The Negus × BL&D Block Party was jumping on September 2nd in Hartford, Connecticut, courtesy of DJs; live performances by Vee Skeeno, Chad Browne-Springer, and Trey Moore; and a double Dutch contest.

photo by bethany anna

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Vermont’s oldest operating covered bridge crosses the Mad River in historic Waitsfield, a perfectly picturesque New England town of charming nineteenth-century clapboard buildings. But beneath that quaint exterior runs a cutting-edge current that has spawned several artistic ventures, creating a quirky clash of old and new.

A haven for skiers who prefer the unadulterated terrain of Sugarbush Resort and member-owned Mad River Glen, the Mad River Valley—with Waitsfield at its core—nurtures locals and transplants who march to the beat of their own drum. That sometimes means places won’t be open when expected or keep inconsistent off-season hours. The bottom line: before you wander to Waitsfield to see something specific, call ahead.

June Anderson equates Waitsfield’s sensibility with the defiant “ski it if you can” motto of Mad River Glen. “In the Mad River, you have to be willing to reach a little farther and work a little harder, but the reward is a little richer and a little sweeter.”

Anderson and her husband, Wendell, own the Bundy Modern, a boxy minimalist structure fronted by floor-to-ceiling windows—distinctly out of place in the sloping terrain—which serves as a contemporary art gallery and their home. It hosts exhibitions mostly in the summer; in the winter, she says, skiers tend to drive up late on Friday, hit the runs all weekend and go home without doing much else.

The Madsonian Museum of Industrial Design contrasts such modernity with a whimsical assembly of old motorcycles, gumball machines, toys, typewriters, telephones (with dials!), and other commercial creations of a former era. In the center of the Waitsfield Village Historic District, it’s open Friday through Sunday and by appointment.

Less dusty and open all year, the Big Picture Theater and Café merges a vintage movie house and tavern with an innovative, locally inspired menu that’s hardly an afterthought to the cinematic fare. Filmgoers can enjoy dishes such as fried chicken, tofu satay, and homemade desserts—including the famous Very Small Donuts— in the theater while they watch.

Back in the historic village, there’s an unexpected oasis of high fashion. 4orty Bridge Boutique features a well-curated collection of clothing and accessories made mostly by U.S. designers, including jewelry handmade by the shop’s owner. It’s one of those sophisticated surprises that pop up in Waitsfield and make it so incongruously appealing.

Illustration by Dylan Fant

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A five-story Battlecat prowls the side of a Providence, Rhode Island  

Battlecat, 2016

Mural by Nychos, located in Providence, Rhode Island. Curated by INOPERAbLE for The Avenue Concept.

Nychos
Providence, Rhode Island
Website

Photo by Ben Jacobsen

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In the small coastal town of York, Maine, you can pull in and fill ’er up at a unique studio and gallery space called Chases Garage. Co-owners and directors Cait Giunta and Ned Roche started renovating the former blacksmith’s shop/garage that’s more than 100 years old in 2012, opening the first artist studios in April of the following year, and the gallery a few months later. “The space was so empty—we were really able to decide what it would be and what went where,” recounts Giunta. Roche and Giunta are both ceramicists, as well as large-format print enthusiasts, so being able to put their large, heavy equipment precisely where they needed greatly benefitted their business concept.

In addition to the studios and gallery, Chases Garage hosts ceramic and printmaking classes taught by local artisans and the owners themselves. The gallery shows from May to December. “Our artists are primarily local and regional,” explains Giunta. “Ned and I curate our shows with artists whose work we think will complement each other and the space.”

With a pair of gasoline pumps out front, there’s no mistaking what Chases Garage once was. But the facade that once held a giant overhead door now welcomes visitors, students, and professional artists. “The Seacoast has a flourishing artist community,” says Giunta. “Our goal is to support artists who are not only looking to create work, but to join in a dialogue about it. The community is a huge component of why we started this endeavor.”

Chases Garage
York, Maine
Website

New photo by Erin Little; composite image by Izzy Berdan

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The Aldrich Contemporary Art Museum, the only institution in Connecticut devoted solely to contemporary work, boasts 17,000 square feet of gallery space and a two-acre sculpture garden. Open since 1964, it has a history of showing now-legendary artists, including Agnes Martin, Robert Rauschenberg, and Frank Stella. Admission is just ten bucks. So why haven’t you been?

