For over 40 years, the first full weekend in Sandwich has been a celebration of craftsmanship. This year is no exception. Over 40 artisans, farmers, bakers, craftspeople, individuals, businesses, and organizations are each doing something in the spirit of community and the holidays. December 6, 7 and 8 will feature a tree-lighting, live entertainment, food, local hand-made gifts, gift wrapping, fund-raisers for youth, live animals, and so much more. Combined efforts will mean a weekend of fun and festivities for all who come to enjoy.

New artisans this year are two enterprising teens who will be selling their handmade items at the Benz Center on Saturday, Dec 7 from 9 am to 4 pm. Laura Cove and Hazel Dassori-Kaye have been mentored for the past year by Wendy Shambaugh, a Sandwich Business Group member with two local businesses, Wayside Farm and The Dessert Table. Wendy has been teaching the girls how to sew and also how to sell their products.

Wendy says, “Laura’s & Hazel’s moms were looking for someone to teach them sewing a year or so ago, as they both had starter sewing machines at that time. I love working with young people, encouraging them to be creative and experiment with different mediums, so it was a good fit. I worked with them making pillows, ornaments, and clothes for themselves and for dolls, teaching them as we went about proper techniques to end up with a quality product.
 
They both are very creative and extremely fast learners. Laura loves to design clothes for herself. Hazel started making different styles of bags she developed, with ideas from Marcy Greene of Greene Studios. I suggested that they join the Christmas fair and they were very eager. We have worked on how to set up a budget for materials, setting pricing, advertising their work, displaying their work on a table, interacting with customers, and totaling and make change for orders.”

Make sure to check out Laura and Hazel’s table when you visit the Benz Center this Saturday.

Christmas in the Village is a great chance to BUY LOCAL. It’s a great chance to BE LOCAL! There have always been good reasons to buy from your friends and neighbors instead of big box stores selling goods made in China.

Supporting our local communities, supporting local sustainable economic systems, is a win-win. We all win. We keep our money in local circulation, we help to increase the vibrancy of the town we live in, and we help to make the world a better place with less waste and more caring.

Christmas in the Village maps and events listings will be available around town and information (and photos) can be found on Facebook at Christmas in the Village–Sandwich, NH and on this website.

Sandwich author, Lisa Gruenberg , will be at Patricia Ladd Carega Gallery on October 5th to sign and read excerpts from her new book, My City of Dreams. Join us for a reception to meet the author at 4 p.m.  In her book Lisa Gruenberg not only records her own life but also that of her father who survived the Holocaust in Vienna and slowly made his way to the United States via the UK and Canada.   Gruenberg’s story includes the tales of relatives lost to “darkness, terror and murder.” Her adventure begins and ends in Center Sandwich.   Gruenberg’s journey combines exploration with imagination as she attempts to relive her father’s Holocaust experience and through him the stories of her many relatives.

 Joseph S. Nye, Jr. University Distinguished Service Professor Emeritus at Harvard Kennedy School and author of Do Morals Matter?  Presidents and Foreign Policy from FDR to Trump, writes “ This beautifully written book takes you from America to Vienna and back as it explores the meaning of the Holocaust, memory, mortality and life.  

The book will be available at Patricia Ladd Carega Gallery through Columbus Day, October 14.  Gallery hours are from 10 to 5 Tuesday through Saturday and 12 to 5 Sunday and Monday.  For more information please call 603 284 7728 or visit our website at www.patricialaddcarega.com.

Tappan Chairs are a New Hampshire ladder-back design first crafted in Sandwich, NH in the early 1800’s, and they continue to be crafted in Sandwich to this day, over seven generations of makers, using a medley of modern and historic machinery dating as far back as the 1850’s.

Adam Nudd-Homeyer is the current owner, making him the seventh generation in Tappan Chairs’ line of craftsperson-stewards. It is under Adam’s tenure that Tappan Chairs now celebrate their 200th anniversary--a celebration which had an early start in 2018, with Tappan Chairs’ move into the former, historic, and long vacant Sandwich General Store building, turning it into an open workshop, showroom, and history exhibit, and marking the first time in the business’ long history that it has had its own free-standing building.

Adam Nudd-Homeyer writes:

We welcome you to stop by and visit our shop on August 3 (Saturday), from 10 am - 1 pm as we formally celebrate our bicentennial in Sandwich! We'll have some cake and light refreshments to share, and one or more state "dignitaries" will also be present! We will also be making some exciting announcements...

