VENU #22 Jan/Feb 2014

22

Contemporary Culture

January/February_2014

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Contemporary Culture

January/February_2014

PEOPLE + IDEAS 14 Entrepreneur:

Denise DiGrigoli, Start The New Year

On The Right Track

Spotlight 18 Jens Risom: The figurehead of contemporary

furniture design

Events + Gatherings 22 Parties, Art Exhibitions & Activities

Travel + Leisure 32 Deer Valley:

From first run to last, it’s pure adventure

Style 36

Fashion: Akris is a fashion housesynonymous with refinement, minimalism and impeccable Haute Couture craftsmanship

Appetite 40 Lowcountry Cuisine: More than kissin’ grits and crawfish boils

Features 44 Creating a Buzz on the NHRA Circuit 48 COVER STORY:

Famous Photographers School

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COVER: “Grapes and Pearls” c.1962, by Richard Avedon, guiding faculty, Famous Photographers School, print reveals the photographer’s cropping, Avendon’s notations on this print are, “Pearl necklace and earrings - grapes repeat shape of pearls and support sensuous qualities of pearls.”

Hydrangeas, Oil On Canvas and Board, 41" x 61"

JULIE LEFF Florals

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The “Go to Gal” for Greenwich Real Estate From Luxury Homes to Investment Properties and Lavish Rentals Denise Rosato is one of the Managing Partners of The Relocation Group, a Greenwich and Stamford Real Estate Brokerage Firm delivering high-end service. Denise along with her husband Peter launched The Relocation Group eleven years ago building a dedicated team of personally trained real estate professionals who specialize in all facets of the real estate industry, from buying, selling and renting to corporate relocation clients.

Denise began her real estate career at the young age of nineteen by investing in the growing condo and co-op boom finding her true desire for Real Estate!

She is respected by her clients and colleagues for her unstoppable determination and indisputable customer service. She has earned many prestigious industry accolades, including her ranking in the top 1% during her career working for one of the largest independently owned Real Estate companies and continues to be a top-producer in her market area today.

The Real Estate market is constantly changing and Denise is the “Go to Gal” who keeps you well informed as she truly has a pulse on the market. Her in-depth real estate knowledge along with strong work ethic inspires everyone.

Her dedicated team of experienced agents and great support staff provides a level of unsurpassed service that sets them apart in a crowded real estate industry. Sellers and Buyers can expect to receive high-end customer care with the latest in the cutting edge marketing technology.

Denise is a longtime resident of Greenwich where she has raised her children and a dedicated supporter in the community sponsoring, donating and participating with her family in many local charity events. In addition she serves on the Advisory Board for the First Bank of Greenwich.

Greenwich is a wonderful community and great place to live. You can feel confident and secure knowing that we have your best interest, as we know our town and buying or selling a home is one of the biggest financial decisions in your life and now is the time to buy! As a top Greenwich Realtor, Denise has the experience and knowledge you can trust!

Call Today 203-622-4000 denise@therelocationgroup.com www. therelocationgroup.com

The Relocation Group is licensed in both CT & NY serving on the Westchester Board of Realtors, Greenwich Board of Realtors, Consolidated Multiple Listing and New Canaan Multiple Listing Services. Denise is a member of the National Association of Realtors & Connecticut Association of Realtors.

Contemporary Culture

January/February_2014

Indulge 53 Motoring:

Ferrari 599 GTB Fiorano HGTE 55 Yachting:

Azimut Grande 95 RPH 57 Decorative Arts: Off the block. A dance to remember.

Ride on!

Art + Objects 59 Venü Magazine’s marketplace for

furniture, lighting, textiles, jewelry,

art, antiques and accessories

Gallery + Museum Guide 64 Gallery and Museum listings in Connecticut and New York

Pulse 70 Music: The debut of Tati Ana 72 ART: The Idyllic Lanscape 76 THEATER: Singing, Soaring and Slinging Webs

Film + Entertainment: 78 Fox on Film: Peter Fox reviews,

The Invisible Woman

Society 80 The Daisy Column: Miami society, The powerful, The chic, The unique

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The small print: No responsibility can be taken for the quality and accuracy of the reproductions, as this is dependent upon the artwork and material supplied. No responsibility can be taken for typographical errors. The publishers reserve the right to refuse and edit material as presented.

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PEOPLE + IDEAS

Entrepreneur

Start The New Year On The Right Track Set aside nine minutes for a daily drive that can change your life

By Cindy Clarke With all the well-intentioned resolutions that never fail to manifest as the clock strikes midnight every December 31, there is one that really has potential to rev up the New Year and keep going. It’s called Denise’s Daily Drive, an interactive how-to manual on wheeling through life, one day at a time, crafted by a dynamic motivational speaker with an automotive expert’s precision and an artist’s intuitive

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vision. What makes Connecticut author Denise DiGrigoli’s self-empowerment workbook different from the rest is her unique resolve to channel good out of all circumstances, to replace setbacks with renewed purpose and to turn aspirations into inspired actions. And to do it by actively meditating in a personal journaling exercise which requires just nine minutes a day – and some free flowing doodling – to set

it all in motion. Her methods are mindful, her process, provocative, her results, impressive.

An always-innovating entrepreneur, Denise DiGrigoli is in the driver’s seat, navigating life’s unforeseen twists and turns with an eyes-on-theroad determination and forward-moving vision that leaves others in her dust. But she’s not interested in pulling ahead of the pack. She’s on a journey to hand over the wheel to the rest of us, sharing the keys to a daily drive that is both empowering and enlightening.

The use of all the car metaphors here is not meant to drive anyone crazy. They are, in fact, the perfect vehicles, bear with me here, to explain her tried-and-true mind-mapping book, an interactive journal designed by Denise to put a positive spin on life. That she was brought up around cars and knows intimately the handson mechanics of actually making them run enhances their use.

A type-A businesswoman with a cache of business successes – marketing guru, art consultant, and motivational speaker to name a few – Denise grew up with working class roots in a small rural town in the Berkshire Mountains of Massachusetts, helping out at her grandparent’s multi-tiered automotive services business at a young age. She always had an inner drive and determination and dreamed of heading out into the world to fashion her own future.

She graduated from the Fashion Institute of New York, one of the first of many lifechanging turns she steered herself by jotting down her dreams, aspirations and feelings in a notebook she wrote in everyday. Lots of young girls share their private thoughts in diaries, but Denise’s journal took on a more active and permanent role and continues today to help her map out her future.

“Journaling is a creative tool to help you manage and tune into your life,” said Denise, explaining that it is an interactive process that allows you to track your experiences and frame new ones with positive, mindful energy. Art fills her soul so Denise fills the pages of her journal with pictures and images that express her creativity along with her visions.

“I take nine minutes each morning to shape my day and create possibilities for the week,” she says. “Nine is historically a lucky number associated with good fortune and good outcomes and it is the perfect amount of time to chart a daily log without feeling guilty about taking it for yourself.”

Denise exudes positivity. Negativity not only doesn’t take a back seat in her daily drive, she doesn’t allow it on the ride – or in her journal. She finds the good in the bad, turning her energies into thoughts, choices, events and celebrations that have some sense of promise in them. She believes in the notion that what you say and think you are… you are.

“The fuel we use to feed our minds is equally as important as the food we need to keep our bodies healthy,” she says. She draws the comparison to keeping your car in optimum

CONTEMPORARY CULTURE//MAGAZINE

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PEOPLE + IDEAS

Entrepreneur condition by giving it quality care and regular tune ups to make it last for the long run, adding “the same care is required for the lives we lead.

What we fuel ourselves with is a direct result of those choices.”

Start the process with a stash of fine-line pens, markers or any writing instrument that puts a little creativity and color into the pages of your journal and write three “I am” statements to guide your day. Don’t worry about being judged or ridiculed, this is your personal ashram

says Denise, a place where you are free to be and say whoever you want to be.

Think of three things you are thankful for and aspirations you strive for and write them all down in your journal, using it as a structure that you can lean on.

Craft thank you letters to people who have touched your life and record them in writing.

Forgive those who you have a “rub” with by writing a positive letter to their higher selves, and find positive benefits in the activities you accomplish during the day. Releasing mindful, purposeful messages to the universe can, and does according to Denise, set change in motion.

“Just the act of sending positive energy out to others has the power to put quantum physics in motion, says Denise, explaining the theory of “what you give out, you get back.”

This type of proactive meditation is key to the philosophy that drove Denise to share her motivational journaling techniques in her workbook, because, as she herself attests, it works on everything from attracting your soul mate to securing a better job and attaining financial stability, experiences she has manifested over the years. She began this practice to overcome the stress of life choices that turned out differently than she had planned, developing a systematic approach to creating change and positive growth that helped her tune into her own intuitive voice

“Just the act of sending positive energy out to others has the power to put quantum physics in motion, says Denise, explaining the theory of “what you give out, you get back.” and guide her inner dialogues so that she could mindfully move forward.

Lest you think this is a solely spiritually focused practice, think again. Denise’s journal combines the proven rewards of positive thinking with the very real benefits of creativity in building self esteem, improving relationships and encouraging goal setting and better work practices, letting them flow naturally to inspire, empower and enrich peoples’ lives. She is fast becoming

a workplace guru, helping corporations provide a new generation of benefit-oriented work-life balance programs to their employees through her workshops and workbooks.

Denise’s Daily Drive enables people to turn chaos into calm by helping them manage their time, synthesize their feelings and actions, and find those connections that add real meaning to their lives. It is a process, Denise says, that “helps create personal clarity, as you become aware of how your mind, body and spirit influence every aspect of the life you experience.”

Those nine minutes she suggests you reserve for yourself are worth a lifetime of positive energy and can be a real course changer over the New Year.

You might want to make it a habit to wake up this January 1st and every day thereafter by looking in the mirror and greeting your reflection with a heartfelt “Hello, gorgeous!” – (you’re probably already smiling just by reading the words here!), followed by Denise’s suggested road map for a realistic, loving and prosperous day. They include “unloading the trunk” of any baggage (or anger) that may weigh you down and hold you back, “granting yourself a new license” to do or create something you’ve always wanted to do, pay it forward” and share the love with others to perpetuate more abundance in your life, and “write love letters that you’re too shy to send” because the energy given to writing can elicit the same vibration as saying the words in person. Denise also advises to chronicle things that actually happened, then write down things as you imagine them to happen.

“There is truth to the old ‘believe it and then see it’ and ‘ask as if you’ve received ‘ notions,” says Denise.

“This is where the magic is created and it unfolds over the days, weeks and months ahead.”

The author and creator of My Daily Drive, An Agenda for your Mind, Body, Spirit and Lifestyle, Denise DiGrigoli is a gifted public speaker, art professional and successful business owner in the marketing and creative services industries. She has served on numerous advisory committees and non-profit boards to mentor entrepreneurs and provide them with motivational tools to help them start and stay in business.

She conducts mindful living workshops to inspire and empower attendees to develop a personal roadmap for their lives that identifies goals, guides choices and affects positive change.

For more information about Denise DiGrigoli and to order Denise Daily Drive, visit www.denisesdailydrive.com 16

CONTEMPORARY CULTURE//MAGAZINE

SPOTLIGHT: Jens Risom

Photo: Jeremy Saladyga Photography, LLC

The Answer Is Risom The figurehead of contemporary furniture design, noted for subtle elegance that never imposes itself on the well-selected architectural plan.

by Laura G. Einstein

D

anish designer Jens Risom introduced Scandinavian Furniture Design to the American public in 1939. Arriving in New York City to find that furniture design did not exist as a separate discipline was shocking to Risom, whose homeland prizes furniture and interior design. Risom had already designed furniture for Kaare Klint, who founded the furniture school at the Copenhagen Art Academy in 1924. Risom had also worked for the Danish architect Ernst Kuhn.

In the United States, Jens Risom quickly became the figurehead of contemporary furniture design, noted for subtle elegance that never imposes itself on the well-selected architectural plan. He was part of a vanguard that helped establish postwar America’s leadership in modern furniture design and manufacturing. Risom says, “I developed an American version of Scandinavian modern furniture.”

Throughout a half-century Risom would distribute his line of furniture through architects,

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designers, dealers, and interior designers. He would establish factories in New York and Connecticut, and obtain foreign licenses for Risom products in markets including such as Canada, Australia, Singapore, Denmark, Argentina, and Great Britain.

“Wood, quality, and color” are words that Risom repeats when discussing his signature style.

He feels a visceral connection to furniture design and architecture extolling the clean, livable beauty of Danish design. Studies in furniture, textile, and lighting as well as the influence of an architect father, the renowned Sven Risom, were at the heart of Risom’s finely-tuned handcraftsmanship. Refined line, carefully considered scale, and materials such as walnut, maple, and birch, whose coloration and tone complement a piece, create a unity of subtle, quiet elegance. Soft leather in neutral shades on cabinet panels was selected as was cane stretched like fabric to upholster dining chairs. He selected fabrics of linen, cotton, and wool that were woven by hand in rich colors such as olive, orange, red,

and yellow. Leather was cowhide.

Risom was born in Denmark in 1916. Schools and colleges were different from those in the United States. If you wanted to go into medicine or economics you enrolled in University. If you wanted to be an architect, you went to the Academy. If you wanted to be a product designer, you went to a school for arts and crafts or industrial design. From 1935 to 1937, Risom moved from Nordiska Kompagniet in Stockholm studying design and interior planning and onto Kunsthaandvaerkerskolen; the School for Arts and Crafts in Copenhagen to study furniture and interior design. A year spent at Niels Brock’s Business School also defined his career as a business man and he is noted for saying, “Good design was good business.”

T

hrough introductions at the Museum of Modern Art in 1939, Risom connected with Dan Cooper, an American decorating advisor. His early sketches combined architectural, geometric designs on fine printed fabrics that would be suitable for the interior design field. Risom commented to Cooper that he was not a fabric designer, although he loved fabrics, but a furniture designer who perhaps could design some furniture for Cooper. He gained the attention of some young architects including Edward Durrell Stone and George Nelson, who believed that they could use this new attention to design for their architectural projects. Risom collaborated on the Rockefeller Center Home Center in 1940, that was a permanent

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SPOTLIGHT: Jens Risom exhibition of contemporary things for the home: fabrics, furniture, china, and glass.

Risom began working with Hans Knoll, an importer and distributor of European designs in the early 1940s. Knoll, like Risom, had started on his own, and not being a designer, was looking for more suitable things to handle and sell. They worked together with Risom designing several residential and contract assignments. In 1941, the Risom Collection became the first full line of modern furniture to be commissioned and manufactured by Knoll. In 1942 they printed the first Knoll Catalog, which included fifteen pieces designed

by Risom — the very first furniture to be commissioned specifically by Knoll. They launched the Hans Knoll Furniture Company with fifteen of the twenty pieces in the inaugural “600” line designed

by Risom. These pieces included stools, armchairs and lounges which have become design classics.

Working within the constraints of wartime material shortages, Risom developed several chairs and tables using scraps of wood and rejected nylon straps from parachute production. Risom was able to design innovative and modern pieces of furniture, a selection of which was reintroduced

by Knoll in 1994. Risom said, “It all sold successfully during the war and kept my family alive while I was in the army.”

Risom and Knoll were known for well-crafted furniture that incorporated streamlined curves and angles. “Design is a creative effort to successfully solve problems; ‘good design,’ therefore, is a ‘good solution’ which must satisfy many requirements.”

The resulting furniture Risom described as, “very basic, very simple, inexpensive, and easy to make.”

The Risom Collection included three finishes – clear maple, ebonized maple, and light walnut – along with a color palette of natural tones of cotton and nylon webbing. Risom remarked, “In judging furniture, appearances are often misleading. When sizing up a chair, do it sitting down.”

isom would leave Knoll in 1943 to enter the United States Army. Upon his return in 1946, Risom began Jens Risom Design (JRD) along with his friend Ted Michelson.

The company designed, manufactured and distributed contemporary furniture. Later, Albert Kappel joined in the business. The company was started, as Risom states, “with a borrowed typewriter and a drawing board.” Jens Risom Design, Inc. would grow to become a leader in furniture manufacturing. The office, at its earliest stages, was located in a small back space of an upholstery shop on East 58th Street and 3rd Avenue. The woodworking facility was placed in back of the shop.

In 1947, Jens Risom Design moved to Fifth Avenue. The “company started backwards,” as he put it with sketches that the client purchased. These sketches would then be subcontracted out to be manufactured. The completed piece of furniture would then be delivered to the client. For over twenty years the design staff and Risom manufactured all of their own products -- what became a large collection of furniture and textiles.

Jens Risom Design became known for a signature style -- it is very important to have one design direction. JRD led the market not through

R

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Photo: Jeremy Saladyga Photography, LLC

marketing analysis but by making the right design decisions. Risom said, “I set out to design contemporary furniture that was comfortable and practical to use. I developed an American version of Scandinavian modern furniture.” Risom

“I set out to design contemporary furniture that was comfortable and practical to use.

I developed an American version of Scandinavian modern furniture.” thought of himself as an American designer with a Danish heritage.

Risom established Risom Manufacturing Corporation in North Grosvenordale, a village of Thompson, Connecticut in 1954. Risom and his management team played a vital role in transforming the economy of Northeastern Connecticut.

