Community Corner
About Town: Weekend Events In and Around Rye
Top ten community-wide events hereabouts, from the arts to flower power, bees to history, SPRYE to a "Nashional Treasure" and more
Rye becomes a moveable feast of events this weekend that are as colorful as the changing leaves and as wonderfully diverse as the vibrant community fleshing itself out in ten mind/body/spirit-oriented activities.
Events range from the Little Garden Club of Rye’s “Namaste” floral display and the Community Celebration of “People, Planet, Community” at Wainwright House to the Jay Day fall annual festival at the Jay Heritage Center.
Other highlights vary from a celebration of Rye’s “Nashional Treasure” at the Rye Arts Center to a library weekend that includes The Fuzzy Lemons in a concert on the Village Green and a literary discussion with Rye author Lucia Ewing Greenhouse
Find out what's happening in Ryewith free, real-time updates from Patch.
Friday
The Little Garden Club of Rye has turned Wainwright House into a veritable Botanical Garden/Floral Art Museum –and then some –with a free Garden Club of America show called “Namaste” that winds down today at 2 p.m.
Find out what's happening in Ryewith free, real-time updates from Patch.
“Namaste” is a Sanskrit term that basically means “The divine in me sees the divine in you.” And the LGCR basically provides a glimpse of that divine with flower show arrangements of almost sculptural artistic beauty with judges rating entries divided into flower arrangement categories with names like Lotus, Nirvana and Dharma to Karma to horticulture classes of cut specimens called ”Striking a Pose.”
That means entries were named after various Sanskrit terms and Yoga poses, from Cobra (Bhujangasana) to Shoulder Stand (Sarvangasana), and from Sun Salutation (Surya Namaskara) to Warrior (Virabhabdrasana).
To see what all that translates into in juried floral poses, you can hopefully still check out the show which also includes photography, conservation and education exhibits, lectures and more.
The show deserves bouquets of verbal praise because it is the latest example of how the LGCR –founded in 1931-- lives up to its mission “to restore, improve and protect the quality of the environment through educational programs and action in the fields of conservation and civic improvement.”
Namaste indeed.
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Michael Penziner, nature enthusiast and volunteer at the Rye Nature Center and New York Botanical Gardens, will lead an informative free tree walk at The Osborn Arboretum at 10 a.m. The Arboretum is home to over 100 different species, some 1,000 trees in all, on the campus of the Osborn Retirement Community, 101 Theall Rd.
Saturday
The Auxiliary Board of the Rye Free Reading Room presents a free family concert on the Village Green featuring The Fuzzy Lemons, a family friendly rock band that will play dance and sing-a-long music from 2 to 4 p.m.
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Beekeeper Ray DuBois will discuss the importance of honey bees to the environment during a 2 p.m. talk in the historic Knapp House garden. Visitors will have a chance to learn how honey is harvested and also taste how sweet it is to savor the product resulting from all that honey buzz.
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Walter Sedovic, chief architect for a local restoration project, will give an update on the work done to date and a preview of future plans during a fund-raising cocktail party for the Meeting House and the Bird Homestead from 6-8 p.m. Guests will be encouraged to tour the grounds. Information: birdhomestead-meetinghouse.org.
Sunday
Wainwright House’s Community Celebration of People, Planet, Community –formerly the Community Arts Fair -- will take place rain or shine from noon to 5 p.m. with an all star cast of area healing arts practitioners and featured speakers ranging from Bear Walker to Mystic Birinder. Kid-oriented activities vary from Dream Catchers to a Spirit Club to learning about pollution on a plastic beach.
Healing arts programs include Angel Card Readings, Reiki, Jin shin Do Self-Acupressure, Spiritual Energy Attunement, and Moving Your Own Energy.
Information: 967-6080; www.wainwright.org.
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Jay Day, the Jay Heritage Center Center’s annual fall festival, offers all kinds of family fun from 1-5 p.m. Activities vary, from a petting zoo of rare breeds of American Heritage animals from the Tilly Foster Farm Museum to docents dressed in period costumes leading tours of the Jay home.
Other activities range from the Cracked Walnuts singing duo performing Civil War-era folk music to professional face painters and balloon twisters doing their thing. Kids can also build their own Greek revival building in a mini-architectural exercise in the Carriage House.
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SPRYE –the acronym for Staying Put in Rye & Environs, Rye’s aging-in-place-organization—will hold its free kick off celebration from 3-5 p.m. at the Rye Locust Avenue Firehouse. Event will be a combination fund-raiser/volunteer recruitment and informational session. Refreshments will be served. Information: 481-5706; www.sprye.org.
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The Rye Arts Center will stage “Ogden Nash—A Celebration” at 3 p.m. in an event honoring the witty poet called “Rye’s Nashional Treasure” who was born and raised here.
Actors Frances Sternhagen and John Cunningham will read from Nash’s works. Rye songbird Daniele Hager will put his words into song with a talent that comes from working her way through college as the former singing bartender at Town Dock who graduated into becoming a RAC vocal instructor and will soon be off for Bogota, Colombia, to sing in an opera company there. There will also be art, a little local history, and an interview with some special guests.
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CBS correspondent Anthony Mason will interview his literary Rye neighbor, Lucia Ewing Greenhouse, author of “Fathermothergod: My Journey Out of Christian Science,” at 4 p.m. at the library.
