September Creative Cocktail Hour at Real Art Ways

September: low-key Creative Cocktail Hour

With the rise of the Delta Variant, we’re playing it cool.
We’ll be mostly outdoors.
Indoors, we’ll have art exhibitions and plenty of room.

September Creative Cocktail Hour will also be the start of our new COVID vaccination policy.

Beginning Thursday September 16, all visitors to Real Art Ways (for movies, galleries and events) will be required to show:

proof of vaccination
OR
a negative COVID-19 test taken within the last 72 hours,

in combination with a corresponding photo ID.

Children under 12 years old will be required to be masked.

Featuring:

DJ James Hall AKA Mr. Realistic – is a Connecticut and NYC USA based DJ/Producer. Mr. Realistic is no stranger to this thing called house music! He’s been in the game since the late 80’s spinning tribal, deep, soulful and afro house music at events and clubs around the US and Europe, such as PartyCast TV, the Liquid Sol House Events, the Amsterdam Dance Event, and, upcoming in July 2021, The Lago Mio Fest in St. Moritz, Switzerland. Learn more HERE.

DJ Mr. Realistic will be joined by DJ Charles Henry.

Four new visual art exhibitions:

“Then the Morning Comes” by Lydia Viscardi

“There were no casseroles…” by Daniela Puliti

“Can you Repeat the Question?” by Chantal Feitosa

Including an opening reception for:

“무: 無: Nothing” by Seunghwui Koo

Drawing from meditative experiences in nature, Koo creates meticulous resin, acrylic, plaster, clay, and mixed media works inspired by the daily happenings and intricate moments of her life in New York City. Her work is a commentary on the lives of her fellow New Yorkers, as she has witnessed them. Koo was born in South Korea, where she first thought to combine the forms of the pig’s head and the human body. The significance of the pig’s head plays on the different symbolic meanings in Eastern and Western cultures. Good fortune (Eastern) and greed (Western)—two very different connotations of the pig—are themes that feature prominently in Koo’s work, in tension with the textural and organic qualities of the pieces on view in the Real Room gallery.

“to phone a friend” by Maxim Shmidt

“to phone a friend” is a self-portrait of loneliness and not-belonging. It is a collection of memories I could hold dear or hardly remember, trinkets and treasures alongside testaments to unwavering sadness in the form of crumpled unlove letters. It embodies that I feel I am explosively everything, yet also culminating into nothing, where I am so trapped inside of myself that the longest reach to form some sort of connection outside myself is doomed to fail. I am a moment that never comes, as is my relationship with the world and those around me. I feel so marred by my subjectivity and obsession with small, strange objects that I forget (or neglect to try) to help myself. I ignore the fact that maybe someone, somewhere, wants to properly know me, so as to escape the inevitable pain that accompanies a close connection with any other person. I am a museum without visitors, stuffed to the brim with otherwise-nonsense objects and ideas that no one will see. The idea of calling a friend is a hypothetical I do not have.

Plus:

Cafe/bar

Iron & Grain Food Truck

Burnt Sugar Arkestra
& The Veldt

“Orange Sunshine & Liquid Love Lines”

Burnt Sugar Arkestra & The Veldt

As featured in The New Yorker, BBC,
Rolling Stone, and The Guardian.
Four sets, three hours of brilliant, iconoclastic music,
five art exhibitions, two food trucks, DJ Mr. Realistic.
Music starts at 2pm.

“A multiracial jam army that freestyles with cool telekinesis between the lustrous menace of Miles Davis’ On The Corner, the slash-and-om of 1970s King Crimson, and Jimi Hendrix’ moonwalk across side three of Electric Ladyland.” – Rolling Stone

A territory band, a neo-tribal thang, a community hang, a society music guild aspiring to the condition of all that is molten, glacial, racial, spacial, oceanic, mythic, antiphonal and telepathic. Spicy grooves and lyrics with some “bark” on them are their passions.

Butch Morris’s Conduction System for Orchestral Improvisation is the preferred mode of channeling for this Gotham-based ensemble of pan-ethnic sound warriors.

Burnt Sugar The Arkestra Chamber:
Lewis “Flip” Barnes – trumpets
Ben Tyree – guitar
Leon Gruenbaum – keys
Shelley Nicole – vocals, percussion
Greg Tate – conduction
Andre Lassalle – guitar
V. Jeffrey Smith – saxophone, vocals
Bruce Mack – keyboard, vocals
Paula Henderson – saxophone
Abby Dobson – vocals
Jared Michael Nickerson – bass guitar
LaFrae Sci – drums

The Veldt (from Raleigh N.C.):
Daniel Chavis – guitar/ vocals
Danny Chavis – lead/ guitar
Martin Newman – guitar/ effects
Alex Cox – bass/ loops
Dale Miller – drums/ loops

“With Danny’s enveloping hooks, Daniel’s swooning falsetto… the new songs invite paradoxical praise: serenely assaultive, vertiginously soothing.” – The Guardian

Photo by Matthew Breiner

Photo by Matthew Breiner

DJ Mr. Realistic will be opening.

