Last week saw a short foray into Connecticut. This included a day at Hammonasset Beach State Park, a dip in the sea (Long Island Sound), and a visit to the Florence Griswold Museum in Old Lyme.
The weather cooperated, the days were sunny and the rain confined itself to overnight and early morning. The beach made for a lovely walk and the water still warm enough to be refreshing rather than bone-chilling.
Egrets waded in the wetlands and plovers pecked and scurried along the waterline.
Florence Griswold Museum
The Florence Griswold Museum was a delight – the art, the gardens and grounds, the stroll along the Lieutenant River, and the lunch on the veranda.
In the early 20th century Miss Griswold’s House was the home of an art colony and aspects of her boardinghouse for artists have been carefully and lovingly restored. Here is the downstairs and grandest of the bedroom studios. (I couldn’t see what record was on the gramophone.)
The house attracted many significant artists of the day – leading lights in the Tonalist and Impressionist movements – and the house has many interesting examples of their work. The museum website has a good online gallery of the work.
I particularly loved the painted doors and woodframes.
These are by Willard Leroy Metcalf (1858-1925): beach and Headlands, Birch trees beside a Lake. and Floral Still Life.
Over the years, over 200 artists spent time at the colony and many of them painted local scenes of country life including the garden and grounds and agricultural life. Here is the Lieutenant River on the day we visited. Below is the same scene as painted in winter by Everett Warner.
We were helped on our visit to the house by two well-informed docents who made a point to identify just how much we knew (and didn’t know) before launching into their introduction. Nothing to do with the art, but it so happens that Miss Griswold was very fond of cats and there were times when the cats and kittens well outnumbered the guests.
The Fox Chase is a frieze-like panel above the fireplace in the dining room. It’s almost nine feet long and shows members of the art colony on a mock fox hunt through the village.
Childe Hassam appears shirtless (shocking!) standing at his easel as the hunt rushes by.
And here’s one of the cats joining in.
One of the docents told the story of the house makeover that the guests did as a surprise for Miss Griswold when she was away on a trip. Apparently, they not only managed to refurbish the house but also remove many of the cats. No details of how Miss Griswold reacted. The website reports this as follows;
The artists tolerated them (the many cats)only to a point, controlling them with squirts of ice-cold water.
Part of the renovations of 1910 orchestrated by the artists secretly included reducing the cat population, or as Heming writes: “There’ll be a lot less [cats] when Miss Florence comes home.” The artists did allow two of Miss Florence’s favorite cats to remain, Toto and Padjkins, and placed a brass cat door knocker on her bedroom door in memory of all the others.
The Wiggle Game
In the same playful spirit as the surrealists who played Exquisite Corpse, artists gathered in the parlor in the evenings and played the wiggle game. The rules were simple: One artist drew squiggly lines, or “wiggles”, for another artist to connect into a finished drawing. Wot larks!
Here on the parlor table are examples from the museum’s collection:
One of the results is a cartoon they managed to make of me on the beach!
All in all – a great couple of days!
That made me instantly wish I could see it all myself.
Gwen.
Thanks Gwen.
And if you had you would have undoubtedly written a wonderful poem!
Interesting article
Beautiful beach! Makes me realise that I need to get out into nature more – it’s so restorative. My sister is a cat rescuer and re-homer, so she always has anywhere between ten and twenty cats and kittens at her place. She would have been quite at home at Miss Griswold’s place, and any ‘reducing’ of the cat population would have been done by re-homing. I don’t like to think how those (well-meaning?) artists would have done it back then,
Sounds like your sister does the work of the goddesses!
And agree on getting out into “nature”. It does restore and refresh. Even a walk around the block works!
Sounds like a lovely trip, and that beach is gorgeous!!
It really is a great beach. Long stretch of gritty sand and then a nature reserve at the end and rocky coves. And, because it’s not ocean, very swimmable for those not up for the rollers.
Sounds like the Sound was just the change, escape, needed..
. I like the idea of a retreat…i want to be in one…and to decorating the house with personal painting of the joinery. But I can imagine that if done without consent it may create a less relaxed atmosphere. I like the squiggles..can I have one…but I remain very concerned about the cats.Dare I be corney and say catastrophic.
It’s possible to create a cabinet, a closet, a cupboard, a corner, a colony of curiosities anywhere. And indeed, I know you have.
As for the cats – well – enough said. Think of the fleas and ticks!
👋👋 👻. My Geography teacher hello Jackie
Hi Katerina – I’ll make sure Jackie sees your comment.
And hope all is well with you.
Hi ya, pleased to hear i was remembered….in a good way.
Coo, what larks! I too would baulk at the highhanded treatment of the feline colony, but the artful additions to the decor remind me a bit of Vanessa Bell’s artists colony at Charleston, East Sussex.
That’s another on my “Need to visit” list.
Cheers Chris.
Oh that is my sort of place, especially with the cats. I would have been horrified (of course) to come back from a trip and find the place changed and my cats gone!!! I love old homes like that one, full of interesting things. Have you ever been to Sagamore Hill, Teddy Roosevelt’s place on Long Island. It’s eons since I was there but I found it interesting.
I like the art too.
Yes on the cats. Although I can also imagine the fleas and the constant kittens. but removing the cats without permission! Outragoeus! She should have slung them all out on their ear and given their possessions to the underserving poor of the village. Apparently, one of the kittens ended up in the White House, taken on by Woodrow Wilson’s eldest daughter Margaret who named it Mittens.
Have not been to Sagamore Hill. It does look interesting although he is not one of my favorite presidents. He strikes me as more of a dog person (nowt wrong with dogs of course) although I understand there are cats in the designated pet cemetery.
And then…Long Island traffic and the LIE!
God yes. It was bad enough driving there in the 90’s. I left in 2000 and have not been back except in transit through JFK at crack of dawn. It was quite exciting enough. Roosevelt was a hunter, of course so there are “trophies”. I always sent them belated “I’m sorry” vibes though their spirits have no doubt been re-cycled a few hundred times.
This wide open sky, you want to fly into it!
Yes, indeed. And such a perfect blue!
Those painted doors and the Wiggles are wonderful, especially your beach ‘portrait’!
Thanks. The bathing costume is a little old-fashioned. But then, so am I.
The house had many very appealing art and artifacts—all very satisfactory.
Absolutely delightful. What a beautiful place and stunning pictures. Rather high handed doing away with the cats though, I thought.
Bloody outrageous in my opinion. She should have turfed them out on the spot, tossed their belongings on the rubbish heap, sold any of the paintings that would sell, and used the money to support a cat colony.
Fortunately, (perhaps), some people are more moderate than I am.