ism of the week - week 6

Each week during our current exhibition, ...isms: Unlocking Art's Mysteries, we will post deeper insight into one of the paintings on view. Past the credit line, past the exhibition label, Assistant Curator Amanda Burdan shares her thoughts:

This image of a laborer was one of several portraits of working class men and women Walker Evans made on a trip to Cuba in 1933. Commissioned to photograph Machado-era Cuba for Carleton Beals’ book The Crime of Cuba, Evans went about his assignment without a specific political agenda. In later years he insisted he had not read the manuscript for the book prior to his trip and went with an open mind to photograph Cuba and its people as he experienced them. A mix of tight portraits, like this one, and scenes capturing both the streets of Havana and the surrounding villages, the resulting portfolio of thirty-one images has since become more widely known than the book they illustrated.

This assignment predates Evans’ work for the Farm Security Administration, but also foreshadows the kind of imagery he, and other so-called “information specialists” working for the United States government, would gather throughout the Depression. Evans’ respectful approach to this coal dock worker trained him for documenting the impoverished conditions of sharecroppers and tenant farmers in this country only a few years later. Evans allows the man’s tanned and leathery skin and bristly beard to narrate the story of the long hours he spent toiling in the Cuban summer sun. In many ways, he does the same in his later photographs of sharecroppers who appear hard-working and noble despite their tattered clothing and dirty faces.

Walker Evans
Dockworker, Havana, 1933

Gelatin silver print

Florence Griswold Museum

ism of the week - week 4

Each week during our current exhibition, ...isms: Unlocking Art's Mysteries, we will post deeper insight into one of the paintings on view. Past the credit line, past the exhibition label, Assistant Curator Amanda Burdan shares her thoughts:

Elmer MacRae’s Still Life with Magnolias is among the newest paintings in the Florence Griswold Museum’s collection. This modern looking painting may seem like a surprising choice for the collection given that MacRae is an important Impressionist from the Cos Cob art colony. He is, perhaps, even more important to the overall history of American art for the work he did as a member of the American Association of Painters and Sculptors, the group that organized and mounted the 1913 International Exhibition of Modern Art, better known as the Armory Show. That pivotal exhibition helped to introduce American audiences to a broad range of the modern styles coming out of Europe. MacRae submitted Impressionist styled works to that exhibition, but soon after came under the influence of the twentieth-century Europeans, updating his style.

This still life, painted two years after the Armory Show moves away from the sketch-like images of his Impressionist years, substituting in bold brush strokes to represent the vase, flowers, and especially the patterned background. MacRae takes a step toward Modernism with the abstract qualities of the work—a radical move for a young American at the time, but he may appear to our eyes to remain conservative in his choice of subject matter. In fact, Modernists like Paul Cézanne and Pablo Picasso embraced the simple still life as a vehicle for their more groundbreaking experiments in style.

Elmer Livingston MacRae (1875–1953)

Still Life with Magnolias, 1915

Oil on canvas
Florence Griswold Museum

Museum purchase

ism of the week - week 3

Each week during our current exhibition, ...isms: Unlocking Art's Mysteries, we will post deeper insight into one of the paintings on view. Past the credit line, past the exhibition label, Assistant Curator Amanda Burdan shares her thoughts:

Instrumental in many ways to the establishment of abstract art in the United States, Harry Holtzman is best remembered today for his close friendship with and writing about Piet Mondrian. Holtzman’s colleague, the abstract artist Burgoyne Diller, proved pivotal to his future as an artist. Diller introduced Holtzman to the Gallatin Collection at New York University where Holtzman first encountered Mondrian’s work. Though he had not seen Mondrian’s paintings before, Holtzman had been working in a similar geometric style. Intrigued to the point of obsession, Holtzman traveled to Paris in 1934, intent on meeting Mondrian.

