ur youngest artists, designers, and builders are invited step into the arts studio to have fun making art inspired by the River building and surrounding landscape! Think, play, create, and experiment with texture, form, line, color and space.
This session is recommended for ages 1-5 and their caretakers.
Drop into the Arts Studio for a facilitated series designed by artists, curators, and educators that invites families to play, create, and experiment with sensory-rich materials and different modes of artmaking.
For ages 4–11 with adult caregivers.
Open Arts Studio is a site-specific creative exploration for younger audiences to engage in open-ended inquiry and reflect on the building, its shapes and designs, and its ideas. The series asks participants to respond to both the built and the natural environment, encouraging new ways of thinking. Led by Grace Farms Arts Educator Nancy Jameson, Open Arts Studio provides a new prompt monthly, along with materials and guidance for participants to make their responses.
For ages 4 – 11 with adult caregivers.
TEEN ART WORKSHOPS
AMP’s Teen Art Workshops are open to all skill levels. The suggested donation is $10, but all teens are welcome regardless of ability to pay. Come ready to make art, try new things, and connect with a community of teen creatives.
Game On! with Gerald Moore
Saturday, January 24
10:30am-1:30pm, AMP Program Room
Artist and Educator Gerald Moore leads this interactive workshop featuring his very own creation: THE GAME.
Using 3D acrylic shapes, participants create neighborhoods, cities, characters and storylines. THE GAME engages your creativity as every choice you make when placing the objects impacts the narrative. Working (and playing!) with Gerald, gamers collaborate on universe-building and storytelling in a way where individuals can shine and everybody wins!
Gerald Moore is an artist, educator and entrepreneur. His style is informative and inspiring. He believes deeply in the power of creativity and design principles to have a positive impact on the everyday life of each of us. While admittedly an expert in nothing, he is an explorer of everything. He consistently receives enthusiastic responses from those who have accepted his invitation to play and have experienced his work.
Spend the day creating together at AMP’s Family Day—designed for all ages, from toddlers to teens. With a mix of hands-on art activities, story time, a kid-friendly tour, and a special drop-in studio just for teens, there’s something for everyone in the family.
𝗙𝗿𝗲𝗲 𝗮𝗱𝗺𝗶𝘀𝘀𝗶𝗼𝗻 𝗳𝗼𝗿 𝗳𝗮𝗺𝗶𝗹𝗶𝗲𝘀!
SCHEDULE OF ACTIVITIES
𝟭𝟭𝗮𝗺: 𝗦𝘁𝗼𝗿𝘆 𝗧𝗶𝗺𝗲 & 𝗖𝗿𝗮𝗳𝘁
With AMP’s Michelle Begley, former children’s program leader at Canton Public Library.
𝟭𝟮𝗽𝗺: 𝗘𝘅𝗽𝗹𝗼𝗿𝗲 𝗔𝗠𝗣
Includes scavenger hunts and kid-friendly tours.
𝟭:𝟯𝟬𝗽𝗺: 𝗜𝗻𝘁𝗲𝗿𝗮𝗰𝘁𝗶𝘃𝗲 𝗣𝗿𝗼𝗴𝗿𝗮𝗺: 𝗠𝗲𝘁𝗮𝗹 𝗠𝗮𝗻𝗶𝗮!
Smithing is the art and craft of heating, hammering and bending metal into beautiful and useful items. Modern blacksmiths from Battle Hill Forge will be coming to demonstrate this ancient skill and show the tools of their trade. During this program, participants will get the chance to use a portable forge to learn basic smithing techniques and create their own small metal mushroom to keep!
Family Days now run in tandem with Teen Art Studio! See our website for more details.
AMP’s Family Days are supported by the generosity of The Comis Foundation and Torrington Bank.
Maureen Kelleher, co-founder of the Social Justice Collaboration Quilts Project at Angola Prison, will speak about her work with the incarcerated quilt creators and the process of creating the pieces on view in the exhibition Stitching Time. The talk will be livestreamed here.
About the Exhibition: Stitching Time features 12 quilts created by men who are incarcerated in the Louisiana State Penitentiary, also known as Angola Prison. These works of art, and accompanying recorded interviews, tell the story of a unique inside-outside quilt collaboration. The exhibition focuses our attention on the quilt creators, people often forgotten by society when discussing the history of the U.S. criminal justice system. Also on view in the gallery will be Give Me Life, a selection of works from women artists presently or formerly incarcerated at York Correctional Institution, a maximum security state prison in Niantic, CT, courtesy of Community Partners in Action (CPA). The CPA’s Prison Arts program was initiated in 1978 and is one of the longest-running projects of its kind in the United States. Founded in 1875, CPA is celebrating 150 years of working within the criminal justice system. For more information on the exhibition, click here.
* This event is a part of Fairfield University Explores 250 Years of the American Experiment: The Promise and Paradox *
Image: Kenya Baleech Alkebu (quilt design); Maureen Kelleher (quilting), Red, White and Baldwin, 2016, mixed cotton blends and acrylic paint. Lent by Maureen Kelleher, © Maureen Kelleher
Saturday, November 1, 2025 | 2 to 4:30 pm
$95 Members; $65 Youth Under Age 16; $105 General Admission
Join artist Nickola Pottinger for a lively, hands-on workshop that offers participants both a hands-on introduction to paper pulp sculpting and a deeper engagement with narrative-making using personal and/or familial materials. Drawing from the techniques and approaches she uses in her own practice, and highlighted in her current exhibition fos born at The Aldrich, Nickola will guide participants in crafting their own one-of-a-kind three-dimensional paper pulp objects and sculptures. Whether you come with family, friends, or on your own, you will create a work that’s uniquely yours.