Food trucks: Bloom Kitchen & Co., Southern Bell Soul Food.

Support for this event comes from the Evelyn W. Preston Memorial Trust Fund, Bank of America, N.A., Trustee.

Learn more about the Burnt Sugar and The Veldt.

Cimafunk returns!

Cimafunk is returning to Real Art Ways for a free outdoor concert on Sunday, August 29!

“Cimafunk’s magic is at its peak when he’s singing live.” – The New Yorker

” […] the crowd’s enthusiastic roar nearly overwhelmed the sound system.” – Rolling Stone

“Cimafunk, el cantante del momento en Cuba (Cimafunk, the top singer in Cuba).” – El País

Cimafunk is one the most exciting new faces in the Latin music space, and a pioneer in bringing Afro-Cuban funk to the world. Singer, composer and producer, the young Cuban sensation offers a subtle and bold mix of funk with Cuban music and African rhythms, which is currently revolutionizing the island’s music scene.

DJ Mr. Realistic will be spinning, too!

Food trucks: Dori’s Latin Inspired Food, Samba Kitchen

Artist Conversation: Colonialism as Disability/Disability as Colonialism

To register for this free event, click here.

Real Art Ways presents a conversation between New York-based artist Alex Dolores Salerno, Puerto Rico-based artist Miguel González Cordero, and exhibiting artist Kevin Quiles Bonilla. On Thursday, July 22 at 6:30 PM EDT, the three artists will present their work and explore the various ways disability, queerness, and Puerto Rican identity collide. The conversation will last about an hour with a question-and-answer portion at the end. This event will be held on Zoom and live-streamed to the Real Art Ways Facebook page.

Accessibility: Automated closed captions will be provided by Zoom, and all images/videos will be visually described.

This panel is supported in part by the Artist Engagement Fund from the National Performance Network.

About The Artists:

Kevin Quiles Bonilla (b. 1992) is an interdisciplinary artist born in San Juan, Puerto Rico. He received a BA in Fine Arts – Photography from the University of Puerto Rico (2015) and an MFA in Fine Arts from Parsons The New School for Design (2018). He has recently presented his work at The Brooklyn Museum, Queens Museum, The Shelly & Rubin Foundation’s 8th Floor Gallery, Dedalus Foundation, and the Leslie-Lohman Museum’s Project Space. He has been an artist in residence at Art Beyond Sight’s Arts + Disability Residency (2018-2019), Leslie-Lohman Museum’s Queer Performance Residency (2019) and LMCC’s Workspace Residency (2019-2020). He currently lives and works between Puerto Rico and New York.

Alex Dolores Salerno (b. 1994, Washington D.C.) is an interdisciplinary artist based in Brooklyn, NY. Informed by themes of care, interdependency, and queer-crip time, they work to critique standards of productivity, notions of normative embodiment and the commodification of rest. Salerno received their M.F.A. in Fine Arts from Parsons School of Design and their B.S. in Studio Art from Skidmore College. They have exhibited at The Shelley & Donald Rubin Foundation’s 8th Floor Gallery, the Ford Foundation Gallery, Franklin Street Works, Gibney Dance, among others. Their work has been featured in the New York Times and Art in America. Recently, they participated in Art Beyond Sight’s Art & Disability Residency (2019-2020), and are currently an artist in residence in the Artist Studios Program (cycle 35) at the Museum of Arts and Design.

Miguel González Cordero (b.1993), is an interdisciplinary artist from Vega Baja, Puerto Rico. In 2016, Miguel González Cordero received his BA in Visual Arts from the Universidad del Sagrado Corazón in Santurce, Puerto Rico. In 2014, he held his first solo exhibition “Danza Coralina”, José Pepín Méndez Gallery at Universidad del Sagrado Corazón. González Cordero has participated in group exhibitions such as “DISLOQUE” at AREA Lugar de Proyectos, Caguas, PR (2016), “Video Voces Boricuas” at Tres50 Espacio Cultural, Chiapas, Mexico (2018), “Exploración Corporea: Formas y Movimiento” in Diagonal (2019), and “25 / 25 ”at Galería de Arte de Universidad del Sagrado Corazón (2020) both in Santurce, Puerto Rico. He is currently studying a bachelor’s degree in Graphic Design at the School of Design and Architecture of the Ana G. Méndez University, Gurabo Campus in Puerto Rico.

