With perfect weather on Saturday, the grounds of the Bruce Museum were lively with families, collectors and artists mingling about.
Review & Onsite Photos by Carly Timpson
GREENWICH, CONN. — The Bruce Museum hosted its 45th Annual Outdoor Arts Festival on October 10, inviting 70 contemporary artists from across the country to show and sell their original fine art in painting, drawing, printmaking, mixed media, sculpture and photography. Though it was originally scheduled as a two-day event, the organizers made the tough decision to cancel Sunday’s session due to inclement weather.
However treacherous the forecast was for Sunday, exhibitors lucked out, as Saturday was the perfect day for an outdoor event. And guitarist Ed Wright was playing throughout the day, creating a lovely ambiance on the Bruce Museum grounds. The atmosphere was further curated with children’s activities and art demonstrations.
Along with entry to the show, a ticket to the Outdoor Arts Festival grants one admission to the hosting museum, and show director Sue Brown Gordan noted, “For a one-day weekend, we did very well at the gates. The Bruce was even quite busy on Sunday as patrons enjoyed indoor activities.”
Under the name Gordon Fine Arts, she produces the two annual Bruce shows alongside a slate of festivals across Connecticut and Massachusetts. “As a festival director,” Gordon said, “I find these artists to be the most professional and interesting people to work with. I enjoy our annual visit and getting to learn more about each one. They all have such amazing stories to share!”
For more than 20 years, David Oleski has been bringing his work to this festival. He explained that he plays around with color theory so much in his still life work that it inspired him to begin painting abstractions. West Chester, Penn.
A throughline in all Gordon’s festivals is quality. “Due to the ‘originals only’ clause in applying, we tend to attract the cream of the crop in nationally exhibiting fine artists,” she explained. “Also, it’s fine art only. We are limited by the scale of our property, so we focus specifically on fine arts media with highest quality and best examples of contemporary living artists. These exhibitors are superior, and most are national award winners in their own right.” Add that it is a juried show, and one can see how quality shows up.
There was a very strong pool of applicants to select show participants from, though only 70 could be accepted due to space, Gordon shared. “It is privilege to work at the Bruce Museum as festival director for over 30 years. I am always enlightened and pleased by this event! It is truly one of the top shows in the country and definitely one of the most respected by the artists. If you know, you know… nobody got here by accident.”
Artists local to Connecticut were plentiful and others came from neighboring New York, Rhode Island and Massachusetts; still more traveled from New Jersey, New Hampshire, Pennsylvania, Maine, Maryland, Florida, Georgia, Texas and Illinois. Greenwich, Conn., residents who could call the Bruce a neighbor included Kathy Chattoraj and Zili Zhang. Chattoraj is an oil painter who uses bright colors to depict a landscape captured in a moment. Zhang, a conceptual photographer, brought with him his award-winning book A Small Number, but Larger than Zero and showed several atmospheric images where he found art in everyday moments.
This bag, “Conclusion #6” (2026), was made of basswood, not paper, despite how it may appear. Jere Williams, Savannah, Ga.
If one was asked about an artist who created beauty out of the mundane, several paintings, drawings or photographs may come to mind. Sculpture, too, though maybe not like that of Jere Williams. Willliams takes still life art to another level with his sculptures. One that entirely tricked this writers’ eye was, seemingly, a brown paper bag. After doing a double-take (maybe triple), the grain became clearer, and we realized it was not a bag at all but rather a delicately carved wooden sculpture. The trompe l’oeil bag was joined on another pedestal by a square pillow, carved in such a way as if responding to the weight of a stone resting atop it. The Savannah, Ga.-based artist was exhibiting at the Bruce for the first time and took home an Honorable Mention Award of Excellence.
The jury presented eight awards in all, including Best In Show, First through Third Place, three Honorable Mentions and a brand-new award given to an artist exhibiting at this show for the first time. “New this year, the top awards included a Best New Artist honor, which was won by newbie Laura Lippay,” Gordon reported. Lippay, an acrylic artist and the recipient of the first-ever Best New Artist award. She was showing vibrant paintings that combine abstractions and figural forms.
Tomas Savrda won Best in Show with his mixed media works, Bixa Burgos & Dan Cole (mixed media) were awarded First Place, John Deng (photography) earned Second Place and Stuart Yankell (mixed media paintings) was given Third Place. Honorable Mentions were given to Lila Turjanski (sculpture) and Holly Wach (watercolor), as well as Williams.
Holly Wach, from Pawtucket, R.I., was awarded an Honorable Mention for her watercolors of birds.
Savrda and his whimsical assemblages were positioned just to the side of the main entry gate. His kinetic pieces are made with found materials and typically feature metal figures that move, by way of counterbalance pendulum, within a wall theater scene or as a free-standing sculpture. The Kent, Conn.-based artist also had various static assemblages mounted in wall boxes.
Larger-scale kinetic sculptures graced the grounds of the Bruce courtesy of Drew Klotz, who is from Weston, Conn. Klotz has been building his aluminum and stainless steel sculptures for more than 35 years and this year he brought some new designs that stood out among his typical spinning, bold-colored wind-activated structures. “These are my new mechanical designs,” he said, pointing to an array of tabletop works, each with a crank or other mechanism for movement. “They all do something.”
He demonstrated an example titled “Bat Crazy,” which showed a sheet metal bat mounted on a thin metal rod that was affixed to a base. At the front of the piece, there was a handle that, when turned, lifted the bat’s wings up and down, as if in flight. Another example was a bird’s skull affixed to a spring-loaded metal arm in such a way that the metal bottom “beak” snapped shut, meeting the skeletonized top half. Klotz explained, “I originally made them for the Oddities Flea Market but missed the entry deadline. They’re cool and fun to create, so I just kept making them anyway.”
“Tanbou Afriken Yo (Those African Drumbs)” was one of John van Orsouw’s latest paintings. Palatine Bridge, N.Y.
John van Orsouw of Palatine Bridge, N.Y., has been exhibiting at this show on and off for about 12 years. Of his expressive acrylic paintings, he said, “Most of my work is inspired by music. My newest painting, ‘Those African Drums,’ traces the history of American music, from blues to jazz, rock and roll to soul, hip hop to rap and from Dahomey to New Orleans.”
As a careerman, Dennis Stevens was an award-winning commercial artist and advertising art director. Now, in his retirement, he is living his dreams. During the Covid lockdown, Stevens shifted his personal art from painting to cartooning. The Norwalk, Conn., resident continued doodling until he had enough cartoons to publish a book of his work. Since 2021, he has exhibited his cartoons in several shows, but this was the first time his paintings were the focus at a festival. While the colorful representational oil paintings were available for sale, he did, of course, have a copy of his book, Out of My Mind, for interested shoppers to look through.
Gordon is not only the showrunner at this festival, she also exhibits her own art! “Since I wear two hats at this show… I was honored to be among the artists exhibiting with my mixed media paintings,” she reported. “In spite of the rain, I was very fortunate to connect with some patrons and placed some of my work locally in the Greenwich area.”
The Bruce Museum will host its next show, the 42nd Annual Outdoor Crafts Festival, May 22-23, and the Annual Outdoor Arts Festival will run next fall, October 9-10.
The Bruce Museum is at 1 Museum Drive. For information, www.gordonfinearts.org, www.brucemuseum.org or 518-852-6478.
