One of New England’s cultural treasures was hidden in plain sight until 2014. That’s when the Ballard Institute and Museum of Puppetry was effectively pulled from mothballs at the University of Connecticut’s Depot Campus, ten minutes west of Storrs, and given a brand spanking new home at the front door of the main campus.

The move was a feather in the cap for John Bell, the director of the institute since 2007 and a longtime puppeteer himself. As a young actor, Bell cut his teeth with the downtown New York performance scene of the 1960s, a political mashup of happenings, experimental film and dance, performance art and puppetry that took place on the city’s streets. While at Vermont’s Middlebury College—from which he graduated in 1973—Bell saw the Bread and Puppet Theater perform at nearby Goddard College, where they were in residence. He was so smitten he later became a member of the legendary group that has become a fixture at mass parades and protest marches.

“I came to puppetry as an actor and was attracted to the variety of things involved,” says Bell. “You could create theater about current events, without having to wait 20 years to get funding or a proper theater venue.”

In that sense, Bell’s path to puppetry differed from that of Frank W. Ballard, for whom the institute is named. Ballard was hired by the university in 1956 as technical director of the on-campus Jorgensen Theater. As a member of the faculty, Ballard added puppetry to the graduate programs in 1962 and taught his first class in 1964. Since then, 400 original, UConn-student-created puppet productions have been presented and Ballard’s collections of puppetry-related material have grown to be one of the world’s finest.

“Thanks to Frank, the UConn Puppet Arts Program has been around for 50 years,” says Bell. “I came at puppetry from a different angle than Frank, who was steeped in the traditional marionette shows and art of puppetry of the midwest, where he grew up. By the time he was in his 20s, he’d created dozens of well-known puppet productions.”

Bell’s mission at the institute, besides preserving and sharing Ballard’s legacy, is to demonstrate how the definition of puppetry is expanding. “We’re interested in pointing out the traditions of hand puppets and marionettes but also looking at puppetry as a modern art form for adults, not just kids,” he says. “We want to let people know that the world of puppetry is vast, part of cultures all over the world. This is important in the 21st century with so much art being technology based, with virtual puppets and the use of digital imagery coming into their own, not to mention robotics.”

Still, whether the artistry is conveyed through hand puppets in a booth or via giant floating contraptions at outdoor pageants, Bell says “the dynamics are consistent.” “Any time humans turn to inanimate objects to tell stories, whether the objects are made of wood, rocks, or shadows—as it was thousands of years ago—an interesting dynamic is created,” he explains. “It is no longer a conversation between humans. We are directing our attention to this object and inspired to make our own connections. By definition, it’s uncanny or mystical. That engagement of the audience is what makes puppetry special.”

John Bell–puppeteer, Ballard Institute and Museum of Puppetry
Storrs, Connecticut
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Top image: John Bell. Photo courtesy of the artist.

The post Master of Puppets appeared first on Take Magazine.

“My entire life is my studio,” says Robert “Bob” Gregson, conceptual and graphic artist, modern architecture fanatic, sculptor, thinker, author, teacher, and prankster. He says this with a laugh. Indeed, Gregson laughs a lot when he tries to explain his art. If you spend any time at all with him, you realize that the world is Gregson’s canvas, and he intends to have fun painting it.

A public artist of near legendary status in Connecticut since his graduation from the University of Hartford in 1970, Gregson has enlisted thousands of strangers over the years to play along with his often audacious stunts. Best known for his years of work in Hartford through the Knox Foundation and, later, his own non-profit, Sidewalk, Inc., he seemed to be on a one-man mission to revitalize the Insurance City’s downtown.

Among his creations was “Thursday Is a Work of Art.” On that day each week in downtown Hartford, he and his co-conspirators unleashed all manner of gleeful mayhem, including skywriters, sword fighters, parachutists, bump dancers, street games, oversized furniture and clowns. “It was very controversial at times,” he says with another laugh. “I had to leave Hartford for a while.”

