jobs.”

InnovationTo respond to the changing arts-funding

landscape, arts organizations are soul-search-ing, asking themselves what they can do to secure their own futures.

In an effort to mitigate the effect of state line-item reductions, Gurvich and his team are working to strengthen Neighborhood Music School’s earned-income business model while cutting costs and exploring areas where oper-ations could be more efficient. Gurvich is also interested in creating arts programs that pre-pare students—particularly those from New Haven’s underserved communities—to have success in college and the professional world.

“Sadly, it’s hard to get funding just for the arts,” Gurvich said. “Increasingly, we’re trying to speak the language of social outcomes and not just academic outcomes.”

Putting the value of Neighborhood Music School in context, Gurvich said, “If Neigh-borhood Music School were to disappear tomorrow, I could still afford (to send) my daughter to the private studio for her music lesson or for her dance class.” For the families of the above-mentioned 525 students, who represent one-fifth to one-sixth of Neighbor-hood Music School’s total enrollment, “those opportunities would disappear.”

Across town, Long Wharf Theatre is invest-ing heavily in community engagement. It is responding to changing demographics in the United States, as well as other cultural factors impacting the art form itself. “We no longer have the lock on experiencing high quality narrative drama,” Borenstein explained. “Peo-ple can experience that at home. The fact that we’re live, and it’s a special occasion—we can market the experience, but it something we are going to have to be more thoughtful about.

“We will be minority majority culture by 2040,” Borenstein said. “We’ve been working on making sure everyone feels welcome in the theater regardless of their background in terms of age, economic status, race or ethnic-ity …We are also developing programs spe-cifically for younger audiences. We hope the young people who are coming here will stay here and will incorporate theatergoing as part of their experience.”

Fortunately, government is showing signs of innovation, as well. Thanks to leaders at the Department of Economic and Community Development and the Connecticut Arts Alli-ance, changes were made to Connecticut Arts Endowment rules that will be beneficial to the sector. The endowment generates income that can be used to provide operating support. The new funding rule states that a percentage of total assets, rather than a percentage of in-come, may be distributed as long as it doesn’t drop below a certain percentage of the total.

Arts Stabilization ProjectThis isn’t the first time the arts sector has

faced a moment of uncertainty (although arguably the signs are more ominous today). In the mid-1990s, the Arts Council of Greater New Haven, with representatives from Yale University, the Community Foundation for Greater New Haven, and the local business and philanthropic communities, sought to assess the area’s cultural climate and facilities and to develop a strategy to strengthen the arts sector. Wolf Associates was hired to create A Regional Cultural Plan for Greater New Haven, a critical part of which was the Greater New Haven Arts Stabilization Project, an ef-fort modeled on a national initiative.

The project, launched in 2001, bolstered the financial foundations and eight organiza-tions: Creative Arts Workshop, Guilford Art Center, the International Festival of Arts & Ideas, Long Wharf Theatre, Neighborhood Music School, the New Haven Museum, the New Haven Symphony Orchestra, and the Shubert Theater. The seven-year project, which also helped those organizations de-velop long-range financial plans, raised $5 million—including $2 million from the State of Connecticut and $1 million from the Commu-nity Foundation, which acted as the project’s fiduciary agent. Each organization received working capital reserves as it met certain stra-tegic goals.

“I don’t think the festival would be here without stabilization,” Aleskie said. Stabiliza-tion funding helped the festival build a cash reserve fund and “attracted investment.” Likewise, Borenstein said “it’s been great. It has helped us with cash flow over the last decade.”

“Stabilization brought together a number of institutional funders who hadn’t worked together before,” Fisher said. “It did that very well. Like a lot of things, it was looked at to solve all problems, and it hasn’t been able to do that. But I think it was a good program.”

The future Perhaps the moment has come once again

to think expansively and strategically together

about new ways to stabilize the arts in Con-necticut. Across the state, arts advocates and leaders are working hard to ensure that the sector remains strong, but there is nervous-ness in the air.

“It doesn’t get any less challenging, that’s for sure,” Fisher said.

“Knocking on doors and trying to find money is nearly impossible right now,” Al-derman said. “We are definitely feeling the realities at what should now be a time for us to grow into our second 10 years.”

Connecticut, Aleskie believes, is a “cultural dynamo” worth investing in. “This constant death by a thousand lashes is not only hurtful to the arts, it’s hurtful to Connecticut,” she said. And while there are legislators—includ-ing state Sen. Martin Looney, state Rep. Toni Walker, and former state Sen. and current New Haven Mayor Toni Harp—who recog-nize that the arts matter and are universally praised by arts leaders for their work, Aleskie said it’s incumbent on arts organizations “to take matters into our own hands.”

“We haven’t demanded it,” she said. “There’s no whining.”

“Connecticut is a great place to produce art,” Borenstein reflected. “Audiences are very sophisticated. People are proud of the quality of arts organizations that exist here. There are a lot of exciting things about being an arts organization here, but there are also real challenges.

“The main issue with arts funding is that there isn’t enough of it,” he explained. “We should probably have 10 times what we have in the state, given the arts organizations and the activity going on. There are a lot of cool, small, young organizations that deserve sup-port.”

For Cindy Clair, executive director of the Arts Council of Greater New Haven, it’s time to examine our values. “I think we’re in a time as a culture and a civilization of tremendous upheaval and change,” she said, a time when there are “more questions than answers.” She sees arts leaders and organizations being drained by the constant focus on securing funding. It detracts from the work itself. “Let us do the arts,” she said. “Let us not have to beg and plead.”

Final thoughtsAre the arts important to society? If we

lived in Europe, we would not be asking this question; we’d share an assumption that arts are the birthright of every American regard-less of one’s ability to pay, and that the arts are essential to building an engaged, educated citizenry, growing a thriving economy, and de-veloping local cultures that attract innovation and investment.

New Haven and Connecticut are rich in arts and culture resources. Over the past 20 years alone, the collective investment made to the arts in New Haven easily numbers in the bil-lions of dollars.

Yet continued growth and reinvestment is not a given. Considering the fiscal realities in our state, what will we do to ensure that our cultural treasures, old and new, live on? n

* http://blogs.artinfo.com/artintheair/2012/11/13/france-cuts-its-culture-budget-for-2013-while-germany-boosts-arts-spending/** Grantmakers in the Arts, “Public Funding for the Arts: 2015 Update,” Published in GIA Reader, Vol .26, No. 3 (Fall 2015)

*** “Who Should Pay for the Arts in America?” by Andy Horwitz, The Atlantic, Jan. 31, 2016

Dan Gurvich. Photo courtesy of Neighborhood Music School.

Mary Lou Aleskie. Photo courtesy of the International Festival of Arts & Ideas.Josh Borenstein John Fisher

july | august 2016

The Arts Paper


Bone Wars and Bragging Rightssteve scarpa

ver the course of its 150-year history, the Yale Peabody Muse-um of Natural History has hosted more than its fair share of famous

scientists and thinkers, people who pushed for new ways of seeing and understanding our world: James Dwight Dana, whose sys-tem of mineral classification is still in use today; Hiram Bingham, the adventurer who explored Machu Picchu; John Ostrom, who discovered the fearsome dinosaur Deinon-ychus, pointing toward behavior that was cunning and fast, rather than lumbering; and artist Rudolph Zallinger, whose 110-foot mural Age of Reptiles imprinted dinosaurs on the brains of people across the country.

But for sheer importance to the founding of the museum and the direction it would take, one man looms large: Othniel Charles Marsh, a thoroughly Dickensian figure around whose collection of fossils the mu-seum was built.

For 150 years, the museum has been collecting the natural wonders of the world, studying and cataloging them, and adding immeasurably to the shared knowledge of mankind. To honor the museum’s rich history, the exhibit Treasures of the Peabody: 150 Years of Exploration & Discovery will be on display until January 2017. The exhibit tells the story of the founding of science education at Yale University, the creation of the museum, and the discoveries made along the way.

The museum is in the process of planning several celebratory events, Melanie Brigo-ckas, a spokesperson for the Peabody, said. At press time, the final plans had not been set.

The evolution of the study of sciences at Yale was a long one. The university was founded in 1701 in Clinton and took on the name Yale College in 1718. Yale’s first microscope, the first piece of scientific ap-paratus owned by the university, was pur-chased in 1735. The first science professor, Benjamin Silliman, was hired in 1802. With a focus on humanities and spiritual inquiry, academic interest in the physical world was slow to take root.

It was Marsh, with his embrace of Dar-winian evolution as a scientific principle and his relentless pursuit of ancient fossils (the first of which had been discovered

and named in the 1820s in Europe), who created the popular public identity of the institution.

Marsh was born in 1831 in Lockport, New York, son of an undistinguished father who forced him into working on his small farm. Marsh’s mother died when he was 3 years old, a loss that his contemporaries believed impaired his ability to make lasting emo-tional bonds. The young man had obvious intelligence and a preternatural ability to find the right connections to get what he wanted. He was driven, and he certainly had a ruthless streak.

Marsh’s future could have been bleak—he was staring down a life of backbreaking labor for little reward when a key person changed the course of his existence. George Peabody, his maternal uncle, was a million-

aire with a philanthropic streak. Peabody’s only genius, it appeared to observers, was his ability to make money. Having had no formal schooling himself, Peabody had strong feelings about the value and neces-sity of education. Thanks to his uncle’s pa-tronage, Marsh left the farm and attended Phillips Academy. He showed true aca-demic ability, enrolling at Yale at the age of 24 for his undergraduate work.