For one thing, “We’re in a colonial-era town, in a historic district—not the normal place you’d expect to see contemporary art,” explains executive director Alyson Baker of its Ridgefield location. But far from displaying musty antiques, the former home of visionary collector Larry Aldrich shows only the most of-the-moment art. Aldrich grew to understand that keeping a permanent collection limited his ability to support current artists. In the 1980s, he sold his acquisitions, and the Aldrich Museum was reborn as a place able “to be nimble and responsive,” says Baker. “Often, we’re commissioning artists to make work.”

For example, take a look at Your Turn. Through April 22, artists Alex Schweder and Ward Shelley are living on either side of a wall-like structure comprising sliding modules—bed, desk, kitchen—that can only be used by one person at a time. Visitors can chat with the artists as they go about their day.

Baker hopes pieces such as Your Turn will make Ridgefield your next art destination. “Places like MASS MoCA have done a great job of making people understand that contemporary art can be seen in places that are non-traditional or unexpected,” she says. “You really have to make it a sort of pilgrimage.”

Aldrich Contemporary Art Museum
Ridgefield, Connecticut
Website

Illustration by Jen Epervary

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Henniker, New Hampshire’s Youdhi Maharjan unfolds new eternities between hidden words and displaced punctuation, meticulously reconstructing old books rescued from thrift stores. Maharjan doesn’t make art to evoke feelings or unveil some grander purpose. It is in the painstaking process of reconstruction, of meaningless repetition and rediscovery, that he finds higher truth. “Art for me does not have purpose,” he says. “There is no hope, there is no emotion in my work, there are no politics. Art for me is just a process where I can hide away to quiet my mind.”

Beginning with inspiration from a book’s title and a simple rule, Maharjan moves through the text, disassembling it. In Nelson Mandela’s Long Walk to Freedom, Maharjan erased every word, leaving only periods behind. In other texts he may leave a word or letter, connecting what is left behind through lines or shapes. “In the process, I experience a different kind of eternity, the sweet kind, that lasts for few material moments but feels like forever,” he explains.

Youdhi Maharjan, Of Murmuring Streams, 2017, text cutout on book pages, 40 x 3.35 in. each. Photo by Youdhi Maharjan

After being introduced to Waiting for Godot by Samuel Beckett, Maharjan became deeply rooted in notions of a Sisyphean eternity, the “monotonous repetition of the same labor over and over again, with no hope or expectation for an end.” Born in Nepal and trained in mathematics and science in military school, he finds comfort in uniformity and precision. What is a book without words? What is art without meaning? Maharjan believes truth exists in the mundane, in the repurposing of action, in the repetition of nothingness, forever.

Youdhi Maharjan–artist
Henniker, New Hampshire
Website

Top image: Youdhi Maharjan, Buddhas Breath (detail), 2017, collage on book pages, 24 × 21 in. Photo by Youdhi Maharjan

The post Quick Takes: Joy in Repetition appeared first on Take Magazine.

Get hammered

What is it: Classic cocktail muddler in jatoba. 11.5 × 1.5 in. Price: $48; ice mallet and Lewis bag (in hard maple and jatoba). 10.75 × 3 × 2 in. Price: $82.
Who makes it: Thea Price-Eckles of Masnu in Somerville, Massachusetts. “The more you enjoy using a tool, the more you love your work, the better your cocktails taste! I use these two woods because their density helps them hold up to frequent use.”
Why we love it: The minimal, curvaceous aesthetic lends sex appeal to the hard, hard work of making cocktails . . .

Sip stylishly 

What is it: Lowball and highball glasses. 3.5 × 3.5 in. and 3 × 5 in. Price: $60 and $70 each.
Who makes it: David J. Benyosef of Cambridge, Massachusetts. “I use a traditional Venetian process called cane, where I stretch a color 30 to 40 feet and chop it up into 5-inch sections. Each cane is fused together; then I twist the cane, causing the lines to spiral.”
Why we love it: The op art effect of these swirly glasses will make your guests’ heads spin before they take their first sip.