By 1934 Mondrian had firmly established his Neo-Plasticism, an entirely abstract style made up—in its ultimate form—strictly of horizontal and vertical lines and primary colors. Mondrian was beginning to experiment with three-dimensional interpretations of his iconic style. The two men shared theories of art and parted as friends when Holtzman returned to the United States the following spring.

Holtzman continued to be active in the New York art world, teaching classes at European modernist Hans Hoffman’s school. He, along with other advanced artists of the period founded the American Abstract Artists group in 1937, to further the cause of abstraction in this country. During the Depression Holtzman also worked as an administrator for the mural painting division of the Federal Art Program, a branch of the Works Progress Administration. In 1940, Holtzman sponsored Mondrian’s immigration to the United States, supporting the artist through the last four years of his life. Mondrian passed away, naming Holtzman as the sole heir to his estate, the administration of which consumed much of his time. The lifelong project of publishing Mondrian’s complete writings only came to fruition months before Holtzman’s death in 1987.

A recent acquisition to the Museum's collection---
Harry Holtzman (1912–1987)
Red, Orange, Green and Yellow
Oil on canvas
Florence Griswold Museum
Museum purchase, Alice Talcott Enders Purchase Fund

Memories of a Memoir Class

This blog entry was written by Katherine Catalano of Old Lyme about her experience in the Memoir Class taught by Sue Levine and Lary Bloom last fall.

Read examples of students' work and learn about spring class at http://www.florencegriswoldmuseum.org/MemoirClass.php.

The Florence Griswold Museum was full of surprises this fall. While a fantasy birdhouse exhibit was in place on the grounds, a memoir writing class taught by local professionals Lary Bloom and Suzanne Levine was underway in one of the gracious side rooms in the museum.

I had taken a six week memoir writing class with Lary and Suzanne last spring at R.J.Julia’s in Madison. Like most scribblers, I had been writing for pleasure since the Dear Diary days of adolescence. Now, my friends seemed to enjoy the book and movie reviews I email them when I think they would enjoy something I read or saw. I write poems and short essays about experiences with family and observations of Nature.
I told myself that I didn’t care if anything I wrote was ever published, but that wasn’t true.

I was simply unsure if I had any real talent, and knew I needed professional guidance to know if I should even attempt to submit a piece for publication in a magazine or literary review that I liked.

That first course in Madison with Lary and Suzanne was encouraging. Some of my pieces were just flat, and some were riddled with adjectives and clever sentences stuck in just because I liked them. “Darlings,” is what Lary and Suzanne called the latter, and they gotta go.

Some of my pieces were pretty well received, but I felt I was just warming up in those six weeks, so when I saw that Lary and Suzanne were teaching the memoir class at the Florence Griswold Museum, I called immediately to sign on. This time for eight weeks. The work was more demanding. My confidence grew, and I saw myself beginning to get control of my writing and to understand the discipline of the “craft.” I was better able to stay within the word limits of the assignments on scene setting, character description, dialogue—all the aspects of good prose.

Reading my pieces to the class was the first test. The comments by my fellows were honest, and even the criticism was kind. If there was a look of “huh?” on anyone’s face I knew I’d missed the mark. One piece had them laughing out loud, though. Heady stuff.

We handed in our assignments each week to Lary and Suzanne for their close reading and critique. The following week we got them back with their assessment of the piece in general, and detailed suggestions for revision. Suzanne put little check marks on paragraphs she liked. I looked for those first.

I wrote a practice query letter to a publication I hoped would be interested in my work based on my persuasive introduction. My letter lavishly praised the publication, leaving little room on one page for anything about my submission. I’ll have to work on that.

I’ll have to work on everything, (Lary says he goes back to an article eleven times to keep polishing it), but I move forward now with confidence that I can and will submit my work for publication. Even a rejection would mean that some editor actually read it.

The criticism, pro or con, by teachers and fellow students was invaluable to my development as a writer, and I was sorry to see the class end.

My writing craft moved up a notch or two, and because this was a memoir class, fourteen strangers got to know each other pretty well in a short time.

