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

ism of the Week - week 2

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:

In the first week of our Winter Studies class we talked about the peculiar case of “Luminism,” an “ism” that was invented a century after the Luminist painters worked. One of the paintings in the Luminist section of the current exhibition is John F. Kensett’s Fort Dumpling, although this particular work, like many others in the exhibition, might have been comfortably situated in other sections of the exhibition. Kensett is typically known as a Hudson River School painter, creating landscapes that romanticized American scenery. Hudson River School artists were highly skilled technicians who rendered their paintings with a high degree of finish and detail. Other Hudson River School paintings appear in the “Romanticism” section of the exhibition.

The Luminist painters were noted for their somewhat “quieter” scenes that lacked the drama and bravado of the Hudson River School works. Luminists also painted with virtuoso brushwork and crystalline details, but their compositions frequently felt simplified, or even empty. Fort Dumpling gives us a vast expanse of sky and sea along with the silhouette of the hilltop fort. Although the nominal subject is the fort, the glowing sunset helps us understand how the Luminist movement acquired its name.

Kensett’s Fort Dumpling would have been equally at home in the “Historicism” section of the exhibition. The fort itself is an interesting landmark that stands at the entrance to Narragansett Bay in Jamestown, Rhode Island. A strategic location for control of the Bay, the fort was occupied by American, French, and British troops during the American Revolution. By the time Kensett painted it, nearly a hundred years after the British evacuated Newport, the site was a romantic reminder of the bygone Revolutionary era.

John Frederick Kensett (1818–1872)

Fort Dumpling, ca. 1871

Oil on canvas
Florence Griswold Museum

Gift of The Hartford Steam Boiler Inspection and Insurance Company

ism of the Week - week 1

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:

Stephen Howard’s painting Judge Marvin’s Barn draws attention to an ancient building in Lyme. The Marvin homestead was the subject of a feature article in the New London Day in 1937, shortly before Howard moved to Lyme, celebrating the many generations of Marvins who had lived there since it was built in 1788. Located on Nickerson Hill, the highest elevation in all of New London County, the farm was said to have been visited by President Andrew Jackson, who stopped to water his horses after crossing the Connecticut River on Ely’s ferry.

Although this painting appears in the exhibition in a section on Regionalism, the attention to a local historic property also shares some of the sensibilities of Historicism. By looking back from his twentieth century point of view, Howard suggests a nostalgia for a New England of the past, of which the Marvin farm was emblematic. Rather than rendering the barn as it might have looked in a bygone era, Howard’s realism offers a dilapidated structure and an ominous sky. The implied elegy for colonial days and agrarian ways was not uncommon for artists during the Great Depression.

Stephen Howard (1912–2010)

Judge Marvin’s Barn

Oil on canvas
Florence Griswold Museum

Gift of Mrs. Janet C. Davis in honor of the Centennial

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.

Bringing an exhibit to life

{Tula Telfair and museum staff prepare to hang one of Telfair's landscapes in the Smith Gallery}.

A certain hushed formality is a given in most museums. Such an atmosphere seems fitting for spaces devoted to the display of meaningful works of art. However, as these photos prove, the last days leading up to a well-curated exhibit are anything but hushed or formal!

Yesterday, artist/curator Tula Telfair and the rest of the museum staff got down to work installing paintings in preparation for this weekend's opening, Landscapes in Counterpoint. Gallery walls are often repainted to complement a new exhibit. In this case, Telfair elected to re-use the soft gray hues that provided the backdrop for the previous installation, Sewell Sillman's Pushing Limits. After the walls dry, the art is hung with painstaking care, and finally, text labels are added next to each piece.

These images also give viewers an idea of the true scale of Telfair's dramatic landscapes.  Below, a glimpse of Curators Amy Kurtz Lansing and Amanda Burdan, and Museum Director Jeff Anderson, working with Telfair's Most Approaches Suffer from the Predictable Isolation of Schools.

             

Exploring the modern landscape

Tula Telfair, Most Approaches suffer from the Predictable Isolation of Schools, 2010.  Oil on canvas, 72h x 108w inches. Courtesy of Forum Gallery.