David J. Benjosef glasses, Diane Hoffman towel, and The Shade Tree tray. Photo by Dominic Perri

Clean up colorfully 

What is it: Chihuahua and Mexican hairless dog kitchen towel. 18 × 28 in. Price: $30.
Who makes it: Diane Hoffman of Providence, Rhode Island. “The Mexican hairless and Chihuahua projects were born in 2017 as areaction to the negative rhetoric of the current administration.”
Why we love it: A retro-mod design featuring psychedelic pups makes mopping up even the stickiest of liqueurs fun.

Hold everything

What is it: Tiger maple tray. 12 × 18 × 2.75 in. Price: $165.
Who makes it: Frank Dobai, owner of The Shade Tree in Moodus, Connecticut. “Tiger maple is a special, highly figured wood that’s durable and beautiful. When dye absorbs into the wood, it accentuates the grain even more.”
Why we love it: It’s not always about what’s on the tray. This bright pop of color will cure the winter blues and make your holiday cocktails even more festive.

Photo by Dominic Perri; Credenza courtesy of Danco Modern, dancomodern.com

The post Take It Home: Raising the Bar appeared first on Take Magazine.

Willa Van Nostrand is not one to knock a basic vodka soda. But the craft cocktail maker and owner of Little Bitte Artisanal Cocktails also loves to go beyond the basics, drawing on her imagination and creativity to produce inspired beverage presentations for events of all sizes. “It’s really set and setting all the way,” admits the Providence, Rhode Island-based mixologist who creates cocktails—complemented with charcuterie—to match a particular setting and theme. For example, a seaside celebration might have her foraging for sea beans as an edible garnish. In the deep winter, Van Nostrand leans heavily on the bitters she concocts herself, which she believes are the essential salt and pepper for every drink.

Willa Van Nostrand of Little Bitte. Photo by Ian Travis Barnard

Growing up in Rehoboth, Massachusetts, with her bartending minister father and herbalist midwife mother, was an education in cocktail culture for Van Nostrand. She loves presenting things in duality: food/drink, art/artists, drink/garnish. World’s Fair Gallery, her studio and gallery in Providence, brings like-minded artists to showcase their work, and gives her a space to test-drive cocktail creations.

“Bitte,” which means “please” or “you’re welcome” in German, captures the essence of what Van Nostrand is doing—carving a throwback to the golden age of hosting. Her theater arts degree from Sarah Lawrence College has helped Van Nostrand set up similar productions for her bartending and food catering events. “I see this as an extension of my artistic embodiment,” she says. “It’s all a big production.”

Van Nostrand is always up for a challenge. The most outrageous drink she’s ever crafted? A black cocktail for a design firm, made up of gin, aquavit, fresh anise hyssop, black licorice, and . . . squid ink.

The Take cocktail. Photo by Ian Travis Barnard

We asked Van Nostrand to concoct a cold-weather cocktail just for Take. It’s a spin on the Old Fashioned with a warming kick of crystallized ginger and allspice dram in lieu of the traditional Angostura bitters and muddled sugar base. Savor a sip of this handy recipe, and you too will be pirouetting through the season.

The Take

INGREDIENTS

2 oz. bourbon
⅟₄ oz. St. Elizabeth Allspice Dram
Crystallized ginger for muddling
Orange twist
Crystallized sage for garnish*

*Coat both sides of a fresh sage leaf
with citrus juice, and dust with sugar.

PREPARATION

Muddle allspice dram with crystallized ginger in a rocks glass and add ice. Add bourbon and stir for 15 seconds. Garnish with a generous curl of orange zest and crystallized sage.

Willa Van Nostrand–owner, Little Bitte Artisanal Cocktails
Providence, Rhode Island
Website

Photos by Ian Travis Barnard

The post Quick Takes: Love Bitte appeared first on Take Magazine.

Close your eyes and imagine for a moment: a restaurant, dimly lit and cozy. Step up to the bar and appreciate the array of bottles—filled with elixirs as yet unknown to you. The bartender asks for, and fulfills, a request for a cocktail based on a feeling or flavor. You enjoy a meal crafted around local flavors, house-made ferments, and a chef’s creativity.

