LECTURE | Coming Home: The Story of a Tulip and Sunflower Chest With Pat Kane
2025-11-20 19:00 (America/New_York)
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Renowned decorative arts scholar Pat Kane reveals the remarkable story of Connecticut’s Wethersfield chest tradition in this specialized lecture. Explore the intersection of artistry, craftsmanship, and cultural identity through these colonial masterpieces that represent some of America’s finest early furniture making. Kane’s expertise illuminates how these functional objects reflect broader patterns of settlement, trade, and artistic expression in the Connecticut River Valley, making them invaluable windows into colonial American life and
aesthetics.
Tickets: General Admission $15| Members $10 | Jenrette Society & Students $5
Bio | Patricia E. Kane, Friends of American Arts Curator of American Decorative Arts at the Yale University Art Gallery, has been at Yale since receiving her M.A. from the University of Delaware, Winterthur Program in Early American Culture in 1968. The topic of her Master’s thesis was the seventeenth-century joined furniture of Hartford County. She received her Ph.D. in art history from Yale in 1987. She oversees collections of American decorative arts and design that range from the seventeenth century to the present. Since 2002 she has directed the Rhode Island Furniture Archive at the Yale University Art Gallery that documents furniture making in Rhode Island from 1650 to 1830. The results of this research are disseminated through a website, https://americandecorativearts.yale.edu/ , hosted by Jstor, and Art and Industry in Early America: Rhode Island Furniture 1650–1830, a publication for a 2016 exhibition at the Art Gallery. In addition to ongoing research on early Rhode Island furniture, she has collaborated with scientists at Yale to identify the different species of mahogany used in early American furniture.

PERFORMANCE | Alternative Tragic Americana: An Evening with Singer-Songwriter Anna May
2025-11-21 19:00 - 20:30 | WDS Museum, 211 Main Street, Wethersfield, CT, 06109
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PERFORMANCE | Alternative Tragic Americana: An Evening with Singer-Songwriter Anna May
Friday, November 21, 7:00 PM
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Experience the ethereal artistry of Connecticut-born singer-songwriter Anna May in an intimate salon-style concert. Anna’s lyrical sensibility is steeped in wisdom and whimsy that explores both estrangement and connection, drawing inspiration from artists like Leonard Cohen, Neil Young, and Billie Holiday. Her tender, immersive moodscapes with a western folk flare create otherworldly sounds that blur the boundaries between folk, jazz, and contemplative Americana. This limited-seating performance promises an unforgettable evening of haunting vocals and poetic storytelling in our historic atmosphere.
Tickets: $20 | $15 Members

CLASS | Saturday Morning Arts: Free-Movement Dance Class with The Hartford Dance Collective
2025-11-22 10:00 - 11:00 | WDS Museum, 211 Main Street, Wethersfield, CT, 06109
Join us one Saturday a month at 10 am to awaken your creativity and get you moving. Each month, a choreographer from the Hartford Dance Collective will lead a free movement class designed to build curiosity, strength, range of motion and confidence in your own dance movement. Classes include warm-ups, exercises in mobility, and dynamic choreography phrasework. If you’ve been dancing all your life, are a former dancer, or have never danced before, YOU ARE WELCOME HERE!
Move your body freely in a supportive community, surrounded by art and our beautiful Colonial Revival Garden. Want more? Stay after class for an open rehearsal and Q+A with the women of HDC.
Upcoming Dates:
Nov 22
Dec 13
Jan 24
Feb 21
Mar 21
Apr 25
May 16
Tickets:
Class Only: $20
Class + Historic House Tour: $38
Class + Open Rehearsal: $35
The Hartford Dance Collective
The Hartford Dance Collective aims to empower women to have a voice and an equal opportunity in dance by providing choreographic and leadership opportunities. By sharing professional contemporary dance with new audiences and providing performances in diverse locations, they work to bridge the gap between the arts and the community. Their studio space at Parkville Sounds in Hartford, CT, provides creatives with a home to hone in on their movement vocabulary, and they hold the belief that everyone can dance and everyone should. www.thedancecollective.org