Tula Telfair's powerful landscapes reflect memories of her own experiences in nature. At a young age, she witnessed the vast terrain, varied weather systems, and changing color palettes of landscapes around the world. But unlike the traditional works of the American Impressionists or Hudson River Valley School, the images on her canvases don't represent real locales.

Instead, Telfair's landscapes are imagined - vividly imagined. When I spoke to her last week about her work, she emphasized how important it is that her dramatic paintings provoke strong emotional responses or memories in viewers. As a thoroughly modern landscape painter, she creates image-based work that treats both the landscape, and its' viewer, as subject. 

As viewers, we're on the right path if we feel on edge or overwhelmed, or if a painting triggers powerful physical sensations from our own remembered experiences of the natural world.

Certain landscapes have the power to remind us how ephemeral our lives are, in the context of our existence in a mysterious universe. Many of us have experienced universal moments of awe and wonder as we have looked across a mountain range or craned our necks to see a night sky full of stars.  It's this sometimes unsettling, but essential aspect of the human experience, that Telfair's work evokes. Which landscapes have had that effect on you?

Behind the scenes with Tula Telfair

{In her Manhattan studio, Tula Telfair works on the landscape paintings that will be the centerpiece of the museum's upcoming exhibit.} 

There's an unmistakable relaxation response in our bodies that heralds the spring season, isn't there? Longer sunny days, warm breezes, and blooming flowers inevitably inspire easier smiles and sighs of contentment as everyone thaws out from the long, cold winter. 

It's exactly that kind of powerful, sensual physical response to nature that inspires Tula Telfair's dramatic landscape paintings, and she seeks to evoke a similar reaction in her viewers. Last week I had the pleasure of going behind the scenes with her to talk about her upcoming exhibit at the Florence Griswold Museum, Landscapes in Counterpoint.

As with any body of creative work, Telfair's landscapes have evolved over time. They began as quick color studies meant to inform the narrative, figurative pieces she was creating at the time. But one morning, an art dealer walked into her studio to find a grouping of these luminous, colorful landscapes scattered across the floor, "like little jewels", she remembers. 

From that dealer's initial interest in showing similar pieces, a body of large, dramatic landscapes has emerged. Now, she spends the days in her Manhattan studio absorbed in large canvases like the ones pictured above, working on as many as eleven at one time. In the weeks leading up to the opening of her exhibit on April 24th,  I'll be posting more from behind the scenes, sharing pieces about her creative process, and recommendations for the upcoming exhibit. 

Uniquely inspired by Sewell Sillman

Did you know that the museum has a guest book in the first room of the Krieble Gallery? It's easy to get so absorbed in the art itself that you might miss it... but the next time you're here, it's worth a look! Of course we love reading glowing reviews of our exhibits (like the one below).

We're so fortunate that our lovely visitors also share their impressions from their experiences at the museum, in words or with their own drawings... and the Sewell Sillman show has inspired a larger-than-usual outpouring of thoughts and images!

                            

                               

                             

It's exciting to see how the museum's first full-scale contemporary art exhibit has inspired so many of you!

"Red on Edge": Tell + Show Gallery Discussion

Discover Simple, Private Sharing at Drop.io

Discover Simple, Private Sharing at Drop.io

Discover Simple, Private Sharing at Drop.io

The Krieble Gallery was transformed into an experiential learning lab on Sunday, for the first in a series of gallery talks devoted to exploring Sewell Sillman's modernist approaches to the treatment of color, line, and time. In "Red on Edge", Amanda Burdan, the curator for the newly-opened Sewell Sillman exhibition Pushing Limits, gave an engaging lecture on how Sillman's artistic practices drew on the radical ideas behind modernist color theory. Attendees had the opportunity to see firsthand how these techniques influenced the art on display in the gallery, and even got a peek at works that are not a part of the exhibition.

The next interactive gallery discussion, titled "Reflecting on a Line," will be held on Sunday, March 7 at 2 p.m. Expect to discover some surprises hidden within the pages of Sillman's personal sketchbooks, which help tell the story of how he developed his unique drawing style!

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...

