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FALLS VILLAGE — Housatonic Valley Regional High School soccer lost 1-0 to Coventry High School in the second round of the Connecticut Interscholastic Athletic Conference Class S tournament Nov. 4.
Coventry scored in the 10th minute and held on to the lead through effective ball control and precision passing. HVRHS’s defense played strong to keep the Mountaineers in the game despite the possession disadvantage.
HVRHS entered the tournament as the 2nd seeded team in Class S with a record 13-2-1. The Mountaineers earned a bye for the first round and opened the tournament in round two against Coventry.
Coventry (8-6-2) was ranked 15th entering the Class S tournament. The Patriots defeated 18th ranked Canton High School 2-1 in the first round.
Coventry came to Falls Village for round two on a cold, gray and windy afternoon Monday, Nov. 4. The game was well attended with students let out of class early to watch the 2 p.m. game.
HVRHS was without striker Ava Segalla, who broke her ankle Oct. 31.
Possession was dominated by Coventry through most of the first half.
The goal in the 10th minute came from striker Mazie Cox on a fast break. She snuck a shot past HVRHS goalie Madison “Maddog” DeWitt.
HVRHS’s defense started to click as the game went on and seized possession. The Mountaineers had a scoring chance late in the first half that ultimately did not connect.
HVRHS Coach Don Drislane encouraged his team. “Be positive girls. We can win this.”
Coventry resumed ball control in the second half and sent several shots at the net. DeWitt saved the shots-on-goal and several others flew high above the crossbar.
With time ticking down, HVRHS pushed everyone forward but could not find the net. Coventry hung on for a 1-0 win.
The decision knocked HVRHS out of the tournament. Coventry advanced to play 7th seed Morgan High School (10-3-3) in the quarterfinal round Nov. 7.
Striker Mazie Cox, no. 4, scored the lone goal of the game when HVRHS hosted Coventry High School in the state tournament Nov. 4Photo by Riley KleinA third consecutive month of job losses in Connecticut and continued declines in the state’s labor force are raising concern about the state’s economic outlook.
Payrolls shrunk by 300 in September, following the loss of 2,200 jobs in August, according to the state Department of Labor’s Oct. 21 monthly employment report. That brings 12-month job growth to a modest 0.7%, the slowest in the region and 42nd in the country.
Patrick Flaherty, research director for the labor department, said the economy is following the “new normal” of strong early year growth that tapers off by end of year.
“This market continues to present challenges for recruiters,” Flaherty said. “Stronger economic growth is constrained by the size of the work force and high retirements in key industries such as manufacturing.
“The very low unemployment rate is an indicator that the labor market remains healthy despite monthly job declines,” Flaherty said.
A “concerning” trend
The Connecticut Business and Industry Association, the state’s largest business organization, expressed concern over the September employment report.
“It’s concerning to see the positive economic momentum that highlighted the first half of the year has stalled,” said Chris Davis, vice president for public policy for the association.
Davis noted that the demand for workers remains strong, highlighted by strong gains in the professional and business services sector and the state’s low unemployment rate. “However, the falling unemployment rate is actually being driven by Connecticut’s shrinking labor force, which declined by 2,000 people in September, the fourth consecutive month of losses,” he said.
The industry association official noted that job openings are up 10% since February 2020, while the number of those working and actively looking for work fell by 30,600 over the same period, “in stark contrast with what’s happened in most of the region and nationally.”
In response to the third straight month of job losses in the state, the Connecticut Senate Republican Caucus issued a statement on Oct. 22 rejecting the notion that the job losses are “a new normal.”
Senate Republican Leader Steve Harding (R-30) said while the most recent labor department numbers are “not necessarily bad, I think we can do far better.”
He pointed to a need for boosting manufacturing and trades job growth, by “connecting with our vocational programs to set up a stronger manufacturing base here in Connecticut.”
Harding also called on greater collaboration between the Governor’s office and lawmakers aimed at increased regulatory fairness for businesses.
“We in Connecticut still have not fully recovered from the 2008 recession job losses, and when 2020 hit, obviously it was another setback,” Harding said. “Almost every other state, prior to COVID, recovered from job losses, but Connecticut and one other state never recovered.”
