Name: Madness @the Park
Start: 2023-4-1T14-14-00-00
End: 2023-4-1T17-17-30-00
Location: Judy Black Memorial Park and Gardens

maralldaymarArt @ the Park: John CrawfordJudy Black Memorial Park & GardensMonth Long Event (march) Judy Black Memorial Park and Gardens, 1 Green Hill Rd, Washington, CT 06794

apralldayaprJohn Crawford's "The Expressive Language of Forged Steel" ExhibitJudy Black Memorial Park & GardensMonth Long Event (april) Judy Black Memorial Park and Gardens, 1 Green Hill Rd, Washington, CT 06794

Event Details

The Judy Black Memorial Park and Gardens is pleased to present an exhibit featuring works by American Artist John Crawford. The exhibit features large and small scale works of forged and machined steel on exhibit in the park. There will be a reception for the artist on Saturday, April 17, 2021 from 4PM to 6PM.

Crawfords’ sculptures are on display through April 30, 2021. Private showings are available by appointment between the hours of 10 AM and 2 PM every Thursday, Friday, Saturday, and Sunday. To schedule an appointment email [email protected].

Crawford, a graduate of the Rhode Island School of Design learned to craft steel in an ancient blacksmith shop in the Tuscany region of Italy. During his seven year apprenticeship he learned the complex procedures of forging farm tools from steel, and he used the process to make sculpture. In 1977, Crawford received the Louis Comfort Tiffany Foundation Grant. In 2006 Crawford taught in an artist in residency program in the Niger Delta. His most recent exhibitions include Lori Bookstein, John Davis, and the LongHouse Reserve. His work is in numerous public and private collections.

“My sculpture has changed over the years—and it hasn’t. Early on, I wanted to reproduce the structural beauty of those functional Italian shovels, hoes, and axes. Hopefully, this sense of structure exists in the recent Bifurcations and Accretions, but in a different way: Deceptively simple sculptural shapes, slightly varied, repeated, can yield surprisingly complex results that resemble fractal geometry. My earlier work explored the structure of single, simple objects. Now the process is more like a gardener hybridizing a new plant, or a weaver producing a fabric with no beginning or end.”

The exhibit represents four bodies of the artist’s work: Tools, Bifurcations, Pinecones, and Accretions. Crawford explains “Each sculpture is unique – hammered into shape, often with large industrial machines that can pick up, heat, and hammer metal forms of almost any weight. The forging process – my language – is inseparable from my expression.”

The Judy Black Memorial Park and Gardens is pleased to show this selection of Crawford’s sculptures, fully realized at their current scale, but which are being developed for larger commissioned work. An ongoing video captures the forging process in his studio and on a larger scale. As he describes it, “In forty-five years of exhibitions, this is the first time that I have included a video glimpse of forging. In the past I felt the dramatic fire and noise of the process would be a distraction from looking at the sculpture…All tools leave their marks and change how we think and even what we say. So perhaps what was a distraction from looking at a sculpture has now become almost necessary, a way to better understand it.”

Time

Month Long Event (april)

Location

Judy Black Memorial Park and Gardens

1 Green Hill Rd, Washington, CT 06794

Organizer

Judy Black Memorial Park and Gardens One Green Hill, Washington, CT 06794

Calendar GoogleCal

01apr2:00 pm5:30 pmFeaturedMadness @the ParkJudy Black Memorial Park and Gardens2:00 pm - 5:30 pm Judy Black Memorial Park and Gardens, 1 Green Hill Rd, Washington, CT 06794

06apr6:30 pm7:30 pmFeaturedThe Sustainable Architecture ProjectJudy Black Memorial Park and Gardens6:30 pm - 7:30 pm Judy Black Memorial Park and Gardens, 1 Green Hill Rd, Washington, CT 06794

Event Details

The Gunn Memorial Library is pleased to collaborate with the Washington Environmental Council to bring our community together for a discussion on the sustainable architecture project underway at the Frederick Gunn School. Peter Becker, Head of School and Seth Low, Associate Head of School will describe the work that the school has completed to date, and engage in conversation about strategies for organizations to embrace sustainability. This presentation will be held at the Judy Black Memorial Park and Garden.

Over the past several years, The Frederick Gunn School has evolved its approach to sustainability. The Thomas S. Perakos Arts and Community Center (completed 2020) was the school’s first LEED-certified building on campus, and the Lizzie and Jonathan Tisch Center for Innovation and Active Citizenship (to be completed in fall of this year) will exceed the environmental standards set by TPACC. While these are the most tangible and visible outcomes of Gunn’s renewed dedication to sustainability, the school has also created a sustainability plan that starts to outline long-term goals for the next several decades.

Minimizing the impact on the environment was a top priority in the design process for the Tisch Center for Innovation and Active Citizenship. Solar photovoltaic panels that provide sustainable energy and a geothermal well field that provides most of the heating and cooling, as well as a highly efficient envelope, contribute to bringing the project close to Net Zero.

Peter Becker is The Frederick Gunn School’s 11th Head of School. A native of New Orleans and Manhattan, Peter attended The Taft School and earned a Bachelor of Arts degree with distinction in religious studies from the University of Virginia and a master’s degree in history from Yale University. Peter came to Gunn in 2012 from The Lawrenceville School, where he served as a master of history and interdisciplinary studies. He is currently a member of the board of The Association of Boarding Schools (TABS) and is a member of The Heads & Principals Association.

Seth Low is The Frederick Gunn School’s Associate Head of School and Director of Co-Curricular Programs. He spent his youth as a faculty child at the Cranbrook School and Blair Academy, and holds a bachelor’s degree in geosciences from Williams College and a Master of Arts in Liberal Studies from Wesleyan University. Prior to joining Gunn, Seth spent five years working at an environmental engineering and consulting firm located outside of Boston. The former Director of College Counseling, Seth continues to serve as a College Counselor, teaches within the school’s Center for Citizenship and Just Democracy, and coaches lacrosse.