The Arts Paper | December 2017

dexter singleton 4

pantochino productions 7

cookie infatuation 11

ivy narrow bird sanctuary 12

The Arts Paper a free publication of The Arts Council of Greater New Haven • artspaper.org

December 2017

Holiday Extravaganza!

December 16, 17, 21 | New Haven, Hamden & Shelton 203.865.0831 | NewHavenSymphony.org

The Arts Paper december 2017

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Artists Next Door Hank Hoffman Interviews

Dexter Singleton

staff

board of directors

Daniel Fitzmaurice executive director

Rick Wies president Daisy Abreu vice president Wojtek Borowski vice president

Winter Marshall operations director Megan Manton development director Jennifer Gelband marketing director Lucy Gellman editor, the arts paper Amanda May Aruani design consultant

Ken Spitzbard treasurer Mark Potocsny secretary

directors Robert B. Dannies Jr. James Gregg Todd Jokl Mark Kaduboski Greg Marazita Rachel Mele Frank Mitchell Greg Nobile Eileen O’Donnell John Pancoast Caroline Smith Genevive Walker

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Pantochino Productions Meet Bert Bernardi and His Theater and Production Company

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Cookie Infatuation Tagan Engel Bakes Her Way Through December

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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The Arts Council of Greater New Haven 70 Audubon Street, 2nd Floor, New Haven, CT 06510 Phone: (203) 772.2788 Fax: (203) 772.2262 info@newhavenarts.org newhavenarts.org artspaper.org

honorary members Frances T. “Bitsie” Clark Cheever Tyler

In an effort to reduce its carbon footprint, The Arts Council now prints The Arts Paper on more environmentally friendly paper and using soy inks. Please read and recycle.

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Ivy Narrow Bird Sanctuary Read About This Nature Preserve in Newhallville

The Arts Council is pleased to recognize the generous contributions of our business, corporate and institutional members.

executive champions Yale University senior patrons L. Suzio York Hill Companies Marcum Odonnell Company Webster Bank Wiggin and Dana corporate partners Chamber Insurance Trust Edgehill Realtors Firehouse 12 Fusco Management Company Greater New Haven Chamber of Commerce Jewish Foundation of Greater New Haven KeyBank Knights of Columbus Metropolitan Interactive Yale-New Haven Hospital business patrons Albertus Magnus College Gateway Community College Lenny + Joe’s Fish Tale Newman Architects

business members Access Audio-Visual Systems Brenner, Saltzman, & Wallman, LLP Griswold Home Care foundations and government agencies AVANGRID The Community Foundation for Greater New Haven DECD/CT Office of the Arts The Ethel & Abe Lapides Foundation First Niagara Foundation Josef and Anni Albers Foundation NewAlliance Foundation The Wells Fargo Foundation The Werth Family Foundation media partners New Haven Independent WPKN

The Arts Paper december 2017

Welcome, Pilgrim

On the Cover

Dear Readers, Is it possible we’ve made it to the end of the year? In my mind, it is still January, and I am just meeting up with busloads of Connecticut women to write as they march, a sea of pink pussy hats, on the capitol.

Or it’s April, and the newly minted Elm City Express is charting its way to victory, bringing out throngs of New Haveners from every corner of the city to cheer on the game.

Or it’s August, in the baking heat of South Carolina, and New Haveners are spinning their eclipse stories into halfmyth, already reliving the moment the moon covered the sun.

What binds these events is their nature. They are pilgrimages great and small that I have gotten to spend with all of you. In the past four years, traveling around New Haven to report your stories has become one of my greatest joys. For this issue, our small but mighty team of writers (arts warriors?) headed out into the community to capture just some of that magic, and take you on a few trips with them.

It’s an eclectic mix, with stories that traverse time and place. Writer Malia West spent days exploring the nooks and crannies of Stetson Library, learning about its past, present and evolving future with branch manager Diane Brown. Ever the intrepid reporter, Stephen Urchick headed to Bridgeport to check out its itinerant art trail. Hank Hoffman took a trip to Collective Consciousness Theatre, where Dexter Singleton was hard at work on Suzan-Lori

Parks’ Topdog/Underdog. There are pilgrimages I made too, but they don’t appear here: We’re holding them for January or running them at artspaper.org. If you haven’t made that journey to our website, I recommend it.

We also put an emphasis on first person narratives—the pilgrimages that our readers make and why they make them. Musicians from the band Procedure Club recounted their mini-tour, while food justice advocate, storyteller and culinary guru Tagan Engel baked her way to a destination.

From photographer Rachel Liu Ballard, we have our first of what I hope will be many photo essays on her Homecoming series of photographs. Because at some point in the journey you have to come home and figure out how things stand.

As the month comes to a close, I imagine many of you will be making pilgrimages of your own, from within the neighborhood to different cities, states and countries where friends and family members are waiting with open arms. I wish you safety, peace and restfulness in this season, and new friends along the way.

Rose by Rachel Liu Ballard. Photo courtesy of the artist. See and read about her Homecoming photo essay on page 8.

In the Next Issue …

With best wishes for this month, and for the start of 2018, Lucy Questions? Comments? Kvetches?

You can reach me at lucy@newhavenarts.org.

In the first issue of 2018, we’ll explore new beginnings in the arts.

From the intersection of arts and midwifery to new regional media collaborations, we’ll be looking at how arts organizations are making tight budgets work, seeking out new opportunities, and collaborating on new projects.

make your holiday

Merry Bright

&

Nov. 18, 2017Feb. 19, 2018

with the

giftof

creativity • december 2017

Free admission & parking • Gift shop • Schools & groups welcome

1 State Street, New Haven • 203-865-0400 • kofcmuseum.org

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The Arts Paper december 2017

artists next door

Putting the ‘Act’ in Activism hank hoffman Dexter J. Singleton and the members of Collective Consciousness Theatre (CCT) don't have a crystal ball. But sometimes people think they do.

Singleton doesn’t remember when that trend started. Maybe it was when Dominique Morisseau’s Detroit ’67 opened the same month a St. Louis jury failed to indict Officer Darren Wilson. Or when Katori Hall’s The Mountaintop brought the audience to tears with a civil rights-themed photo montage. Or in Stories of a New America, as news of Donald Trump’s travel ban hung heavy over refugee testimonials.

"Often the work that we're presenting is so timely—unfortunately, at times, because so many issues in the world continue to happen," Singleton said in an interview at CCT's black box theater space at Erector Square. "We're picking plays that we feel are really relevant to what's happening today. That's part of the joy of it."

It is also often part of the pain of it. In Morisseau's Detroit '67—the first play presented at their new Erector Square location in 2014—police kill one of the characters during the 1967 Detroit riots. The play opened Nov. 13 of 2014, as pressures were mounting on a Missouri jury to indict Darren Wilson in the shooting of Michael Brown. On Nov. 24—one day after the show closed—Wilson was acquitted. The outcry was palpable far beyond St. Louis.

Singleton reacted in real time. As part of CCT’s programming, the group held a talkback with playwright Morisseau and community activist Barbara Fair on police brutality towards the African-American community.

“We chose the play because we knew it was a socially active play. But to have something happen in society that affected people—that made the play that more current and that more real,” Singleton said.

It’s because education is as much part of CCT's mission as entertainment. The multicultural theater company produces two main stage plays each season, one in the fall and one in the spring. This year’s fall production, Suzan-Lori Parks' Topdog/ Underdog, closed Nov. 19. Dominique Morisseau's Sunset Baby will run from Feb. 22 through Mar. 11, 2018.

Additionally, the organization has several productions for touring and presentation in schools, prisons and other community venues and theaters. Study guides, talkbacks and workshops often add context and opportunities for discussion.

This year, those programs include “Freshworks 2018,” a new initiative coming out of CCT's longtime commitment to presenting new works. Three plays—out of 137 received prior to the Sept. 30 deadline—will receive staged readings in the weekend festival next June. While still in the initial stages of reading the submissions, Singleton noted that the socially conscious works deal with themes such as human rights, community interaction with the police, socioeconomics and gun violence.

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Dexter J. Singleton. Photo courtesy of Collective Conciousness Theatre.

The executive director of CCT, Singleton plays multiple roles within the organization.

In his artistic role, Singleton has served as a producer, writer, director and actor. As administrator, he is responsible for fundraising, the operations of the company and being an ambassador for the organization to the public.

Singleton co-founded CCT with Liz Hinz in 2001 to produce his own show, Little Brother. Cooperation between Singleton and theater artist Aaron Jafferis, which began in 2002 with a touring production of Jafferis' No Lie: A Hip Hop Bus Trip, expanded the parameters. The company developed organically, adding works to its repertoire and enhancing its theatrical and educational offerings. It was formally incorporated as a nonprofit in 2007.

"The name came up because we were all very different artists, of different races, different backgrounds. But we found a common interest in theater and the ability to help people with social issues," Singleton recalled.

In choosing plays to produce, CCT looks for works that balance education and entertainment, comedy and drama. "We make sure that, first, the play is well structured, strongly written and has beautifully wellrounded characters," Singleton said. "You are seeing a great, well-written play first and then realize, wow, the play also has a powerful message speaking to what's happening today in society."

Asked how theater can propel social change, Singleton responded, "It's immediate, it's live, it's right in front of you. It's mimesis—art imitating life. Because of that,

it's very real, unlike television programs or film where you can't touch it or get that sense."

Singleton added that CCT aims to provide perspectives too often missing in American media. "We feel like people of color are lacking representation in television, film and plays. It's important to show people who are working class individuals, people of color, women that are in positions of power and are not subservient," he said.

"There is a great narrative in the story of people of color that's powerful, that's positive, that's life-changing."

This commitment to diverse perspectives is inherent in the company's own practices, according to Singleton. It is not uncommon for the artistic leadership of a production to be all people of color or all women—or all women of color.

"In American theater now there are buzzwords of access, inclusion, equity and diversity. People are talking about that like it's new," Singleton said. "Organizations like ours have always felt that access, equity, inclusion and diversity were important to the survival of the American theater. If we want theater to last for the next several hundred years and beyond, it's important to feature stories that everybody can relate to.

"We try to create these stories that remind you of your family member or your neighbor, or experiences that you're having right now or in your past that are real.”

Ensuring access and inclusion transcends what is programmed for the stage. CCT seeks to reach audiences not normally served by elite institutions. Realizing many people don't feel welcome in the arts, the

organization has sought to provide affordable tickets, regular free performances and a "pay what you can" policy for every Thursday show.

"We like to think of our space as a community a space where everybody is welcome," Singleton said. "Young people can come here and feel like it's their space."

CCT is exploring other ways to enhance its relevance and "to meet people where they're at." Much of the magic of theater, noted Singleton, comes from its temporality and the real world interaction of performers and audiences. But that is also a limitation.

"You're seeing theater artists filming work. You can get that out on social media and across the world much quicker," Singleton said. "We're in very visual times with social media where people want to see things that are 30 seconds—very short plays."

"Theater has been around so long and there are parts of theater that are really old school. As theater artists, we're just seeing we have to change with the times," Singleton explained. While remaining committed to producing full-length plays, CCT also wants to create the type of short, stirring content that resonates on social media.

"Theater has lasted this long and will continue to last because it always adjusts.

Social media is a part of that. We can't pretend it's not there. We have to use it. It's the greatest way to reach young people.” n

To find out more about performances at Collective Conscious Theatre, visit their website at socialchangetheatre.org.