1. Firstly, we'll be unveiling the first of a "200th year only" style of commemorate rocker (of course!)...

2. We'll be revealing the details on our acquisition of TWO national furniture brands--something that we have been working on for nearly a year, and which is finally happening now(!)--and which we expect to bring a half dozen or more skilled jobs to Sandwich over the next year or so...

3. Finally, we will be announcing our transition in the coming months from an LLC to a benefit corporation, with its core purpose being the support of non-profits which benefit Sandwich and its greater community!

So please save the date and stop on by! If you've never been in our new shop at the old Sandwich General Store (Skinner St./Upper Main St. in Center Sandwich), or haven't been in for awhile, we've added a number of new things to see and learn about for both the business as well as the two historic buildings that we now occupy. And of course, we'll be on hand to give the full scoop on all of these exciting developments...

Please join us—we hope to see you there!
Adam
(603) 726-6550, www.tappanchairs.com

Friends of the Samuel Wentworth Library are pleased to present local author Mj Pettengill, discussing her recent book, The Angels' Lament, in the Community Room of the library in Center Sandwich on Tuesday, July 23, at 4:00 pm. This event, free and open to the public, also features light refreshments. Autographed books will be available for purchase.

The Angels' Lament is Book Two in the Etched in Granite Historical Fiction Series.
For the Hodgdon women, 1872 is a year of reckoning. Alone and determined, 17-year-old Sarah Hodgdon boards a train, trading farm life in New Hampshire for the textile mills of Fall River. Woefully disillusioned, she finds herself trapped in a brutal factory and living in a filthy tenement.

She is tormented when she learns the fate of her family.  Returning home is no longer possible. About to drown in a sea of spindles, she meets lamplighter, August Wood, who illuminates the gap between the affluent and the undesirables that dwell in the murky shadows.

Stripped down to her bare instincts, she retreats into a secret world, that if revealed, would shatter all that remains. Everything collides when Bess, the captivating woman across town, emerges, navigating the dense world of the local elite, offering a glimpse into an era when women were beginning to take the stage. Survival, a resilient thread of music, interweaves their compelling stories, binding them together, unveiling grievous misdeeds from the past.

Mj Pettengill is an author and social historian with a focus on cultural narrative and traditions, collective and intergenerational trauma integration, ancestral healing, and social welfare development.

She is a cellist and has a background in Civil War Musicology and trumpet performance. Before transitioning to the world of writing, she performed as a soloist and with various musical organizations featured in numerous Living Histories, Reenactments, and Historical Events throughout the Northeast.

Mj works and creates in her woodland studio and lives on a farm in North Sandwich, New Hampshire. In addition to writing and music, she is a wildcraft herbalist, aligned with her passion for nature and the ancient healing traditions, customs, and folklore of her ancestors.

Jenn Elliot writes: Please join the Sandwich Friends and Fiber Group, this Saturday June 8, 11am - 1pm, as they join thousands of other knitters around the world all gathered to knit in public. The group will be outside the Sandwich Home Industries, on the grass or under the the porch is case of rain at 32 Main Street, on the Green Center Sandwich, NH.

Bring your knitting, finished items for show and tell, and lawn chair. Crocheters, spinners and fiber artists of all kinds are welcome to join in. Or just stop by to meet and greet us and see our knitting. Bring your own snacks or swing by the Village Cafe for coffee and a pastry or sandwich.  Many thanks to Martha Nichols, manager of SHI for graciously hosting us. 

WKIPDAY is unique in that it’s the largest knitter-run event in the world.  Each local event is put together by a volunteer or a group of volunteers.  For more on World Wide Knit in Public Day, see http://www.wwkipday.com/

"Better living through stitching together"

Why was Pablo Picasso so inspired by printmaking that he bought his own etching press? Many other artists, including Rembrandt, Matisse, and Winslow Homer, have used printmaking to express their artistic visions. Learn the characteristics of hand-pulled prints and why they have captured the interest of so many famous artists. On March 24th, Peggy Merritt, a Sandwich printmaker, will talk about her craft at the Benz Center in Sandwich.  

Peggy will describe various printmaking techniques, including etching and lithography, using images from well-known artists and from her own work. The audience will have an opportunity to examine these prints closely, as well the plates and tools used to produce them. She will also talk about current practices and modern materials that reduce hazards in the printmakers’ studio and increase the breadth of artistic expression.

