Shoppers stroll and browse the show’s 65 exhibitors in the juried show, set up in tents and popups along the tree-lined paths in Ridgefield’s Ballard Park, which benefits by being close to the town’s main business district.
Review and Photos by W.A. Demers
RIDGEFIELD, CONN. — Show promoter Sue Brown Gordon has been trying for some time to get affluent Ridgefield into the orbit of shows that occur regularly in Greenwich, Norwalk and Westport. And why not? Norman Rockwell could have designed this town, a favorite destination for visitors. Founded more than 300 years ago with a population of about 30,000, the town’s historic, yet boutique-filled Main Street, the Aldrich Contemporary Art Museum and Keeler Tavern along with entertainment venues like the Ridgefield Playhouse that draws nationally acclaimed performers, the ACT theater, Prospector Theater and free live outdoor concerts in Ballard Park in the summer under the aegis of CHIRP, Ridgefield is a guaranteed magnet for a high-end art festival.
Gordon sagely partnered with the Ridgefield Arts Council and Ridgefield Guild of Art to produce the inaugural Ridgefield Arts Festival, which ran June 29-30 in leafy Ballard Park. The juried fine arts and fine crafts event featured the works of 65 artists who set up tents and popup canopies to create mini galleries in the park.
As always, weather is a factor in many outdoor shows and there was a vibe of anxiety as exhibitors set up early on June 29, with the threat of rain coming displayed by the leaden grey skies. As it happened, the angst was unnecessary as the park stayed dry all of the first day and mostly into the next.
“Bloom” was the graphic chosen for the inaugural Ridgefield Arts Festival banner, an image by Newtown, Conn., artist Lois Warner.
Visitors coming into the park through the main entrance next to the CVS store were greeted by a colorful banner announcing “Ridgefield Arts Festival.” It was illustrated by a detail from a painting by Newtown, Conn., artist Lois Warner.
Shoppers entered the park at 10 am to stroll and browse the show’s 65 exhibitors. One of them, Kathy Chattoraj from Greenwich, Conn., was ready with her large canvases of beachy expanses or woodland paths through the seasons. “I did pretty well,” Chattoraj said after the show. “I sold six pieces, essentially broke even. With new shows, you have to run them a few times to get people to come. Sunday was a better day, financially.”
She was drawn to creating art as a child growing up in New Hampshire. On her website, she says that “art was not only a device for capturing the immutable beauty of her surroundings, but a window into other worlds and cultures.” Her formal education included a BFA from the Art Institute of Boston and an MA from the Palazzo Spinelli School of Art and Design in Florence, Italy.
A strong compassion for the wild horses and burros of the West has led equine photographer Caroline Christie of Colrain, Mass., to specialize in photographing and developing an advocacy for them. Today’s wild horses, she says, are losing their homes on public lands to livestock, mining and oil refineries, which are considered more lucrative. The animals are rounded up by helicopters and separated from family members, put in long-term holding pens or placed in auction pens and shipped to slaughterhouses in Canada and Mexico. With her camera, she captures America’s iconic wild horses and burros in the Western public lands where they roam.
Equine photographer Caroline Christie, Colrain, Mass., specializes in photographing wild horses and burros of the West and enjoys educating people about how the herds are slowly getting removed, rounded up by helicopter to be replaced with more lucrative cattle. She is a self-taught photographer although she attended school for fine arts.
Avon, Conn., fiber artist Diana Cesaro has developed a market for unique fashions by reclaiming discarded items like denim clothing, neckties and curtain remnants. She has a knack for sewing, so she combines the salvaged items to create one-of-a-kind, sustainable fashions like denim jackets with lacy sleeves, skirts of colorful vintage neckties and the like. Her business, Diana by Design, has taken off, especially popular among teens and young adults.