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The Arts Paper december 2017

Holiday Gift Guide amanda may aruani We brought it back! Last year, The Arts Council reached out to a few local organizations and shops, asking them to submit gift ideas for this holiday season for our art-savvy readers. The options ranged from $12-1,200. We expanded it this year with more businesses. Happy hunting.

Creative Arts Workshop The Celebration of American Crafts is back at Creative Arts Workshop. This will be their 48th annual exhibit and sale of fine crafts. Opening on Nov. 25, it continues Wednesdays-Sundays from 11 a.m.-6 p.m. until December 24. 80 Audubon St., New Haven. (203) 5624927. creativeartsworkshop.org/events/ celebrationofamericancrafts Hull’s Art Supply and Framing Your local art supply store is a great place to pick up gifts for the creative people in your life. Selling “tools for imagination since 1947,” there is truly something for everyone at their store at 1144 Chapel St., New Haven. Open Monday-Saturday 9 a.m.-7 p.m., Sunday 10 a.m.-6 p.m. (203) 865-4855. hullsnewhaven.com East Street Arts Selling handmade goods made in their artisan training program for people with developmental challenges, East Street Art’s shop helps support their artisans and their programming (and are pretty cool too!).

597 East St., New Haven. Monday-Thursday, 8 a.m.-4 p.m., Friday, 8 a.m.-3 p.m., or by appointment. (203) 776-6310. eaststreetartsnh.org Guilford Art Center Artistry is the Guilford Art Center’s holiday shopping event featuring oneof-a-kind works from American artisans, including jewelry, ceramics, glass, fiber, ornaments, accessories, toys, specialty foods and more. Monday-Saturday 10 a.m.-5:30 p.m., Thursdays until 8 p.m., and Sundays 12-5 p.m. through January 8.

411 Church St., Guilford. (203) 453-5947. guilfordartcenter.org Kehler Liddell Gallery Support local artists in a very direct way by purchasing their original art during Kehler Liddell Gallery’s Deck the Walls holiday group show and sale through December 24. The exhibition/ sale features 19 local artists and artworks range in price to suit any budget. 873 Whalley Ave., New Haven. (203) 3899555. See kehlerliddellgallery.com for hours. Reception/holiday happening on Dec. 9, 3-6 p.m.

Wave Gallery This bright boutique shop has handmade textiles, jewelry, bowls, and more.

Even walking along this lovely block of Chapel Street will put you in the holiday spirit. 1046 Chapel St., New Haven.

(203) 624-3032. wave-gallery-gifts.com

Fairhaven Furniture This alternative home store sells interesting objects, distinctively designed furniture, and artful gifts. Definitely worth a visit! Open Monday, Wednesday, Thursday, Friday, and Saturday 10 a.m.-6 p.m., and Sunday 12-5 p.m. 72 Blatchley Ave., New Haven.

(203) 776-3099. fairhaven-furniture.com Lotta Studio On Dec. 9, The Range At Lotta Studio will hold its annual “Anti Mall : Shop Small” holiday event. Focused on selling curated gifts and art for the holiday season, visitors can pick up handmade crafts, jewelry, photography/fine art and more. If you are interested in joining the group of sellers, email mistina@lottastudio.com with a product portfolio as well as a quick intro bio to apply.

911 Whalley Ave., New Haven. lottastudio.com

East Street Arts

East Street Arts

Guilford Art Center

Wave Gallery

Strange Ways Strange Ways is a curated shop showcasing unique and unusual items for your wardrobe and home. They focus on smaller statement pieces like pins and patches that make it easy to add a bit of flair to everyday life. Working with 100+ independent artists and designers allows for new and fresh product to help you express your individual style.

11 a.m.-5 p.m. Tuesday-Friday; 10 a.m.-4 p.m.

Saturday and Sunday. 910 Whalley Ave., New Haven. strange-ways.com Vintanthromodern Vintanthromodern features expertly curated vintage clothing, shoes, and accessories for men, women and kiddos. The store also carries local and small batch goods like candles, letterpress cards, jewelry and textiles. Handpicked daily, owner and founder Melissa Gonzales scours the state of Connecticut (and the Midwest and deep South from time to time) to find the very best clothing, shoes and accessories from times past, along with modern gifts. Wednesday 3-6 p.m.; Thursday-Sunday 12-6 p.m. 938 State St., New Haven. (860) 944-6254. vintanthromodern.com EBM Vintage EBM Vintage is a 4,000-square-foot treasure trove of all things vintage. They have new inventory constantly, including mid-century modern furniture and housewares, antique jewelry, timeless sewing notions, kitchenware, and retro fashion.

Pay them a visit in the heart of downtown New Haven, next to Yale University and just blocks from Union Station. Tuesday-Saturday 10 a.m.-6 p.m.; Sunday 12-6 p.m. 839 Chapel St., New Haven. (203) 772-1728. englishbuildingmarkets.com

Guilford Art Center

EcoWorks This not-for-profit runs a creative reuse center with a reBoutique gift shop of upcycled and repurposed goods made by Connecticut artists and offers classes and workshops. EcoWorks also sells low-cost art supplies in their reuse center to support teachers, artists, and others seeking to be more creative and artistic!

Thursdays 1-7 p.m.; Saturdays, 10 a.m.-4 p.m.

(203) 498-0710. ecoworksct.org Guilford Art Center

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Wave Gallery

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The Arts Paper december 2017

‘You Gotta Know What You’re Doing’ a trip to the hill museum of arts ali oshinskie Straight down New Haven’s Congress Avenue, then down a tree-lined street, then down a fat asphalt driveway, that’s where you’ll find the Hill Museum of Arts.

It’s there that Gregory “Krikko” Obbott has decided to display his life’s work, a series of giant pencil cityscapes that line the walls. Rather than finding a museum to show the pieces, Obbott—who prefers to go by Krikko—decided to build his own.

For that, he’s been able to feature not just his pencil drawings, but works from the artistic journey that led to them.

The tour starts in his lobby, on the other side of a large, creaky front door with pillars on both sides. Bright white columns rise to the third floor rafters and warm light streams in, illuminating the drawings.

Guests find themselves face-to-face with The Super Big Apple, an aerial view of New York City that measures 20 x 15 feet. In it, New York City stands as it was in the 1990s, with Manhattan dipping out into the viewer’s field of vision. Landmarks crowd the space: the Empire State building and heavy bridges, with Lady Liberty saluting her viewers from the drawing’s right.

Krikko spent years (and 2,496 pencils, he said) working on the piece, which includes 10,000 buildings and 150,000 windows.

The Super Big Apple is just Krikko’s starting place. Across the room hangs a scene of New Haven, measuring 20 x 10 feet. It too is incredibly detailed, with tiny people walking down Crown, College and Elm streets. Itty bitty students hoist up their backpacks and businesspeople their satchels and briefcases. There are scenes that still ring true, like a hot dog vendor parked in front of the courthouse on Elm Street.

In creating the museum, Krikko said he sought a space large enough to both hang his drawings and display his multimedia talents. He’s also a skilled saxophonist—he lists Coltrane as an influence and talks frequently about his love for abstract music. Some days as he works or

leads tour groups through the museum, tracks from an original jazz album that he recorded with his friends play from a speaker up on the third floor.

Krikko drew his first cityscape as part of a school project in 1980. Originally from Surulere, Nigeria, he moved to America in 1974 to study architecture at University of Southwestern Louisiana (now known as the University of Louisiana at Lafayette).

There, he learned techniques that he still uses today. He makes schematics to plan out his drawings and only works on small sections of the drawing at a time. Since his first drawing, his work has only grown in size and popularity. His larger-than-life drawings are made famous by widely distributed prints, shrunk down to postcard size.

His background in architecture isn’t just useful for drawings, he said in a recent interview at his museum. He also designed and restored the museum in 2013.

He said that the choice to do so was personal: he has lived in the Hill neighborhood for over 20 years, close to and in the museum’s digs on West Street. When he started looking for a place to hang his drawings, he didn’t have to look far to find the right location.

A then-vacant carriage house on West Street was protected by Two visitors to the Hill Museum of Arts look at The Super Big Apple by Krikko.

Photo by Krikko. the city for it’s historical

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Krikko with his latest drawing, which hovers over Central Park in New York City. Photo by Ali Oshinskie.

architecture. Residential developers looking to build apartments had been turned down, said Krikko—“So I came up with the concept” to do something else with it.

“I’m gonna use it for an art studio,” he told city officials. “From an art studio, then it evolved to a museum.”

He reopened an expanded museum, with plans for a nearby garage, in stages between 2013 and 2015. The renovations were an undertaking: longtime friend and assistant Curtis Woods did the wiring and plumbing, and friends and neighbors helped with construction. In the next few years, he plans to open an animation studio in the empty garage out back for local kids to create and build art in.

He has a pre-rehearsed tour, ready for groups that enter the space. The first two stories of the three-story house are filled with Krikko’s art, mostly drawings of cities and buildings with a few portraits in the mix. The second floor houses a gift shop, a corner filled with postcards and prints of his drawings.

But it’s up on the third floor where Krikko spends most of his time; his studio and home are there. His decision to live in the space was motivated by his hunch, fed by decades of experience, that creativity may strike at any time.

“There’s no way you’re gonna live in the suburbs and come here and draw for a few hours,” he said in a recent interview.

“You gotta draw at night. I was up at 2:30 last night drawing.”

From the across the open airspace on the third floor, he called to Woods, sitting in the stairwell below.

“Curtis! Ask him. Where do I sleep?”

Krikko said.

“Under his drawing!” Wood shouted back.

That drawing, still nascent, is a new perspective of New York City. On the third floor, panels sit on a desk suspended by chains from the ceiling. Unlike his Super Big Apple, Krikko has shifted the perspective to sit above Central Park with the rest of the city shrinking in the distance.

At this workbench, the scale of Krikko’s work is broken down. The drawings are done in sections, on 60 x 40-inch pieces of four-ply paper. Next to the four sections on the table are tattered maps, frayed and retaped, and his collection of pencils.

On a recent tour of his desk, Krikko grew quiet, leaving the sounds of his shading and the recording of his jazz group to fill the silence. He was working on the Columbia University neighborhood, shading a section, rubbing the paper with a blending stump, a stick of tightly wrapped felt paper, and then glancing at the map before he repeated the process.

“It’s almost like you’re dancing, your hands have to move in rhythm,” he said. Only the tip of the Staedtler pencil touched the desk to avoid smudging.

“Staedtler, Staedtler pencils. Staedtler is the best!”

The love is reciprocal: His work is featured on Staedtler’s advertisements and pencil packages. And that kind of expanded vision of his work, he said, dovetails with the expanded museum, and an equally expanded mission statement.

“I’m an artist, I couldn’t be that reserved, you know, otherwise you incubate creativity and energy,” he said. “You gotta come out of the box.” n

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The Arts Paper december 2017

Member Spotlight: Pantochino Productions lucy gellman On a chilly October night, young Rae was at a crossroads. Just on the lip of her thirteenth birthday, she had two options sitting before her. She could follow in the footsteps of her sister Emmaleen, traveling to the dark side of witchcraft and wizardry. Or she could take a page from her benevolent Uncle Wink, practicing his magic with warmth and moderation. It was a puzzle: Which witch would win at the end of the night?

Rae isn’t a real character. Or, at least, she wasn’t until late this year. This fall, she came to life through Pantochino Productions, a one-stop theater shop and production company out of Milford, Conn., that has created many characters like her.

Founded in 2010 by actor and playwright Bert Bernardi and actor Jimmy Johansmeyer, the group has become a destination for families seeking out original works of community and musical theater.

