by | Jan 31, 2023 11:38 am | Comments (3)
Nora Grace-Flood photos
Rahaf Sayet about to press another pistachio halloumi panini.
Rahaf Sayet took two slices of blended whole wheat and sourdough bread from Whole G Bakery, layered on Cyprus-made cheese, and placed the sandwich in a panini press — crafting a local-foreign fusion meal that’s selling fast at a new Chapel Street Middle Eastern eatery.
by | Jan 31, 2023 9:05 am | Comments (1)
The pieces, by Carol Boynton, Frank Bruckmann, Todd Lyon, and Diane Chandler, are hung side by side by side by side in the gallery. Even though the subjects are looking in the same general direction, in their animation and expression, they could be talking with one another. Each subject — women, men, Black, Brown, White — has been filtered through the eye and mind of the artist. Each artist has rendered the subject with the same care and attention, the same eye toward humanity, toward capturing something like the truth.
by | Jan 30, 2023 10:46 am | Comments (3)
Artist Matos and Gov. Lamont: Talking ceramics, and Venezuela.
Inside Matos's studio.
All-star Orange Street ceramicist Kiara Matos got a high-profile visitor — but not a customer — on Friday, as Gov. Ned Lamont swung by to marvel at her pottery workshop, catch up on her small-business story, pose for a photo with one of her brightly hued bird sculptures, and then leave empty-handed.
by | Jan 26, 2023 8:53 am | Comments (0)
The improvisational jam duo P(x3) was on the stage of the State House Wednesday creating great grooves to dance to. But the figures leaping and spinning on the screen behind him weren’t dancing; they were fighting, in kinetic and ludicrous ways — as is the style of Super Smash Bros., the hit fighting video game from Nintendo that’s now almost a quarter-century old and still going strong. The audience members gathered to watch were in rapt attention. On a couch pulled up close to the stage, two players, their eyes glued to the screen, were in mortal combat, though one that would end with a smile.
by | Jan 24, 2023 8:50 am | Comments (0)
Still from "Forever 17."
One artist heads straight into the complexity of being queer in Hong Kong. Another heads out into the desert. And another heads into the dismal future. What all three artists — Kit Hung, January Yoon Cho, and Gary Sczerbaniewicz — have in common is a willingness to explore things that make them uncomfortable. And all three have solo shows at the Ely Center of Contemporary Art, running now through Feb. 19 concurrently with a few other shows after ECOCA took a brief holiday hiatus.
by | Jan 19, 2023 5:54 pm | Comments (3)
Paul Bass file photo
Krikko Obbott: “We’ve been wanting to do this for years."
The "warehouse" at 212 West St. Obbott is looking to convert into apartments.
A Hill illustrator and museum owner is moving ahead with plans to attract more creative talent to West Street, after winning a first slate of approvals needed for turning part of his property into artist apartments.
by | Jan 16, 2023 2:21 pm | Comments (0)
Paul Bass Photo
The public had an opportunity to take a free trip down deep into downtown history — or make off with John Deere vehicles.
Continue reading ‘Public Invited To Trip, Fall, Gawk, Steal’
by | Jan 12, 2023 8:43 am | Comments (1)
William Frucht
Ellis Island Island #6 and Ellis Island Hospital #1.
Everything in William Frucht’s photographs is having its layers peeled away — of paint, varnish, wood, metal — by time and neglect. At first glance they could be of century-old buildings anywhere in the Northeast, until a certain famous statue appears in the window of one of the buildings. Then the pictures snap into focus; they’re of the buildings on Ellis Island, the famous point of arrival for the great wave of immigrants at the beginning of the 20th century, when U.S. immigration was perhaps the most open it has been in its history as a global power.
by | Jan 10, 2023 8:29 am | Comments (0)
The centerpiece of Lisa Toto’s part of the latest show at Kehler Liddell Gallery — running now through Feb. 5, and also featuring works by Hank Paper and Chris Ferguson — is two prints of the same image, of a young girl in a dress running by a relief. She exudes joy, but there’s something wrong.
Continue reading ‘Photo Show Takes Westville Gallery To Chernobyl '89’
by | Jan 9, 2023 3:58 pm | Comments (0)
Paul Bass Photo
Kendall Francis arrives early for her job interview.
