Open to all levels of experience, this workshop offers an in-depth exploration of oil painting techniques and traditional still life. Develop foundational painting skills, including glazing and layering oil paints to create luminosity and depth.

Oil Painting: Explorations in Still Life

with Sarah Paolucci

Wednesdays, May 7, 14, 21 & 28, 2025

10 AM – 1 PM

Members: $162 / Non-Members: $180

MORE INFO & REGISTER

Shakespeare’s Queens

Shakespeare grew up under the reign of Elizabeth I, a mercurial, intelligent, powerful queen. And her influence is written across many of Shakespeare’s finest female characters. Whether in his dangerous siren-queens like Lady Macbeth and Margaret, or in playful, wayward leaders like Titania and Kate, or in redemptive characters like Hermione and Miranda, Shakespeare seems fascinated by how each of these women wielded power and made choices. Should they speak their minds, or keep to the shadows? Work together or stand alone? And where does their power lie: in mystery, wordplay or swordplay? Created and performed by Shakespearean actress, Poornima Kirby, this jewel of a play dances between Elizabeth’s story, and Shakespeare’s own life as a writer and father to two strong-minded daughters. With history, humor and sparkling poetry, Shakespeare’s Queens is a heartfelt and refreshing exploration of some of the bard’s loveliest verse.

Cost: "Give Local" Donation at door or online

* Pre-registration required for lunch.

Yarn Bomb Drop-in Sessions are taking place at Five Points Arts Center throughout the winter and spring - free and open to the public of all ages, skills and techniques welcome!

MORE INFO HERE

Wednesdays (weekly):

2 - 4 PM

Jan 8 - May 28

Saturdays:

2 -4 PM

January 11 & 25

February 8 &22

March 8 & 22

April 12 & 26

May 10

Join us every Friday night from 5-8 in the NHAG studio, at 37 Greenwoods Road, New Hartford CT - Floor 2 #9A for life model drawing. Participants must be 18+ to attend.

registar at nhagct.art or newhartfordartisansguild.com

The Mystery Book Club will take place at the Morris Public Library on Wednesday, May 14, at 6:30 PM and discuss “The Antique Hunter’s Guide to Murder” by C. L. Miller.

Freya Lockwood is shocked when she learns that Arthur Crockleford, antiques dealer and her estranged mentor, has died under mysterious circumstances. She has spent the last twenty years avoiding her quaint English hometown, but when she receives a letter from Arthur asking her to investigate—sent just days before his death—Freya has no choice but to return to a life she had sworn to leave behind.

Joining forces with her eccentric Aunt Carole, Freya follows clues to an old manor house for an advertised antiques enthusiast’s weekend. But not all is as it seems. It’s clear to Freya that the antiques are all just poor reproductions, and her fellow guests are secretive and menacing. What is going on at this estate and how was Arthur involved? More importantly, can Freya and Carole discover the truth before the killer strikes again?

New registrations and book requests: https://morrispubliclibrary.net/library-calendar-event.../

Join us for our monthly somewhat literary book discussion for adults! Books in various formats are typically available at the library circulation desk approximately one month prior to the discussion. No registration is required! Refreshments served, courtesy of the Friends of the Library. This month we are reading and discussing Tom Lake by Ann Patchett. 

Kenise Barnes Fine Art is honored to present an exhibition featuring hand-painted cyanotypes by Julia Whitney Barnes and drawings by Sarah Morejohn.

Julia Whitney Barnes is well known for her innovations in Cyanotype (camera-less photographic printing process) paintings. Whitney Barnes’ multi-step process includes harvesting flora (flowers and weeds being equally important) and combining several species into a single composition on photo sensitive cotton paper. After exposing the work to UV light, the resulting blue and white image is carefully hand-painted in many layers of watercolor, gouache, and ink, reanimating the vitality to the ghost of the objects. The artist is most interested in creating work that feels both beautiful and mysterious. Her artwork symbolizes resilience and are the records of the historical moment in which they were made, the process, and the artist’s will and interest in reasserting the presence of the image.

