Norm Siegel, “Pieter Claesz’s Dinner At The Katz’s,” 2023
South Gallery
October 27, 2023, through January 8, 2024
Reception: November 20, 6-8 pm (reception: 6-7 pm; talk: 7-8 pm)
Artist Bio (from Norm Siegel)
I started out scribbling airplanes that I saw on WW 2 newsreels with pencil on the flyleaf pages of the few books my parents owned. Paper was scarce and my parents were understanding.
On a 6th grade field trip to the Metropolitan Museum of Art, I was mesmerized by a Willian Harnett still life and a huge Albert Bierstadt Yellowstone landscape. It was then and there I knew I wanted to become an artist.
That path started oddly enough at the High School of Industrial Arts in 1952. It was also a time when I fell under the influences of our brand new television set, Saturday Evening Post and Colliers magazine covers, 3D and science fiction movies and EC comic books. SIA encouraged me every step of the way.
Still with all these diversions I managed to get accepted into The Cooper Union. Tuition was free at that time and we did not live large in the South Bronx.
What a Wake-up Call!
For someone wired to draw comics and do realistic illustrations. ( I actually won a second place high school student award at the Society of Illustrators)^, abstract expressionism was the “soup de jour” at Cooper. And though I gave it my all, I wasn’t very good at it. Call it AAED (Acute Abstract Expressionism Disorder) or whatever, I was more successful applying my energies into my elective: Advertising Design taught by Rudolph de Harak. All the while unbeknownst to my instructors and fellow students, I was freelancing as an illustrator for Galaxy and Fantastic Universe SF pulp magazines. (A couple of my covers can still be seen on the internet.)
After graduation I embarked on my “madman” career as an art director and was reasonably successful. Even with a two-year interruption courtesy of the U.S. army. After many years in big agencies, I left to open a creative boutique in Southport with former NBC Creative Director Steve Lance. One of our proudest accomplishments was to help launch The Discovery Channel in 1989.
In my off time, to escape the stress and politics of ad agency reality, I indulged my love of aviation by becoming a member of the American Society of Aviation Artists and the U.S. Air Force Art Program. Many of my paintings have homes in various aviation museums as well as the Pentagon. Plus, I had the opportunity to fly in many of our hottest and iconic aircraft.
Though rarely still active today as a freelance art director, (who in their right mind is hiring an octogenarian art director these days?) I decided to once again pick up the brush and return to the style of painting that my 19th century brain is “wired” to paint.
Interestingly enough, my advertising career seems to have meshed with my painting career. Just like creating an ad or commercial, what I paint has to have a concept. Sometimes literal, sometimes graphic, sometimes humorous and satirical, sometimes social, and sometimes political.
I’ve been fortunate to have my work exhibited at The Salmagundi Gallery in New York, The New Britain Museum of American Art, Billis Gallery in Westport, Kershner Gallery at The Fairfield Public Library, the Westport and Wilton Libraries, and Bendheim Gallery in Greenwich, with solo shows at the Newton Roux Gallery in Westport, The Discovery Museum in Bridgeport, and WorkPoint in Stamford. Recently, my painting “Garden of Hope” is now at The Ukrainian Embassy in Washington, D.C.
^Footnote: One of my earliest accounts was The Famous Artists, Photographers and Writers School in Westport.
***
Artist Statement
Unlike many artists it’s difficult for me to put into words what I put on the canvas.
What you see is what I intend you to see.
I’m not one to experiment with new techniques, materials or mediums.
Spontaneity and intuition are not involved.
I do experiment with subject matter to satisfy my past and current influences and my sense of humor using the skills I’ve honed over decades with brush and paint on canvas or panel.
Any questions?
Sid Caesar and Imogene Coca in "Your Show of Shows, " Victor Keppler, circa 1950–1954
Jesup Gallery
October 27, 2023, through January 8, 2024
Showtime! celebrates the performing arts in Westport. Ballet, contemporary dance, and musical theater all thrive on the stages of Westport schools, the Library, and beyond. Many young performers who call Westport home have gone on to study at leading arts programs and today are performing around the country and world.
Westport Public Art Collections (WestPAC) are a cultural asset of the town, with more than 1,800 works of art in a broad range of media — paintings, watercolors, drawings, prints, illustrations, cartoons, photographs, sculptures, and murals — by notable American artists, giants of the international art world, and important artists who established their homes and studios in the Westport-Weston community.