Pantochino performs out of the Milford Arts Council (MAC), which reopened this fall after a state grant and multi-year renovation. It holds a unique place in Connecticut’s theatrical landscape: Each show is created, composed and designed from the

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ground up. The group produces three fulllength musicals per year, drawing thousands from the region for performances.

“All of the things we do work hand-inhand with each other,” Bernardi said in a recent interview with The Arts Council. “It all sort of works in one direction. We all help foster each other.”

It wasn’t exactly the trajectory he had planned on when he arrived in Connecticut 40 years ago. Born and raised in Massachusetts, Bernardi attended the University of Bridgeport, arriving for his freshman year in the fall of 1977. It fit the bill for the disciplines he wanted—graphic design, theater and cinema, and art history—but it also offered a kind of gritty, lively city he wasn’t expecting. He found himself falling for a then-vibrant downtown, with independent businesses lining the sidewalks and a shopping mall not far away if he needed it.

He became involved with the city’s Downtown Cabaret Theatre, where he could work during the week and then commute to New York City for acting auditions. He recalled teasing friends in New York that his trip into the city took no longer than it did for them to reach Manhattan from Brooklyn or Queens. He had

his own space, instead of sharing a small apartment with four or five roommates.

He was happy exactly where his career had landed him in that moment, he said.

But friends and colleagues kept asking him when he was going to start his own company. And at some point, the suggestion began to stick.

Bernardi paired up with Johansmeyer with an idea: A series of entirely devised plays—musicals, specifically—put on by Connecticut actors who were amateurs and professionals alike. Musicals that were family- and community-oriented, but could have legs beyond the places in Connecticut where they were born.

“It just seemed the right time to take on this kind of project, and put on the kind of things, tell the kind of stories in the style we wanted to tell them,” he said.

They named the company Pantochino, a name that came from the root “panto” (as in pantomime) and “Chino,” after a toy monkey who has become their informal mascot.

“We wanted to call it something unique,” Bernardi said. “Everyone is ‘Spotlight Players,’ ‘Curtain Players.’ We wanted a new word. Of course, everyone thought we were opening up a coffee shop or a restaurant.”

At first, the two thought they would find a permanent home in New Haven. They’d raised funds through a Kickstarter campaign (“It was still a relatively new thing at the time,” Bernardi recalled), and spent a year looking at places across the city, from businesses to banks to gas stations. But venues were surprisingly hard to come by: either places lacked space, or they weren’t quite right for performance. The company’s first productions, Lifeboat Dahling and Predictable Heart, took place at Firehouse 12, a bar and studio in New Haven’s Ninth Square neighborhood.

Firehouse 12 had its own set of problems, starting with its lack of space. When the the Educational Center for the Arts (ECA) opened its Audubon Street doors to the company the following year, the two felt as though they’d finally found the right home. In October 2011, ECA welcomed Cinderella Skeleton: The Musical to its swooping, grand auditorium. Adapted from a children’s book, the work caught on—and so did Pantochino.

In its early years, the company moved its performance venue from ECA to Yale’s off-Broadway Theatre, hidden in a plaza off Broadway and York Streets downtown.

There, new devotees from across the region traveled to performances in New Haven. As Pantochino grew, producing new works each year, so did grumbles from attendees who were traveling from Fairfield County for shows. Bernardi and Johansmeyer started to look for something that answered those needs.

“I was trying to listen to the audience,” Bernardi recalled.

That willingness to listen led him to the Milford Arts Council, a Civil War-era building with ready access to the Metro-North and Milford’s quaint downtown.

There, the company has rented out space and performed since, with giggle-inducing

Bert Bernardi. Photo courtesy of Pantochino Productions.

titles like The Ethel Mermaid, Charlie & The Chocolate Factory Outlet Store, and The Brothers Grimm & A Showgirl among others. It’s where Bernardi has built some of his happiest memories, he said.

For instance, producing Glitz: The Little Miss Christmas Pageant Musical, a musical hybrid between pageantry and Charles’ Dickens’ A Christmas Carol. It’s now published and licensed (eight of the company’s works are), and plays each year at a few theaters across the country.

Or getting to play several small roles in The Wicked Witch of The West: Kansas or Bust. The musical takes off after The Wizard of Oz, as the Wicked Witch of the West decides she doesn’t want to be wicked anymore, and seeks out Dorothy in Kansas. As Auntie Em, Bernardi recalled delivering a series of rapid fire jokes, one after the other after the other.

“I still remember how heartily that audience was laughing,” he said. “I don’t think I’ve ever experienced that before.”

Through Pantochino, he and Johansmeyer also started a theater camp for kids, expanding it as families gobbled up spots for two- and three-week sessions.

They have an after-school musical program in schools “as far south as Southbury, as far north as Madison,” and a “Teen Theatre” program that produces two full musicals each year, one for both winter and summer.

This month, they’ll be continuing that with School for Elves, a new musical by Bernardi and Justin Rugg that runs Dec. 1-17. Bernardi said he and Johansmeyer are excited to end the year with the show, in the MAC’s revitalized building. While they haven’t ruled out a different brick-andmortar outpost in the future, they’ve put it in the back burner for the time being. If they did move, Bernardi said, it would be within the city of Milford.

“Milford’s been great to us,” he said.

“Welcoming. With everybody that I’ve met, it’s so good to share our successes.”

“We have a winner here,” he added of Pantochino in an email. “I am proud to boast and brag about the work we do.”

Find out more about Pantochino Productions by visiting them on the web at pantochino.com. School for Elves runs Dec. 1-17 at the Milford Arts Council (MAC), 40 Railroad Ave., Milford. Tickets are $20 and can be purchased online at showclix.com/events/pantochino/tag.

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The Arts Paper december 2017

Homecoming rachel liu ballard be easy, take your time. you are coming home to yourself.

- nayyirah waheed We walked onto the dock, the sun already beneath the horizon, as she slowly removed her clothing, reluctant against the biting air.

“Swimming in open water feels like the closest thing I have to believing in a higher power again, the closest thing to coming home to myself,” she said.

She paused so I could photograph her staring straight back at my lens before she plunged into the frigid San Francisco bay.

The ocean water, dark blue and golden-flecked from the remains of light, held her effortlessly. I could see why this was home.

Homecoming. The process began over two years ago in an oak grove in Oregon. With my feet deep in the mud and my heart broken open underneath a canopy of branches, I began the journey of coming home to myself. I held that experience close until almost a year later when, with my feet again in the mud, the questions started coming.

“What does it mean to come home to yourself? Where do you carry that story in your body? What does it feel like?

What would it look like, in pictures, to set your story free?”

As a photographer, I immediately wanted to turn the lens onto others asking the questions to any person who would listen. Did they know this feeling too? What was it like for them?

Did it feel like an unwavering place of acceptance and love?

Were they still finding their way? It turns out a lot of them had and were.

Over the last year I have been photographing people across the country telling their stories of homecoming. I have been knee-deep in the Pacific Ocean, straddling industrial machinery in an abandoned field, crouching in a desert, sitting at a kitchen table, kneeling in a fern grove.

Not one story is the same; they are wild, varied, and beautiful in their telling. Their stories push me further homeward up my own path, each one casting more light and tossing their own magic to illuminate my way back home. n

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The Arts Paper december 2017

What We Learned On The Road procedure club’s mini tour to the south andrea belair with members of procedure club It started before we ever hit the highway. Earlier this year, we were asked to play at a festival called Athens Popfest in Georgia. The festival, set for August 2017, was in its 14th year, but it would be our first time playing there—and our first time touring in a new configuration. We eyed our bandmate’s trusty 2004 Ford Escape Hybrid, ironed out a tour of the south, and jumped in. Literally.

Touring, as a personal experience, is one that is wholly unique from any other form of travel. It is at once exhilarating, anxiety-producing, isolating, and liberating—a kind of time-travel where typical routines and obligations are tossed in order to hurtle from gas station to rest stop to venue, across time zones and through corridors of unfamiliar sprawl.

There is a feeling that you and your bandmates all exist somewhere else outside of the world, viewing everyone you pass along the way with curious bemusement. To chart that course feels somehow defiant, and it grips you with a kind of manic intensity, from moments of joy and sadness to absolute wonder.

We started with the nuts and bolts of the tour, booking gigs in Philadelphia, Durham, Mobile and Louisville. (We never made it to the last venue, but that’s a different story.) We reached a consensus of sorts that this number of dates constituted a “mini-tour,” a designation ascribed to an itinerary in between a “weekend” (two days) and a real “tour” (five day minimum). We packed our supplies into the hybrid, and were off. Sort of.

There was a real sense of dread that hung over that start date. We hit the road a day or so after President Donald Trump’s initial “fire and fury” comments toward North Korea; we were hearing about them everywhere we turned.

Touring already feels like you are trying to escape from the world, but this time it felt like we were running from its potential end.

That feeling followed us over a network of highways, all the way to a venue called The Pinhook in Durham. We sensed a sort of change in the air: Here in New Haven, clubs and venues can be

Adam Malec with the police officer/photographer close to the Alabama border. Image courtesy of Procedure Club.

• december 2017

Procedure Club. Photo by Jimi Patterson.

taken for granted, and many of them contain a blandness or sterility. The venue in Durham was run by punks, a necessary meeting point for like-minded folks in a town that, until two weeks after we left, displayed a Confederate monument. We heard later that some members of the community had taken it upon themselves to smash it down.

Our journey continued to Athens, where people were crammed into the tiny venue to watch our midday set. We could feel their warmth vibrating from the crowd: It was our best set of the tour.

But touring wears you out. I was tired already and wanted to get some rest, since the next stop was Mobile, Ala. From Athens, Mobile was still a solid day-long trip away. Leaving my bandmates behind, I headed to the hotel early, but awoke to the sound of loud laughter coming forth between torrential rain that poured down in sheets. Those were my bandmates, who’d stayed and watched shows at the Popfest, and came in soaked and laughing. Wet, musical pilgrims.

None of us slept that night at all, but we had to get up early nevertheless to get to southern Alabama.

We nestled ourselves between the uncomfortably stacked equipment and made our way on the twelve-hour trip further south. I’d hoped to be able to take some side trips, but we didn’t have time for that at all. We stopped to stretch our legs now and then, and when we crossed the border to Alabama, we rested briefly at a gas station. A police officer rolled alongside us in his SUV and asked us if everything seemed to be all right.

Yes, it was fine, we assured him.

Adam, one of our bandmates, approached the officer and handed him his phone, asking him to take a picture of us. We stood awkwardly while he took a snapshot.

We finally arrived at our destination, a Mobile, Ala., bar called the Blind Mule.

The bar had a large outdoor patio festooned with string lights, which is where we camped for a good while while wait-

ing to play. The gig was good, and we could feel our set really coming together.

After the show, we found that we had been locked out of our hotel room, and had to wait in another hotel room for the night for people to come fix the problem in the morning. The wait was long

enough that we were forced to abandon our show in Louisville the next day. We decided to drive up to Gatlinburg, Tenn., to spend the night there as a halfway point to home.

Before the drive up to Gatlinburg, we all got the news of what happened in Charlottesville. It was strange to be driving through Alabama as this was all soaking in. We passed by Confederate flags and innumerable yard signs with the words “Back the Blue” dotting the lawns. It felt dangerous, and we recognized our vulnerability. The shame, I think, of our living history.