As I looked around the room the last day, remembering the tragic, dramatic, beloved, and hilarious contributions of my fellows, I realized that there is no such thing as an ordinary life, not even my own.

Eaton and the Reverence of Nature

This post was written by Charles Clark, whose Charles Eaton painting, Evening Quiet, is featured in the current exhibition Connecticut Treasures: Works from Private Collections. The work is a promised bequest to the Museum. We thank him for sharing his thoughts with us!

For the last thirty years I’ve been researching and writing about Connecticut artists who were in their day famous but owing to shifts of taste became, or remain, obscure. Threats to Connecticut’s beautiful countryside drove me first to landscape painters like Charles Warren Eaton, but recently I’ve become interested in contemporary artists like Norman Ives, a graphic designer, painter, and printmaker, who worked with abstracted type forms, and who lived and worked in the New Haven area.

My great-grandparents were patrons of Eaton’s and all my relatives had his paintings and drawings hanging on their walls. This is how I first saw his work. From 1900 to about 1910, Eaton gained fame as the “Pine Tree Painter,” the sole artist to record the white pine forests that were so common across the Northeast at that time. These are the paintings he is best known for today.

When I was a boy, paintings like Evening Quiet, a good example of the pine tree genre, struck me for their mystery, their peacefulness, and their rich glow. They didn’t look like anything else, and as I learned more about Eaton, and wrote about him, I realized we were bound by a love of the New England landscape and an absolute reverence for trees (a critic once commented on the unvarying beauty of Eaton’s trees – whether he painted in Connecticut, or Belgium, or Italy, here was an artist who knew nature and whose landscapes are more than an assembling of natural forms.) That he read Emerson and Thoreau comes as no surprise.

As a little jest, but in truth, sincerely, I once told a friend that after a bad day, as a form of meditation, I’d “take little walks in these paintings.” Art not only amuses and pleases, and shocks, but can edify and even console. Rather than announce “look at me, aren’t I pretty,” paintings like Evening Quiet quietly establish a rapport with the viewer. They are antidotes to this noisy age, evidence that, upon reflection on the timeless beauty of nature, mankind can, with any luck, live a life of modesty.

Planting The Museum's Cornfield

One of the things I love about being a summer intern here at the Florence Griswold Museum is that my days are often filled with surprises-

everything from noticing something new in a painting thanks to a second grader to planting a cornfield! Only a couple of weeks ago on June eighth, I found myself out behind the Museum's garden helping to plant several hundred Indian corn seeds along with fellow co-workers Ted, Randy and Matt F. But why would an art museum plant a field of corn you may be asking yourself.

No, the museum is not establishing a farm to grow vegetables for Café Flo (Indian corn is purely a decorative variety of corn). Instead, the plantin

g was part of the many preparations that we are making for the exciting Harvestime festival at the museum in October. After the grand success of the Wee Faerie Village, David Rau the director of education and outreach at the museum has developed a similar concept for the museum grounds that will engage the creativity of local artists once again. No crows will dare to touch our precious cornfield thanks to the over two dozen scarecrows created by local artists inspired by famous artists from around the world and though out history which will dot the grounds for the month of October. These scarecrows will come in all shapes, sizes, colors, patterns and designs. On your journey around the grounds you will run into all sorts of characters- anyone from Picasso to Georgia O’Keeffe to Childe Hassam. H

owever, even an incredible scarecrow exhibit such as this is incomplete without a cornfield! And it looks like our field is off to a good start; after only two weeks the corn is already around 11 inches tall and is flourishing because of all of the rain and hot weather we have been having. Please feel free to come by and check on the progress of our cornfield throughout the summer when you come to visit the museum. The field is now nicely marked with a sign featuring Van Scarecrow, our very own scarecrow mascot. (Here my fellow intern Ian is posing with the newly installed sign.)