Whitney Barnes recently completed permanent public installations in The Botanist’s Mural, Vassar College/Frances Lehman Loeb Art Center, Poughkeepsie, NY, Brooklyn Botanical: PS 253 (glass commission), Public Art in Public Schools/Percent for Art, Brooklyn, NY, Planting Utopia (interior installation), Albany International Airport, Albany, NY, Planting Utopia (interior and exterior installation), Shaker Heritage Society, Albany, NY. The artist has received the following honors and awards; Maker-Creator Research Fellowship, Winterthur Museum, Library & Garden (2024-25), Individual Artist Grant, (partnering with Shaker Heritage Society), New York State Council on the Arts (2018), Individual Artist Commission, NY State Decentralization Grant, Arts Mid-Hudson, Poughkeepsie, NY (2015), Gowanus Public Arts Initiative Grant (ArtsGowanus, The Old Stone House & District 39), Brooklyn, NY, Residency with Site-Specific Installation & Fellowship, Fjellerup I Bund I Grund, Fjellerup, Denmark, to name a few. Her work has been featured in Architectural Record, Times Union, The B Magazine, The Jealous Curator, Create Magazine, American Art Collector Magazine and many other publications and podcasts. Julia Whitney Barnes earned her BFA Fine Arts, Painting, Parsons the New School for Design, New York, NY and her MFA Fine Arts, Painting & Combined Media, Hunter College, CUNY, New York, NY. The artist lives and works in NY.

Sarah Morejohn’s fascination with non-linear patterns in nature drives her work. Through drawing, she considers how the relationship to nature is mediated both by objective understanding and subjective imagining of it. Considering the symbolic connections between nature, the body, and climate change Morejohn draws partial six-fold symmetries. By building a drawing line by line, sharp angles soften and wiggle, cell-like shapes minnow along while branches and flowers become a part of the flotsam disconnected from the earth. Figurative snow crystals become interlaced with one another and their environment, jumbling towards their own future transformations. Morejohn’s drawing process is intuitive and organic, artifacts of the process, drips, spills, flaws and mistakes are embraced. By collaging the imperfect pieces of her drawings together the work becomes a metaphor for the ever-changing uncertainties of life.

Sarah Morejohn’s work in in the collections of Heustis Hall, 1% for Art Oregon Arts Commission, University of Oregon, Eugene, OR, Echo Laboratory, Montefiore Medical Center, Bronx, NY, Ursell Laboratory, Physics Department, University of Oregon, Eugene, OR, Project Art & Medical Museum, University of Iowa Hospitals & Clinics, Iowa City, IA. She was awarded residencies at Jentel Artist Residency, Banner, WY and Playa Art and Science Residency, Summer Lake, OR. Morejohn earned her BFA in Painting and Drawing, University of Oregon, Eugene, OR. The artist lives and works in CA.

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

Join us in the Community Room for our Afternoon Delights Book Club! Each month we will read one book, then meet the third Thursday of the month at 1:30pm to chat about it. Simply pick up a copy of this month’s book at the library circulation desk! No registration is required. Coffee, tea and snacks provided by the Friends of the Thomaston Public Library. This month we will be reading and discussing Long Bright River by Liz Moore. 

All are welcome to join us for relaxing and reflective music to close the day.

Today: Mad River Quartet

Performances are followed by a reception with refreshments.

* Pre-registration required for reception

The Hickory Stick Bookshop is delighted to host Gina Barreca, editor of the recently released book “Fast Famous Women” who will be discussing the book with two of the contributing authors, Mary Lasley and Elizabeth Norton. This event, which will include a book signing, will take place at the bookshop on Thursday May 15th at 5.00 pm.

ABOUT THE BOOK

Famous women become symbols of social insecurity, embody expectations of what we might become, and models of how women should – or should not – behave. In 75 brilliant new pieces of flash nonfiction, “Fast Famous Women” offers sharp, insightful, and delightfully necessary examinations of the often absurd, sometimes thrilling, and frequently crushing experience of being a woman in the public eye. It’s not enough for a woman simply to be wildly talented or sublimely accomplished, after all. She must be fast in her rise, conspicuous in her ascent, and utterly undeniable in her achievements. (She should probably also be cute, right? It can’t hurt if she’s cute.)

