events + gatherings
Beechwood Arts Culinary + Arts 2.0 Show: “Summer Memory”. There’s a buzz about Culinary+Art at Blue Lemon in Westport –the creative power of a high-end art gallery combined with the culinary delight of a top restaurant. Events are packed with artists and arts appreciators! Best of all, artwork is selling, changing perceptions about high-end art and restaurants as separate experiences.The Blue Lemon was packed for the opening of the second show, drawing artists and arts appreciators from all over Fairfield County. Featured Artists: Frank Foster Post, Sharon Cavagnolo, Mary Elizabeth Peterson, Sandy Garnett, Nancy Moore, Heidi Lewis Coleman, Carla Wales, Elisa Keogh, Gordon Skinner, Joan Wheeler, Brad Cronk, Betty Ball, Stephanie Joyce, Karen Sorensen.
Artist Nancy Moore gives an engaging talk at Blue-Lemon
Meet-the-Artist Lunches: Patrons love hearing behind the scenes tidbits from artists and seeing new work and work in progress and having the opportunity to ask questions – all while savoring a gourmet brunch from Blue Lemon master chef Bryan Malcarney. Blue Lemon entices with a special Prix Fixe menu of $19.95 that includes a mimosa, appetizer and entrée. • July 14 featured talks by Gordon Skinner, Mary Elizabeth Peterson & Nancy Moore. • August 10 featured talks by Frank Foster Post & Heidi Lewis-Coleman
Facebook: Beechwood Arts Website: www.BeechwoodArts.org
BEECHWOOD ARTS
Intimate. Innovative. Immersive. Welcome to our page! Beechwood Arts is a non-profit art and innovation organization whose mission is to expand the idea of how the arts are created and experienced. Our events and programs involve collaboration across all artistic genres and generations, pushing the boundaries of what the arts experience can be. Our “Arts Immersion Salons” create the intimacy of the salons of old, combined with cutting edge elements for an immersive, multi-sensory yet intimate community experience around a different theme for each salon. Artists, designers, musicians, performers, culinary artists, filmmakers, arts appreciators and supporters all work in collaboration toward innovative, experimental, new ways to create and experience the arts. Our “Salons Around the World” share this vibrant intimacy and interaction real-time with other “satellite salons” happening simultaneously around the world, using cutting edge technology. Our “Innovation Labs & Workshops” find new ways to approach learning, performing, creating, visioning and collaborating. Our “Culinary+Arts” pairs gallery quality art with high level culinary experiences, by stimulating multiple senses at one time.
Guests under the Copper Beech
(Tom Berntsen’s) spiral pathway under the old Copper Beech and create a miniature version of “home” from clay to be placed with the 2,000 installed under the tree by artist (Denise Minnerly). Bob Keating’s majestic, organic steel and quartz sculptures inspired exploration and created an air of both excitement and introspection. nside, the artwork flowed with the theme, Bob Keating’s organic ranging from Cambosteel and quartz sculpture dian images (Brad “Quartz Destination” Cronk), symbolic, ancient-inspired paintings (Marjorie Guyon), connections between health and plants (Nash Hyon), heart and mind (Joan Wheeler), family connections and identity (Sandy Garnett) & detailed, excavation-like ink paintings (Sharon Cavagnolo) – along with the exquisite work of master painter Alberta Cifolelli that draws one
Font: Carnegie
– Jeanine Esposito & Frederic Chiu
• September 14 featured talks by Elisa Keogh, Stephanie Joyce & Carla Wales Production still from Lani Asuncion and Lisa Seidenberg’s contemporary film.
Closing Party TBD week of Sept 29 – check the website www.BeechwoodArts.org for details. “Vibrations – Body/Mind/Heart” A walk-through of a History-making Arts Immersion Salon. As with all our Salons, it took the collaboration of over 30 people to produce this immersive experience including 8 artists, 5 sculptors, 2 musicians, 3 filmmakers, 2 chefs, a nutritionist, a tea-maker, a piano company, a streaming videographer, a photographer, 2 experts in bio feedback and neuro feedback and even an expert in bioelectrography! Why history making? The whole salon was streamed live to satellite salons around the globe – Morocco, New Jersey and Paris and, even more ground-breaking, guests from remote salons were able to meet and interact via Skype and mounted iPads!In addition, neuro and biofeedback experts from Cincinnati (Tom Collura and Kathleen Riley) measured a collective audience “Heart and Mind” response to the music by projecting brain
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CONTEMPORARY CULTURE//MAGAZINE
Audience wired for Heart and Mind.
waves and heart rates of audience members in real-time during the performance – a first with a live audience! For the “Body”, bioelectrographer Hugo Higuera measured bioelectric auras of audience members before and after the performance – also one for the history books. A walk-through of an Arts Immersion Salon Outside, guests were greeted by stunning raku sentries (Rosalind Shaffer), invited to walk
in with color and movement. In the screening room, we screened exciting, contemporary films by Lani Asuncion and Lisa Seidenberg. Guests heard a most unusual concert: Frederic Chiu playing pieces from his new recording “Hymns and Dervishes”, music by Gurdjieff/de Hartmann. Each piece required a special tuning based on Middle Eastern traditions – done live using a special hybrid piano: Yamaha’s AvantGrand N3Throughout the concert, the collective audience “Heart and Mind” response to the music was projected over the piano and a panel discussion followed. The reception offered a collaborative menu representing Power Foods for either “Body”, “Mind” or “Heart” by chefs Raul Restrepo and Daniel Lanzilotta, and clinical nutritionist Geri Zlatcoff. Three delicious teas for Body, Mind and Heart were offered by Arogyo Teas of Westport.