Gregson’s latest foray in the public sphere is “Out of Order,” at Creative Arts Workshop in New Haven. In it, Gregson invites visitors to create their own art space by remodeling his wall installations and sculptures, the latter mounted on the wheeled casters on the floor. All of the pieces are painted in geometric Mondrian-like patterns, in every conceivable permutation, from bold (yellow, red, black) to muted (grey, silver, brown). A prodigious amount of work went into installing the month-long show, which ends June 30. I counted 32 moving parts in the downstairs gallery alone. Think: Playscape for adults.

Out of Order opening

Outside of two years at the Art Institute of Chicago, earning his master’s degree, Gregson has lived in the Nutmeg State since his undergraduate years in Hartford. “I never felt a part of where I came from, New Jersey, and I was not good at suffering alone in Brooklyn like a hipster,” says Gregson, who was also creative director for Connecticut Commission on Culture & Tourism for 22 years. “I had a lot of friends here. Early on, people became a medium for me. I started off in art school doing traditional representational work and was even highly mocked for it by other students. At some point, I was taking one of my pieces down from the wall and noticed that some of the other students had started to play with them. It was more fun than just hanging stuff on the wall, more dynamic. I thought, ‘The art work is a prop for this experience.’”

That was the proverbial lightbulb-over-the-head moment for Gregson. “I began to ask, ‘What is it that I’m contributing with my art?’” The answer was a framework that gives people permission to play.
After looking back over the past half-century of his art career, Gregson concludes, “I have led a lot of lives.”

“Just A Phase” offers a closer look at Gregson’s many lives; the short film was created by his nephew, also named Robert Gregson.

Robert Gregson-Artist
Orange, Connecticut
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The post Connecticut’s Merry Prankster appeared first on Take Magazine.

This article originally appeared in our December 2015/January 2016 print issue. 

If you’ve driven through central Connecticut on either I-84 or Route 8, you’ve likely gazed upon the Holy Land—Holy Land USA in Waterbury, that is. What you’ve seen is the 56-foot cross that stands on a promontory above the city, but the 18-acre site on which the cross stands contains more wonders. Indeed, like Howard Finster’s Paradise Gardens or Simon Rodia’s Watts Towers, Holy Land USA was the work of a visionary.

John Baptist Greco was a Waterbury attorney and devout Catholic who, in 1955, led a group called Companions of Christ to the top of Pine Hill, where they created a miniature facsimile of the Holy Land. Though focusing on the life of Jesus—Jerusalem, Bethlehem, Herod’s Palace—they also fashioned a Garden of Eden and a diorama depicting Daniel in the lion’s den, using old bathtubs, cinder blocks, cement, and clay. The cross—which can be seen from all directions on the highways—was the anchor to the endeavor.

Word about Greco’s feat spread to the faithful, and soon busloads made pilgrimages to walk among the knee-high structures and enjoy the view of the Naugatuck Valley. By the 1960s and 1970s, as many as 40,000 visitors arrived annually.

As the demographics of the city changed, fewer people came, and nature and social decay vied for what could do the most damage. Greco closed Holy Land in 1984 and, upon his death two years later, bequeathed it to the Filippini Sisters, an order of nuns. With little money to keep up the property, it fell into near ruins. Efforts were sporadically undertaken to restore it, but the task proved too daunting. Still, the signature cross continued to stand tall and serve as a beacon of hope to the often-beleaguered city and a beloved landmark to travelers.

In 2013, Holy Land was blessed with a miracle when businessman Fritz Blasius and Waterbury mayor Neil M. O’Leary purchased the property. The first improvement they made was erecting a new state-of-the-art steel cross that is internally lit and changes colors at night.

Chuck Pagano, a recently retired ESPN executive who grew up in Waterbury’s Brooklyn neighborhood, is among those who’ve since helped restore the park.

“Holy Land was within eyesight of my bedroom growing up,” says Pagano, president of Holy Land Waterbury’s board of directors. “After mass on Sunday, my family would walk up there. It’s the only thing left that connects my city with my past.”

