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Eleanor Anderson
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LoriAnn Witte, weaver
Feb. 18, 2024, 2:00 pm
Leroy Anderson House
Weaver LoriAnn Witte will share her experiences of becoming a weaver and how she finds ideas and develops them. Witte is the executive director of the Glebe House and Gertrude Jekyll Garden in the Hollow in Woodbury. A resident of Woodbury, Witte says of her art, "It is a journey that started with necessity and changed throughout the many phases of life. It is filled with ideas that have grown with and around me."
Witte will present samples of her work and lead guests in a demonstration. Guests will have the opportunity to try their hand at weaving with small looms and supplies Witte will provide.
Matt Wood, multimedia artist
March 3, 2024, 2:00 pm
Leroy Anderson House
Matt Wood, whose works range from photography to oils to interior design, will reflect on how his projects find him and how he realizes the best medium for a project. Wood says his art reflects his life: "Art is how I interact with the world. My thoughts, my experiences, my reactions, and my hopes are all mediated through my canvas or my lens, and I find that for me it can't be any other way."
Some of Wood's work, including four 48" x 48" iceberg paintings, is currently on display in the group exhibit at the Mattatuck museum titled "Sea Change, See Change," running from January 21 to May 19, 2024.
Cynthia Gillette, painter
March 17, 2024, 2:00 pm
Leroy Anderson House
Woodbury artist Cynthia Gillette will present on her odyssey as a painter in a variety of media. Well-known in Woodbury for her support of local arts and her presence at summer Arts Walk events, Gillette is renowned for her sensitive renderings of animals and highly detailed, lifelike natural and architectural details in her work.
She says, "I am really enjoying the process in my painting at this time. My portraits of people and animals have led me to meet new wonderful people, and my travels have enriched the landscapes I see. I do observe all with a more critical, collective eye and due to this I plan my ideas with future compositions and new techniques in mind. Painting and designing are an evolving organic learning experience, albeit sometimes challenging, but they can also be so exciting. That is all inspiring to me."
Melody Asbury, painter
April 7, 2024, 2:00 pm
Leroy Anderson House
Woodbury artist Melody Asbury will share how she has come to explore the spirit of wild animals through painting.
A signature member of the Society of Animal Artists, Asbury is an accomplished painter admired for her intimate portrayal of animals. Her love of painting animals came after a lengthy career as a portrait and courtroom sketch artist for TV.
She says, "Growing up with an artist mother, I had a paintbrush in my hand at a very early age. Art has always been a means of expression, of focusing attention on what I feel is important. It is a lifelong journey with many different paths I have taken."
Note: Admission is free but reservations are required. Send an email to: leroyandersonfoundation@gmail.com to reserve a seat.
Michael Gallagher, Photographer
Exploring the Creative Process
Sunday, September 29, 2024, 2:00 pm
Leroy Anderson House
Shawna Lee Kwashnak, Portraitist and author
Exploring the Creative Process
Sunday, October 27, 2024, 2:00 pm
Leroy Anderson House
Fine Arts Portraitist and author, ShawnaLee W. Kwashnak, creates exquisite lifelike works that blend impressionism with realism. "I am inspired by light that is so beautiful, special moments, and preserving memories worth savoring. There are things among us that are so great that we all clamor for a glimpse of before they're gone from our sight and memory. What if that glimpse can be captured in a portrait? What if this light can be shared for generations to come? Such things in life are worth pursuing in art. It is a special joy to create a drawing or painting that embodies these precious things for others to enjoy."
Sarah Marze, soprano, Emma Bocciarelli, pianist, Ann Aldrich, flautist, and VoiceBox Choir
Sunday, August 27, 2023, 2:00 p.m.
Performing and explaining the process of setting poetry to music; Leroy Anderson House, Terrace + Lawn, Woodbury, Connecticut. DETAILS + photos (pdf)
Steve Parlato, artist, poet and novelist
Sunday, Oct 1, 2023 at 2:00 p.m.
Presenting his series of sixteen collage portraits titled They Are Not Disposable; Leroy Anderson House, Woodbury, Connecticut. DETAILS + photos (pdf)
Julie Cook, pianist and poet + Thomasina Levy, musician, poet, singer, songwriter
Sunday, Oct 15, 2023 at 2:00 p.m.
Demonstrating how music enhances poetry by playing the piano, dulcimer, and other instruments with poetry readings; Leroy Anderson House, Woodbury, Connecticut. DETAILS + photos (pdf)
Marc Russell, commercial + fine-art photograper
Sunday, Oct 22, 2023 at 2:00 p.m.
Exploring his experienecs, inspiration and opportunities as a commercial and fine-art photographer; Leroy Anderson House, Woodbury, Connecticut. DETAILS + photos (pdf)
Exploring the Creative Process at the Leroy Anderson House
The idea for the series of presentations by Woodbury, Connecticut area artists titled Exploring the Creative Process came to Rolf Anderson in response to questions from visitors to the Leroy Anderson House who asked about composer Leroy Anderson's creative process. Many people know Leroy Anderson as the composer of "Sleigh Ride" and numerous other popular, light concert pieces. As Rolf explained his father's approach to composing music, he compared and contrasted the stereotypical depictions of a composer writing music at the piano with his father's entirely cerebral method of composing while pacing through the house in the evening, seemingly lost in thought.
