Welcome to Ridgefield

Now in its fourteenth year, Festive Home is the Guild’s biggest fundraiser of the year…and the most fun! Dedicated members of the Ridgefield Guild of Artists, along with area design teams transform our usual white-walled, antique barn gallery space into a magical holiday showcase, beginning Friday, November 16^th with a special Preview Party, open to all for an entry fee of $20, payable at the door. Join us as we celebrate the start of Festive Home that night from 6-8 pm and enjoy festive refreshments, music and more, along with the first peek at our ever-so-sparkly holiday market. The event continues for five weeks with free admission from Saturday, November 17^th through Sunday, December 23^rd.

This year’s theme for the event is “All That Glitters!” We’re glamming up the galleries to showcase traditional and contemporary items throughout. Our decorators are paired with member artists for the holiday vignettes around the barn, which act as the dramatic backdrops for our holiday merchandise. All of our designers are again from Ridgefield. Back this year are Amanda Dranow, Josh Fischer, Molly Hirsch and Leslie Toran + Kimberly Harper. We are please to announce a new collaboration with the Ridgefield Thrift Shop for Festive Home 2018. Sandra Capriotti, Diana Arfine and Mandy Costanza are creating a holiday vignette with items exclusively from thrift shop donations.

This holiday marketplace and fundraiser brings many, many shoppers to our charming antique building every year. They will find the galleries brimming with creative gifts… unique hand-made and hand-selected gift items such as jewelry, apparel and original artwork, to decorative and useful objects for holiday home decorating, and much, much more. This year, about twenty-five artisans will have their creations exhibited for sale.

Executive Director, Pam Stoddart, and Board President, Mary Pat Devine take the lead for this year’s Festive Home committee. “Our theme is ‘All That Glitters!’ and the Guild will be decked in a multitude of shiny metallics to add glamour and drama to our holiday emporium…and inspiration for you.” It takes a village to make it all happen and we thank all those who help to make it a success.

Members of the Guild support this fundraiser by creating and donating small canvases for sale at Festive Home, and for this, we thank you. For our fourteenth anniversary event, the project theme showcases landscapes and the ever-popular birds. All of these canvases are on display and for sale at Festive Home, priced at $50, with 100% of the proceeds coming back to the Guild to help with our programming.

We’re also showcasing small works in our middle gallery. Guild members’ original works 18” and under, along with matted flat works, are priced under $200 and are available for great grab-n-go gifts. We’re also bringing back our Sale Attic in our small gallery upstairs. Be sure to climb the stairs and check out the bargains!

Established in the fall of 1974, the Guild plays a major role in the regional arts community. Funds raised at Festive Home are key to keeping the Guild’s doors open and programs going like the many exhibitions and opening receptions each year, to classes and workshops including summer programs for adults and kids, plus countless collaborations with other local non-profit organizations.

Expanded holiday hours are Tuesday – Sunday, 11am-5pm. Galleries will be closed November 21 and 22 for Thanksgiving. Call 203.438.8863 or email rgoa@sbcglobal.net for more information about our Fourteenth Annual Festive Home.

November 27 – December 24, 2018

Shop our Gift Shop, expanded for the holidays, to find unique gifts for everyone on your list.

Shop during Early Shopper Days (11/27 – 12/2) for convenience and savings: Members 15% Discount, Non-Members 10% Discount.

Starting December 4, talented local crafters add their wares to our already unique selection. Discounts suspended.

Gift Shop Hours
Wednesday, Saturday, Sunday
1:00 to 4:00 PM

Join The Prospector as they screen the classic, It’s a Wonderful Life!

Film Synopsis:

George Bailey is a small-town man whose life seems so desperate he contemplates suicide. He had always wanted to leave Bedford Falls to see the world, but circumstances and his own good heart have led him to stay. He sacrificed his education for his brother’s, kept the family-run savings and loan afloat, protected the town from the avarice of the greedy banker Mr. Potter, and married his childhood sweetheart. As he prepares to jump from a bridge, his guardian angel intercedes; showing him what life would have become for the residents of Bedford Falls if he had never lived.

Join us in the lobby at 6:15pm for an Italian wine tasting by Pera Wines and an art exhibit by Clarice M Shirvell!

It’s a night of holiday favorites with The World Famous Glenn Miller Orchestra! This show features classics like “Sleigh Ride,” “Have Yourself a Merry Little Christmas,” “Jingle Bells,” alongside Miller staples including “Chattanooga Choo Choo,” “Moonlight Serenade,” “In the Mood” and more!

With its unique jazz sound, the Glenn Miller Orchestra is considered to be one of the greatest bands of all time. The present Glenn Miller Orchestra was formed in 1956 and has been touring consistently since, playing an average of 300 live dates a year all around the world. Nick Hilscher is the orchestra’s present music director.

