Month: June 2018

Mystic, Conn. (June 28, 2018) — Mystic Seaport Museum announces it will inaugurate its artist-residency-program with leading American contemporary artist, Kevin Sampson of Newark, New Jersey. Beginning Saturday, June 30, Sampson will be embedded at the Museum, living aboard a vessel docked on its waterfront, and working in an open studio where he can engage with the Museum community in the lead up to an exhibition of his work Monument Man: Kevin Sampson in Residence.

Sampson began his career as a police officer in New Jersey and was the first African American uniformed police composite sketch artist in the United States. Following his career, he developed a unique artistic practice transforming found materials such as cement, bones, tiles, fabric, paints, and wood into powerful sculptures that speak to family, memory, and loss through the lens of the African-American experience.

During the weeks he will spend in residence at the Museum, Sampson will make a new art installation, inspired by the Newark Ark of Kea Tawana. One of the more unusual vessels ever imagined, the 86-foot long, 20-foot wide ark was the work of a single woman, Kea Tawana, who constructed it from found materials in Newark’s destitute Central Ward beginning in 1982. Essentially complete in 1988, the city forced Tawana to deconstruct it or face demolition as an illegal structure. Sampson’s installation USS Kye Kye Kule will be created using a donated wooden Bevin’s skiff and materials collected from the Museum grounds. The name comes from a traditional African call-and-response song where the leader sings a line then the group repeats it. In this case, Sampson will be responding to Kea’s Ark.

Visitors will be invited to watch the artist at work in a temporary outdoor studio and to engage with him as he draws the very fabric of the Museum into a new and powerful vision of the American maritime experience. A selection of Sampson’s other works will be on-display in the adjacent C.D. Mallory Building. The new work will join the others in the gallery at the end of his residency.

“Kevin Sampson is showing our audience that there is a completely different perspective on what the American maritime experience is from what they might expect. We are excited to provide him a voice and platform to share that story,” said Steve White, president of Mystic Seaport Museum.

“The opportunity to work at Mystic Seaport Museum is a chance to become inspired by its exhibits and its history, and it’s a wonderful occasion to further explore my connections with the sea and its vessels,” said Sampson. “I have been making boats or vessels out of found objects, in one form or another, for over 30 years. I have always felt that in another life I lived that life somehow on the sea.”

Sampson’s residency begins June 30 and continues to July 14. Monument Man: Kevin Sampson in Residence will open June 30 and run into spring 2019.

About Mystic Seaport Museum

Mystic Seaport Museum, founded in 1929, is the nation’s leading maritime museum. In addition to providing a multitude of immersive experiences, the Museum also houses a collection of more than two million artifacts that include more than 500 historic vessels and one of the largest collections of maritime photography. The iconic Thompson Exhibition Building is a state-of-the-art gallery that is hosting The Vikings Begin: Treasures from Uppsala University, Sweden through September 30, 2018. Mystic Seaport Museum is located one mile south of Exit 90 off I-95 in Mystic, CT. For more information, please visit https://mysticseaport.wpengine.com/  and follow Mystic Seaport Museum on Facebook, Twitter, YouTube, and Instagram.

Mystic, Conn. (June 12, 2018) — The largest gathering of wooden boats and enthusiasts in New England will converge at Mystic Seaport Museum for the 27th annual WoodenBoat Show Friday through Sunday, June 22-24.

The WoodenBoat Show, hosted in a partnership with WoodenBoat Publications, offers something for all wooden boat enthusiasts and maritime history buffs. More than 100 traditional and classic wooden boats of every type will be on display, from hand-crafted kayaks to mahogany runabouts, to classic daysailers and schooners.

In addition to taking in the historic vessels and beautiful boats, visitors can find everything they need to outfit their own watercraft and learn new skills at demonstrations and workshops throughout the weekend. A variety of exhibitors will offer items for sale including maritime art, antiques, tools, books, nautical gear, and much more.

Throughout the weekend, Mystic Seaport Museum staff and guest experts will conduct demonstrations of a variety of boat-building skills, including wood-epoxy boat building, caulking, laminating wood, using an adze, and Viking boat building. There will also be tours of the Mayflower II restoration in the Museum’s shipyard.