Peabody funded Marsh’s time at Yale and his graduate education. While studying in Germany in 1863, Marsh met Edward Drinker Cope. Theirs became, arguably, the most influential relationship in Marsh’s life. The two became fast friends, even naming different species after one another. But as both men rose in the young field of pale-ontology, their feelings toward each other changed.

“In this developing drama, Marsh was the tragic hero blinded by arrogance and an insatiable ego. Cope, his relentless adver-sary, was ‘a character out of fiction, a dis-tinguished scientist with an emotional life like that of the villain of a Jacobean tragedy,’ or so Wallace Stegner wrote,” said Richard Conniff in his history of the museum, House of Lost Worlds.

In 1866, Peabody, at the urging of his nephew Marsh, donated $150,000 for the foundation of a natural history museum at Yale. Conveniently, Marsh was appointed shortly thereafter as a professor of paleon-tology, the first in the nation.

Soon, thanks to the development of the transcontinental railroad, Marsh was regularly leading excursions out west, into the wilds of Nebraska, Colorado, and Wy-oming, in search of fossils. According to photographs in the exhibition, these were raffishly glamorous excursions, with grad students from Yale toting six-shooters and wearing bandoliers, looking more like cavalry than a bunch of scientists. Marsh discovered and named dinosaur species by the trainload. He discovered some of the more famous dinosaurs, the ones familiar to even the smallest of children, Brontosaurus and Stegosaurus perhaps the most famous among them.

Marsh’s western adventures led to the procurement of tons of fossils, transported back to New Haven by rail. So many bones were collected, indeed the core of the Pea-body’s collection, that there are boxes in the basement of the museum from those excur-sions that have been sealed for more than a century, Cole MacClintock, a retired senior museum assistant, said.

The animosity between March and Cope began when the former connived to control access to a fossil site where Cope had been working. Marsh then pointed out an error in Cope’s work—he’d placed the head on the wrong end of an ancient sea creature, caus-ing Cope no small amount of personal and professional embarrassment. Once they began to compete for scientific accolades, the rancor between the two men developed

scientists’ feud colors peabody’s beginnings

O

A dedication ceremony, on December 29, 1925, of the current Peabody Museum of Natural History building, was attended by more than 800 people, including members from eight sci-entific societies. Pictured here is the Great Hall. The Brontosaurus skeleton had not yet been erected. The museum opened to the public in early 1926.

Photo courtesy of the Peabody Museum.

Left to right: A painting of George Peabody (image courtesy of the Peabody Museum), Edward Drinker Cope (photo by Frederick Gutekunst), and Othniel Charles Marsh (photo from the Brady-Handy Collection at the Library of Congress).

july | august 2016

The Arts Paper


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into what became known as the Bone Wars. “The two sides now often worked in close

proximity, and both engaged in wildly un-professional behavior. They spied on each other, of course. They obliterated their ad-versaries’ place markers. They planted false clues to sow confusion. They even scattered bones from an assortment of species close together in the hope that they might be concocted into a bogus new species,” Con-niff wrote in House of Lost Worlds.

They were driven by a mania for naming dinosaurs. The first to discover a particular species and get his work published could name what he’d found.

“Once you get your name published for a particular species, that settled the argu-ment. No one else can establish another name,” MacClintock said. The men flooded the academic marketplace with papers over the next several decades, in many cases with both men offering names for the very same species of dinosaurs. History has proven that Marsh was the more accurate of the two, with most of the names he chose remaining attached to his original discoveries.

“Cope and Marsh raged on … eventually hurling a total of twenty-six different names at more or less identical specimens, in what a later paleontologist has called ‘taxonomic carpet-bombing,’” Conniff wrote.

Marsh and Cope spent the remainder of their lives trying to destroy each other.

They accused each other of intellectual, and occasionally, literal theft. They spent time and gallons of ink trying to embarrass each other in the press. Marsh used his govern-ment contacts to deny Cope necessary funding for his work. Cope tried to buy off and turn Marsh’s staff against him. Back and forth it went, the feud only terminated by death.

“This continuing spectacle of punch and counterpunch made Cope, Marsh, paleon-tology … and American science at large a laughing stock … Satirists lampooned the quarrel in clumsy verse. The comedy was a disaster for the two participants, blighting their careers and forever obscuring some of the greatest achievements in the history of the biological sciences,” Conniff wrote.

Cope died in 1897, broke and estranged from his wife, with piles of fossils around his bed, Conniff said.

Marsh died in 1899, having never seen his beloved museum completed. He is bur-ied in the Grove Street Cemetery. He had no family. “Eminent as explorer, collector, and investigator in science. To Yale he gave his collections, his services, and his estate,” his gravestone reads.

Marsh’s museum, located at the intersec-tion of Elm and High streets, was finished in 1876. The plans for the museum were more ambitious than what was actually con-structed. As such, it was already too small for Marsh’s burgeoning collection. In 1917 the museum was torn down to make way for a new dormitory. Construction on the current building was delayed by World War I, and not complete until 1924.

Marsh’s greatest discovery, the colossal Brontosaurus, dominates the museum’s Great Hall. It isn’t just the product of ratio-nal scientific thought, it’s the creation of a friendship gone wrong, vanity, hubris, and single-minded pursuit. It could be one of the most human objects in the whole col-lection. n

For more information about the museum and its offerings, visit peabody.yale.edu. For a

full history of the museum, read Richard Conniff’s House of Lost Worlds, which is

available from Yale University Press.

Richard Swann Lull, assistant professor of vertebrate paleontology at Yale College and associate curator of vertebrate paleontology at the Yale Peabody Museum, and a preparator work on figures for the Jurassic diorama.

Photo courtesy of the Peabody Museum.

july | august 2016

The Arts Paper


Finding an Authentic Voiceemmy roday

efore I entered high school, my family’s dinner table was the closest thing I had to a special

gathering place. Every night my family would meet there, passing salad bowls and stories across the table. Though the space was filled with words and familiar voices, I still didn’t feel I could contribute in the way I wanted. My true expression took the form of poetic journal scrib-bles and an ambitious Star Wars sequel unraveling within the margins of my Betty Boop notebook. These stories and ideas were hidden away in my bedroom. Fourteen years old and eager, I realized I needed a place where my writing could be seen and appreciated.

During all four years of high school, I sat with writers around a new table, hav-ing found what I was looking for. In that space, we surrendered the deepest parts of ourselves through the written word. We picked apart the skeletons of poems. We examined the social commentaries

implicit in plays, the through-lines of memoirs, and the narratives of fiction. We offered insight and critiqued one an-other’s work. We grew, knowing that we were heard and we were valued.

This table, this place, and this commu-nity, was at ACES Educational Center for the Arts, where emerging artists are able to connect with their creative potential. In the school’s Creative Writing Depart-ment, I found strength in voice and in purpose.

This magnet school, tucked away in the arts district of New Haven, special-izes in music, dance, theater, writing, and visual arts. Students accepted into the program fulfill their core requirements at their public schools and travel midday to ECA for the rigorous study of one of these five disciplines.

“Our mission is to create innova-tive people,” Jason Hiro, the school’s principal, said. “By creating innovative people, we are helping students develop the skills of creativity and risk taking and empathy and problem solving and

self-esteem. And we do it through the vehicle of the arts. It’s really quite sim-ple.”

As a student, walking through the doors every day, I was constantly re-minded of how different ECA is from other schools. There, professional art-ists, writers, dancers, opera singers, and actors serve as the instructors, teaching what they love, what they’re passionate about. Students see their teachers as fellow artists who likewise are trekking forward into an unpredictable, creative world. They are allies and the most re-spected of mentors.

In class, I was reminded of one of the strongest features of the program: students learn together in mixed-age groups. As a freshman, especially, I found this structure provided challenge, support, and inspiration. Older students became role models, showing me how to trust my instincts and explore the most mysterious parts of myself. I wouldn’t have been able to cultivate a distinctive voice without guidance from more expe-

rienced artists. Whether it was my first day climbing

the stairs to the Creative Writing De-partment, or the last, I was always struck by the energy pulsing through the place. I’d hear the saxophones and trumpets ringing out from the first floor and I’d see dancers in leotards stretching their limbs and leaping across the second-floor stage. When I peered through the small window into the third floor Theater De-partment, I’d see a freshman standing in front of her peers, reciting a monologue that she’d practiced for weeks. Following the colors and art on the walls, I knew I’d arrived at the Visual Arts Department. Each floor, each department, was and always is alive.

The love for the ECA experience flows through all of the students. Cre-ative-writing student Jesse Ludington told me that she’d always been inter-ested in writing, but that it wasn’t until she studied creative nonfiction, as a junior at ECA, that she saw a clear future in the literary world.

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july | august 2016

The Arts Paper

“I’ve been exposed to all different genres at ECA, like creative nonfiction,” she said. “Now I would like to make a career writing creative nonfiction. And if not for ECA, I would never have fig-ured out that that’s what I want to do so early.” Jesse will be interning at the New Haven Independent in the fall, and she hopes to write for her school’s newspa-per, gaining as much experience as she can in the field.

Students from other departments feel similarly. Cellist Alyssa Pagan illustrated, “The community I have at ECA gives me a sense of communication even without words.” Dancer Aysia Starr said, “Having an atmosphere filled with like-minded artists who take the art just as seriously as you do is very comforting and boosts my confidence in everything I do.” Joni Weintraub, who studied theater, spoke with purpose, “Because of ECA, I know what it’s like to be passionate about something. Going forward, I won’t settle for anything less than that.” And Ruby Gonzales, who plans to pursue visual

art as a career, celebrated the fact that “fearlessness and confidence is encour-aged at ECA.”

