Imagine a Muppets movie written by Kevin Smith, and you’ll probably get a decent idea of what’s going on at Elmwood Productions, a puppet-focused film production studio in central Connecticut. Jon Bristol founded the company (named after his hometown) in 2002, around five years after he started building his own puppets.

Elmwood’s work embraces humor in the absurd and the uncomfortable, aided by the additional reality-bending possibilities (what Bristol calls “the Looney Tunes element”) afforded narratives focused on puppets. The company’s original film follows one man waking from a nightmare to find his id manifest as a puppet, and its new series The Risley Brothers takes notes from Clerks. Many of the crew members used to work in retail, and strange customer-related anecdotes have found their way into the material.

Bristol works out of an old converted barn in West Hartford, and tries to distance his puppet aesthetic from Jim Henson’s. He bases some characters—like one of the Risley brothers—on himself, but often finds inspiration elsewhere. “I’m always carrying a sketchbook with me. If I’m in public somewhere and I see an odd-looking person, I’m gonna doodle them really quick and hopefully maybe turn them into a puppet.”

Jon Bristol–founder, Elmwood Productions
West Hartford, Connecticut
Website

top image: Jon Bristol and friends at Elmwood Productions. Photo by Paul Specht

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Out-there art’s New Hampshire home Wrong Brain, a Dover, New Hampshire, nonprofit, gets a lot right about art. Whether it’s hosting discussions like “Art & Mental Illness” and exhibitions like This Is What TRANS Feels Like, or producing the Wrong Brain Bizaare, an alternative arts and crafts fair, Wrong Brain is an outlet for unconventional and underrepresented artists, writers, and musicians. “It exists to fill a void in the creative community,” says founder Sam Paolini.

Sam Paolini and Adam Gouveia, Get to the Gig, Wrong Brain poster

Paolini founded Wrong Brain as a 15-year-old high school student seeking an alternative outlet to her conventional art education. Meeting at her family’s New Hampshire home, Paolini and other young artists and musicians created zines to showcase their creative talents. After the unexpected death of one of its original members, the group established Wrong Brain as a nonprofit in 2015. “From there, it’s evolved into whatever we felt was lacking in the current community,” explains Paolini.

Sam Paolini and Adam Gouveia, Grand Opening, Wrong Brain poster

Wrong Brain has struck a chord: thousands of area creatives have contributed artistic and musical talents to its efforts, from zines to art exhibits. “There aren’t a lot of opportunities on the New Hampshire Seacoast for people who don’t want to pursue commercial work,” Paolini says. “This really is a labor of love.”

Wrong Brain
Dover, New Hampshire
Website

Top image: detail of a poster created for Wrong Brain’s Spring Bizaare by Sam Paolini

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Sas Stewart is the epitome of modern artisanal hooch. The cofounder of Stonecutter Spirits in Middlebury, Vermont, would look just as comfortable designing upcycled furniture or fronting a folk-hop band as she does making experimental cocktails.

The Detroit native moved to this shire town in 2012 with her then boyfriend, now business partner, Sivan Cotel. Their peppery, cardamom-forward Single Barrel Gin and Heritage Cask Whiskey—distilled like a bourbon in Kentucky, then aged in cabernet barrels for a finish Stewart describes as “round and plush”—can be found on cocktail menus throughout the state, as well as at Stonecutter’s groovy, Scandinavia-meets-the-Green-Mountains tasting room.

Launched in a former tile factory and named for Middlebury’s history of marble masonry, Stonecutter is “a little promise that I’m making to Vermont,” Stewart says. The investment in heavy equipment and the time it takes to properly age their spirits means she and Cotel intend to stick around and be a hub for their community. A new Vermont-distilled whiskey is currently aging in barrels until 2019; on-premises distillation will begin later this year.

A big part of Stewart’s mission is to partner with and promote fellow local producers, from interior designers to bookbinders. The goal is to make Vermont a destination beyond the bucolic. “We are covered bridges and skiing,” Stewart explains. “But we’re also a lot more than that.”

Sas Stewart–founder, Stonecutter Spirits
Middlebury, Vermont
Website

top image: Stonecutter Spirits keeps a library of past gin recipe samples on display. Photo by Jessica Sipe

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Jerry Ehrlich, Insert Finger, Photo by Damian Meneghini; photo courtesy of The Avenue Concept

For a city that has such a large artistic population, Providence has very little that tells their greater story,” says Yarrow Thorne, founder and artistic director of The Avenue Concept, a Providence-based nonprofit. Thorne is determined to change that narrative.