Image captions from left:
Kevin Quiles Bonilla
“Untitled (Exposure therapy documentation)”
Analogue photography, 2002/2021

Alex Dolores Salerno
“Pillow Fight”
Used pillow cases and medical ephemera, 2019-ongoing

Miguel González Corderro
“How Do You Shower?”
Pastels on paper, 2020

Connecticut Summer
at the Museum

Real Art Ways in partnership with the Connecticut Summer at the Museum program welcomes all children (18 and under) to visit for free!

July 1 – Sep 5

Hours: Wed-Sun from 12-9 PM

-Children (18 and under) plus one accompanying adult receive free admission to our cinema and galleries

-Los niños (menores de 18 años) más un adulto acompañante reciben entrada gratuita a nuestro cine y galerías.

-Cinema tickets MUST be obtained in person at our box office. View our current movie selection HERE

-Las entradas de cine se pueden adquirir personalmente en nuestra taquilla. Vea nuestra selección actual de películas AQUÍ

-We have five spacious galleries open to the public. View our current exhibitions HERE

-Contamos con cinco amplias galerías abiertas al público. Vea nuestras exposiciones actuales AQUÍ

Connecticut Summer at the Museum is made possible through an investment from the federal COVID-19 recovery funding Connecticut is receiving from the American Rescue Plan Act. The program is administered by the Connecticut Department of Economic and Community Development’s Office of the Arts in partnership with Connecticut Humanities.

Online Artist Talks:
UHART Nomad MFA Thesis Exhibition

We invite you to a series of online artist talks by Hartford Art School’s Nomad MFA program, class of 2021.

The series will be streamed to Real Art Ways’ Facebook page on Tuesday, June 22, and Wednesday, June 23.

These talks are in conjunction with their group exhibition, Force Fields, open now through June 25 at the Joseloff Gallery on the University of Hartford’s campus.

Event Schedule:

Tuesday, June 22 | 6:30 – 8:00 PM

Mary Mattingly

Grace Poulsen

Aubrey Murdock

Wednesday, June 23 | 6:30 – 8:00 PM

Tara Long

Elizabeth Deák

Jess Blaustein

In addition to graduating students, artist and educator Mary Mattingly will present on River Labs, an ongoing course in the Nomad MFA program connecting artists with the rivers and waterways they live near. Students in the program have been working with Mattingly since its inception, presenting their findings at Real Art Ways in two previous exhibitions exploring the Park River. This series of talks is a continuation of that collaboration, offering students a chance to present their work to our audience at a crucial moment in their careers.

For more information on the group show Force Fields, click here to visit their website.

About Nomad MFA:

Created in 2015, the Nomad MFA program is an accredited, low-residency graduate program offered by the University of Hartford’s Hartford Art School. It features a high-impact, field-based curriculum that includes art, ecology, study of place, indigenous knowledge systems, and the craft-to-code technology continuum. The Nomad MFA is the MFA of the future, providing artists deeper ways of engaging with their home community and a network of communities in the Americas. Nomad MFA’s faculty and guest lecturers includes an international range of artists and curators, including Mary Mattingly, Marisa Williamson, Camila Marambio, Nico Wheadon, Mark Dion, and others.

Feature video by Aubrey Murdock

There’s a rumble beneath the tarp
Performance by
Kevin Quiles Bonilla

To register for this free event, click here.

Real Art Ways presents the premiere of a new performance by Kevin Quiles Bonilla, titled There’s a rumble beneath the tarp. The filmed performance, lasting around 15 minutes, will premiere via Zoom and Facebook starting at 6:30 PM EDT on Thursday, July 8. A talkback with artist Kevin Quiles Bonilla will follow the premiere.

There’s a rumble beneath the tarp incorporates Bonilla’s use of lip-syncing as a “form of embodiment,” with his ongoing exploration of the blue tarp. According to the artist, the tarp acts as “the remnants of a trauma that remains with us”. Bonilla’s body will become a physical representation of a hurricane through movement and dress, moving along to Caribbean dance and bomba music.

The full event will last about 45 minutes.

Accessibility: Automated closed captions will be provided by Zoom, and all images/videos will be visually described.

There’s a rumble beneath the tarp is supported in part by the Artist Engagement Fund from the National Performance Network.

