Entries Sought For The 2012 Maritime Aquarium

‘Festival Of Lighthouses Contest’

NORWALK — Believe it or not, staff at The Maritime Aquarium at Norwalk is already thinking of the holiday season.

Entry forms are being accepted for The Aquarium’s 11th annual Festival of Lighthouses Contest, which awards an Aquarium Family Membership for each accepted entry and $3,300 in prizes, including $1,500 for first place.

The special exhibit places 24 lighthouses throughout the aquarium during the holiday season and beyond. This year’s presentation will be November 10 through January 21. Aquarium visitors will follow these hand-crafted beacons through the galleries and then may cast a vote for their favorite.

The builder of the lighthouse with the most votes will receive $1,500 at an awards ceremony on January 25. Other prizes to be awarded are $750 for second, $375 for third, $300 for fourth, $225 for fifth, and $150 for sixth.

Entry forms must be received by October 19. The number of entries is limited, so it is important to submit entry forms as soon as possible. After the first 24 entries are received, all subsequent entrants are placed on a waiting list.

Lighthouses must be delivered to the Aquarium between November 2-5.

To qualify, lighthouses must be 3 to 6 feet tall and have a working light – beyond that, it’s up to the creators’ imaginations. Previous years’ entries have been crafted out of about every material imaginable, from the expected — wood, metal, stone, papier mache, plastic and glass — to the unexpected — paper, string, sea glass, candy, furnace filters, trash and even paper clips.  (Prohibited are animal remains, including shells.)

Many past entries have been modeled after real lighthouses. But others have ranged from the highly artistic to the comically imaginative to the puzzlingly abstract.

Last year’s big winners were Donna Ball and Laura McNamara of Newtown, who used 35 pounds of flour, 25 pounds of sugar, 15 pounds of confectionary sugar, four dozen eggs, and 13 pounds of butter to bake cookies and make frosting to create “Sugar Cookie Sheffield Island,” a precise model of the Sheffield Island Lighthouse.

A printable entry form, and the official rules, is available online at www.MaritimeAquarium.org. For additional information call The Maritime Aquarium at 203-852-0700, extension 2248.