Written with wonder, insight, and respect, famous women from Taylor Swift, Mary Shelley, Annie Oakley, Shirley Chisholm, and Lizzie Borden are subjects which allow us to grasp the perilous excitement of wanting fame - or perhaps, wanting to step away from it. To be a woman in the spotlight is to walk a tightrope, to balance on the narrowest of beams, where every misstep or excess is magnified, and every achievement is fraught with the potential for ridicule or resentment.

With new and original short, seductive, and sometimes shocking works by Caroline Leavitt, Jane Smiley, Mimi Pond, Molly Peacock, Dimple Dhabalia, Phillis Levin, and Leighann Lord, alongside other ground-breaking journalists, novelists, and writers, you’ll find emerging authors whose creative non-fiction is appearing on the page for the first time – you will find within these pages a celebration of the fallen woman long overdue.

ABOUT THE AUTHORS

Hailed as “smart and funny” by People, Gina Barreca was deemed a “feminist humor maven” by Ms.  She has written ten booking including “Babes in Boyland: A Personal History of Coeducation in the Ivy League” and the bestselling “They Used To Call Me Snow White But I Drifted”. She’s a Board of Trustees Distinguished Professor of English at UCONN.

Elizabeth Norton is a writer and singer.  A graduate of Sarah Lawrence College, she worked for many years as a science writer for MCI Communications, the Charles A. Dana Foundation, and Science Magazine.  Drawing on her experience with singing, breath work, stage fright, and neurobiology, she coauthored “The End Of Stress As We Know It”, a book about the science of stress.  Born in Brooklyn, New York, she is a longtime resident of Connecticut.

Mary Elaine Lasley is a writer and artist.  After receiving her degree in English from the University of Connecticut, where she worked as the promotions director for WHUS Radio, she managed the social media campaign for “Fast Fallen Women (2023)”, the third installment in Gina Barreca’s Fast Women series.  She is thrilled to be making her print debut in “Fast Famous Women”, for which she also provided the cover design.

This event is free and open to the public.  If you are unable to attend this event, you may reserve signed copies of “Fast Famous Women” by calling The Hickory Stick Bookshop at (860) 868 0525, or shop our website 24/7 at www.hickorystickbookshop.com.  

We invite you to join us for a Kent Community Night! Join us to learn about the rich history and offerings at High Watch!

Presentations by: Dr. Gregory Boris on "The Power of Belief and the Science Behind the 12-Step Recovery Movement" and Greg Williams on "A Historical Approach to the Sacred Grounds of High Watch"

Thursday, May 15th, at 6:30 PM, 2nd Home welcomes the fantastic Dave Robbins & Ryan Newman Blues Machine as a new addition to our Thursday Jazz/Blue series. You may have already seen Dave here with Orb Mellon, and is so you know he is a killer harmonica player. This time he is joined by guitar virtuoso sensation Ryan Newman. Ryan received the first ever New England Music Hall of Fame Best New Artist Award. Ryan Newman plays with the Kosher Kid Dave Robbins and the Amplifiers, Righteous Continental, and Justin Chan and the Vices. We are thrilled to add them to our lineup, and hope you will come down and check them out on what we know will be an evening of great blues music.

For reservations (encouraged but not required) call 860-238-4500 or email us at momanddad@2ndhomelounge.com

See our complete event list - https://2ndhomelounge.com/events/

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2nd Home Lounge

524 Main Street, Winsted

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Author Talk and Signing with Thomas Medonis, “A Holistic Approach to a Synthetic World” Thursday, May 15, 6:30 PM

Join local author Thomas Medonis for his presentation “A Holistic Approach to a Synthetic World,” Morris Public Library, Thursday, May 15, 6:30 PM. Participants will explore the author’s unique writing style, quick reads, which is based on his meditation, esoteric studies and research of history. The bio-digital-medical-convergence that is currently being introduced to the public has led Thomas to connecting many of the technocratic puzzle pieces. The author hopes to prove that there are still solutions available for a natural holistic life. 

All author’s works contain the main theme of "Humanics In Action", a philosophy first rooted at Springfield College. The intention is for the reader to become motivated and begin their own research on the many topics of Medonis' work.

Registration is required: 860-567-7440 or https://morrispubliclibrary.net/library-calendar-event-registration/