Santa will be available for selfies at Lyme Academy’s ‘Holiday Enchantment’ event on Dec. 6. LymeLine file photo.
Event includes art demos, music, tree-lighting, caroling, smores, hot cocoa & more
OLD LYME — On Saturday, Dec. 6, the Lyme Academy of Fine Arts invites the community to its Fifth Annual Holiday Enchantment and Tree Lighting.
Adults and children are invited to gather on the campus of Lyme Academy on Lyme Street from 3 to 5 p.m. for an afternoon of festive outdoor and indoor activities.
These will include art demonstrations, music by the Old Lyme Town Band and the Lyme-Old Lyme High School Select Singers, visits and selfies with Santa, opportunities for holiday shopping, and holiday craft-making for all ages.
A s’mores galore station and hot cocoa will also be available for all to enjoy. If the weather is chilly, guests will have an opportunity to warm up at one of the many fire pits on site.
At 4:30 p.m., a tree lighting will be led by the Town of Old Lyme’s First Selectwoman, Martha Shoemaker. This will be followed by caroling around the tree.
The Academy’s campus art store, de Gerenday’s Fine Art Materials and Curiosities, is bringing back popular jewelry artist Ann Lightfoot for the event. Every Ann Lightfoot creation higlights design, beauty, and elegance. Raw and delicate natural materials from all over the world are incorporated in her designs. Ann Lightfoot Jewelry makes a perfect holiday gift.
On Saturday, Nov. 8, Chad Fisher, who is the Charlotte Colby Danly Sculpture Chair at the Lyme Academy of Fine Arts, will speak on “Once Upon a Pedestal: Figural Sculpture–Then, Now, Next.” His talk is the Annual Samuel Thorne Memorial Lecture and open to all at no charge with prior registration. Photo courtesy of Florence Griswold Museum.
Speaker is Chad Fisher—the Charlotte Colby Danly Sculpture Chair at Lyme Academy—with “Once Upon a Pedestal: Figural Sculpture–Then, Now, Next”
OLD LYME—On Saturday, Nov. 8, at 5 p.m., the Florence Griswold Museum will host the Annual Samuel Thorne Memorial Lecture at the Meeting House, First Congregational Church of Old Lyme at 2 Ferry Road, Old Lyme, CT.
This year the speaker will be Chad Fisher, who is the Charlotte Colby Danly Sculpture Chair at the Lyme Academy of Fine Arts. His talk is titled, “Once Upon a Pedestal: Figural Sculpture–Then, Now, Next.” Fisher will present an exploration of the rich history of the figural sculpture beginning with the Egyptians and highlighting the French academic traditions with artists such as Duret, Rodin, and Carpeaux.
During his presentation, Fisher will explore the role of American sculptors including Charles Grafly, John Rogers, Paul Manship, and Lyme’s own Bessie Potter Vonnoh. As both a sculptor and sculpture instructor, Fisher shares his holistic approach to both the creation and exhibition of sculpture and its potential impact in both private and public spaces.
Thorne Lecture is an endowed lecture series that allows the Museum to invite distinguished speakers and thinkers to share their work with the FloGris family. It is named in memory of Samuel Thorne, who served as the Museum’s President in the 1950s. Mr. Thorne’s widow and son established this signature program in 1995.
Lyme Academy of Fine Arts has received a major donation enabling it to purchase the adjoining property at 80-1 Lyme Street to the left of the administrative building shown in the photo above. LymeLine file photo.
OLD LYME — In what Michael Duffy, who serves as Lyme Academy Board of Trustees Chair, describes as, “an act of astonishing generosity,” a local couple is donating $1.8 million to the Academy to enable it to purchase the neighboring property at 80-1 Lyme Street, which is better known as the former Studio 80 + Sculpture Gardens owned by Gilbert ‘Gil’ Boro.
The donors, who wish to remain anonymous, will retain the right to live in the 3747 sq. ft. residence on the property for their respective lifetimes after which time, ownership of the house will be transferred to the Academy.
Explaining the complexities of the transaction to LymeLine in a July 7 Zoom call, Duffy noted that the Academy’s sculpture program is expanding so rapidly that it is, “running into difficulties’ in terms of the space it needs. He gave as an example the stone-carving class held last summer, which ended up having to create what he described as a, “makeshift workplace in one of the [Academy’s] parking lots.”