ARTIST BIO: Clarice M Shirvell of Ridgefield, CT is an award-winning artist recognized in both pen and ink drawings and acrylic paintings. Her artwork shows her love of nature and hiking within Ridgefield and surrounding town, depicting expressionistic landscapes with occasional figures dropped into the serene scenery using her characteristic quick passionate brushstrokes and lines. She is a member of the Ridgefield Guild of Artists.

Moffly Media Evening of Art, Wine & Jazz Series
Holiday Series
Underwritten by Laurel Ridge Health Care Center

Create works of art that inspire, awe, and excite in this daylong workshop celebrating the tricks and tools employed by abstract artists. From sculpture to painting, use a number of materials from various artistic disciplines to find fun, creative, and innovative ways to express yourself. Grades 1 to 3

ENCORE PERFORMANCE
Saturday, December 22, 2018 at 12:30pm

Yannick Nézet-Séguin conducts Michael Mayer’s richly textured new production, featuring a dazzling 18th-century setting that changes with the seasons. Soprano Diana Damrau plays the tragic heroine, Violetta, and tenor Juan Diego Flórez returns to the Met for the first time in five seasons to sing the role of Alfredo, Violetta’s hapless lover. Baritone Quinn Kelsey is Alfredo’s father, Germont, who destroys their love. Later performances feature Anita Hartig, Stephen Costello, Artur Ruciński, and Plácido Domingo.

Estimated Run Time: 3 hrs, 7 mins

Tickets: $25 | Members & Seniors $20 | Students $15
Ridgefield Library cardholders receive member prices for this show.
AAA members receive a 20% discount!
FREE tickets for students 18 & under! Must show ID at the box office.

Atria Senior Living Classical Series
With Support from The Ridgefield Press
and Whistle Stop Bakery

As the clock strikes midnight on Christmas Eve, Marie’s wooden nutcracker doll comes to life and transforms into a prince! Soon joined by her other toys that have also come to life, Marie and her prince embark on a dreamy unforgettable adventure. A holiday tradition for the whole family, The Nutcracker enchants the Bolshoi stage for two hours of enchantment and magic. Along with Tchaikovsky’s cherished score and some of the Bolshoi’s greatest artists, The Nutcracker remains a treasure not to be missed!

Estimated Run Time: 2 hrs, 20 min

Tickets: $25 | Members & Seniors $20 | Students $15
Ridgefield Library cardholders receive member prices for this show.
AAA members receive a 20% discount!
FREE tickets for students 18 & under! Must show ID at the box office.

Atria Senior Living Classical Series
With Support from The Ridgefield Press
and Whistle Stop Bakery

Spend an afternoon scraping and scoring away in a workshop exploring rainbow scratchboards! Practice your techniques on pre-made scratchboards then learn how to make your own using wax and oil pastels. All ages

Use chipboard and tempera paint to create dazzling skylines and beautiful cityscapes. Develop your own color palette, hone your drawing skills, and express yourself in this mixed media workshop. All ages.

Owner Pietro’s parents are visiting from Italy for the holidays! While his mother is here she will be hosting 2 “Mamma Mia Nights”. Mamma Mia night is a fun evening featuring family style dining and wine pairing menu. She will also demonstrate and teach how to make fresh pasta. Come enjoy with friends and family, these nights fill up fast so make your reservations now.

December 27th sold out. By popular demand we have added December 30th at 6:00 pm.

Enjoy the wonderful tasting menu including fresh made pasta and a special dessert “SASANELLO”, a secret family recipe.

Make your reservations today!

New Year’s Eve 2018

Come celebrate the turn of the new year in style at Bernard’s and Sarah’s Wine Bar!

Bernard’s is offering 2 seatings:

6 PM Seating
3 Course Meal with Piano Music by Hank Milligan
$105 Prix Fixe

9 PM Seating
4 Course Meal with Entertainment and Dancing with the Maria Tiscia Trio and a Champagne Toast at Midnight
$185 Prix Fixe

See menus here

Sarah’s Wine Bar will be open with live music by Artie Tobia and taking reservations, so call or email today!

(203) 438-8282
sarah@bernardsridgefield.com

THE BAZAAR OF MYSTERIES ESCAPE ROOM ADVENTURE – AT THE RIDGEFIELD LIBRARY – JANUARY 2019.

Madame Zolushka, a clairvoyant Fortune Teller, has gone missing from the Bazaar of Mysteries.  Can you find her in time?