Getting inside the mind of an artist

If you're curious about the creative process, a peek at an artist's personal sketchbooks (Sewell Sillman's are pictured at left) can be a guilty pleasure. But what about the problem-solving, and exploration of new techniques, that lie at the heart of that process? To answer those questions, the museum will be hosting a series of experiential art labs and gallery talks inspired by Sillman's own creative process, aimed at allowing participants to really dive in and gain an understanding of the techniques he applied over the course of his career. Using his own fine art portfolios and personal sketchbooks as hands-on inspiration, Tell & Show gallery talks will stimulate discussion about how he tackled the problems of color, line, and time. In addition, two series of art labs, one geared to children and the other to adults, will set up drawing and painting exercises as a way to play with the techniques Sillman himself used.

These Sunday activities are free with museum admission. Read more about them here, and then get your creative juices flowing with a visit to the exhibit and an afternoon of artistic exploration!

Another Sillman sneak peek

Have you ever wondered how a museum exhibition goes from an idea to a finished product – practically a work of art in its’ own right? Last week, I got a sneak peek into that process, as preparations shifted into high gear for the Sewell Sillman opening. Amanda Burdan, the exhibit’s curator, introduced me to the model of the Krieble Galleries that she used to design the exhibit. This dollhouse-sized version of the museum is pictured in the photo. You can see the scaled model art on the walls and floor, which Amanda could easily move around as she planned the best way to display Sillman's works.

Over the course of his career, Sillman produced screen prints, oil paintings, and watercolors, in addition to working with textiles, relief sculpture, and collage. It can be a challenge to find the best way to display such a wide variety of artwork, but it's also a great opportunity to engage the viewer by customizing the exhibit into a flow that maximizes the visual impact of Sillman's works. 

The art has arrived!

Yesterday, some extremely good luck got sprinkled on this writer, the newbie in marketing. (Maybe it was pixie dust left over from the Wee Faerie exhibit!) I got the chance to hang out with Amanda Burdan, the curator in charge of the new Sewell Sillman exhibition, Pushing Limits, as she unpacked Sillman's works in the exhibition prep area. In the photo above, I caught Amanda carrying one of Sillman's pieces past the long line of metal display racks where the rest of the museum's permanent collection is housed. 

Various pieces of Sillman’s were scattered across a large table: a pile of beautiful, worn sketchbooks; pillows and textiles printed with his signature abstract, wavy lines; a huge piece of limestone with lines carved across the block. I have never been up close and personal with art in this way before. I had the chance to bend over the stone and examine the rough edges of the carving, and saw Sillman’s scribbles and doodles flash past my eyes as Amanda thumbed through the worn pages of his sketchbooks. It was totally magical to be able to move among the pieces of his life’s work, and to see them just as they might have been lying out in his studio. This is an exciting exhibit for the museum, too, being the first devoted exclusively to the work of a contemporary artist. 

As someone who regularly gravitates to the Renaissance and Impressionist galleries in any museum, yesterday evoked a new sense of connection and excitement about modern art. It was heightened by the thrill of getting to play art historian and examine Sillman's work in a much more personal way than my typical experiences as a visitor to formal museum exhibits has allowed. Next week I'll post a few more sneak peeks as the museum gears up for the opening of Pushing Limits on Friday, February 12.

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....

A note from the artist, Patrick Dougherty

The work is entitled The Rambles, and I am proud of the sculpture which resulted from my residency. With the museum's help, I was able to find and gather birch saplings from several sites around Old Lyme, CT and transport them to the museum. Volunteers removed the leaves from the branches and then proceeded to help with the weaving process. I use the infuriating tendency of branches to entangle with one another as my method of joining and then worked at a breakneck speed to complete the sculpture. The work, encased in scaffolding during its construction, provided working platforms but also aided in the bending and tying of the larger support saplings into the desired shape. Ultimately all strings were removed and the smaller saplings, which had been intertwined by volunteers, secured the work. I thought of the sculpture not only three dimensionally but also concentrated on the outer surface as a canvas on which to draw. Sticks are the material of bird nests, but they are also bundles of lines. All the drawing conventions used with paper and pencil still apply.

I was given a beautiful site—behind the museum, but still visible through the large window wall in the lobby-gift shop. All in all, visitors need only walk a short distance to enter and explore the work. The sculpture is sited to take advantage of the bucolic view of the Lieutenant River, a classic vista for the painters who visited Florence Griswold so long ago.