But we also recognized something else. It felt good to be part of this small network of musical people, trying to bring some light into our own lives. Trying to bring light into others’ too. n Procedure Club comprises musicians Andrea Belair, Adam Malec, Wes Nelson and Tim Borkowski. Their music is available at procedureclub.bandcamp.com and a video from their most recent record is at vimeo.com/175900730.

MacArthur Genius /Arts & Ideas 2017/ Taylor Mac MacArthur Genius /Arts & Ideas 2017/ Taylor Mac

Photography investigating life Photography

investigating life

Judy Sirota Rosenthal

Judy Sirota Rosenthal

info@sirotarosenthal.com www. sirotarosenthalart.com info@sirotarosenthal.com www.sirotarosenthal.com

www. sirotarosenthalart.com families ~ eventswww.sirotarosenthal.com ~ education ~ documentary families ~ events ~ education ~ documentary artspaper.org • 9

The Arts Paper december 2017

Boobs to Boarded-Up Buildings city lights and the bridgeport art trail stephen urchick Bridgeport-based graffiti artist, fashion designer, and painting instructor Jahmane slipped a key into the lock of an unoccupied 1163 Main St. storefront early on a high, fine October afternoon. He had agreed to show off the then work-in-progress Panels exhibition, ahead of the ninth annual Bridgeport Art Trail.

Inside, eight-foot plywood boards ringed the room’s walls, all gingerly propped against protective swatches of sheer plastic sheeting. Spaced at even intervals, each piece of plywood sported graffiti projects at varying stages of completion. Spray cans, industrial buckets, and pots and tubes of paint had been gathered into tidy piles nearby.

Organized by Bridgeport arts organization City Lights on the weekend of Nov. 9-12, 2017’s trail featured everything from spoken word and stained glass to monumental film projections and photography across 30 different sites. Itinerant art at the scale of the city, the route encouraged Bridgeport locals and Nutmeggers more widely to make pilgrimage to six repurposed factories and warehouses throughout town.

A not-for-profit incubator and exhibition space, City Lights presents emerging neighborhood artists, hosts classes and demonstrations, and manages a small thrift store out of their old, temporary home on Bridgeport’s Main Street. It is run by executive director Suzanne Kachmar with a small staff and board.

“We have to prove to the Tri-State Area that there’s a lot of great art here.” Kachmar said. She operates the yearly Art Trail on what she terms “The Horton Hears a Who! factor”: “If we all get together and scream and make some noise—we’ll get noticed!”

City Lights’ most recent exhibition BOOBs, up through Dec. 12, was a pillar on the 2017 trail. A collection of sculpture and painting largely in support of breast cancer patients, BOOBs popped up as a boulevard-long clothesline installation of sequined, embroidered, and collaged “art

bras.” The pieces came out of two art bra parties, organized by Art Bra New Haven, during which attendees embellished their articles of lingerie.

Entitled “7 Ages of Woman,” after a quote from Shakespeare’s “All the World’s a Stage” monologue, this “laundry line of life” took over City Lights’ Golden Hill St. steps, festooning the avenue’s wrought-iron fencing and lampposts with undergarments and solar-powered pink lightbulbs. Kachmar additionally organized trail-time talks around the intersection of art and medicine, partnering with faculty at the St. Vincent’s Breast Health Center.

Kachmar said she considers BOOBs a familiarization exercise. “Some people have a hard time with nudity,” she said.

“Some people have a hard time with body image. We need to get comfortable!”

She described how “boob” was a provocative, titillating word that wasn’t entirely offensive to the conservative or the shy. Kachmar pointed out that it has a wide semantic range: boob can equally refer to someone who isn’t that smart.

“Here we are in 2017 and women are still having to fight for respect,” Kachmar said. “There were a few boobs who inspired this show!”

The title first aims to bring people in, and next to bring them to the table. If Kachmar turns people off with a stronger word and a more radical theme, “then I can’t have a conversation.”

She recounted some of that dialogue.

In one scenario, Kachmar told men that, “Yes, we’re having a hands-on workshop.”

The men gleefully and cheekily replied: “Oh—we like that!”

Other visitors remained skeptical of the art on display. Kachmar said some pointed away from a work like Sooo-Z Mastropietro’s “BOOB-Tube”—a plush, single breast on a plinth—claiming “that doesn’t really look like a boob.”

They turned instead towards the chest of the hot-pink mannequin sporting artist kHyal™’s “MegaGlam Breast Augmentation” trench coat.

“That looks like a boob.”

Mastropietro originally trained as a surgical technician. Commissioned especially for BOOBs, the artist’s “BOOB-Tube” has roots in her earlier “Hue-ation” canvasses.

Mastropietro represented real-life video of cancerous biopsies as a network of cloth coils fastened to the picture plane. On view behind “BOOB-Tube,” “Hue-ation’s” varicolored reliefs mostly captured the ant-farm look of blood cells coursing through a still-live slice of tissue under the clinician’s glass microscope slide.

“BOOB-Tube” frees these forms from the wall, and casts them fully into three dimensions. Mastropietro mounted tiny rolls of flesh-toned fabric along a translucent, dome-shaped plastic armature, rendering a nipple at the mound’s center in pinks and pale purple. Sinuous, brightly-colored pipettes of fabric explode out the boob’s back end. Their baroque, curving lengths reprise coiled party noise-makers, DNA base pairs unzipped by a helicase.

The piece gets its name from the cathode ray set that lights the sculpture from below. A black-and-white staticky snow peeks past the gaps in the assemblage, flickering and pulsing.

A lone boob on a pedestal, bathed by a strange and uncanny light, “BOOB-Tube” feels at home in a long tradition of medieval and Renaissance art that painted slain virgins holding their severed breasts on shimmering, silver salvers. Now, breast cancer patients represent a kind of contemporary communion of saints—martyrs of modern medical science.

“Our breasts are our marker,” Kachmar said. When women lose them to cancer, “Our identity can be called into question.”

In the exhibition, artist kHyal™ seeks to unravel this iconography: to demystify the boob, to show viewers how it works in American culture today, and uncouple it from womanhood. Her “MegaGlam Breast Augmentation” trench coat—accessorized with a matching pair of leggings and mesh baseball cap—repeats a half-breast motif across a drab, khaki disruption pattern.

The half-breast peeks out weirdly from under the desert camouflage’s brown bars. The breast’s two, stacked pink circles slip behind the pattern while the bright red nipple is laid over it, giving the unsettling impression that the camo has partially guillotined kHyal’s boob.

The tongue-in-cheek clothing line, which first debuted at ArtBasel Miami, takes cues from Op Art or Soviet avantgarde textile design. It defeats the breast fetish by gratifying it—making viewers sick and tired of it. By mapping this hidden object of masculine desire so completely and so aggressively over a female body, kHyal points out how fashion conceals the breast to reveal it. She disrupts and calls attention to the openly-secretive ogling of boobs.

“If you see it so much,” offered Kachmar more directly, “It just becomes a pattern.

If I ate chocolate all day, I wouldn’t want it anymore.”

BOOBs was hardly the only pull on the Art Trail. Local lessors readily invited artists into creaky, old properties around town: raw retail space still under renovation, and an abandoned YWCA’s indoor swimming pool.

“The developers in the city—they’re very supportive,” Kachmar said. “The growth of the arts is reflective of the growth of the city. It’s not unusual if you do a good thing that it might become the commercial destiny of the site.”

Back in his exhibition space, painter Jahmane echoed Kachmar’s assessment of landlords. “They just gave us the key and trusted us to do our thing.”

Walking along the Main Street shop floor, Jahmane explained how the show would gather together “something like 11 or 12” contributing artists. He said that the panels of Panels began their life as construction material sheathing the very building where he now worked. Under Bridgeport’s previous mayor, Bill Finch, Jahmane had curated murals for the scaffolding along that whole block.

“When they took the boards down, we thought ‘Why not use these as canvases?’ It’s like a recycling, or a progression from exterior to interior. Street art has evolved—gone inside!”

Jahmane described how water-based aerosols helped facilitate this shift towards a more intimate, studio-based graffiti practice. He had previously used these less odorous colors in his Graffiti 101 course out at Bridge Academy.

“That helps some guys—switching over from the spray paint.”

Jahmane added that he appreciated the co-working environment at 1163 Main, and how he hoped to reactivate the space after the Art Trail for workshops and professional development.

“People come in here at night while artists are working on their pieces,” he said. “Just seeing how other people work helps you work!”

In its own way, BOOBs provided a pendant to the larger narrative of revitalization told on the 2017 Bridgeport Art Trail. Confronted with the cancer of urban renewal—a process that tends to tear a community apart in order to make it over—the arts created a caring cohort of well-wishers and civic caretakers.

“We’re finding a way to work together,” Kachmar said. “The competition could destroy us. How do we equitably support each other and survive?”

A cultural capillary of sorts, the Bridgeport Art Trail brought art to the people and people to artists, moving fresh breath into the city’s downtown districts.

“That’s what I think every arts movement needs,” Jahmane said. “That momentum of everybody coming together.” n BOOBs runs through Dec. 12, 2017.

Find out more about City Lights at citylightsgallery.org.

Detail of Sooo-Z Mastropietro’s “BOOB-Tube.” Image courtesy of the artist.

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The Arts Paper december 2017

Cookie Infatuation tagan engel Confession: My pilgrimage happens right in my kitchen, as I plow through years of recipes from all over the country. And this time of year, it’s specifically in cookies.

Every year, I fall victim to the December cookie infatuation that sweeps through our country. It doesn’t matter that Christmas is not my personal holiday. Any month-long celebration of a food group (Yes! I consider cookies to be a food group!) can’t be ignored. Food for me is an expression of love. The beauty and diversity of cookies, and the sheer number that it is possible to bake, make them the perfect vehicle for spreading the love far and wide.

There are a number of favorites I make every year. I go spelunking in the Jewish rugelach I learned to bake in one of my first professional jobs during the mid1990s in Brooklyn at Margaret Palca Bakes. I get lost in an army of soft gingerbread cookies, a recipe from Tartine Bakery in San Francisco that has just the right amount of chewiness and spice.

Shaved coconut macaroons from Alice Medrich are a favorite at our Passover table, but carry over to the holiday season for people of just about any culture or religion. Or there are the cookies I’ve invented, like brown butter rosemary pecan meltaway cookies and chocolate clusters with tart cherries, ginger and pumpkin seed.

These fall and winter months, I have witnessed people wanting to find ways to connect with others, to cope with the stress and rising expressions of hatred in our communities. Cookies cannot heal the ills of the world, but I have learned that acts of kindness and meaningful relationship building are an important part of the process of undoing the segregation and ignorance that often divides us.

Bringing people together through cooking and eating has the potential to breakdown barriers and build some of those connections. Programs like Sanctuary Kitchen at CitySeed in New Haven, neighborhood soup nights, community gardens and community cooking classes are all great places where these connections can happen. In the cold of winter,

Odds & Ends Art Book Fair Friday, December 8, 2017 11:30 am–4:30 pm

YALE U N IVERS IT Y ART GALLERY Free and open to the public | artgallery.yale.edu 1111 Chapel Street, New Haven, Connecticut | 203.432.0600 @yaleartgallery

• december 2017

Clockwise from top left: meltaways, Tagan Engel, chocolate crackle, gingerbread. Photos by Tagan Engel.

cookies are a wonderful excuse to turn on the oven, get baking and then share some of the love with neighbors and people you want to connect with.

I encourage you to start your own cookie pilgrimages. Think outside the box with cookie swaps at churches, temples and mosques, or at a refugee resettlement organization. Organize a baking class at a local community center. Bring in needed ingredients and support the talented bakers in that neighborhood as they share their favorite recipes.