The Avenue Concept is funded largely through public donations, and has helped Thorne bring dozens of public art installations, including large-scale murals and sculptures, to the city.

Brower Hatcher, Cosmic Flower, Photo by Damian Meneghini; photo courtesy of The Avenue Concept

City planners are figuring out how to use public art to get populations to interact with urban environments. Traditionally, public art pieces occupy the same place for years, but Thorne has developed a nimble approach, periodically moving installations around the city to sustain public interest. Public art is especially important in a city like Providence, which has a linear design that traditionally discourages people from walking around, Thorne explains. Public art encourages people to explore the city and engage in conversation—and cities around the world are taking note.

Umberto Crenca, Takes All Types, Photo by Damian Meneghini; photo courtesy of The Avenue Concept

Lionel Smit, Colossal Fragment, Photo by Damian Meneghini; photo courtesy of The Avenue Concept

“When people bump into a work of art on the street and they start talking about it, there’s a sudden connection there,” says Thorne. Case in point: Lionel Smit’s sculpture Colossal Fragment, which shows a woman’s face looking out toward the city. “The reaction was gratifying,” he says. “People are really acknowledging what we are doing here.”

Yarrow Thorne–founder, The Avenue Concept
Providence, Rhode Island
Website

Top image: Bezt, She Never Came, Photo by Damian Meneghini; photo courtesy of The Avenue Concept

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Call their empanadas delicious. Call them nutritious. Just don’t call them Mexican.

Melissa Stefanini and Sebastian Galvez tire of folks corralling all foods south of the border under one umbrella. Their joint food venture, Buenas, showcases the incredible diversity of South American cuisines through a range of empanadas and specialty sauces such as chimichurri and pebre. The American-born couple share Argentinian, Uruguayan, and Chilean heritage; Galvez has a Chilean father and an Uruguayan mother, while Stefanini is the daughter of Argentinian immigrants. Add a pinch of New England into the mix—root medley empanada, anyone?—and you’ve got a recipe for a runaway hit.

Buenas sauces. Photos by Lizzy Affa

Buenas started modestly by catering small events around Boston. After opening a storefront in Somerville’s Union Square, Galvez and Stefanini are looking to take operations wholesale, using the retail arm as a testing ground for new products. The motivation? To bring the home cooking they remember to a wider audience more quickly, and to inspire people to cook at home more using a pantry full of products that Buenas is currently crafting.

No more heavy sighs when it comes to dinner prep: Buenas is on a mission to make food less complicated, and less of a chore. “Cooking is about learning, exploring, participating,” says Stefanini. It’s the way you build friendships, community, and family.”

Buenas
Somerville, Massachusetts
Website

Photos by Lizzy Affa

Top image: Buenas empanadas and sauces in action. Photo by Lizzy Affa

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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.

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

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Most of us don’t have the time to study the snow that falls on our fair New England (and some of us are too busy swearing at it). Luckily, in 1885, an insatiably curious Vermont farmer named Wilson A. Bentley figured out how to capture the ephemeral snowflake on film, eventually shooting over 5,000 of them—and yes, no two are exactly alike.

Today, you can explore those photographs at the Snowflake Bentley Exhibit, part of the Jericho Historical Society in Jericho, Vermont. Besides sharing an array of nature-made designs with the world—Tiffany & Co. even bought a set of photos to use as jewelry inspiration—Bentley has a life story that’s Spielberg-movie-level inspiring. Sue Richardson, Bentley’s great-grandniece, grew up with stories about his persistence. “Initially he tried to draw them, holding his breath so they wouldn’t melt,” she says, “but he couldn’t draw fast enough to capture them!”

A selection from Snowflake Bentley’s work. Photos from the Wilson Bentley Digital Archives of the Jericho Historical Society

Once he had a camera and a microscope (both obtained by his mother, his only supporter), it took Bentley two years of obsessive tinkering—and “pure Yankee ingenuity,” says Richardson—to finally get a clear photo. He spent the next 46 years capturing snowflake images.

Although Bentley had no formal education, the records he created about the weather conditions of each snowflake were accepted as scientific data. But, as Richardson describes, “he was not only a scientist and photographer, he was an artist. He had an artist’s eye and an artist’s passion. The beauty really captured his imagination.”

Visit the Snowflake Bentley Exhibit, and you might learn to love the snow, too—or at least give it a closer look as you dig out your car.

A selection from Snowflake Bentley’s work. Photos from the Wilson Bentley Digital Archives of the Jericho Historical Society

Snowflake Bentley Exhibit
Jericho, Vermont
Website

Photos from the Wilson Bentley Digital Archives of the Jericho Historical Society

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