Sitting at the head of the workshop table, in my final year, I would observe the younger writers around me. I knew what was ahead for them. They’ll try and often stumble and hate every sin-gle draft during their revision process. They’ll stand at a podium and read their first essay, in front of their first audi-ence. They’ll see and hear what it’s like for their words to touch someone else. Slowly but steadily, they’ll be moved to write the hard stuff, from the deepest of their experiences. They’ll be rewarded and respected for the risks they take.

“At ECA, we encourage students to value their inner lives. And look—here we are—in a huge brick building dedi-cated to the unseen,” my teacher and the founder of the Creative Writing Depart-ment, Caroline Rosenstone, told me.

In my time at ECA, I and every other student here have found the truth in this observation. I’ve learned that writ-

ing allows me to immerse myself in the rhythms and habits of the world. ECA connected me to my art and helped me find the words to make sense of the fleeting moments that quietly change our lives, the moments that bring us together.

I can now sit at any table and feel like I have something I deeply know, some-thing I can say. n

Emmy Roday is an intern at the Arts Council and a graduate of Amity Regional High and ACES Educational Center for the Arts. Emmy will be attending Kenyon Col-

lege in the fall of 2017 and is the recipient of the college’s Georgia Nugent Award in Cre-ative Writing. Before entering college, she’ll

participate in the Kivunim International Gap Year Program. Over the course of the next year, she’ll live in Israel, then travel to 10

countries, studying cultures, religions, and languages, all while deepening her world-view. The Arts Council will be keeping up with Emmy and hopes to see more of her

writing in the future. Emmy Roday

14 • theartspaper.com january/february 2014 •

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The Arts Paper


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Summer Programs Feature International Stars, Native TalentIn August, New Haven will host per-

formances that feature internationally acclaimed performers and ascendant artists who’ve called the area home—a mix of those who’ve arrived at the top of their professions and those who aspire to join them there.

In what should be considered some-thing of a programming coup, cellist Ronald Thomas, the artistic director of Chestnut Hill Concerts, welcomes Osmo Vänskä to the series. Vänskä, the Finn-ish clarinetist and conductor who’s led some of the most revered orchestras in concert performances around the world, is the longtime music director of the Minnesota Orchestra. A much-sought-after conductor (Vänskä’s Chestnut Hill Concerts appearance was booked more than two and a half years ago), Vänskä will perform with his wife, violinist Erin O’Keefe (the Minnesota Orchestra’s concertmaster), Thomas, and pianist Randall Hodgkinson on an August 12 program that includes Brahms’ Clarinet Trio in A minor, Op. 114; Bartók’s Con-trasts for Clarinet, Violin, and Piano, Sz. 111; and Dvorák’s Piano Trio No. 3 in F minor, Op. 65, B. 130. “He is a very se-

rious clarinet player,” Thomas pointed out. “He’s a very caring musician.” This year’s Chestnut Hill Concerts series, which presents chamber-music per-formances on Fridays in August at the Katharine Hepburn Cultural Arts Center, in Old Saybrook, features an expanded artist roster, which, Thomas pointed out, “allows more variety” in terms of repertoire. The opening program fea-tures Schubert’s Quartet for Guitar, Flute, Viola, and Cello—the composer’s arrangement of Wenzel Matiegka’s Not-turno for Flute, Viola, and Guitar, Op.21. “It’s the kind of programming I did for years in Boston,” Thomas said, referring to the Boston Chamber Music Society, which he cofounded and for years di-rected (today, he’s the organization’s artistic director emeritus).

On August 20, the City of New Haven, in conjunction with the Fairfield-based Connecticut Alliance for Music and the Stonington-based Salt Marsh Opera, will present Opera Palooza, a program of well-known arias performed by as-cendant, college-age opera singers from around the state. Mezzo-soprano Susanne Mentzer, who has performed

with such renowned ensembles as the Metropolitan Opera and will be the program’s emcee. The free program, which will take place on the New Haven Green, is designed to feature the next generation of opera stars and introduce new audiences to the art form. So-prano Wendy Morgan Hunter, who for two years taught at ACES Educational Center for the Arts and is on the board of the Connecticut Alliance for Music, said the program speaks to the latter organization’s mission. “We try to help emerging artists,” she said. “It’s a real opportunity for these singers.” Simon Holt, the Salt Marsh Opera’s artistic director who’ll conduct an orchestra put together for the program, explained that “we’re going to put together this pro-gram of really, really well-known opera arias,” many of which will be familiar to audience members of all ages. And while the program won’t just feature arias by iconic Italian composers, it will, by design, have an Italian feel to it, as dozens of food vendors from around the area, focusing in large part on pizza, will be on hand. “Opera has become so expensive and out of reach for most

people that I wanted to provide a spot-light on this genre,” Andrew Wolf, the director of New Haven’s Department of Arts, Culture, and Tourism, said.

The week after Opera Palooza, Jazz Haven and the city will present the New Haven Jazz Festival, a free event on the New Haven Green. And while the festival itself is scheduled to take place on August 27, with performances by Jazz Haven’s All-Star Youth Band, Mitch Frohman’s Latin-Jazz Quartet, and the Christian Sands Quartet, more than 20 additional performances will take place through September 3 in venues throughout New Haven. For Sands, it’s a homecoming, of sorts. While the pianist splits his time between here, Stamford, and New York City, New Haven is where he’s from and where he developed as an artist, attending ACES ECA for two years during high school (he graduated from Amity Regional High School, in Woodbridge) and studying for four years at Neighborhood Music School. Of ECA, Sands said, “That’s where I got a lot of my theory training and got to meet a lot of kids who were also into music like I was.” He remembers his

• january/february 2014 theartspaper.com • 15

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The Arts Paper


days at NMS fondly. “Being the youngest person at the jazz camp when I went and seeing the older kids playing jazz and loving it, to be around that really inspired me to do what I’m doing today,” he said, going on to refer to Jeff Fuller and other NMS faculty members as his second family. Sands, whose musical family today includes such notable artists as bassist Christian McBride, talked about being inspired by a concert given by jazz trumpeter Clark Terry at Sprague Hall and by being in touch with Yale School of Music faculty member Willie Ruff, who in 1972 established the Duke Ellington Fellowship Program at the school. Sands got his professional start as the late jazz pianist Billy Taylor’s protégé. He met Taylor during a Jazz in July program at the University of Massachusetts, Am-herst, and studied with Taylor, and with jazz pianist Jason Moran, at the Man-hattan School of Music, from which he earned his undergraduate and graduate degrees. While he’s performed at Fire-house 12 and Sprague Hall, with bassists Ben Williams and McBride, respectively, he said, “It’s great to finally play in my hometown” as a headlining artist. Sands

said he’ll also be giving a master class during NMS’ summer jazz camp.

In addition to these events, concert series presented by the Hamden Arts Commission and Yale-New Haven Hos-pital are bringing several well-known rock and pop acts to the area (see the calendar section). The Hamden Arts Commission’s free summer concert series in Town Center Park will present an Independence Day concert by the Hamden Symphony Orchestra followed by fireworks (July 1), the Temptations Review featuring Dennis Edwards (July 8), Eric Burdon and The Animals (July 15), Rock of the ’80s: The Romantics and The Smithereens (July 22), the Marshall Tucker Band (July 29), and the Springsteen tribute band Tramps Like Us (August 5). On July 23 and July 30, Yale-New Haven Hospital will present free concerts on the New Haven Green by En Vogue and Debbie Gibson. n

Visit chestnuthillconcerts.org, infonewhaven.com/summercalendar,

jazzhaven.org, and hamdenartscommission.org for more information about these and other

cultural events.

Susanne Mentzer. Photo by Stewart O’Shields. Christian Sands. Photo by Judy Barbosa.

Left to right: Violinists Todd Phillip and Catherine Cho, pianist Mihae Lee, cellist Ronald Thomas, and violist Cynthia Phelps perform during the 2015 Chestnut Hill Concerts season. Photo by Vincent Oneppo.

Osmo Vänskä. Photo by Lisa-Marie Mazzucco.

16 • theartspaper.com january/february 2014 •

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The Arts Paper

CALENDAR

Classes & Workshops Blackstone Library 758 Main St., Branford. 203-453-3890. shorelinearts.org. Rising Stars Summer Theater Program for ages 8-15. Facilitated by Shakesperience Productions, Inc.. Session One continues through July 22, 9a.m.-3 p.m., under the tent on the Guilford Green. Session Two runs July 25-29, 9 a.m.-3 p.m., under the tent on the Guilford Green.

Connecticut Natural Science Illustrators Yale Peabody Museum of Natural History, 170 Whitney Ave., New Haven. 203-695-1215. ctnsi.com. Nature Art Classes. Treat yourself to an art class this summer. Connecticut Natural Science Illus-trators is offering fun and challenging classes: Mixed Media Painting, Drawing from Dioramas, Flowers Through the Microscope, Plein Air Sketch-ing, Drawing and Painting Feathers, and Painting

Shorebirds. Ongoing through August 7. Basic Watercolor, Drawing and Painting Birds, Nature Journaling, Drawing Butterflies in Colored Pencil and other classes ongoing through August 12. Monday-Sunday, 10 a.m.- 4 p.m. Visit website for more information or email [email protected].

Ecoworks Lyric Hall 827 Whalley Ave., New Haven. 203-389-8885. eventbrite.com/e/ i-heart-trash-registration-15218902146. Scrap Camp: Artist Trading Cards. Participants will make artist trading cards, miniature pieces of art on two-by-three-inch cards that are traded with others at the workshop or can be shared after with friends. July 7 (7-8:30 p.m.) workshop, facilitated by Emma Martin Mooney, who has been making and trading artist trading cards since 2011, will make two designs: one with beading and another with scrap collage. July 14 class (1:30-3 p.m.), also taught by Mooney, will make two designs, a tissue paper collage and a word collage from old books.