Ten years earlier, the village had been delivered

a blow when its only employer, Cluett-Peabody, closed its textile mill, began liquidating its assets, and left more than a thousand people jobless. Risom set up equivalency classes for its high school employees. So much was done for the workers that all attempts by unions to unionize them were swept away. Risom could do more for them than the unions could.

The company would be run under Risom until 1972 when he sold it to the Dictaphone Corporation. “I spent twenty-five happy and successful years there. After three years of consulting with Dictaphone, I went into freelance design and consulting for several U.S. firms and one British.”

When Risom sold the company, he had a sales volume of approximately seven million dollars, approximately three hundred people in various United States offices, and showrooms as well as foreign licensees. Risom stayed with the company with a five-year contract and then in April, 1973 he established: ‘Design Control’ in New Canaan, Connecticut, for interior and product design as well as consulting activities.

In 1949 Jens moved from New York City to New Canaan, a town whose heritage is as much colonial as it is modern, having been founded in the early 1700s. New Canaan is as much a center of Modernism with the Harvard Five including Philip

Silvermine Arts Center in New Canaan, Connecticut, is mounting an installation of the work of Jens Risom entitled, The Answer Is Risom, from January 8, 2014 – February 16, 2014. Risom became a member of the Silvermine Guild of Artists in 1955. Jeffrey Mueller, Silvermine Gallery Director explains, “The title refers to a series of photographs taken by Richard Avedon of Risom and his furniture in the 1950s. These ads paired the phrase, The Answer is Risom with vignettes shot in Avedon’s signature style of bold, direct subjects situated in front of a plain white background. The directness of these ads suggest the simple elegance and understated nature of Risom’s designs. It is this spirit of letting the furniture tell its own story that is central to the exhibition. We are honored to exhibit Jens Risom, and to pay tribute to a longstanding Guild member.”

Johnson and his colleagues in the 1940s. During its heyday, New Canaan boasted 120 mid-century modern residences. Risom wanted to live alongside his colleagues in the American contemporary design/architectural field.

J

ens Risom is a former member of the Board of Trustees of the Rhode Island School of Design and an advisor to various schools and colleges in the United States. He was a member of the Industrial Designers’ Society of America. Risom has received numerous awards and prizes in furniture design and manufacturing,

as well as lectured and taught design and construction. In 1996 Risom received the Danish Knight’s Cross. Risom is in the permanent collection of the Museum of Modern Art in New York City as well as many other museums throughout the world.

For a country that had so little modern design when Risom arrived, he has transformed the way that the American public values interior design, furniture making, and interior spaces -- working alongside architects to create an image of modern, practical living in well-designed spaces.

For the American public, “The Answer Is Risom” could easily refer to Risom’s answer to the

Photo: Jeremy Saladyga Photography, LLC

lack of modern furniture design – a situation that he remedied through his own creative impulses and design choices that were rooted in his background as a student in Copenhagen of furniture and interior design along with the influence of an architect father. His signature style of simple, understated elegance is as strong and vital today as it was when Risom first created his designs. Risom left an indelible mark on contemporary American design.

As Risom said, “Good design is good business.”

CONTEMPORARY CULTURE//MAGAZINE

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events + gatherings

By Ryan Odinak

FCBuzz

Executive Director, Cultural Alliance of Fairfield County

At the Philip Johnson Glass House Photo: Eirik Johnson, courtesy of the Glass House

installations and exhibits at the Glass House must embody the National Trust For Historic Preservation’s larger goal of reimaging historic sites for the 21st century, thus creating opportunities for inspiration and experimentation. New

Photo: Amanda Kirkpatrick, courtesy of the Glass House

projects like Night (1947 – 2015), a “sculpturein-residence” series, presented on the Mies van der Rohe glass coffee table inside the Glass House, along with the accompanying Night Sound performance series do just that - honoring the concept that historic sites must be dynamic, relevant, and evolving.

Photo: Amanda Kirkpatrick, courtesy of the Glass House

Photo: Eirik Johnson, courtesy of the Glass House

Sometimes what’s new, becomes old, then new again. The Philip Johnson Glass House in New Canaan is a case in point. Built in 1949 by architect Philip Johnson, the Glass House is a National Trust Historic Site. The pastoral 49-acre landscape surrounding it comprises fourteen structures, including the iconic Glass House and features a permanent collection of 20th century painting and sculpture, along with temporary exhibitions.

The Glass House is an important and influential example of modern architecture — a movement started at the turn of the 20th century and gaining popularity after the Second World War. Today, those entrusted with the care of the Glass House see it as a catalyst for the preservation and interpretation of modern architecture, landscape, and art. Importantly,

The past season, New York-based artist Alex Schweder presented Rehearsal Space.

Over the course of ten days, the artist occupied a mobile living unit temporarily situated

Looking for something different to do? FCBuzz.org is the place to find out what’s happening in Fairfield County any day of the week—featuring theater, exhibits, music, history, science, family fun, classes and local artists. Click on FCBuzz.org. Pick a great event to attend. Then Go—bring your family, meet your friends or fly solo.

FCBuzz.org™ is presented by the Cultural Alliance of Fairfield County. For more information contact the Cultural Alliance of Fairfield County by emailing info@CulturalAllianceFC.org, calling 203-256-2329, or visiting the Web site at www.CulturalAllianceFC.org.

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alongside the Brick House. Speculating that architecture is enacted as well as built, Rehearsal Space comprised a portable accommodation (combining a van, a scissor lift, and an inflatable room) that anticipated the Glass House’s potential artist residency program.

Connected to the estate’s Brick House by a power cord, Schweder’s van contained an inflatable room that could be raised twenty-two feet in the air by a hydraulic system.

While in residence, Schweder worked on a manuscript about “performance architecture” in Philip Johnson’s library.

It is anticipated that successful preservation efforts could reactivate the Brick House as a place for short-term residencies for artists, writers, and other creative individuals.

In 2014, artist Fujiko Nakaya will open the new season on May 1st with a fog installation around the Glass House. This site specific work by Nakaya is the first outdoor exhibition and commission undertaken by the Glass House since it began its public life as a site of the National Trust for Historic Preservation.

This is also the first time that Nakaya, who creates dramatic, ephemeral environments that harness fog as a sculptural medium, has undertaken an installation at such a scale.

The artist will wrap the Glass House in an envelope of mist, revealing the building’s extreme transparency. Intended to intensify the enigmatic qualities of the site, the installation will draw viewers into a new relationship with the familiar, producing a sense of wonder. The exhibition will be accompanied by a full slate of public programs that may include an artist talk, readings, performances, and an off-site symposium.

Tickets to tour the Glass House, and attend events sell out quickly. The tour season runs from May to November and advance reservations are required. For more information, and to purchase tickets, visit philipjohnsonglasshouse.org.

Watch for details on events at the Glass House, and other great things to do, on FCBuzz.org - it is not too early to think spring.

Photographs: CHI CHI UBINA

Melissa Beste with guests

Alan Batkin, Marcie Pistol

Judith Siegel, Billie Messina

Kathyn Herman, Karen Hart, Akris model, Melissa Beste

Geri Corrigan, Fran Weissler, Billie Messina, Melissa Beste

Akris and Saks Fifth Avenue celebrate opening of new shop in Greenwich.

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n celebration of the opening of the new Akris Shop at Saks Fifth Avenue in Greenwich, Broadway producer Fran Weissler recently hosted an evening at her Westchester home. Melissa Beste, CEO of Akris welcomed the guests and presented highlights of Creative Director Albert Kriemler’s Resort 2014 Collection.

The evening was a benefit for the BWF Foundation, founded by Tony Award-winning producers Barry and Fran Weissler. The BWF Foundation’s mission is to provide support throughout the country to young people committed to a future in the arts.

The Foundation has provided support to nonprofit and regional theaters, encouraged new theatrical talent, and developed young audiences across the country.

Lori Light, Karen Hart

Joseph Boitano, Sarah Tam

Models wearing Akris

Jane Batkin, Marcie Pistol

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events + gatherings

Facebook: Beechwood Arts Website: www.BeechwoodArts.org

See an artist interview video

PERFORMANCE Dr. Hsing-Lih Chou, Professor at CUNY of Asian Studies has an encyclopedic knowledge of Chinese Classical poetry dating back almost three thousand years, He presented these in a singing style that evoked ancient Chinese opera, but which captured the live audiences with its vivid and visceral contemporary interpretation.

See a dance installation under the Copper Beech

INSTALLATION UNDER THE COPPER BEECH

CULINARY ARTS Special tea tastings were offered by Arogya Tea of Westport. A beautiful selection of appetizers came from Wafu of Southport.

And Beechwood friend Chef Daniel from Leapfoods lent a hand with the presentation.

BEECHWOOD ARTS

Intimate. Innovative. Immersive.

Welcome to our page! Beechwood Arts is a non-profit arts and innovation organization whose mission is to expand the idea of how the arts are created and experienced by hosting Immersive, Intimate and Innovative events. Our events include arts across all genres and provide opportunity for multigenerational collaboration, pushing the boundaries of what the arts experience can be. Artists, designers, musicians, performers, culinary artists, filmmakers, arts appreciators and supporters are part of the Beechwood Community.

Our signature “Arts Immersion Salons Around The World” create a themed Arts Immersion that recalls the salons of old while employing cutting edge technology and innovation to reach around the world through Satellite Salon that retain the sense of intimacy and community.

THIS PAGE IS EMBEDDED WITH AUGMENTED REALITY! Orf Art Technologies helped Beechwood create a new experience for art viewers.

By following the simple directions below using your smartphone or tablet, you can see and experience for yourself some of the elements from “Yin Yang”, our latest Arts Immersion Salon: 1) Download the Aurasma app; 2) Search for the Beechwood Arts channel; 3) Follow Beechwood Arts; 4) View any photos on this page marked with the purple Aurasma logo through the app to get surprise content. Start by scanning our logo above for an introductory video!

ART & INSTALLATION The celebrated Taiwanese painter Mulang Huang traveled from Taipei especially to exhibit six of his well-known oil paintings. Mulang has works in permanent museum collections in the US, Taiwan and Korea. Other artists who exhibited at Yin Yang were Eric Chiang, Shih-Pao Lin, Ting Yih and Ceclia Moy Fradet

Font: Carnegie

MUSIC Frederic Chiu played music by Gao Ping, a “Sixth Generation” Chinese composer, whose music was influenced by Debussy whose music was also on the program.

FILM Film artists who contributed short films to the event included Nina Kuo, Nung-Hsin Hu and Ming-Liang Cai.

Enjoy!

- Jeanine Esposito & Frederic Chiu

DANCE Ms. Huan “Zoo” Huang has a multi-faceted career in China that includes acting, dance and musical theater. For Yin Yang, she brought exquisite dance choreography, ethereal song and poetry. Zoo traveled to Westport from Beijing on her way to Los Angeles to shoot her first US produced film.

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See a fun event trailer

“ARTS EMERSION SALON AROUND THE WORLD”

VIRTUAL RECEPTION WITH SATELLITE SALONS iPad Avatars from our Satellite Salons, dressed in Chinese garb. Guests from around the world met our guests and each other at our Virtual Reception to discuss different aspects of the performance that they had all just witnessed.

These portals into the Satellite Salons allowed a number of contacts to be made, addresses to be exchanged and toasts to be proposed!

Cathy Nash (L), Stuart, Vicki and Elizabeth Marwell, Creighton Michael

Photographs: Michele Frentrop

Jane Kaczmarek

Center for Contemporary Printmaking MONOTHON2013 Art Auction & Party

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Amie and John Greenspan

Jodi Weis

he doors opened at 6 pm sharp, November 16th, at the The Lillian August Flagship Store for the annual benefit of the Center for Contemporary Printmaking. Original prints by emerging and established artists garnered Silent Auction bids in “The Dream House�, and the Live Auction, presided over by actor John Bedford Lloyd, offered unique vacations, art museum tours and excellent artwork by preeminent artists.

A heartfelt thank you to our hosts Lillian August and Skye Kirby Westcott, our corporate and business sponsors Total Wine & More, TD Bank, Chris Durante Framing, The Avenue Gallery, MBI, The Sono Banking Company & Cafe, Mediterraneo, Hotel Zero Degrees, Garelick & Herbs, Matui Sushi, Wave Hill Breads, and Whole Foods Market, and to all the donors, sponsors, artists, printmakers, master printers, press assistants, and other volunteers who helped make this event a great success.

Proceeds from this fundraising event, now in its 15th year, support CCP educational and community programs throughout the year. The Center for Contemporary Printmaking is a nonprofit 501 (c)(3) organization dedicated to the art of the print, located at 299 West Avenue, in Mathews Park, Norwalk, CT, 203-899-7999 and www.contemprints.org Tori Cohen, Emma and Duvian Montoya, Ronny Rysz

MONOTHON Co-chairs Betty Ball (L) and Jane Cooper (R)

Nomi Silverman (L), Bill Frank, Brad McKinney, David Frishkorn

John Bedford Lloyd

CONTEMPORARY CULTURE//MAGAZINE Live Auction Guests

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Larissa Cooper (left) with Guild Artist and Silvermine Board Chair Roger Mudre and Board member Seth Cooper.

Silvermine Board member Kim Healey lending a helping hand.

‘Signed, Sealed & Delivered’ Fundraiser Returned to Silvermine for Its 12th Year The room was bustling with excitement with over 130 guests who enjoyed the festivities and fun.

Thanks to our supporters, Silvermine made over $17,000 at this annual event.

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he popular fundraising art sale and event Signed, Sealed & Delivered returned for the 12th year to the Silvermine Arts Center in New Canaan with a special Collector’s party. This was a night where guests from throughout Fairfield and Westchester Counties took pleasure in enjoying great company and a wonderful collection of original works of art.

This year, the event offered a new and exciting format, which appealed to all art admirers. In addition to the 4" x 6" artwork, original 10" x 10" works of art on wood panels were raffled during the evening, where raffle ticket holders were able to choose one of the 10" x 10" artworks. Unlike the ‘mystery’ of purchasing the 4" x 6" works of art where the artist is not known until after purchase, the 10" x 10" pieces were not anonymous and had been exhibited in advance of the fundraising event in the Gallery.

Signed, Sealed & Delivered featured original works of art by Silvermine Guild artists, School of Art faculty, and invited artists and friends. The art work included paintings, prints, photographs, mixed media, collages, ceramics and sculpture.

The 4" x 6" works sold for $50 each, and if you bought 3 you received the 4th one free!

Co-chairs for this year’s event included Silvermine Guild members, and participating artists, Nash Hyon from Wilton, Roger Mudre from Weston, and DeAnn Prosia from Newtown. Media sponsor for the event was VENÜ Magazine.

Proceeds from the Collector’s party will benefit Silvermine’s public events including year-round free gallery exhibitions.

For more information about Silvermine Arts Center and other upcoming events, please call 203-966-9700 or visit our website at www.silvermineart.org.

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Guild Artist Liana Moonie with Executive Director Leslee Asch and guest Frank Smurlo.

Guild Artists Nancy Moore and Judith Katz.

CONTEMPORARY CULTURE//MAGAZINE Guild Artist Nancy McTague-Stock with Rebecca Hoefer, the owner of a new original 10” x 10” original work of art.

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events + gatherings

By Janet Langsam CEO, ArtsWestchester

HAT-titude: The Milliner in Fashion and Culture

Butterfly Fascinator by Catherine Stevens of Cat Stevens Derby Couture

ArtsWestchester’s exhibition, HAT-titude: The Milliner in Fashion & Culture is a thoughtful and festive exhibition about the art of hat-making and wearing.

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hen the Duchess of Cambridge steps out, or when Lady Gaga explodes on to stage, all eyes are on their crowns. That is to say, we can’t help but be fascinated by the confections perched atop their heads. Their hats are the exclamation points in their fashion statements. At ArtsWestchester, we think of hats as the “crowning glory” of an outfit, something to keep us warm and also the sign of respect embodied in a covered head. For all these reasons, ArtsWestchester’s exhibition, HAT-titude: The Milliner in Fashion & Culture is a thoughtful and festive exhibition about the art of hat-making and wearing. The exhibition opens with a reception on Sunday, February 9th, continues through April 12th and will be celebrated at a hat luncheon in early April.

Whimsy abounds as milliners take liberties with traditional forms and apply non-traditional materials or fanciful embellishments. Top hats are typically formed from fur felt, silk or velvet, but Tarrytown

resident Joanne M. Mooney’s playful “John’s En-Deere-ing Passion” topper is made from artificial grass and adorned with a miniature lawnmower. Catherine Stevens of Cat Stevens Derby Couture (who happens to be the creative General Manager of the Renaissance Hotel in Westchester) creates flamboyant, feathery fascinators and hats guaranteed to stand out within the race-track crowd and beyond. I personally have my designs on her butterfly hat.

Sinamay, a natural, sturdy fabric made from banana plant fibers is a favorite among milliners and hat-designers who use it to create sculptural wearable art.

Within HAT-titude is the mini-exhibit, “One Block, Many Milliners” which highlights the endless artistic possibilities offered by a single, basic hat shape. The forty-two pieces within this collection were created by members of the Milliners Guild

who are famous for keeping the culture of hatwearing alive. HAT-titude also borrows vintage and ethnic pieces from private collections to highlight functions and fashions of hats across time and cultures.