Various sessions available throughout the month of January. Each session runs for about 60 minutes; please arrive 10 minutes before your scheduled session to receive instructions. Recommended for ages 13 and up or ages 8-12 with an adult.  LIMITED TO 8 PEOPLE PER SESSION.

Please Note: The Sessions will automatically close once the 8 person maximum registration has been reached.

Purchase individual tickets for sessions at $25 per person or purchase all 8 tickets to reserve the whole room for $200.  Go to www.ridgefieldlibrary.org  for available sessions and to purchase tickets today.

If you would like to book the room for a session for a time not listed, please contact  Laureen Bubniak, 203-438-2282 x11029, lmbubniak@ridgefieldlibrary.org.

Presented by RHS Music Department and Ridgefield Music Matters 

A small, intimate concert featuring our very popular Jazz Band, Chamber Orchestra, Rockestra, Madrigal Singers, and Nightengales.  Find out details about the night’s program by visiting www.ridgefieldhsmusic.org.

Award-winning impressionist and expressionist American landscape painter Dmitri Wright seeks to capture the moment when the natural environment of light through colors comes into existence. Applying expressive elements and using a vibrant, rhythmic palette, Wright’s brushwork reveals and transcends the representational foundation he received in his training which was rooted in the academy’s classics. In this ARTalk, Wright will talk about his career and journeys throughout the United States, Europe, West Indies, Central and South America, and China as a master fine artist/instructor. Wright’s work is housed in numerous museum, corporate, and private collections.

Dmitri Wright is the Master Artist/Instructor for Weir Farm National Historic Site, the National Park dedicated to American Impressionism. Wright, in the tradition of John Henry Twachtman founder of the Cos Cob Art Colony, is the first artist-in-residence instructing and lecturing at the Greenwich Historic Society, the birthplace of American Impressionism.  He also instructs at Silvermine Art School and privately. In the USA and Europe he gives workshops and museum tours in addition to being a judge for art shows. This program is co-sponsored by the Ridgefield Library and the Ridgefield Guild of Artists.

Snow date: January 27 @ 2 pm.

Please register at www.ridgefieldlibrary.org or call 203-438-2282. 

Award-winning New York Mets play-by-play announcer Gary Cohen returns to the Ridgefield Library on January 26 for the Library’s 2019 installment of its popular Hot Stove League program.

Gary will entertain questions from the audience, share anecdotes from his 30 years broadcasting the Mets and provide his take on the upcoming Major League Baseball season. He was recently inducted into the New York State Baseball Hall of Fame alongside his broadcasting partner and former Mets player Keith Hernandez. The Hot Stove League event sold out quickly when Gary last appeared at the Library during the 2017 off-season.  Seating is limited to 200 people.  For information call Laureen Bubniak at 203-438-2282 Ext. 11029.

You may purchase tickets here.

The Aldrich Contemporary Art Museum is pleased to present Helena Hernmarck: Weaving in Progress, organized by The Aldrich’s interim co-director Richard Klein. In addition to exhibiting a selection of her work, Hernmarck, one of the most important contemporary figures in the evolving history of woven tapestries, will be in residence at the Museum from October 14, 2018, to January 27, 2019.

Hernmarck began her career in the 1960s during an explosion of interest in fiber arts. Her innovations over the ensuing years are unsurpassed in visual imagery and technical innovation. Unlike many of her contemporaries, Hernmarck focused her practice on the pictorial, rather than sculptural form and abstraction. Influenced by pop culture, her mature style evolved into the creation of often-monumental tapestries that exhibit complex illusionary space and diverse subject matter, including trompe l’oeil, landscape, still life, and the human figure. Her primary technique, a discontinuous plain weave on top of which she hand picks a supplementary pattern weft, resembles computer pixels, enabling Hernmarck to produce images that expand the use of photographic imagery into territory that is both abstract and realistic.

During Weaving in Progress, the gallery space will not only exhibit a selection of tapestries, but also function as a weaving studio. Three days a week, Hernmarck, and her apprentice Mae Colburn, will be working at the artist’s five-foot-wide Glimåkra Countermarch loom. An inventory of the wool used in the process will be on view, along with a display of materials from the artist’s archive, including photographs, watercolors, drawings, prototype samples, and other ephemera that illustrate and inform Hernmarck’s process and the evolution of her career. The majority of the wool used in the tapestries is spun to her specifications at a family-run spinning mill in Sweden, and hand-dyed to reflect her color sensibilities. Visitors may touch and pick up the skeins of wool, amplifying the material nature of tapestry production.

