VersoFest is The Westport Library’s annual celebration of music, media, and creativity, four days of innovation, inspiration, and exploration. This year, it will have a special artistic component to match.
The Artists Collective of Westport will be celebrating music through visual arts with a two-part exhibition that will encompass all three of the Library’s galleries — Music to Our Eyes residing in the Sheffer Gallery and the Jesup Gallery, and Piece by Piece in the South Gallery.
The exhibits will run March 4 through May 9, with the reveal of Piece by Piece to be held during a special reception held March 8 from 6 to 8 pm.
“Music to Our Eyes, and its companion exhibit, Piece by Piece, was conceived as a way to add a visual arts component to the VersoFest musical experience,” said Westport Library Exhibit Curator Carole Erger-Fass. “I am thrilled to have the Artists Collective of Westport partner with the Library in this all-member exhibit, which showcases the myriad of ways that artists are inspired by music.”
Piece by Piece is a 6-foot by 10-foot art installation composed of the work of 60 Artists Collective members. Each artist received a 12-inch by 12-inch blank panel along with a 6-inch square section randomly selected from a single iconic music-themed painting. The artists created their individual piece, replicating a part of the larger painting in their own style, without knowing what the final painting will look like until it is revealed at the opening reception.
“The end result,” said Artists Collective founding member and longtime Library supporter Miggs Burroughs, “is an entertaining exercise in community, creativity, and collaboration.”
In addition to Burroughs, those contributing to Piece by Piece include Katherine Ross, Michael Brennecke, Nina Bentley, Susan Fehlinger, Eric Chiang, and Elizabeth DeVoll.
For Music to Our Eyes, each of the Artists Collective members were invited to display a work in the medium of their choice, interpreting music through painting, drawing, photography, and collage.
“The history of visual art has been fundamentally tethered to the history of music,” said Fehlinger. “Many famous artists have credited music as a muse for their work, while some musicians have revealed that art or an artist has been their inspiration. Since antiquity, artists have found inspiration in the songs, instruments, and musicians of their eras for inspiration to push the visual arts forward.
“In this show, over 50 local artists will be exhibiting their musically themed paintings in the Library’s Sheffer Gallery. Some artworks were inspired by a style of music, and some were inspired by a specific piece, but all are related to the artists’ musical experience.”
Each 12-inch by 12-inch “piece” of Piece by Piece will be available for purchase starting the night of the reception. Each square will be $100, with 50% of the proceeds supporting the Library’s art programs and 50% going to the artist. The additional artworks on display in the Sheffer and Jesup Galleries will also be available for purchase, with a percentage of the proceeds going to benefit the Library.
The Artists Collective of Westport is a group of creative individuals who have joined forces to discuss, create, and develop dynamic experiences for the Fairfield County community. The collective is open to all active artists in pursuit of expanding their careers and in developing a strong, diverse arts community.
Exhibit support is provided by The Drew Friedman Community Arts Center.
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Related: Video from the 2021 Piece by Piece exhibition:
Due to predicted inclement weather in the Westport area for Monday, February 27, and Tuesday, February 28, the Spring 2023 Malloy Lecture in the Arts with renowned artist and musician Richard Butler is being postponed.
The lecture, originally scheduled for Tuesday, February 28, will now be held Saturday, April 1, at 7 pm in the Library’s Trefz Forum. It will still feature Butler in person and in conversation with Rock ‘n’ Roll Hall of Famer Chris Frantz, and all currently held tickets will be honored for the rescheduled date and time.
With the rescheduling, the Spring 2023 Malloy Lecture in the Arts will now be held in conjunction with VersoFest 2023, The Westport Library’s annual music and media festival being held March 30 through April 2.
The April 1 lineup for VersoFest 2023 will now feature Butler, Talking Heads and Tom Tom Club drummer Frantz, and legendary producer Steve Lillywhite, reuniting three of rock’s seminal figures, all of whom rose to international prominence in the late 1970s and 80s. Lillywhite will deliver his festival keynote, a conversation with Frantz, on Saturday, April 1, at 1 pm.
The Spring 2023 Malloy Lecture in the Arts with Butler will replace the previously scheduled laser light show at VersoFest 2023. The laser light show will be rescheduled for a later date.
“While we’re disappointed Richard won’t be able to join us as planned on February 28, we’re elated that he can be here April 1, and that Chris is able to reschedule as well,” said Bill Harmer, executive director of The Westport Library. “First and foremost, we want to ensure the safety of Richard, Chris, and all who would be traveling to the Library on a potentially snowy and icy evening. Looking ahead, this creates a truly incredible experience, to have Richard join our already incredible VersoFest lineup.”
Butler rose to international fame with the Psychedelic Furs, with the Furs emerging as one of London’s leading post-punk bands in the late 70s. Their self-titled debut, produced by Lillywhite, was Top 20 on the UK Albums Chart, and their run of success continued with six subsequent albums released between 1981 and 1991, including Talk Talk Talk and Forever Now.