Labor Commissioner Dante Bartolomeo said while Connecticut was hit harder by the pandemic than most states, “our recovery is steady, and the overall economy is moving at a stable and sustainable pace.”
State Rep. Maria Horn (D-64) noted that the monthly economic numbers are “quite complex,” and often follow a pattern. “There have been stronger losses in the second half of the year.”
She pointed to workforce development and housing as key factors.
“I hear all the time that people can’t afford to live in our neck of the woods or attract and retain a talented workforce,” she said. “We have to be sure to look at the tangibles and the intangibles.”
Horn attributed some of the job losses to large cuts in government positions.
“Some people get all excited when the government has fewer employees,” Horn said. “We trimmed a great number of workers over the past decade, and then during the pandemic they said we didn’t have enough workers to respond, so it’s a balancing act.”
Six-month growth streak ended this summer
Connecticut lost 3,100 jobs in July and August, ending a six-month growth streak as most industry sectors saw decline.
The labor department reported 3,200 job losses for August and revised its preliminary July numbers lower by 1,600 to a loss of 90 positions.
August also saw another 5,295 people leave the labor force, with the numbers of those working and looking for work declining 11,965 in the last three months, according to the Connecticut Business and Industry Association.
“The August losses and revised July numbers highlight the volatility of Connecticut’s job market and the structural issues impacting economic growth,” industry association President and CEO Chris DiPentima said.
“CBIA’s 2024 Survey of Connecticut Businesses showed that 91% of business leaders say the cost of doing business is increasing, and only 10% believe the state’s business climate is improving,” DiPentima said.
On Oct. 9 the Connecticut Business and Industry Association Foundation released its 2024 legislative policy pledge, a 12-point package of solutions designed to unlock and reimagine Connecticut’s economy.
CBIA officials said the policy pledge is a roadmap for boosting the state’s competitiveness, retaining and attracting investment and talent, fostering innovation, expanding career pathway opportunities and growing a vibrant economy.
“Connecticut is at a critical point in its post-pandemic growth,” DiPentima said. “Rather than endorse candidates for elected office, CBIA is encouraging them to sign the ReimagineCT policy pledge.”
He said the policies, developed with the input and engagement of a diverse group of stakeholders, including business, nonprofit, education and community leaders, will help retain and attract residents, enhance and protect the workforce’s well-earned reputation for innovation and productivity, and promote the state as a destination for businesses of all sizes.
Painter Sam Guindon is an earnest young man who paints light with the skill of John Singer Sargent. Guindon’s attention to technique harks back to an earlier time when artists studied under a master, learned anatomy, perspective, how to make their own pigment, and closely observed the work of great artists. Guindon has studied oil painting since he was nineteen. In a recent show of his paintings in his hometown of Norfolk, Connecticut, Guindon sold 40 of the 42 paintings he exhibited.
Guindon’s sketchbooks are windows into his creative mind and a well-traveled life, packed with vignettes, ink drawings, observations and thoughts written in the margins. His subjects range from sketches done in gouache at the National Gallery, to ink drawings of vine-covered trees in Costa Rica, to the interior of an airplane drawn with the perspective of a fisheye lens, to colorful bottles of hot sauce. Currently Guindon is teaching art at the Compass Atelier in Maryland.
Artwork created by Guindon.Jennifer Almquist
The Creators Interview:
Jennifer Almquist: What are your plans after you come home to Norfolk this winter?
Sam Guindon:Picasso said, “There’s no great art without great solitude.” I plan to spend a year solo creating one thousand paintings on paper in Santa Fe, Norway, Costa Rica, and Ireland.
We went to Costa Rica, where my dad is from, for a year when I was in 3rd grade. I will be there for three months doing some work on our house this winter. I’m going do some plein air (in the open air) painting in the jungle.
JA:Tell me your earliest memory of wanting to draw or paint. How old were you?
SG:My first memories are very illustrative, light-filled - as if they are paintings. The first drawings I did, when I was two, were very imaginative. I drew a lot of monsters as my earliest subjects. I liked drawing monsters because the anatomy is never incorrect. You have the freedom to just draw whatever you imagine.
JA: How have your paintings evolved?
SG: Only more recently did my art come around to being representative of anything. I guess it was more just a desire to create things, as opposed to capturing things. Now the desire to create has been fused with the desire to record the world. In that sense, especially with plein air paintings, you can capture your experience. I think the sketchbook is similar in that it’s a record of my journey throughout the year.