A hat is many things. It can be a utilitarian article of clothing, a status symbol, a mark of devotion, or a fashion statement. HAT-titude considers each of these functions while highlighting the incredible skill and artistry behind the construction of each hat.

John’s En-‘Deereing’ Passion

by Joanne M. Mooney of Extraordinary Hats

Vintage Salvation Army Bonnet (circa 1904)

HAT-titude: The Milliner in Fashion & Culture at ArtsWestchester’s Gallery 31 Mamaroneck Avenue, White Plains, NY 10601 Curated by Kathleen Reckling, Judith Schwartz, Ph.D, and Tom Van Buren, Ph.D On view: February 11 – April 12, 2014 Opening Reception: Sunday, February 9, 12-2PM RSVP for opening toLBanks@artswestchester.org or 914.428.4220 ext 330.

Come wearing your most eye-catching headwear!

Don’t have a hat? Don’t worry! We’ve got one for you!

For more of Janet Langsam’s cultural musings, be sure to visit her blog at www.ThisandThatbyJL.com. For a full calendar of arts events visit: www.artsw.org.

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Photographs: FOREST JOHNSON

Media Sponsor: VENÜ MAGAZINE

Five days of ocean breezes and sunshine set a spirited tone over the 54th annual Fort Lauderdale International Boat Show

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how organizers reported that gate attendance for the entire show was up 28 percent from the prior year and the highest since the 2006 show, and that exhibit space was the largest it has ever been, with returning exhibitors expanding their show presence over 2012.

Another notable category of growth came from a 15.9 percent increase in the number of boats under 80 feet on display, a very important market sector. This year saw the largest number of boats under 80 feet ever on display at the show.

“The boat show is a barometer of the local and national economy, and this year we saw a strong increase in sales, an increase in attendees, and 10-to-15 percent increase in food and beverage consumption over the past few years,” said Convention Center General Manager Mark Gatley. “Exhibitors had very positive feedback to share about their selling experience, as well as the new food and beverage options at the Sailfish Pavilion, and they were telling us that they didn’t want the show to end.”

The Fort Lauderdale International Boat Show is owned and sponsored by the Marine Industries Association of South Florida and managed and produced by Show Management.

The 54th edition was sponsored by Gosling’s Rum, Taiwan External Trade Development Council (TAITRA), AIM Marine Group, Budweiser, BoatshowHotels.com, BoatQuest. com Palm Harbor Marina, Zeelander, Smallwoods Yachtwear, International Game Fish Association (IGFA), XM Radio, the Sun Sentinel, and Veedims. For more information, call 954-764-7642, or visit ShowManagement.com.

CONTEMPORARY CULTURE//MAGAZINE

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Betsey Cooley and Melanie Brigockas

events + gatherings

In honor of the exhibition, the Holtzman Family made a gift of Open Relief (1983) to the Museum. It was unveiled by Curators Amy Kurtz Lansing and Ben Colman at the opening.

Florence Griswold Museum celebrates the opening of Harry Holtzman and American Abstraction Over 300 Museum members paid tribute to Holtzman’s role in shaping abstract art in America from the 1920s to the 1980s.

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he Florence Griswold Museum in Old Lyme, Connecticut celebrated the opening of Harry Holtzman and American Abstraction, the first retrospective of abstract painter, teacher, and writer Harry Holtzman (1912–1987). The Holtzman family, Maddy, Jackie, Jason Holtzman, and Betsy McManus; family friends; and over 300 Museum members paid tribute to Holtzman’s role in shaping abstract art in America from the 1920s to the 1980s. The exhibition of paintings, sculptures, and drawings features many works not exhibited since Holtzman’s From the left; Museum Director Jeff Andersen, death and highlights the different Amy Kurtz-Lansing, Museum President Ted Hamilton, Maddie Holtzman, Jason Holtzman, facets of his role as perennial stalwart Jackie Holtzman, Betsy McManus, Ben Colman of the New York avant garde. A close friend and colleague of Piet Mondrian, Holtzman is best known for helping to bring the originator of Neoplasticism to America.

Organized by the Museum’s curators Amy Kurtz Lansing and Benjamin Colman, this exhibition is the third presented by the Florence Griswold Museum that brings a better understanding of modern artists that lived in the greater Lyme area, an often-overlooked chapter in Connecticut’s rich artistic history.

Holtzman was part of a local community that has been little studied but included significant artists. In 1962 Holtzman chose a monumental barn along the country roads of Lyme, Connecticut, to personally convert into a home and studio workspace. He lived and worked there until his death in 1987. is on view through January 26, 2014.

Exhibition Sponsor: Bank of America Media Sponsor: Venü Magazine

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Jeb Embree and Museum Past President Bob Webster

silvermine arts center

Jens Risom: The Answer is Risom silvermine arts center

Januar y 8 through Febr uar y 16, 2014 Opening Reception: Sunday, Januar y 12, 2-4pm Artist Talk with Jens Risom and “The Answer is Risom” co-curators, Laura Einstein and Silvermine Gallery Director, Jeffrey Mueller: Tuesday, February 4th at 6pm 1037 Silvermine Road

silvermine N e w C a n a a n arts , C T 0 center 6840 203-966-9700

Sponsored by Knoll, Inc.

Media Sponsor

www.silvermineart.org Magazine

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Travel + Leisure: DEER Destination VALLEY NorwaY

Photographs courtesy of Deer Valley Resort

PAIN & PAMPERING IN DEER VALLEY

From First Run To Last, It’s Pure Adventure

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by Jeff Blumenfeld

have a love-hate relationship with Deer Valley. I love the gold standard level of skiing, the ambiance, the scenery, and the exceptional customer service that’s friendly without being intrusive. But I hate what it does to my body. After a day of skiing, I come in at night barely able to move – consumed by that total exhaustion that requires you to be in bed and entering REM sleep by 9 p.m. so you can do it all again tomorrow. You ski so much, on such superbly groomed terrain, you never want it to end, except, of course, to eat. The food in Deer Valley is so extraordinary, you don’t mind missing a run, or two, to eat like a foie gras-producing duck.

You have to love a ski resort that allows you, no, make that encourages you, to buy a $6.5 million home in your ski boots. In the rarefied air of Deer Valley, just 35 miles from the Salt Lake City airport, you can literally park your rental car within 100 feet of the base of the Jordanelle Gondola, get off the lift at 7,950-ft. Little Baldy Peak, walk into the mountaintop offices of Prudential Utah Real Estate wearing everything but your skis, and buy yourself the ski house of your dreams.

When I visited last year, associate broker Jim Black, 59, a transplanted Bostonian who now skis to work, offered listings for eight homes

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among the 128 ski-in/ski-out homesites hugging the mountainside Deer Crest community. It’s sort of a Pebble Beach in the snow, with ski runs as fairways.

Bring your checkbook. He’ll gladly sell you an 8,500 square foot, six bedroom, 6-1/2 bath ski house for mid- to high-seven figures.

Throw in an office, a home theater, exercise room and sauna, plus amazing views of the Wasatch Mountains.

Next to his office is the Resorts West Ski Dream Home, which you can also reach on skis.

Dream Home indeed. Designed by Utah architect Mike Upwall in 2007, with design ideas from the readers of SKI magazine, this 14,000 square foot mountain aerie, selling for a cool $21.9 million, features six bedrooms, 10 baths and a 16-seat home theater. When you’re tired of skiing, there’s a 550-gallon freshwater aquarium to admire, pool table, DJ booth above the “Chill Room” bar, and full swing golf simulator.

A few long carving turns down from Black’s dream office and not far from the Dream Home is a run that will delight any second home house hunter. Rust-colored slopeside mansions, made with thick redwood-sized western timber, each display perfectly stacked firewood on red sandstone

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Travel + Leisure: DEER VALLEY

Since it was founded in 1981, Deer Valley has become the Rolls Royce of skiing.

Left; Goldener Hirsch Inn Built in 1990, a smaller replica of the Hotel Goldener Hirsch in Salzburg, Austria.

Right; Natural Buffet at the Empire Canyon Lodge.

pillared decks. I amuse myself thinking the firewood alone would cost $4 a log in a New York bodega. These luxury McMansions are carefully sited for their astounding views and ski-in/ski-out access. Peer inside to see the whole western shtick happening – cowboy paintings, animal heads, lampshades made of spurs. I spot a bed stand made of old timey wooden skis.

Also hugging the hillside is the new 177-room St. Regis Deer Valley.

It’s accessible either by skiing (snowboards are not allowed anywhere at the resort, thus preserving moguls for two-plankers like myself), or via a free funicular with padded seats that ascend from the main parking lot.

Besides a 14,000 sq. ft. Remede Spa ready to pamper every joint and muscle, there is yoga instruction, classes in champagne sabering, and turkey chili cooking lessons. One of my favorite activities here is the 7452 Blood Mary Clinic, so named for the resort’s altitude. St. Regis New York created the Bloody Mary in 1905. This St. Regis now runs a clinic every week to teach guests how to concoct this iconic drink using local oat-based vodka, wasabi, celery, apple espuma, and black lava sea salt. Are you a big fan of pre-mixed Mr. and Mrs. T Original Bloody Mary Mix? Sorry, you’ll have to go to ShopRite for that.

Rolls Royce of Skiing Since it was founded in 1981, Deer Valley has become the Rolls Royce of skiing. This past fall Deer Valley was ranked among the best ski

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resorts in North America by the readers of SKI magazine. It earned a number one ranking in six categories and was recognized as the number two overall best ski resort in North America, losing out to Jackson Hole Mountain Resort.

The resort claims to be one of the first to offer ski valets to carry guests’ ski gear from their cars to the slopes, provide free parking lot shuttles, refer to customers as “guests” as is done at fine hotels, have a state-licensed childcare facility on site, uniform all its employees from kitchen staff to lift attendants, provide complimentary overnight ski storage, and, in what has become a standard at better resorts, provide facial tissues in the lift lines.

The pampering continues on the slopes with surfaces that are totally buffed out, to say the least. Until I arrived, I never trusted snow I couldn’t hear. But surfaces here are silky smooth and silent, except for that memorable squeak you get from packed powder when the temperature is cold enough.

Pilots’-Eye View Most mornings, you’ll either find boot-top powder or freshly groomed corduroy. Not everyone can ski the powder, which is fine with me. I spend the entire fall on a treadmill and Nordic walk with poles through a local park so I can keep up with the locals. But everyone loves corduroy, so named

Photographs courtesy of Deer Valley Resort

Below; Empire Canyon Lodge, Deer Valley Resort. Right; Silver Lake Lodge, Deer Valley Resort.

for the patterns created by $250,000 snow grooming machines that prepare ski surfaces into smooth ridges that help carve the perfect turn.

My favorite run is Homeward Bound, a green trail that stretches from the 9,400-ft. summit of Bald Mt. to Silver Lake Lodge. When I last skied it, I noticed a plane in the distance, seemingly at eye level. I realize that at this altitude, the pilot’s view of Jordanelle Reservoir is no better than my own. With the morning sun behind me, I try to race my own shadow, carving giant turns in the packed powder. From the run I can see nearby ski resorts I’ll visit before I fly home: Alta, Snowbird and the Canyons.

The highest skiable point is just over 9,500 feet, so it’s cold, but not facemask cold. There’s enough snap in the air to make you happier to be here, right now, on this run, than anywhere else in the world.

Olympic-Sized Portions Truth be told, for me, the skiing is but a sideline to the food. I’m out there with my quads screaming, the wind rushing by, nose dripping like a fire hose, and what am I thinking about? The breakfast I just had, and what I’m going to eat for lunch. Breakfasts in the Snow Park Lodge are legendary. There’s a huge natural buffet – a choice of fresh baked muffins, fresh fruit, or custom-made omelets by chefs in sky-high white toques standing by for orders. I fill my plate with an Olympic-sized portion for $7.50.

A fire roars nearby, and free newspapers encourage you to linger.

Worth a visit is the 2002 Room with memorabilia from the 2002 Olympic Winter Games. On display are dozens of Olympic tchotchkes: pins, cowbells, racing bibs, an Olympic torch, even a Children of the Light costume from the opening and closing ceremonies.

For lunch go to the 8,300-ft. high Empire Canyon Lodge, at the base of Empire Canyon, for a $16.25 natural buffet. Expensive? Yes, certainly pricey compared to eating a defrosted mystery meat hamburger in an eastern ski base lodge, but here in a carpeted dining room with real wood tables and chairs, it doesn’t much matter.

As you might imagine, dinner in Deer Valley is an adventure in and of itself. My choice one night is the European-style Goldener Hirsch Inn. Built in 1990, it’s a smaller replica of the Hotel Goldener Hirsch in Salzburg, Austria. A family-owned 20-room luxury hotel, Deer Valley’s GHI, located in mid-mountain Silver Lake Village, is managed by Kelley Davidson, a former ski resort marketer.

Davidson, 68, is slim, athletically fit and goateed. He keeps in shape by skiing in winter outside his door, and hiking through the Alps in summer. Soft spoken, with split-apart reading glasses perpetually suspended

from his neck, he has a wry sense of humor and loves to dress as Santa Claus on Christmas Eve. He’s a favorite among the children of guests spending the holiday at his home rather than their own.

His staff prides itself on knowing the names of each guest. They greet you by name, hand you a room key dangling on a heavy brass fob the size of an iPad Mini, and show you to your room past 100- to 250-year-old antiques. No key cards to swipe; these are giant deadbolt locks on doors imported from Austria that hark back to the golden age of alpine hospitality. I’m starting to feel like royalty with a European King-size bed piled with an Everest of pillows, hand-painted furnishings, a fluffy terry-cloth robe and slippers, a private balcony and wood-burning fireplace.

It’s time for dinner. I protest that all I need is a snack, perhaps some carrots, after eating so well all day long. Davidson assures me, “At 8,100 feet, nothing is fattening.” So who am I to argue?

Dinner that night in the Goldener Hirsch Inn restaurant included a steaming pot of fondue containing emmentaller, appenzeller and vacherin with green apples and crunchy baguette, roasted beet salad, heirloom squash ravioli, and wiener schnitzel with herb späetzle. For dessert, the waiter arrives with a Bavaria apple strudel so rich I kept eyeing the emergency AED device to make sure it was fully charged, just in case.

After skiing like a verticals-addicted maniac from first run to last, this was a gracious way to end the day.

Afterwards, I retire to my antiques-filled room. A bellman enters to light a real fire for me, not flip some light switch that turns on an ersatz gas jet. There’s a humidifier emitting a calming white noise as it counteracts the drying effects of the hotel’s high alpine location. It lulls me to sleep, erasing my aches and pains so I’ll be ready for pampering yet another day high above Salt Lake.

Trip Tips: • Deer Valley Resort features 21 chairlifts, 101 ski runs, six bowls, 11 restaurants, 300 annual inches of powder, three day lodges, and 2,026 acres of alpine skiing • The resort has a digital winter guide for the 2013-2014 ski season available to download free at DeerValley.com • GoldenerHirschInn.com • StRegisDeerValleyResidences.com • VisitParkCity.com

About the Author: Jeff Blumenfeld, a frequent contributor to these pages, is editor of ExpeditionNews.com, and author of an adventure sponsorship book coming out in January 2014 titled, Get Sponsored: A Funding Guide for Explorers, Adventurers, and Would-Be World Travelers (Skyhorse Publishing, 2014).

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STYLE: FASHION

All photographs courtesy of AKRIS

AKRIS

Akris is a fashion house synonymous with refinement, minimalism and impeccable Haute Couture craftsmanship, with ready-to-wear and accessory collections designed by Albert Kriemler. Akris stands for wearable clothes, sharp feminine tailoring and a balance between the essentials – finest material, precise proportion, and effortless functionality.

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ith an architectural approach, Albert Kriemler’s process of creation begins with material. “Every collection starts with fabric. When I have fabric in my hands, I come to know everything about it,” he says. “As fabric is worn on the skin – the feeling on the skin is a constant consideration for me.”

Designing with the experience of the woman in mind, Kriemler’s ability to understand the place where fashion and comfort co-exist is what has made Akris coveted by women around the globe. “A women dressed in Akris is noticed first for herself,” he says. “Isn’t the highest appreciation a woman can get

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for how she’s dressed is that she looks interesting and smart, while feeling beautiful and comfortable?”

Achieving harmony between Haute Couture handicraft and the necessity for chic, understated clothes is the constant pursuit for Albert Kriemler.

The Akris jacket in double-face cashmere or wool, for example, is a feat in Haute Couture workmanship and in its many reinterpretations always maintains timelessness - right for the mobility of everyday life.

Founded in 1922, Akris is based in St. Gallen, Switzerland, a city renowned for the world’s finest embroidery. In reverence to the craft of embroidery,

Albert Kriemler inventively incorporates the material into each collection.

Since 2002, the Akris collection is shown during Paris fashion week-the only Swiss house in the Federation Francaise de la Couture du Prêt-a-Porter des Couturiers et des Createurs de Mode. In 2009, Akris expanded its Prêt-a-Porter offering with the introduction of handbags featuring Horsehair textile, a rare woven fabric made from the tail-hair.