Butler put his painting on the backburner to accommodate the Furs’ record promotion and worldwide touring, returning to his first love when the band took an extended hiatus in the early 90s. Since then, he’s kept at it and found a balance between the two endeavors.
With his daughter as his muse, Butler produces expressionistic portraits of female subjects who he said serve as ciphers for himself, smudging, distorting, and overlaying patterns onto his models’ faces to create what has been described as “dynamic compositions that are at once naturalistic and hallucinatory.”
“In a way,” said Butler, “I think all of my paintings are self-portraits in that, though the face I am painting may not be my own, the feeling I get back from the painting is certainly an important element of my own psyche.”
Butler’s work has been featured worldwide, with the artist having launched exhibitions in New York, Los Angeles, Miami, London, Berlin, and at other prestigious galleries across the globe.
Despite the shift in artistic expression, Butler has continued to create music with several side projects. He also released a solo album in 2006, and in 2020 he put out the first new Psychedelic Furs album in nearly 30 years, which was met with international chart success and rave reviews from both fans and critics alike.
Past Malloy Lecture programs have included Philippe de Montebello, director of the Metropolitan Museum of Art; distinguished playwright Arthur Miller; artists Christo and Jeanne-Claude; musicians Joshua Bell and Frederic Chiu; U.S. Poet Laureate Billy Collins; Vartan Gregorian, president of the Carnegie Corporation; author Joyce Carol Oates; cartoonist Roz Chast; actor Christopher Plummer; stage, film, and theater star John Lithgow; preeminent classical dancer Jacques d'Amboise; music legend Clive Davis; author Salman Rushdie; Falsettos: In Conversation; Bernstein on Broadway; playwright, actor, and educator Anna Deavere Smith; and Tony Award-winning actress Kelli O’Hara in conversation with renowned American theater director Bartlett Sher.
There will be a livestream broadcast of the Spring 2023 Malloy Lecture in the Arts, and a recording will be featured afterward on The Westport Library YouTube channel.
The Malloy Lecture in the Arts is made possible by a generous contribution from Westport artist Susan Malloy. The Westport Library created the lecture series in 2002 as a free, public discussion by an individual who has had a significant cultural influence and whose work has enhanced the understanding and appreciation of the arts.
Before he was musician, and long before he was a rock star, Richard Butler was a painter. He studied at Epsom Art School outside London and brought that work to bear in the artwork and designs for his band, the Psychedelic Furs, with whom he has gained international acclaim.
An artist in the truest sense — both as a painter and a musician — Butler will serve as the guest of honor at the February 2023 Malloy Lecture in the Arts, to be held in The Westport Library’s Trefz Forum on Tuesday, February 28, at 7 pm.
Butler’s appearance is the first of two Malloy lectures planned for 2023, following a brief hiatus; the normally annual series was last held in November 2021, featuring Broadway star Kelli O’Hara in conversation with renowned American theater director Bartlett Sher. The second 2023 lecture will be held in the late fall or early winter.
The Malloy Lecture in the Arts is made possible by a generous contribution from Westport artist Susan Malloy. The Westport Library created the lecture series in 2002 as a free, public discussion by an individual who has had a significant cultural influence and whose work has enhanced the understanding and appreciation of the arts.
“It is an honor beyond measure to welcome Richard to our forum and our stage,” said Bill Harmer, executive director of The Westport Library. “He is, without question, the ideal guest for our reprisal of the Malloy Lecture in the Arts — perhaps best known for his time with the Psychedelic Furs but also an artist of great acclaim and immeasurable talent. I can’t wait for our community to get to hear from him.”
Butler will be joined at the Library by famed American musician, record producer, and Rock & Roll Hall of Famer Chris Frantz, the drummer for both Talking Heads and Tom Tom Club, which he co-founded with wife and Talking Heads bassist Tina Weymouth.
“I have known Richard since 1980, when the Psychedelic Furs toured with Talking Heads,” said Frantz. “They were a darn good band then and still are. Having seen Richard’s paintings in his New York gallery and in his studio, he brings something great and unique unto himself to the work. I look forward to our conversation and learning more about what inspires him and how making music and painting continue to turn him on.”
Butler rose to international fame with the Psychedelic Furs starting in the late 1970s and into the 1980s, with the Furs emerging as one of London’s leading post-punk bands. Their self-titled debut, produced by VersoFest headliner Steve Lillywhite, was Top 20 on the UK Albums Chart, and their run of success continued with six subsequent albums released between 1981 and 1991, including Talk Talk Talk and Forever Now.
Butler put his painting on the backburner to accommodate the Furs’ record promotion and worldwide touring, returning to his first love when the band took an extended hiatus in the early 90s. Since then, he’s kept at it and found a balance between the two endeavors.
