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Brian Slattery |
Nov 1, 2023 8:13 am
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Marjorie Gillette Wolfe
Alhambra Hedge.
Two photographs by Marjorie Gillette Wolfe hang in the front of Kehler Liddell Gallery, at 873 Whalley Ave. in Westville. They’re both of hedges, and the way Wolfe composes the image, the eye is drawn to the plant life, without worrying too much about where it is. We can see the similarities in the forms of the plants, the spacing between them. It’s only in looking at the titles that the true humor comes out, as one photograph is taken in front of a diner somewhere, and the other is taken at the Alhambra, one of the great architectural wonders of the world. Both locations are almost entirely absent from the images.
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Karen Ponzio |
Oct 30, 2023 9:33 am
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Karen Ponzio Photo
David Sepulveda at work in his Westville studio.
The last weekend of October finally gifted the city a warm and sunny Saturday, but nowhere was it hotter than Westville, where a two-day neighborhood event — part of the artist-led City-Wide Open Studios — encompassed everything from galleries, creative collectives, and private residences to Edgewood Park and even pods on Central Avenue.
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Brian Slattery |
Oct 27, 2023 8:39 am
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Cynthia Beth Rubin
Orange Interplay with Diatoms, Salt, and Seaweed.
Cynthia Beth Rubin’s collage crackles with energy, as colors vibrate off one another and forms within forms, textures within textures, rub against each other. Keen senses of both aesthetic freedom and control of technique suffuse the piece — which, it turns out, hearken back to a famous artistic ancestor.
Pickleball played at the Floyd Little Athletic Center in April ...
BZA photo
... and next at an indoor trendy paddle sport building, coming to this parking lot?
Indoor pickleball instead of surface-lot parking could be coming to a busy Westville Village intersection, as the owner of a Valley Street stretch of asphalt has proposed constructing a new two-story “gym and spa” dedicated to the trendy tennis-adjacent sport.
The description online read: “In this ephemeral haven of sonic and poetic delights, the Afrogalactic Tea Party invites you to immerse yourself in a curated experience of taste and culture.”
The Sunday afternoon event at the flower and lifestyle shop Bloom on Central Avenue in Westville was part of the ongoing 6th Dimension Afrofuturism festival, a series of art exhibits, talks, screenings, and other gatherings running now through Oct. 25.
I love a tea party, and coupling one with Afrofuturism intrigued me, so I headed to the festival website to grab a ticket, which was pretty reasonable at $23. I wasn’t sure what to expect.
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Karen Ponzio |
Oct 2, 2023 8:33 am
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Outtafocus Media Photos
Westville Music Bowl said so long to the summer and another full season of outdoor concerts with their closing show Thursday night, headlined by none other than boygenius, a band with a name spelled in lowercase letters and stacked with uppercase talent. Singer-songwriters Julien Baker, Phoebe Bridgers, and Lucy Dacus have been touring the country in support of their first full-length album, the record, which was released in March 2023 with a variety of opening acts. On this night it was Palehound, who also released an album, Eye on the Bat, in July.
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Brian Slattery |
Sep 20, 2023 12:07 pm
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One wall of the gallery is a long stack of lively faces, the energetic style matching the animation in the faces. They match their subject, a clown in the old-school sense, more Charlie Chaplin than Ronald McDonald. The artist, Brian Flinn, has numbered the series under the title Auditions. It’s an entertainer looking for a gig. But for Flinn, it’s a sly double meaning, because it’s also a test run for new way for making art. Does it pass?
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Thomas Breen |
Sep 20, 2023 9:13 am
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Thomas Breen photo
92 Lexington Ave., recently sold for $2.25M.
A Waterbury-based holding company has purchased a 50-bed nursing home and residential care facility on Lexington Avenue for $2.25 million — and a Stamford-based contractor has bought a Westville ex-convent and 10-unit apartment-complex-to-be for $865,000 — in some of the city’s latest property deals.
A leading East Coast concert promoter has signed up to help book shows at the Westville Music Bowl, after teaming up with the local group that runs the ex-tennis stadium-turned-music venue.
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Maya McFadden |
Sep 18, 2023 11:27 am
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Maya McFadden File Photo
Davis seventh-grader Dulce creates a 3D guitar figure last spring.
Davis Academy for Arts & Design Innovation has put a pause on its before- and after-school programming — leading two parents to take to the Board of Education to plead for some way to bring back initiatives that helped their students with reading, socialization, and building connections with school staff and fellow classmates.
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Yash Roy and Thomas Breen |
Sep 11, 2023 8:50 am
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Yash Roy photo
Mayor Justin Elicker (center) surrounded by top Connecticut elected officials at Saturday's rally.
Thomas Breen photo
Liam Brennan at the doors on Sunday with West Rock Ave resident Tim Dagradi.
Elected officials from across Connecticut descended on Whalley Avenue to rally behind Mayor Justin Elicker, while Liam Brennan hit the doors in Westville to get out the vote for his mayoral challenger campaign — in a rush of political organizing in the final weekend before Tuesday’s Democratic primary elections.
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Brian Slattery |
Aug 22, 2023 8:46 am
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Brian Slattery Photo
Edmund B*Wak Comfort: "God left me just enough to get by."