Other popular features are the “I Built It Myself” display of home-built boats and Family BoatBuilding, where families and teams work to build their own pre-purchased kits during the weekend. The kits open at 9 a.m. Friday morning and tools are put down around 3 p.m. Sunday, leaving, in most cases, a boat awaiting only final finish work.

Visitors can also try their hand at rowing or sailing a small boat at the Museum’s boat livery, or in one of the boats participating in the John Gardner Small Craft Workshop, which is run concurrently with the show by the Traditional Small Craft Association.

Museum admission provides access to both The WoodenBoat Show and Mystic Seaport Museum. Three-day passes are available.

About Mystic Seaport Museum

Mystic Seaport Museum, founded in 1929, is the nation’s leading maritime museum. In addition to providing a multitude of immersive experiences, the Museum also houses a collection of more than two million artifacts that include more than 500 historic vessels and one of the largest collections of maritime photography. The iconic Thompson Exhibition Building is a state-of-the-art gallery that is hosting The Vikings Begin: Treasures from Uppsala University, Sweden through September 30, 2018. Mystic Seaport Museum is located one mile south of Exit 90 off I-95 in Mystic, CT. For more information, please visit https://mysticseaport.wpengine.com/  and follow Mystic Seaport Museum on Facebook, Twitter, YouTube, and Instagram.

Mystic, Conn. (June 8, 2018) — The Fellows of the G.W. Blunt White Library at Mystic Seaport Museum announced their 2018 award winners at their annual meeting last month. The honorees are Michael P. Dyer of the New Bedford Whaling Museum and Dianne Meredith of the California State University-Maritime Academy.

The G.W. Blunt White Library at Mystic Seaport Museum is the home to one of the most comprehensive maritime collections in America, and a major center of maritime research. The Fellows of the G.W. Blunt White Library is a group that was formed in 1980 to support the Library and its collections. Two prizes for scholarship are awarded each year by the Fellows. The first, the Gerald E. Morris Prize Article, is named for a former Librarian and Director of Publications who established it in 1980 to encourage scholarship and publication in the field of American maritime history. The award is given for the best article published each year in “CORIOLIS: the Interdisciplinary Journal of Maritime Studies,” an online publication of Mystic Seaport Museum. The second award, the John Gardner Maritime Research Award, is named for the late John Gardner: author, editor, curator, small-boat designer, builder and regular user of the G.W. Blunt White Library and a proponent of maritime research. The award is given to a person who has made a significant contribution in the maritime research field.

During their 2018 annual meeting, the Fellows of the G.W. Blunt White Library named Dianne Meredith the Morris Prize winner for her article “Early Maritime Russia and the North Pacific Arc,” an examination of how Russia’s Pacific coastline influenced its maritime identity. Meredith is currently an Associate Professor in the department of Global Studies & Maritime Affairs at California State University-Maritime Academy.

Michael P. Dyer was named the Gardner Maritime Research Award winner. Dyer is the Curator of Maritime History at the New Bedford Whaling Museum and won for his book “O’er the Wide and Tractless Sea: Original Art of the Yankee Whaler,” which was published to wide acclaim in 2017.

About Mystic Seaport Museum

Mystic Seaport Museum, founded in 1929, is the nation’s leading maritime museum. In addition to providing a multitude of immersive experiences, the Museum also houses a collection of more than two million artifacts that include more than 500 historic vessels and one of the largest collections of maritime photography. The iconic Thompson Exhibition Building is a state-of-the-art gallery that is hosting The Vikings Begin: Treasures from Uppsala University, Sweden through September 30, 2018. Mystic Seaport Museum is located one mile south of Exit 90 off I-95 in Mystic, CT. For more information, please visit https://mysticseaport.wpengine.com/  and follow Mystic Seaport Museum on Facebook, Twitter, YouTube, and Instagram.

Mystic, Conn. (June 7, 2018) — An exhibition of unique works created by the nation’s leading maritime artists, “The Plein Air Painters of the Maritime Gallery Exhibition and Sale,” will open at the Mystic Seaport Maritime Gallery Sunday, June 17.

The exhibition is a collection of the work of more than 30 of today’s leading maritime artists, who will take to their French easels on the Museum grounds and nearby locations beginning Tuesday, June 12 to capture the timeless beauty of the Museum’s historic ships, shoreline vistas, and scenes along the Mystic River in the tradition of the plein air painters of the 19th and 20th centuries.