WestPAC’s artworks were acquired primarily through gifts, mostly given by the artists themselves or donated by heirs and collectors. Artworks are on display throughout municipal buildings and public schools in Westport.
The WestPAC Committee cares for the artworks in the collections and carries out WestPAC’s mission of using original works of art to inspire and educate Westport residents, students, teachers, and the broader community.
Learn more about Westport Public Art Collections at westportarts.org.
Suzanne Benton, “First Day,” 2022
Sheffer Gallery
October 27, 2023, through January 8, 2024
Reception: November 1, 6-8 pm (reception: 6-7 pm; talk: 7-8 pm)
Suzanne Benton is a native New Yorker based in Connecticut for 64 of the 70 years she’s practiced her many-faceted art. Her pioneer dedication to feminism and activism has long carried her outreach beyond the borders of home.
The first year of world travel (1976-77) purposely coincided with Women’s International Year. It was then that she began the life pattern of bringing her metal mask making, mask performances, and workshops worldwide. That seminal journey to 14 countries led to decades of grants and invitations that fostered her learning and development as a trans-culturalist artist, highly recognized metal masquer, performer, printmaker, painter, lecturer, and workshop leader. Those opportunities brought her to 32 countries, East and West, and included a Fulbright lectureship in India, multiple artist residencies, generous support from colleges and universities, and frequent hostings by the cultural arm of U.S. embassies. Those amazing times gave a global awareness that’s greatly influenced her life and art.
Suzanne’s exhibitions include more than 200 solo shows, and her artwork is represented in museum and private collections worldwide. The mask tale performances that began at Lincoln Center in 1971, subsequently brought her to Elliot Hall’s 7,000-seat theatre at Purdue University, West Lafayette, Indiana; Merrick Theater, Brandeis University, Waltham, MA; Harvard University Graduate School of Education; Oberlin College, Oberlin, OH; America Haus, Köln; Bosnian television, Sarajevo; India International Center, New Delhi; Bombay Center for the Performing Arts, India, and on.
Author of The Art of Welded Sculpture and numerous articles, Suzanne is and has been listed in Who’s Who in America, Who’s Who in American Art, and Feminists Who Changed America 1963-1975, edited by Barbara Love, 2006. In April 2023, Suzanne received a Lifetime Recognition Award from the Women’s Caucus of Art, Florida.
An upcoming exhibition from March 10 to May 5, 2024, Suzanne Benton: Unmasked will show a selection from her large oeuvre of welded metal masks and monoprints with Chine collé. It will be exhibited at the Mattatuck Museum in Waterbury, Connecticut.
The artist’s current direction, All About Color follows decades of intertwining color, shape, and imagery in distinctive monoprints with Chine collé. Those lengthy visits to India and Bangladesh brought in the palette of South Asia. Kenya, Tanzania, and Morocco taught her unique color juxtapositions. Suzanne is now casting such sun filled worlds into paintings of cosmic realms and unknown worlds.
All About Color Artist Statement
In this ninth decade of life, and as a working artist for nearly 70 years, I’d become interested in the concept of Late Style as described by the literary theorist Edward Said. “Each of us can supply evidence of late works, which crown a lifetime of aesthetic endeavor.” Matisse had it with his renowned paper cuts. While nearly blind, Monet created water lily paintings as his final legacy to the history of art.
My Late Style arrived as a surprise during the Covid pandemic. Sheltering in place ushered in an uncanny level of solitude that only painting could voice. Reaching for the purist of colors, I entered a world of Neo-Transcendentalpaintings large and small that I call All About Color.
The disappeared narrative came as a surprise. The imbedded image had been a mainstay in decades of monoprints and paintings. My welded steel and bronze masks and mask tale performances rely on character and story to amaze an audience. This time, I’m speaking of the inner life from a time of stillness that’s since stayed on.
I’d been well educated in color by John Ferren, the abstract expressionist painter who’d taught the year’s color study at Queen College. That sensitivity developed further through four art-working journeys in India: 1976-1977, 1992-1993, 1995, and 2011, and during the Bangladesh residencies of 1995 and 2011. Countries in Africa also gave my work unique juxtapositions of colors never found in Connecticut seasons.