Open to all who are 8 and older. Due to limited space, pre-registration is suggested. Free.

Guilford Art Center 411 Church St., Guilford. 203-453-5947. guilfordartcenter.org. Summer Classes and Workshops. Register now for summer classes and workshops for youth and adults. Special half-day and full-day summer pro-grams available for children 3 1/2 year and older. Classes continue through August 12.

MakeHaven 266 State St, New Haven. 203-936-9830. eventbrite.com/e/ i-heart-trash-registration-15218902146. Worm Composting at MakeHaven. Learn the ba-sics of how to compost indoors with red wiggler worms, a variety of worms that like to “eat” our food scraps. Sherill Baldwin of EcoWorks has composted with worms since 1990. Tuesday, July 12 at MakeHaven Tuesday night open house. Free. 7-9 p.m.

New Haven Ballet 70 Audubon St., New Haven. 203-782-9038. www.newhavenballet.org. New Haven Ballet Summer Program. For students ages 3 and older. July 11-August 6. Please contact New Haven Ballet for class times and tuition infor-mation. Time varies.

Private Art Instruction For adults and children. Learn in a working artist’s studio. Ideal for artists, home-schooled youngsters, and those with special needs. Portfolio preparation offered. Draw, paint, print, and make collage in a spacious light-filled studio at Erector Square in New Haven. Relaxed and professional. I can also come to you. Lessons created to suit individual. References available. Email [email protected].

Suzanne Siegel Studio 2351 Boston Post Road, Bldg. 2, Suite 210, Guilford. 203-215-1468. suzannesiegel.net. Workshops and Open Studio 100 Works of Art in a Weekend: Water-based Mixed Media, all levels,

The Yale Center for British Art presents Modernism and Memory: Rhoda Pritzker and the Art of Collecting, on view through August 21. Pictured here is L. S. Lowry’s 1952 oil-on-canvas painting The Market Place, Yale Center for British Art, Gift of Nicholas Pritzker, © The Estate of L. S. Lowry. All Rights Reserved, DACS / ARS 2015. Image courtesy of the YCBA.

• january/february 2014 theartspaper.com • 17

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July 9-10. Contemporary Approaches with Wa-tercolor, all levels, ongoing through August 1. Visit website for more information. Summer Workshops and Art Mentoring. July 8-9-10: Paper Collage, Water Based Mixed Media: $350. Two-day option, July 8-9: $250. 9:30 a.m.-4 p.m. August 5-6-7: 100 Works of Art in a Weekend: Marks, Value, Color, Mixed Media, all levels: $350. Two-day option, August 5-6: $250.

Wallingford Library 310 North Main St., Wall-ingford. 201-803-3766. camelotgalleryoffineart.com. Summer Art Opening and Reception. Camelot Gal-lery of Fine Art announces its third annual show. Art works by Patricia Louise Corbett will be on exhibit along with other artists from the New Haven area. Many works are available for sale. Refreshments and entertainment. August 13, 3-6 p.m. Free.

Your Community Yoga Center 39 Putnam Ave., Hamden. 347-306-7660. anniesailer.com. Modern/Contemporary Classes. Taught by Annie Sailer. Ongoing, adult, intermediate-level dance classes, pelvis/spine-initiated, free-flow whole-body movement, big, spatial dance sequences. Ongoing through August 30. Tuesdays, 5:30-7 p.m. A second daytime class may be added, as well. Email [email protected]. $15 per class (cash only).

Dance

Thursday, July 21 Rubberbandance Group The ensemble returns to Wesleyan to perform the U.S. premiere of Vic’s Mix (2016). 8 p.m. CFA Theater, Wesleyan Uni-versity Center for the Arts, 21 Washington Ter-race, Middletown. 860-685-3355. wesleyan.edu/cfa/

Exhibitions

City Gallery 994 State St., New Haven. 203-782-2489. city-gallery.org. Fourplay. A multimedia exhibition of new work by Roberta Friedman, Jane Harris, Sheila Kaczmarek, and Mary Lesser. The works include paintings, prints, and ceramic forms. A theme of playfulness permeates the exhibit. On view through July 31. Opening reception: Thursday, July 7, 5-7 p.m. Open Thursday-Sunday, 12-4 p.m. Free.

Guilford Art Center 411 Church St., Guilford. 203-453-5947. guilfordartcenter.org. Bowls: A National Juried Exhibition. This exhibit ex-plores the continuing vitality of this simplest, most ancient, and most elemental of forms, as exempli-fied in the work of contemporary artists. On view through July 31. Monday-Saturday, 10 p.m.-4 p.m.; Sunday, 12-4 p.m. Free.

Kehler Liddell Gallery 873 Whalley Ave., New Haven. 203-389-9555. kehlerliddellgallery.com.Home Away, Home/Home, Not Home. Variations on a theme: two new photography shows premiere at Kehler Liddell Gallery beginning June 2: Home Away/Home by Marjorie Gillette Wolfe and Home, Not Home by Mark K. St. Mary. The show runs through July 3. See website for days and gallery hours. Free. Artist as Curator III. From July 7 to August 21, Kehler Liddell Gallery hosts Artist as Curator III, which fea-tures 22 guest artists who have been invited by KLG members. Each guest’s artwork will be accompanied by a curatorial statement and a small artwork by

Photography by Mark Ferguson is part of Artist as Curator III, an exhibit at Kehler Liddell Gallery that features images by 22 guest artists who were invited by gallery members to display work July 7-August 21. Image courtesy of the Kehler Liddell Gallery.

july | august 2016

The Arts Paper


the host gallery member. An opening reception is scheduled for Sunday, July 10, 3-6 p.m. July 7-Au-gust 21. See website for days and gallery hours. Free.

New Haven Lawn Club 193 Whitney Ave., New Haven. 203-777-3494. [email protected] Perspectives. An exhibition of 20 archi-tecturally oriented watercolor paintings by Daniel Rosner (emeritus professor, ChE/Yale) and 18 in-triguing photos by Bridgeport-based Penrhyn Cook will be on display. On view through July 11. Open daily, 9 a.m.-5 p.m. Free.

New Haven Museum 114 Whitney Ave, New Haven. 203-562-4183. newhavenmuseum.org. Fun, Fascinating and Made in the Elm City. From Clocks to Lollipops: Made in New Haven highlights an astonishing variety of goods that were, and some that still are, produced in the Elm City. The exhibition runs through September 3 and features more than 100 objects, advertisements, trade cards, photographs, and more, with wide-ranging products made in New Haven. Tuesday–Friday, 10 a.m.–5 p.m.; Saturday, 12-5 p.m. Free first Sundays: 1-4 p.m.

Perspectives ... The Gallery at Whitney Center 200 Leeder Hill Drive, South Entrance, Hamden. 203-281-6745. newhavenarts.org/category/perspectives. Knack. Many artists, especially those with com-munication differences, are exceptionally creative and in some cases, just need a nudge to nurture and bring out their innate abilities and unique visions. Presented by the Arts Council of Greater New Haven, Knack brings together artists, arti-sans and teachers that are affiliated with regional service organizations that support artistic prac-tices through training programs, workshops and community interaction with the goal to promote creative self-expression, job creation, wellness and community integration. The exhibition features art created by affiliates of Chapel Haven, Universal Arts, Opportunity House, Fellowship Place, Mar-rakech, East Street Arts, Play with Grace, and Vista Live Innovations. On view through September 6. Tuesdays-Thursdays 4-7 p.m.; Saturday, 1-4 p.m. Free.

Susan Powell Fine Art 679 Boston Post Road, Madison. 203-318-0616. susanpowellfineart.com. Visions of Land and Sea. On view are 70 beach, shoreline, and ocean scenes, landscapes, and marsh and river views by 25 award-winning artists. “Each painting evokes the memory of an everyday summer moment and simple beauty of nature,” says gallery owner Susan Powell. On view through July 29. Gallery hours: Tuesday-Saturday, 11 p.m.-5 p.m.; anytime by appointment. Free.

Yale Peabody Museum of Natural History 170 Whitney Ave., New Haven. 203-432-5050. peabody.yale.edu. Treasures of the Peabody: 150 Years of Exploration and Discovery. It’s the 150th anniversary of the Yale Peabody Museum of Natural History. Founded in 1866 with a generous gift from international finan-cier George Peabody, the museum has served as a world leader for 150 years in the collection, pres-ervation, and study of objects that document the diversity and history of both nature and humanity. On view through January 8, 2017. Monday-Satur-day, 10 a.m.-5 p.m.; Sunday, 12-5 p.m. $6-$13.

Yale Center for British Art 1111 Chapel St., New Haven. 203-432-2800. britishart.yale.edu. Modernism and Memory: Rhoda Pritzker and the Art of Collecting. In celebration of its reopening, the Yale Center for British Art presents a special exhibition highlighting the collection of modern British art formed by Rhoda Pritzker (1914-2007). On view through August 21. Free and open to the public.

Music

July

7 Thursday Jimmy Greene Quartet Grammy Award-nomi-nated jazz saxophonist Jimmy Greene brings his Quartet to Wesleyan. 8 p.m. $28 general public; $26 senior citizens, Wesleyan faculty/staff/alumni, non-Wesleyan students; $12 Wesleyan students. Wesleyan University Center for the Arts, Crowell Concert Hall, 50 Wyllys Ave., Middle-town. 860-685-3355. wesleyan.edu/cfa/events/2016/ 07-2016/07072016Jimmy_Greene.html.