About The Artist:

July Creative Cocktail Hour

Creative Cocktail Hour Returns!

Held every third Thursday of the month. A diversity of cool cats and outcasts gathers to experience art and connect with one another. Dancing is encouraged though not required.

Featuring

Live music from Red Baraat

“Red Baraat is a Brooklyn-based ensemble that makes heart-pounding, insanely infectious music. The band is particularly known and loved for its unforgettable live performances.” –NPR

Opening Reception:

Then The Morning Comes a new solo exhibition by Lydia Viscardi, curated by David Borawski

Real Wall: Lauren Be Dear

Through the Veil, is an installation and performance by Hartford-based artist Lauren Be Dear and part of the Real Wall series. Performances are at 7:00 PM and 9:15 PM during the Creative Cocktail Hour.

On View:

As the palm is bent, the boy is inclined by Kevin Quiles Bonilla

Situational Awareness by Jacob Cullers

Plus:

Cafe/bar

Yoga with Barbara Hocker

Food Trucks from Baba Ghanoush and East West Grille

Art activities for adults and kids

And you!

Artist Conversation:
Kevin Quiles Bonilla

To register for this free event, click here.

Exhibiting artist Kevin Quiles Bonilla is joined by Visual Arts Manager Neil Daigle Orians in a conversation surrounding the work in the solo exhibition, As the palm is bent, the boy is inclined.

Bonilla uses photography, installation, and performance to explore ideas around colonialism, queerness, and disability using a personal narrative as a catalyst. As the palm is bent, the boy is inclined incorporates historic Western depictions of Puerto Rico with recent events, blurring boundaries between exoticized fantasy and reality. This conversation will take an in-depth look at the individual works contained in the exhibition and the greater narrative they create together. Lasting about an hour, the event will include time for audience questions

This event will also be broadcast on our Facebook page.

About The Artist:

Madan Sara

**We invite you to a one-night virtual screening of Madan Sara followed by a post-film discussion with director Etant Dupain.**

Grand’Anse Health and Development Association (GAHDA) is happy to be working with Real Art Ways to show this important film about the women who play a central role in the Haitian economy and supporting local communities.

“Madan Sara is a film about the power of Black women in a global economy and their contributions that too often go unacknowledged.” – Ms. Magazine

Event Details:

-Buy your ticket online anytime before the event.

-Tickets are $10 (with 50% of the profits benefiting Madan Sara and an additional donation to GAHDA)

-On Wed, June 9 you will receive an email with a link to the virtual screening room and a link to the post-film discussion on Zoom.

-Log in to watch Madan Sara at 6:45 PM (runtime 50 min.)

-At 8 pm log into the Zoom room for the post-film discussion and Q&A with director Etant Dupain.

More about the film:

The women known as Madan Sara in Haiti work tirelessly to buy, distribute, and sell food and other essentials in markets through the country. Despite the obstacles faced by the women working in a sector that lacks investment, infrastructure and state assistance, the Madan Sara continue to be one of the most critical parts of the Haitian economy and of who we are as a country.

The Madan Sara documentary tells the stories of these indefatigable women who work at the margins to make Haiti’s economy run. Despite facing intense hardship and social stigma, the hard work of the Madan Sara puts their children through school, houses their families, and helps to ensure a better life for generations to come. This film amplifies the calls of the Madan Sara as they speak directly to society to share their dreams for a more just Haiti.

Post-Film Talk | 8 PM:

Madan Sara director Etant Dupain will be in conversation with and answer questions from the audience. The discussion will be moderated by Judy Lewis, Professor of Public Health Sciences at UCONN Health.

About the Panelists:

Etant Dupain is a journalist, filmmaker, and community organizer. For over a decade, he has worked as a producer on documentaries and for international news media outlets including Al Jazeera, TeleSur, BBC, CNN, Netflix, PBS, and Vice. Etant founded an alternative media project in Haiti to enable citizen journalists to provide access to information in Haitian Creole for and about internally-displaced people, aid accountability, and politics. Now, moved by the strength of his mother and the women known as the Madan Sara who make Haiti’s economy run, he’s making his first personal film.

Judy Lewis is a public health sociologist and Professor Emeritus of Public Health Sciences and Pediatrics at the University of Connecticut Medical School. She is President of the Grand’Anse Health & Development Association Board; founding member and Board Chair of Women and Health Together for the Future, and has served in leadership positions of many global health organizations including the World Federation of Public Health Association, American Public Health Association and CORE Group. Prof. Lewis has worked to improve community health in rural Haiti for over 30 years. She is senior author of “The Health of Women/Mothers and Children,” in Understanding Global Medicine and Health, and has written many articles about maternal and child health and other public health issues in Haiti, Ecuador and Sri Lanka. She has conducted research, program evaluation and training in over 50 countries. She received the 2018 Carl E. Taylor Lifetime Achievement Award from the International Health Section, American Public Health Association, honoring the visionaries and leaders in international health.

