Arts Festival At FFH

This Weekend

By Shannon Hicks

After more than two years of planning, it is crunch time for the committee members of Newtown Art Festival, a two-day event to be presented rain or shine within a three-acre area of Fairfield Hills this weekend.

The event will open at 9 am on Saturday, September 15, and run continuously until 6 pm. The second day of the event, Sunday, September 16, will have the same operating hours. Events will be presented within the soccer field of the campus, the area to the north of D.G. Beers Boulevard.

Admission is $5 per person, with children ages 12 and under admitted for free. Organizers are asking that attendees do not bring dogs to the festival.

Live performances will include the festival opener, the jazz group Standard and Blue at 10 am Saturday. Singer-songwriter-guitarist Martin Ear is scheduled to perform at 11:30, followed by a variety show organized by The Newtowner magazine staff and featuring State Poet Laureate Dick Allen, a poetry slam featuring Newtown High School students, the jazz band Boplicity and Flagpole Shakespeare Repertory Theatre at 4.

Peter Ferreira & Friends will offer a headlining set to close the Arts Tent on Saturday at 5:30.

Music will continue on Sunday with Newtown High School Singers opening the day at 10, followed by jazz and classical music by Aurora Martin and Robert Rabinowitz, then Danbury Trombone Outfit, another variety show by The Newtowner, bluegrass and Americana by String Fingers, ska-rock by Smokebomb Mondays, and a closing set by the rock band Fat Chance at 4:30.

Artist Bryn Gillette, who has a “wet on wet” painting workshop early Sunday afternoon, will also be doing live art response while Fat Chance plays.

“He works with nontoxic, quick drying oil paints, and paints while he is listening to music,” said Workshops & Demonstrations Chair Jennifer Rogers. “It’s amazing to watch him interpret the music this way.”

A series of Inspiration Stations will be set up all weekend. These hands-on workshop tents, according to organizers, will be dedicated to their theme for the full weekend, giving festival attendees the freedom to drop in and out at their convenience. “International Arts & Crafts” will be offered by The Newtown International Center for Education (NICE); “Taste of Odyssey,” with coaches, students, and parents on hand to answer questions, will demonstrate how this program combines literature, science, and art to promote teamwork and creative thinking; Kristine Humber’s “Recycled CD Station” will have visitors creating designs with used CDs; and The Association of Traditional Rug Hooking Artists will be in charge of “Fiber Arts,” where a community weaving project will be set up and visitors can try their hand at rug hooking or knitting, and weaving demonstrations will be offered at 10 am and noon each day

Connecting with NICE was beneficial for the organization as well as the arts committee, said Ms Rogers.

 “We are really helping each other,” she said. “We gave them a tent and in return they took over scheduling the international aspect of the weekend,” Ms Rogers said. “It’s been great to work with them because they added that facet — the international element — that we didn’t otherwise have until then.”

More than two dozen workshops and demonstrations each day will cover fine art and crafts; dance ranging from traditional social and Irish dancing to funk-jazz; photography and camera basics, and even one workshop, on Saturday afternoon, that will explore “When Worlds Collide: Math Meets Art.”

Origami, Commedia dell’Arte, Japanese fish printing, sock puppets, juggling, writing for young adults and even becoming part of a fantasy flower garden filled with ballet dancers are also within the workshop and demo schedule.

In addition to its Inspiration Station, NICE has a series of workshops planned, covering Spanish, Italian, French, Chinese, Japanese, and Hindi language and cultures.

“We have activities, really, for all ages — little kids, school students, young adults, adults. Our workshops give people the opportunity to try something that they’ve never done before, and experience something perhaps that they’ve always wanted to try,” said Donna Monteleone Randle, a member of the Newtown Arts Festival Committee.

Musician William “Beaver” Bausch was another coup for the festival, said Ms Rogers. A friend and fellow Newtown High School graduate, Bausch studied under then-band director Joseph Grasso and, said Ms Rogers, “has always been a jaw-droppingly good drummer.” Now a professional drummer, composer, and educator, Mr Bausch is a founding member of Grupo Los Santos, a New York City-based quartet of jazz musicians who perform the music of Cuba and Brazil.

“His workshop on Sunday morning is a rhythm workshop that will introduce those Latin rhythms that we don’t hear a lot of around here,” said Ms Rogers.