8 Friday Temptations Review featuring Dennis Ed-wards One of two groups legally entitled to the band’s name, this one features Dennis Edwards, a member of The Temptations starting in 1968, who was inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame. This group will perform such hits as “My Girl,” “Get Ready,” and “Ain’t too Proud to Beg.” Food available on site. 7:30 p.m. Free. Hamden Arts Commission, Hamden Town Center Park, 2761 Dixwell Ave., Hamden. 203-287-2546. hamdenartscommission.org.

10 Sunday This Is It! The Complete Piano Works of Neely Bruce: Part IX John Spencer Camp Professor

of Music Neely Bruce will perform two world premiere fugues, among other piano works. 3 p.m. Free. Wesleyan University Center for the Arts, Crowell Concert Hall, 50 Wyllys Ave., Middletown. 860-685-3355. wesleyan.edu/cfa/events/2016/07-2016/07102016Neely_Bruce.html.

15 Friday Eric Burdon and the Animals The English singer-songwriter who was lead vocalist with the Animals and the funk band War was ranked 57th in Rolling Stone’s list of the 100 Greatest Singers of All Time. He’ll perform such hits as “House of the Rising Sun,” “Sky Pilot,” “We Gotta Get Out of this Place,” and “Don’t Let Me Be Misunderstood.” Food available on site. 7:30 p.m. Free. Hamden Arts Commission, Hamden Town Center Park, 2761 Dixwell Ave., Hamden. 203-287-2546. hamdenartscommission.org.

19 Tuesday Neighborhood Music School Presents Twilight Tuesdays: Goza Goza (Spanish for “joy”) per-forms classic and modern songs and dances from Latin America and Spain with guitar, horns, violin, percussion, and beautiful, romantic vocals. Doors open at 6:30 p.m. Concerts start at 7:30 p.m. Rain or shine! Please visit website for ticket details. Neighborhood Music School, 100 Audubon St., New Haven. 203-624-5189. neighborhoodmusicschool.org.

22 Friday Rock of the ’80s: The Romantics and The Smithereens Two of the greatest ’80s bands will share the stage. The New Jersey-based power pop band The Smithereens and the Detroit power-pop new-wave group The Romantics. Food available on site. 7:30 p.m. Free. Hamden Arts Commission, Hamden Town Center Park, 2761 Dixwell Ave., Hamden. 203-287-2546. hamdenartscommission.org.

26 Tuesday Neighborhood Music School Presents:Twi-light Tuesdays: Sasha Dobson An alfresco dinner/concert series of four fabulous evenings of music in the Park of the Arts, located behind Neighborhood Music School. Sasha Dobson is a rising star who has toured with some of the music

world’s greatest talents, including Willie Nel-son, Norah Jones, and Neil Young. Doors open at 6:30 p.m. Concerts start at 7:30 p.m. Rain or shine! Please visit website for ticket details. Neighborhood Music School, 100 Audubon St., New Haven. 203-624-5189. neighborhoodmusicschool.org.

29 Friday The Marshall Tucker Band The American South-ern rock/country band, which helped establish the Southern rock genre in the early 1970s, has recorded and performed continuously for nearly 40 years. Among their hits are “Can’t You See” and “Heard It In a Love Song,” to name a few. Food available on site. 7:30 p.m. Free. Hamden Arts Commission, Hamden Town Center Park, 2761 Dixwell Ave., Hamden. 203-287-2546. hamdenartscommission.org.

August

2 Tuesday Neighborhood Music School Presents Twilight Tuesdays: Model Decoy An alfresco dinner/concert series of four fabulous evenings of music in the Park of the Arts, located behind Neighbor-hood Music School. Model Decoy is an art-rock duo and New Haven favorite that plays original songs ranging from the upbeat and catchy to the slow and sublime. Doors open at 6:30 pm. Concerts start at 7:30 p.m. Rain or shine! Doors open at 6:30 p.m. Please visit website for ticket details. Neighborhood Music School, 100 Audu-bon St., New Haven. 203-624-5189. neighborhoodmusicschool.org.

5 Friday Tramps Like Us The group has won the distinc-tion of being the number one Springsteen tribute band in the world. It is the only tribute band to be endorsed by members of the “Springsteen camp,” including Bruce’s former producer and manager and the official Springsteen radio sta-tion. Like Bruce himself, they will perform Spring-steen hits for two and a half to three hours. 7:30 p.m. Free. Hamden Arts Commission, Hamden Town Center Park, 2761 Dixwell Ave., Hamden. 203-287-2546. hamdenartscommission.org.

Eric Burdon and The Animals appear on July 15, at Town Center Park, as part of the Hamden Arts Commission’s free summer concert series. Other concerts in the series include the Temptations Review featuring Dennis Edwards (July 8), Rock of the ’80s: The Romantics and The Smithereens (July 22), the Marshall Tucker Band (July 29), and the Springsteen tribute band Tramps Like Us (August 5). Photo of Eric Burdon courtesy of the Hamden Arts Commission.

The Wesleyan University Center for the Arts presents “This Is It! The Complete Piano Works of Neely Bruce: Part IX” on July 10 in Crowell Concert Hall. Neely Bruce is the university’s John Spencer Camp Professor of Music. His performance will

be the ninth in a series of recitals of his piano music. Photo by Sandy Aldieri of Perceptions Photography.

july | august 2016

The Arts Paper


Artfarm’s Shakespeare in the Grove 2016 presents Carlo Goldoni’s commedia classic The Servant of Two Masters, starring Brian Jennings, left, and Marcella Trowbridge (pictured here in a recent production of Much Ado About Nothing), July 13-24. Photo courtesy of Artfarm.

9 Tuesday Neighborhood Music School Presents Twilight Tuesdays: Lonnie Plaxico An alfresco dinner/concert series of four fabulous evenings of music in the Park of the Arts, located behind Neighborhood Music School. This performance will feature Plaxico and NMS faculty members performing classic jazz as well as his original compositions. Doors open at 6:30 p.m. Concert start at 7:30 p.m. Rain or shine! Please visit website for ticket details. Neighborhood Music School, 100 Audubon St., New Haven. 203-624-5189. neighborhoodmusicschool.org.

26 Friday New Haven Jazz Festival in the City The fes-tival presents more than 20 free concerts in bars, clubs, and restaurants around town. Every evening, August 26-September 3plus Sunday brunch! See JazzHaven.org for a complete schedule. #NHJF. Free.

27 Saturday 2016 New Haven Jazz Festival The 33rd New Haven Jazz Festival’s main event, which takes place on the New Haven Green. 6:30 p.m.: Jazz Haven All-Star Youth Band; 6:45-7:45 p.m.: Mitch Frohman Quartet; 8-9 p.m. Christian Sands Quartet. Plus food trucks, craft vendors, and children’s activities. See JazzHaven.org for complete details #NHJF. New Haven Green, 145 Church St., New Haven.

Special Events

Friday, July 8 Literary Happy Hour A curated reading and per-formance series featuring diverse New Haven writ-ers. In summer 2016, writers selected to present at Literary Happy Hour will be awarded a stipend of $100, participate in talkbacks, and share their skills with the New Haven community. Submit now! And come through for our monthly “lit & chill” session. Every second Friday at 101 Threads! 6-8 p.m face-book.com/lithappyhournhv/?fref=ts. Free! 101 Threads, 118 Court St., New Haven. 203-397-6977

Wednesdays, July 13 & 27 The JCC’s annual Grill ‘n’ Chill Join us out on the terrace for live music from local musicians, good food, and fun times. Catch Mark Schwartz and Son on July 13 and Matt and Casey on July 27. Admis-sion is free and open to the public. Food is provided by Abel Caterers and is available for purchase. At-tendees can BYOB. Indoor seating is also available. For more information contact Program Director Mara Balk at [email protected] or 203-387-2522 x. 300. Located at the JCC of Greater New Haven, 360 Amity Road, Woodbridge.

Saturday, August 13 Camelot Gallery’s Third Annual Opening Featur-ing works by Patricia Louise Corbett and friends (oils, pastels, watercolors, and monotypes). There will be refreshments and entertainment. Art for sale. Reception: Saturday, August 13, 3-6 p.m. Camelot Gallery, 310 North Main St., Wallingford. 201-803-3766. camelotgalleryoffineart.com.

Talks & Tours

July

Exhibition Tours Docent-led tours of Modern-ism and Memory: Rhoda Pritzker and the Art of Collecting and “The Poet of Them All”: William Shakespeare and Miniature Designer Bindings from the Collection of Neale and Margaret Albert offered on Thursdays at 11 a.m. and Sundays at 1 p.m. Please meet in the Entrance Court. Free and open to the public! Yale Center for British Art, Robert L. McNeil Jr. Lecture Hall, 1111 Chapel St., New Haven. 203-432-2800. britishart.yale.edu.

Wednesday, July 6 A Talk by Ani Cordero New York singer-song-writer Ani Cordero will discuss the inspiration

she found in classic Latin American songs of love and protest from the 1930s through the 1970s. 12:10 p.m. Free. Wesleyan University Center for the Arts, Ring Family Performing Arts Hall (Former CFA Hall), 287 Washington Terrace, Middletown. 860-685-3355. wesleyan.edu/cfa/events/2016/ 07-2016/07062016Ani_Cordero.html.

