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Gallery on the Green, which has been closed for about three weeks for maintenance, reopens at 1 p.m. Friday, Aug. 27, with “Reuse and Recycle: Thinking Green.”
The upstairs gallery will be featuring the work of sisters Suzan Fox and Donna Morency, and sculptor Betty Gerich’s work will be shown in the spotlight gallery.
An opening reception party is scheduled for 6 to 9 p.m. on Saturday, Aug. 28. It’s free, and the public is invited.
All three shows will run through Sunday, Sept. 26. Gallery on the Green is open Friday through Sunday from 1 to 5 p.m.
– dotCANTON
 "Opening Day" (Canton) / Jim Laurino When Burlington artist Jim Laurino’s “All Seasons: The New England Landscape” opens at the Canton Public Library on Tuesday, Aug. 31, his paintings will be only part of the show. The frames he has around them will be worth a look, too.
All of the paintings on display, about 30 of them, will be framed in “scrap materials” Laurino has gathered, including broken down “cabinets, roofing material, TV stands, anything I can get a straight edge out of … crating material. It’s kind of fun to work with, and people seem to dig it.”
 Photo: dotCANTON Plus, Laurino says, this kind of framing works well with what he does. “The frames are rough and course,” he says, “and my painting style is a little coarse.
“It’s a great way to reuse materials that would otherwise end up in landfills.”
Laurino, who works with both acrylics and oil, studied painting and color theory at UConn. He describes his work as “representational and impressionistic,” and likes to provide “multiple, subtle focal points” to stimulate the viewer.
Many of the scene in this show come from the Farmington Valley. “Opening Day,” above, “Potters Marsh” and “Joannes Pasture” in the gallery below were inspired by settings in Canton, Laurino says.
An associate artist member of the Lyme Art Association, Laurino is also a member of the West Hartford Art League. His show at the library runs through October.
For a larger view of the images below, click on any of the eight and use the arrow left or arrow right button at the bottom of the larger image that pops up. To return to this page, click on the full image you are viewing.
– dotCANTON
The following “Solicitor Alert” has been issued in town:
“The Canton Police Department is urging residents to check with the sponsor organizations or groups before making any contribution as a result of a solicitation.
“The Canton Police Department received information of solicitors requesting money for Town affiliated organizations or groups and those solicitors appear to be fraudulent.
“If you have any questions please call the Canton Police Department at (860) 693-0221.”
 Jackie Kunkel stands beside her long arm quilting machine and shows off the pattern she designed that is being published in Quick Quilts magazine. Photo: dotCANTON By Steve Wilder dotCANTON.com
It all started innocently enough about 17 years ago, when Jackie Kunkel was pregnant with her first child and getting ready to leave her job as a vocational rehabilitation specialist to become a stay-at-home mom.
Her well-intentioned husband, Rod, thought that “maybe I ought to get a hobby, that I might get a little bored,” she recalls with a smile.
Jackie took him up on the idea and attended a quilting class. She didn’t like it much, but went to another and became smitten. These days, Jackie Kunkel’s involvement with quilting is so expansive that she has to laugh when she says, “It’s kind of like a hobby gone awry.”
 Colorful threads. Photo: dotCANTON Today, Kunkel operates her own business, Canton Village Quilt Works, out of her home in North Canton. In addition to her primary job as a “long arm quilter,” she manages her own website and blog, is a sales rep for a quilting machine manufacturer, an online retailer of fabrics that she ships around the world, the producer of a podcast that’s listened to worldwide (she has done 16 of them), and now she’s getting into giving lectures and designing patterns. In fact, Quick Quilts magazine is about to make Kunkel a published designer for the first time, with “Pop Squares” appearing in soon-to-be-released issue #117.
Kunkel packs most of this business activity, including her computer assisted long arm quilting machine and its 15-foot table into a room that measures about 800 square feet on the second floor of her home.
 Some of the fabric available through Canton Village Quilt Works. Photo: dotCANTON How does she stay on top of all this? “I have to be very regimented,” she says. “I have to stay in a business mode. I’m usually at it by 7 a.m.”
When Kunkel’s children started going to school, she considered a return to the 9-5 world, but decided she “wanted flexibility” in her life. “It’s important,” she says, “for me to be here with my family.”