Mr Bausch will be leading “Clave Rhythms in Afro-Cuban Music” at 11 am.

“It’s always been my goal that the workshops would be a vehicle to promote something … as well as to be a way for people to have some connection to the community they live and work in,” said Ms Johnson. “Newtowners are pretty private people — we respect each other’s privacy — so it’s easy to not be aware of what your neighbor two doors down does. This is a way to draw people out who have talent, and Newtown is saturated with talent, really.

“It’s been really eye-opening for me to discover just how varied people here in town are.”

The Flagpole Photographers Camera Club and The Society of Creative Arts of Newtown will both have exhibitions of members’ work. Presented inside Newtown Municipal Center, that will be the one festival event to be done indoors.

A scavenger hunt, with prizes, has also been announced.

“We want people to take their time to go everywhere, to really explore the festival,” said Ms Rogers. “This will be the perfect way to do that.”

Coloring And Crafts

The 2012 Event Chairs are Jennifer Johnston, Donna Mangiafico, and Dr Paul Mangiafico.

Planning and public events formally kicked off two years ago with an art contest to design the logo of the festival. The winner was Tracy Van Buskirk, who did a linoleum block print of Ram Pasture (pictured). Mrs Van Buskirk will in the Arts Tent Sunday morning, signing copies of this year’s Newtown Arts Festival poster.

A coloring contest will have young artists vying for Toys R Us gift cards.

Vendors will be selling food and art of a wide variety, from fine arts, fiber arts, whirligigs and beaded jewelry to homemade organic dog biscuits, hula hoops for all ages, quilts, leather crafts and woodenware. Local photographers, authors, textile artists, stone sculptors, and painters have all signed on to participate.

Vendor Coordinator Stacey Olszewski is prepared.

“We’re ready. We’re still getting people calling, still looking for space,” she said. As of Wednesday afternoon, 65 vendors had been confirmed, she said, “but we may get a few more in there.”

Uplifting Opening

Re/Max Right Choice, which has an office at 43 South Main Street, announced this week that it will be sponsoring Re/Max hot air balloon rides on Saturday from 9 to 11 am. Tethered rides in the 70-foot-tall balloon will be offered for a suggested donation of $10 per adult and $5 per child. All proceeds will go to Newtown Cultural Arts Commission (NCAC) to support future events and scholarship programs.

The festival’s admission fees — which cover all of the activities being presented — will also support NCAC.

“We feel comfortable that through early ticket reservations, sponsors, and others, we have enough to cover the basics like the tents, the banners, advertising, and everything else that we needed to put money up front for,” said Ms Monteleone Randle, the festival fundraising chairperson. “In theory now, any money that we make from here on will go toward the scholarship fund and everything else we want to do.

“It’s our goal to be able to do a scholarship each year to a Newtown resident who will either study arts or general academics. The details are still to be to be decided,” she added, “but a scholarship fund is our goal.”

Plenty of food will be available all weekend, of course. Newtown Hook & Ladder will be running a food tent, and The Farmers Market at Fairfield Hills will be represented.

“It’s the tenth anniversary of what started as The Sandy Hook Organic Farmers Market [now The Farmers Market at Fairfield Hills],” said Rob Kaiser. “Mary Fellows founded the market, and we will be celebrating that.

“We won’t have all of this year’s regular vendors here, but we will have a representation of everything the market has to offer, from crafts to the food,” he said.

Accessibility

Handicapped and a limited number of other parking spaces will be available on the FFH campus. Overflow parking will be at Reed Intermediate School.

While organizers have promised on their website to “make every effort to accommodate festival goers with mobility challenges,” they also ask attendees to recognize “that the property is grassed and that may be difficult to access for folks in wheelchairs or who are dependent on canes or walkers. People with such challenges may find it helpful to come with assistants who can help them get around.”

Porta-potties will be set up around the field, which will also be handicapped accessible.

Additional information, including a schedule of events, is available online at NewtownArtsFestival.com.

While the schedule has been posted and regularly maintained, “there are also some surprises planned,” promised Ms Monteleone Randle.

“I’m looking forward to seeing plenty of happy faces, expressions of awe and wonderment by our young people,” she said. “And I look forward to hearing people say ‘Wow, that was great. I can’t wait until next year.’”