Posted onJune 24, 2023|Comments Off on Online Art Gallery #167
This week, we welcome one of our youngest contributors ever.
Julian Kerschner is a rising 5th grader at Greens Farms Academy. He is, his mother notes, “an artist and an avid pickleball player.” You’ll see why.
As Julian knows, everyone is invited to contribute. Age, level of experience, subject matter — there are no restrictions.
All genres are encouraged. Watercolors, oils, charcoal, pen-and-ink, acrylics, lithographs, collages, macramé, jewelry, sculpture, decoupage and (yes) needlepoint — whatever you’ve got, email it to 06880blog@gmail.com. Share your work with the world! (PS: Please include the medium you’re working in — art lovers want to know.)
“Italy” (Lauri Weiser)
Untitled — Artist Dorothy Robertshaw explains, “Assemblage after a storm at Cedar Point Yacht Club.”
Untitled — graphite on paper (Clayton Liotta)
“Hope” (Mike Hibbard)
Untitled (Julian Kerschner, age 10)
“North Shore of Oahu” — watercolor (Jerry Kuyper)
“Pride Crosswalk” (Amy Schneider)
“Learning to Sail in an Optimist Pram” (Peter Barlow)
“Eurasian Crowned Hoopoe” — Artist Steve Stein explains, “hoopoes are commonly found across Afro-Eurasia. It is mentioned in the Bible (Deuteronomy and Leviticus), and is lucky to be considered a rare non-kosher bird.”
“Getting Up is Hard to Do” (Lawrence Weisman)
“Work it Out” — acrylic (Lis Hisgen)
“Summer Breeze” (Ken Runkel)
(Entrance is free to our online art gallery. But please consider a donation! Just click here — and thank you!)
The Westport Country Playhouse’s campaign to raise $2 million — and save the 92-year-old institution — has generated plenty of press.
Across town, a drive to save a different — but also noted — property has gotten far less notice.
Blau House & Gardens — a hidden but beautiful spot, high on a ridge at the end of a 1-lane road off Bayberry Lane — is in danger of being sold.
The gardens were developed over 50 years by the late advertising entrepreneur, Barry Blau. The intimate series of interlocking garden rooms, incorporating native plants interspersed with a blend of exotics — surround a mid-century modern house designed by celebrated theatrical designer, Ralph Alswang.
Since 2017, Emily Blau and Robert Cohen — the BH&G stewards — have opened their special garden for events like signings by bestselling authors, children’s book readings, scavenger hunts, garden tours, horticultural classes and more.
Last February they created a 501(c)3 organization as the first step to preserve the property, and expand it for public arts and cultural events, and an artist- and gardener-in-residency program.
Barry and Eileen Blau recently died. The estate plans to put the house on the market by the end of the month.
Blau House, designed by Ralph Alswang.
Blau House & Gardens seeks individual and business benefactors, and/or help from other non-profit organizations. The cost for the property is $1.5 million; securing a 1-acre easement for parking and restrooms offered by the next door neighbor is $700,000.
They ask anyone who can help to email r@blauhouseandgardens.org, or call 203-952-3335. To visit the Blau House & Gardens website, click here.
As summer begins, and crowds head toward Old Mill — to sit on the beach, fish in the inlet or jump (illegally) from the pedestrian walkway — it’s hard not to notice the handsome white house straddling between Long Island Sound and Sherwood Mill Pond.
What was once a grist mill is now (following 2 fires) a private home. With water flowing underneath, and killer views on both sides, it’s one of those places we love imagining living in.
It’s been a private home for over a century. (Pete Aitkin, the Black Duck owner, is a former resident.)
Here’s what it looked like, around 1910. The colorized image comes from Paul Ehrismann, whose collection of seldom-seen photos seems limitless.
(Every Friday, “06880” looks backward. Looking forward, we need reader’s support. Please click here to make a tax-deductible contribution. Thank you!)
It looks like a simple legal notice. But it’s a big step.