Science on Screen:
A Birder’s Guide To Everything

Real Art Ways Science on Screen® season invites you to experience the unique combination of a feature film and a relevant talk from a notable local figure in science.

Pre-Film Talk | 6:30 PM

Effects of Climate Change on the Migratory Patterns of Birds with Dr. Matthew Kamm, Ornithologist/Biologist Instructor at Zoo New England

A Birder’s Guide To Everything | 7:00 PM

“A tender and gentle coming-of-age story” –RogerEbert.com

“An eye-opener for anyone who takes the everyday natural world for granted.” –NY Times

On the eve of his father’s remarriage, a teenage birding enthusiast leads his friends on a road trip to find an extremely rare duck.

Speaker Bio:

Dr. Matthew Kamm is a Boston-based wildlife biologist who specializes in ornithology. Matt has studied the natural history of wild birds while working for Mass Audubon and during his Ph.D work at Tufts University, with a focus on understanding songbird migration and the life history of American kestrels. He currently works as the Conservation Outreach Coordinator for Zoo New England.

Science on Screen is an initiative of the COOLIDGE CORNER THEATRE, with major support from the ALFRED P. SLOAN FOUNDATION.

Safety in Our Cinema:

As you return to our physical space, your health and safety is our top priority. To learn about all the steps we have taken to prepare and our new procedures visit our Welcoming You Back page.

Real Art Ways Cinema is designated Cinema Safe. Learn more about Cinema Safe HERE

Science on Screen:
Dough

Real Art Ways Science on Screen® season invites you to experience the unique combination of a feature film and a relevant talk from a notable local figure in science.

Dough:

“Dough is sweet, often funny and always non-threatening, a movie for those who wish the intractable realities of the world would just disappear.” – NY Times

An old Jewish baker (Jonathan Pryce) sees his struggling business boom when his young apprentice (Jerome Holder) accidentally drops marijuana into the dough.

Pre-Film Talk | 6:30 PM

The Chemistry of Cannabis: The Binding of Cannabinoid Compounds in the Brain and Cannabis’s New Role in Public Health with Dr. Jeff Rawson, a postdoctoral fellow at Harvard University.

Speaker Bio:

Jeff Rawson received a Ph.D. in Chemistry from Duke University in 2014. He was a research fellow at Jülich Research Center in Germany from 2015-2018, where he supervised one bachelor thesis and two master theses. Now a postdoctoral fellow at Harvard University, Dr. Rawson has mentored about ten graduate students and several undergraduates.

Science on Screen is an initiative of the COOLIDGE CORNER THEATRE, with major support from the ALFRED P. SLOAN FOUNDATION.

Updates to Our Cinema:

As you return to our physical space, your health and safety is our top priority. To learn about all the steps we have taken to prepare and our new procedures visit our Welcoming You Back page.

Real Art Ways Cinema is designated Cinema Safe. Learn more about Cinema Safe HERE

Artist Talk: Robin Crookall and Aude Jomini

To register for this free event, click here.

Real Art Ways presents an artist conversation surrounding the work in Robin Crookall’s solo exhibition, Part Fact, Part Aspect. Joining Crookall is artist, architect, and writer Aude Jomini. This conversation will explore Crookall’s conceptual and material considerations while creating her photographs. Crookall’s photographs are deceivingly simple images which do not reveal their secret until the viewer takes a closer look. What appears to be observational photographs of architecture becomes meticulously crafted sets made of cardboard, hot glue, and other “low craft” materials.

This event will also be broadcast on our Facebook page.

About the Panelists:

Robin Crookall is a 2021 finalist in The Print Centers’ 95th Annual International Competition. In Fall 2020 she completed a residency and solos show at Penumbra Foundation in New York City. Crookall is a 2019 NYSCA/NYFA Artist Fellow in photography from The New York Foundation for the Arts. In 2016, Crookall recieved her MFA from New York University. In 2015 she completed a solo show at Seattle’s 4Culture Gallery and her post bacc at University of Montana. Crookall is currently living in Brooklyn and working on a self published book of images.

