art

For over two decades, The Connecticut Art Trail has been a fun way for people to explore the state’s many and varied museums. The Arts Trail started as the Connecticut Impressionist Trail, but has expanded over the years to include a wider range of museums.

A series of pictures depicting the Ten Commandments is on display at Yale Divinity School. The works were drawn by Bruce Gillespie, a celebrated artist with Down syndrome.

For  Gillespie, making art is practically a necessity. For most of his life -- he's in his 60's now -- any spare moment has been spent with his trusty felt-tip markers and sketch pad.

Retired special education teacher Sam Goldenberg has mentored Gillespie for years. He first met the artist when Gillespie was in his early twenties.

A traveling art exhibit, created by a group of women incarcerated at Connecticut’s York Correctional Institution, is now on view at the Charter Oak Cultural Center in Hartford. 

What’s it like to build a house, a family, a life…and then have a war take it all away?  

This hour we sit down with West Hartford, Connecticut residents Adeebah Alnemar and her son, Naji Aldabaan. They’re Syrian refugees who fled during the civil war, and came to Connecticut in 2016.

Their family is the subject of a 2018 Pulitzer Prize-winning cartoon series in the New York Times. We also talk with one of the people behind the cartoon series—New Haven-based journalist Jake Halpern.

Mimes have been gesticulating their way into our hearts (or nightmares) for a lot longer than you may think. While it may have been the legendary Marcel Marceau who popularized the mime, people have been communicating through movement since the very beginning.

Humans are great at making a mess of things. So far, however, that mess has been confined to Earth. But as we develop into a spacefaring species, our capacity for destruction, pollution, and prejudice (towards aliens of earthly and unearthly origins) threatens to have cosmic consequences.

Today's show might get a bit dicey. In fact,  it's almost certainly headed for Trouble. And all we can say is Sorry, that's Life! Okay, fine, let's drop the Charades. Today's show is about board games. Is that a big enough Clue?

Elle. Marie Claire. Cosmopolitan. For generations, magazines such as these have informed the world's women, serving as fashion manuals, as well as vestibules between the conventional and taboo.

This hour, we look back on the history of these publications, and talk about the challenges faced by many women's magazines today. 

Semiotics is the study of sign process, which is to say: it's the science of the search for meaning.

And then, part of the underlying premise of semiotics -- which just happens to be part of the underlying premise of The Colin McEnroe Show, itself -- is that there's meaning... everywhere.

Our relationship with our toothbrush is complicated. Most of us don't brush our teeth well enough. We don't brush long enough, or we brush too hard, or we keep our toothbrushes so long that tests would show it to be about as clean as our toilets.

Salvador Dali and Max Ernst are among the Surrealist artists whose works are on view in Monsters & Myths, an exhibit at the Wadsworth Atheneum in Hartford. This hour, we go behind the scenes and take an in-depth look at Connecticut's place within the Surrealist movement. 

Tuesday’s severe weather dumped several inches of rain on New Britain. A local art exhibit came very close to being destroyed due to flooding.

Nekita Waller was recently named Connecticut's 17th State Troubadour. This hour, she joins us in our studios. We talk about her background as a performer and learn about the influence she hopes to have over the state’s arts and culture scene.

One morning last June, a giant sculpture of a heroin spoon was dropped on the campus of Purdue Pharma in Stamford. It was a piece of protest art meant to hold the pharmaceutical company responsible for its role in the opioid epidemic.

Color doesn't exist on its own.

A red rose will look different to me than it does to you. It will also look different to a pigeon, who can see way more shades and tints than most humans can see. Remember the 2015 debate over the dress? Gold & white,  blue & black or yes, some saw brown & light purple. 

A new exhibit at the New Britain Museum of American Art celebrates the history of the Farmington arts scene, a little known but influential chapter in American art.

Semiotics is the study of sign process, which is to say: it's the science of the search for meaning.

And then, part of the underlying premise of semiotics -- which just happens to be part of the underlying premise of The Colin McEnroe Show, itself -- is that there's meaning... everywhere.