Creative Family Fun: Mini Monster Fest | October 25, 10:00-11:00 am
Free
Enjoy a not-so-spooky monster-themed story and craft at this month’s Creative Family Fun workshop in the Makerspace! Make a yarn creature inspired by the story and create a paper house for your new monster friend!
Ages 5+ with a caregiver
Registration Required.
Gunn Memorial Library
5 Wykeham Rd
Washington, CT 06793
Crafting History: Rag Rugs | October 21, 2:00-3:30 pm
Free
The Gunn Museum and Makerspace present a series of craft workshops inspired by artifacts from the Museum’s collections. Discover intriguing items from Washington’s past and make a project using traditional craft practices in our creative community space!
Discover the art of rag rug construction in this month’s workshop! See some examples from the past and then create a cozy coaster or small decorative mat using similar weaving techniques.
Ages 18+
Registration Required.
Gunn Memorial Library
5 Wykeham Rd
Washington, CT 06793
https://www.gunnlibrary.org/calendar/crafting-history-rag-rugs/
Custom Cut Tiny Trays: A CNC Workshop for Adults | October 18, 10:00-11:30 am
Transform a small slab of wood into a one-of-a-kind catchall tray in this workshop featuring October’s Maker Machine of the Month. You’ll learn how to use Canva and Carbide Create software to customize the shape and depth of the tray and engrave the bottom with a design of your choice. Trays will be cut on the CNC machine after the workshop and may be picked up from the library at a later date.
Ages 18+
Registration Required.
Gunn Memorial Library
5 Wykeham Rd
Washington, CT 06793
Free
Mini Makers Paper Pumpkin Patch | October 11, 10:00-12:00 pm
Visit the Junior Library and create a 3D paper pumpkin to take home! Choose from a variety of pre-cut templates in different sizes and colors, and decorate them with markers, crayons, and colored pencils. Add a paper stem and some pipe cleaner vines, and your unique, one-of-a-kind pumpkin will be ready to celebrate fall! Ages 5+ with a caregiver.
No registration is required – drop in anytime between 10:00 a.m. and noon!
Gunn Memorial Library
5 Wykeham Rd
Washington, CT 06793
https://www.gunnlibrary.org/calendar/mini-makers-paper-pumpkin-patch/
Teen Craft Night | October 7, 5:30-7:00pm
Introducing a new Open Hours session just for tweens and teens! Visit the Makerspace on the first Tuesday of the month to hang out with friends and make something cool. Create buttons, make jewelry, knit, crochet, draw, paint, build with Legos, construct something with cardboard, or design a file to print on the 3D printer! Each month will also feature a special project with one of the high-tech maker machines. This month, we’re sewing tiny owl keychains with the embroidery machine!
Grades 6-12.
Registration Required.
Gunn Memorial Library
5 Wykeham Rd
Washington, CT 06793
What: Hidden Layers – Debut Solo Exhibition by Abstract Artist Mia Eriksson
Where: Alofft Gallery, 41 West St, Litchfield, CT (Historic Litchfield Green)
When: October 4 – October 26, 2025
Opening Reception: Saturday, October 4, 2025, 3:00 – 6:00 PM
Details:
Alofft Gallery presents Hidden Layers, the debut solo exhibition of Swedish-born abstract painter Mia Eriksson, is rooted in her Scandinavian upbringing and shaped by her global journey as a fashion model through Paris, New York, and Los Angeles. The exhibition showcases Eriksson’s exploration of what lies beneath the surface, revealing the unseen textures, patterns and layers of the natural world.
Inspired by Ralph Waldo Emerson’s words, “As we grow old, the beauty steals inward,” Hidden Layers reflects on how true beauty emerges from depth, memory, and transformation. Eriksson adds and subtracts layers of acrylics, oils, charcoal, ink, dyes and organic materials such as bark, beach sand, and coffee grounds to create abstractions that echo the earth’s complexities, simplicities, and perfect imperfections. As the artist notes, “I have lived two lives—one as a fashion model showing only the surface of me, and now as an artist where I can reveal what’s inside.” Guided by her belief that nature’s most compelling beauty exists beyond what is immediately visible, she invites viewers to look inward and celebrate the revelations that come when we search beneath the surface.
Rooted in her Scandinavian upbringing and shaped by her global journey through Paris, New York, and Los Angeles, Eriksson’s work explores the unseen patterns and textures of the natural world. Through richly layered canvases and collage works using acrylics, oils, charcoal, and organic materials, Eriksson creates abstractions that reveal nature’s complexities, simplicities, and perfect imperfections. Inspired by Emerson’s words, “As we grow old, the beauty steals inward,” Hidden Layers invites viewers to discover the beauty beneath the surface.
Reception: Meet the artist, connect with collectors and art enthusiasts, and enjoy a first look at Mia Eriksson’s work.
More Info:
www.miaeriksson.com | www.alofftgallery.com
Event Location
Alofft Gallery, 41 West St, Litchfield, CT (Historic Litchfield Green)
Event URL
11am-5pm
Don’t miss the chance to meet Min Santandrea, the founder of Sant M, at our Kent location.
Event Location
Rentrayage
Kent Barns
6 N Main Street
Kent, CT 06757
https://rentrayage.com/pages/events
The Hickory Stick Bookshop is delighted to welcome author Victoria Redel, who will be talking about her novel “I Am You” with New York Times bestselling author, Dani Shapiro, on Saturday, October 4th at 5.00 pm. The talk will be followed by a book signing.