Congruent in philosophy, the handbags possess Albert Kriemler’s understated design aesthetic in an uncompromised quality - another expression of his passion for material. The Ai bag is the collection’s

STYLE: FASHION

signature shape, a subtle trapezoid relating the A of Akris – a complement to the ethos of Akris dressing.

In addition to Akris clothing and accessories, Albert Kriemler creates the Akris punto collection.

The Akris punto collection embodies the intrinsic elements of Akris with an emphasis on relaxed sportswear, reaching a broad range of women today.

Akris is a third generation family owned and operated company and has a worldwide network of over 500 points of distribution, including directly operated stores and select retailers, Bergdorf Goodman, where Akris debuted in 1988, Harrods, Neiman Marcus and Saks Fifth Avenue, as well as Holt Renfrew.

Albert Kriemler “The highest appreciation a woman can get is that she looks interesting and smart, timeless in a way and not at all trendy,” states Albert Kriemler, Akris Designer and Creative Director. He adds “I create clothes for the experience of the woman, relevant in many cultures and proves compatible with her rhythm of life regardless of her age or nationality.

I think today’s clothes need to be simple because our lives are so complicated.”

Following his formal education, Albert Kriemler began at Akris, the company founded by his grandmother, Alice Kriemler-Schoch in 1922 from St. Gallen located in eastern Switzerland. It is from this heritage of generational craftsmanship, coupled with Kriemler’s sensitivity for understated clothes incomparable in couture quality and modernity that caught the attention of Dawn Mello, former Bergdorf Goodman Fashion Director, who first brought Akris to the US in 1989. Since then, Akris led by Albert Kriemler’s vision has been chosen as a member of the ‘Fédération Française de la Couture du Prêt-à-Porter des Couturiers et des Créateurs de Mode’ - joining the small circle of non-French couturiers and fashion directors in this association. As such, he began showing the Akris collection in 2004 as part of Paris fashion week.

With his unmistakable signature, architectural approach and feeling for fabrics, colors and proportion, Albert Kriemler has been awarded ‘Grand Prix Design’ prize by the Swiss Federal Office of Culture in 2008 and honored with the “Swiss Design Award” for his achievements as the “most important international ambassador for fashion creation in design.”

Most recently he was named the star honoree for

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fashion design at the 2010 Fashion Group International Awards in New York. Aside from creating his ready-to-wear collection, Kriemler has lent his design talent to collaborations with ballet choreographer John Neumeier by designing the costumes for the ensemble of dancers in Neumeier’s 2005/06 production with the Vienna Philharmonic and the Ham-

burg ballet’s 2008 production of “The Legend of Joseph” by Richard Strauss. Formulating with the same design philosophy of Akris, Kriemler launched in 2009 the brand’s first handbag collection of horsehair fabric - unique in material and craftsmanship.

The handbags are another expression of the understatement of Akris.

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APPETITE: LowCountry Cuisine

Southern Crab Salad

Chilled Shrimp Salad

Lowcountry Cuisine

More Than Kissin’ Grits and Crawfish Boils Written by Linda Kavanagh To be clear, “lowcountry” is not a culinary label describing southern food. It is a legitimate geographical region which encompasses South Carolina’s Sea Islands (Charleston, Colleton and Beaufort Counties) and the Georgia coast. With that said, one can only imagine the gastronomic diversity associated with such coastal bounties and its vibpurant global influences from its Caribbean and African population throughout the years.

Lowcountry cuisine is deeply rooted in history and you won’t find too many chefs messin’ around with the classics. From a classic bourbon Manhattan to stone ground grits with spicy shrimp, southerners tend not to fix what’s not broken. And rightfully so.

During a recent visit to Charleston, South Carolina and its adjacent Kiawah Island I found myself Spanish moss and sweet grass high in barrel-aged bourbon, slow-cooked barbeque and ocean fresh fish. Our first stop out of the The dining room at S.N.O.B.

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airport was to Charleston’s local restaurant darling S.N.O.B. (Slightly North of Broad), a bustling downtown eating and drinking establishment created by Maverick Southern Kitchens. Executive Chef Frank Lee and Chef Russ Moore are cooking what’s local and keeping it fresh and fun, while not letting their more eclectic approach muddy the southern waters. S.N.O.B. has that “three-martini lunch” vibe; sharp service and high energy chatter that fills the room. The first flavor to cross my lips was from a cocktail dubbed the “Barn Raiser” made with local honey infused Maverick Bourbon, a splash of Blenheim’s ginger ale, orange bitters, shaken and on the rocks with an orange twist. And were off!

S.N.O.B.’s kitchen is framed by large brick archways and piled high produce boxes brimming with local tomatoes, peppers, corn and the like, from which comes brilliant butternut squash bisque pureed with tart Carolina apples topped with toasted pumpkin seeds. Tender local beef carpaccio from Stevenson Place Farm came thinly sliced with a subtle red wine Dijon vinaigrette, capers, shards of pecorino Romano and grilled baguette slices to assist in coaxing every last morsel of this dish into my mouth. Anson Mills farro and Geechie Boy yellow grits are featured on the menu, and appeared on most menus throughout our lowcountry travels. Anson Mills grows and mills Carolina Gold rice and a full complement of heirloom grains and is a mainstay in every good southerner’s pantry. Likewise,

Geechie Boy Mill is producing some of the area’s most robust white and yellow cornmeal and coarse grits. But let’s not overthink the grits, likened to pasta, it’s really about cooking it correctly and accompanying it with flavorful ingredients such as S.N.O.B.’s sautéed shrimp, sausage, country ham, sweet tomatoes, green onion and garlic.

I particularly enjoyed my crazy concoction of grits and a side of grilled okra with sweet pepper relish all mashed up together. www.mavericksouthernkitchens.com Traveling slightly south of Charleston, along the Eastern Seaboard is Kiawah Island, a stunning natural land preserve which is not only protected; it is meticulously nurtured while being inhabKiawah Ocean Course Clubhouse

Chef Ryley McGillis

Lobby bar at The Sanctuary Hotel

There’s no better way to start your day then with a hearty southern breakfast. I feasted on buttery biscuits, sausage gravy, scrambled eggs, grits, apple smoked bacon and sweet local berries. ited by both residential communities and touristy properties. Originally a farm and plantationdriven parcel of land fought over by the fabulously dysfunctional and famous Vanderhorst family throughout the mid-1800s and well into the mid-1900s, the island was eventually developed

by Kiawah Resort Associates. Today Kiawah Island is a PGA tournament destination, a family friendly getaway and a five-star resort where locals and visitors enjoy kayaking with the dolphins, biking throughout the lush sweet grass and oak tree lined pathways, and frolicking along the soft sandy beaches. Our visit to Kiawah found us

at The Sanctuary Hotel, a great Gatsby’esque seaside estate with plush room accommodations, a peaceful spa retreat, and some more of that rich lowcountry cuisine.

Chef Ryley McGillis spearheads the hotel’s Jasmine Porch, a three-meal a day restaurant that highlights coastal cuisine amid an Atlantic Ocean landscape view. There’s no better way to start your day then with a hearty southern breakfast.

I feasted on buttery biscuits, sausage gravy, scrambled eggs, grits, apple smoked bacon and sweet local berries. Indulgent? Oh yeah. But I considered it fuel for our active outdoorsy days of cycling, swimming, walking and rowing. Nighttime at Jasmine brings out the restaurants charming and stylish décor. Exposed brick walls, wicker seating and oak-plank floors add to the lowcountry experience. Silky she crab soup is laced with sherry and a generous amount of flaky sweet crab. Fried green tomatoes are tart and juicy enveloped by a crunchy coating of buttermilk and cornmeal. Local beets were in peak season when we visited and presented beautifully roasted in a salad of mixed greens, local feta, bacon, curried walnuts, preserved fruit, radishes and an aromatic vanilla vinaigrette.

Carolina Flounder

Chicken pot pie hushpuppies were a surprising treat, reminiscent of the real thing and covered in rich roasted chicken gravy. Our version of surf and turf consisted of whole Carolina flounder, deep fried and served with a light lemon beurre blanc, offsetting the decadence of the fried preparation. The outer crispy layer protected the moist meatier fish inside. Carolina pork was braised and pulled and served with a cauliflower puree over al dente papardelle pasta. This was a creative dish, while continuing to utilize straightforward preparations and local resources. Bourbon continued to be en vogue, a la dessert, via bourbon sauce atop

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APPETITE: LowCountry Cuisine

Sweetgrass blowing in the wind at the Kiawah Island Golf Resort

harvest bread pudding and Georgia pecan pie, both served thick and warm with cooling vanilla bean ice cream.

A few doors down at The Ocean Course Clubhouse is The Atlantic Room, the island’s premiere seafood restaurant led by Chef Jonathan Banta.

A proud member of the Sustainable Seafood Initiative that ensures the health of worldwide fisheries, The Atlantic Room’s menu is influenced by the seasons and Chef’s preparations are that of a lighter touch. Amid an elegant dining room and picturesque sunset overlooking the dunes, we enjoyed local oysters, briny and fresh, with a glass of Falanghina, Terredora from Campania, a fresh and crisp wine that served us well throughout Crispy Shrimp

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our oysters and with the watermelon and arugula salad with smoked goat cheese. Both dishes were wonderful illustrations of the lighter side of lowcountry cuisine. Contrastingly, crispy shrimp with sweet chili sauce, napa cabbage, yuzu and black sesame seeds highlighted the local shellfish with a pungent Asian flavor boost. We enjoyed this dish with a cold pilsner, as we did with the Bouillabaisse, a hearty bowl of mussels, clams, shrimp, scallops and mahi-mahi simmered in a fish and tomato based broth, topped with crispy potatoes in lieu of bread – an unusual variation on a classic.

Located further east on Kiawah Island is Cherrywood BBQ & Ale House at the Osprey Point Clubhouse, a smokehouse and bar which looks out over a gator-inhabited pond on this magnificent golf course, replete with osprey cries in the distance. The restaurant is what a BBQ joint should look and feel like – masculine and warm with dark wood furnishings and a sweet smoky aroma wafting throughout the space and across the golf course. In true BBQ fashion we went for the beer flight, a group of four contrasting local craft brews to marry with our house smoked jumbo wings. Chef de cuisine Jason Cote understands the art of low and slow smoking, flavorful dry-rubs and the many nuances of creating an array of BBQ sauces for all

St. Louis style ribs with maple chipotle sauce

taste. I appreciated the chef’s non-conservative approach to BBQ, as this type of cuisine needs to be handled fearlessly in order to have an impact.

The brisket was some of the best I’ve ever tasted, maintaining its beefy flavor while taking on a light outer smoky bark and nice saltiness. The brisket was juicy pull-apart perfection. The four cheese mac and the smoked St. Louis style ribs with maple chipotle sauce were award-worthy.

Cherrywood BBQ & Ale House is a true standout restaurant on the island.

The morning of our departure my travel companion and I took our lowcountry cuisine laden butts out for a long, sea air infused bike ride around the island. Pampered with southern

Clammer Dave’s Clams

The beer bar

Two Boroughs Larder, cozy and casual

hospitality from some of the friendliest staff I’ve encountered on my many traveling escapades, I found this fast’ n furious New Yorker feeling a bit sad about leaving the confines of Kiawah’s tranquil allure. But off to Charleston we drove for one last culinary adventure! www.kiawahresort.com Two Boroughs Larder is an edgy restaurant, café and market located off the beaten path in downtown Charleston. It is the creation of Heather and Chef Josh Keeler, two young and innovative talents that have been able to fuse the old with the new, sans pretense. The space is two older store fronts combined, with one side dedicated to “lar-

der” consisting of tableware, craft beers, boutique wines, local coffee, South Carolina milk, imported pasta, oils and vinegars, tea towels, local farm eggs, charcuterie, artisanal cheese and more. An intimate beer bar is bare brick and sparse with just a few draught lines and a wall lined with glassware. The kitchen is in plain sight, but it’s not one of those fancy showpieces – it’s a down and dirty working kitchen, the way it should be.

Chef’s approach to the all-day menu is a daily revelation, often offering just a handful of items for breakfast. Presented on a small clipboard, each day brings new menu surprises along with some consistent favorites such as the “bowl-o-noodles” with a revolving selection of flavors and proteins.

On this particular visit Chef was making his house noodles with pork confit and a soft egg in a pork broth. A local dish featuring Clammer Dave’s Clams prepared with dashi, mushrooms, farro piccolo and benne seeds was an unusual and tasty steamed clam dish, satisfying and healthy. One of my faves was the whipped ricotta on toasted country bread topped with anchoïade, a divine salty anchovy based spread with garlic and olive oil.

My plane was about to leave in just under two hours. No matter, there was more craft beer to drink up and roasted brussels sprouts tossed with soubise and salumi vinaigrette and a sliced lamb sandwich with a fried egg to devour. I took my time to savor the next generation of lowcountry cuisine. Some things remain however, and that is the respect for the ingredients and the honesty in its preparation. www.twoboroughslarder.com

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FEATURE

Creating a Buzz on the NHRA Circuit:

Hotshot Top Dragster Driver Sarah Edwards and her Queen Bee

By Mike Lauterborn

Photo: Dave Milcarek

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FEATURE

T

he Queen Bee is a fire-breathing, bone-rattling monster with some eye-popping stats associated with it: 1,000 horsepower, 555-cubic inch engine, 24 feet in length, alcoholbased fuel, 190-m.p.h. top speed.

Its driver? Five-four, 125 pounds, 21 years old, loves to wear fuzzy slippers and enjoys English muffins with a little butter.

A true Beauty and the Beast pairing, Sarah Edwards and her Queen Bee dragster are poised to tear up the National Hot Rod Association (NHRA) racing circuit after about 15 competitive challenges and a very respectable recent win.

“My first summer was all learning, getting from A to B,” said Edwards in a late fall morning sit-down at her family home in the quiet suburbs of Stamford, Conn. She earned her drag racing license in July 2010. “This past summer, I was only losing by small fractions. The summer of 2014 promises to be a big one. We’re expecting big things to happen, especially if we gain a sponsor to help cover our costs and enable us to go to more races. We can do some great things with a modest investment.”

A slender blonde with an Ultrabrite smile and girl-next-door personality, Edwards had a breakthrough on the track July 6, 2013. At the Atco Dragway, in Atco, NJ, she had a first-round win best showing to date. Recording a 7.569-second time in a ¼ mile reaching a top speed of 178 m.p.h., she said, “It was the first time I legitimately beat someone in a competition.”

A future driving a growling, tarmac-eating supercar was not really in anyone’s thoughts as she burst into the world March 13, 1992 (Friday the 13th) at Stamford Hospital. Dad Scott, an appliance tech and her current crew chief (Sarah’s boyfriend Stephen Frycz is co-crew chief), worked for a paving company when he met Sarah’s mom, Lisa, the “Queen Mum” and an administrative assistant at

Photo: Mike Lauterborn

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Photo: Dave Milcarek

an accounting agency. Scott did have motorcyles and hot-rod cars like a Dodge Challenger, and he enjoyed going to the track in Englishtown, NJ to race his dump truck. “He would win often but not even really realize it. He just had so much fun doing it,” Sarah related.

An only child, Sarah described herself as a “total girl”, playing with Barbies and baby dolls and going to dance recitals as a kid. Only occasionally did she gravitate to tools, following her dad around with her own tool belt while he was working. And all through middle school, she was a cheerleader, though she often felt she wasn’t coordinated enough for the sport.

Then one day Scott heard a radio commercial promoting Englishtown Raceway’s “Night of Thrills”. It was late Summer 2006 and the family, including 12-year-old Sarah and some neighbors, all traveled down to attend.

“I saw the Queen of Diamonds Jet Car powered by pure jet fuel and driven by Jessie Harris from Hanna Motorsports,” Sarah recalled. “Jessie goes 300 m.p.h., in like four seconds. I thought that was pretty badass and said to myself, ‘That’s what I want to do one day.’ All in all, we had a great time and I wanted to go back next year.”

She started to watch NHRA drag racing on TV, and would also go on the Internet and check out the big name drivers like John Force, Gary Scelzi and Shirley “Cha Cha” Muldowney. She particularly idolized Ashley Force (John’s daugh-

Photo: Dave Milcarek

ter). “She was in her early 20s at the time and was driving an alcohol dragster, going about 250 m.p.h., and doing a quarter mile in 5.5 seconds,” Sarah said. “She and her family came out with a reality TV show ‘Driving Force’ that I was glued to, and I bought the DVD when it was released.

Shirley also released ‘Heart Like a Wheel’, a DVD about her life and struggles to achieve racing success in a male-dominated sport. That was very inspiring and convinced me that a career in the sport might be possible. I also liked ‘Right on Track’, a Disney movie about Erica and Courtney Enders, junior dragster drivers, who were moving to super comp (890 class at 170 m.p.h.) while going to school. That gave me pointers about how I could juggle everything.”

The following summer, the family went back to the “Night of Thrills” and also went to the June Super Nationals. “I saw all pros, all my idols, all racing,” Sarah said, her doe-brown eyes lighting up. “Racing is not like baseball or football. You don’t have to have a million bucks to have a great seat. You can pay $25 and meet face-to-face with the drivers. My mind was blown. It was further convincing me this was the way to go and I started wondering how I could go about it.”