The workshop will begin with an introduction to Nickola’s practice, in which she merges traditional papermaking with found objects, weaving personal and cultural narratives into layered, tactile forms. Her work often transforms everyday and salvaged materials into objects rich with memory and meaning—inviting us to reconsider what we keep, discard, and reimagine.
Participants will then have the opportunity to create their own original paper pulp sculpture (approximately 10 x 10 x 10 inches or smaller) using all materials provided. To make the work personal, attendees are encouraged to bring a small item from home to serve as a structural support or adornment for their piece. This could be anything from a figurine, photo frame, drawing, or piece of cardboard, to an organic material, document, or other found object—provided it fits within the finished sculpture’s scale.
Because the paper works require drying time, participants will return to the Museum later in the week to pick up their completed sculpture.
Additional Details:
All materials and aprons will be provided; please dress for a wet and hands-on art-making process.
Participants are invited to join an optional guided tour of fos born led by a Museum Educator from 1:30 to 2 pm before the workshop begins.
Open to all ages; families with children are invited to register.
Tuesdays, November 4, 11, and 18 | 5:30 to 6:30pm
Individual Class: $49 Member; $55 | Full Three Class Series: $108 Member; $120 | Limited seats available
“Getting” Contemporary Art is an interactive class series designed to connect today’s exhibitions with the deeper currents of art history. Each session explores the art historical and cultural contexts of artists currently on view at The Aldrich, blending storytelling, close looking, and discussion to help participants uncover new ways of seeing contemporary art. No prior experience with art history is required, only curiosity and a willingness to dive in.
“Getting” Contemporary Art is led by Kristen Erickson, art history teacher and Director of the Luchsinger Gallery at Greenwich Academy.
Attend all three classes or a single class!
Classes
Tuesday, November 4 – Nickola Pottinger: Jamaica, Memory, and Folklore
This class delves into the history and folklore of Jamaica to better understand Nickola Pottinger’s shape-shifting sculptures. Through a gallery walk, participants will examine the mix of spiritual and personal symbols in her works, which include casts of her own body and family heirlooms. Group discussion will encourage participants to uncover the layers of meaning carried by these spectral figures, which merge ancestral traditions with contemporary stories.
Tuesday, November 11 – Zak Prekop: Music in Abstraction
Have you heard of Song Exploder, the podcast where musicians take apart their songs piece by piece? In this class, participants will “explode” the vibrant abstract paintings of Zak Prekop. The session will focus on how he creates a sense of movement and stillness through color relationships, while also considering art historical precedents such as the “action painting” of the 1950s. Participants will further explore Prekop’s musical influences and how rhythm and harmony appear in his painting practice.
Tuesday, November 18 – Uman: Textiles, Calligraphy, and Transformation
Uman’s kaleidoscopic paintings reflect the story of her extraordinary life. She grew up in Somalia and Kenya, spent her teen years in Denmark, and traveled to Vienna and Paris before moving to New York where her artistic vision blossomed. This class will introduce participants to the art histories that shaped her, including East African textiles, Arabic calligraphy, and the work of Gustav Klimt and Sam Gilliam. During a gallery walk, participants will consider how Uman captures her memories, dreams, and personal transformation in visionary paintings that celebrate survival and creativity.
Instructor Bio
Kristen Erickson has been teaching art history and curating exhibitions for the past three decades. She spent eight years working in the curatorial field at the Ashmolean Museum in Oxford, the Smith College Museum of Art, and the Museum of Modern Art before turning to teaching. Kristen currently teaches art history at Greenwich Academy, where she also runs the campus art gallery. She holds degrees in French and art history from Vassar College and Oxford University. A resident of Ridgefield, Kristen loves making contemporary art come alive for new audiences.
Thursday, December 11, 2025 | 6 to 7 pm
Free: Members; $10 General Admission; $5 Seniors/Students
Join Diana Bowes Chief Curator Amy Smith-Stewart for an exclusive after-hours tour of Uman: After all the things…. The exhibition includes new and recent paintings, a mural, and sculpture. New York Magazine recently hailed the artist’s work as “a reminder of what painting can still do.”
Members, please join us at 5:30 pm for refreshments with Amy Smith-Stewart prior to the tour. To become a member, email hhart@thealdrich.org or join online here.
Join Curator of Education Michelle DiMarzo for an informal discussion of this work from the exhibition Monuments: Commemoration and Controversy: Stafford Mantle Northcote, Tong Yin Yee Shung Gun, Chinese Laundry, 1899, oil on canvas. The New York Historical, Gift of George A. Zabriskie, 1946.255
About the Exhibition: Monuments: Commemoration and Controversy (organized by The New York Historical) explores monuments and their representations in public spaces as flashpoints of fierce debate over national identity, politics, and race that have raged for centuries. Offering a historical foundation for understanding today’s controversies, the exhibition features fragments of a statue of King George III torn down by American Revolutionaries, a souvenir replica of a bulldozed monument by Harlem Renaissance sculptor Augusta Savage, and a maquette of New York City’s first public monument to a Black woman, Harriet Tubman, among other objects from The New York Historical’s collection. The exhibition reveals how monument-making and monument-breaking have long shaped American life as public statues have been celebrated, attacked, protested, altered, and removed.