The cornfield will be featured in one of the exciting activities planned for the scarecrow exhibition; guests will be able to pose in scarecrow costumes in front of the hopefully very tall cornfield (the plants are supposed to get to 8 feet by the end of the summer). The museum will be hosting lots of other special events including Not-So-Very-Scary Nighttime tours of the scarecrows as well as pumpkin carving and scavenger hunts. In the meantime, I will be reporting every once and a while about how our corn is shaping up. Stay tuned for the next step- thinning the corn. At this point, it looks like the corn might be knee high by the fourth of July!

(Below is an updated photo of the corn taken on June 24th)

Opening for Sewell Sillman: Pushing Limits

What a wonderful start to the exhibition! Over 300 people attended the opening of Sewell Sillman: Pushing Limits. The Museum was so fortunate to have Jim McNair and all the people who made the exhibition possible in one place. Read more about the exhibition...

MISS FLORENCE’S GARDEN ARBOR

The Museum is pleased to announce a new addition to its landscape – a beautifully crafted garden arbor that recreates a prominent historical feature of Miss Florence’s perennial garden during the days of the art colony. The new arbor was a project of the Museum’s Buildings and Grounds Committee chaired by Curly Lieber. Constructed of cedar and stained white, it was expertly installed by Bogaert Construction of Essex on January 4, 2010 against the backdrop of a pristine snow-covered garden. All parties concerned are very pleased with the outcome. We invite visitors to take a look at it on their next visit to the Florence Griswold Museum.

The idea of replicating the arbor has long been a goal of the Museum. A film from the 1920s shows Miss Florence walking toward the camera and passing under an arbor in the garden. Stills from the film guided the Museum in developing custom designs to replicate its scale and design characteristics. The arbor consists of four columns connected by a canopy of wooden lintels. At the Museum’s Annual Benefit in September 2008, money was raised from our patrons for this purpose. In 2009, the Museum commissioned Bogaert Construction to carry out this project, with the expectation that the arbor would be erected by the end of the year. Special thanks to Bruce Lawrence, John Bogaert, Paul Deckelman (Lead Carpenter) and Kevin Wakelee for their work on the arbor, and to trustee Chad Floyd and garden historian Sheila Wertheimer for their advice and help in bringing this to realization. Sheila reports that climbing roses of an heirloom variety favored by Florence Griswold will soon be climbing along the arbor. Something to look forward to this summer!

Posted by:

Jeffrey Andersen Ted Gaffney
Director Facilities Manager

A Faerie Dwelling? Where to begin?!

Bill Vollers, a Graphic Designer and Artist in Chester, Connecticut, was asked to design a house for Footsie, the muse of Will Howe Foote.

From Bill...

Create a Faerie dwelling? Say what?? Hmmm…well why not, but where to begin? As with other projects new to me a little research seemed to be the best place to start. The fun begins, Google "Faerie houses" and all sorts of fascinating things appear, folks have been creating these tiny dwellings for quite sometime. Then I recalled a visit to Monhegan Island off the coast of Maine where these dwellings thrive. I’m inspired!

I first selected a very old rather primitive but “funky” box from my collection which seemed appropriate. My artist is Will Howe Foote…feet will play a large part in the overall theme. I then scavenged for woodland type materials and other stuff from my shop. I created the tables and chairs out of sticks with small sand dollars for tops. The bed is the lining from an antique shoe I found in a dump behind my house. Then I remembered that my brother had crafted a miniature stagecoach years ago that had fallen into disrepair. However along with the coach he made small trunks, barrels etc..perfect to the scale and character of my dwelling. A true gift!

I then decided to decorate the walls with miniature paintings and drawings of feet, which I framed with twigs. For the entrance and awnings I used pieces of fungus as well as feathers …this is exciting! At a tag sale I came across two pieces of fan like coral (very much like Faerie wings) a natural addition to the outside of the dwelling. Fine-tuning and putting all the pieces together is the final stage, which I am indeed looking forward to.