Aude Jomini is a Swiss-American artist and designer pursuing collaborative and cross-disciplinary projects in art and architecture. She holds a BFA in Painting from RISD and a M-ARCH from Yale School of Architecture. She is a Senior Associate at Pelli Clarke Pelli Architects, and has served 5 years on Artspace’s Curatorial Advisory Board. She has also worked at Printed Matter Inc, Brooklyn Museum, and as a freelance designer.

Click Here for the exhibition catalogue, featuring an essay by Aude Jomini.

Artist Conversation: Felandus Thames, Kiese Laymon, Charlie R. Braxton and Noel W. Anderson

To register for this free event, click here.

4 outstanding Black artists and writers will take part in an online conversation sparked by Felandus Thames’ The Things That Haunt Me Still, on view at Real Art Ways, in Hartford, Connecticut. The dialogue will feature artist Felandus Thames, writers Kiese Laymon (Heavy: An American Memoir) and Charlie R. Braxton (Cinders Rekindled) and will be moderated by artist Noel W. Anderson.

This event will also be broadcast on our Facebook page.

About the Panelists:

Noel W. Anderson is an artist, and Assistant Professor in Printmaking at NYU. Anderson holds a BFA from Ohio Wesleyan, an MFA from Indiana University, and an MFA in Sculpture from Yale. He was recently included in the Studio Museum of Harlem’s exhibition Speaking of People: Ebony, Jet, and Contemporary Art.

Kiese Laymon from Jackson, Mississippi, is the author of the bestselling Heavy: An American Memoir, which won the 2019 Andrew Carnegie Medal for Excellence in Nonfiction, the 2018 Christopher Isherwood Prize for Autobiographical Prose, the Austen Riggs Erikson Prize for Excellence in Mental Health Media, and was named one of the 50 Best Memoirs of the Past 50 Years by The New York Times.

Charlie R. Braxton is a poet, playwright and journalist born in McComb, Mississippi. He has published two volumes of poetry, Cinders Rekindled (2013), and Ascension from the Ashes (1991). His poetry has appeared in literary journals The Black Nation, Black American Literature Forum, Cutbanks, Drumvoices Review, Eyeball Literary Magazine, Shout Out UK, The San Fernando Poetry Journal, The Transnational and others.

Felandus Thames is a conceptual artist living and practicing in the greater New York area. Born in Mississippi, Thames holds an MFA from Yale. He has been included in exhibitions at the Kravets Wehby Gallery, Galerie Myrtis, Tilton Gallery, Heather James Gallery, Charles H. WrightMuseum, USF Contemporary Art Museum, International Center for Printmaking New York, and the African American Museum of Philadelphia.

Riverwood Poetry Series
Season Opener

The Riverwood Poetry Series kicks off online with a reading by John Surowiecki from his new book – Burger King of the Dead.

Meriden, Connecticut native, John Surowiecki, journalist, copywriter, teacher, and freelance writer, will launch his latest book, Burger King
of the Dead and will include readings from his upcoming 15th book
of poetry, The Place of the Solitaires: Poems with Titles by Wallace Stevens. As well as books of poetry, he has written a novel, Pie Man, which won the Nilsen Prize for a First Novel in 2017. Other awards include Artist of the Year by the Meriden Arts Council, the Pegasus Award for Verse Drama, Second Place in the 2006 Sunken Garden National Competition, and many contests. His play, My Nose and Me
[A TragedyLite or TragiDelight in 33 Scenes] was presented at the Chicago Shakespeare Theater, UConn, and elsewhere. His poetry has been published in journals too numerous to list. He lives with his wife, Denise, in Amston, Connecticut.

An open mic will start after the reading by John Surowiecki.

[ Register for this free online event HERE]

What Are We Watching: Oscars Edition

Oscar buzz is in the air…so let’s talk about it!

This month, we’re focusing on Oscar nominated films! Real Art Ways showed eight of the nominated films…and the Oscar Shorts are coming in April.

Join our always-lively Cinema Coordinator Ian Ally-Seals, and sidekick Front-of-House staffer Rae Caldwell, as they get you sharing.

Details:

You can register HERE

Any questions please email our Cinema Coordinator, Ian Ally-Seals at iallyseals@realartways.org

Artist Talk: Catalina Ouyang and Catherine Damman

To register for this free event, click here.

Real Art Ways exhibiting artist Catalina Ouyang is joined by writer and art historian Catherine Damman for a conversation surrounding the work in Ouyang’s solo exhibition, THE SIREN. Ouyang and Damman will engage in a dialogue covering the conceptual, formal, and material aspects of Ouyang’s sculptural approach to narrative and history.

This event will also be broadcast on our Facebook page.