New Haven artist and designer Edmund B*Wak Comfort faced a harrowing health crisis in the spring that saw him lose both of his legs below the knee as well as a few of his fingers. Now home from the hospital, he has found family and friends rallying to help him, including a performance from the Regicides improv comedy group this Saturday, Aug. 26 that will double as a fundraiser to help him meet living expenses while he recuperates.
“After the incident, I really appreciate being here,” Comfort said. “I realize how precious it is, all the things I took for granted. It is amazing that I still get an opportunity to be here.” He thinks of friends and family who have passed. “I was on the verge of being one of them,” he said, “missing all the beautiful things that life has to offer.”
Liam Brennan (right) with Keith and Yolanda Harper talking through ...
... fewer empty lots, more housing, on Starr Street.
Keith Harper can still remember the three-family house that stood a few doors down from his own family’s Starr Street home. It’s now a vacant city-owned lot.
Mayoral challenger Liam Brennan visited Harper’s Newhallville block to make his pitch for why a house should be standing there again today — and what rules need to be changed to make that denser land-use vision a reality.
Stevenson Road resident Henry Horton: Will Yale's tree-cutting plans make a bad flooding situation even worse?
Upper Westville neighbors of the Yale University Golf Course could have been pleased with the significant news that when it reopens in 2025, after a multi-million dollar environmental restoration, the formerly private, member-only greenway will be transformed into a public one where anyone can pay for a round and play.
But, on Monday night, the neighbors weren’t happy — and were skeptical that the university would follow through on its many promises.
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Karen Ponzio |
Aug 14, 2023 10:21 am
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Karen Ponzio
This photo says it all.
Under a Saturday night sky swelling with the threat of thunderstorms, The Regicides performed to a rapt and enthusiastic audience at A Broken Umbrella Theatre’s current location on Blake Street with a bonus: they were treated to a preview of the theater’s new performance space in the making, and a pitch for assistance to help it come to fruition — all while eating, drinking, and making merry in the truest laugh-a-minute fashion.
Jordan Sloshower (center) celebrates the grand opening of West Rock Wellness with friends, family, & city officials.
The three new storefronts on Whalley Ave.
Westville small business owners and city officials cut ceremonial ribbons to celebrate the grand openings of a new mental health center, a new hair salon, and a new poké bowl restaurant on Whalley Avenue — bringing mind, body, and soul to a bustling commercial strip.
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Asher Joseph |
Jul 28, 2023 8:50 am
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Asher Joseph photo
Tennille Murphy shows off her spin on a classic summer treat.
Twenty pairs of eyes widened in awe as Kidz Kook founder Tennille Murphy revealed that the Mitchell Library’s very own mini-chefs would be making ice cream — with a nutritious twist.
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Eleanor Polak |
Jul 25, 2023 9:08 am
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Eleanor Polak Photos
Westville neighbourhood lines up to buy homemade pies.
The air over Beecher Park, located at Mitchell Library at 37 Harrison St., rang with chatter, music, and a heavenly mixture of sugar, spice, and everything nice.
Westville Village Renaissance Alliance hosted on Monday evening the latest installment in Hi-Fi Pie Fest, its weekly summer pie baking competition, a community-centric event complete with food and live music.
It’s “really just getting people together,” said WVRA Executive Director Lizzy Donius, who sported a Hi-Fi Pie Fest t‑shirt bearing the words “Come for the music, stay for the pie!” The slogan, said Donius, is interchangeable. Some people come for the pie and stay for the music.
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Eleanor Polak |
Jul 20, 2023 9:26 am
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Natalie Somekh via Instagram
John McCrea.
The Westville Music Bowl really lives up to its name. Sitting in the center feels like being dropped to the bottom of an enormous serving piece, with nowhere to look but up at the great blue walls of seats around you, the evening sky above, or the stage straight ahead. On the menu for Wednesday evening: Cake, a now-venerable alternative rock band hailing from Sacramento, California.
Digging holes and planting flowers in the peanut on Friday.
Crackling thunder and a downpour of rain didn’t stop roughly 15 Westville neighbors from venturing outside Friday morning on a traffic-calming-infrastructure-beautification effort.
There was no need for an instant runoff in Thursday’s Westville ward committee straw poll for mayor, as two-term incumbent Justin Elicker won a majority of votes on the first ballot.
But, for the fun of it — and to practice running a ranked-choice-voting election — the neighborhood Democrats assembled in Edgewood School’s auditorium counted a second round of votes anyway, and shed a bit more light on this year’s mayoral race in the process.
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Brian Slattery |
Jul 14, 2023 8:15 am
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Frank Bruckmann
I-95 N. Benson Rd.
Frank Bruckman’s paintings of the highways around the state have been a thread running through Kehler Liddell Gallery’s programming for years. The technical ability and attention to detail brought to such a mundane subject has layers of meaning attached to it. On one level, no one said that paintings can’t be funny, and there’s humor in every brushstroke. But there’s also the message built into the skill and hours brought to the canvas: driving in traffic on the interstate may seem like something to get through, something to forget. But we all spend hours of our lives doing it. Maybe it’s important for that reason alone — as important, in its own way, as a naval battle, or a visitation from a saint.