I do hope my faerie, Footsie, will enjoy his new home, he’s been an inspiration and somehow I’ve felt his presence during time I’ve “worked” on this project. I’m grateful for the opportunity, it’s been a pleasure.

For more photos of Footsie's house....

Barn Restoration Project, Part V

On 13 May 09 John the KSR carpenter and Dave the electrician are on site. John is building the barn doors, and Dave and his helper are running conduit throughout the barn to support the overhead lighting and various outlets.

On 14 May 09, the roofers arrive to begin putting on the metal roof. Although it is made of Copper, it is coated with a Zinc-Tin Alloy that makes it appear grey. John of KSR and the electricians continue work begun on 13 May.

On 15 May 09 the white oak cabinetry arrives to be installed in the Garden Work Space. Roofers continue their work.

On 18 May 09, Three Leaf Landscaping returns to install the handicap access bluestone ramps to the north and south entrances, as well as clean up and reseed the disrupted areas, lay the chip stone perimeter around the barn, spread new stone dust on the garden path, and remove the smaller cedar tree and foundations plantings. Dave the electrician completes his work.

On 19 May 09, Igor, Kronenberger's resident cabinetmaker, continues work on installing the cabinetry, while John is building a new closet. Carmello is re-installing the repaired upper west side window. Three Leaf Landscaping completes thier work.

Barn Restoration Project, Part IV

On 22 April, 2009, John, David and Carmello are seen hard at work finishing up installing the siding on the barn's west side. A ship-lap joint was used to repair a defective upper cross member on the barn's western most bent. This work was anticipated from the start. Fortunately, when we removed the remainder of the west side siding, no further deterioating girts or post became evident. By the 29th, the west side siding was complete.

On 05 May, excavators arrive to dig the two trenches required to connect the water, electric and fire/security lines from the Hartman Education Center to the Historic Barn, as well as the drain line from the new stone barn sink to the septic system . Electrical systems will be snaked in the laid PVC conduit. the water line is blue flexible plastic.

On 06 - 07 May, work continues on connecting all subterranean systems. this involves boring into the foundation of the Education Center to connect systems located in the Ed Center's basement with those of the barn. Concrete patch is used to waterseal around the PVC conduit that pierces the Ed Center's foundation. In addition, the Roofers arrive to install the 1 x 6 pine board underlayer. That evening Jason Zeleck arrives to lay the conduit for the Fire and Security System.

On 08 May, all systems are entrenched and Al, the excavator, proceeds back fill the ditches.

Anyone for Volunteering?

The Florence Griswold Museum invites you to join our group of volunteers by contributing your time and talents. Some volunteer jobs have a public role, others are more behind-the-scenes, but each is vital to the Museum.

It is such a rewarding part of the museum experience. Visitors always appreciate the personal touch given by every one of our volunteers. You see it in our beautiful gardens. Guests are greeted at the house and gallery by smiling faces and knowledgeable dialog. Being a member of one of our volunteer committees allows you to make a difference in the workings of a great institution and you meet and make friends with the most interesting people. Miss Florence would be very proud!

This coming season proves to have many new positions for those who admire, enjoy and have interest in our landscape--coinciding with exciting new installations and our barn restoration.

Positions are available for those interested in art, nature, education and hospitality. Time commitment varies according to volunteer description.

Please visit www.florencegriswoldmuseum.org/education/volunteering.html for full descriptions and an application. Not sure where your talent lies? Call me at 434-7995 or contact Shawn Savage, membership coordinator, at (860) 434-5542, ext. 112, or e-mail Shawn@flogris.org.

Barn Restoration Project, Part III

On 06 April 2009, we started putting up siding on the north side facing the historic garden. this work continued on 07 April as well.

On 08 April, David Colita, the site supervisor discovered, upon removing the south side siding, that we have three more defective girts - that is, the horizontal members that extend between upright posts that are used for structural support and as nailers for the barn siding. One girt actually collapsed as Carmello Santos was leaning against it!