The first agenda item for the July 5 Flood & Erosion Control Board reads:
Parker Harding Plaza / WPL-11724-23; Application of Keith S. Wilberg, Town Engineer, on behalf of the Town of Westport, to revise the existing roadway and parking lot, build sidewalks, a riverfront boardwalk, and park areas, and to relocate trash and recycling dumpsters. The proposed activity is within the WPL area of the Saugatuck River.
Upon completion of the Public Hearing, and time permitting, the members of the Board will have an open discussion reviewing the boards efforts to assist The Town of Westport in controlling flood and erosion. The open discussion will include the members of the Board with the opportunity to express their thoughts and recommendations on what can and should be done to help The Town of Westport further control flooding and erosion.
Sounds like an important meeting. It will be held via Zoom. Click here for the link. The meeting ID is 813 1215 9695; the passcode is 236833. The phone-in number is 646-876-9923.
The Flood & Erosion Control Board will discuss plans for Parker Harding Plaza on July 5.
LymanAID — the huge July 9 partycelebrating Westport’s sister city of Lyman, Ukraine — just got a big boost.
It came from our friends in Marigny, France — our first sister city, and the impetus for our relationship with Lyman.
Sunday, July 9 is LymanAID (1 to 7 p.m., Ukrainian-American club — just past the I-95 Exit 19 northbound entrance ramp in Southport).
The food, drinks, music and other entertainment is free. But there will be plenty of chances — raffles, Yankee auction, plant sale, book pulls, etc. — to help the men, women and children of Lyman.
Several of those auction items come from our Marigny amis. They include:
3 copies of “601 Towns & Villages in La Manche” — a 700-page book, with a special inscription
3 sweatshirts, which say “Westport/Marigny-Le-Lozon/Lyman
1 bottle of “hors d’âge” calvados” — a drink enjoyed by American GIs in Marigny, during World War II.
To RSVP for free admission, purchase VIP tickets and for more information, click here.
And to our friends in Marigny, who will be with us in spirit: Merci!
The Marigny book and dedication flank a bottle of calvados. All are gifts from our sister city of Marigny, as prizes at the July 9 LymanAID event for other city in Ukraine.
Speaking of autographs at the Library: Fairfield County basketball fans are already excited about Chris Paul’s upcoming event there.
Now there’s another reason to head to the Trefz Forum next Tuesday (June 27, 8 p.m.). After his discussion about his life and new memoir with journalist, Fox Sports anchor and Westport resident Lindsay Czarniak (she’ll be live; he’s remote), and questions from the audience, copies of his book “61: Life Lessons from Papa, On and Off the Court” will be on sale.
And they’re all autographed.
The free event will be livestreamed and recorded as part of Czarniak’s podcast, “Lunch with Lindsay.”
Click here to register for a seat at the Library event. “61” can be ordered through the same link.
That means the flags of dozens of United Nations countries will fly on the Ruth Steinkraus Bridge.
Early today, town crews were replacing the dozens of American flags on the span.
It’s a small gesture of welcome. But it’s been part of our town’s tradition, for over 60 years.
Getting ready, on the Ruth Steinkraus Cohen Bridge. (Photo/Dave Matlow)
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A reader told me there’s a “For Lease” sign outside Ulta Beauty & Hair Salon.
Does this mean they’re closing? I called to find out.
The very long phone message (including “curbside pick-up hours” — does anyone really still do “contactless” shopping?) finally gave me 2 options: Press 1 to make an appointment; press 4 (!) for all other inquiries.
I pressed 4. “Nothing was selected,” the voice said, and sent me back to the long message.
I listened again to all the shopping hours, plus curbside pickup. This time I pressed 1.
“Nothing was selected,” the voice said again. Again, I was sent back to the start.
So they may be closing. Or maybe not.
I couldn’t find out. Perhaps everyone was in back, dealing with shoplifters.
Two local residents were honored last week, at Aspetuck Land Trust’s 57th annual meeting.