It’s a family affair for some artists. Tracy Hambley of Southbury, Conn., was not feeling well on Saturday morning so she set up with the intention of heading home and letting husband James Carter helm the booth. Hambley is an assemblages artist using found, vintage and common objects and combining them into a narrative to tell a story. The pieces are housed under glass in deep wood frames. Prominent in her booth was “Peep Show,” made out of old game boards, a camera lens and parts, dolls eyes, a bisque doll leg and other vintage items. Carter used just one wall to display a few of his own works — super-real still life paintings done in acrylic with airbrush.
There were not many sculptors represented in this show, but Drew Klotz entertained visitors with his kinetic sculptures, and Joe Sorge of Shelton, Conn., was back with his fanciful pieces that he creates from medium to large pieces of scrap steel, bending them, painting some of them, letting others oxidize with time-worn patina. And Peter Vinci, Jr, was participating in his second show ever as a sculptor. He’s also an antiques dealer of Midcentury Modern, art and lighting through his Steamhorse 7 business, appearing often at Mongers Market in Bridgeport, Conn.
Joe Sorge’s sculptures were outstanding — “out standing in a field,” he quipped. The Shelton, Conn., sculptor takes medium to large pieces of scrap steel and bends them into fanciful shapes. He is also fanciful with names for his sculptures, on the spot titling the large one to the left “Eternity.”
As anyone who has visited any town in the Berkshires can attest, the area is gorgeous in the fall. It’s what made Colleen Kastner, now a Ridgefielder, pull up stakes in Florida and head North with her oils, acrylics and encaustics to capture autumn “leafscapes,” which filled her booth. She’s a South African-born mixed media artist, writer and former mental health counselor. Kastner has been painting seriously since Covid and loves to tell stories with her art.
Mixed media artist Jodi Oster, Fairlawn, N.J., was carrying on a time-honored tradition with her folk art made mainly from scavenged items. Just as early Americans fashioned characters out of gourds and dolls out of remnants of fabric, Oster finds art in discarded plastic bottles. One example was made into a gay pride character. Other found objects were turned into a grinning devil. She said she loves adding humor to her creations. “I feel art should make you happy,” she writes in her artist’s statement. “If people walk by and chuckle or even smile, then I’ve done my job. Using found objects and everyday items to create a one-of-a-kind piece is one of my objectives. I also feel good when I recycle/upcycle. For example, I use plastic bottles in some of my sculptural pieces. I am helping the environment and I am creating a unique piece at the same time.”
To enter Mariana Russo’s world is to experience a woodland that is slightly dark, otherworldly and full of a dynamic lifeforce. The Harrisburg, Penn., mixed media artist employs collage to give her trees’ leaves dimension. She employs woodburning to render rough and dark. She works primarily with wood, uses old kitchen cabinet doors, old windows and acrylics.
Mariana Russo, Harrisburg, Penn., right, was fielding many questions regarding her mixed media pieces that employ wood burning and collage.
Another fun booth was the celebrity-filled space set up by Deuza Schwartz of Bedford, N.Y. Well, they weren’t real A-listers but painted portraits. Characters with attitude are her forte but she also paints museum subjects like statues and busts and portraits of “art celebrities” like Degas and others.
Riverhead, N.Y., artist Tessa Gibbons featured a trompe l’oeil series of large panels that looked like photographs from a distance but were in fact large panels about 48-by-30-inches on which she drew with brushed ink on Bristol board incredibly detailed images of woodland scenes. Gibbons grew up in New York’s Hudson Valley, certainly an influence on her work. She says she is mostly self-taught, but has gone to school for filmmaking (NYU School of Continuing Education) and acting (Atlantic Theater Company Acting School). Painting and drawing, however, are her first love although she believes her theater and film experience informs her visual arts experience.
“It was a great success. We’re very happy with the first year,” said Gordon after the show. “We loved partnering with the guild and we’re really looking forward to next year and making it an annual tradition during the last week in June. That’s what we’ll do for 2025.” As far as Gordon is concerned, she has planted the flag.