All About Color began in Florida on the hopeful day of President Biden’s safe inauguration. Florida is also where walks along the beach, its sun on the water, flora and fauna, and even its cooing doves remind me South Asia and Africa. Here’s a long-ago memory from December 1976 when daughter Janet and I were in Puri on the Bay of Bengal. Staying at a hotel from the Raj period that was situated atop a hill from the beach, we took a mid-morning walk along the beach, and then rested in a bamboo hut where the sun came through its weave and cast warm shadows on Janet’s face. The next month took us to Varanasi where we hired a boat and boatman to take us along the Ganges River. It was noon. The heat and extreme contrast of the sun on the water was surreal, as much was, especially during that first time in India. Being in the presence of total poverty, uncanny splendor, and fantastical ancient sites gave an otherworldly strangeness that completely upended any previous sense of reality.
While each of the 32 countries where I’ve worked and traveled has given immeasurable impetus and richness to my art, there was something ineffable about India that drew me back. During the second journey, this time on a Fulbright, I recounted to friends what the guide book said, “Nothing prepares you for India, even if you’ve been there before.” Nevertheless, India became a country I knew to return, but never knew why. I now know that I’d gone again and again to finally arrive at All About Color, the painting series that’s freshening the ninth decade of my life.
Edward Said had added that difficult works also come late in artistic careers, works that “reopen questions”. To this, I’m thinking it’s not only the silence from the time of Covid that’s led to these recent works, or even what India had given me. There are the reflections that come with age, that bring in the weave of a lifetime’s journey and the whispering voice of mortality.
Mark your calendar for The Westport Library Big Fall Book Sale, to be held Friday, December 1, through Monday, December 4, on the Library’s main level.
Once again this fall, the Book Sale offers something for everyone, with thousands of gently used books for children and adults in more than 50 categories of nonfiction and fiction, as well as noteworthy, vintage children’s and antiquarian books, vintage vinyl records, music CDs, and movie and television series DVDs, as well as a limited selection of ephemera and artwork.
The book sale hours, with free admission, are as follows:
Friday, December 1: 12-6 pm
Saturday, December 2: 9 am – 5 pm
Sunday, December 3: 11 am – 5 pm (almost everything half-price)
Monday, December 4: 9 am – 5 pm (“Bag Day” — shoppers can fill our logo bag for $10 per bag, or their own equivalent-sized bag for $8, or buy individual books at half-price)
On Friday morning, December 1, from 8:55 am to 12 pm, the Book Sale will be open only to patrons who purchase an Early Access ticket. Early Access tickets must be purchased in advance and are available online, through eventbrite.com. Click here to purchase early access tickets.
Of special interest for this sale:
Also, back by popular demand is the Fiction for $1 Room — an entire conference room filled with hardcover fiction, mystery, science fiction and fantasy books, and young adult fiction, plus paperback novels, all offered at just $1 each. (Please note: The books in this room will remain priced at $1 each on Sunday’s half-price day.)
To volunteer at this sale, please send an email to Judi Lake at [email protected].
If you can’t make the sale, you can still visit the Westport Book Shop at 23 Jesup Road, across Jesup Green from the Library, or shop any time 24/7 on the Book Sale’s online store or its eBay store.
The Westport Library Book Sale is operated by Westport Book Sale Ventures, a nonprofit enterprise with a dual social mission: raise funds to support The Westport Library while providing meaningful employment for adults with disabilities.
Items available in the 2023 Holiday Shop. Photos: Julie Bonington
This season, make The Westport Library Store your first stop for gift shopping.
The Library’s Holiday Shop is now officially open, located in the writing center adjacent to the Hub on the main floor of the Library, alongside the Library Store and Patron Services desk.
Related: Open for Business Instagram video promotion
The Holiday Shop will remain open through the end of the year, but don’t wait to find that perfect gift for the reader, writer, and special person in your life. In our store, you can find something for everyone on your list from our curated collection of fun and unique items. There are scarves, hats, and gloves, many of which are handmade. Puzzles and games and many fun decorative items, including unique snow globes. A great selection of notebooks and journals. Fun toys, art supplies, novelty items for kids, and more.
Be sure to stop by and check it out! And remember, store purchases are tax free, and all the proceeds support Library services and programs.
L to R: Exhibit Curator Carole Erger-Fass, Ellen Naftalin, artist Charles Joyner, Anne Levine, Joan Miller, MaryEllen Hendricks, and Katherine Ross
Patrons who come into The Westport Library probably don’t think about what it takes to mount the rotating art exhibits that grace the walls of its three dedicated art galleries — or maintain the artwork on the walls throughout the building. The Library’s all-volunteer art committee, along with Westport Library Exhibit Curator Carole Erger-Fass, make it all happen.
Exhibiting original art is a key part of the Library’s programming and is the direct outgrowth of the town’s rich roots as an artist colony. Dating back to the early 1900s, and continuing through today, the Library has been committed to supporting Westport’s visual artists.