Weaving in Progress is the first solo exhibition of Hernmarck’s work in the United States since 2012 and will present twenty tapestries. Many of the works will be hung from the ceiling, so visitors can experience the complex three-dimensionality of her weaving technique, and the unusual materials she sometimes uses, such as leftover sequin material. The exhibition will transform the Museum from a place of looking to a place of making, where the physicality of fiber is amplified by the presence of the artist’s hand. The sound of the loom’s beater being sharply pulled to compress each row of weft will fill the space and the evolving progress of the tapestry will encourage repeat visitation.

Helena Hernmarck was born in Stockholm, Sweden in 1941. She lives and works in Ridgefield, Connecticut.

Upcoming residency dates (2018-2019):

Hernmarck will be in residency working at the Museum from 12 to 4 pm on the following dates. Saturdays from 11 am to 4 pm.

October: 15, 19, 20, 24, 25, 26

November: 1, 2, 3, 7, 8, 9, 15, 16, 17, 18, 23, 24, 28, 29, 30

December: 6, 7, 8, 12, 13, 14, 20, 21, 22, 27, 28, 29

January: 2, 3, 4, 10, 11, 12

A full-color, soft-cover scholarly publication with essays by Richard Klein and Mae Colburn will be available during the exhibition.

Generous support for Helena Hernmarck: Weaving in Progress is provided by The Coby Foundation and Eric G. Diefenbach and James Keith Brown.

On Sunday, January 27th the Rotary of Ridgefield will be hosting its 20th Annual Taste of Ridgefield at the Lounsbury House Community Center. There will be two sessions, 12:30-3:00PM and 4:00PM–6:00PM.

In the 18 years of Taste of Ridgefield over 6000 attendees have donated over $425,000 to assist our neighbors who are most in need. Some of these organizations include, RVNA, Women’s Center of Danbury, Meals on Wheels, Keeler Tavern, The Ridgefield Symphony, Chirp, A Better Chance and other great organizations.

A special thank you to Fairfield County Bank, our Premium sponsor.

Last year’s event had over thirty (30) local restaurants and merchants participate and we are expecting even more in 2019. Is there a restaurant you have wanted to try but have not been able to? Now is your opportunity to sample Ridgefield finest restaurants as well as support your local community.

Please mark your calendar to join us on January 27th. Tickets are available now online.

To learn more about Ridgefield Rotary, its mission, people and upcoming events such as our Food Drive and Holiday Events visit us online here.

Join the Western Connecticut Youth Orchestra for their chamber orchestra concert. This concert is part of the Ridgefield Symphony Orchestra Listening Live! Community Concert Series.

Admission is FREE and the public is invited to attend.

WORKING is the extraordinary musical from Grammy and Academy Award winner Stephen Schwartz (WICKED) based on Studs Terkel’s best-selling book of interviews with the American workforce. This highly original and universal portrait of the American workday is told from the perspective of those that the world so often overlooks – the school teacher, the housewife, the fireman and the waitress amongst many – whose daily grind and aspirations reflect the truths of the people that make up a nation. This world-premier version of WORKING features new music by Lin-Manuel Miranda (HAMILTON) with additional contributions by Daniel C. Levine.

Performances Thursday-Sunday with Matinees on Saturday & Sunday. 

With special guests: Cha Wa & Joe Lastie’s New Orleans Sound

Wednesday, February 27, 2019 at 7:30pm

Three bands direct from New Orleans are bringing Mardi Gras to CT! For more than 40 years, the internationally renowned, New Orleans-based Dirty Dozen Brass Band has taken the traditional foundation of brass band music and incorporated it into a blend of Bebop Jazz, Funk and R&B/Soul. In addition to their genre-bending romps and high-octane performances, they are known for collaborations with Modest Mouse, Widespread Panic, Norah Jones and others! New Orleans brass band-meets-Mardi Gras Indian outfit Cha Wa radiates the fiery energy of the best features of the city’s street culture. Preservation Hall Jazz Band hall-of-famer, Joe Lastie brings his drumming, along with a full band direct from NOLA for a night of traditional jazz, brass-band songs and gospel. The night is complete with Mardi Gras beads at the door and Hurricanes at the bar!

Tickets: $39.50

THANK YOU FOR YOUR GENEROSITY IN 2018!

13,137 donors gave $1,400,887 to 416 nonprofits on March 1, 2018

Powered by Fairfield County’s Community Foundation, this dynamic 24-hour fundraising event unites our community around local causes that are closest to your hearts.

This special day allows anyone to become a philanthropist! When thousands of people come together for the greater good, transformative thinking and actions begin to happen. The Community Foundation joins individuals, families, nonprofits and companies – like lead sponsor Bank of America.

The region’s biggest philanthropic event, Giving Day 2018 made a huge impact by raising over $1.4 million, which was donated by 13,000+ individuals in support of 415 local nonprofits.