Tuesday, July 12 A Talk by Mohamad Hafez Syrian artist and architect Mohamad Hafez discusses his work and creative process, which reflect the politi-cal turmoil in the Middle East. 12:10 p.m. Free. Wesleyan University Center for the Arts, Ring Family Performing Arts Hall (Former CFA Hall), 287 Washington Terrace, Middletown. 860-685-3355. wesleyan.edu/cfa/

From June 21 through July 12, Creative Arts Workshop is offering a new, four-session class called “Bicycle Art with John Martin.” Martin owns the Bradley Street Bicycle Co-op and is the founder of Bicycle Education, Entrepreneurship, and Enrichment Pro-

grams. Pictured here are CAW students working in the organization’s sculpture studio. Photo courtesy of CAW.

Call For Artist Members The Kehler Liddell Gallery in New Haven is seeking applications from new prospec-tive members. Visit kehlerliddell.com/membership for more information.

Artists Connecticut Women Artists announces the dates for its 2016 National Open Juried Show to be held August 20–September 23 at the Slater Memorial Museum in Norwich, Vivian Zoe, direc-tor. The juror of selection and awards will be Min Jung Kim, director of the New Britain Museum of American Art. You need not be a member to sub-mit work to this show. See prospectus for shipping info. Submissions are being accepted at Online Juried Shows: onlinejuriedshows.com/Default.aspx?OJSID=6559. Entry deadline: Friday, July 8.

Artists The Studios at MASS MoCA residency program for artists and writers is now accepting applications for the fall/winter 2016-2017 season. Residencies from one to eight weeks in length are available for sessions between October 2016 and April 2017. Application deadline is midnight, July 8.

Artists Call for Entries: The Loft Artists Associ-ation Presents Lost and Found, a Tri-State juried exhibition, September 8 to October 2 at the Loft Artists Galleries, 575 Pacific St., Stamford. Art-ists in working in Connecticut, New Jersey, and New York are invited to submit entries electron-ically no later than July 18. Cash awards totaling $1,000 will be presented at the opening. For more information and a submission link please visit loftartists.com under the heading “2016 Open Juried Show.”

Artists Enjoy a day of art and entertainment in celebration of the local community in downtown New Haven. The Shops at Yale invite all profes-sional and amateur artists, students, and artist groups to participate in the first New Haven Chalk Art Festival on Broadway Island in the heart of Yale University and the Broadway Shopping Dis-trict. Please fill out the registration form to secure a space (spaces limited) and to be eligible for the grand prize. There is no cost to participate, however you must submit one or more sketches of your artwork by August 12. Participants must sub-mit the registration form by end of day August 12. Please call or email Stephanie McDonald with any questions (203) 982-0676. Visit theshopsatyale.com/chalkart for more information and to register.

Artists Digital Approaches: Sculpture, Fiber Art, Painting & New Media. Digital Fabrication Resi-dency program residents learn and gain hands-on experience with laser cutting, CNC routing, FDM 3D printing, digital embroidery, 2D plotting and 3D scanning. Applications for the three-day onsite residency program must include a project proposal that outlines what the resident plans to work on while onsite. Residents are responsible for arranging their own accommodations, travel expenses, meals, and materials, if projects require materials outside of those provided. Two online planning meetings prior to residency for file preparation and project ideation. This is a highly individualized opportunity to develop and work through ideas on the machines and utilizing a private studio. There are basic materials supplied and residents can send materials ahead of onsite visit. See website for residency participation details. No application fee. Currently accepting applications for late summer, fall and winter. Deadline: September 1. digitalfabricationresidency.com.

Artists For Arts Center Killingworth’s 2015–2016 Spectrum Gallery exhibits, including the Gallery Show. Seeking fine artists and artisans in all

media. For artist submission, visit spectrumartgallery.org or [email protected]. Spectrum Gal-lery and Store, 61 Main St., Centerbrook.

Artists The Gallery Review Committee of The New Alliance Gallery at Gateway Community College is looking for artists to submit resumes and images for possible exhibition in 2016. Please send your resume and cover letter along with a DVD of not less than 20 and no more than 25 images to: Gallery Review Committee, Gateway Community College, 20 Church St., Room S329, New Haven, CT, 06510.

Artists The Tiny Gallery: a very big opportunity for very small art. The Tiny Gallery is a premiere space for “micro” exhibitions in the historic Audubon Arts District, located within the lighted display “totem” outside Creative Arts Workshop, at 80 Audubon St., in New Haven. The Tiny Gal-lery is open to the public 24 hours a day, seven days a week, 365 days a year. Submissions will be considered on a rolling basis and should include a written proposal, artist statement, and images of artwork. Call (203) 562-4927 x. 14, email [email protected], or visit creativeartsworkshop.org/tiny.

The Arts Council provides the bulletin board listings as a service to our membership and is not responsible for the content or deadlines.

july | august 2016

The Arts Paper


BULLETIN BOARDEn Vogue, left, and Debbie Gibson perform on July 23 and July 30 respectively, as part of Yale-New Haven Hospital’s free Music on the Green concert series. Photos courtesy of Market New Haven, photo of Debbie Gibson by Ray Garcia Photography.

Tuesday, July 19 Faye Driscoll Award-winning choreographer and director Faye Driscoll will discuss her work, process, and recent questions that drive her practice. 12:10 p.m. Free. Wesleyan University Center for the Arts, Ring Family Performing Arts Hall (Former CFA Hall), 287 Washington Terrace, Middletown. 860-685-3355. wesleyan.edu/cfa/events/2016/07-2016/07192016Faye_Driscoll.html.

Theater The Servant of Two Masters Artfarm’s Shakespeare in the Grove 2016 presents Carlo Goldoni’s comme-

dia classic. Performed outdoors in a beautiful Cedar Grove, patrons are invited to bring blankets, lawn chairs, and picnics to enjoy an hour of live music be-fore experiencing one of the great comedies of the western canon. A treat for all ages! July 13-24. Live music at 6 p.m.; opera at 7 p.m. $25 general admis-sion, $15 kids. Wednesdays are pay-what-you-can. Artfarm, 100 Training Hill Road, Middletown. 860-346-4390. art-farm.org.

The Two Gentlemen of Verona Presented by the Shoreline Arts Alliance with Shakesperience Pro-ductions. Bring picnics, chairs, blankets and enjoy “theater under the stars.” ASL interpreter, assisted

listening devices, large print and Braille programs, escorts to assist those who need help getting on and off the Guilford Town Green. August 3-7. 7:30 p.m. nightly on the Guilford Town Green. Pre- and post-show talk backs August 4-6, at 6:30 p.m. and after the final curtain, respectively. Free. Bring pic-nics, chairs, blankets, and enjoy “theater under the stars.” 758 Main St., Branford. 203-453-3890.

Gulliver’s Travels A performance for children and families at Jacobs Beach, Guilford. August 4, 9:30 a.m. Free and open to all. Daytime performance for children and families: August 5, 10 a.m., at the James Blackstone Memorial Library, 758 Main St.,

Branford. Free and open to all. Sensory-friendly performance: August 6, 10 a.m., Guilford Parks and Recreation, 32 Church St., Guilford. Free and open to call. Shoreline Arts Alliance. 203-453-3890. shorelinearts.org.

Into the Woods Jr. Pantochino’s Teen Theatre pres-ents the popular Sondheim musical performed by 30 teen actors as part of its Summer Teen Theatre program. August 13-14. Saturday at 5 p.m. and 7:30 p.m.; Sunday at 2 p.m. All seats $10. Milford Arts Council, 40 Railroad Ave. South, Milford. 203-937-6206. pantochino.com

july | august 2016

The Arts Paper


JobsPlease visit newhavenarts.org for up-to-datelocal employment opportunities in the arts.

The deadline for advertisements and calendar listings for the September 2016 issue of The Arts Paper is:Monday, July 25, at 5 p.m. Future deadlines are as follows:

October 2016: Monday, August 29, 5 p.m.

November 2016: Monday, September 26, 5 p.m.

December 2016: Friday, October 28, 5 p.m.

January-February 2017: Monday, November 28, 5 p.m.

Calendar listings are for Arts Council members only and should be submitted online at newhavenarts.org. Arts Council members can request a username and password by sending an e-mail to [email protected].

The Arts Council’s online calen-dar includes listings for programs and events taking place within 12 months of the current date.

Listings submitted by the cal-endar deadline are included on a monthly basis in The Arts Paper.

The Arts Paper advertising and calendar deadlines:

Artists/Photographers Smithtown Township Arts Council seeks entries for its 35th Annual Juried Photography Exhibition at the Mills Pond Gallery. Exhibit Dates September 24–October 23. Juror: Lisa Elmaleh. Open to local and national photographers age 18 and older. Prospectus at stacarts.org/exhibits/show/99. 660 Route 25A, St. James, NY, 11780. 631-862-6575. [email protected]. $45/three entries. Exhibit theme is “Home.” Home can be a place you are from, or a place you have moved to. Home can be found in the face of a loved one, or an object you find comfort in. This call for entry is open to all pho-tography mediums, with consideration that the medium of photography is part of the message. Which medium best conveys your sense of home? Is it digital, analog, mixed media? Cash awards for first ($400) and second ($200). Entry deadline August 3.

Filmmakers The New England Underground Film Festival is seeking entries for its sixth annual edition, to be held October 8 at the Best Video Film and Cultural Center in Hamden. The festival welcomes narrative, nonfiction and experimental works, either feature-length or short subjects. The final deadline for submission is August 20. More information can be found on the festival website, newenglanduff.webs.com.

Instructors Are you a maker who loves to share your knowledge? If yes, MakeHaven has been looking for you. We are hiring instructors to teach: fabrication, woodworking, 3D printing, sewing, mechanics, brewing, arduino, electronics, cooking, and other maker activities. What could you teach us? makehaven.org.