This pilgrimage doesn’t take long-distance travel, just a little time and imagination. I hope these cookies bring you, and those around you, a little bit of needed sweetness and joy. n

Chocolate Clusters with Ginger, Cherry & Pumpkin Seed These are my attempt at something a little healthier but still decadent. These are just nuts, seeds, and dried fruit covered in 70 percent dark chocolate and sprinkled with coarse raw sugar.

I don’t use a measured recipe. Just pick an assortment of nuts, seeds and dried fruit, melt some chocolate, mix everything together, spread on a parchment lined pan, sprinkle with raw sugar, cool, and cut. My favorite combination is candied ginger (finely chopped) dried cherries, pumpkin seeds, and almonds.

Unsweetened shredded coconut and sunflower seeds make excellent and affordable additions.

Rugelach Adapted from Margaret Palca Bakes; makes 80 cookies 14 tablespoons butter 8 ounces cream cheese 2 cups flour 1/2 cup powdered sugar 1 cup jam or jelly of your choice (apricot or raspberry are the classics) 1 1/2 cups walnuts or pecans finely chopped 2 tablespoons sugar 1 teaspoon cinnamon (optional) 1. Line three baking pans with parchment paper or butter very well. Cream butter and cream cheese until very fluffy, add sugar and flour until well combined.

2. Split into five rounds, wrap in plastic wrap and chill for at least one hour, or overnight. Lightly flour one dough round at a time and roll out between two sheets of wax paper, about 10 or 12 inches in diameter.

3. Mix nuts, cinnamon and sugar together.

Blend jam in a food processor or melt and cool it to make it easy to brush onto the soft dough.

4. Working with one round at a time, brush with a thin layer of jam, and sprinkle with crushed nuts mixture. Cut round into 16 wedges (like a tiny pizza), roll them up from the outside edge inwards and place on baking sheet.

5. Bake at 350 degrees until very golden—18 minutes or so. Must cool completely to come off of parchment paper.

These recipies and more have been published at our website, artspaper.org, and at The Table Underground. For more recipes for social justice and radical love, check out thetableunderground.com and tune into the podcast, available at the website or through WNHH Community Radio, wnhh.org.

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The Arts Paper december 2017

Food for the Soil, And the Soul a greenspace pilgrimage in newhallville leah andelsmith Come on a trip with me. A pilgrimage through Newhallville that leads past turn-ofthe-century homes to the Ivy Narrow Bird Sanctuary. Through a part of the city that has become, during my years in New Haven, very dear to my heart.

Today—it is still fall as I write this—I am visiting sites of urban renewal, gems in the cultural fabric of New Haven. Green oases dot my route: Shepard Street Greenspace, a narrow site with foliage so dense I can’t see the street. Starr Street Community Farm, in which collard greens, okra, and marigolds flourish.

Farmington Canal Heritage Trail, where a group of student joggers smile and say hello.

Yale’s Urban Resources Initiative (URI), a program through the Yale School of Forestry and Environmental Studies, sponsors many of these sites around New Haven. As URI director Colleen Murphy-Dunning puts it, “a city’s landscape is ever-changing;” the goal is to support the current needs of the community by designing landscapes for long-term eco-sustainability. Since URI’s inception in 1995, the Community Foundation of Greater New Haven and the City of New Haven have provided one third of its funding. The rest comes from private donations. When residents want to improve a park, vacant lot, or streetscape, they can apply to URI’s Community Greenspace Program for funding and support.

Between my planned stops, I find vitality and connection on every block: well-tended yards and houses decorated for the fall; parents chatting as they wait for the school bus; folks listening to music on their porches; neighbors catching up. On West Ivy Street the houses are close, like friends sitting shoulder to shoulder at a dinner table. One neighbor has planted a butterfly garden and I stand inches away to observe. It is the first time I have actually seen a butterfly’s long proboscis unfurl into a flower. I guess city butterflies don’t shy so easily.

It is wonderful to be on foot. I could have driven to Ivy Narrow, at the corner of Ivy and Dixwell, or taken the 238 bus, which stops right in front of the sanctuary. But the slow pace lets me appreciate the journey, taking in details that would blur past my car. Driving through I get the Cliff’s Notes version; walking through is actually reading the book. It’s a way to connect with the city at the touch level, and open up the possibility for change.

When I step inside Ivy Narrow Bird Sanctuary, I am transported. The air smells fresher.

The curving gravel paths make the space feel grand. Birds sound the alarm as I walk by their perch, disturbing their peace. The pond is filled with lily pads and bright orange goldfish. Bees are busy in the boughs of the trees.

The sound of the leaves rustling in the wind seems louder than the traffic. I reach for my cell phone to turn it off. A lovely stone bench invites me to sit down. I accept.

According to Jeannette Thomas, caretaker of Ivy Narrow, the lot had very humble beginnings. Seventeen years ago, it “was like a cesspool. There was nothing out here but garbage.”

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Jacqueline Buster and Jeannette Thomas at Ivy Narrow Bird Sanctuary. Photo by Leah Andelsmith.

“It was atrocious,” added her daughter, Jacqueline Buster.

Fed up with the eyesore, Thomas and a small group of devoted neighbors pitched in to clean up. Initially their efforts encountered resistance from the city. Then they turned to URI. In the first year, Ivy Narrow regularly attracted a large group of volunteers. “Even people walking down the street in their dress clothes would stop, take off their jackets and start digging,” Thomas recalled in a recent interview, seated out in the sanctuary. Community interest waned in the following years—“a huge concern and challenge” for community greenspaces, Murphy-Dunning said.

But Ivy Narrow took root in Thomas’ family, not unlike the surrounding homes that are passed down through generations. Buster stayed on to tend it with her mother, looking after the plants.

“When we look out of the window, we see so much growth,” she said. “It’s unbelievable how the place has matured.”

These days, Ivy Narrow is what URI calls an “Emeritus” site. The major planting and landscaping are finished, but the site still needs ongoing maintenance and support.

Both URI and Neighborhood Housing Services regularly send volunteers. This fills a need on both sides: volunteer groups need a one-day project; Thomas needs labor for large tasks like pruning, weeding, and mulching.

It fills deeper needs for connection and understanding as well. Students who volunteer at Ivy Narrow sometimes comment that Newhallville, often designated an “off-limits” neighborhood, is actually fine. They never en-

counter any trouble. Thomas tells them, “You are exposed to something that other students aren’t and it gives you a different view.”

“My family goes back nearly 300 years in New Haven,” she added. “I’m not afraid of any places in this city.” Thomas said she feels safe in the neighborhood, and that for the family, creating a place of beauty within Newhallville is important.

As I sit still and quiet in the sanctuary, one bird returns to the tree near my bench. Perhaps I’m not so big a threat anymore. I’m certainly not the disruption I was earlier, crashing about in wonder and delight. I take the first calm, full breath I’ve taken in days. I made this pilgrimage seeking sites of urban renewal; I didn’t expect that I would be renewed. A bird sings. Its unfamiliar call slides up in pitch, like asking an open-ended question.

“How does having a beautiful space affect property values? Or the feeling that your community is valued?” Murphy-Dunning asked aloud. “Beauty should not be underrated when it comes to well-being and community identity.”

Asked how important it is to have beauty in their own lives, Buster replied, “Extremely.”

“More than you really know,” Thomas added. Visitors to Ivy Narrow are drawn to return to its beauty again and again and to take care of it.

“They become enamored of the place,” Buster said. “They want to appreciate it.”

The entire place, to me, is a work of art, but when I ask if she considers herself an artist in an interview, Buster resists. The family didn’t have a master plan, she said,—“Things just happened.” And yet the plants and landscap-

ing appear curated and composed, creating an immersive experience, like entering an Impressionist painting. Thomas created berms on the previously flat lot, “so that when your eye comes in, it has a place to go.” By the time I head out, she sounds like an artist to me.

Sites like Ivy Narrow Bird Sanctuary are visual signs of people caring about a community, using the blank canvas of a vacant lot to achieve a vision, make change, and evoke emotion. Before I left, I asked what feelings the family hopes to inspire in visitors to Ivy Narrow.

“I want them to feel what we feel, which is that it feels like home,” Buster said. “It feels secure. It’s beautiful. There is a sense of magic.”

She paused to smile broadly before finishing, “And so far that hasn’t failed.” n

The view from the santuary. Photo by Leah Andelsmith.

december 2017 •

The Arts Paper december 2017

CALENDAR Classes & Workshops Artsplace offers a wide selection of art classes, from daylong workshops to seven-week session series. Professional artists instruct students of all skill levels and ages. Supplies included; easy parking.

Sept. 16-Dec. 18. Monday-Thursday, 9 a.m.-8:30 p.m; Saturday, 9 a.m.-3 p.m; some Sundays. $25$160. 1220 Waterbury Rd., Cheshire. (203) 2722787. artsplacecheshirect.org Barre Workout Class Yogi Boho Fitness is offering barre workout classes. Barre is a sculpting and conditioning routine inspired by ballet barre warmups targeting the core, posture alignment, toning and strengthening the arms, legs as well as firming the bottom. A portion of the barre class utilizes small weights. The class cools down with gentle yoga floor stretches. Monday and Wednesday, 12:301:30 p.m.; Sunday, 2-3 p.m.; every other Friday 6:30-7:30 p.m. Free but preregistration is required.

Soulcraft Studios, 1125 Dixwell Ave., Hamden.

(203) 690-8501.

Modern/Contemporary Dance Classes Adults of all ages welcome! Come dance with us in a friendly, supportive atmosphere. Release tight muscles, increase flexibility, and strengthen your body. Integrate your movement. Experience dance as an art form. Sept. 6-Dec. 22. Times vary by skill level. $18$150. Annie Sailer Studio Space, Erector Square, 319 Peck St., Bldg. 2, Fl. 1, Studio D, New Haven.

(347) 306-7660. anniesailerdancecompany.com Modern Dance Classes for Teens A special 12week session tailored specifically for teens will offer modern dance technique, improvisation, and composition, culminating in a studio showing.

Young dancers will work together in a friendly, non-competitive, body-affirming environment to discover the joy of movement and the creative process. Sept. 14-Dec. 7. Thursday, 4:30-6 p.m. $180.

Annie Sailer Studio Space, Erector Square, 319 Peck St., Bldg. 2, Fl. 1, Studio D, New Haven. (347) 3067660. anniesailerdancecompany.com Sketching in the Galleries Enjoy the tradition of sketching from original works of art in the Center’s collection and special exhibitions. Jaime Ursic, artist and Assistant Curator of Education, will offer insights on drawing techniques and observational skills. Drawing materials are provided, and all skill levels are welcome. Dec. 6, 5:30-7:30 p.m. Free, but

Twisted Pine. They will be appearing this month as part of GuitartownCT’s concert series at Best Video and Film in Hamden. Photo by Joanna Chattman.

preregistration is requested. Yale Center for British Art, 1080 Chapel St., New Haven. (203) 432-2800. britishart.yale.edu

Exhibitions An Artist for Conservation: Albert Earl Gilbert As a child with crayon in hand, Al Gilbert enjoyed drawing lions, tigers, bears, and birds. Today he is regarded as one of the world’s premiere wildlife

yale institute of sacred music presents

Yale Camerata

Marguerite L. Brooks, conductor

saturday, december 2 7:30 pm Advent Concert

Bach Collegium Japan

Battell Chapel (400 College St., New Haven)

monday, december 4 7:30 pm

Music of Respighi, Pärt, Vivaldi, and more

Masaaki Suzuki, conductor

J.S. Bach: Christmas Oratorio Woolsey Hall (500 College St., New Haven) Preconcert talk at 6:30

Both concerts are free; no tickets required. ism.yale.edu

• december 2017

artists. Through the years, he has conducted fieldwork across the globe, traveling from Africa to Australia to observe and sketch rare and colorful tropical birds in their native habitat. Sept. 2-April 15. Tuesday-Saturday, 10 a.m.-5 p.m.; Sunday 12-5 p.m. $6-$13. Yale Peabody Museum of Natural History, 170 Whitney Ave., New Haven. (203) 432-5050. peabody.yale.edu Artists in Exile: Expressions of Loss and Hope presents an innovative approach to the theme of exile, considering artists who left their country of birth, or their adopted home, for a variety of reasons—including discrimination, war, and genocide—from the 19th century to the present day.

