Art Talks!
Lectures and Artist Demonstrations
Since 1962, Glastonbury Arts has fostered engagement in and appreciation for art in all its forms through its series of lectures and artist demonstrations. Each Art Talk provides a window-in to the creative experience for original art and handmade craft. Popular to artists, students, and art appreciators alike. Learn about an artist's sources of inspiration, techniques and processes.
All Art Talks are FREE and open to the public. Light refreshments will be served.
Location is handicap accessible.
Pre-Registration to attend is not required.
Upcoming
Vibrant, Volatile, and Visually Delicious with Matt Becker, Thursday, April 10, 6:00 to 8:00 pm at Glastonbury Arts
What do you imagine when you think of “ceramics”? Fine china? Earthenware pots? Soda-fired stoneware? Historically, a culture’s ceramic forms reflect the materials, needs, and values of the society it emerges from. So, what happens when such goods are abundant and inexpensive or free? Matt Becker is a ceramicist who is trying to build a new language of clay that can tease and contradict traditional ceramic while reaching similar conclusions of shape and function. His work celebrates the innate traits of clay: its plasticity and ability to record marks, while becoming drenched in the colors and materials of our modern world.
Matt Becker is an illustrator, sculptor, and potter who earned his undergraduate degree in painting and illustration and graduated in 2021 with his MFA in Ceramics from the Rhode Island School of Design. Alongside his experiments in clay, Matt teaches pottery classes at Mill Court Ceramics, a local pottery studio in Storrs, CT. "People tell me that my work reminds them of quilts, of landscapes and coral reefs, or grotesque plants or monsters. I think people see these things in my work because the work is about complexity and contrasts, within themselves and the world around them.
Fiber Art with Diane Adrain, Saturday, May 19, 1:00 to 3:00 pm at Glastonbury Arts
Fiber art has been practiced for thousands of years in many cultures. Diane Cadrain’s fiber art work is inspired by the natural world, which she interprets with fabric and thread, quilting, embroidery, beading, felting, and more recently, an exploration of neurographics, a harmonious fusion of art, psychology, and meditation with roots in Eastern and Western spiritual traditions. “Tolstoy said, ‘Love all creation…love every leaf,’ " and in that spirit, Diane creates images that combine fragility with strength and the evanescent with the eternal.
In 2015, Diane Cadrain retired from freelance work as a lawyer and writer. “Still, I’ve been sewing all my life, starting with hand embroidery and pin weaving, later incorporating machine sewing, clothing design, knitting and felting to my skill set." Since launching her career in fiber art in 2015, her art has been recognized with numerous awards and many solo and two person exhibits. She is an Elected Artist of the West Hartford Art League and the Connecticut Academy of Fine Arts and served as Co-President of Connecticut Women Artists from 2020 to 2022.
The Art of Stained Glass with Christopher Hayes, Saturday, June 14, 2025, 1:00 to 3:00 pm at Glastonbury Arts
The magic of stained glass is the way it manipulates light and color to create a mesmerizing display. A meticulous process, stained glassmaking involves shading, texture, intricate leadwork, precise planning, and a steady hand. Christopher Hayes of Autumn Light Stained Glass Studio will provide a brief history of this centuries old medium and will demonstrate the methods for cutting stained glass.
Christopher Hayes attended Savannah College of Art and Design studying architecture and graduated in 1998 with a degree in Building Preservation. He was awarded the Dorothy L. Maddy Scholarship from The Stained Glass Association of America, and, in 2002, he studied glass painting in Siena, Italy. In 2010 he opened his own studio and gallery in New Hartford, Connecticut. www.AutumnLightStudio.com
A Look Back at Past Art Talks
Find Your Sources of Inspiration with Nancy Cooke Bunnell, Saturday, March 29, 1:00 to 3:00 pm at Glastonbury Arts
Nancy Cooke Bunnell invites you to find your sources of inspiration. Nancy is a painter and teacher who works out of her studio in rural northeastern Connecticut. Learn about her artistry, the result of a lifetime of creatively interacting with color saturated flora, riverbeds, thick woodlands, peaceful farms, and nature. Her imagery spans from a more formal realism to energy invoked experimental abstraction and design. Let her inspire you to create from the world around you.
Nancy is an award-winning pastel and acrylic painter as well as an experienced state certified art teacher for over 18 years teaching to all ages. She trained at Southern Connecticut State University, UConn, and Eastern Connecticut State University. She has taught art at the Community School of Arts, Art Center East, West Hartford Art League, and Glastonbury Arts. Her pastels have won first in the state at the Connecticut Pastel Society and have won numerous high-ranking awards at Art Center East, the Munson Art Center, and throughout the state. Nancy has also shown work on Canyon Road, New Mexico.
Portraits in Oil with Sam D'Ambruoso, Saturday, March 15, 1:00 to 3:00 pm at Glastonbury Arts
Working from a live model, Sam D’Ambruoso of Middlebury CT will demonstrate the techniques for producing an oil portrait. Sam is a painter and teacher with decades of experience exhibiting and selling his artwork and presenting workshops here in the United States as well as in Italy. From portraits to landscapes to still lifes, light becomes the drama and the effective use of color provides a key ingredient for bringing a composition together in a painterly style. His paintings are represented in public and private collections worldwide.
Sam is a member of the Lyme Art Association and is an Elected Artist at the Kent Art Association and shows his work in regional and national exhibitions. Current projects include Landscapes of New England, Tuscany, Amalfi, and Capri as well as selected portrait commissions. Sam is an official United States Coast Guard Artist and was elected a landscape-painting instructor at the Arts and Materials Show, sponsored by American Artist Magazine, in Pasadena, CA. His most recent landscape of the Connecticut River area is in the State of Connecticut Permanent Art Collection. www.SamDAmbruoso.com
Sponsor of the Art Talks Series of Lectures and Artist Demonstrations