Chad Fisher adjusts the patina on his bronze sculpture ‘Avarice.’ File photo courtesy of Lyme Academy.
Duffy credited Sculpture Director Chad Fisher with the increasing success of the Academy’s sculpture program. He noted there are now three applications for each single place across all the Academy’s program courses.
One of the features of Boro’s 4.3 acre property is a huge, stand-alone sculpture studio with a soaring ceiling, which enables outsize works of sculpture to be designed and fabricated in the space. Duffy noted there is still a mechanical hoist in the studio remaining from when Boro used the studio to create his own contemporary sculptures there. Some of Boro’s sculptures and works by others are still dotted around the sprawling grounds, which have direct water frontage on the Lieutenant River.
Looking across Gil Boro’s Sculpture Grounds, past several of his signature works in the foreground and to the left, the huge sculpture studio can be seen to the right. LymeLine file photo.
Pointing out there is already a pathway between Academy and Boro’s property—a tangible sign of the already existing connection between them—Duffy continued, “There’s a logic to it [combining the properties.]”
Duffy recalled at his very first meeting with Boro some five years ago, one of the main topics of their conversation was, “How can we cooperate?” Duffy said that unfortunately that early desire to work more closely together failed to blossom due to the impact of the COVID pandemic and Boro’s declining health.
Adding that this development seems “natural” now, he commented that Boro’s sons—who are managing the sale on their father’s behalf—are “really excited” about the prospect of acquisition since, “It keeps the spirit of Gil [Boro] alive in perpetuity.”
Boro, who now lives in a residential home in Brooklyn, NY, close to one of his sons, is being kept fully informed of developments. Some of his sculptures and works by others are still dotted around the sprawling grounds, which have direct water frontage on the Lieutenant River.
Gil Boro relaxes in a wicker chair during one of the last events held in the sculpture studio. Photo by Christina Goldberg.
The donors are planning some changes to the immediate exterior of the house including filling in the outdoor pool and installing a fountain in its place. They also intend to turn the current pool cabanas into artist’s studios.
By coincidence the donors are both architects by profession, which is the same profession in which Boro began his own career.
In another coincidence, the college was founded in 1976 by the sculptor Elisabeth Gordon Chandler and so Duffy remarked it seems fitting that this major expansion of the college’s facilities and grounds should be primarily to serve the Academy’s sculpture program.
Duffy said that the plans for the future of the property were presented for discussion at the Old Lyme Historic District Commission’s regular meeting on July 7 and will also be discussed at the next Old Lyme Zoning Commission meeting on July 14.
Asked when the transaction might be completed, Duffy responded enthusiastically, “We hope to close by the end of July.”
Describing the process by which the transaction has come about, Duffy noted that the first conversations were some 10 months ago but at that time, the price of the Studio 80 property was beyond the Academy’s reach. He said he felt “a sense of loss” when the idea had to be shelved.
Now that these donors, who have been taking classes at the Academy for several years, have enabled the plan to come to fruition, a delighted Duffy commented, “This is a great vote of confidence in the future of Lyme Academy as we approach our 50th anniversary.”
Artistic Director and Director of Painting, Jordan Sokol and Painting -Drawing Instructor, Hollis Dunlap working in the Southwick-Keller Studio at Lyme Academy of Fine Arts. File photo courtesy of Lyme Academy of Fine Arts.
OLD LYME–Students at Lyme Academy of Fine Arts can once again earn college credit for their coursework.
The Academy last week announced it has been accredited by the National Association of Schools of Art and Design (NASAD), the only accrediting agency for higher education programs in art and design that is recognized by the U.S. Department of Education.
Academy Artistic Director Jordan Sokol in an email said the development marks a significant milestone for the school.
“It validates the strength of our curriculum, faculty, and facilities, and further establishes the Academy as the premier destination for figurative art education in the United States,” he said.
The Academy was first accredited when it became a college in 1996. It lost its accreditation after the University of New Haven, which took over the program in 2014, withdrew five years later.
The Academy opened its doors again in 2021, promoting comparisons to its early years when sculptor Elisabeth Gordon Chandler in 1976 founded the academy to teach the fundamentals of drawing, painting and sculpture rather than to grant academic degrees.
Now, Sokol said accreditation affirms “the integrity and excellence of the Academy’s program on a national level.”
Credits are transferable to more than 300 NASAD-accredited institutions for students pursuing undergraduate or graduate studies elsewhere.