Kendall Francis got a new glimpse of her family’s hometown, as she pulled into New Haven to see if it will become her new hometown.
by | Jan 9, 2023 9:00 am | Comments (0)
Kimberly Wipfler Photo
Lauren Sellers working on her vision board (below) along with other members of the public at a library-hosted 2023 visioning event.
Lauren Sellers made short, careful cuts through shiny magazine paper, tracing along the edges of an image of an ice cream cone — all while mapping out a vision for how to be her best self in the year ahead.
by | Jan 5, 2023 8:51 am | Comments (0)
The intersection of Orange and Crown can be quiet this time of year, as it gets cold and the street has opened up again to traffic. But there’s still foot traffic, a passing car, a man flitting by on a bicycle. And now, in the windows at Artspace, a series of projections, of shapes that move and change, looking first like crystals, then reflections in glass, and sometimes perhaps like physics experiments. They invite anyone to stop and linger, and maybe even get a little lost. But maybe the most intriguing thing about them is that they’re not films; they’re digital animations. They’re just lines of code.
by | Jan 3, 2023 9:02 am | Comments (1)
The image of beloved New Haven photographer David White, Jr. is an image that plays with time. It starts with the obvious anachronisms, from the instrument in White’s pocket to the sepia background, even as it’s clear that White is a modern man. The melted edges of the image, though, are another layer of history. They’re not digital artifacts, but the blurred edges of a process few people see anymore: the development of a Polaroid, and in this case, an especially hefty one — a 20 x 24 camera, “so rare only five were initially manufactured,” an accompanying note explains. The photograph was taken in 1993. Why the Polaroid? Why the anachronistic style? And why is it paired with an image from 1815?
by | Dec 22, 2022 2:00 pm | Comments (0)
Paul Bass photo
Fred White Thursday outside the Whalley Wells Fargo.
A retired tool-and-die maker named Fred White kept moving Thursday, hopping on his music-amplified Kent Cruiser two-wheeler to navigate the busy Norton-Whalley intersection.
by | Dec 22, 2022 9:05 am | Comments (0)
Bill Brandt
Liverpool Street Extension.
The image of people huddled together in a dark, circular tunnel could be coming from Kyiv or Mariupol, ripped from any number of newspapers covering the war in Ukraine. The expressiveness of the image, undoubtedly the work of an experienced photographer, conveys the misery, the desperation, the desire for it all to be over, in a single snapshot. But it’s not from Ukraine. It’s from London, in 1942.
by | Dec 16, 2022 9:12 am | Comments (0)
Julie Fraenkel
Party Girls.
The subjects of Julie Fraenkel’s Party Girls are as the subject says. One after the other, they’re portraits of fun, leisure, unwinding. One of them dances with a lampshade on her head. Another arrives with a large piece of cake and an expression on her face that suggests that she knows the recipient of that slice is going to first politely refuse such a large slice, then acquiesce and eat the whole thing. A third is being borne aloft by balloons. The general public will never know what one party girl was doing, however, because that piece has already been sold.
by | Dec 14, 2022 8:45 am | Comments (0)
Brian Slattery Photos
Tuesday evening at Three Sheets on Elm Street found not a band onstage, but a vast assortment of paper with arrays of compelling images on them — from owls to goat people to skeletal horses, as well as letters, dingbats, and geometric shapes — along with scissors, pieces of cardboard, and glue sticks. The tables and chairs in the room were full of people using those materials to make collages — and try what Three Sheets and Hershey, Penn.-based brewer Tröegs Independent Brewing had to offer.
Continue reading ‘Three Sheets Combines Tasting With Cutting And Pasting’
by | Dec 12, 2022 9:07 am | Comments (0)
Brian Slattery Photos
New Haven-based ska band The Simulators had finished the second song of its skank-filled set at College Street Music Hall on Saturday afternoon when bassist Zachary Yost had a question: “Who’s enjoying spending all their money on all these lovely local vendors?” He meant the dozens of artists and artisans who had jammed into the place for the College Street Punk Rock Holiday Flea, which, from 11 a.m. to 6 p.m., changed the College Street performance space into a bazaar for original art, thrift clothing, instruments, records, and much more.
