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.
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.
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 *
Join us on Saturday, November 15, 2025 in the Bellarmine Hall, Museum Classroom for a Family Day inspired by the artwork on view in our exhibition Stitching Time: The Social Justice Collaboration Quilts Project and Give Me Life: CPA Prison Arts Project. Learn more about the exhibition here! The first session will begin promptly at 12:30 p.m. and the second at 2:30 p.m.
During this Family Day event, kids ages 4-10 will explore different ways of using fabric: creating a self-portrait and creating a four-aquare mini-quilt with a personal narrative!
Please note: participants can only sign up for one session. If you cannot attend Family Day, we request that you cancel your reservation either through Eventbrite or by emailing museum@fairfield.edu. Frequent no-shows will result in the inability to register for additional Family Day programs. Thank you!
Join Curator of Education Michelle DiMarzo for an informal discussion of this artwork, one of the first objects to enter the Museum’s collection: Paolo Fiammingo, Adoration of the Shepherds, ca. 1577-1582, oil on canvas. Gift of the Samuel H. Kress Foundation via The Discovery Museum, Bridgeport, CT (2009.01.07). We’ll talk about some recent discoveries that have shed more light on the painting’s original appearance!
MASTERCLASS LECTURE – “EVERYTHING TREMBLES: ART AND COMPLEXITY”
Presented by Power Boothe
Free event
Kicking off a new series pairing guest lectures and instructed workshops, Power Boothe will speak on art in a complex world and the viewers’ capacity to bring art to life.
Participants will learn to develop an image as the basis for a three-color plus black print. The workshop will cover image preparation, block carving, ink mixing, and printing on the Vandercook Press
This two-part workshop is an intensive, hands-on introduction to floor loom weaving, covering the full process from winding a warp to weaving and finishing cloth. In the first session, students will measure and wind two-color warps and dress their looms in preparation to weave. On the second day, students will focus on weaving their project, explore finishing techniques and take their projects home.