Open your eyes. You could be in any major metro center, but you’re in Manchester, New Hampshire, at The Birch on Elm, a jewel box of a restaurant owned and operated by Nick Provencher and Joel Soucy. Provencher helms the kitchen while Soucy oversees a bar program built on classic cocktails elevated with house-made tinctures, juices, and garnishes.

A selection of house-made syrups and infusions at The Birch on Elm. Photo by Dominic Perri

Provencher and Soucy are focused on sharing their vision for hospitality with their community—but why not settle in Boston, Portsmouth, or Portland? These cities are known for their restaurant scenes and continue to draw culinary talent. But for these two visionaries, Manchester beckoned. Provencher was introduced to the Queen City when he joined the team at Portsmouth-based executive chef Matt Provencher’s (no relation) new Manchester gastropub, The Foundry. Soucy worked at bars throughout Manchester for years before he joined The Foundry’s bar team. The two realized that they shared a similar perspective on hospitality and restaurants, and decided a joint venture would be the logical next step.

A brick-lined restaurant space on Elm Street became available, and the pair jumped on it quickly. Soucy recalls, “We talked about looking at spaces in Portsmouth, but saw an opportunity to do this someplace it wasn’t happening already. We could make an impact here instead of adding to an existing restaurant scene.” Provencher adds, “We also wanted to be somewhere that could serve locals and didn’t have a lot of seasonal traffic.” The Birch on Elm was born in September 2016.

Joel Soucy pours a Ramos Gin Fizz. Photo by Dominic Perri

The culinary vision at The Birch on Elm is a collaboration between the kitchen and the bar. Soucy describes a drink from their summer list: the Cardstock Paper Plane. He infused the aperitif Aperol with cantaloupe, which was in steady supply in the kitchen, and built the infusion into a house cocktail. Flavors, ideas, and techniques are shared across the food and drink menus. As a result, the bar program and the dinner menu work together as well as Soucy and Provencher do.

Soucy has been highlighting tiki drinks at the bar. While ersatz versions of Painkillers, Zombies, and Mai Tais may be familiar to most from visits to restaurants that feature pu-pu platters and sweet-and-sour meatballs, Soucy restores them to their original glory. “If we can buy it, we try to figure out how to make it,” he says. His team makes hard-to-find cocktail ingredients like orgeat (an almond syrup) and falernum (a lime zest and clove syrup) and shakes them into cocktails that pack a wallop without cloying sweetness. With the Chartreuse Swizzle, Soucy builds on that tiki tradition by shaking freshly squeezed juice with Yellow Chartreuse—bridging the gap between traditional tiki and modern mixology.

Bobby Vegetal, one of Birch on Elm’s signature cocktails. Photo by Dominic Perri

Provencher takes a similar traditional-meets-modern approach in the kitchen. “I like to play around a lot with textures,” he says. “I play mostly with basic flavor profiles and finding balance between them. There are some surprises that pop up that people don’t understand . . . but then you eat it and it makes sense.” Like many successful chefs, Provencher has chosen to describe each dish on his menu not with a fulsome description, but with a list of its ingredients.

The gin-based Aviation cocktail alongside a plate of Grilled Street Corn. Photo by Dominic Perri

Grilled Street Corn is described as “whipped miso butter, pickled onion, peanut,” Provencher explains.
“It’s got roasted peanuts for crunch, pickled onions for that sour note, sweet corn, and whipped miso butter—salty and fermented. Take one bite together and it balances out.” Other dishes show off their sourcing of local ingredients with a nod to the local suppliers they patronize. A green bean dish and the crab cakes both namecheck Dunk’s Mushrooms. Dunk is a mushroom grower who appeared at The Birch on Elm bearing boxes of ’shrooms shortly after the restaurant opened. Provencher has been a customer ever since, and Dunk’s mushrooms have become a feature on the menu.

Chef Nick Provencher. Photo by Dominic Perri

One item that shows off Provencher and Soucy’s playful side is the Brookford Farm Burger, which contains “pickled farm veggies, farm cheddar, hand-formed farm patty, hand-punched fries [aka hand-cut local potatoes], Wonder Bread & Heinz, America!” Soucy lights up as he describes it. “It’s a local beef patty, topped with local cheese, but then we top it with Heinz ketchup and serve it on Wonder Bread. It’s perfect!”