During the many years prior to the transformation of the Library in 2019, the esteemed artistic trio of Howard Munce, Leonard Everett Fisher, and Neil Hardy curated the Library’s exhibits of local artists, working in conjunction with then-Exhibit Curator Chris Timmons. In 2011, while contemplating retiring, the committee members recruited Ellen Naftalin and Anne Levine, both active volunteers at the Westport Historical Society; artist and Westpac member Joan Miller; and Westpac Co-Chair and Art Director Erger-Fass to join their crew. At their first official meeting together, Munce, Everett Fisher, and Hardy revealed their plans and turned over their hammers and nails to their new recruits.
Munce and Fisher were also responsible, along with Shirley Land, for assembling the Library’s 100-plus item collection, Black and White Works on Paper. That, along with many paintings, prints, and photographs, make up the Library’s extensive permanent collection. These holdings, plus the dozen or so yearly rotating exhibits, are part of the art committee’s purview. Prior to the transformation project, all the permanent works needed to be photographed, catalogued, and packed up — a painstaking job that Timmons managed with the help of the committee. And once the rebuilding was complete, the team was responsible for rehanging it all in the Library’s new home.
Miggs Burroughs interviews botanical artist Dick Rauh in the Library's Trefz Forum.
In 2020, just before the pandemic, Timmons announced her own retirement as exhibit curator, and the Library subsequently hired Erger-Fass as her successor. Looking to expand the team, Erger-Fass added artist Katherine Ross, photographer MaryEllen Hendricks, and finally, local artist/legend Miggs Burroughs to the team. These three members are also members of the Artists Collective of Westport, bringing a natural synergy with one of the town’s robust artistic resources.
“As a local photographer, I was so honored to be involved in such a forward-thinking institution as The Westport Library,” Hendricks said. “Being a part of the committee has been such a joy for me. Meeting the artists and hanging their work has been very inspiring.”
The committee meets several times a year to discuss and plan the gallery schedule, and generally books ahead about two years. Their goal is to showcase the diversity of Westport’s art scene, including a variety of media. The Sheffer, South, and the Jesup galleries each have three to four shows per calendar year, which Erger-Fass and the committee curate, install, and ultimately de-install. They also host artist receptions and talks, with each member participating in the exhibit process from start to finish.
“I have been on many volunteer committees over the years, and this is by far the most gratifying,” said Naftalin, a 12-year veteran of the committee. “The artists we work with are a diverse group of Westport’s finest, and we try to continue Westport’s tradition of being an artist’s colony.”
The Westport Library has long supported all types of educational efforts, whether that is furthering your studies, providing reference materials and experts to help with research, or learning technical skills through our MakerSpace or Verso Studios.
Starting this spring, we’re building on those efforts with the launch of Verso University, a year-round series of high-level classes, workshops, and lectures designed to further education and learning — and above all, learning for a lifetime.
Offerings will run the gamut of educational opportunities to take your learning to the next level, ranging from one-time lectures to ongoing courses to classes that meet weekly or perhaps monthly. And they will cover a wide variety of topics, with classes and courses to appeal to all ages and interests, from our younger patrons to our most experienced.
Each semester, we’ll be offering classes tailored to your interests, responding to what our community wants to deliver programs that will resonate.
“Fundamentally, a library is a place of learning, of engagement, where patrons can come to explore and grow,” said Bill Harmer, Westport Library executive director. “Verso University is a natural extension of that lifelong interest and curiosity. Our innovative spaces and innovative technologies enable us to lead the development of 21st century models of literacy and learning. These models are community-based and focus on dynamic, interpersonal learning integrated with 21st century infrastructure and technologies.”
Here is a closer look at what we’ll be offering for the spring semester (more classes to come this summer and fall):
Launch Lecture: Martin Yellin on Space
Monday, March 13, 1-2 pm, Trefz Forum
We kick off the spring semester with a launch event for the ages, courtesy of longtime Westporter and scientist Martin Yellin, who will visit the Library to offer an overview of the fascinating and sometimes unexpected discoveries we’ve made in space, and how, from absolutely nothing, we’ve begun to understand where we are and how we got here.