The exhibition explores exile as not only a mental or physical state but also a catalyst for creativity; indeed, for many artists, separation from the familiar, either willing or unwilling, inspired innovations in form and technique. Sept. 1-Dec. 31.

Tuesday-Friday, 10 a.m.-5 p.m.; Saturday -Sunday, 11 a.m.-5 p.m.; open late Thursday. Free. Yale University Art Gallery, 1111 Chapel St., New Haven.

(203) 432-0601. artgallery.yale.edu Artists Live is a visual arts program sponsored by the State of Connecticut’s Office of the Arts and Windham Arts. Kathleen Zimmerman and the Mansfield Downtown Partnership were awarded a Regional Arts Grant for this program, which consists of ten month-long exhibits with one artist discussion per month. March 3-Dec. 29. Monday-Friday, 8 a.m.-5 p.m.; Saturday, 10 a.m.-4 p.m.

Free. Mansfield Downtown Partnership, 23 Royce Circle, Mansfield Storrs. (860) 933-6000. kathleen-zimmerman-artist.com

Black Pulp! examines the evolving perspectives of black identity in American culture and history from 1912 to 2016 through rare historical printed media shown in dialogue with contemporary art. Curated by William Villalongo and Mark Thomas Gibson, the exhibition includes works by an intergenerational selection of 21 of today’s leading artists from the black diaspora. Sept. 19Dec. 10. Tuesday, 12-7 p.m.; Wednesday-Sunday, 12-5 p.m. Free. Wesleyan University Center for the Arts, 283 Washington Terrace, Middletown.

(860) 685-3355. wesleyan.edu/cfa Jiaqi Maria Ma: (BEIJING) consists of a series of five paintings based on the artist’s experiences of the capital city of China. The opening and gallery talk celebrate the start of the 30th anniversary season of the College of East Asian Studies.

Sept. 20-Dec. 8. Tuesday-Sunday, 12-4 p.m. Free.

Mansfield Freeman Center, Wesleyan University Center for the Arts, 343 Washington Terrace, Middletown. (860) 685-3355. wesleyan.edu/cfa New Haven Paint and Clay Club Members’ Exhibition The New Haven Paint and Clay Club’s annual members’ exhibition features work by our active artist members. The exhibition of this historic art club, founded in 1900, includes paintings, drawings, prints and sculpture. Dec. 3-Jan. 7. Wednesday-Thursday, 5-8 p.m.; Saturday-Sunday, 1-4 p.m. Opening reception and awards, Dec. 3, 1-3 p.m. Free. Ely Center of Contemporary Art at the John Slade Ely House, 51 Trumbull St., New Haven. (203) 248-3504. newhavenpaintandclayclub.org

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The Arts Paper december 2017

The New Haven Paint and Clay Club’s annual members’ exhibition is on view at the Ely Center of Contemporary Art through Jan. 7.

Old-School Ink: New Haven’s Tattoos reveals the roots of a thriving “old school” body art tradition, and offers insight into how the Elm City has contributed to the tattoo field worldwide.

Sept. 23-March 10. Visit website for hours. $2-$4. New Haven Museum, 114 Whitney Ave., New Haven. (203) 562-4183. newhavenmuseum.org Sasha Rudensky: Acts and Illusions Assistant Professor of Art Sasha Rudensky’s photographs track a lost generation that has come of age during the Vladimir Putin era. This exhibition highlights 25 of her meticulously observed and constructed images, which present an unsettling view into contemporary life in the New East. Sept. 13-Dec. 10. Tuesday-Sunday, 12-4

p.m. Free. Davison Art Center, Wesleyan University Center for the Arts, 301 High St., Middletown. (860) 685-3355. wesleyan.edu/cfa “Things of Beauty Growing”: British Studio Pottery Bringing together nearly 150 ceramic objects from Europe, Japan, and Korea—including jars, bowls, pots, chargers, vases, and monumental urns—this exhibition surveys the array of forms that have defined the British studio pottery movement from the 1890s to the present by exploring the connections between form and function. Sept. 14-Dec. 3. Tuesday-Saturday, 10 a.m.-5 p.m.; Sunday, 12-5 p.m. Free. Yale Center for British Art, 1080 Chapel St., New Haven. (203) 432-2800. britishart.yale.edu

Up In Arms presents a number of perspectives on the image and impact of guns in contemporary culture, though none endorse them as a means to an end. Works by thirteen artists explore a host of issues regarding firearms. No weapons of any kind are allowed on campus. Oct. 27-Dec. 10.

Tuesday, 12-7 p.m.; Wednesday-Sunday, 12-5 p.m.

Free. Wesleyan University Center for the Arts, 283 Washington Ter., Middletown. (860) 685-3355. wesleyan.edu/cfa

Dance Saturday 16-Sunday 17 The New Haven Ballet proudly presents Artistic Director Lisa Sanborn’s full-length production of The Nutcracker. This wonderful family friendly classic is set to music by Tchaikovsky. Shubert Theatre, 247 College St., New Haven. (203) 5625666. shubert.com

Film 21 Thursday A Christmas Carol In this adaptation of Charles Dickens’ classic, Ebenezer Scrooge is given a chance for redemption when ghosts haunt him on Christmas Eve. Directed by Brian Desmond Hurst.

Dec. 21, 6 p.m. Free. Yale Center for British Art, 1080 Chapel St., New Haven. (203) 432-2800. britishart.yale.edu

Kids & Families Artsplace in Cheshitre offers classes for grades K -6. Image courtesy of Artsplace.

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Music Together Classes for Children is a fun creative music and movement program for babies through 5 years and the ones who love them.

Come sing, dance and play instruments in an

informal and fun setting. Classes are ongoing and are held in New Haven, Hamden, Woodbridge, Cheshire and Branford. Oct. 1-Dec. 31. Daily. $0$232. First Presbyterian Church, 704 Whitney Ave., New Haven. (203) 691-9759. musicalfolk.com

Music 2 Saturday Advent Concert | Yale Camerata Marguerite L. Brooks, conductor. Music of Respighi, Pärt, Vivaldi, and more. Dec. 2, 7:30-9 p.m. Free. Yale Institute of Sacred Music, Battell Chapel, 400 College St., New Haven. (203) 432-5062. ism.yale.edu/calendar

4 Monday Christmas Oratorio | Bach Collegium Japan Masaaki Suzuki, conductor, leads Bach Collegium Japan in J.S. Bach’s Christmas Oratorio, parts I, II, III, and VI. Preconcert talk by Markus Rathey at 6:30 p.m. Dec. 4, 7:30-9 p.m. Free. Yale Institute of Sacred Music, Woolsey Hall, 500 College St., New Haven. (203) 432-5062. ism.yale.edu/calendar

7 Thursday Concert | Adam Neiman, pianist Grammy Award nominee and two-time winner of Juilliard’s Gina Bachauer International Piano Competition, Adam Neiman is hailed as one of the premiere pianists, composers, and entrepreneurs of his generation.

Dec. 7, 5:30 p.m. Free. Yale Center for British Art, 1080 Chapel St., New Haven. (203) 432-2800. britishart.yale.edu

8 Friday Second Movement | Songs of Longing and Solitude with guest Nola Richardson singing Beethoven, Schubert, and Libby Larson’s Try Me, Good King (last words of Henry VIII’s wives), plus David Perry in the Weinberg Clarinet Sonata, with Yevgeny Yontov. Dec. 8, 7:30 p.m. $10-$20. First Presbyte-

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The Arts Paper december 2017

rian Church, 704 Whitney Ave., New Haven. secondmovementseries.org Concert | Twisted Pine GuitartownCT Productions presents Twisted Pine in concert. Full of energy and surprise, wit and subtlety, Boston based Twisted Pine has quickly become one of the most acclaimed young string bands in the Northeast. Dec. 8, 7:30 p.m. $20-$25. Best Video Film & Cultural Center, 1842 Whitney Ave., Hamden. guitartownct.com Concert | Messiaen: Vingt regards sur l’enfant-Jésuss Reinis Zarins, the distinguished Latvian pianist and a Yale School of Music alumnus, returns to campus to present Olivier Messiaen’s Vingt regards sur l’enfant-Jésus. Dec. 8, 7:30-9 p.m. Free. Yale Institute of Sacred Music, Marquand Chapel, 409 Prospect St., New Haven. (203) 432-5062. ism.yale.edu/calendar

11 Monday Student Recital | Organ Improv Showcase Organ students of Jeffrey Brillhart give a one hour improvisatory recital. Dec. 11, 4-5 p.m. Free. Yale Institute of Sacred Music, Trinity Church on the Green, 230 Temple St., New Haven. (203) 432-5062. ism.yale.edu/calendar Student Recital | Joseph Kemper, choral conducting Student recitals are one hour in length. Dec. 11, 7-8 p.m. Free. Yale Institute of Sacred Music, Sterling Divinity Quadrangle, Marquand Chapel, 409 Prospect St., New Haven. (203) 432-5062. ism.yale.edu/calendar

Talks & Tours 3 Sunday & 9 Saturday Student Guided Tours Student guides lead tours on select Saturdays at 2 p.m. and on Sundays at 2 p.m. and 4 p.m. See the Center’s website for details.

Sept. 23-Dec. 9. Free. Yale Center for British Art, 1080 Chapel St., New Haven. (203) 432-2800. britishart.yale.edu

5 Tuesday Art in Context | Sketches by A. W. N. Pugin: Making the Medieval Modern David Lewis, Postdoctoral Research Associate, Yale Center for British Art, will deliver a thirty-minute gallery talk. Dec. 5, 12:30 p.m. Free. Yale Center for British Art, 1080 Chapel St., New Haven. (203) 432-2800. britishart.yale.edu

7 Thursday & 14 Thursday Art Circles A museum educator will lead a 30-minute discussion in the galleries that explores a highlight of the collection. The work of art changes every session, making each visit a new experience.

Oct. 5-Dec. 14, Thursday, 12:30 p.m. Free. Yale Center for British Art, 1080 Chapel St. New Haven.

(203) 432-2800. britishart.yale.edu

8 Friday Introductory Tour Docent-led introductory tours of the Center’s collections are offered on most Fridays

at 2 p.m., Sundays at 11 a.m., and Wednesdays at 6 p.m. during the academic year. Please visit the Center’s website for more information. Sept. 8-Dec. 15.

Free. Yale Center for British Art, 1080 Chapel St., New Haven. (203) 432-2800. britishart.yale.edu

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cably seal his fate. Native Son is an unforgettable theatrical experience that captures the power of Richard Wright’s iconic novel about oppression, freedom, and justice. Nov. 24-Dec. 16. Times and ticket prices vary.