With his daughter as his muse, Butler produces expressionistic portraits of female subjects who he said serve as ciphers for himself, smudging, distorting, and overlaying patterns onto his models’ faces to create what has been described as “dynamic compositions that are at once naturalistic and hallucinatory.”
“In a way," said Butler, “I think all of my paintings are self-portraits in that, though the face I am painting may not be my own, the feeling I get back from the painting is certainly an important element of my own psyche.”
Butler’s work has been featured worldwide, with the artist having launched exhibitions in New York, Los Angeles, Miami, London, Berlin, and at other prestigious galleries across the globe.
Despite the shift in artistic expression, Butler has continued to create music with several side projects. He also released a solo album in 2006, and in 2020 he put out the first new Psychedelic Furs album in nearly 30 years, which was met with international chart success and rave reviews from both fans and critics alike.
In addition to O’Hara and Sher, past Malloy Lecture programs have included Philippe de Montebello, director of the Metropolitan Museum of Art; distinguished playwright Arthur Miller; artists Christo and Jeanne-Claude; musicians Joshua Bell and Frederic Chiu; U.S. Poet Laureate Billy Collins; Vartan Gregorian, president of the Carnegie Corporation; author Joyce Carol Oates; cartoonist Roz Chast; actor Christopher Plummer; stage, film, and theater star John Lithgow; preeminent classical dancer Jacques d'Amboise; music legend Clive Davis; author Salman Rushdie; Falsettos: In Conversation; Bernstein on Broadway; and playwright, actor, and educator Anna Deavere Smith.
All seats have already been reserved for the in-person component of the February 2023 Malloy Lecture in the Arts. There will be a livestream of the conversation, however, and a recording will be featured afterward on The Westport Library YouTube channel.
Three new installations will grace The Westport Library walls starting in December, headlined by Dick Rauh: A Botanical Retrospective, an exhibit featuring botanical paintings from the 97-year-old longtime Westporter that will hang in the Library’s Sheffer Gallery from December 5, 2022, through February 28, 2023. There will also be a special artist talk and reception with Rauh and host Miggs Burroughs on January 29, 2023, in the Trefz Forum.
Also coming to the Library in December is Speak to Me, an exhibit of woven art by local artist Tina Puckett, and a series of eight works from the Westport Public Art Collections (WestPAC), titled Musical Notes.
“I am extremely fortunate to be granted the ability to continue to function as well as I do as the years pass,” said Rauh, who took up botanical painting in retirement, after a long career in motion pictures special effects. “Spread along these walls are the results of what I have observed looking closely at flowers over the years. Whether in my quest for the accurate I have managed to bring a personal statement is for you to judge. It is enough for me that you will look at flowers in a way you never have before.”
Rauh won the gold medal and Best in Show awards at the 2006 Royal Horticultural Society Show in London, and his work is in the permanent collections of the Lindley Library in London; the Shirley Sherwood Collection in Kew Gardens, London; the New York State Museum; and the Hunt Institute for Botanical Documentation at Carnegie Mellon University. He has served as an instructor in the botanical illustration certificate program at the New York Botanical Gardens since 1994 and was named its Teacher of the Year in 2010. He also teaches widely in local senior centers.
Puckett’s work will be displayed in the South Gallery and run December 6 through February 2023. Puckett specializes in baskets woven from natural materials, in particular the bittersweet vine, a source of inspiration she described as a happy accident.
“Sometimes, the path in life that we chose to take comes in the form of an unexpected gift,” said Puckett. “In 1981, my mother gave me a gift for an adult education basket weaving class. … It didn’t take me long before I became bored with weaving traditional baskets. I started to look for natural materials grown locally that I could incorporate into different woven forms. One brilliant autumn day when I was foraging for grapevine, I came across the bittersweet vine, and it was love at first sight. Going on 40-plus years, I have never looked back and continue to forage for Native American bittersweet vines and imagine the fantastic forms that we will create together.”
The WestPAC exhibit will also go up December 6, in the Jesup Gallery, and remain on display through the end of February. The exhibit includes works that pay tribute to the performing arts in Westport and features artists Susan Malloy, Ann Chernow, Larry Silver, and Paul Rand, among others.
“Dick Rauh is a local treasure, and we are absolutely thrilled to host this retrospective of his larger-than-life, beautifully detailed botanical paintings in the Sheffer Gallery,” said Carole Erger-Fass, exhibits curator at the Library. “At the same time, in the South Gallery, Tina Puckett’s whimsical woven art, created out of bittersweet and other local materials, delights the viewer, offering a distinctly different way to experience the natural world around us. And for these works to be joined by so many great pieces from WestPAC is a true treat for us and a gift to everyone who visits and who will pass through our space in the coming months.”
For more on the Library’s art collection and upcoming events, visit our Art at the Library webpage.