About the Panelists:

Catalina Ouyang’s solo exhibitions include: it has always been the perfect instrument at Knockdown Center (Queens, NY); marrow at Make Room (Los Angeles, CA); fish mystery in the shift horizon at Rubber Factory (New York, NY); blood in D minor at Selena Gallery (Brooklyn, NY); and an elegy for Marco at the Millitzer Gallery (St. Louis, MO). Ouyang has attended residencies at Shandaken: Storm King (New Windsor, NY), the NARS Foundation (Brooklyn, NY), OBRAS (Evoramonte, Portugal), and the Atlantic Center for the Arts (New Smyrna Beach, FL), with residencies forthcoming at the Vermont Studio Center and MASS MoCA. Ouyang is a 2020-21 Studio Artist at Smack Mellon (Brooklyn, NY). Ouyang has received awards from the Foundation of Contemporary Arts, the Puffin Foundation, the Santo Foundation, and the Elizabeth Greenshields Foundation. Ouyang received an MFA from Yale University and is based in New York.

Catherine Dammanis currently a Visiting Assistant Professor of Art History at Wesleyan University and a Core Lecturer at Columbia University. Previously, she held an Andrew W. Mellon Postdoctoral Fellowship at Wesleyan’s Center for the Humanities and a Chester Dale Predoctoral Fellowship at the Center for Advanced Study in the Visual Arts (CASVA) at the National Gallery of Art. With the support of a 2020 Terra Foundation for American Art Research Grant, she is at work on her monograph, which radically reconceptualizes the formation of “performance” in the 1970s. Her writing can be found in Artforum, Bookforum, 4Columns, BOMB, Frieze, Art in America, and elsewhere.

M.C. Escher: A Conversation at the Intersection of Art and Math

To register for this free event, click here.

Real Art Ways Science on Screen® season invites you to experience the unique combination of a feature film and a relevant talk from notable local figures in science.

Real Art Ways is pleased to host an online panel discussion, followed by a Q&A, on the new documentary M.C. Escher: Journey to Infinity.

Artists Chris Klapper and Patrick Gallagher, mathematician Dr. Timothy Goldberg, and musician Rachael Elliott, will join Cinema Coordinator Ian Ally-Seals in a conversation on Escher and how his work has influenced each panelist’s professional practice.

M.C. Escher: Journey to Infinity is available to rent through Real Art Ways Virtual Cinema HERE.

About the panelists:

Chris Klapper and Patrick Gallagher collaborate in multidimensional and large-scale multimedia to explore new technologies and use them to express immense ideas on a human scale.

They are currently the 2020-2021 Artists in Residence at FERMILAB – National Particle Physics and Accelerator Laboratory and 2021 UMass Amherst Visiting Artists. Recent projects include PI Project, DATAATADATA: Everything and Nothing at The Invisible Dog Art Center and DATAATADATA:3-Sphere at ODETTA.

Dr. Timothy Goldberg is an Associate Professor of Mathematics in the Donald and Helen Schort School of Mathematics and Computing Sciences at Lenoir–Rhyne University in Hickory, North Carolina. His mathematical interests are primarily in geometry.

Rachael Elliott is a versatile performer who is active in classical, new music, and improvised rock and pop. She is best known as the founding member of the genre-bending music group, Clogs. Ms. Elliott may also be heard on recordings by The National, My Brightest Diamond, and Thomas L. Read, and in films including Turn the River and Colony.

Science on Screen is an initiative of the COOLIDGE CORNER THEATRE, with major support from the ALFRED P. SLOAN FOUNDATION.

Image: “Hand With Mirror” by M.C. Escher © The M.C. Escher Company B.V. Baarn – The Netherlands, courtesy of Zeitgeist Films

Riverwood Poetry Series

The Riverwood Poetry Series continues with
Max Early and Cheryl Savageau.

Max Early is a recent graduate of the Institute of American Indian Arts’ MFA Creative Writing program. He has received fellowships and residencies from Taos Summer Writers’ Conference, School for Advanced Research’s Indigenous Writer, Orion in the Wilderness with the Omega Institute, and Writing By Writers. Early is the author of Ears of Corn: Listen (3: A Taos Press).

He is also an established potter from the Pueblo of Laguna. His clans are Tsina Hanu (Turkey People) and Kwaya Waashch’ee (child of the Bear Clan). Early lives in the village of Paguate, NM.