Bill Kutik of Westport was named Conservationist of the Year, for saving a key property in the 705-acre Weston Wilton Forest Reserve from development. (It is now called the Bill Kutik Honey Hill Preserve.)
Kutik has been an ALT member since 1999. The first editor of Backpacker magazine, a newspaper reporter, magazine editor and technology impresario, he has written for the Boston Globe, New York Daily News and New York Times. He is a hiker and trail steward, and has donated hundreds of hours to the Land Trust, as an editor and writer.
Michelle Fracasso is the Native Landscaper of the Year. She has planted hundreds of pollinator-friendly plants and shrubs, attracting bees, butterflies and birds (100% pesticide-free).
Fracasso is a long-time supporter of Fairfield County farms. Her own — Wells Hill — is the last working family farm with livestock in Weston. She has been active with Aspetuck Land Trust’s farmland initiatives, and a volunteer and advisor for their homeowner engagement program and native plant sales.
Charly Bliss has a new single. “You Don’t Even Know Me Anymore” is the band’s first new song since 2019.
What makes that “06880”-worthy is that Charly Bliss is an all-Staples group. Eva Hendricks (lead vocals, guitar), her brother Sam (drums), lead guitarist Spencer Fox and bassist Dan Shure all graduated from the high school.
The new single “celebrates personal growth,” says Rolling Stone.
Eva Hendricks “looks back on a bad breakup that left her wrecked and realizes she doesn’t feel the same as she once did. Instead, she has come to realize that the person she cried over doesn’t know her the way she thought they did.”
Click here for the full Rolling Stone story. (Hat tip: Kerry Long)
The first show Athena Adamson saw at the Westport Country Playhouse was “A Christmas Carol.”
It was 2006. The historical theater had just reopened, after a $30 million renovation turned the drafty former barn into a 21st-century jewel.
And saved it from the threat of closure.
Nearly 2 decades later, the 92-year-old institution is again imperiled.
When the curtain rises next month on “Dial M for Murder” — the second show in this truncated season — Adamson will again be there.
This time, she’s interested in more than entertainment. Earlier this month, she became chair of the board of trustees.
Athena Adamson
The future of the Westport Country Playhouse — more uncertain now than perhaps any time in its fabled but sometimes fraught history — lies in her board’s hands.
And in the willingness of audiences — including those the Playhouse lost, and those it never reached out to — to help.
Adamson grew up around New York theater. Her father was an actor; she was raised in Greenwich Village.
She met her husband while at Yale. Her first jobs were with the university development office, then Food & Wine magazine. While in New Haven and New York, they came here for WCP shows.
They moved to Los Angeles, where she wrote screenplays. Nine years ago they came back to Connecticut. Living in Easton, then Southport, she got involved with the Playhouse through then-chair Barbara Streicker.
Adamson chaired the gala; then she joined the full board. She raised 3 children, and calls service to the Playhouse “my job.”
As nominating committee chair, she helped find new trustees. They — and the other, longer-serving members — will now play critical roles, as the board tries to fundraise and program the Playhouse out of its dire predicament.
Fortunately, Adamson says, “new and older members work pretty well together. There’s respect for what the institution has been and is, and also an eagerness to see change.”
In the 1950s, the Westport Country Playhouse was a launching pad for Broadway shows.
Adamson takes the reins from Ania Czekaj-Farber. The new chair calls her predecessor “a friend. No one is more dedicated to the theater than she.”
But, Adamson notes, “this is a transformative time. It’s good to have a new leader.”
The new leader’s most pressing concern is “raising dollars. We need to get through this immediate phase.” The goal is see “world-class plays” return to the stage by September of 2024.
She knows the Playhouse must offer a “wider range of choices, for the Westport audience and beyond.
“The community is changing. We need to adapt. I want this to be a Playhouse for the entire community, with enough on stage to appeal to everyone. We haven’t always had that.”
Many new residents are unfamiliar with the Playhouse.
Why not?
“That’s a good question,” Adamson says. “We started to see changes in the community even before the pandemic. But that accelerated it. There’s a huge number of new families, from the city. We want to keep our audience, and add them to it.