On 10 April, we had a meeting with the Director, the Project Manager and David Colite the on- site supervisor to discuss the conditions of these girts. David also took this opportunity to point out the deteriorating condition of the two posts that flank the south side waggon doors. All parties agreed that we do not want to replace any further historic fabric than absolutely necessary. the Director authorized the replacement of three girts that were beyond repair, as well as another 2 X 6 board that had been a patch repair back in the 1970's. Regarding the flanking south door posts, the new posts being installed for the waggon doors will be "sistered" to the original posts and will, in turn, lend a degree of support to those members. We will further add a reinforcement piece onto the western post above the lintel for greater strength.
During the week of the 13th, the crew installed gussets on the roof line, hurricane tie-downs where the rafters meet the roof plate, and installed four new girts on the south side. They also finished attaching the rest of the south side siding.

On the 20th, the crew removed the old west side barn siding.

On the 22nd they began work on installing the new west side siding.




















Regarding an inquiry from one of our blog readers; The Rafal Landscape Center will be completed and opened to the public in early June. I expect Kronenberger & Sons Restoration to have their work complete by the first week of May. At that time the plumbing and electrical will be brought into the barn, and Keith Ragone will begin installing the exhibitry.
One of the goals of the Center is to educate the public on historic gardens and the local grange traditions. We will be conducting hands-on demonstrations and lectures that will focus on this subject matter.

Barn Restoration Project, Part II

In early March the crew (Dave and Carmello of Kronenberger & Sons Restoration) poured a new concrete floor. This involved the removing of the older dirt floor, digging down a few feet to lay a gravel bed, installing reinforcements, and pouring the concrete. Sometime in the past forty years the original foundation was replaced by a concrete one. However, they kept the dirt floor intact. Interestingly, the 2 X 12 boards used as the forms for the poured foundation were then re-used to replace two deteriorating upper central cross members. At the time of the pouring of the new concrete foundation, the barn’s sill plate (that part of the structure that sits on the foundation) was also replaced with red oak. No doubt this was due to extensive dry rot and insect damage. There is also evidence at this time of some diagonal braces being replaced as well as “dutchman”(selective cutting and patching of framing) and modified scarf joint repairs of upright posts.

Selective post and beam replacement. The barn needed to be "racked", using a “come – along” racheting device, to make the barn plumb to facilitate post repair. This involved the wrapping of a chain around the walnut tree outside the barn and racking the barn to achieve a properly upright perpendicular. All post replacement and repair was accomplished by the first week of April. A considerable number of the barn’s original posts and beams required either complete or partial replacement using shiplap joinery or “dutchman” repairs. This involved the cutting out of the damaged wood and affixing a matching wood patch. One post, for example, required a full seven feet of repair, without, however, replacing the whole post of twenty-four feet. In addition, two central posts that had been sheared off sometime in the past have been restored.
On 20 March the roof was removed, to be replaced by a standing seam metal roof at a later date.
The re-siding of three sides of the barn commenced second week of April. Most of the exterior siding is too far gone to reuse. Only the eastern side facing the Hartman Education Center will retain its original siding. Selective repairs of the eastern side may be made with boards salvaged from the other three sides. The eastern side features a dove cote, a window and two doors. Replacement siding will be a red cedar stained to a hue compatible with the existing eastern side.

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Barn Restoration Project

The goal of the Barn Restoration Project is three-fold:

- Renovate and repair the structure, using, where practical, traditional timber frame joinery. At the same time remaining sensitive to preserving the historic fabric where possible.

- Tell the story of the agrarian and gardening/landscaping traditions of Southern Connecticut.






- The eastern third of the barn will be reserved for the volunteer “Garden Gang”.












This traditional barn, on the campus of the Florence Griswold Museum, is the sole remaining outbuilding that is extant from the Art Colony period.