Edwards stayed connected to the sport, but still peripherally. Then her Uncle Kevin found out Clockwise from bottom left: Sarah Edwards with her dad Scott and mom Lisa, next to the engine of her Queen Bee dragster; Sarah behind the wheel at Atco Dragway, NJ; heating up the tires of her dragster; speeding down the track at Atco Dragway; with her dragster in a trailer outside her home. Previous page: Sarah’s getting into racing position at Atco Dragway.

that a guy at his job raced. “He put me in touch with his co-worker Bob Wolkowitz,” she said.

“We emailed back and forth, and I went to see him race (top dragster, topping 190 m.p.h.), and we stayed in contact.”

In order to get her NHRA drag racing license, Sarah had to graduate high school, which she did in June 2010. “In July, my Dad and I went to Maple Grove track in Reading, PA, where I got my license from Frank Hawley’s Drag Racing School,” she said. Notably, Sarah had been out to that track two years before and swore that she only

wanted to come back if she was driving, as she had seen the format so many times.

“At that point, I had never even stood on a drag strip or knew how sticky the surface is, or done any simulated video-based racing,” she pointed out. “I had only sat in Bob’s car and fired it up once, just idling. Now the challenge was to find the perfect car.”

Photo: Mike Lauterborn

Photo: Dave Milcarek

A dragster is not a cheap purchase she and Scott are quick to point out. “It’s a never-ending expense, and making a living doing it is hard – you need to be sponsored,” she said.

Bob put them in great hands with a private owner in New Jersey and, later that same month, they bought the car and sent its panels out for a paint job. “My first time driving it was November 6, 2011,” she noted. “I was very nervous. It had been 1 ½ years since I’d been in a dragster.”

Feeling that the car needed an identity, she dubbed it Queen Bee. “A friend suggested the name as I’m always the one girl hanging out with a bunch of guys, like a Queen,” she laughed. “The ‘Bee’ part came from the fact that my parents called me ‘Sarah Bee’ when I was little.”

Between July and November 2011, Sarah just sat in the frame while the pieces were out getting painted. “I’d test it out and get familiar with the buttons, and jumping out of the car quickly as if there was a fire,” she said.

To that regard, Scott jumped in to say, “I was nervous about her driving this car as it was a lot faster and more powerful than the car she had gotten licensed in. It’s also an alcohol car and not a gas car. When alcohol catches on fire, you can’t see it burn versus gas, wherein you see the flame. You don’t know alcohol is burning until you see stuff smoking and melting.”

On that note, Sarah added, “Safety is always number one. Things go wrong fast when they go wrong. For example, back in 2008, Scott Kalitta’s motor blew up at the finish line and the percussion from the explosion knocked him unconscious. The car was still going 300 m.p.h., no parachutes, through traps, through nets, into the woods. There was a huge explosion and he was killed immediately.”

Sarah’s safety equipment includes a foot brake, hand brake, parachute, five-point harness, fire suit, fireproof knee socks, a head sock, Snell helmet and faceplate.

The sport is all about precision and timing.

“Racing a dragster is not about stomping on an accelerator when you see the green light,” Sarah explained. “There’s a technical process that involves the on-board computer system and very specific down-to-the-thousandths-of-a-second timing.”

Sarah’s first official race was June 15, 2012, at Atco Dragway, which is the only track at which she has raced since her dragster career started.

“I had never been on a track with someone in the other lane,” she said. “There was adrenaline and a fear build-up, but in an excited way. My biggest concerns were doing my burnout (to warm the tires), staging (not going too late or too deep) and exiting the track.

The whole snap of the head and racing is not that big a deal or frightening. Fifteen-percent of drag racing in this class is driving; 85% is everything else.”

Like and follow Sarah and her progress through Facebook.com: “Queen Bee Racing” and visit www.QueenBeeRacing.com for more information.

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Cover Story

FAMOUS PHOTOGRAPHERS SCHOOL Treasure Trove of Pix Re-Discovered The Artists’ Market – mother lode re-surfaces

By Philip Eliasoph Senior Arts Editor

ELIZABETH TAYLOR AS CLEOPATRA, photograph by Bert Stern, faculty, Famous Photographers School

COSMIC DALI 1948 photograph by Philippe Halsman, faculty, Famous Photographers School

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Cover Story

THE MODERN LOOK FOR 1962, photograph by Richard Avedon, CONTEMPORARY CULTURE//MAGAZINE 50 guiding faculty, Famous Photographers School

GRAPES AND PEARLS c.1962, by Richard Avedon, guiding faculty, Famous Photographers School, print reveals the photographer’s cropping, Avendon’s notations on this print are, “Pearl necklace and earrings - grapes repeat shape of pearls and support sensuous qualities of pearls”

L

ong time gallerist, arts booster, and M.C. Escher expert Jeffrey Price, has carved The Artists’ Market, Norwalk, into a vital niche in the Connecticut art scene. Ever expanding in his pursuits, Price has just revealed today’s version of the Comstock silvermine discovery in 1857. A mother lode of American master photography causes us to shout: “Eureka!”

“Famous Photographers School: A Photographic Archive Rediscovered” caused a blizzard of excitement this winter as 5,000 lost trial proofs and vintage prints dropped into sight from out of the clouds. Currently on exhibition is a curated selection of 100 of the top prints extracted out of a horde.

Stored in over 120 filing cabinets in an industrial warehouse in Connecticut, a treasure trove of documents, photographic negatives, and perhaps over 1,000 museum quality photos returns to see the light of day. A big ‘shout out’ to Price for his patience in dealing with endless headaches, thorny legal tangles, and uncooperative artists estates, as he wangled, negotiated, and finally captured the prize.

Once upon a time, long before anybody could imagine that an Edward Steichen photograph would fetch $2.9 million at auction, collectors would dish out $1.5 million for an Alfred Stieglitz print, or Robert Mapplethorpe’s homo-erotic snaps could routinely sell for over $600,000, the humble field of commercial and fine art photography was a quiet little corner of the art world.

Sure, we’ve come to expect world record prices as Picasso, Jackson Pollock or Francis Bacon [new world record price of $142 million set last November] paintings turned over. At least the pushed paint around in unexpectedly, wildly innovative ways on white linen canvases. Yes, we all knew that early pio-

neers of photography had achieved significant status as they manipulated light and lenses with smelly chemicals and paper in hidden dark rooms. The physical act of painting might justify these stratospheric valuations, heated competitive bidding, and mouth-gapping hammer prices.

But nobody would have imagined the dramatic spike in interest and market demand for photography. And for those who were fortunate enough to have a great grandparent with taste, vision -- or luck – who purchased an Ansel Adams , Man Ray, or Henri Cartier-Bresson photo for a ‘fistful of dollars’ back then, those investments have paid off better than Apple or Google stock today.

There are too many ‘coulda-woulda-shoulda’ laments out there for those who failed to see that American photography was destined to be the ‘next great thing.’ Photography – essentially a child of the industrial age born in the 1830s – seems ‘oh so mechanical’. Well guess what. It’s hotter than sizzling shish-kebabs today. As we journey forward into the digital age, with each of us texting images to our family and friends around the globe, let’s pull back for a moment and savor a time and place of Photography’s Golden Age. Legendary American pulp illustrator Albert Dorne of Westport gathered together his buddies and honchos to create the Famous Artists School in 1948.

As a correspondence school, it used the cash of starry-eyed artists from Danbury to Duluth, the funding of the G.I. Bill of returning WWII vets, and the starappeal of America’s front cover artists such as Norman Rockwell, Westport’s own Stevan Dohanos, Austin Briggs, and many other celebrity illustrators.

It was one of those ‘only in America’ mail-order schemes that only the disciples of P.T. Barnum might have invented. As thousands of aspiring Rembrandts, Rubens and latter day Rockwells sent in their tuition checks,

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Cover Story 1.

2.

3.

1. RICHARD BURTON AND ELIZABETH TAYLOR, vintage contact sheet with publication markings,

by Bert Stern, guiding faculty, Famous Photographers School 2. FRANKLIN DELANO ROOSEVELT, December 8, 1941, The Signing of the Declaration of War, Original print from the Famous Photographers Archive, by Joseph Costa 3. MARILYN MONROE AS THEDA BARA, ‘THE VAMP’ for LIFE Magazine, by Richard Avedon guiding faculty, Famous Photographers School

a flurry of clutzy drawings and fumbling artworks fell out of manila envelopes.

The bored housewife from Topeka,or a disgruntled auto mechanic from Sioux Falls, and a naive art enthusiast from Boise, would follow along with lessons in handsomely cloth-bound manuals and ‘how to’ instructional programs. ‘Hey boys and girls’ --anyone remember maestro John Gnagy on TV Saturday mornings before Sky King?

Advertising the personalized instruction of its esteemed ‘Guiding Faculty’ – the artworks were actually scanned by a cadre of junior artists sequestered in IBM like cubicles tapping in “critiques” and “artist revisions” onto clunky, first-generation IBM computer terminals. Generic comments such as: “Too much shading” or “needs sharper perspectival lines”and “very good expression” were ingeniously coded into the print out instructional replies to wistfully awaiting students out there in God’s Country – what we call today the ‘fly over states.’ And the profits rolled in – big time becoming in 1960 a multi-million-dollar-a-year organization.

The former ‘Save the Children’ headquarters on Wilton Road back then looked more like the interior of the Internal Revenue Service regional auditing headquarters than some romantic vision of an artist’s garret on the Left Bank of Paris. On the Left Bank of Westport however, it was hardly a scene out of Puccini’s “La Boheme” with Marcello and Rodolfo critiquing each other’s painterly flourishes. It was a brilliantly conceived mail order factory – but unlike Harrigton’s hams or Harry & David’s pecan pies, they were selling the dreams of becoming an accomplished artist from afar.

The gig was up as word got out that the cookie cutter assembly line of instruction had flamboyantly promised too many gullible artists on penny matchbook covers that they showed promise as America’s next Winslow Homer or Andrew Wyeth. Clients complained to US Postal authorities about being hoodwinked into costly tuition payment schemes. Once the school’s financial guru ended up cooking the books, and the Famous Artists School – including its subsidiary Photography school – filed for Chapter XI bankruptcy.

Realizing they had a good thing going, more creative enterprises were born – giving rise to schools organized for writers, illustrators, cartoonists, and eventually

– the ten greatest photographers of that era were cobbled together to become the founding faculty for the Famous Photographers School.

Between 1962 and 1974 ten of America’s top photographers found their way to Westport. An all star crew was assembled for a now historic moment in time with ten ‘men in black’ photographed by Richard Avedon in a now iconic 1964 ‘Faculty Self Portrait.’ The ten hot shots include Arthur d’Arazien, Joseph Costa, Philippe Halsman, Harry Garfield, Irving Penn, Richard Avedon, Bert Stern, Ezra Stoller, Afred Eisenstaedt, and Richard Beattie.

What really matters at this point is the roster of photographs that Price has salvaged from the cobwebs. Richard Avedon was the king of Harper’s Bazaar and the genius who captured the psychedelic Beatles for LOOK magazine.

Alfred Eisenstaedt was dean of LIFE publishing more than 1,500 photos in its classic pages. Philippe Halsman might be the most revered portraitist of all time including his record 97 covers for LIFE, and the unforgettable Albert Einstein at Princeton shot of 1947. Joseph Costa captured FDR signing the War Declaration on December 8, 1941. Irving Penn was a pioneer of blurred, grainy imagery.

And not too shabby, let’s not forget Ezra Stoller who defined the style and mood of modern mid-century architecture. No wonder he was Frank Lloyd Wright’s favorite for his own sleekly portrayed buildings.

All great art – whether it be Michelangelo’s preparatory disgeni drawings in the Sistine Chapel campaign, Thomas Eakins’ anatomical studies, or the laboriously developed sketches of Edward Hopper – demonstrate the interactive process of mind, eye, hand and materials all in flux. The more we look – the more inadequate we feel in realizing our own limitations against these giants.

Ultimately, with this marvelously salvaged archive, we are offered a precious gift. Today – back out of obscurity – we gain unique access to the process of these outstanding photographers in their prime practicing a craft evolving from routine method into monuments of an unsurpassed artistic genius. In all but a ‘blink of the eye’ – these 10 masters left an indelible image on the history of photography. Now we can appreciate how Westport was the backdrop for their viewfinders.

“Famous Photographers School: A Photographic Archive Rediscovered” remains on view at The Artists’ Market, 163 Main Street, Norwalk, Connecticut. For more information call: (203) 846-2660 or visit: www.artistsmarket.com 52

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INDULGE: Motoring

Ferrari 599 GTB Fiorano HGTE The 599 GTB Fiorano is the F12’s immediate predecessor and in contract is drop-dead gorgeous, arguably the best looking front-engine Ferrari since the 275 GTB of 1964.

By Frank Anigbo

Y

ou’ve thought about it for years – buying a Ferrari, that is. You want a grown-up’s car, one with a traditional front-mounted V12 engine and seating for just two. The vintage cars don’t interest you. Most of the recent older models look dated. The newest GT – the F12 Berlinetta – is as good as a Ferrari gets but something about the looks of the thing just does not sit well with your refined sense of visual balance. Well then, there really is only one Ferrari for you: the 599 GTB Fiorano. And to make it a bit special without going overboard, let’s throw in the HGTE package.

Before I tell you why the 599 GTB is the better choice, I think I must explain

why Ferrari’s newer car, the F12 Berlinetta doesn’t work. It simply is not a good-looking car. From the front, its gaping mouth gives it the appearance of a cartoon shark, from the back it looks like it is wearing a diaper.

The 599 GTB Fiorano is the F12’s immediate predecessor and in contract is drop-dead gorgeous, arguably the best looking front-engine Ferrari since the 275 GTB of 1964. The 599 debuted in 2006 as a 2007 model, replacing the 575 M Maranello. The name came from a combination of its engine size of 5999 cc and the name Fiorano, Ferrari’s test track located near the factory in Maranello; the GTB part

of the name is an abbreviation for Gran Turismo Berlinetta which in English would be Grand Touring Coup.

The 599 GTB came in four principal variants. The original 2007 model-year car produced 612 horsepower with a curb weight of 3,712 lb., making it good for 3.5 seconds sprint from zero to 60 miles per hour. Ferrari offered an optional HGTE package to improve the standard car’s handling with modified suspension, a lowered ride height and special tires. In April 2010, Ferrari announced the 599 GTO which was a road version of yet another version, the 599XX car which was developed strictly for track use. Oh, there was one more addition

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INDULGE: Motoring

to the 599 line, the SA Aperta, a convertible of only 80 examples.

Production of the 599 GTB line ended with the 2013 model year.

Earlier this summer I had the good fortune to play with a 599 GTB Fiorano for a few hours. The occasion was a Ferrari Club of America road rally in the White Mountain region of Northern New Hampshire.

The car was a wild-liveried 599 GTB on a One Lap of North America tour in celebration of the Ferrari Club of America 50 th Anniversary. This particular car was equipped with the Handling Gran Turismo Evoluzione (HGTE) package, making it stiffer-sprung and edgier than a standard 599.

I had tested cars in this part of New Hampshire before, especially on a road named Bear Notch Road, a favorite of many sports car and motorcycle clubs. I decided to take the 599 GTB Fiorano HGTE to Bear Notch to get a good assessment of its capabilities – and have great fun doing it.

The 599 GTB Fiorano is a big car, but not so imposing as to be intimidating. Rather, its physical presence perfectly matches its confident design, penned by that great house of Italian automotive design, Pininfarina. This HGTE equipped car looked even meaner with its lowered stance and paint scheme, an orange base color with a black roof, swathes of silver along the rear and sides, sponsorship logos, and a bold

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American flag emblazoned on its expansive front hood. This was not a timid car, nor was it a car for the faint of heart.

Belted in, I turned the ignition key, then pushed the Engine Start button on the lower left side of the leather, alcantara and carbon fiber covered steering wheel, the 599’s big V12 burst into life with a roar before settling to a steady growl. I twisted the little red manettino on the right side of the wheel from SPORT to RACE and set the gearbox in manual mode. A tug at the right gear-change paddle selected first gear.

Before heading to Bear Notch Road, I decided to try out the raw power of the 599 on the nearby Interstate 93 highway.

With the oft-spoken words of my mechanic echoing in one ear: “drive it like you stole it!” and a second rather annoying voice in my other ear: “Don’t be the idiot who stuffed it!” I found an empty piece of highway and gently prodded the accelerator pedal, the 599 responded with a surge of speed accompanied by an increasingly urgent scream from its front-mid mounted six liter V12. I glanced down at the speedometer – “oh, dear! That’s quite enough for now!”

I quickly backed off.

The 599 is heart-stoppingly fast in a straight line and makes the most beautiful music doing so, a combination ferocious high-pitched shriek during hard acceleration, and angry barks and snaps on downshifts. And it felt more stable and hunkered down the faster I went. Now for the twisties, exactly the reason Ferrari developed the Handling Evoluzione package.

Bear Notch Road is a 9-mile, 2-lane ribbon of asphalt that cuts over a mountain from the Kancamangus Highway to the town of Bartlett, New Hampshire. It is also a wonderful series of fast and medium speed bends with two or three straights too short to reach top gear. Best of all, I had yet to come upon another car in the dozen or so times I had driven it.