Yale Repertory Theatre, 1120 Chapel St., New Haven.

(203) 432-1234. yalerep.org

Exhibition Tour | “Things of Beauty Growing:” British Studio Pottery Docent-led tours of special exhibitions are offered on most Thursdays at 11 a.m. and Sundays at 10 a.m. Please visit the Center’s website for details. Sept. 14-Dec. 3. Free. Yale Center for British Art, 1080 Chapel St., New Haven. (203) 432-2800. britishart.yale.edu

Rudolph The Red-Nosed Reindeer: The Musical The beloved TV classic Rudolph the Red-Nosed Reindeer soars off the screen and onto the stage this holiday season. Don’t miss this wonderful holiday tradition that speaks to the misfit in all of us. Dec. 8-10. Times and ticket prices vary. Shubert Theatre, 247 College St., New Haven. (203) 562-5666. shubert.com

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School For Elves A new musical. Jingle all the way to the North Pole, where Santa’s Yule School is now in session! Find out what it takes to make the grade in the happiest holiday musical of the season. Dec. 1-17.

Friday, 7:30 p.m.; Saturday-Sunday, 2 p.m. $20-$22.

Pantochino Productions, 40 S. Railroad Ave., Milford.

(203) 937-6206. pantochino.com

Architecture Tour Tours of the Center’s architecture. Dec. 16, 11 a.m. Free. Yale Center for British Art, 1080 Chapel St., New Haven. (203) 432-2800. britishart.yale.edu

Theater Native Son Chicago’s South Side, the 1930s. Bigger Thomas struggles to find a place for himself in a world whose prejudice has shut him out. After taking a job in a wealthy white man’s house, he unwittingly unleashes a series of events that violently and irrevo-

Special Theater Event: Dante Behind Bars Incarcerated men re-imagine The Divine Comedy. Fragments of Dante’s poem adapted by men in prison and performed by the students in Professor Ron Jenkins’ course Sacred Texts and Social Justice. Dec. 4, 4-6 p.m.

Free. Yale Institute of Sacred Music, 409 Prospect St., New Haven. (203) 432-5062. ism.yale.edu/calendar

14 Thursday Concert | Argus Quartet Fellowship Quartet in Residence at the Yale School of Music from 2015 to 2017, the dynamic and versatile Argus Quartet is dedicated to reinvigorating the audience-performer relationship through innovative concerts and diverse repertoire. The program will consist of music by Haydn and Mendelssohn as well as a newly commissioned piece by Juri Seo. Dec. 14, 5:30 p.m. Free. Yale Center for British Art, 1080 Chapel St., New Haven.

(203) 432-2800. britishart.yale.edu

15 Friday The Thirteen | Northern Lights Join The Thirteen this Christmas and be transported to the exposed landscapes of the far north through works by Scandinavian, Baltic, and Northern composers. Including many of your holiday favorites and The Thirteen’s own arrangement of Silent Night, this candlelit concert can’t be missed! Dec. 15, 7:30-9 p.m. Free. Yale Institute of Sacred Music, Christ Church, 84 Broadway, New Haven. (203) 432-5062. ism.yale.edu/calendar

Native Son, based on Richard Wright’s iconic novel, will be at the Yale Repertory Theatre Nov. 24-Dec. 16.

16 Saturday Concert | Holiday Extravaganza Celebrate your holiday with NHSO Pops conductor Chelsea Tipton and the NHSO’s soundtrack for the season.

Fan favorite Connor Bogart will lead a holly jolly musical medley of seasonal favorites including White Christmas, Winter Wonderland, Sleigh Ride, a Christmas carol sing-along, and more! Dec. 16, 2:30-3:30 p.m. and Dec. 17, 3-5 p.m. $0-$49. New Haven Symphony Orchestra, Hamden Middle School, 2623 Dixwell Ave., Hamden CT. (203) 865-0831. newhavensymphony.org

Special Events 9 Saturday The Anti Mall: Shop Small During this eighthour event artists will sell curated gifts and art for the Holiday season. This event correlates with Lotta Studios’ Second Saturdays in Westville. The Range at Lotta Studio, 911 Whalley Ave., New Haven. facebook.com/events/108797943141530 The Yale Camerata will perform thier Advent Concert on Dec. 2 at Battell Chapel in New Haven. Photo courtesy of the Yale Camerata.

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The Arts Paper december 2017

BULLETIN BOARD

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

Call For Artists Artspace announces an open call for artists interested in joining our Flatfile Collection.

The Collection was started in 2000 and expanded in 2010 with the aid of an Institute of Museum and Library Science Grant. It holds over 1,000 works on paper by 150 artists from across the country. Apply online: artspacenewhaven.org/ opportunities/flatfile. Deadline: February 15, 2018.

Announced: March 30, 2018.

Singers Sing Elijah? Calling choral Singers. The Bethesda Lutheran Church Choir is calling experienced choral singers to join us for a season that includes a fall concert featuring Bach’s Cantata 80 and a spring concert with Mendelssohn’s Elijah.

We sing weekly Sunday morning service music by composers ancient and modern. Our choir consists of a mix of professional and amateur musicians. Basic music reading skills needed. Contact music director Dr. Lars Gjerde for more information: music@bethesdanewhaven.org Singers Silk n’ Sounds a’capella woman’s chorus is looking for new members to join us on our amazing journey of musical discovery! Come meet us (we are very friendly) and our award winning director, Christina Lampa-Onnerud, at one of our Tuesday night rehearsals from 6:16-9:15pm at Spring Glen Church located at 1825 Whitney Ave, Hamden, CT. You can contact Lynn at (203) 623-1276 for more information, or check us out at silknsounds.org.

Singers Men like to sing? Sing with us. The University Glee Club of New Haven is an all-male

chorus looking for new members. We are a non-audition group singing with the rich blend of men’s voices: Tenor I, Tenor II, Baritone and Bass.

Our feel-good repertoire ranges from Glees to Classical to Broadway and more. Information at universitygleeclub.org or call (203) 248-8515 for more information. Rehearsals are 7:15-9:30 p.m. on Monday evenings. Location: Bethesda Lutheran Church 305 St. Ronan St., New Haven, CT. Winter concert on December 10, 4 p.m.

Singers Greater New Haven Community Chorus is a non-auditioned, four-part (SATB) chorus with singers of diverse musical backgrounds, some who have never sung in a chorus before and others who are highly skilled. GNHCC offers a welcoming and supportive atmosphere for all. Sept. 1-Dec. 15. Rehearsal Thursday, 7-9 pm. $500-$750 per semester. First Presbyterian Church, 704 Whitney Ave., New Haven. (203) 303-4642. gnhcc.org Singers The New Haven Chorale is eagerly seeking new members in all vocal sections. We audition throughout the year! You may schedule an individual appointment with the music director.

Observers welcome. Sept. 11-Dec. 4. Rehearsal Monday, 7-9:30pm. Free. Bethesda Lutheran Church, 450 Whitney Ave., New Haven. (203) 776-7664. newhavenchoraleauditions.com Volunteers and Interns Volunteering at the Institute Library is a great way to meet your local community, have fun, and make a major difference at one New Haven’s great treasures. More volunteers means more (and longer) hours that we can stay open! Contact us if you are interested at home@institutelibrary.org. Our internship

program is also expanding! Let us know if you are a high school, college, or continuing ed student looking for credit and a meaningful professional development experience.

Volunteers The non-profit Spectrum Art Gallery and its affiliate, Arts Center Killingworth offer numerous opportunities for volunteers! Learn new skills, meet new people, and be part of a creative organization that gives to the community. Opportunities exist throughout the year for a variety of events and ongoing programs. Teens are welcome and can earn community service credit. Email Barbara Nair, Director, at barbara@spectrumartgallery. org or call (860) 663-5593.

Creative Services Historic Home Restoration Contractor Period appropriate additions, baths, kitchens; remodeling; sagging porches straightened/leveled; wood windows restored; plaster restored; historic molding & hardware; vinyl/aluminum siding removed; wood siding repair/replace. CT & NH Preservation Trusts. RJ Aley Building Contractor: (203) 2269933 jaley@rjaley.com Web Design & 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 artwork analysis, writing, editing services. (203) 387-4933. azothgallery@ comcast.net.

The Arts Paper Cover Art Contest The Arts Paper is launching a new initiative to highlight original local artwork on the cover of each issue: The Cover Art Contest.

Artists, help us spruce up the look of our new, hip, and shiny Arts Paper—and of The Arts Council— with a solo appearance on the front of the region’s only all-arts newspaper. Everyone wins.

Well, 10 people win. That’s one for each issue. Winners receive a copy of the issue and immeasurable fame and notoriety.

Guidelines: Local artists are encouraged to submit their original work for consideration. To submit artwork for The Arts Paper’s cover, bring it to AC Headquarters at 70 Audubon St., Second Floor, New Haven. All mediums are accepted. Artwork chosen for the cover must be donated to the Arts Council. Artwork not selected for the cover will be ready for pick up 30 days from your submission date. Work not picked up within six weeks of submission will be considered abandoned.

There are no deadlines; art is accepted and published on a year-long rolling basis. If your submission has a seasonal or holiday theme, check our editorial calendar at newhavenarts.org. It’s best to submit early in the year.

For questions and submissions, contact lucy@newhavenarts.org or communications@newhavenarts.org

Space Events and Parties With 2,000 square feet of open exhibition space, Kehler Liddell Gallery is a unique venue for hosting events. We tailor to the special interests of private parties, corporate groups, arts organizations, charities and academic institutions.

Our inviting, contemporary atmosphere provides the perfect setting for your guests to relax, mingle and enjoy the company of friends. We provide a warm atmosphere filled with paintings, drawings and sculptures by CT contemporary artists and free parking, with front door wheel chair access.

Contact roywmon@gmail.com or Roy at (203) 872-4139.

Studio/Event Space at Erector Square in New Haven available for dance and theatre rehearsals and performances, events, workshops, and exhibitions. 1,500 sq. ft., 1st floor, 14 ft. ceilings, white walls, great light, wooden floors. Contact Annie at anniesailer@gmail.com.

Studio Space for Dance, Performing Arts, Events Hall 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 woodwork and glass doors.

Ample natural light. Chairs and tables on premises.

Contact whitneyartsctr@aol.com.

Jobs Please visit newhavenarts.org for up-to-date local employment opportunities in the arts.

Upcoming Ad & Calendar Deadlines: The deadline for advertisements and calendar listings for the January/February 2018 issue of The Arts Paper is: Monday, Nov. 20, 5 p.m.

Future deadlines: March: 1/23/18, 5 p.m.

April: 2/19/18, 5 p.m.

May: 3/26/18, 5 p.m.

June: 4/23/2018, 5 p.m.

July/August: 5/21/18, 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 communications@newhavenarts.org.

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

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

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The Arts Paper december 2017

Books for Black Excellence malia west Almost exactly a year ago, the main reading room of Stetson Library was filled with kids getting in the Christmas spirit.

Grammy-nominated jazz musician Chris “Big Dog” Davis and his band members looked over a thicket of red and white Santa hats to the back of the room, where parents milled around with branch manager Diane Brown. On one side of the room, Charles R. Smith’s Rimshots: Basketball Pix, Rolls, and Rhythms and Jason Reynolds’ As Brave As You rubbed up against a collection of essays on the work of Richard Wright.