In conversations with his brother Kurt Anderson, General Manager of WMNR Fine Arts Radio, Rolf and Kurt agreed that the Leroy Anderson Foundation could expand the audience which the concerts at the house attracted by developing new programs at the Leroy Anderson House centered on visual artists, - painters, sculptors, photographers and textile artists. Their parents had embraced modern art by commissioning and collecting art by local artists. This series of presentations, they felt, would carry their parents' interest in visual art forward and broaden the impact of the Leroy Anderson Foundation.
Rolf had noticed the great work being done by Sandy Carlson, poet laureate of Woodbury, in presenting poetry at the Woodbury Public Library. A relationship between the Arts Alliance of Woodbury and the Leroy Anderson Foundation was growing out of some AAW events which were hosted by the Leroy Anderson Foundation.
Rolf and Sandy met at the Leroy Anderson House in March 2023 and discussed Rolf's ideas. With Sandy's support, her connections to area artists and her boundless energy, she reached out to the members of the Arts Alliance of Woodbury and scheduled the first series of four speakers at the Leroy Anderson House. Now in the midst of the second series of four presenters in early 2024, Exploring the Creative Process at the Leroy Anderson House, response is overwhelmingly positive. Rolf and Sandy are already scheduling the third series of speakers for autumn 2024.
The Leroy Anderson House, a historic house museum and cultural center, is located at 33 Grassy Hill Road in Woodbury, Connecticut. Admission is free but reservations are required. Send an email to: leroyandersonfoundation@gmail.com to reserve a seat.
For complete information about the Leroy Anderson House visit the website:
www.leroyandersonfoundation.org
Late Summer - Autumn 2023
Exploring the Creative Process at the Leroy Anderson House
Photography and Sculpture with Marc Russell
Oct. 22, 2023, 2:00 pm
Leroy Anderson House
Russell says, "My work comes from explorations while hiking and traveling as well as in my gardens, where nature provides a beautiful, colorful, varied and wonderful array of forms, patterns, shapes and textures. Enhancing and inspiring the evolving relationships between art and nature are curiosity and scientific wonder, history, joy, respect for the earth's spirit combined with a love of light and form."
Guests will have the opportunity to try out some of Russell's ideas by using his 4x5 and 8x10 cameras for hands-on demonstrations and trials. He will also bring a few sculptures and tools for participants to try out.
Russell completed B.A and M.F.A. degrees in photography and sculpture from Brooklyn College. In addition, he studied at the Brooklyn Museum Art School, Cooper Union, The Art Students League, Pratt Institute Study Program in Italy and Maine Photographic Workshops. He has held several commercial photographic assistantships and apprenticed to sculptor Philip Grausman. He has taught in the Industrial Design Department at Pratt Institute and for 20 years was adjunct professor of black and white photography and advanced photo studio techniques at Rockland Community College. Russell has exhibited work in group and solo shows including The Rockefeller Gallery, Hopper House, Rockland Center for the Arts, Upstream Gallery, Imaging Arts, Uma Gallery, SUNY Albany, Renaissance Gallery, Blue Door, Washington Art Association, Soho Photography Gallery, Louisville JCC, Olivet College, the Peck School, Blue Hill Plaza and is in numerous private collections.
The Leroy Anderson House, a historic house museum and cultural center, is located at 33 Grassy Hill Road in Woodbury, Connecticut. Admission is free but reservations are required. Send an email to: leroyandersonfoundation@gmail.com to reserve a seat.
Poetry and Music, Oct. 15, 2023
Leroy Anderson House
Exploring the Creative Process at the Leroy Anderson House
The Leroy Anderson Foundation will continue its series of presentations titled Exploring the Creative Process at the Leroy Anderson House on Sunday, October 15 at 2 pm, when pianist and poet Julie Cook and musician, poet, singer, songwriter Thomasina Levy will . Cook and Levy will invite participants to do the same with a variety of simple instruments and poems that they provide.
Julie says, "There' no limit to the joy and creativity that happens when we playfully combine music and words. And the best part is that no musical experience is required!" Thomasina loves her work and calls herself a "creativity midwife" who is a witness to the birthing of others' creative processes in visual,
musical and written arts.
Julie Cook, a music educator and a published poet and fiction writer, also composes songs and choral works. She is a Music for People certified improvisation facilitator. Thomasina Levy, Connecticut State Troubadour from 2005 to 2006, is a musician, poet, singer, and songwriter.
The Leroy Anderson House, a historic house museum and cultural center, is located at 33 Grassy Hill Road. Admission is free. Reservations are required. To reserve a place, send an email to: leroyandersonfoundation@gmail.com.
The program is made possible by the generous support of the Friends of the Leroy Anderson Foundation.