You truly appreciate the handling dynamics of the 599 GTB on a smooth road with tons of corners that encourage using the quick-shifting F1-Superfast gearbox, the sticky Pirelli P-Zero tires and fade-free carbon ceramic brakes. While the standard 599 is taut yet comfortable, the HGTE equipped car is so stiffly-sprung to be spleen-jarring on uneven surfaces, but you appreciate its race-tuned suspension when you look down at the speedometer for an assessment of just how rapidly you are able to go around impossibly tight corners.

I knew Bear Notch Road well enough to hustle the 599 quicker than might have been prudent given that I had relaxed the electronic guards intended to keep the foolish from doing something, well, foolish.

I rushed sure-footedly from corner to corner, the rev indicator lights on the top face of the steering wheel flashing with frenetic urgency, the exhaust barking and crackling with each lift off the gas pedal, and that harsh kick in the backside every time I tugged at the up-shift lever to execute an 85 millisecond gear change followed by a bowel-emptying shriek. Faster than I had ever done it, I was through Bear Notch in a flash with the most entertaining and brilliant contemporary car I had ever driven.

With many flawless and very low mileage cars currently trading hands in the low two-hundreds, the Ferrari 599 GTB Fiorano HGTE is a bargain for what it is, especially when compared to its original $305,000 base price tag, or that of the newer F12 Berlinetta’s starting at $330,000. For my money, the 599 GTB it is. And hurry before newly minted enthusiasts from China and elsewhere come bargain hunting in America.

INDULGE: YACHTING

AZIMUT GRANDE 95 RPH A NEW RAISED PILOT HOUSE FOR THE BRAND AZIMUT YACHTS

I

ntroducing a new hull, new design, and innovative solutions for a vessel with many surprises in store. The Azimut Grande 95 RPH is part of the Grande collection, the line of 95’-120’ luxury yachts from the Italian shipyard.

The first brand new Azimut Grande 95 RPH is coming out in spring 2014; however, thanks to renderings, it is possible to preview some of the boatyard’s interesting

solutions that improve functionality without altering the style.

Foremost among the new features introduced by concept and exterior designer Stefano Righini is the raised wheelhouse.

The boat’s name - RPH - actually stands for Raised Pilot House, giving some indication of the importance of the decision to separate the wheelhouse from the main deck.

This is accomplished by creating a half deck

which gives the boatowner and guests more space and maximises privacy from the crew.

The designer has also managed to integrate the raised wheelhouse with the vessel’s hallmark exterior lines, retaining that special Azimut Grande family look.

Thanks to the raised wheelhouse, the Grande 95RPH has five cabins, four guest cabins on the lower deck and the boatowner’s cabin on the main deck towards the

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INDULGE: YACHTING

bow. The exceptional view and large bathroom make the boatowner cabin a veritable suite with an unparalleled sea view. There is also a liberating sense of space in the saloon; here, Righini has created a real sense of continuity between inside and outside, thanks in part to the double, floor-to-ceiling picture windows.

Another Azimut Grande trump card is without doubt the exceedingly spacious flybridge - awarded Best in Class; it includes a cushy exterior dinette that seats 10, a mini bar, Jacuzzi, and comfortable sunbathing area.

The layout sleeps 10 with the boatowner’s suite and four VIP cabins, each with a private bath; there is also a day head.

The four-member crew has three cabins and two baths to the bow, with separate access to the kitchen located on the main deck.

The luxurious and elegant interiors are

by Studio Salvagni Architetti for Azimut Yachts, a proven collaboration that has led to such successful models as Azimut 80, Azimut 84, and Azimut 88.

To the stern, there is a garage with a pivoting platform for a 4-metre tender jet; the engine room has two MTU 16V2000 M84 motors which, when combined with the planing hull with skeg, provides for significantly improved directional stability, enabling maximum speeds of 26.5 knots and cruising speeds of 20 knots. The 12,000-litre fuel tank and 2,000-litre water tank ensure great range, even for long crossings.

Despite being a vessel with an overall length of nearly 29 metres, the Grande 95 RPH falls within the 24-metre cut-off and therefore can be registered as a pleasure craft. In many countries around the world this is a distinction which offers the boa-

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towner serious advantages both in terms of crew management and administration, with significant savings in time and money. This is because pleasure crafts do not require a professional captain or engineer and have reduced crew requirements. In addition, the registration procedures are definitely simplified, with the corollary benefits for charter use: regulations are in conformance with MGN280 guidelines, MCA equivalent for under 24 metres.

The Grande 95 RPH is the Grande collection’s first model since it was incorporated into the Azimut Yachts family, now with five collections: Atlantis, Magellano, Flybridge, S and – of course - Grande.

Specifications: Length overall: 28.62 m (93’11’’) Beam overall: 6.94 m (22’9’) Draft (at full load): 2.05 m (6’9’’) Displacement (at full load): 110 t Engines: 2 x 2.200 mHP (1630 kW) MTU 16V2000 M84 Maximum speed (at half load): 26.5 knots Cruising speed (at half load): 20 knots Fuel capacity: 3,170 US gallons Water capacity: 528 US gallons Cabins: 5+3 crew Berths: 10+4 crew Head compartments: 6+2 crew Building material: VTR/GRP Keel deadrise: 7.6° AFT Builder: Azimut Yachts Exterior design and concept: Stefano Righini Interior design and concept: Studio Salvagni Architetti

by Matthew Sturtevant

INDULGE: Decorative ARts

On The Block:

OFF THE BLOCK. A DANCE TO REMEMBER. RIDE ON!

Off the Block In an odd turn of events for any auction house Sotheby’s London preemptively sold two magnificent works both painted in 1917 - Robert Falk’s Man in a Bowler Hat (Portrait of Yakov Kagan-Shabshai) and Petr Konchalovsky’s monumental Family Portrait in the Artist’s Studio – have sold privately to an important private Russian collector ahead of Sotheby’s Russian auctions next week. Falk’s masterpiece, an arresting portrait of one of the most important collectors of Jewish art of the early 20th century, sold for a price well in excess of the auction estimate that had been placed on the work (£2.5-3.5m), and many times the existing auction record for a work by the artist. The buyer of that painting also purchased Petr Konchalovsky’s Family Portrait in the Artist’s Studio for £4,674,500 – some four times the auction record for a work by the artist (£1,035,850). Both paintings were displayed after the sale for the normal viewing despite the sale. Jo Vickery, Senior Director and Head of Sotheby’s Russian Art Department in London, said: “The interest we saw in these two works before the auction, resulting in these extraordinary private sales, was unprecedented, demonstrating the enormous enthusiasm that exists in today’s market for truly great Russian

art. Important new benchmarks have now been set for two of Russia’s most significant artists, whose work is less known outside Russia and yet will surely be re-appraised as a result.”

Ride On! In what is being regarded as one of the most incredible collector car auctions of all time, RM Auctions and Sotheby’s Art of the Automobile sale yesterday achieved $62,797,500 of sales in just over two hours of bidding. The packed sale room saw records tumble across numerous lots, with top sale honors going to a 1964 Ferrari 250 LM, a wonderfully historic and original example of this very rare sports racing Ferrari, which sold for $14,300,000, establishing a new world record for the model at auction. Taking the number two spot was the simply gorgeous 1938 Talbot-Lago T150-C SS Teardrop Cabriolet by Figoni et Falaschi, commonly regarded as one of the most beautiful coach

built cars of all time, which sold for $7,150,000, also establishing a new world record for the model at auction. The 31 hand-picked automobiles, two motorcycles and seven pieces of artwork, offered at the Art of the Automobile sale, the first major collector car auction to take place in Manhattan for over a decade, presented over a century of stunning automotive history and design in a unique gallery setting at Sotheby’s New York headquarters. Demonstrating both RM and Sotheby’s international footprint, bidders hailed from 17 countries, 15 percent of whom represented clients who had never participated in an RM sale.

A Dance to Remember The Finale, an important bronze and ivory sculpture by Demetre Chiparus depicting a curtain call by dancers from The Ballet Russes was star of

the show as it was secured by a bidder on the telephone for £290,500 at Bonhams 20th Century Decorative Arts Sale yesterday (26th November).

Created circa 1928, the central male figure is thought to be modelled on Vaslav Nijinksky, star male ballet dancer at The Ballet Russes and lover to the company’s director. The Finale follows the great success of Chiparus sculptures at Bonhams including a study of Vaslav Nijinsky’s sister: Alméria, a dancing girl figure modelled on Bronislava Nijinska who was also a star ballerina at The Ballet Russes, sold for £265,250 in June of this year. An ivory and bronze sculpture by Demetre Chiparus of the Dolly Sisters, the legendary performing identical twins from the 1920s Jazz Age, sold for £277,250 in November 2012 bringing the total for the three Chiparus stage inspired sculptures to £833,000.

Mark Oliver, Director of Bonhams Decorative Arts Department commented: “We are delighted with yet another impressive price for a Chiparus sculpture in yesterday’s sale.

Chiparus has seen a recent flurry of International interest and this is demonstrated by the brilliant prices achieved at Bonhams for studies inspired

by The Ballet Russes and Paris stage performers; The Dolly Sisters, Alméria and now The Finale.”

Photographs: Courtesy of Christie’s Images Ltd, 2013 CONTEMPORARY CULTURE//MAGAZINE

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Gallery + Museum GUIDE

CT Bridgeport

City Lights Gallery 37 Markle Court, Bridgeport Tel: 203.334.7748 Web: citylightsgallery.org Hours: Wed-Fri 11:30am-5pm; Sat 12- 4pm, or by appointment City Lights Gallery presents local, regional and emerging artists to Bridgeport and its visitors. The gallery hosts various community-based exhibits and events such as: Artists’ Receptions, Arts/crafts classes, Open Studio Workshop, Lunch Time Art Demonstrations, Movie Night Series, Concerts and Music, Private and Corporate Rentals. ______________________________________ Housatonic Museum of Art 900 Lafayette Blvd., Bridgeport Tel: 203.332.5052 Web: hctc.commnet.edu/artmuseum Hours: June/July/August, Monday through Friday 8:30am-5:30pm; Thursday evening until 7pm The Museum has one of the most significant collections of any two-year college in the country and includes works by master artists such as Rodin, Picasso, Matisse, Miro and Chagall. Both art enthusiasts and casual observers have the rare opportunity to engage daily with original works of art and artifacts on continuous display throughout the College and campus grounds. The Museum also presents lectures, programs and changing exhibitions in the Burt Chernow Galleries for our students and the community at large, serving as a rich cultural resource for the Greater Bridgeport area. ______________________________________ Schelfhaudt Gallery University of Bridgeport 84 Iranistan Avenue, Bridgeport 203-576-4696 The Schelfhaudt Gallery at the University of Bridgeport produces a varied and eclectic number of shows each academic year. Exhibits include works from students, alumni, local, regional and nationally known artists and associations such as the New York Type Directors. The Schelfhaudt Gallery is also host to the Innovators Entrepreneurs events, film screenings and multiple symposiums.

DARien Geary Gallery 576 Boston Post Road, Darien Tel: 203.655.6633 Web: gearygallery.com.

Hours: Wed-Sat 9:30-5pm The Geary Gallery is well-known as a preeminent Fairfield County gallery for representational art. Its proprietors, Tom and Anne Geary, are more than art dealers. They are friends to artists, spotting talent and market appeal, and nurturing careers, with a lively schedule of art exhibits that rotate approximately every five weeks. They feature both Connecticut-based artists with national reputations and well-known artists from along the eastern seaboard.

Fairfield Fairfield University 1073 N. Benson Road Tel: (203) 254-4046 or 4062 Bellarmine Museum of Art (Bellarmine Hall) In the Wake of the Butterfly: James McNeill Whistler and His Circle in Venice January 23 – April 4, 2014 Hours: Monday-Friday, 9:30-4:30 www.fairfield.edu/museum Thomas J. Walsh Art Gallery (Quick Center) Reflections and Undercurrents: Ernest Roth and Printmaking in Venice, 1900-1940 January 23 – April 4, 2014 Hours: Tuesday-Saturday, 11:00-5:00 www.fairfield.edu/walshgallery _______________________________________ Southport Galleries 330 Pequot Avenue Tel: 203.292.6124 Web: southportgalleries.com Connecticut’s finest new art gallery is a century-old ‘worn with time’ historic space nestled within Southport’s picturesque village. Presenting a selection of enduring American Masters and exciting Contemporary artists, we invite new clients and seasoned connoisseurs to explore the values of fine art collecting. _______________________________________ Troy Fine Art 3310 Post Road, Southport (Fairfield) Tel: 203.255 .1555 Web: troyfineart.com Hours: Mon-Fri 9:30am to 5pm, or by appointment in your home or office at your convenience.

The Fairfield Museum + History Center Explore the Past, Imagine the Future 370 Beach Road, Fairfield Tel: 203.259.1598 Fax: 203.255.2716 Web: fairfieldhistory.org Hours: Mon-Fri 10-4; Sat-Sun 12-4 Believing in the power of history to inspire the imagination, stimulate thought and transform society.

EXHIBIT: A new, interactive exhibition that looks at how people worked and lived in Fairfield and the region over the past 400 years. Now on view

Greenwich Bruce Museum 1 Museum Drive, Greenwich Tel: 203.869.0376 Web: brucemuseum.org Hours: Tue-Sat 10-5; Sun 1-5; Closed on Mondays and major holidays Consistently voted the “Best Museum” by area media, the Bruce Museum is a regionally based, world-class institution highlighting art, science and natural history in more than a dozen changing exhibitions annually. The permanent galleries feature the natural sciences that encompass regional to global perspectives. _______________________________________ Samuel Owen Gallery 382 Greenwich Avenue, Greenwich Tel: 203.422.6500 Web: samuelowengallery.com Hours: Mon-Sat 10:30-6:00; Sun 11-3; Likened to “a little bit Chelsea on lower Greenwich Avenue, Samuel Owen Gallery specializes in paintings, photography and prints by American and European midcareer and contemporary artists. Regularly scheduled artist receptions fill the gallery to capacity with a colorful crowd.

Fine Art Gallery, Exceptional Design, Conservation Framing, Perfect Installation. _______________________________________

Red Carpet, Antoine Rose, lambda print face mounted on Diasec, 39" x 52"

_______________________________________ _______________________________________

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Gallery + Museum GUIDE

F eat u red G alleries , M u se u ms & C reative S ervices

To be included in the Gallery & Museum Guide call: 1.203.333.7300 or email us at advertising@venumagazine.com

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Gallery + Museum GUIDE

New Canaan

New Haven

Butler Fine Art 134 Elm Street, New Canaan Tel: 203.966.2274 Fax: 203.966.4694 Web: butlerfineart.com Hours: Tue-Sat 10-5pm or by appt.

Fred Giampietro 315 Peck Street New Haven, CT 06513 Tel: 203.777.7760 Web: www.giampietrogallery.com Hours:Tue-Fri 10-4pm, Sat 11-4pm

Located on Elm Street in the center of town, Butler Fine Art specializes in 19th and early 20th century American paintings.

Paintings are available for serious buyers as well as beginner collectors. The gallery hosts three to four shows per year. _______________________________________ Handwright Gallery & Framing 93 Main Street, New Canaan Tel: 203.966.7660 Fax: 203.966.7663 Web: handwrightgallery.com Hours: Mon-Sat 10-5:30pm Handwright Gallery & Framing provides a full range of framing and installation services for the Fairfield County area. The gallery offers original paintings including watercolors, oils, and pastels along with sculpture from traditional to contemporary.

Our gallery represents emerging and award-winning regional artists. _______________________________________

January 24 – February 22: Lucy Mink “it’s got me, it’s got you” and Farrell Brickhouse “Wishes, Prayers, and Offerings”. Works in the office by Becca Lowry. Opening Reception, Friday, January 24th, 5-8pm.

Fine examples of American Folk Art also available for view.

91 Orange Street New Haven, CT 06511 Tel: 203.777.7707 Hours: Wed – Sa 11-6 January 10 – March 1: Works by Don Voisine. Opening Reception, Friday, January 10th, 6-8pm.

Silvermine Arts Center 1037 Silvermine Road, New Canaan Tel: 203.966.9700 Web: silvermineart.org Hours: Wed-Sat 12-5pm; Sun 1-5pm Exhibition November 2 - December 23 Guild Group Show “Works On Paper” curated by Suzanne Jilig, a NYC private art advisor with over 25 years in the art field. _______________________________________

Lucy Mink, Awake, 2013 Oil on linen, 14" x 16"

CONTEMPORARY CULTURE//MAGAZINE

Old Lyme Chauncey Stillman Gallery Lyme Academy College of Fine Arts 84 Lyme Street, Old Lyme Tel: 860.434.5232 Fax: 860.434.8725 Web: lymeacademy.edu Hours: Mon-Sat 10-4pm

Florence Griswold Museum 96 Lyme Street, Old Lyme Tel: 860.434.5542 For hours, admission, special events visit: www.FlorenceGriswoldMuseum.org “Home of American Impressionism.”

Historic boardinghouse of the Lyme Art Colony, modern gallery with changing exhibitions. Gardens and grounds to enjoy.