“We’re responding to that change now. Maybe we should have done it earlier.”
As the Playhouse’s woes became public this month, Westporters criticized programming choices of the past few years as out of step with audience tasts.
“I am proud of our programming,” Adamson counters, while acknowledging, “It may not have appealed to audiences as much as we’d like. We’ve learned a lot. We have to be mindful of our audience.”
Though musicals are audience-pleasers — and Adamson calls “In the Heights” one of her favorite all-time WCP productions (“Red” was the other) — they are costly. “We can find ways to be less expensive,” the board chair promises.
“In the Heights” was a smash, in 2019.
The recent Patti LuPone benefit — “high energy, and sold out” — offers another way to bring music to the stage. Adamson envisions similar concerts, “scratching an itch that people have.”
Though that sounds like the Ridgefield Playhouse model, Adamson says there must be additional programming — cabarets, Q-and-As, comedy shows, play readings — on the Westport Country Playhouse stage.
Those could begin next January. A 3-play season would begin that fall, in 2024.
The immediate need, Adamson notes, is to “raise dollars. We have to do it. I’m optimistic, or I wouldn’t be here.”
Meanwhile, the board begins searching for an acting interim artistic director.
The Westport Country Playhouse has a more storied past than perhaps any regional theater in the country. Yet that may not be enough to save it alone. And is that heritage perhaps a burden?
“No. Not if it’s thought of in the right way,” says Adamson.
Westport Country Playhouse cultural archivist Bruce Miller, with some of the 500 head shots underneath the stage.
“There’s a desire to be proud of our history, to preserve it. But there’s also a real desire for growth, change, the next chapter.
“I definitely feel that from the board. We’re all behind the plan of offering different programming and shows. The Playhouse history is something we should celebrate, as part of our campaign.”
The goal of that campaign is to raise $2 million by July 30.
“Spread the word that this is an institution worth saving,” Adamson says.
“No dollar is too small. Go to our website. Email (interim managing director) Gretchen Wright (gwright@westportplayhouse.org) if you have large gifts, a naming opportunity. or ideas for programs.
Two longstanding local traditions — the Sunrise Rotary Great Duck Race, and Westport Downtown Association Sidewalk Sale — take place this weekend.
There’s also a third. And this one has an even longer history: over 60 years.
jUNe Day will be celebrated all over town on Saturday (June 24). United Nations diplomats, staff members and their families will spend the day here, having fun and enjoying special activities.
At 10:30 a.m. on Jesup Green — as part of the Great Duck Race celebration — UN Under-Secretary General General Christian Saunders will deliver a message from Secretary General António Guterres.
Options for our guests include Earthplace, Wakeman Town Farm, Compo Beach, tennis and golf at Longshore, and a soccer match (UN vs. Westport Knights, 11:30 a.m., PJ Romano Field).
UN visitors can also enjoy the Duck Race and Sidewalk Sales. Nearby, they’ll see flags from many UN member countries flying on the Ruth Steinkraus Cohen Bridge.
That’s an apt sight. Steinkraus Cohen was one of the founders of jUNe Day, more than 6 decades ago. She was a longtime member of the United Nations Association of Southwestern Connecticut too, which sponsors the annual event in cooperation with the town of Westport.
For questions or more information, call Bill Hass: 203-454-7685 or 203-434-6609.
Westport’s Parks & Recreation Commission voted unanimously last night to ban tobacco and cannabis smoking at all beaches, and certain parts of recreational facilities, like playgrounds, pools, fields and athletic courts.
The regulation — which includes a 25-foot buffer — does not include the golf course, or passive recreation areas like Winslow or other town parks.
Speaking of the law: Westport Police made 2 custodial arrests between June 14 and 21.
One was for disorderly conduct, following a domestic violence incident.
The other was for issuing a bad check, worth $12,945.50, to a local business.
