This week on 0684-Radi0, our free podcast (subscribe here in the iTunes Store), we talk to Ned Lazaro, associate curator of costume and textiles at the Wadsworth Atheneum in Hartford. Lazaro is delivering a keynote address titled “What’s the Uproar? The Dress that Rocked the ‘50s—The Scandal with the Sack” during a seated lunch with wine catered by Diane Browne, to be held 11:30 a.m. to 2 p.m. on Thursday, Oct. 19 at the New Canaan Museum & Historical Society (tickets here). It’s part of the NCM&HS’s October4Design celebration—here’s a calendar of events and here’s an overview of related programming from Executive Director Nancy Geary.
The New Canaan Museum & Historical Society this month launches its fourth annual October4Design, a 10-day celebration of art, architecture and design in New Canaan that includes exhibitions, house tours, talks and other events at NCM&HS and participating local nonprofit organizations (here’s a calendar of events). On Tuesday, we met with Nancy Geary, executive director of NCM&HS, to talk about October4Design and what attendees can expect from this year’s Modern House Day Tour (tickets here). Here’s a transcription of our interview. ***
New Canaanite: Before we get into the specific events you have lined up for October4Design, tell me how it started and what it is generally. Nancy Geary: The Historical Society has been running the Modern House Day Tour to celebrate Midcentury-Modern architecture in New Canaan since 2001.
There’s free books on Oenoke Ridge. This month, the New Canaan Museum & Historical Society set up a “Little Free Library” next to a bench out front of the 1825 Town House on campus at the top of God’s Acre. “It’s a national organization where you buy the box and you fill it with your books,” NCM&HS Executive Director Nancy Geary told NewCanaanite.com. “And the idea is that people can come and take a book. They can either read it and return it, or they can take it and keep it.”
The organization launched its “library”—a red box on a post that resembles a bird feeder—thanks to the generosity of New Canaan’s Branch family.
The NewCanaanite.com Summer Internship Program is sponsored by Carriage Barn Arts Center. Visitors to New Canaan’s main cemetery soon will be able to tour the hallowed grounds with a mobile app detailing the lives of some of the town’s most noteworthy residents interred there. Using cellular location technology, visitors to Lakeview Cemetery will be able to use the Otocast app for a self-guided tour narrated by a prominent local woman. The app will launch at 4 p.m. Thursday with a special tour, according to Nancy Geary, executive director of the New Canaan Museum & Historical Society. “We hope that people will come out,” Geary said.
The NCM&HS welcomes ArtScapades with a lecture that ties in with their current exhibit: ‘Oh What a Night:A Century of Evening Wear.” ArtScapades will look at the history of fashion in art, and works of art that highlight fashion, ranging from the most basic to the most coveted garments and accoutrements. We will discuss how depictions of clothing in art address many aspects of a culture, from social structures and gender roles to daily activities. ArtScapades will look at works by Jacques-Louis David, Jean-Auguste- Dominque Ingres, James McNeill Whistler, Pierre Auguste Renoir, Winslow Homer, Tamara Lempicka and more.