Cheryl Savageau (Abenaki) poet, a memoirist is the author of Out of the Crazywoods, a memoir that navigates her experience of living with bipolar/manic depressive illness; and three collections of poetry – Mother/Land, an “unhistory” of the Northeast; Dirt Road Home, which was a finalist for the Paterson Poetry Prize and nominated for a Pulitzer Prize; and Home Country. She has won Fellowships in Poetry from the National Endowment for the Arts, the Massachusetts Artists Fellowship Program, and is a three-time fellow at MacDowell. Her children’s book, Muskrat Will Be Swimming, was a Smithsonian Notable Book and won the Skipping Stones Award for children’s environmental literature and the Wordcraft Circle’s Best Children’s Book of the Year award. Savageau mentored Native writers through Wordcraft Circle of Native Poets and Storytellers, and was awarded Mentor of the Year in 1998.

She has taught workshops through Gedakina, and is former editor of Dawnland Voices 2.0. Her work has appeared most recently in Yellow Medicine Review, The Cape Cod Review, and Hinchas de Poésia, and is widely anthologized. She teaches Indigenous literatures and creative writing at the Bread Loaf School of English at Middlebury College.

An open mic will start after the readings by Max Early and Cheryl Savageau. To sign up, please send an email to riverwoodpoetry@yahoo.com

[ Register HERE]

Join us online on the Second Tuesday of the month through May 2021. Each night has an open mic and a poetry reading featuring regionally – or nationally – known poets.

What Are We Watching?

Films and shows can provide entertainment, connection, knowledge, comfort, and conversation.

And, many of us are watching more at home than ever before…so let’s talk about it!

Join us for an hour-long conversation, co-facilitated by cinema coordinator Ian Ally-Seals and front of house staffer Rae Caldwell

Have essential viewing to share?

Looking for recommendations?

In this open-ended chat, everyone will have space to share and connect. We hope you can join us!

Details:

You can register HERE

Any questions please email our Cinema Coordinator, Ian Ally-Seals at iallyseals@realartways.org

Featuring:

Four new visual art exhibitions:

Including an opening reception for:

Plus:

“Orange Sunshine & Liquid Love Lines”

Burnt Sugar Arkestra & The Veldt

As featured in The New Yorker, BBC, Rolling Stone, and The Guardian. Four sets, three hours of brilliant, iconoclastic music, five art exhibitions, two food trucks, DJ Mr. Realistic. Music starts at 2pm.

Cimafunk is returning to Real Art Ways for a free outdoor concert on Sunday, August 29!

To register for this free event, click here.

About The Artists:

Real Art Ways in partnership with the Connecticut Summer at the Museum program welcomes all children (18 and under) to visit for free!

We invite you to a series of online artist talks by Hartford Art School’s Nomad MFA program, class of 2021.

Event Schedule:

About Nomad MFA:

To register for this free event, click here.

About The Artist:

Creative Cocktail Hour Returns!

Featuring

To register for this free event, click here.

About The Artist:

We invite you to a one-night virtual screening of Madan Sara followed by a post-film discussion with director Etant Dupain.

Event Details:

More about the film:

Post-Film Talk | 8 PM:

About the Panelists:

Real Art Ways Science on Screen® season invites you to experience the unique combination of a feature film and a relevant talk from a notable local figure in science.

Pre-Film Talk | 6:30 PM

A Birder’s Guide To Everything | 7:00 PM

Speaker Bio:

Safety in Our Cinema:

Real Art Ways Science on Screen® season invites you to experience the unique combination of a feature film and a relevant talk from a notable local figure in science.

Dough:

Pre-Film Talk | 6:30 PM

Speaker Bio:

Updates to Our Cinema:

To register for this free event, click here.

About the Panelists:

Click Here for the exhibition catalogue, featuring an essay by Aude Jomini.

To register for this free event, click here.

About the Panelists:

The Riverwood Poetry Series kicks off online with a reading by John Surowiecki from his new book – Burger King of the Dead.

Details:

To register for this free event, click here.

About the Panelists:

To register for this free event, click here.

Real Art Ways Science on Screen® season invites you to experience the unique combination of a feature film and a relevant talk from notable local figures in science.

The Riverwood Poetry Series continues with Max Early and Cheryl Savageau.

Join us online on the Second Tuesday of the month through May 2021. Each night has an open mic and a poetry reading featuring regionally – or nationally – known poets.

Details:

As featured in The New Yorker, BBC,
Rolling Stone, and The Guardian.
Four sets, three hours of brilliant, iconoclastic music,
five art exhibitions, two food trucks, DJ Mr. Realistic.
Music starts at 2pm.

**We invite you to a one-night virtual screening of Madan Sara followed by a post-film discussion with director Etant Dupain.**

The Riverwood Poetry Series continues with
Max Early and Cheryl Savageau.