DRIVING TOWARD GREATER ACCESSIBILITY If the gathering felt a good bit like a family reunion, there was good reason. For more than 25 years, Margaret Bodell, now on the staff of the Connecticut Office of the Arts, Department of Economic and Community Development, has made it her personal mission to support artists on the autism spectrum. Bodell founded one of the first galleries in New York to feature these New England-based, so-called “outsider” artists and help gain recognition for their cultural contributions. Now, a number of them are clearly on the radar, and in December, some were featured in an exhibition that opened in Hartford — co-sponsored by UArts and the Connecticut Office of the Arts — as part of a statewide initiative to reach out to this largely undeserved population. The show at The Gallery at Constitution Plaza, which will run through March 27, also has been … [Read more...] about Reaching Out in Hartford

Christina Zwart Takes the Road Less Traveled It’s a common sight, and one that most of us greet with a flash of revulsion or a quick aversion of the eyes. But when Christina Zwart came upon roadkill during a walk on the Cape a few summers ago, she not only stopped to inspect it — she perceived the beauty in it. A jackrabbit lay on its side, unbloodied, possessing a look of vigor with a “really, really beautiful blue hue in its ear,” the Wayland, Mass. artist recalled. So she snapped a few photos. And from then on, it was her habit to pull over whenever a bend in the road revealed similar casualties. She’s since amassed dozens of images — the expected squirrels, chipmunks, skunks, raccoons and snakes, as well as deer, a fox, a coyote, a cat, and even a sadly fascinating mother opossum carrying five underdeveloped babies in her pouch — that are creatively assembled in her … [Read more...] about Finding Beauty in the Beast

Richard Whitten's Functional Fantasy The structured narratives and toy-like replicas of invention made by artist Richard Whitten ply a complex territory of anachronisms. The artist’s work harbors a density of detail emblematic of Victorian parlor games. In richly hued, technically accomplished, labyrinth-like paintings and clever, delicate, mechanical 3D constructions, the artist frames his conceptual interests to tease with wonder and create situations of puzzlement. They are on display in a solo exhibition from March 6 through April 12 at Helen Day Art Center. Whitten draws ideas from his dreams and sticks to the integrity of his creative process as a laboratory of play with toy-like models, which are meant to be fanciful and fun, but are sometimes ominous with Jules Verne-style inflection. Whitten’s models are actually very well engineered in their purposeful functionality. He … [Read more...] about Inventions

Vivian Pratt Explores Nature's Hidden Frontier It’s well documented in travelers’ diaries that before the Romantic era, the more awe-inspiring aspects of nature provoked shudders; tourists would scurry through the Alps on well-marked trails, looking neither left nor right. But that was then. Today, we include ourselves in the most and the least of nature and are forging a new sensibility, with new outlooks, to explore. Inevitably, this new frontier attracts the bold and the ready which, I would argue, is the case with the Bromfield Gallery’s upcoming exhibition, “Inner Terrains,” by artist Vivian Pratt. In the Romantic West, our last frontier, now much faded, explorers came with ropes and traps slung from broad, buckskin-clad shoulders. Completing their equipage was an uncanny knowledge of the terrain, and a mount that could preternaturally intuit their commands and, in some … [Read more...] about Inner Terrains