A special participating artist this year is Geoff Hunt. Best known for his series of book covers for Patrick O’Brian’s Captain Aubrey Adventures, he was the former President of the Royal Society of Marine Artists. Other featured artists include David Bareford, Paul Beebe, Del-Bourree Bach, William Hobbs, and Leif Nilsson.

“This annual exhibition and sale is a wonderful opportunity to see the work of many of the top maritime artists working today as they draw inspiration from the Mystic Seaport Museum grounds and the surrounding area,” said Monique Foster, director of the Maritime Gallery.

The artists’ works will then be available for viewing and purchase in the exhibition from June 17 through September 23.

An opening reception at the Gallery will be held Saturday, June 16, from 5:30 to 7:00 p.m. the reception is free and open to the public. Attendees will have the opportunity to meet the participating artists, as well as purchase paintings fresh off the easels. Interested parties are requested to RSVP at 860.572.5388 or by emailing gallery@https://mysticseaport.wpengine.com/.

The gallery is open daily from 10 a.m. to 5 p.m. Admission is free. For more information, call 860.572.5388 or visit the gallery’s website.

Image for Download

Thomas Adkins, Mid-Day Morning, Mason’s Island, Oil, 9” x 12” (Photo Credit: Rieta Park/Mystic Seaport Museum)

About the Maritime Gallery
The Maritime Gallery at Mystic Seaport is the nation’s foremost gallery specializing in contemporary marine art and ship models. For more than 35 years, the Gallery has been privileged to exhibit the works of leading international maritime artists. Located at historic Mystic Seaport Museum, the Gallery overlooks the beautiful Mystic River attracting art lovers and collectors from around the world. For more information, please visit mysticseaport.org/gallery.

Mystic, Conn. (June 4, 2018) — On June 16-17, Mystic Seaport Museum will be transformed into a celebration of Viking culture, complete with craft demonstrations, live performances, and on-the-water activities.

The weekend coincides with the opening of two new exhibitions this spring: The Vikings Begin: Treasures from Uppsala University, Sweden, a display of one of the world’s finest early Viking-age collections; and Science, Myth, and Mystery: The Saga of the Vinland Map, the story of a controversial parchment map that created a firestorm in 1965 as it suggested Norse knowledge of the New World before Columbus sailed.

“Vikings seem to be everywhere in popular culture today, yet very few of us know what it was like to live the life of a Viking,” said Arlene Marcionette, public programs project manager at the Museum. “How did they accomplish basic activities like gathering food, cooking, sailing, and voyaging?”

Visitors can explore the exhibitions, walk through a Viking encampment by Draugar Vinlands, sample Scandinavian fare, hear live music and watch dramatic performances, and see a Nordic boat-building demonstration. There will be hands-on activities and games for children and adults throughout the day, and a special Planetarium show on Viking navigation.

Other highlights from the weekend include:

• Craft demonstrations and displays including woodworking, blacksmithing, Norse jewelry, and cooking
• Children may build a toy Viking longship
• Mead brewing demonstrations and sales
• Games of Kubb
• Fjord horses
• A display and demonstration of Norse boats
• Sea Music with Lynn Noel, the Scandinavian Women’s Chorus, and the Icelandic group FUNI
• A dramatic Vikings performance by Flock Theatre
• A Viking beard contest
• Birds of prey demonstration from the Denison Pequotsepos Nature Center

The reproduction Viking longship Draken Harald Hårfagre will be open for free tours.

Viking Days activities are included with regular Museum admission (separate charge for food, beverages, Planetarium shows, toy boat building and children’s crafts).

For a complete list and schedule of all activities please visit mysticseaport.org/vikingdays.

About Mystic Seaport Museum

Mystic Seaport Museum, founded in 1929, is the nation’s leading maritime museum. In addition to providing a multitude of immersive experiences, the Museum also houses a collection of more than two million artifacts that include more than 500 historic vessels and one of the largest collections of maritime photography. The iconic Thompson Exhibition Building is a state-of-the-art gallery that is hosting The Vikings Begin: Treasures from Uppsala University, Sweden through September 30, 2018. Mystic Seaport Museum is located one mile south of Exit 90 off I-95 in Mystic, CT. For more information, please visit https://mysticseaport.wpengine.com/  and follow Mystic Seaport Museum on Facebook, Twitter, YouTube, and Instagram.