Ridgefield

Don Voisine, Keyhole, 2011 Oil on wood panel, 12" x 12"

Norwalk Artists’ Market 163 Main Street, Norwalk Tel: 203.846.2550 Fax: 203.846.2660 Web: artistsmarket.com Hours: Mon-Sat 9-5pm; Thu 9-8pm; Sun 12-4pm Artists’ Market is an oasis of art, an exciting blend of a gallery, a museum, and a busy framing workshop. Here you’ll find artistic creations in a variety of media: classic contemporary handmade American crafts, exquisite fine art and photography as well as custom framing for those who want to show off something special or preserve heirlooms for future generations.

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Dedicated to the art of the original print, the Center annually hosts 4 major exhibitions, a members’ exhibition, artist talks, over 75 printmaking workshops, and programs for schools and colleges. Print studio rental is available for private and corporate functions and to members who work independently. There are some non-paying volunteer/internship positions.

The MONOTHON fundraiser, an annual marathon of printmaking and a gala art auction, takes place in the fall.

Exhibitions, free and open to the public, include a broad spectrum of professional, student and alumni artwork throughout the year. Selected Student Work is on display through 8/24/13. _______________________________________

Heather Gaudio Fine Art 21 South Avenue, New Canaan Tel: 203.801.9590 Fax: 203.801.9580 Web:heathergaudiofineart.com Hours: Tue-Sat 11am-5pm or by appt.

Heather Gaudio Fine Art specializes in both emerging and established artists, offering works on paper, photography, painting and sculpture. The gallery offers a full range of art advisory services, from forming and maintaining a collection to framing and installation. The focus is on each individual client, selecting art that best serves his or her vision, space, and resources. Offering five shows a year, the exhibitions are designed to showcase important talent and provide artwork appealing to a broad range of interests. _______________________________________

Center for Contemporary Printmaking Mathews Park 299 West Avenue Norwalk, CT 06850 Tel: 203.899.7999 Web: contemprints.org Hours: Mon-Sat 9am-5pm; Sun 12- 5pm | Admission Free

The Aldrich Contemporary Art Museum 258 Main Street Tel: 203.438.4519 Web: aldrichart.org Hours: Tue-Sun 12-5pm The Aldrich is dedicated to fostering innovative artists whose ideas and interpretations of the world around us serve as a platform to encourage creative thinking.

The Aldrich, which served an audience of over 37,700 in 2011, is one of the few independent, non-collecting contemporary art museums in the United States, and the only museum in Connecticut devoted to contemporary art. _______________________________________

Gallery + Museum GUIDE

F eat u red G alleries , M u se u ms & C reative S ervices

To be included in the Gallery & Museum Guide call: 1.203.333.7300 or email us at advertising@venumagazine.com

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Gallery + Museum GUIDE

Ridgefield Ridgefield Guild of Artists 93 Halpin Lane, Ridgefield Tel: 203.438.8863 Web: rgoa.com Email: rgoa@sbcglobal.net Hours: Wed-Sun 12-4pm For a complete calendar of events and offerings, please visit our web site at www.rgoa.org. _______________________________________ Watershed Gallery 23 Governor Street, Ridgefield Tel: 203.438.44387 Web: watershedgallery.com Hours: Tue-Fri 11-6; Sat 11-5; Sun 1-5 Watershed Gallery represents artists from around the world – and around the corner – in a range of media, from painting, printmaking and works on paper, to photography and sculpture. Rotating shows highlight artists who produce abstract and loosely representational art, and who create an emotional connection with the viewer.

Westport Amy Simon Fine Art 1869 Post Road East, Westport Tel: 203.259.1500 Fax: 203.259.1501 Web: amysimonfineart.com Hours: Tue-Sat 11-5:30 and by appt.

Amy Simon has extensive experience in the field of contemporary art. After years of working at the Metropolitan Museum of Art, Guggenheim Museum and Marlborough Gallery, she became a private dealer in New York and Connecticut. The gallery specializes in work by mid-career and emerging artists, contemporary blue chip editions and Asian contemporary art. The gallery’s inventory and exhibitions reflect its eclectic interests and expertise in these areas. Amy Simon works with collectors worldwide. It is our mission to introduce clients to work that we are passionate about. _______________________________________ Nuartlink Gallery 19 Post Road East, Westport Tel: 203.858.2067 Web: nuartlink.com Hours: Wed-Sat 11-6 and by appt.

Nuartlink gallery focuses on contemporary art providing exposure to emerging and established artists. _______________________________________

Westport Art Center 51 Riverside Avenue, Westport Tel: 203.222.7070 Fax: 203.222.7999 Web: westportartscenter.org Hours: Mon-Fri 10-4; Sat 10-5; Sun 12-4 Curated by Helen Klisser During, “Bird’sEye View” features major contemporary artworks that depict real or imagined landscape from an aerial perspective. From the Andrew and Christine Hall Collection. _______________________________________ Westport River Gallery 1 Riverside Avenue, Westport Tel: 203.226.6934 Web: westportrivergallery.com Hours: Wed-Fri 11-4; Sat 11-5; Sun 12-4, or by appointment We offer the best in distinctive European, American & Asian fine art, working with all levels of art collectors, corporate clients and decorators. Artists are selected based on reputation, credentials, style, distinctions. Styles include impressionistic, realistic, abstract & modern. Your hosts are Ken & Pat Warren. _______________________________________

NY

New RochellEEe transFORM Gallery 20 Jones Street Tel: 914.500.1000 Web: www.transformgallery.com Hours: Mon-Fri 9am-6pm, Sat 10am-4pm Housed in a former industrial factory more than six decades old, the transFORM Gallery boasts high ceilings, original windows that drink the natural light, and a spacious lofty quality. Exhibitions organized by transFORM have encompassed all the visual arts: painting, sculpture, drawing, photography, and, of course, the decorative arts.

Pound Ridge The Lionheart Gallery 27 Westchester Avenue Scotts Corners, Pound Ridge Tel: 914.764.8689 Web: thelionheartgallery.com Hours: By Appt. or Wed-Sun 11am-5pm The Lionheart Gallery presents top drawer contemporary art with the sophistication of a Chelsea gallery in a charming country setting. Currently exhibiting Intimacy, Oil and egg tempera narrative paintings by Betsy Podlach. Art Installation drawings for funding of Public Art Installation, Butterflies of Memory by Kathleen Griffin and Photogravures by Massimo Marinucci. Upcoming late February exhibition John Shearer photography.

Larchmont Kenise Barnes Fine Art 1947 Palmer Avenue Tel: 914.834.8077 Web: www.kbfa.com Hours: Wed-Sun 12-6pm

The gallery mounts seven exhibitions annually in our gallery space in Larchmont, NY as well as curating shows for art centers, museums, institutional art galleries and corporate spaces. We are a gallery and consulting firm that represents emerging and mid-career investment-quality artists. Our program includes over thirty artists working in a variety of mediums. The gallery mounts seven exhibitions annually, and participates in art fairs in Miami, Santa Fe and New York. _______________________________________

Betsy Podlach, Woman Swimming, 2013 Oil and egg tempra, 47" x 47"

Purchase Neuberger Museum of Art 735 Anderson Hill Road, Purchase Tel: 914.251.6100 Web: neuberger.org Hours: Tue-Sun 12-5pm; Closed Mondays and Holidays. Admission: Adults $5, Students $3, Seniors (62+) $3.

Westchester County’s premier museum of modern, contemporary, and African art and an integral part of Purchase College. From the mid-century American art and African art that form the core of the collection to the presentation of about ten changing exhibitions each year that range from retrospectives of the work of one artist to thematic surveys of contemporary art to newly-commissioned artist projects, we continue the commitment of founding patron Roy R. Neuberger (1903-2010) by championing the art of our time.

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PULSE

Music The Debut of Tati Ana Set to release self-titled EP in Early 2014

By Bryce Hunter

W

ith a voice that is hauntingly beautiful and an enigmatic sound that is accompanied with gorgeously layered harmonies, the debut of Moscow-born TATI ANA stands out as a distinct and powerful musical force to be reckoned with. Heavily inspired by the hard evocative rock of Pink Floyd and the grand theatrical quality of Queen, this Russian vocal powerhouse is ready to entrance audiences upon first listen with her new music off of her forthcoming EP release due out in early 2014.

TATI ANA is an ambitious new project headed by the classically trained Tatiana Kochkareva, who’s been developing her songstress skills over the years and has been building upon her classical musical background that began in her native homeland, Russia. Recognized at a very young age for her undeniable talent, she began to take music seriously when she was awarded a full scholarship to study jazz at the University of Miami – at the tender age of 16. As Kochkareva describes her experience,

Photo: Michael George

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“At the audition, I was snatched up by one of the vocal professors because I had a very low voice, which is rare, and she started giving me lessons.

Then I was accepted to the University of Miami.

I was 16 and they offered me a full ride, so that set it in stone and off I went to the USA.” Having studied with Irina Vladimirovna, a student of the great Russian composer Dmitri Shostakovich, it’s no wonder that Brooklyn Academy of Music calls Tatiana Kochkareva’s voice as one that “eschews indie preciousness for richer timbres, bringing a worldly depth to songs about everything from personal triumph and tragedy to social graces and dreams.”

Since her classical training days, the brilliant Kochkareva has come a long way from Moscow to Miami to focus on her music career in New York City. Having already put out two EPs (Dreamers in 2009, Roses in 2010) and two full-length albums (Moments in 2008, and Infinity in 2012), Kochkareva has already garnered attention from the likes of AOLmusic, PureVolume, The Deli NYC, Blurt Magazine, No Depression and more local press. Clearly building on her extensive classical background and developing her sound as an indie darling in the local New York music scene, Kochkareva has also been featured on the likes of WNYC’s Battle of the Bands, BAM’s BAMcafe series, SXSW, CMJ, BalconyTV, as well as being broadcast on national television in Russia.

Armed with her classical training and acclaimed previous work, Kochkareva is ready to debut her new work under the moniker, TATI ANA, which conjures the same amount of mystery as the dark depths of her sound.

TATI ANA features Tatiana Kochkareva (keys, voice, computer) with Spencer Cohen (drums), and Jeff Berner (guitar, drum programming, engineering, co-producing on the recordings).

“Four Walls,” is a powerful track that starts off in a subtle manner and plateaus, lyrically and musically creating a sense of you being motionless with layering and the looping of the lyric “tear them away” to create a profound effect on the listener. Kochkareva describes the more traditionally structured track “Cold Water” as “bringing something from the past, but putting it into modern form.” “The Tower,” more than any other song, is the one where

Photo: Jeffrey Goritz

Armed with her classical training and acclaimed previous work, Kochkareva is ready to debut her new work under the moniker, TATI ANA, which conjures the same amount of mystery as the dark depths of her sound.

Kochkareva hopes the audience will pay attention to the lyrics as she juxtaposes cynical lyricism with an upbeat tempo and frantic beat.

The track “Dark Moon” is heavily inspired by Bulgarian Folk Choir recordings, and features tight harmonies and jazz inspirations that Kochkareva connected with: “In terms of instrumentation, I was trying to portray my visual impression of the moon into music, a glistening, lurking and enigmatic sound.” Finally, “Let it Go,” embraces the dark, synthy timbres in Kochkareva’s voice and creates a contrastingly harmonious track that is both raw and polished. The song escalates by the end, but ends abruptly leaving the listener wanting to hear more.

The stunning new music from TATI ANA is strikingly complex and features intricate arrangements, pulling from Tatiana Kochkareva’s classical training and background while at the same time creating a new ethereal and visceral sound all her own.

Photo: Jeffrey Goritz

PULSE

Art The Idyllic Landscape: Brutalist Architecture

By Will Laughlin

Thirty years after her graduation, artist Julie Langsam is returning to Purchase College, this time for an exhibition of her work on the campus that influenced her formative years as a painter.

I

n anticipation of her exhibition opening February 17 at the Richard and Dolly Maas Gallery at SUNY Purchase, Langsam has been excitedly re-examining the last fifteen years of her work. “I began to realize how much of my time at Purchase really formed my way of thinking as an artist,” Langsam explains.

“The idyllic landscape there and my first real introduction to Brutalist architecture – it was hugely informative as to how I think about art and the space of painting.”

Edward Larrabee Barnes’ vision for the Purchase campus called for “a city within the country.” The concept of a beacon of progress, exemplified by modernist brick structures perched upon the horizon and visible across an empty field, is uncannily echoed in Lang-

sam’s paintings. For the last 15 years, she has investigated images of architecture, the mythos of the Romantic sublime, and the legacy of Post-War Abstraction. Her exhibition is a selfexamination of how these formal and conceptual frameworks guide her practice and have taken shape since her time at the college.

When Langsam arrived at Purchase in 1979, Governor Nelson Rockefeller’s “jewel”1 of the SUNY system was largely complete, and his vision, alongside Barnes’ master building plans, was among the first public university campuses to situate conservatories of visual art, music, and theater together to encourage a natural interdisciplinary conversation to develop between students. However, Langsam is quick to recall that her arrival to this “dream campus” almost never happened. Under parental pressure she had applied to all architectural programs and only one art school. As the acceptance letters began to arrive, she hid them from her parents until the letter from Purchase’s School of Art and Design was delivered, telling her parents it was the only school that had accepted her. The Purchase campus had been formed in the latesixties and early seventies in the aftermath of the Kent State riots. The lore among Langsam’s

Prouve Landscape (Maison du Pueple), 2013, Charcoal on paper, 51.5" x 84"

Gropius Landscape (Director’s Residence) 2012 Oil on canvas , 42" x 42"

peers was that each building on campus was connected through underground tunnels to ensure that students would be prevented from taking over and occupying any building during a protest. This kind of suppressive infrastructure supported the material foundation for Langsam’s startling realization: “You’re on this huge estate and all of a sudden you’re surrounded by these big brick buildings,” all rigid angles and blocklike plans, “but on the mall there was a Henry Moore sculpture, which was the only organic form next to all of this brick, and I remember it being really shocking.”

That brassy Modern sculpture sitting isolated among an empty plaza of brick had clearly made a lasting impression. Beginning in 1998, her paintings have consisted of a rigid, tripartite structure: lone, iconic Modernist structure; melodramatic skyscape harkening back to Hudson River School painters such as Frederic Edwin Church and Thomas Cole; flat, graphic abstraction. This was a structure that Langsam developed after she moved to Cleveland, Ohio (where she taught for 13 years at the Cleveland Institute of Art before recently returning to the east coast to teach at the Mason Gross School of the Arts, Rutgers University in New Jersey).

Upon arrival Langsam’s anticipated stereotypical idea of the Midwest proved false: “I thought everything was going to be completely flat.

I thought Ohio was going to be like Iowa.” >

1. Paul Goldberger, “Architecture: SUNY Purchase Campus Reflects Design Innocence of the ‘60’s,” The New York Times, 21 March, 1981

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GHOSTLY PRESENCE Above: akin to the fingerprints of Michelangelo recently discovered with the cleaning of the Sistine Ceiling – a window pane with a perfectly signed “Winslow” is etched into the glass.

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“Julie Langsam”

February 17-March 21, 2014 Richard & Dolly Maass Gallery Purchase College, State University of New York School of Art+Design, Visual Arts Building 735 Anderson Hill Road, Purchase, NY 10577

Opening Reception: February 20, 4:30 -7pm

Le Corbusier Landscape (Villa Stein), 2011, Oil on canvas, 72" x 96"

2

3

Neutra Floorplan: Von Sternberg House, Color Determined by Chance, 2013, Watercolor on paper, 8.5"x 11"

In her most recent paintings, the severity of the horizon has been exhaustively investigated by playing with the scale of the buildings depicted.

Against the unnaturally lush, hyper-real skies, Langsam renders these icons of early Modernist architecture (by heavyweights such as Le Corbusier, Mies van der Rohe, and Walter Gropius, among others) in monochromatic tones of black, white and gray, making them appear both diminutive and detached from the space they are in. As the work developed and became more

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complicated, the lower register began to be filled with her “interpretations” of paintings by polemic painters such as Barnett Newman and Ad Reinhardt, whose “black” paintings remain notorious in their near-impossibility to be reproduced in print. Beyond existing as exercises in futility, the coexistence of these three recurring elements acknowledge that many promises of Modernism were left unfulfilled -- remaining essentially propagandistic and inherently flawed by lack of any sense of messy humanness.

This interest in the collapse of painterly and conceptual space, alongside the permeable boundary between representation and abstraction, has driven Langam’s practice and has become especially apparent in recent works examining blueprints and floor plans of previously mined sources. “I’ve never been able to fully commit to representation or abstraction--- I’m not sure where one ends or one begins,” she explains.

“In a weird way, these are actually the most representational paintings I’ve made… I don’t see them as flat; when I look at them I see the threedimensionality and the volume of the building.”

With a laugh she is quick to admit, “At the same time I could never be a sculptor!” For Langsam, there is much affinity between the paintings on canvas and those directly on the wall. The surface and conceptual tension apparent in each demonstrates a continued confrontation with the residue of Abstract Expressionism.

Simultaneously, the negotiation between intuition and rational determination has driven Langsam’s conceptual insights and has been further examined in the coloration of the floor plan watercolors. After the plan of a building is drawn

by Langsam from archived blueprints, the color forms are determined randomly by shuffling a large deck of hardware store paint swatches: a chip is pulled, the form is painted, and the process is repeated as the plan fills with color.