ABOUT THE BOOK
“I Am You” sweeps you back to mid-1600s Amsterdam, the height of Dutch influence and artistic genius, where two women–a painter, Maria van Oosterwijck, and her family servant, Gerta Pieters–begin defying the norms of their time as they take on the male-dominated art world–and fall in love.
At seven years old, Gerta’s hair is lopped off and she’s sent to work for the Oosterwijcks under the name Pieter, because it’s a boy servant the family needs. As Pieter, she splits wood, minds the hens and rabbits, scrubs the wooden floors of the house, and tends the garden—all while the family’s teenage daughter, Maria, looks on, sketching Pieter’s every movement. A few years later at the dinner table, Maria lays Gerta’s deception open alongside a demand that Gerta accompany her to Utrecht, where Maria will apprentice in the workshop of a famous painter.
In Utrecht, Maria learns to paint skilled still lifes—though she is the only woman in her workshop, and will never be accepted into the painters’ guild. As Maria ascends to great heights of skill and fame, the relationship between maid and employer deepens and shifts, and it becomes clear that Gerta, too, possesses abilities far beyond what society expects.
Inspired by the little that is known about the real painter Maria van Oosterwijck’s actual life, “I Am You” is a love story, a meditation on gender—the ways it binds and frees us—and an ode to artistic creation. As beautifully wrought as Oosterwijck’s paintings themselves (delicate, blazing in color, and at times enveloped in shadow), Redel’s new novel brings to life the copious spoils of Amsterdam’s Golden Age, and the perils that lay hidden within them for women like Maria and Gerta.
ABOUT THE AUTHORS
Victoria Redel has written four books of poetry, most recently “Paradise”; her last novel, “Before Everything”, was published in 2017. Her short stories, poetry and essays have appeared in Granta, The New York Times, the Los Angeles Times, Bomb, One Story, Salmagundi, O, and NOON among many others. She has received fellowships from the Guggenheim Foundation, The National Endowment for the Arts and the Fine Arts Work Center. She is a professor in the graduate and undergraduate creative writing programs at Sarah Lawrence College and lives in New York City.
Dani Shapiro is the author of eleven books, and the host and creator of the hit podcast Family Secrets. Her most recent novel, “Signal Fires”, was named a best book of 2022 by NPR, Time Magazine, Washington Post, Amazon, and others, and is a national bestseller. Her most recent memoir, “Inheritance”, was an instant New York Times Bestseller, and named a best book of 2019 by Elle, Vanity Fair, Wired, and Real Simple. Both “Signal Fires” and “Inheritance” were winners of the National Jewish Book Award. Dani’s work has been published in fourteen languages and she’s currently developing “Signal Fires” for its television adaptation. Dani’s book on the process and craft of writing, “Still Writing”, has just been reissued on the occasion of its tenth anniversary. She occasionally teaches workshops and retreats and is the co-founder of the Sirenland Writers Conference in Positano, Italy.
PRAISE FOR THE BOOK
“”I Am You” is that rarest of novels, a story of ferocious insights into the human psyche and the drive to create art, coupled with twists and turns that grab you from the beginning and don’t let go until the end. It’s a stunning accomplishment.”
—Michael Cunningham, Pulitzer Prize-winning author of Day and The Hours
“I loved this book so much! A lush, sexy, absorbing novel that brings to life two artists who are inextricably linked in passion and competition. Redel is a master storyteller whose exquisite prose held me rapt. A profound achievement.”
—Melissa Febos, author of The Dry Season and Girlhood, winner of the National Book Critics Circle Award
“A novel that combines a 17th-century atmosphere with a 21st-century sensibility…. [Redel’s] characters’ nuanced, complex relationship is terrific [as] they intertwine on multiple levels of secrecy and closeted identity.”
—Kirkus
This event is free and open to the public. If you are unable to attend this event, you may reserve signed copies of “I Am You” by calling The Hickory Stick Bookshop at (860) 868 0525, or shop our website 24/7 at www.hickorystickbookshop.com.
The Hickory Stick Bookshop, 2 Green Hill Rd
https://hickorystickbookshop.com/event/2025-10-04/victoria-redel-conversation-dani-shapiro
Is illness an obstacle, or an opportunity, for artistic creativity? How do artists with visual loss deal with their illness? How do visual changes affect an artist’s work? In this conversation at the Woodbury Public Library, Dr. Vincent de Luise will explore the visual impairments of several of the greatest artists in the western Canon – Euphronios, Rembrandt, Titian, Goya, Daumier, Degas, Cassatt, Monet, Georgia O’Keefe, Francis Bacon and Chuck Close. The talk will take a “Slow Look” at their works to see how they overcame their visual changes to create masterpieces.
Vincent de Luise MD is an assistant clinical professor of ophthalmology at Yale University School of Medicine and a Distinguished Visiting Scholar in Medical Humanities at the Renaissance School of Medicine at Stony Brook University. Vincent is a clarinetist and is president of the Woodbury-based Connecticut Summer Opera Foundation. He also serves as the cultural ambassador and a program annotator of the Waterbury Symphony Orchestra.
Woodbury Public Library
269 Main Street South
Woodbury, CT 06798
https://woodburylibraryct.libcal.com/event/14995632
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