January Happenings at the Rey Center

Happy New Year from the Margret and H.A. Rey Center! The Rey Center staff and Board of Directors are looking forward to another year of celebrating the legacy of Margret and Hans Rey in Waterville Valley with our members and friends. We would like to take this opportunity to thank all of our supporters over the past year. With your help we had a successful year filled with programs that honor the Reys’ spirit of curiosity and discovery, programs that provide people with the opportunity to learn about and participate in art, science and nature.  We hope that you will join us in 2011 for some of our many programs for all ages, and wish everyone the best for a year filled with curiosity and discovery!

If you haven’t had the opportunity to stop-by the Rey Center to view our current exhibit sponsored by the New Hampshire Humanities Council, “The Wartime Escape: Margret and H.A. Reys’ Journey from France,” we highly encourage you to do so! The exhibit, at the Rey Center through January 19, chronicles the Reys’ escape from Paris at the start of WWII. More than just the tale of a rousing escape from occupied France, the exhibition celebrates a timeless survival story, one that serves as a potent reminder of the power of human creativity and the cost when voices and visions are silenced by the impact of war.

On January 15, Leonard Marcus, renowned historian and critic, and one of the children's book world's liveliest writers and speakers, will present “Picture Book Bohemia: The Reys of Greenwich Village.” In this illustrated talk, Mr. Marcus considers Greenwich Village during the 1940s as a creative quarter for children’s books. Here was the home not only of Margret and H.A. Rey, but also Robert McCloskey (Make Way for Ducklings), Margaret Wise Brown (Goodnight Moon), Marjorie Flack (The Story About Ping) and many more of the field’s greats. The program begins at 7:00 p.m. and is offered free of charge thanks to the generous support of the New Hampshire Humanities Council, the Golden Eagle Lodge and EVP Marketing and Media. A reception and book signing will follow the program.

We are also excited about two new program series being launched in January, Coffee and Birds at the Curious George Cottage, and Dark Sky Stargazing Nights. Join us Saturday mornings during the winter months from 8:00-9:00 a.m. at the Curious George Cottage to enjoy a cup of coffee, the company of neighbors and friends, and the magnificent view out the Cottage windows, while admiring the variety of birds at the bird feeders. Stay for 15 minutes or stay for the hour; come once or come every Saturday during the winter. We will be submitting our bird feeder data to National Project Feeder Watch to help track bird populations and trends. This program is sponsored by Mad River Coffee Roasters of Campton and Droll Yankees bird feeders. Dark Sky Stargazing Nights will be held on one Saturday per month during the new moon (The new Moon phase occurs when the Moon lies between the Earth and the Sun, causing the Moon to be unilluminated or not visible to the naked eye from Earth. During the new new Moon, the skies are especially dark and make for great stargazing!). Telescopes will be set-up and knowledgeable volunteers from the New Hampshire Astronomical Society will be your guides. Drop-by anytime between 6:30-8:30 p.m. on Saturdays, January 1, February 5 and March 5, stay for as little or as long as you like! Bundle up and bring binoculars if you have them. We hope to see you there! For more information on both of these programs, please visit our website at http://thereycenter.org.

For all those artists and aspiring artists out there, we are offering several art workshops this winter. Local artists Shirley Fitzgerald and Tamsin Zimbone will each teach watercolor workshops in January and February and Maryellen Sakura will teach a printmaking workshop in March. These workshops are appropriate for beginners as well as more advanced artists. Visit our website (http://thereycenter.org) for all the details and don’t delay in calling to register as space is limited! Workshops will be held at the Curious George Cottage, a perfect place to learn to paint and print.