Squads of volunteers with similar tales spent most of 2014 clearing brush and trees that had grown in the past 30 years. Two annual masses have since been held in the chapel on the property, attended by more than 700 people.

“There’s good energy in the city over this,” says Pagano, pointing to the “Holy Land USA” sign, built to echo the famous Hollywood sign. “Long term, our vision is to restore the whole thing to its original state, maybe even more so.”

Like a lot of religious shrines, Holy Land isn’t easy to find. There are no markers on the highways below, and there’s only one marker on the serpentine streets leading up to it.

“My old football idol, Vince Lombardi, used to say, ‘No pain, no gain,’” says Pagano. “You gotta make the effort.”

“On my first trip out of the country for ESPN, I was gone to Australia for two months,” he recalls. “We started back two days before Christmas. On the final leg of the trip, after being in the air 30 hours, I looked out the plane’s window as we were coming out of some clouds and saw Holy Land. ‘Now I know I’m home,’ I remember thinking.”

Holy Land USA
Waterbury, Connecticut
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Photo by Jimmy Ienner, Jr., 2015

The post Did You Know? Holy Land USA appeared first on Take Magazine.

This article originally appeared in our November 2015 print edition. 

At the Hartford Denim Company (aka Hardenco), jeans are not just made; they are built.

That is, they are constructed from raw selvedge denim, which means that the fabric has a self-finished edge and doesn’t unravel or fray. It also means these jeans are built to last, because Hardenco extends a unique offer with each pair: a lifetime of free repairs.

“The jeans you find at a mall are ‘stonewashed,’ which means they’re run through a huge washer with volcanic rocks, which practically destroys them,” says Hardenco co-founder Marshall Deming with a sigh of dismay.

If you want “distressed” jeans from Hardenco, you’re going to have to distress them the old-fashioned way—by putting the wear on them yourself.

Deming, 31, founded the company in 2010 with high school friends Luke Davis and Dave Marcoux. “We see jeans as a tool to protect you from the elements and from hard jobs. Jeans also make a simple lifestyle statement. . .you know, a pair of jeans, some boots, and a shirt is all you really need.”

The idea for making jeans began when Deming and his two buddies from Conard High in West Hartford went camping. They’d sit around and make wallets and belts, and then Davis began deconstructing pants to learn how they were made.

A lanky, bearded free spirit who hustles around the 3,000-square-foot workshop in his bare feet, Deming declares that he and his partners are “100 percent self-taught. We started off in each other’s garages. Finally, a friend’s father, who had one of the last sewing shops in Hartford, let us use his cutting room.”

Image courtesy of Hardenco

Five years and three working spaces later, they’re ensconced in the basement of an old brick factory on Bartholomew Avenue in Hartford’s energetic, eclectic Parkville neighborhood. The workshop both embodies and ennobles Hartford’s rich history, when sewing factories were running round the clock. Inside its dusty corners can be found a museum’s worth of antique tools and machines the trio have collected over the years that are now being put back into operation.

Every pair of Hardenco jeans is handmade by a full-time staff of five (which includes the three co-founders), who also make travel bags and shop aprons (George Dickel Tennessee Whisky buys 300 of these at a time to give out as promotional bartending aprons). “Built in Hartford, Connecticut” is stamped on the inside of each completed pair of jeans, and a distinctive leather patch in the shape of Connecticut is sewn above the back pocket.

The retail price for a pair of Hardenco jeans is $235. They also sell factory seconds and older stock for far less (just visit the showroom). The company receives orders from all over the world, even the unlikeliest of places.

“One order that came from a guy in Siberia brought tears to my eyes,” says Deming. “We are the only ones who sell raw denim jeans in his size, 42 waist. Most stop at 38. He told us about the first pair he ever had. It took him four months working in a monastery to save up enough money to get them. They came to him stiff in the carton, and he said he would never forget that smell when he took them out and held them up. He called it ‘the smell of freedom.’”

Hardenco – Hartford Denim Company
Hartford, Connecticut
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Top photo by Chion Wolf, courtesy WNPR

The post Built to Last appeared first on Take Magazine.