Musicians The New Haven Chamber Orchestra has openings for strings for the 2016-2017 sea-son. The orchestra rehearses on Tuesday eve-nings at the Fair Haven School, 164 Grand Ave. Rehearsals begin after Labor Day. The orchestra performs three concerts per season. To sit in on a rehearsal or to audition, contact the orchestra via e-mail at [email protected].

Photographers Are you a fan of photography? A program of the Arts Council of Greater New Haven, the Photo Arts Collective aims to culti-vate and support a community of individuals who share an interest in photography through work-shops, lectures, exhibitions, portfolio reviews, group critiques, and special events. The Photo Arts Collective meets the first Thursday of each month at 7 p.m. at the Kehler Liddell Gallery, 873 Whalley Ave., New Haven.

Singers The award winning Silk’n Sounds Chorus is looking for new members from the area. We invite women to join us at any of our rehearsals to learn more. We enjoy four part a cappella harmony in the barbershop style, lively perfor-mances, and wonderful friendships. Rehearsals are held every Tuesday, 6:30–9 p.m., at the Spring Glen United Church of Christ, 1825 Whit-ney Ave., Hamden. Contact Lynn at (203) 623-1276 for more information or visit silknsounds.org.

Singers New Haven Oratorio Choir invites au-ditions by choral singers (all parts). We are a chamber ensemble rehearsing weekly (Wednes-day nights) at Church of the Redeemer, New Haven, under the leadership of Daniel Shaw. We perform a varied repertoire of sacred and secular classical music, including contemporary compos-ers, with two main concerts per season (Decem-ber and May). An audition consists of meeting with Artistic Director Daniel Shaw, doing some general vocalizing and performing a one-to-two-minute unaccompanied selection chosen by the singer. An audition may be scheduled at that time, or go to our website, nhoratorio.org, to learn more about NHOC, and follow the link there to schedule an audition.

Volunteers The Arts Council seeks interns/vol-unteers to assist with a study. The Arts Council is participating in the Arts and Economic Pros-perity Study, a national study of the economic impact of the arts, led by Americans for the Arts. Our data collection will result in a report for the greater New Haven region as well as contribute to the State of Connecticut’s report. Throughout the summer and fall, we will be conducting in-person surveys at a variety of arts events throughout the region. We are seeking volunteers who can assist with these surveys, prior to and during events. Ideally volunteers should commit three to five hours per week, in-cluding some evenings and occasional weekend timeslots. If interested, please email [email protected].

Volunteers The Yale Center for British Art wel-comes applications for information volunteers. Volunteers make an invaluable contribution by helping to carry out our mission to inform and educate the public about our collections. Follow-ing training, volunteers commit to the program for a minimum of one year. Volunteers receive special benefits including private tours and a museum shop discount. If you would like to be part of a committed corps of individuals, possess a love and appreciation of art, and a fondness for interacting with the public. Please email [email protected] or call 203-432 9491 for more information.

Volunteers, Artists, and Board Members Se-cession Cabal, a New Haven-based group of outsider artists working in theatre, film, visual art, and other mediums seek people for our board, sponsors, volunteers with fundraising experience, and artists in all mediums who agree with our mission and create radical, brave work. Volunteers/board members/sponsors: Please send a brief introduction. Artists: Please email a letter of interest/introduction with examples of your bravest work. More information at art-secession.org.

Volunteers Volunteers are a vital part of Artspace’s operation. Volunteering with Artspace is a great way to support the organiza-tion, meet new people, and develop new skills. Our volunteers provide a service that is invalu-able to making Artspace function smoothly. We simply couldn’t operate without the tremendous support of our volunteers. To find out more about volunteer opportunities, please contact Shelli [email protected].

Services Art Installation Specialists, LLC An art-han-dling company serving homeowners, art pro-fessionals, offices, galleries, and museums. We offer packing, long-distance or local shipping, and installation of paintings, mirrors, plaques, signage, tapestries, and sculpture, as well as framing, pedestals, exhibit design, and conser-vation. Contact Paul Cofrancesco at 203-752-8260, Gabriel Da Silva at (203) 982-3050, e-mail [email protected], or visit artinstallationspecialistsllc.com.

Chair Repair Chair seat weaving. We can fix your worn out seats: cane, rush, Danish cord, Shaker tape, etc. In business more than 25 years! Woven by artisans at The Association of Artisans to Cane, a Social Enterprise of Marrakech, Inc., providing services for persons of all abilities. Located at East Street Arts, 597 East St., New Haven. Monday-Thursday, 8 a.m.-4 p.m.; Friday, 8 a.m.-3 p.m. 203-776-6310.

Creative Events/Crafting Parties Our beautiful light-filled space in East Rock is the perfect

spot to host an intimate creative gathering or party. We’ll work with you to provide the programming, snacks, drinks, and decorations that will make your event memorable. Rent our space for up to three hours. thehvncollective.com.

Creative Services Video recording with Sony, photography and pictures for sale, personal-ized/custom greeting cards, paper banners “done by hand,” mutant portraits, slideshows, host of Oasis D’Neon Video Magazine, New Haven history (artists, musicians), proofreader, writer, teacher, raconteur, driver/transporter, logo/poster/sign design, model, interior/ex-terior painting. For more information, email [email protected].

Historic Home Restoration Contractor Peri-od-appropriate additions, baths, kitchens and remodeling, Sagging porches straightened/leveled, wooden windows restored, plaster restored, historic molding and hardware, Vinyl/aluminum siding removed, wooden siding re-paired/replaced. Connecticut and New Haven Preservation Trusts. R.J. Aley Building Contrac-tor 203-226-9933. [email protected]

Web Design and Art Consulting Services Startup business solutions. Creative, sleek Web design by art curator and editor for artist, design, architecture, and small-business sites. Will create and maintain any kind of website. Hosting provided. Also low-cost in-depth art-work analysis, writing, editing services. 203-387-4933. [email protected].

Space Artist Studio West Cove Studio and Gallery offers work space with two large Charles Brand intaglio etching presses, lithography press, and stainless-steel work station. Workshops and technical support available. Ample display area for shows. Membership: $75 per month. 30 Elm St., West Haven. Individual Studio space also available. Call 609-638-8501 or visit westcovestudio.org.

Studio Space Spacious three-car garage with open floor plan. Has its own heat and elec-tricity and would make a really nice art studio. Great location in the Mt. Carmel/Hamden Center area (just off Whitney Avenue, near Eli’s Restaurant.) $495/month, plus utilities. Call Charlie at 203-415-3393.

Studio Space Hall suitable for dance and per-forming arts events. A 1,500-square-foot space with adjoining rooms in a turn-of-the-century mansion in a historic district. Hardwood floors. Vintage stage with curtains. Mahogany wood-work and glass doors. Ample natural light. Chairs and tables on premises. Contact [email protected].

Regional Initiative Grant Applications Due

The Regional Initiative grant program

(REGI) awards grants ranging from

$1,000 to $4,000. The REGI program

funds small projects that support access

to the creative process and/or creative

experience, especially those projects

that experiment with new ways to use

the arts within community. Projects can

address a specific community issue,

engage a specific population through the

arts, bring neighbors together, and take

other forms. REGI is managed by the

Arts Council of Greater New Haven in

partnership with the Connecticut Office

of the Arts. Visit newhavenarts.org for

more information. For complete grant

guidelines, please visit:

cultureandtourism.org/cct/lib/cct/

REGI_Guidelines2.pdf

Deadline: Friday, July 29.