After a year in business, the team is still working long days and continuing to refine their seasonally changing menus. But that doesn’t mean they’ll let moss grow under their feet. When asked what’s next, Provencher and Soucy’s eyes light up at the restaurants they could build in the city they’ve chosen as their own. They aren’t talking on the record yet, but they have plans for one addition—or more—to the Birch on Elm family. Until then, there’s a comfortable seat, a cold drink, and a delicious dish waiting at your table on Elm Street.

A deconstructed Loaded Baked Potato. Photo by Dominic Perri

Nick Provencher and Joel Soucy–co-owners, The Birch on Elm
Portsmouth, New Hampshire
Website

Top image: Grilled Octopus. Photo by Dominic Perri

The post Branching Out appeared first on Take Magazine.

Mathewson Street United Methodist Church is one of many religious buildings entrenched in the fabric of downtown Providence, Rhode Island. Located on a transitional block, the church faces a row of empty storefronts, one of which bears a sign promising that the long-shuttered Chinese restaurant Dragon 2000 will someday reopen as a gay nightclub called Dragon. The church building is notable from the outside for the huge mural adorning its left side: a man in a pineapple-and-pizza-print shirt tossing some sort of ring in the air. A mouse loiters by his ear.

While passers-by should be forgiven for ignoring the posted church bulletins, it’s immediately clear that something different is going on here. And it is: the church’s top floor features a 1,300-square-foot black box theater. It’s also the home of OUT LOUD Theatre, one of Rhode Island’s most forward-thinking theater companies.

Kira Hawridge. Photo by Ian Travis Barnard

Kira Hawkridge founded OUT LOUD five years ago after graduating from the University of Rhode Island. A Pawtucket native, Hawkridge has a theatrical pedigree. Her parents are local theater vets who ran NewGate Theatre, a company that 20 years ago performed in the same church where OUT LOUD performs today. “I grew up in that building,” Hawkridge says.

Is it unusual for a theater artist to start her own company immediately after college? Perhaps. But OUT LOUD is not a normal company. “It’s a lab environment,” Hawkridge describes, “and a support system for artists who are well versed in craft, in doing and observing.” More specifically, OUT LOUD is a company that’s increasingly centered on movement. Not dance per se, but the physicality of performers who aren’t formally trained in dance.

The company’s three annual productions are always united by a common theme. Two years ago, for instance, the season focused on the public domain—plays were performed for free by volunteer actors, with no money allotted for sets, costumes, or performance rights. (They did Antigone, Dracula, and Coriolanus.)

Ottavia De Luca as The Woman in The Yellow Wallpaper (2017). Photo by Piquant Photo

Last summer, the company presented an original adaptation of Charlotte Perkins Gilman’s 1892
feminist classic, The Yellow Wallpaper. Performed with minimal dialogue, the Victorian-era chronicle of postpartum depression was told in four parts over four consecutive nights, with a different actor playing the unnamed woman each night. Before each show, audience members rode up the church’s jaunty, nautical-themed elevator (which features a plaque dedicated to the elevator operator who used to run it). They were then handed cups of water and shuffled into a makeshift doctor’s waiting room, complete with copies of Highlights magazine, to wait for the show to begin.

“The Yellow Wallpaper was our first experiment in physicalizing a preexisting story,” explains Hawkridge. “It was a yearlong process.” The four nearly silent pieces were each brief but powerful, with each performer revolving around the stage in choreographed dissonance, reflecting the main character’s inner turmoil.

Hawkridge won’t take credit for the adaptation. “It was a collaborative process, so I don’t consider myself the writer,” she says. “I’m more of a guide for people to find things already in themselves. That dynamic seems more truthful than saying I’m the writer that adapted the story. The group is very gracious with vision.”

