Weir Farm Artist Collective

Last week I headed over to Weir Farm National Historic Park for the inaugural Weir Farm Artist Collective meeting.

Weir Farm is really special to me. It’s the only National Park in Connecticut aside from a teensy-tiny portion of the Appalachian Trail. I love National Parks, and was even married in one, so when I read The Artist’s Way by Julia Cameron, Weir Farm is where I took my first “artist date” in 2017.

My first time visiting Weir Farm, January 2017

Weir Farm National Historic Park: The National Park for Art

The park was once home and studio workplace to J. Alden Weir, an American impressionist painter. When he bought the farm, he was inspired by the acres upon acres of natural beauty it offered. While he lived there, he developed its captivating qualities by digging a large scale pond and additions such as a painting studio and a “palace car”—which a younger me is pictured with above. Weir loved to paint en plein air (outdoors) and didn’t want harsh Connecticut winters getting in between him and his muse, his property, so he had this little shed on wheels that he’d take over to his inspiration point and step inside for shelter while he painted.

J. Alden Weir’s mobile painting studio, Palace Car

After J. Alden Weir died, the farm was home to several other artists, including his daughter, Dorothy, and her husband, Mahonri Young, grandson of Brigham Young. (Ya know, the Mormon guy? The one the college in Utah is named after?) It continued to be a private property owned by artists Doris and Sperry Andrews until it was designated a National Historic Site in 1990. It was only in 2021 that Weir Farm was officially designated a National Historic Park, which indicated that it has greater physical extent and complexity than the previous title, and allowed for more funding—I haven’t even gotten the chance yet to see all of the new exhibits!

Because the farm is not only a place of beauty but historically significant for its contribution to the arts, it’s been deemed “The National Park for Art.” There’s an artist-in-residence program, which isn’t abnormal for a National Parks and their push for their Arts in the Park initiative. What is different, however, is that it is only at Weir Farm that they supply art supplies to visitors of all ages so that they, too, can be inspired to create by their surroundings. Beginner and professional painters alike can be seen throughout the park, many set up with their own plein air painting gear and umbrellas for shade.

My lovely friend when she visited the park with me from Texas, October 2017

Over my several visits, I’ve made watercolor works with their provided supplies and several sketches. I even threw together a painting and submitted it to their Art in the Park Contest in 2021 that I’m now too embarrassed to post. Such is the artist life, always improving and not wanting to look back!

Preparing to sketch, May 2017

Weir’s continued significance for me

In 2021, Weir Farm was getting designated as a National Historic Park while I was in a really rough spot. I was over a year into that yucky ol’ pandemic thing and I had good reason to believe my marriage was coming to an end with all my sense of security headed down the drain with it. It was a time that was challenging but suddenly invigorating. I was getting a lot of help through therapy via zoom, a CBT app, and a weight loss app. I was learning to reparent myself to move on from my childhood trauma so I could muster the strength to weather storms that became unbearable. So when my birthday came around, I treated my inner child as I would care for my own children: I bought myself balloons, gifts and wrapping paper, then told the kids to wrap the gifts. I planned an all-day outing with my boys, first to Weir Farm for us to make art, lunch, and onto to The Aldrich to view art.

Breakfast on my birthday, 2021
Weir Farm, making art on my birthday, July 2021
The Aldrich sculpture garden, July 2021

When my friends caught wind of the buying-balloons-for-myself thing via group text the night before, they made reservations for us to have a nice dinner—my first kid-free restaurant outing since that whole pandemic thing.

Me, July 2021

It was over dinner with those friends when I declared: “You know what? If he wants to leave me, fine. I’ll stop worrying about him. I’m gonna do me—me and the kids. I’ve lost this weight, I look good, I’m gonna feel good. I’m having a hot girl summer. He can be along for the ride, he can—not.”

Turns out, that was precisely what our marriage needed: for me to get well. For him to get well. Though we thankfully, surprisingly, (with all the knock on wood required) never became ill with Covid-19, we were sick emotionally and dragging each other down. We were drowning in chaos of a globally-shared trauma, but instead of slowing the breath and relaxing the body to float, we were flailing, creating more waves to splash into the others’ eyes, pressing down upon one another’s shoulders in attempts to grasp a desperate breath.