member organizations & partners

The Arts Paper


Arts & Cultural Organizations

ACES Educational Center for the Artsaces.k12.ct.us

Alyla Suzuki Early Childhood Music Educationalylasuzuki.com203-239-6026

American Guild of Organistssacredmusicct.org

Another Octave - CT Women’s Chorus

anotheroctave.org

Artfarmart-farm.org

Arts Center Killingworthartscenterkillingworth.org860-663-5593

Arts for Learning Connecticutwww.aflct.org

Artspaceartspacenh.org203-772-2709

Artsplace: Cheshire Performing & Fine Artcpfa-artsplace.org203-272-2787

ARTTN Gallery www.arttngallery.com

Ball & Socket Artsballandsocket.org

Bethesda Music Seriesbethesdanewhaven.org203-787-2346

Blackfriars Repertory Theatreblackfriarsrep.com

Branford Art Centerbranfordartscenter.com

Branford Folk Music Societybranfordfolk.org

Center for Independent Studycistudy.homestead.com

Chestnut Hill Concertschestnuthillconcerts.org203-245-5736

The Choirs of Trinity Church on the Greentrinitynewhaven.org

City Gallerycity-gallery.org203-782-2489

Civic Orchestra of New Havencivicorchestraofnewhaven.org

Classical Contemporary Ballet Theatre

ccbtballettheatre.org

College Street Music Hall collegestreetmusichall.com

Connecticut Dance Alliancectdanceall.com

Connecticut Gay Men’s Chorusctgmc.org1-800-644-cgmc

Connecticut Natural Science Illustratorsctnsi.com203-934-0878

Creative Concerts203-795-3365

CT Folkctfolk.com

DaSilva Gallerydasilva-gallery.com203-387-2539

East Street Artseaststreetartsnh.org203-776-6310

EcoWorks CTecoworksct.org

Elm City Dance Collectiveelmcitydance.org

Elm Shakespeare Companyelmshakespeare.org203-874-0801

Firehouse 12firehouse12.com203-785-0468

Gallery One CTgalleryonect.com

Greater New Haven Community Chorus

gnhcc.org203-624-1979

Guilford Art Centerguilfordartcenter.org203-453-5947

Guitartown CT Productionsguitartownct.com203-430-6020

Hamden Art Leaguehamdenartleague.com 203-494-2316

Hamden Arts Commissionhamdenartscommission.org

Hillhouse Opera Companyhillhouseoperacompany.org203-464-2683

Hopkins Schoolhopkins.edu

Hugo Kauder Societyhugokauder.org

The Institute Libraryinstitutelibrary.org

International Festival of Arts & Ideas

artidea.org

International Silat Federation of America & Indonesia

isfnewhaven.org

Jazz Havenjazzhaven.org

Kehler Liddell Gallery203-389-9555kehlerliddell.com

Knights of Columbus Museumkofcmuseum.org

Legacy Theatrelegacytheatrect.org

Long Wharf Theatrelongwharf.org203-787-4282

Lyman Center at SCSUwww.lyman.southernct.edu

Madison Art Societymadisonartsociety.blogspot.com

Make Havenmakehaven.org

Mattatuck Museummattatuckmuseum.org

Meet the Artists and Artisansmeettheartistsandartisans.com203-874-5672

Melinda Marquez Flamenco Dance Center

melindamarquezfdc.org203-361-1210

Milford Fine Arts Councilmilfordarts.org203-878-6647

Music Havenmusichavenct.org203-745-9030

Musical Folkmusicalfolk.com

Neighborhood Music Schoolneighborhoodmusicschool.org203-624-5189

New Haven Balletnewhavenballet.org203-782-9038

New Haven Chamber Orchestranewhavenchamberorchestra.org

New Haven Choralenewhavenchorale.org

New Haven Free Public Librarynhfpl.org

New Haven Museum newhavenmuseum.org203-562-4183

New Haven Paint and Clay Clubnewhavenpaintandclayclub.org203-288-6590

New Haven Symphony Orchestranewhavensymphony.org203-865-0831

New Haven Theater Companynewhaventheatercompany.com

New World Arts Northeast203-507-8875

One True Paletteonetruepalette.com

Orchestra New Englandorchestranewengland.org203-777-4690

Pantochino Productionspantochino.com

Paul Mellon Arts Centerchoate.edu/artscenter

Play with Graceplaywithgrace.com

Reynolds Fine Artreynoldsfineart.com

Royal Scottish Country Dance Society, New Haven Branchnhrscds.org

Shoreline Arts Alliance shorelinearts.org203-453-3890

Shubert Theatershubert.com203-562-5666

Silk n’ Soundssilknsounds.org

Silk Road Art Gallerysilkroadartnewhaven.com

Site Projectssiteprojects.org

Susan Powell Fine Artsusanpowellfineart.com203-318-0616

The Bird Nest Gallerythebirdnestsalon.com

The Second Movementsecondmovementseries.org

Theater Department at SCSU/Crescent Players

southernct.edu/theater

University Glee Club of New Havenuniversitygleeclub.org

Wesleyan University Center for the Artswesleyan.edu/cfa

West Cove Studio & Gallerywestcovestudio.com 609-638-8501

Whitney Arts Center203-773-3033

Whitney Humanities Centeryale.edu/whc

Whitneyville Cultural Commons1253whitney.com

Yale Cabaretyalecabaret.org203-432-1566

Yale Center for British Artyale.edu/ycba

Yale Glee Clubyale.edu/ygc203-432-5180

Yale Institute of Sacred Musicyale.edu.ism203-432-5180

Yale New Haven Children’s Hospital Child Life Arts & Enrichment Program

www.ynhh.org203-688-9532

Yale Peabody Museum of Natural History

peabody.yale.edu

Yale Repertory Theatreyalerep.org203-432-1234

Yale School of Musicmusic.yale.edu203-432-1965

Yale University Bandsyale.edu/yaleband203-432-4111

Creative Businesses

Access Audio-Visual Systemsaccessaudiovisual.com

Foundry Music Companywww.foundrymusicco.com

Hull’s Art Supply and Framinghullsnewhaven.com203-865-4855

Toad’s Placetoadsplace.com

Community Partners

Department of Arts Culture & Tourism, City of New Havencityofnewhaven.com203-946-8378

DECD/CT Office of the Artscultureandtourism.org860-256-2800

Fractured Atlasfracturedatlas.org

New Haven Preservation Trustnhpt.org

The Amistad Committeectfreedomtrail.org

Town Green Special Services District

infonewhaven.com

Visit New Havenvisitnewhaven.com

Westville Village Renaissance Alliance

westvillect.org

july | august 2016

The Arts Paper


C

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Y

CM

MY

CY

CMY

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I’m as independent here as I was in my condo, except now I’ve got friends all around. That

makes a big difference. And by moving in before I need care, I’m able to take advantage of everything Whitney Center has to offer.

Trudy Bollier, resident since 2012

Write your next chapter at Whitney Center.Learn more about our Life Care senior living community.

Call 203.883.4109 or visit WhitneyCenter.comto schedule a personal appointment.

701209

Y institute of sacred music

Performances · Lectures and morePresenting

Great Organ Music at Yale · Yale CamerataYale Schola Cantorum · Yale Literature and Spirituality Series

and more

For latest calendar information call 203.432.5062 or visit ism.yale.edu

Somewhat Off The WallA unique fundraiser to benefit

The Arts Council of Greater New Haven

Saturday, September 17, 2016, 5 - 7 p.m.The Gallery at EleMar, 2 Gibbs Street, New Haven

Come for the party.Leave with original Art!

Contact [email protected] for more information.

arts council programs

The Arts Paper

Perspectives … The Gallery at Whitney CenterLocation: 200 Leeder Hill Drive, South Entrance, HamdenHours: Tuesdays and Thursdays, 4-7 p.m., and Saturdays, 1-4 p.m.

KnackCurated by Debbie HesseKnack brings together artists, artisans and teachers that are affiliated with regional service organizations that support artistic practices through training programs, workshops, and community interaction with the goal to promote creative self-expression, job creation, wellness, and commu-nity integration. The exhibition features art work and performances by affiliates of Chapel Haven, Universal Arts, Opportunity House, Fellowship Place, Marrakech, East Street Arts, Play with Grace, ACES ACCESS, Vista Life Innovations, and Music Intervention.

Dates: On view through September 6 Closing Reception and Artwork Pick-up:Tuesday, September 6, 4-5 p.m.Cultural Arts Center at the Whitney Center.Special Performance by Play With Grace at 4 p.m., light refreshments served.

Sumner McKnight Crosby Jr. Gallery Location: The Arts Council of Greater New Haven, 70 Audubon St., 2nd Floor, New HavenHours: Monday-Friday, 9 a.m.-5 p.m. Shuffle and Shake This exhibition features work by 24 artists who were randomly selected from a lottery of Arts Council members. Each artist will be given wall space (floor or ceiling) on which to install work.

Dates: Shuffle (Part 1): July 7-August 4 Public reception: Thursday, July 14, 5-7 p.m.Shake (Part 2): August 11-September 8 Closing reception: Thursday, September 8, 5-7 p.m.

Save the Date for Somewhat Off the WallA unique fundraiser to benefit the Arts Council of Greater New HavenDate: Saturday, September 17, 5-9 p.m.Location: The Gallery at EleMar, 2 Gibbs St., New HavenNumbered tickets available for $120. When your ticket number is called, you select and take home a piece of original artwork! $45 event tickets do not include artwork. Party begins at 5 p.m., drawing of ticket numbers be-gins at 7 p.m. Contact [email protected] for more information.

Advice from the ACNeed help finding exhibition space/opportunities, performance/re-hearsal space, or developing new ways to promote your work or creative event? Schedule a free one-on-one consultation with Debbie Hesse, the Arts Council’s director of artist services and programs by calling 203-772-2788. Walk-ins are also welcome.

Date: July 7, 1-4 p.m., or by appointment.Location: Children’s Museum and Creative Arts Center, 2781 Dixwell Ave., Suite 201, Hamden.203-288-8600.

Arts On AIR Listen to the Arts Council’s Arts On Air broadcast on Mondays, July 18 and August 15, during WPKN’s Community Programming Hour, 12-1 p.m. Hosted by the Arts Council’s communications manager, Arts On Air fea-tures conversations with local artists and representatives from area arts organizations. Listen live and online at wpkn.org.

Writers Circle The Writers Circle is an Arts Council program created in partnership with The Institute Library to develop and support Greater New Haven’s growing community of writers. The Writers Circle encourages its mem-bers to improve their craft and share their work through write-ins, guest lectures with working writers, workshops, and readings. We host events at the Arts Council (70 Audubon St.), at The Institute Library (847 Chapel Street), and at other partner locations. Email [email protected] for more information and a schedule of events. The Writers Circle does not meet in July and August. Writers Circle events will resume in September.

Photo Arts CollectiveThe Photo Arts Collective is an Arts Council program that aims to cultivate

and support a community of individuals who share an interest in photog-

raphy, through workshops, lectures, exhibitions, portfolio reviews, group

critiques, and events. The Photo Arts Collective meets the first Thursday

of the month at the Kehler Liddell Gallery, 873 Whitney Ave., New Haven,

at 7 p.m. To learn more, send email to [email protected]. The

collective does not meet in July and August. Photo Arts Collective meetings will

resume in September.

For more information on these events and more visit newhavenarts.org or check out our mobile events calendar using the Arts, Nightlife, Dining & Information (ANDI) app for smartphones.

Photographs by Rob Rocke will be on view during Somewhat Off the Wall. Image courtesy of the artist.

Gallery view at the opening reception for Knack at Perspectives ... The Gallery at Whitney Center.

A recent opening reception in the Sumner McKnight Crosby Jr. Gallery.

The Arts Council’s 2015 Somewhat Off the Wall fundraising event.

the arts paper | july/august 2016

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