Join the Mattatuck Museum for the opening reception of the exciting spring exhibition, Sphere of Influence: Ira Barkoff & the Washington Art Association, on Sunday, May 4, 2014 from 2:00-4:00 p.m.

Painter Ira Barkoff has been teaching at the WAA for eighteen years, one afternoon a week for sixteen weeks of the year. Sphere of Influence, demonstrates the results of Ira Barkoff’s guidance in twenty five works, three from Barkoff, and the others from eight of his current students: Souby Boski, Joanne Conant, Jack Dunbar, Anne Marie Foran, Charlotte Honda, Kathleen L’Hommedieu, Kathleen Mooney, Roberta O’Shea, Frances Owles, Anne Quackenbush, Karen Simmons and Wendy Walker. Artists have always taught, they share their impulse to create and Barkoff thinks along those lines. “I feel I have something to communicate,” he says about his classes in which painting is considered a means of expression. Barkoff looks at teaching as a give and take about how one becomes a painter with an individual voice.        

The Mattatuck Museum is offering community programs in conjunction with this exhibition. For details on these and other events, visit www.MattatuckMuseum.org/events. The opening reception is free; RSVP is requested. Please register in advance at www.MattatuckMuseum.org or by calling (203) 753-0381, ext. 130. Join the museum to immediately qualify for member benefits.

Visit www.MattatuckMuseum.org or call (203) 753-0381 for more information on all of the museum’s adult and children’s programs, events and exhibits. The Mattatuck Museum is operated with support from the Connecticut Department of Economic & Community Development, CT Office of the Arts which also receives support from the National Endowment for the Arts, a federal agency, and is a member of the Connecticut Art Trail, a group of 16 world-class museums and historic sites (www.arttrail.org). Located at 144 West Main Street, on the green in Waterbury, CT the museum is open Tuesday through Saturday 10 a.m. to 5 p.m., and Sunday noon to 5 p.m. Free parking is located behind the building on Park Place.