Police also issued these citations:
Failure to comply with state traffic commission regulations; 8 citations
Traveling unreasonably fast: 3
Operating an unregistered motor vehicle: 3
Distracted driving: 2
Operating a motor vehicle while texting: 2
Traveling too fast for conditions: 2
Improper use of markers: 2
Failure to renew registration: 2
Operating a motor vehicle without minimum insurance: 2
Failure to obey traffic control signals: 1
Assault, 3rd degree: 1
Operating a motor vehicle without a license: 1
Operating a motor vehicle under suspension: 1
Failure to drive right: 1
Improper turn: 1
Improper use of high beams: 1
Failure to display plates: 1
Littering: 1
Don’t be a litterbug! (Photo/Jerry Kuyper)
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Housing. Transportation. Gun safety.
Those were just a few of the topics Connecticut’s General Assembly voted on in the session that ended just a few days ago. (Oh, yeah: the budget too!)
Three local legislators — State Senator Ceci Maher, and State Representatives Jonathan Steinberg and Dominique Johnson — host a “wrap-up” discussion at the Westport Library next Wednesday (June 28, 6:30 to 8 p.m., Komansky Room).
On the agenda: successes (and failures), plus goals for the future.
Senator Ceci Maher, Representatives Jonathan Steinberg and Dominique Johnson.
It’s one of the most prestigious and elite legal programs around.
For 50 years, the Supreme Court Fellows Program has offered 4 positions a year to mid-career professionals, recent law school graduates and doctoral degree holders. Founded by former Supreme Court Chief Justice Warren Berger, it draws over 1,000 applicants.
One of the appointees this year is Viviana Vasiu. A Westport and Brooklyn resident, she will be assigned to the US Sentencing Commission.
A former clerk for 2 US District Court judges, she participated in the Attorney General’s Honors Program at the Department of Justice. She earned a BA summa cum laude, and a JD magna cum laude, from Stetson University, where she served as editor-in-chief of the Law Review.
But there’s more to the story. Viviana came alone to the US at 18, from Romania. She enrolled at a community college in San Diego, and within a year earned a paralegal certificate. She was the Stetson’s first-ever immigrant and English major valedictorian.
Congratulations, attorney Vasiu!
Viviana Vasiu
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The I-95 bridge in Philadelphia will be repaired — and reopened — barely 2 weeks after it collapsed, during a truck fire.
Meanwhile, work on I-95 in Westport — which did not collapse — appears to be on schedule for its completion date of November, 2038.
The Post Road project should be finished a week or two before that.
And finally … 2 takes on the new smoking ban (story above).
You can no longer smoke at the beaches, tennis courts, athletic fields and related recreational facilities …
… but you can still light up on the golf course, Winslow Park and other spots.
(As jUNe Day nears, a reminder: “06880” is where Westport meets the world. Please consider a contribution, to help us continue our work. Just click here. Thank you!)
Nearly 4 dozen women Westport women working in alternative finance have power.
RAWW power.
The acronym stands for Rockin’ Alts Women of Westport. Begun as a networking group to support each other professionally in hedge funds, private markets, venture capital and more — as well as personally — RAWW has quadrupled quickly.
It’s an invigorating forum for “like-minded, fierce working women in the alternative investment community,” says co-founder Rachel Markus.
They swap ideas about trends, resources, best practices and board opportunities; share commuting woes — and instill confidence in each other.
RAWW’s meeting last week, at the Boathouse restaurant.
Connections have been made by sitting together on the Wheels2U shuttle, an introduction from a former client, and meeting at a New York work event.
Markus sourced a designer for marketing projects from a group member. Members met up at conferences in Florida and California. A new LinkedIn group has proven to be robust. The possibilities are limitless.
It’s a remarkable group, and they leverage their knowledge and connections for maximum impact.
RAWW began with a few women — mostly new to Westport — looking to connect with others working in the same field. As the network grew to 45, they gathered for lunch, drinks, even a yoga class.
Their lunch last week was the biggest live event yet.
Markus invites women in alternative finance to join Rockin’ Alts Women of Westport. Contact her via email: RachelMarkus10@gmail.com.
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