Presented by Steven Parlato

In conjunction with an exhibition of his 16-piece collage series, “They Are Not Disposable,” artist/author and college professor Steven Parlato will offer a program (including audience Q&A) discussing his process and inspiration in creating the series, which depicts 16 Black Americans whose lives were stolen due to racial violence. Part tribute, part call to action, the presentation, featuring Parlato’s poetry honoring those lost, will offer an opportunity for community conversation. If time allows, attendees will be encouraged to write their own poem inspired by an issue--for example, social justice, or the climate crisis--of particular personal relevance. 

Lunch is included.

Date: Friday, July 4

Time: 10:00 a.m.

Location: The Litchfield History Museum

Cost: Free for Members, $10 for non-Members

Registration Requested

Celebrate Independence Day with our popular Heroes of the Revolution Walking Tour on Friday, July 4 at 10:00 a.m. Discover Litchfield's Revolutionary history and how Litchfield's residents young and old contributed to the founding of the nation.

The walk will begin at the Litchfield Historical Society (7 South Street) and lasts approximately 1 hour. Wear comfortable shoes and bring a bottle of water. Walking tours are free for members and $10 for non-members.

Walking Tours are sponsored by Berkshire Alarm

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.

Date: Saturday, May 31

Time: 1:00 p.m.

Location: The Litchfield History Museum

Cost: Free for Members, $10 for non-Members

Registration Requested

Explore Litchfield’s town center through the words, sketches, paintings, and photographs of artists. See how they saw Litchfield and expressed it through their artistic work on our Artists of Litchfield Walking Tour on Saturday, May 31 at 1 p.m.

The walk will begin at the Litchfield Historical Society (7 South Street) and lasts approximately 1 hour. Wear comfortable shoes and bring a bottle of water. Walking tours are free for members and $10 for non-members.

Walking Tours are sponsored by Berkshire Alarm

Join an afternoon exploring artistic depictions of Alice’s character and personality, tracing her image from original illustrations to recent works.

“Alice Through the Rabbit Hole and Beyond…”

Presented by Varoujan Froundjian

Saturday, May 31

2 – 3:30 PM

Five Points Arts Center

MORE INFO & RSVP

ASAP!’s annual fundraiser is not only a night of celebration but a crucial source of funding for the arts-infused educational programming we provide to youth in our community. Your participation in this extraordinary evening of art and live performances directly supports a world where young people’s passion for learning is ignited.

Join us to honor Founder JoAnne Torti’s remarkable 26-year legacy and welcome our new Executive Director, Ali Psomas. Let’s celebrate the rich history and exciting future of ASAP! with host Ellen McCourt!

Families are welcome. We look forward to celebrating with you!

Attire

Casual cocktail

Program

5:30-6:00 pm – Check-in, snacks, and open bar

6:00-7:00 pm – ASAP! Youth Ensemble and Celebration of Young Writers performances

7:00-8:00 pm – Food, open bar, and Celebration of Young Photographers exhibition

Don't miss this special event featuring Frank Brocklehurst on bass, Lanny Ball on piano, John Keilty on guitar and Avery Collins on drums. This talented quartet of musicians will add their jazz chops to the music performed by: Felicia Michael, Nick Petrone, Violet Willows (Brianne Chasanoff & Mary Gardner) Missy Alexander and Bill Petkanas.

Doors Open for this Gala Event at 6:30 PM. Complimentary hors d'oeuvres served until the concert begins, at 8. Beer and wine available for suggested donation throughout evening.

Saturday, May 31st, at 7 PM, Kenn Morr Duet are back at 2nd Home Lounge, and not a day too soon. It's been too long, and we're excited to have them back! The duet has an amazing repertoire of originals that everyone loves every time they are here. Great music, food, drinks, and fun. Come down and enjoy!

For reservations 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

2dhomelounge.com

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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.

You are invited to Flashes & Fragments - an art exhibit that is a fusion of mixed media, artistic lettering, video & photography. New works by Debra Lill and Kathleen Borkowski combine the beauty of visual storytelling with the expressiveness of hand lettered art. We hope you will join us as we celebrate this new work, created specifically for the Whiting Mills Gallery!

Opening: Thursday, April 24th, 5-7 pm.

Show dates: April 17-June 27

Landscapes: an exhibit of oil paintings by Pete Bergeron.

Connecticut artist Pete Bergeron has been painting since early childhood, inspired by the classic television instruction series "You Are an Artist", hosted by Jon Gnagy. Pete's formal art training began at Paier School of Art in Hamden, CT, studying illustration. Eventually he turned to large scale painting and, like artist James Rosenquist before him, he worked as a billboard painter, creating giant images of hamburgers, beer bottles, cars and other colorful oversized advertisements.

In 1990 he studied with Frank Covino of Waitsfield, VT, learning the Classical Academic approach to painting: a systematic method that begins with a detailed monochromatic under painting superimposed with many layers of thinly applied colored glazes. The resulting effect gives an overall luminous quality to the finished painting. His commitment to fine art was a natural direction that led to a consuming full-time passion for creating lasting and timeless works of art.

Pete’s paintings are reminiscent of the late nineteenth century American landscape painters of the Hudson River School, including John Frederick Kensett, Sanford Robinson Gifford and William Trost Richards, and of the Tonalist painters of that period.

His work hangs in many collections throughout the country.

 “Landscapes” is an exhibition of paintings of unique locations the artist has visited many times, and through the use of strong composition, a wide range of values and a complex layering of color, the artist turns the otherwise commonplace – a crashing wave, the quiet of a passing cloud or the early light of a new day – into moments of awe and inspiration and creates a connection to the eternal beauty and reassuring qualities of Nature.

HOTCHKISS-FYLER HOUSE MUSEUM

Torrington Historical Society 

192 Main Street, Torrington, CT

2025 hours: Wednesday through Saturdays, April 16 - October 31, 2025

Guided tours at 1, 2 and 3 pm 

Phone: (860) 482-8260   info@torringtonhistoricalsociety.org

Admission: Adults $10 per person; children under 8 free

The Hotchkiss-Fyler House Museum (b. 1900) will open for the season Wednesday April 16th. The Hotchkiss-Fyler House Museum is a Victorian mansion that was home to two generations of Torrington residents. Gertrude F. Hotchkiss, the last family member to occupy the home, bequeathed the house and contents to the Society in 1956.  The interior of this grand house features mahogany paneling, ornate carvings, stenciled walls, murals, parquet floors and ornamental plaster treatments. Original family furnishings collections of fine and decorative arts. Artists represented are: Ammi Phillips, E.I. Couse, Winfield Scott Clime and George Lawrence Nelson.