The Barn was built around 1851 in that style easily identified with the utilitarian barns of the Connecticut River Valley. Assembled from local chestnut, oak and fir, the traditional mortise and tenion joinery of post and beam construction is much in evidence in the structure.
Later repairs in the mid–twentieth century were indifferent to the traditional joinery methods. These repairs utilized modern fasteners, such as steel nails, carriage and lag bolts, to hold the post and boards together. Central timber beam members were replaced by conventional 2 X 12 fir boards. Central timber posts, essential to the stability of the frame, were sheared in half, presumably to maximize greater storage capacity on the ground floor.

So, the scope of the work on this project is to renovate, selectively restore and completely repair the Historic Barn to such an extent that it can be used for the purposes of the Rafal Landscape Center, while remaining sensitive to the historic fabric of the building.

Subsequent blogs will discuss in detail each repair.

Something "New" in Miss Florence's Bedroom

For many of us docents who spend time in Miss Florence's house, there has been something missing lately. It is the lovely statuette of "Jessie Wilson" by Bessie Potter Vonnoh which is normally on the fireplace mantel in Miss Florence's bedroom. This bronze and another by Vonnoh entitled "Standing Nude" (usually in the artist's bedroom) are currently part of the exhibition "Bessie Potter Vonnoh: Sculptor of Women," organized by the Cincinnati Art Museum.

This show was on view at the Florence Griswold Museum last fall and is now at the Montgomery Museum of Fine Arts in Alabama. It will travel on to the Cincinnati Art Museum this summer.

Vonnoh was a popular member of the Lyme Art Colony and a good friend of Florence Griswold's. It is believed that the two bronzes were gifts from Vonnoh to Miss Florence.

The sculpture of "Jessie Wilson" (the daughter of President Woodrow Wilson) is a favorite of mine and I have missed seeing it. But several weeks ago, I walked into Miss Florence's bedroom and--what to my wondering eyes should appear?--there was another work by Bessie Potter Vonnoh.

This "new" bronze is from a private collection and is another cast of Vonnoh's "Standing Nude." It was discovered several years ago in upstate New York. The owners are loaning it to the Florence Griswold while the museum's two Vonnoh sculptures are on the road. And the privately owned "Standing Nude" will remain on the fireplace mantel until next fall when "Jessie Wilson" returns home.

Museum Inspires Young Artist

After visiting the Florence Griswold Museum for the first time during the summer of 2004, five-year-old Stephen Mills sat down on the museum grounds with the materials his mother provided him and painted his first canvas. Two hours later he finished, arriving at a new and more advanced level of painting that surprised those who saw his work. Now 10 years old, Stephen has already received several awards and recognitions.

When Stephen was seven, his Mom took him to Giverny where he painted in Monet's garden. He wants to go back again one day and paint there again. He commented that being at the Florence Griswold Museum reminded him of Giverny.

Jane Mills, Stephen's mom, talks about a more recent visit to the Museum, " The photo of him at the Museum at age 9 last September shows him at a very happy moment. He had toured the museum and sat down to paint. The museum closed and he was yelling to nobody how happy he was and how he loved painting and loved being there. He said, 'I think I can feel Childe Hassam's spirit looking over my shoulder!' and he painted right until dark."

In 2005, at the age of six, Stephen received The Connecticut Renewal Team's National Arts Program Award. Stephen was the youngest person in Connecticut to ever receive this award. In October, 2006, Stephen signed his posters at Borders to help raise money for hurricane relief. His painting, Poinsettias, was chosen to be represented on holiday cards for the 2006 Children's Medical Center's Holiday fundraiser. Also in 2006, Stephen had a one-person art show at the Peterborough Art Academy and Gallery in Peterborough, NH.

Stephen's art was selected in an international contest in 2007 to appear on the cover of the book, It's All in Your Head, Around the World in 80 Lyme Patient Stories by PJ Langhoff. In 2008 he was featured on Viva Hartford during his Strokes of Genius 2 exhibit at Young Studios in Hartford.