Continue reading ‘Punk Rock Flea Market Skanks Into The Season’
by | Dec 8, 2022 9:12 am | Comments (0)
Brian Slattery Photos
On Wednesday evening, dozens gathered in KNOWN, the co-work space in the Palladium Building at 139 Orange St. It was part of KNOWN’s Wind-Down Wednesdays, a chance for people to exchange ideas and just relax. But the art on the walls — like Daniel Ramos’s Monk at the Ojo de Agua — wasn’t there as a coincidence; this particular Wednesday evening was a chance to celebrate the opening of “Assemblage,” a show put together by Kim Weston of Wábi Gallery. As it turned out, the gathering of humans at KNOWN was mirrored by the exhibition itself, which Weston conceived of as its own gathering of artists, and the ideas and spirit they share.
by | Nov 23, 2022 9:09 am | Comments (1)
Njideka Akunyili Crosby
"The Beautyful Ones Are Not Yet Born" Might Not Hold True For Much Longer.
We can’t read the expression on the subject of the painting, but that’s not where the eye goes anyway. Maybe we look first at the vibrant clothing she’s wearing. Or maybe we’ve already seen the element that makes the painting one to stop and linger at: that the carpet is in fact an elaborate collage of photographs. Whether we know the people in the pictures or not, we recognize them as people representing a place, a past, a culture. There’s commotion beneath the calm, questions beneath the assertiveness.
by | Nov 22, 2022 8:43 am | Comments (0)
Sara Scranton’s “Spider Girl” partakes of old circus posters and underground comics from a generation past, but it has a modern twist that tweaks the formula. “Don’t get caught in her web,” the caption warns. It gives Spider Girl a little say in the matter.
That say is brought out in the poem by Karen Ponzio of the same title. “You speak of webs woven / Though your version of a trap is / My version of home. / Should I be punished for being hungry? / Is every ‘should’ a lure / Towards my demise? / Break my heart if it feeds / Your appetite or / Brings you joy. / I can rebuild anything / You attempt to destroy.” The poem, written in response to the painting, twists the painting even further, turning it inside out. Each piece amplifies the other.
Continue reading ‘Artist Collaboration Brings Out The Best At Never Ending Books’
by | Nov 17, 2022 8:47 am | Comments (0)
Susan Clinard
In Fear We Trust: Pandemic Family Portrait.
Susan Clinard’s In Fear We Trust: Pandemic Family Portrait is a snapshot of a harrowing moment. The figures in the bed show an astonishing range of emotion, from anger to worry to terror. But the piece itself isn’t an incitement to anger, but compassion. The family may be up late at night, their emotions eating away at them as they surely did for many in the depths of 2020. But Clinard makes sure we see that together they’re drawing strength from one another too. When times are hard, they gather together.
Continue reading ‘Artists Go Home And Abroad At The Ely Center’
by | Nov 16, 2022 8:33 am | Comments (0)
The layers of overlapping textures, patterns, and colors are, in truth, abstract. But they evoke much of what we see in our lives. Maybe it’s a picture in a magazine of the surface of an insect leg, magnified a thousand times. Maybe it’s a close up of fabric, or water running down a window. For the painter, Judy Atlas, the connection between the painting and the world is the viewer’s to make. For Atlas herself, the connections between the paintings tell their own story, too.
by | Nov 10, 2022 8:47 am | Comments (0)
Fazal Sheikh
Silver Bell Mine, Arizona.
Even in italics, on a placard in an art museum, the voice of Peter, a Navajo miner, comes through loud and clear. “I worked in the uranium mines for more than 14 years, until the mid-1970s,” he says. “While the other men in our family were serving in the military, I needed to provide for the family by working; the mines were close to our homes, and we were told that we were helping to support our country.” There is already a sense of dread — a sense that turns out to be well founded.
Continue reading ‘Fazal Sheikh Moves In Place At Yale Art Gallery’
by | Nov 8, 2022 9:25 am | Comments (1)
Brian Slattery photo
“We rise by lifting others,” reads a phrase from 19th-century writer and orator Robert Ingersoll, which now adorns a colorful mural on a wall on Fair Haven’s Grand Avenue.
As if in literal demonstration of the quotation, on Friday morning, a woman hefted a small child into the air to paint a butterfly on the mural that otherwise would have been just out of reach.