When I began to search for an image or a starting point to guide the creation of the work at the Florence Griswold Museum, I imagined the garden follies of previous eras. In the past, those who had means sometimes festooned their gardens with strange architecture and even built intentional ruins. These structures were meant to evoke mystery and stimulate a longing for bygone days. They offered a kind of poetic drama as nature reclaimed the manmade. I have been intrigued by ruins all over the world because vine cover, tree roots and unruly branches are often the first blush of architectural decay. For me it is like throwing a dust cloth over a piece of furniture which can obscure the detail but cannot deny the basic manmade form. With this in mind, I envisioned a kind of drapery for the museum's imaginary ruin—one with a 22' high round tower, a square tower and many architectural features in between. The viewers are invited in to explore the interior, to walk in some doors and peer around others. In The Rambles, the energy of the natural world seems frozen in the drawn surfaces as all the unassuming sticks gathered by the volunteers in the first few days take on presence and new meaning. With only a hint of underlying geometry, this backyard folly has no core of stone or wooden beams. As the scaffolding was removed on the final day, it was as if an insect chrysalis had finally opened and an enormous sapling slipcover had been shaken free and set out to dry.

Day 1

The Stickwork has begun and volunteers are, at the moment, harvesting birch saplings for use in Patrick Dougherty's sculpture. The Waterford Target volunteer team has even gotten involved. Target team coordinator Edyse Smith said of her first day on the job: "It was a lot of work... but fun to be part of this project. I plan on volunteering each week to see it progress. It was nice to work right with Mr. Dougherty."

The sticks are beginning to pile up on the grounds of the museum and Patrick's plans for the sculpture will be revealed in a few days. It's not too late for you to join in the project, in fact, we're adding new shifts to the schedule. Click here to sign up or contact Nicole.

Come see what's going on...

Beginning on Monday, June 29, sculptor Patrick Dougherty and a crew of volunteers will begin building a Stickwork sculpture here on the grounds of the Florence Griswold Museum. We're taking care to document the whole process as it unfolds and will post regular updates to our blog. For now, here's a peek at a part of the video that will be running in our orientation gallery to help explain what's going on.

I Enjoy Being a Docent

I don't know who the docent was when I first visited the Florence Griswold Museum (probably in the late 1980s or early 1990s.) But whoever it was did a super job talking about Miss Florence and the Lyme Art Colony. I remember thinking, "Wow, what a great story!"

My interest in that story deepened after moving to Old Lyme about ten years ago. In fact, I soon discovered that some of the artists lived on the lane I now call home. Lewis Cohen (and later Frank Bicknell) lived in the house next door. Gregory Smith had a house across the street. Will Howe Foote and Harry Hoffman also lived in the neighborhood.

I began attending events at the museum to learn more about the art colony that flourished here in the early years of the 20th century. After a lecture one afternoon, I started chatting with a woman who was a longtime volunteer at the museum. "I think you might enjoy our docent program," she told me.

She was right. I'm a proud alumna of the Docent Class of 2002 and I've found that telling visitors about Miss Florence's boarding house is a personally rewarding experience.

And I've also found that once you become a docent, you never stop learning. A good example of this is the recent exhibition Bessie Potter Vonnoh: Sculptor of Women. I have always loved Vonnoh's statuette of a young woman that is in Miss Florence's bedroom.

From my docent training, I knew that Vonnoh was a noted sculptor and that the model for the small bronze was Woodrow Wilson's daughter, Jessie. Mrs. Ellen Wilson came to Old Lyme to study art, and the future First Family spent several summers with Miss Florence.

But to see a whole show of Vonnoh's works was to understand why she was so famed in her lifetime. And I also learned that after Mrs. Wilson became First Lady, she invited Vonnoh to exhibit some of her sculpture in the Red Room of the White House.

It was also wonderful to learn Vonnoh's personal story--that she was a very popular member of the Lyme Art Colony, that she called the summer home she bought in Lyme "a funny old place," even that she loved to dance!

We all have our favorite stories about being docents. I remember starting a group tour one wintry day. I had just finished saying "Welcome to Miss Florence's house," when a little girl raised her hand. She solemnly asked, "You mean she lived in a museum?" A perfect question and a great way for me to segue into the story of the house.