Natasha Cole as Charlotte Corday in Marat/Sade (2017). Photo by Piquant Photo

Reviews were overwhelmingly positive. “We’re always in the mode of asking how we can be more effective,” she explains. “With The Yellow Wallpaper, we ask how it can be stronger. It can always grow. With Marat/Sade, we did it and put it to bed.” Marat/Sade was their spring show, and their largest to date. The cast featured 17 actors, plus a piano player and a stage manager who were both incorporated into the show. Peter Weiss’s 1963 play, set in a nineteenth-century mental hospital, is epic in every way. (Even the full title is overwhelming: The Persecution and Assassination of Jean-Paul Marat as Performed by the Inmates of the Asylum of Charenton Under the Direction of the Marquis de Sade.)

“We do themed seasons,” Hawkridge says, “so the audience grows and changes. We’ve built up a core subscriber base, who go for our approach to each theme rather than the theme itself.” Season five’s theme was madness, and it wrapped up in November with a production of Shakespeare’s King Lear. She cast Alan Hawkridge, her father, as Shakespeare’s ruler, driven to madness by his daughters.

“I love working with my dad,” she admits. “We’ve always had an easy, collaborative process, and we also challenge each other in creative ways. Obviously I’m biased because he’s my dad, but he’s a great actor. He connects you on a journey with each character.” Both Hawkridge and her father wanted to emphasize the mental aspects of the play. “The focus is zoning in on Lear’s mind, bringing the audience into his madness. The language is so viscerally potent.” And again, the play will feature a lot of movement. “The idea is to digest Shakespeare’s language, absorb it, and translate it into physical language,” she states.

Kira’s father, Alan Hawkridge, in King Lear (2017). Photo by Piquant Photo

OUT LOUD appeared at a time when a number of theaters popped up more or less simultaneously in Rhode Island, like Epic Theatre Company, Contemporary Theater Company, and Burbage Theatre Company. The artistic directors are all friendly and frequently work together. Hawkridge, for instance, regularly directs shows at Epic Theatre Company, adding her own personal touches. “It’s a part of how I tell stories,” she says, describing why she incorporates signature elements of her own work into productions she stages for other companies. For example, when Epic Theatre Company brought her in for Tennessee Williams’s saucy Cat on a Hot Tin Roof, she left the lead character on stage for the whole show, drunk and passed out on the floor when he wasn’t called on to act. The play’s two halves each opened with a wordless group dance.

Unlike most companies, OUT LOUD works its season around a calendar year, rather than the traditional fall/spring season. “That actually started because a lot of our company members were still in school,” Hawkridge recalls. “So people had summers free.”

At this point, there are six main ensemble members. “This is the smallest ensemble that we’ve worked with,” she says. “By design.” Season six, the 2018 season, focuses on collaboration and the specificity of collectively creating material. After a year of studying mental illness, this season will be a lot brighter. “This season’s going to be light and joyous, with elements of fantasy and unreality.”

Well, mostly. Escape is an original piece about the grief a woman experiences when her twin brother dies. “This is really influenced by the core ensemble wanting to explore the specificity of grief,” Hawkridge explains. “It’s about finding joy after trauma. We began with the subject of twins and let it ripple out from there.” Escape was conceived by Hawkridge and she will direct it, but it will be choreographed collectively by the ensemble. The play features a woman and the ghost of her brother, as well as surrounding figures (a partner, a mother, a therapist). There will be little to no dialogue.

Beth Alianiello in King Lear (2017). Photo by Piquant Photo

The two other shows of the sixth season will be more familiar to theatergoers: Wonder is inspired by Lewis Carroll’s two Alice books—that one will be “interactive and sensory,” according to Hawkridge. Dream is an adaptation of A Midsummer Night’s Dream. Unusually, they’re performing the entire season at once. After six solid months of rehearsals, all three shows will be performed in June 2018. That’s a busy time for the arts in Providence: PVDFest covers the downtown area the first weekend of the month, and two weeks later, the city will be overtaken by a nighttime Pride parade. It’s a shining moment for the downtown, specifically right around Mathewson Street, and Hawkridge hopes OUT LOUD will add to the momentum.

Kira Hawkridge–founder OUT LOUD THEATRE
Providence, Rhode Island
Website

Top image: Sarah Leach as The Woman in The Yellow Wallpaper (2017). Photo by Piquant Photo

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