This calls to mind Ellsworth Kelly’s studies in the chance placement of gridded color, eventually leading to “Colors for a Large Wall” in 1951, and John Cage’s experiments with the I-Ching.

Langsam herself cites Mel Bochner’s works from the early Seventies: self-determining sculptural arrangements of stones and matchsticks, which end up diagramming the logic by which they are arranged, as extremely influential.

Reflecting on her return to the place where she began her artistic career, Langsam mused, ”I could really call this show Revisiting Paradise, because when you’re thirty years out, who wouldn’t want to go back to art school?”

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PULSE

Theater Singing, Soaring and Slinging Webs

By William Squier

Meet Broadway’s Newest Spiderman: Justin Matthew Sargent

T

his past September, Justin Matthew Sargent became the second leading man to squeeze into Peter Parker’s webbed bodysuit in Spiderman: Turn Off the Dark, the megarock-musical-extravaganza that’s frequently been in the headlines (and late-night comedian’s punchlines) since it started production in 2009.

But, Stewart becoming a rising, young, Broadway star is all the more remarkable when you consider how quickly it happened. Only 14 years

ago he stepped onto the stage for the first time when, as a teenager, he snagged the plum role of the Artful Dodger in a community theater production of Oliver in his hometown of New Port Richey on the Gulf Coast of Florida. From then on, Sargent went from one musical to next while a student at Mitchell High School, the University of Central Florida and, after he graduated, at regional theaters like the Orlando Repertory and Seaside Music Theater. Then, he headed north after acing an American Idol-style “cattle call” for agents from New York City. Seven months later, Sargent joined the cast of jukebox hit Rock of Ages. Broadway theaters have been home ever since, including a short stay at the flop musical Bonnie and Clyde and, now, wailing songs writ-

Photo: Jenny Anderson

Reeve Carney hands over the Spidey mask to Justin Sargent

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ten by U2’s Bono and The Edge at Spiderman.

Not bad for a kid whose parents thought he was tone deaf!

VENÜ: Is it true that your mom and dad didn’t like your voice?

JMS: “They used to hate it! When I was a kid, we be driving along and my parents would be listening to The Who or The Beatles. I’d sing along and they’d beg me to stop!”

VENÜ: But, that changed when you did Oliver and switched to show tunes?

JMS: “It did. That’s when my parents realized that this was something that I could do and they’ve been supportive ever since. I was a new kid in town, just about to go into high school and didn’t have many friends. My eighth grade English teacher said I should check out the community theater to meet people. I’d never had any interest in the theater before. But, I auditioned, they picked me to play the Artful Dodger and that’s when I got hooked. I was already wondering what I was going to do when I grew up. After my second or third show I thought, ‘I could see myself doing this.”

VENÜ: And now you’re the star of a big Broadway musical. How did you catch the attention of the New York casting people?

JMS: “I did a production of The Rocky Horror Picture Show at the University of Central Florida, playing the character of Riff Raff. We did an underground grunge rock version, so they let me cut loose and do whatever I wanted. In the movie Riff Raff has a hunchback, but I decided instead to have a clubfoot and limp around the stage. And I made him a little more sexually ambiguous.

Imagine a creepier, wilder Edward Scissorhands.

Video of the show ended up online. Then, I was contacted by Universal Studios [theme park in Orlando, FL,] because they were doing Rocky Horror for their annual Halloween Horror Night.

That was my first paid, professional job performing in musical theater. Those videos ended up online as well. Telsey & Company [casting agency] came down to Orlando during their countrywide search for Peter Parker. I was the 181st person to audition. They kept coming into the room where we were waiting to say, ‘Please don’t sing

“I’d never had any interest in the theater before.

I auditioned, they picked me to play the Artful Dodger and that’s when I got hooked. I was already wondering what I was going to do when I grew up.

After my second or third show I thought, ‘I could see myself doing this.” musical theater songs. We only want to hear rock and roll.’ So, I sang a U2 song. And they had this moment of revelation and said, ‘You’re the first person out of 181 people to sing a U2 song!”

VENÜ: For a musical written by Bono and The Edge?

JMS: “I think that before I even started singing I was in for a callback. Then, they asked me to fly to New York where I got to audition for Julie Taymor. It went really well. But, I was just out of college and totally green. Afterward, Bernard Telsey walked me out and asked if I had plans to move to New York. I said, ‘Yeah.’ And he said, ‘You definitely should.’ So, I packed up and six months later we were in New York.”

Island, I was driving along and I see this guy, all dressed in black with long curly blonde hair, walking down the side of this back country road.

It was Dee Synder! He was helping out a friend with a garage sale!”

VENÜ: And then, Spiderman happened.

Weren’t you originally hired to alternate with Reeve Carney?

JMS: “Actually, I never started performances.

Two weeks after I accepted the alternate, Reeve handed in his notice. I was on my honeymoon, came back, rehearsed for another week and did my first performance as Peter Parker the next Monday.”

VENÜ: Did you have any trouble relating to a high school misfit like Peter Parker?

JMS: “It was pretty easy thing for me to tap into. When I was in high school I weighted a hundred pounds more than I do now. So, I was definitely not part of the good-looking, athletic crowd.”

VENÜ: But now, aside from the acting and singing, you have to do a number of physical stunts and flying. What goes into training for such a demanding role?

JMS: “You take a flexibility and balance course

that concentrates on all the little muscles in your feet and how to find your balance quickly.

There’s one number, “Bouncing Off the Walls,” where you’re just strapped in, singing the song upside down and literally bouncing off the walls. In another, the Arachne character and I do this seductive pas des duex twenty feet in the air.

VENÜ: And then you soar over the heads of the audience in the finale. What did it feel like to do that for the first time?

JMS: ‘It’s wild. You think about all kinds of things like checking your restraints and making sure you’re not going too fast or too slow. But, once you hear the music, see the lights and the audience in front of you, it’s easy to get sucked into the world.”

VENÜ: What’s next?”

JMS: “I’d really like to originate a role. I love doing readings of new shows to create new characters. A good friend, Tony LePage, and I wrote a musical with Graham Russell of Air Supply called Lost In Love. The score is mostly their hits and Graham wrote a couple of new songs for the show. We had our first reading and it went really well. So, we’re going to see what the next step is.”

Photo: Jenny Anderson

VENÜ: The move paid off pretty quickly when you were hired for Rock of Ages.

JMS: “Seven months after I got here I was understudying Constantine Maroulis. It was kind of unbelievable. They were actually looking for people for the tour. Then the cover on Broadway decided to leave the show. It was a strange, emotional time in my life. A good friend from college died at 26 years old. The day that I found out that he’d passed away and flew home, they called and asked if would I like to do the Broadway show instead of the tour. It was a huge, mixed bag of emotions.”

VENÜ: What was it like meeting and working with rock legend Dee Synder?

JMS: “Of course, I was a huge fan of Twisted Sister. Dee had just started in the show, too, so we really connected. He’s an amazing person, a great human being and a beacon of positivity.

Dee brought me up to his dressing room one day and said, ‘I see great things for your future. And I’ve seen you with your girlfriend. You’re really good together. She’s going to be the one to stick by you. I’ve been married since I was 18. My wife has always been there for me.’ It was the sweetest conversation to have with this amazing rock icon!”

VENÜ: And you recently got married to that same girlfriend?

JMS: “Two months ago. On my way to the wedding rehearsal dinner, in the middle of Long

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Film + Entertainment

Fox on Film

& Entertainment

by PETER FOX: about.me/foxonfilm

Left to right: Ralph Fiennes as Charles Dickens and Felicity Jones as Nelly Ternan. Photo by David Appleby, Courtesy of Sony Pictures Classics.

“The Invisible Woman” A Sony Pictures Classics release, 111 minutes. Directed by Ralph Fiennes. Starring Ralph Fiennes, Felicity Jones, Kristin Scott Thomas, Tom Hollander, Joanna Scanlan. Written for the screen by Abi Morgan.

Rating:

T

his film is a gripping, biographical drama that will certainly be a top contender this Oscar season in multiple categories. Director Ralph Fiennes, who also stars in the film, masterfully navigates the story from both sides of the lens. The narrative explores the “whispered” relationship Charles Dickens maintained with a much younger woman over the last 13 years of his life. A career high point for Ralph Fiennes as both actor and director, this unfussy and emotionally penetrating work also provides lead actress Felicity Jones with the prime role in which she abundantly fulfills the promise suggested in some of her earlier small

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films. After high-profile festival exposure in Telluride, Toronto and New York, this looks like ideal fare for Sony Classics to push toward a warm audience

embrace in specialized release beginning in December.

Not at all a starchy and decorous tradition of quality affair, the film has a lived-in feel

that is informed by Fiennes, in both his artistic capacities, with the gusto, energy and turbulence one associates with Dickens himself. Working with an intelligent and shrewdly structured script by Abi Morgan (Shame, The Iron Lady), Fiennes quickly establishes the vastness of the great author’s world—his artistic eminence, popularity as both a writer and public speaker, father of ten, tireless worker on behalf of society’s destitute—as well as his Victorian-era reticence to embark upon an extra-marital affair despite his now empty marriage to a wife who can’t begin to keep up with him physically or intellectually; as he tellingly remarks on one of his vigorous country hikes (a line repeated later in her life by his mistress), “I walk at quite a pace.”

Nelly (Felicity Jones), a happily-married mother and schoolteacher, is haunted by her past. Her memories, provoked by remorse and guilt, take us back in time to follow the story of her relationship with Charles Dickens (Ralph Fiennes) with whom she discovered an exciting but fragile complicity.

Dickens – famous, controlling and emotionally isolated within his success – falls for Nelly, who comes from a family of actors. The theatre is a vital arena for Dickens – a brilliant amateur actor – a man more emotionally coherent on the page or on stage, than in life.

As Nelly becomes the focus of Dickens’ passion and his muse, for both of them secrecy is the price, and for Nelly a life of “invisibility”…

Margate, England 1885, a woman strides across a deserted beach. Isolated against the sea and sky she walks as if Left to right: Perdita Weeks as Maria Ternan, Amanda Hale as Fanny Ternan, Felicity Jones as Nelly Ternan and Kristin Scott Thomas as Mrs. Ternan. Photo by David Appleby, Courtesy of Sony Pictures Classics.

to forget, as if her life depends on it. In a school hall a group of young boys and Reverend William Benham (John Kavanagh) are waiting for her to return.

They are rehearsing a production of a play called No Thoroughfare: A Drama in Five Acts written by Dickens and Wilkie Collins. The woman is Nelly Wharton Robinson (Felicity Jones), the wife of the school’s headmaster George Wharton Robinson (Tom Burke). For Nelly, the rehearsals are igniting memories of a lost life, one that is still haunting her. Her distracted mood has caught the attention of the kindly Benham, a Dickens enthusiast.

His gentle questioning nudges her thoughts back to the past when her life was changed by meeting Charles Dickens.

Nelly, then Ellen Ternan, is 18-years old and is performing with her mother, Mrs. Ternan (Kristin Scott Thomas), and sister Maria (Perdita Weeks), in Dickens’ adaptation of his friend Wilkie Collins’ (Tom Hollander) play, The Frozen Deep.

With the eldest daughter Fanny (Amanda Hale), the Ternans are a cultured, lively family of touring actresses. Dickens is instantly drawn to them, particularly the young, beautiful and self-possessed Nelly. Dickens is a man at the height of his fame.

His work is read throughout the English-speaking world, he reads it publicly to huge audiences, he campaigns tirelessly on behalf of the poor and and enjoys life as a literary star. But his marriage is faltering. Catherine Dickens (Joanna Scanlan) has borne him 10 children but is now confined to the edge of his life, unappreciated and no longer loved. She is no match for Dickens’ forceful personality and he craves a woman who appreciates him and his work.

Nelly becomes the intense focus of Dickens’ desire and she finds that her growing affection for him makes her emotionally and socially vulnerable. As Nelly and Dickens grow closer and the 5 whispers of Victorian society become louder, the fears of those near to them intensify. Catherine Dickens is afraid of abandonment and ridicule, her children

Left to right: Felicity Jones as Nelly Ternan and Ralph Fiennes as Charles Dickens. Photo by David Appleby, Courtesy of Sony Pictures Classics.

are distraught, and Mrs. Ternan is concerned for her daughter’s reputation if the affair is revealed.

Nelly is introduced to Wilkie Collins’ “hidden” mistress Caroline Graves (Michelle Fairley) and sees that Dickens may be suggesting a similar role for her. She angrily confronts him but he is insistent and she cannot ignore his passionate declarations. But Dickens will never marry her nor can his adoring public ever know that he has erred. When Dickens and Nelly are involved in a tragic accident in which she

Felicity Jones as Nelly Ternan. Photo by David Appleby, Courtesy of Sony Pictures Classics.

is injured, Nelly is confronted with Dickens’ determination to keep her a secret. She finds herself accepting the painful reality of sharing Dickens with the world, as she begins a life as an “invisible woman.”

The older Nelly finally speaks to Reverend Benham of what her relationship with Dickens has cost her and what she now understands.

“I felt moved by this woman and her secret past,” says Fiennes of what made the project compelling to him.

“I wanted to make a film about how Ellen Ternan became the mistress of Charles Dickens.

I also think the film is about a woman holding a past relationship inside her, which has marked her forever, and of which she is unable to speak.”

He immediately began working on the script with Morgan and the project gained momentum “It took about nine months to all come together while we were working on the script, casting, putting together our ideal crew,” says Tana, who first worked with Fiennes on Saul Dibb’s sumptuous 2008 period drama The Duchess. “I was busy raising the money at the same time.”

The Invisible Woman is a co-production between

Headline Pictures and Tana’s Magnolia Mae Films, with development and production funding from BBC Films and the BFI Film Fund, 9 as well as private US financing.

London-based WestEnd Films co-financed the project and is handling worldwide sales.

Until she met Fiennes, Morgan had been grappling with different versions of the screenplay, including the introduction of several fictitious elements. Although he doesn’t write himself, Fiennes brought an interesting extra dimension to the collaboration with Morgan. “It’s very exciting when you work with an actor-director because he could literally get up, be very physical and move around the room to illustrate his point,” says Morgan. “It’s an incredible privilege to work with someone who is not only a great director but one of the country’s leading actors and to see his process. That really informed the writing process. Most directors aren’t very good at saying the lines. He was very good at visualising and understanding how a scene would play. He would be brilliant at stripping back material as he would know how little an actor actually needs.”

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the

Daisy

Daisy column

miami society. the powerful, the chic, the unique

by daisy olivera

Fisher in the 1930s. How apropos, since Colombo is a real estate mogul himself.

During the cocktail reception, millions of dollars of de Grisogono jewels displayed on pedestals in the garden area, lit from above for maximum sparkle. The party also celebrated the opening of the 16th de Grisogono store, located in Bal Harbour Shops. Artfully arranged tables were placed all around the pool for a sit-down dinner catered by favorite restaurant, Casa Tua. Some 250 guests -- a glittery who’s who of Miami and international society – danced and danced into the night.

PAMM Kickoff Features Naeem Khan Show The master of the entrance-making gown, fashion designer Naeem Khan, made a rare appearance at Neiman Marcus in Coral Gables during an exclusive luncheon in special celebration of the opening of the Pérez Art Museum Miami (PAMM). Khan presented his Resort & Spring 2014 Collection -- a devastatingly gorgeous array of about 50 kaftans, dresses and gowns -- that left everyone speechless, as the collection shimmered down the runway. His reign of glamour, still very much in place. The crowd was a choice selection of Miami society ladies who are involved with the soon-to-open art museum. Since a percentage of sales that day went to benefit the PAMM, it’s good news that, according to my sources, sales were very brisk even though many gowns were in the five figure price range. Yes ladies, either do it right or not at all.

Top photo, pictured from the left; Fawaz Gruosi with Sara and Ugo Colombo; above, David Grutman, Michelle and Jason Rubell; photo at right Anthony Shriver and Elizabeth Beracasa.

Colombo Party for de Grisogono’s 20th Anniversary

I could go on and on about the invitation-only bash at Ugo and Sara Colombo’s historic waterfront estate for the 20th anniversary of De Grisogono jewels, but I don’t want to gush foolishly. Or, I can. As a discerning society columnist, this is what I live for.

It was a divine throwback to the good ol’ days in Miami before 2008, when society parties were lavish, champagne flowed with abandon and life was carefree. You get the picture.

De Grisogono was founded by the Colombos’ longtime friend, Fawaz Gruosi, the firm’s dashing creative director, who flew in from Geneva to host the party -- and it was breathtaking. Guests strolled along a long, winding, candlelit walkway up to the grand house, which was built by real estate pioneer Carl

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Top photo, pictured from left; PAMM Luncheon hosts Margarita Codina, Deborah Scholl, Neiman Marcus GM Stephen Brunelle, designer Naeem Khan, Ines Rivero, Susie Wahab, PAMM Ball co-chair Darlene Perez.

Bottom photo, pictured from left; Deborah Scholl, PAMM Board President Gail Sloane Meyers, Adrianne Cohen, Stephanie Reed.

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