A community of visual artists in Norfolk has organized an Open Studio Tour for us to see where they work and how they work—sharing their process and their art forms.
The town of Norfolk has enjoyed a long history of attracting and inspiring many fine artists as well as art patrons. The artist Parker Newton (1811–1928) enjoyed painting winter scenes in Norfolk. An early patron of American art, Robbins Battell (1819–1895), assembled a large collection of paintings by native artists that was hung in the music room and library of Whitehouse on the grounds of the Battell Stoeckel Estate in Norfolk. The gallery was regularly opened for viewing and shared freely with the people of Norfolk. It included landscapes by Hudson River School artists Frederic Church, Thomas Cole and George Inness.
In 1898 Carl Stoeckel (1858–1926) and Ellen Battell Stoeckel hosted Frederick Dielman in Norfolk. Dielman (1847-1935) was president of the National Academy of Design and a distinguished artist who designed mosaics for the Thomas Jefferson Building of the Library of Congress. The Stoeckels had just published Music and Poetry of Norfolk, a book of poems and songs in tribute to Ellen’s father, Robbins Battell. At the southern tip of the Norfolk Green is Battell Fountain, carved in granite and designed by Stanford White with bronze work by Augustus Saint-Gaudens. It was the gift of the Eldridge sisters whose house and gardens faced the Green. The Village Green is now the center of the Norfolk Historic District.
After the Eldridge sisters died, their cousin Ellen Battell Stoeckel remodeled their home as a community center known as Battell House. In her will she provided for the creation of a trust that would enable music, art, and literary offerings to be carried on under the auspices of Yale University on her property. In 1939, the bucolic Stoeckel estate was transformed into a campus for the Norfolk Music School of Yale University. This evolved into the Yale Summer School of Music and Art where the arts continue to flourish today.
Norfolk Artists & Friends is a membership organization of professional artists living and working in or near Norfolk. It was founded in 2007 through a conversation between Ruthann Olssen and Patricia Nooy Miller, when Patricia proposed the idea of having a salon gathering of artists from Norfolk. They invited 56 artists and met for lunch. By 2009, the group had its first show at the Battell Stoeckel Art Gallery, sponsored by the Norfolk Chamber Music Festival-Yale School of Music. Today, the members work in a wide variety of visual arts such as painting, sculpture, photography, jewelry and decorative arts. Each year in August they put on a group show at the Battell Stoeckel Arts Gallery on the grounds of the Battell Stoeckel Estate.
On Saturday, June 13, a group of members from the organization will present an Artists’ Open Studio Tour. These artists will open their studios in conjunction with the Connecticut Open House Day, which is sponsored by the Connecticut Department of Economic and Community Development. The open studio tour is a great opportunity to visit the artists’ studios, see where they work and learn more about how they create their art.
The tour includes the studios of Anita Holmes (photography), John Thew (sculpture), Nina Mascetti Ritson (etchings and watercolor), Ronald Sloan (Painting), Ruthann Olsson (interior arts and design), Susan Dorazio (painting), Susan Rood (printmaking), and Tom Hlas (mixed media painting). Recently, member John Thew made a custom scepter for the Yale School of Art. The scepter includes a number of elements—a hand represents the artist working, figures surrounding it represent the heart, brain and eye of creating, and a cloud represents the source of ideas. The hand is hammered of copper, the symbols are in brass, mounted on a staff of black finished wood. This is just one example of the quality of this group’s work.
Plan to spend a delightful and educational day with local artists in the town of Norfolk and who knows, maybe you will come home with piece of art.
Saturday, June 13, 11 a.m. – 5 p.m.
norfolkart.org
www.ctvisit.com