All that to say, Weir Farm has twice played a role in turning points in my life. The Artist’s Way, including the artist’s dates that Weir was the first of, tore down the barriers that disallowed artistic vulnerability and ultimately changed my life. That 2021 birthday at Weir was a turning point in caring for myself and loving myself the way that a parent should have, furthering my ability and freedom to express myself.

…and Weir does it again.

How interesting is it, then, that Weir is apart of a third pivotal moment? Years ago, with success building from my local gift economy group, a friend suggested we make a local group for creative people. She started a Facebook group for it, but neither of us clearly wanted to put forth the effort required to build it out initially, then our friendship came to a close. The yearning for a group of creative-minded individuals to get together for conversations unrelated to our children, husbands, and obligations didn’t cease. In January 2022, I updated my vision board for the first time in 7 years, and I see it every time I’m at my desk, front and center: Artist Community.

Vision Board, January 2022

Here it is—Weir it is!

Though I imagined that I’d start an artist’s group in my town, I like that I’ll be meeting with this group at a destination that’s a not-too-far (29 minutes) destination—I’m far enough away where I’ll be committed to creating once I’ve gotten there. I love that it’s brand new, so I’ll be apart of the process as it unfolds. It’s low-key, and I’ve already received very helpful insights from members.

En plein air oil painting is a long-term goal of mine, but even sketching on location that day ended up with me so nervous and uncomfortable that I didn’t come home with anything I’m proud of. Later, at home, I sketched this of one of the other painters in the group.

En plein air at Weir sketch, May 2023

With the next meeting next month, I feel encouraged to create a Weir inspired painting for the next time we meet!

New York Comic-Con 2021: Adam Savage Panel + Covid Differences

On Friday I hopped on the train with my teen and headed into the city with him for the first time since covid began for New York Comic-Con 2021. This wasn’t our first time to the convention—we attended NYCC 2019 and had tickets booked already for 2020’s event that was later cancelled.

We initially had tickets for the whole family, but as the event neared we decided that we didn’t feel comfortable taking our younger son, who’s not yet of age for a vaccine, and ended up taking a couple of my teen’s friends. Though his friends were coming, he still wanted to do a duo costume with me. After some deliberation, we both had the idea at the exact same time(!) that the iconic duo we should dress up as had to be Jay and Silent Bob.

My attempt at making a judgemental Jay face while Silent Bob shows me he’s mastered the mirror selfie

I was away on a girls trip for the week (more about that later!) leading up to the event, so my teen decided with his dad what panels he and I were attending, and didn’t realize we were seeing the world premiere of the new Chucky TV show (which was amazing!!) and Adam Savage, nor did I realize the sort of royalty that the former MythBusters host is in the Comic-Con circuit. Unlike my husband and son, I’m not invested in any of the specific fandoms represented at the Cons, I’m more of a nerd for Art, Creators, and Costuming.

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My QuaranTeam: A FaceTime Photo Session with Jordan Ashleigh

During early quarantine, it was trendy to have a family portrait taken on your front steps. A photographer would come, stand 6+ feet away, and send you an edited shot free of charge, with the request that you would make a donation to the food bank or another charity. It was popularized in our area by local photographers Jenna Stern and Michelle Gurner. But I saw friends getting their photos taken for “The Porch Project” all the way down in Texas.

Another thing that I saw a few families do was a FaceTime photo session. I wasn’t really sold on the idea until I saw Jordan Ashleigh‘s work. I loved how her vintage vibe worked with the quality of the FaceTime photos, rather than against it. I had to have some of her work!

We scheduled the shoot on Memorial Day, and that afternoon we had our first visit with another family since the quarantine began months before. It was the beginning of a new era–reintegrating with friends. These pictures are extra special to me, as they represent the end of the strictest of this (first wave?? hopefully only) quarantine and the ways that our little fam spent our individual quarantine time.

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COVID-19 Quarantine, Day 36: Signs of Spring and Messages of Hope

There’s a lot of imagery that defines this strange, restless, panicked time. Major monuments, tourist destinations and airports without crowds. People queuing outside with gloved hands on their shopping carts, face masks covering their nose and mouth, waiting their turn to shop in Trader Joe’s. Masks on face after face. That look of fear as someone is walking on the same side of the road in the opposite direction as another and they don’t know how they’ll keep six feet as they near.