The Range of Literary Realism: Four Masterpieces of 21st Century Fiction, with Dr. Mark Schenker
Tuesdays, April 4 & 18, May 2 & 16, 2-3 pm, Brooks Place
In this series of classes, Mark Schenker, renowned lecturer in English at Yale University, examines four novels that reflect the range of literary realism as portrayed in 21st Century fiction. The novels are considered masterpieces, three of which are ranked by The Guardian in the Top 50 of “100 Best Books of the 21st Century”:
Got Problems? Think Them Through for Better Problem Solving!
May 2023
Problem solving is making a decision, accomplishing an objective, working toward a goal, and solving a dilemma. Join problem-solving coaches Mike Hibbard PhD and Patricia Cyganovich EdD to learn thinking-it-through problem-solving processes to use in any area of life, to learn how to think through a situation and use strategies to identify and solve the problem, and much more.
Fiction Writing Master Class, with Gabino Iglesias
May 2023
Renowned noir writer and Westport Library StoryFest alum Gabino Iglesias will be on hand to teach a master class-style writing workshop.
Crew Call
Rolling Admission, Spring through Fall
In 2022, more than 100 people participated in Verso Studios training and more than 30 engaged in Crew Call — a training program focused on live media production skills. Crew Call is an incredible opportunity for volunteers of all ages to gain real-world experience in video recording and production. Crew Call participants are now regularly supporting the many productions that happen every week in the Library. Available spots are limited.
In recent days, we have listened to, heard, and read the comments from some members of the community regarding the decision of The Westport Library Board of Trustees to not reinstall the River of Names tile wall at The Westport Library.
To address the concerns raised and to avoid any misunderstandings, below is a timeline of the River of Names project:
The decision not to reinstall the tile wall was one made by the Library’s Board of Trustees and the Board alone. We appreciate that not everyone agrees with the board’s conclusion, and we understood that it might not be universally popular, but it was made in good faith based on the mission and values of the Library.
We love Westport for many reasons, and one of the things we cherish most is that Westporters are passionate and engaged. We believe that reasonable people can disagree, at times strongly, on an issue, and we support that conversation. In fact, it aligns with the Library’s stated commitment to empower the individual and strengthen the community through dynamic interaction and the lively exchange of ideas.
The Board advocates for civil conversations that are respectful and topical, not derogatory, or personal. We ask that varying points of view be shared respectfully and for the ongoing discussion to be one of learning, sharing, decency, courtesy, and growth.
We are grateful for our continued partnerships with the Town’s Art Advisory Council, TEAM Westport, and the Westport Museum for History and Culture. The Westport Library looks forward to continuing to work on our shared interests with the goals of enriching the lives of the residents of Westport and beyond. It is unfortunate that through this recent discourse, these organizations are being attacked for a decision the Library’s Board of Trustees made regarding the tile wall.
The motto of the Library is “open to all” — and we truly see it that way. That is not only those who agree with this decision or those who will disagree with a future decision. The Library is for everyone, a gathering space and a community resource. We are thankful to all who have reached out to share their thoughts constructively. Please know we have listened and regarded every opinion. And we look forward to sharing this community space — in the days, weeks, and years to come.
Sincerely,
Westport Library Board of Trustees
After thoughtful consideration, detailed analysis, and consultation with multiple parties, the Library’s Board of Trustees no longer intends to reinstall the River of Names Tile Wall.
The Board of Trustees unanimously supports this move. The decision was reached after the Library consulted with the Westport Arts Advisory Committee and the Westport Museum for History and Culture, which reviewed the content of the Tile Wall to determine if it depicted the town’s history in an accurate and inclusive way. Both organizations independently expressed concerns about historical inaccuracies and the lack of representation of diverse people who played a significant role in Westport’s history.
We recognize the original intent of the Tile Wall was to celebrate Westport and its history, while raising funds for an expansion of the Library in 1997-98, and we are grateful for the generosity of all those who contributed to that effort. To continue recognition of their support, the Library has included these donors on the donor appreciation wall on the Library’s main floor.
In addition, prior to removal of the Tile Wall in connection with the Library’s 2017-19 Transformation Project, the Wall and each of its tiles was professionally and meticulously captured digitally and may be viewed online together with an extensive narrative.
The Tile Wall was professionally removed and preserved in a climate-controlled warehouse. The Library has offered to transfer ownership to any responsible party who demonstrates a reasonable interest in the Wall. To date, no one has come forward.
Westport has a long and proud history, and we are humbled to play a small yet vital place in it. As we look toward the future, we will continue to work with all Westporters to celebrate our community and maintain the Library as a center of knowledge, learning, creativity, and growth for everyone.
- Jeremy Price, President, Westport Library Board of Trustees