The setting, with its sprawling grey carpet and harsh fluorescent light, wasn’t like the jazz clubs where Davis usually performs. But it signaled a different site of pilgrimage, where bibliophiles and community organizers have risen up to make a Black mecca on Dixwell Avenue. Not just in the winter months, but all year round.

That place is Stetson Library, a squat brick and concrete building that sits at 200 Dixwell Ave., in the middle of a shopping plaza. With plans to move to the new “Q” Community House next year, the library is looking back at how it has become a place for pilgrims expected and not—and how it will continue that legacy in a new home.

Earlier this year, the library announced a campaign to raise $2 million by the end of 2018, as it moves into the new Q house.

Once there, Stetson will occupy the first and second floors of the building’s southwest corner, at the intersection of Dixwell Avenue and Foote Streets. A groundbreaking took place last month, on Nov. 4.

But Stetson’s history goes a century back, its own path to success a sort of institutional pilgrimage. Originally called the Dixwell Avenue Branch Library, Stetson first opened 100 years ago at 213 Division St., in a modest house provided by the then-booming Winchester Repeating Arms Factory. With another building in Fair Haven, it was one of two branches of the New Haven Free Public Library.

Even then, its aspirations were restless: It moved to a larger building at Dixwell Ave. and Thompson St. in 1922, and again to the plaza in 1968. Before its second move, it was re-christened to honor the city’s first librarian, Willis K. Stetson, in 1941.

In almost 50 years at the Dixwell location, library staff has struggled with the building’s size and structural limitations, braving leaks, low lighting, cramped meeting rooms and fights between local teens that used to break out at the library’s parking lot and inside. In 2008, then-Mayor John DeStefano suggested that the city might have to close Stetson due to budget cuts and low circulation numbers; the community successfully rallied to save it the same year.

But for both City Librarian Martha Brogan and branch manager Diane Brown, a change is long overdue.

“We don’t just need a place for books— we need a space for people to learn, to be challenged, to come together,” said Brown

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in an initial case statement for the library’s new home. “A library is not just a home for books, it’s a home for the community.”

During her 11-year tenure at the library’s helm and longer career for the New Haven Free Public Library (NHFPL), she has made sure that happens. That started in the early 2000s, when she was working as a business specialist for the NHFPL. After three years in that position, the now-late City Librarian James C. Welbourne began to train her, first with two years of work as a librarian and then with a position as branch manager in 2006.

Her coworkers weren’t happy with the promotion, she recalled. They pointed to her lack of training and insisted it was an instance of favoritism. Brown said she felt alone: She was the only black librarian in the city’s library system, and only one of two black women employed by the NHFPL. Brown said other branch managers refused to train her. So she trained herself. And she looked at the neighborhood—and decided that it needed a change from within.

At that time, over 60 percent of Dixwell’s community was black (in 2014 it was 64 percent black and 17 percent Latino, according to DataHaven). That number was 76 percent for neighboring Newhallville. And yet, Brown only counted two shelves of black fiction in the entire library. So she got on the phone with the companies the library had been ordering books from, and asked what works they had by black novelists, short-story writers, poets, historians, playwrights, and graphic artists.

“I was very honest, I told them I had no training and no one to train me and they got me on a computer and walked me through each step and I did that with each company,” she recalled.

As she grew the collection, she also turned her attention to the community’s stretched resources, transforming the library into a safe haven for local teens and students who needed a place to do their homework. She has library victory stories: A little boy named Kenny, who went from coming to a library with a water gun to arriving after school with his homework in hand. Or, an adult book club that hasn’t stopped evolving since its first session.

She has also grieved with the neighborhood: teenager Jajuana Cole was a regular there before she was killed in crossfire in 2006 at her nearby home. Her friends kept coming to Stetson after her death, a testament to Brown’s work even early on at Stetson. When young faces come through the door, Brown said, she tends to call them “my children.”

Gradually, she brought in community leaders, artists and activists to teach classes. From virtually no programming sprang up new initiatives like Hanan Hameen’s Jubilant “Africa Is Me!” workshops, a chess club, after-school homework help, and semi-monthly collaborations with Long Wharf Theatre.

“I reached out to the [New Haven] Fire Department, I reached out to community leaders, I reached out to anyone who

Diane Brown. Photo by Harold Shapiro.

looked interested in helping.” she said.

And they helped her back, spreading the word that she was a community organizer, dressed as a librarian. Brown was a recipient of a 2013 Bill and Melinda Gates Fellowship that allowed her to go back to school for library science, where she finished in record time. In 2015, she was one of 10 librarians nationally to win an “I Love My Librarian Award,” traveling to a ceremony in New York. Earlier this year, she was awarded a Connecticut Library Association 2017 Special Achievement Award.

But her love affair with the library—and the Dixwell neighborhood where it lives— goes back much further. Brown’s mother was one of Newhallville’s first Black homeowners, and she grew up with the library nearby. She learned that books were a way to unlock possibilities. And, a way to learn about herself. Now, she’s helping kids do the same.

“My job is not just to order books, it's to be an advocate.” she said. “People who come here are the village."

That was visible on a recent fall day, as the library greeted viewers from the street

with a flash of Pan-African colors. Under a purple awning announcing the library’s name, a mural of the word READ sat front of the building, each letter filled with depictions of black history and New Haven culture. Flyers for an upcoming Harvest Festival, community celebrations, and free HIV testing covered the windows.

It’s what she wants for the community, Brown said. And she knows that the library has growth left in it yet.

"Everyone has something to bring to the table,” she said. “I am unapologetically black. You never have to worry about me walking into a room and being one way and then being another way in the next.

I’m always who I am.” n Find out more about Stetson by visiting the branch online at nhfpl.org/locations-hours/stetson-branch or in person at 200 Dixwell Ave. Check out a longer profile of Diane Brown this month online at artspaper.org, where we’re honoring her as a winner of this year’s Arts Awards. Lucy Gellman contributed reporting for this article.

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The Arts Paper december 2017

book talk

Miles to Go Before They Sleep

cyd oppenheimer A Hundred Thousand Worlds begins with mother-son pair Valerie and Alex on the road.

They are headed to Los Angeles to reunite Alex with his father, Andrew, whom he hasn’t seen for six years. But it’s also a working road trip: Valerie, star of a defunct cult sci-fi TV show, is making paid appearances at comic book conventions along the way.

A cast of characters emerges from these conventions. They are comic book illustrators and comic book writers, super-hero impersonators and obsessed fans, heroes and villains, the known and the unknown. Ultimately this is a book about the journey, as much as about the destination, about the power of story, and its limits.

In this interview, Bob Proehl spoke about his first draft, told us how he chose when to reveal certain secrets, and confessed that he married his wife even though she wasn’t a comic book fan. The author grew up in Buffalo, New York, and has worked as a bookseller, record store owner, and bartender. He was a 2012 New York Foundation for the Arts Fellow in fiction and a 2013 resident at the Saltonstall Arts Colony. A Hundred Thousand Worlds, published in June 2016, is his first novel.

I am madly in love with your book. But I have to confess something; I am not a comic book fan, and in fact, I am sort of an anti-comic book snob. So my first question to you is, am I totally disqualified from being your friend?

No, I don’t think so at all. I still haven’t gotten my wife converted to reading comic books with any regularity. And I don’t think it’s necessary for the book, either. It’s really important to me that this book be accessible to anyone who wasn’t familiar with those worlds. I didn’t want it to be a series of “in-jokes,” I wanted it to be something that was very open to the general public.

Yeah, I was curious about whether it surprise you that your book would speak so deeply to someone like me.

I had a writing group that I was working with when this was in, like, second draft, and none of them read comic books, and I think that was, oddly enough, the feedback that I really wanted from them. Like, does this make sense? Since you don’t know anything about superhero comic books, question one, and question two, do you care? Do you have any interest in this despite not being interested in superhero comic books? And they were really great about working with me on that.

And I think once my editor and I were working closely on it, there was some stuff that was a little too “inside-baseball” that got cute.

Where she’d say This isn’t really going to be of interest to a general audience. Maybe we should get rid of it.

Do you feel like there are things that comic book fans will get out of the book that someone like me is missing?

I think there are little Easter eggs built in.

I think some of the people that I’ve talked to that are more familiar with those worlds have had a lot of fun trying to parse out who the superhero analogs are and that kind of thing.

But then again. I don’t think it’s necessary; I

18 • artspaper.org

everyone wants to have that parlor scene at the end of a detective novel where you get to give all the facts that you’ve been withholding, but you need to, to keep a reader engaged, to be holding those up, and yeah, so moving things around and generally moving stuff forward and being willing to… In the first draft it wasn’t apparent until about halfway through that she was handing Alex over to his father at the end of the book; that that was the purpose of their trip. And you know, then you realize that’s going to be in the marketing materials. And that’s the notfun answer, that you have to give that piece of information away right off, because that’s your hook. So in the text that got moved to, like, page 10. * *This interview continues at artspaper.org.

Bob Proehl. Photo by Heather Ainsworth.

wanted that to be a sort of value added for people who are fans.

There are a lot of aspects that strongly mimic reality. Everything from Valerie’s TV show, which resembles the X-Files, to the rivalry between the two main comic book publishers, which refers to, you know, these superhero analogs, or italicized pages that are inserted throughout the narrative. Why go to such lengths to fictionalize these things, instead of writing fiction about things that already exist within our real world?

Part of it is that your hands are tied when you’re talking about real people. You know, I’m currently working on this other book that is historical fiction, and I very quickly decided that I needed to avoid using real characters because you can’t, it takes out a bit of the tension, I think. … And I think the other thing is, it’s actually really fun. It’s really fun to come up with kind of fake X-Files episodes and it was really fun to come up with fake superheroes, and think about how, sort of in the abstract, about how a comic book company works, and built my own little one in my head.

You know, another thing that I want to talk about was the shape of this book. It proceeds mainly chronologically over the course of this road trip all the way to Los Angeles, but over the course of that we learn a lot about what’s happened over the past 10 years, mainly through memory, there’s a little bit of flashback. And most critically, we learn what led to the cancellation of the TV show and to Valerie’s split with her husband and her move away from Los Angeles.

To me the timing of those revelations felt perfect. It was so seamless. And it was only after I finished reading it that I was thinking about it and it must have been really hard to do, to figure out what to reveal when. And I was really curious about your process. Was it really organic? Did it just evolve, or did you do a lot of writing and mixing and moving pieces around to make it fit in the right place?

It’s a little bit of both. The first draft of this book was written at the residency that I was at in 2013 … I was sort of just out in the woods with it working 15 hours a day. And that was the very organic, sort of looser first draft. And

then it was a lot of, yeah, moving pieces around and deciding what cards to put first.

And when, I think there’s an impulse that I have as an author to hold all the cards really close to the vest and then stage this big reveal moment, but that actually very rarely works for the reader. I think, you know,

This article is part of The Arts Paper’s partnership with WNHH Community Radio (103.5 FM New Haven), where Cyd Oppenheimer hosts a biweekly show called “Book Talk.” To find out more about the show, visit booktalkradio.net. To find out more about WNHH, visit wnhh.org. Special thanks to Arts Council intern Sydney Eve Feinberg, who helped with the transcription.

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artspaper.org • 19

Congratulations

to the 37th annual arts awards winners!

Jock Reynolds C. Newton Schenck III Award for Lifetime Achievement in and Contribution to the Arts

37th a Reverend Kevin Ewing

Diane Brown

Nasty Women New Haven

Architecture Resource Center

Musical Intervention

Photos by Harold Shapiro for The Arts Council.