Kunkel purchased her first long arm machine in 2000 and started her business. As a long arm quilter, she receives quilt tops and backs from clients around the country, adds a layer of batting in between the two and quilts it all together with the decorative stitching that quilt lovers so appreciate.
And what is it that keeps her passion for quilting burning?
“I love the contact I have with all my customers,” she says. “They are creative, smart and loving people.”
 Outside Cinerom Winsted on Monday night, Aug. 23. Photo: dotCANTON The Cinerom theater complex on Route 44 in Barkhamsted, an option for Canton moviegoers for 15 years, is closing at the end of August.
According to a “Cinerom Alert” posted on cinerom.com, the lease at the Barkhamsted site “has expired and a decision was made to put efforts into improving the Cinerom Torrington Theater which is closer to the regional population.”
The message goes on to say: “In response to the rapidly changing technology in the theater business, a decision was made to install digital theaters and a 3D at Cinerom Torrington.”
Signs announcing the closing are taped to windows and doors at the theater complex known as Cinerom Winsted, which is located at 380 New Hartford Road (Route 44), Barkhamsted, in the Mallory Brook Plaza, about 7 miles north of the Canton-New Hartford line.
Cinerom Torrington is located at 89 Farley Place, across the street from a Kmart store.
According to the Cinerom Alert, “Cinerom gift cards and passes will be redeemable only at Cinerom Torrington” after Aug. 31.
– dotCANTON
 The menu board at Husk -- New American Tacos. Photo: dotCANTON  Husk's condiments bar. Photo: dotCANTON The music was hot and business was brisk mid-afternoon Monday, Aug. 23, as Husk — New American Tacos arrived on the scene in Collinsville.
Owner Jordan Stein, whose creativity and attention to detail came through as he put his restaurant together, set the mood perfectly by tuning his Sirius XM radio to the “Caliente” station and its “Tropical Latin” beat. Hot stuff, indeed.
Husk’s condiments bar, positioned smack in the middle of the restaurant, was a significant addition to the space since dotCANTON was invited in for an exclusive pre-opening visit less than two weeks ago. Stein said the shapes attached to its sides are wooden replicas of casting molds from the old Collins Co. That design feature ties in with the restaurant’s wall art, which features a collection of hand-drawn schematics of products connected to the Collins Co.
Husk, at 105 Main St., is open 11 a.m. to 10 p.m. Sunday through Thursday, and 11 a.m. to 11 p.m. on Friday and Saturday.
Click here for more about Husk.
Waterware
 Waterware, 250 Albany Turnpike. Photo: dotCANTON Plimpton & Hills Corporation of Hartford has opened its Waterware kitchen and bath showroom in the shopping plaza at 250 Albany Turnpike (Route 44).
Waterware specializes in kitchen and bathroom fixtures, faucets and vanities. It is a distributor of Kohler products, according to Drena Ferranti, Waterware’s regional showroom manager, but options at the store are not limited to Kohler.
 Waterware showroom in Canton. Photo: dotCANTON Waterware is open from 10 a.m. to 6 p.m. on Mondays, Tuesdays, Wednesdays and Fridays; from 11 a.m. to 7 p.m. on Thursdays; and from 10 a.m. to 4 p.m. on Saturdays. The store is closed on Sundays.
Other Waterware showrooms are located in Hartford, Danbury, Fairfield, Stamford and Great Barrington, Mass.
– dotCANTON
 Dowd Avenue is packed curb to curb with runners at the beginning of the 19th annual Lobster Loop 5K road race / noncompetitive walk Sunday, Aug. 22. Photo: dotCANTON Mara Rabaczynski of New Hartford was the overall winner (15:41), and Mary-Lynn Currier of Canton (18:26) led the women as 400 participants ran and walked through the rain in the 19th annual Lobster Loop on Sunday, Aug. 22.
Event organizer Tori Showalter said about 475 people registered for the event, up from 431 last year, but the the turnout, likely affected by the wet weather, was 400, down from 411 participants a year ago.
The event benefited the Canton Middle School PTO.
Link here for a list of the top finishers in each category of the Lobster Loop.
– dotCANTON
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