Coronavirus covid facemask on mannequin
Local boutique in Fairfield with mannequin modeling a paper face mask

Those are the images of social distancing. I realize that the imagery is far more grim in the hospitals, but those experiences are not mine to share.

gratitude front line rainbow hunt fairfield county
As I near the end of week five of social distancing, I have more hope than I did throughout the first month, like when I posted on day 10, day 14, and day 25.

hopeful messages covid coronavirus quarantine

It’s not because things are looking better. Our corrupt federal government is awarding 80% of coronavirus stimulus money to millionaires, rather than struggling Americans. The Trump administration is handing out $55 million allocated for PPE to a bankrupt business with no employees or equipment to make such items. Trump is taking advantage of this time to share more intimate conversations with Putin. He’s discouraging democracy by spreading mistruth about voting by mail and taking a page out of a dictator handbook while forgetting about the American Constitution while claiming to have ‘total authority.’
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The home front has its challenges as well. We’ve been baking bread and eating non-perishables for weeks as we make our groceries stretch as far as they can. With this stretching, though, last week we found ourselves stressing. My husband and I were bickering about what our tween was eating almost every day. Catching him sneaking snacks became a really big deal. We were forgetting that being extra safe was a choice, not a sentence.

On top of that, a tween doing what a tween does: complain. A toddler doing what toddlers do: tantrum.hopeful messages in fairfield county during coronavirus quarantine
If you’re thinking, ‘where’s the hope in that?!’ I get it. I think it’s primarily that we’re settling into routine, and that we had a lot of sunshine this past week. It’s a few hours my husband’s blocked off from meetings during my toddler’s nap time so I’ve gotten alone time walking around my town–time to BREATHE that I hadn’t had quite enough of before. It’s back to being a collaborative couple, looking for ways to take care of one another. More time playing catch & frisbee outside, more hands in the dirt gardening, more sword fights with sticks against the little guy. It’s getting a brand new book in the mail after suffering through a couple of low-quality thrifted ones I never got around to reading before (I see now why). Those little moments I decided I would seek out in my last post about the quarantine.
Sometimes those little moments of light are ignited by messages of hope I’ve seen on my walks, or people have shared on our county’s rainbow hunt Facebook page. Little reminders of the beauty after the storm. Sometimes it’s seeing a fully bloomed tree, a splash of color that reminds me that nothing lasts forever.

These are the images I want to focus on. Individual people and families taking time out to uplift a stranger in a time of crisis and despair. A reminder that even if our government is failing us, the American people are still good hearted and deserving. That we’re surrounded by heroes, big, small, willing and many who didn’t sign up for this, but are fighting anyway.

Times are hard, but the best I can do right now is to share a bit of the beauty, gratitude and kindness that I’ve come across during these times.

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Westport Connecticut hopeful rainbow hunt wall coronavirus

A Story About Our Colorful Mid Century Modern Inspired Woodland Nursery

Around this time last year, I shared my pregnancy announcement. I showed y’all my babymoon in Paris portrait session, but aside from that, it was radio silence over here about anything baby. But yes, we welcomed a beautiful baby boy in the summer.

Birth announcement foil balloon zero days old

As you know, we moved to our new house recently. What you may NOT know is that we moved in exactly three weeks before I gave birth.

My pregnancy was less than ideal, and at one point I was put on bed rest. So when we moved in, I wasn’t able (nor did I have enough energy) to get started on my projects! It was looking like the baby would come into the world without a space to call his own.

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Introducing: Home Number Three

If you’ve been reading for a while, you may know that my little family is now living in house number three. The first was a little mid-century ranch in the the Westbury subdivision of Houston, Texas. It was a foreclosure and we did quite a bit of renovations prior to moving in. We lived there for a little over three years, decided we were moving to Connecticut, then I shared a before and after of our first home.

Next up, we owned a little Cape Cod style home. It was smaller than our previous home, but newly gutted with brand new just about everything–pipes, electric, windows, drywall. Brand new. It was small and on a small lot, but it had a really lovely view of a pond directly behind it, and I’d hop in my kayak in my backyard and row around a bit sometimes. We also had the pleasure of seeing a lot of wildlife in our backyard. It was lovely, but then came time to move, again. So, I shared a before and after of our second home and a subsequent post about maximalist decor in a small space.

Now that I’m back to blogging, I’ll introduce you to home number three.

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