“I love to express my imagination in hands-on work,” says Peggy. “The technical details of printmaking also appeal to my background as a chemist.”  She hopes that her talk will remove some of the mysteries about her chosen medium.

The printmaking talk takes place on Sunday afternoon, March 24th, at 4 o’clock at the Benz Center on Heard Road in Center Sandwich. It is part of a series of free Sunday afternoon seminars offered this winter and spring by the Sandwich Home Industries. The final talk in this series is scheduled for April 14 when Rebecca Goodale will talk about art books, including her “Illuminated Autobiography.”

What could a fourth century Italian pavement possibly have in common with the New York City subway? Mosaics! Mosaics are everywhere! Explore the past and present of this glittering art with Cindy Stanton, who has studied and practiced mosaic art for many years. Cindy, who lives in Moultonborough, will show how mosaics have evolved, and how they have decorated spectacular churches, elegant homes, and today even subway walls. Some mosaics are used to tell stories. Cindy will demonstrate common mosaic methods, tools, and materials, and show where mosaic collections can be found in New England and elsewhere. After the presentation, participants will be invited to handle some of the materials.

“I’m planning a hands-on mosaic workshop for later this year,” says Cindy. “Participants will work with a variety of materials and create their own 4 inch by 4 inch mosaic.”

The mosaics talk takes place on Sunday afternoon, March 3rd, at 4 o’clock at the Benz Center on Heard Road in Center Sandwich. It is part of a series of free Sunday afternoon seminars offered this winter and spring by the Sandwich Home Industries. On March 24th Peggy Merritt will discuss the art of printmaking, and on April 14 Rebecca Goodale will talk about art books, including her “illuminated autobiography.”

In September Kathryn Field was an Artist-in-Residence at the Sandwich Central School for two weeks. Each grade got to experience drawing and printmaking every day for a week. The students did a fabulous job learning to transfer their drawings onto foam plates, inking them up and finishing with a 3-color print.

Each student produced 3 final prints. The works were then displayed at the Sandwich Fair and are on permanent display at SCS.

The opportunity to offer an artist-in-residence program at the Sandwich Central School came about through the efforts of the Association for School and Community—the new PTO. The funding to bring this program to every student was provided by the Yeoman’s Fund for the Arts.

Kathryn teaches adult and children's art classes in her Sandwich studio. Her students range in age from 6 – 96  and  from beginners to advanced painters. You can find a listing of upcoming classes for April and the summer at her website FieldFineArt.org.

One highlight (among many) at Sandwich's annual Winter Carnival, is the transformation of a block of ice into a beautiful, cold, short-lived sculpture by Brian Stockman. This year he made a  fox to represent Sandwich Central School's mascot.

  With the beginning of 2019, Adam is announcing a number of celebratory activities for this important year, the first one being the most significant. In celebration of the generations of townspeople who have supported and nurtured the business, making it what it is today, Tappan Chairs is donating 10% of all retail chair sales this year to be divided among the Sandwich Historical Society, Sandwich Home Industries, and Sandwich Children’s Center, thereby celebrating the stewards of the “History, Heritage, and Future” of Tappan Chairs in town.

Adam also intends to use this occasion to challenge other businesses in the community to match Tappan Chairs’ contributions this year, so that together they can contribute to as many important cultural and social nonprofits and charities which serve the town and its population as possible.

As the year progresses, many more events lie in store. Tappan Chairs is currently seeking a formal celebratory proclamation from the Governor of NH, and has invited him to attend the official “Tappan Chairs Birthday Celebration” on August 3 in Sandwich, kicking off Sandwich’s renowned Old Home Week.

Also in store is the publication of a “Spotter’s Guide to Tappan Chairs,” the expansion of the museum exhibit to feature biographies and photos from the many generations of Tappan Chair makers and their helpers, as well as historic chair examples and patterns from the different periods of their manufacture. Finally, Tappan Chairs looks to release an all-new chair design to symbolize and and celebrate its many generations of makers.

We at Tappan Chairs not only invite you to join us in this special year, but encourage you to help us share this special story of what we have become, which deepens with every year!

For further inquiry and information, please contact:
Adam Nudd-Homeyer, owner-steward and craftsperson
Tappan Chairs, LLC
adam@tappanchairs.com
603-726-6550