Work from Sam Guindon's sketchbook.Jennifer Almquist
JA:Your sketchbooks are wonderful. Where did you draw these?
SG: Those are copies from the National Gallery of different artists. The sketchbook has turned into half sketchbook/ half journal which is fun to look back on. It feels more lived in.
JA:When did you realize that you wanted to go to school for this?
SG:I went to a liberal arts school, Hamilton College. I was not sold on being an art major. My mom told me when I was a kid that I should do something that I loved as a career. That pushed me to have the courage to study art.
JA: Did you have a teacher that influenced you?
SG: My advanced painting teacher was the first to introduce a more traditional kind of education. She had us do master studies, taught us about different pigments, their history, how you use them.
JA: What was your plan after college?
SG:Taking classes online through Compass. My teacher has changed the way I paint. He taught me how to mix color in a scientific way.
Artwork created by Guindon.Jennifer Almquist
JA: In your recent show in Norfolk of smaller paintings, you sold out! How do you explain that success?
SG: The new paintings have a different feeling, a little more raw, more accessible. Before I had only shown my studio work. I learn more about painting from these smaller, direct observation pieces.
JA: Your paintings are of everyday things like tractors and bulldozers, workshops, hydrants, and your own sneakers. What draws you to your subject matter?
SG:Those are my dad’s tractors - they’re from Belarus. They are Soviet era and have a lot of personality. I remember as a kid working with these immensely powerful things that could crush you so easily. They are rusty, they misfire in the winter, they’ve got hydraulic leaks. If you’re a kid who looks closely at things, they have meaning that other people don’t feel or see. It is a shame that we lose our child’s eye, through which everything has meaning and beauty. That is something that I think about, finding a sort of equanimity by just finding beauty in uncelebrated things, quiet things.
JA: Did you like reading books when you were little?
SG:I loved reading books, especially fantasy. In Costa Rica life is slow, so we spent a lot of time just reading from the old library, and drawing. I love Percy Jackson and Tintin. I just learned Andy Warhol and Herge, the author of Tintin, were good friends!
JA:Do you like the paintings of John Singer Sargent?
SG:He was one of the painters that got me into this. He’s the gateway drug to more traditional painters. It is cool to see his sketches because you can see the artist’s hand. He was good at showing you what he wanted you to see in his paintings.
Artwork created by Guindon.Jennifer Almquist
JA:Your favorite artists?
SG:Jeremy Mann, Mark Boedges, Richard Schmid, Antonio Lopez Garcia, Rackstraw Downes, Quang Ho, George Bellows, Camille Corot, Gustave Caillebotte, Peter Paul Rubens, and Franz Kline.
JA: Do you dream in paintings?
SG:If I am working on a painting intensely, or drawing, then I will dream about it.
JA: There is much creative shorthand in the world now, using artificial intelligence, digital cameras, or 3D printing. Your ability to paint, using your mind and your hands, is going to be an increasingly rare skill. Will you resist the ease of modern forms of image creation?
SG: Different factors make it rare. The more art that I make, the more insulated I am against like that kind of influence. Because you really can’t be making something while distracted in a million ways by your phone.
'Three Centuries of Photography” from the collection of Thomas K. Levine will be on display at the Warren Family Gallery at the Berkshire School from Nov. 1 to Dec. 21. The exhibit features 75 original prints, spanning the history of photography from the 19th century to today. The opening reception is on Friday, Nov. 1, from 6 to 7:30 p.m.
Thomas Levine, a former Paramount Pictures executive and father of a Berkshire School junior, brings together works by renowned photographers like Carleton Watkins, Julia Margaret Cameron, Alfred Stieglitz, Diane Arbus, and Richard Misrach. The show includes landscapes, portraits, and a recent focus on vintage images of notable historical figures, including Winston Churchill, Martin Luther King Jr., and George Harrison.
“I’ve always been interested in all kinds of visual media,” said Levine who also acts as a consultant to The Triplex in Great Barrington. “In my prior life I worked in the film business as an executive so photography seems like a natural extension of my interest in film,” Levine explained.
The exhibit will be curated by teacher and art department chair Paul Banevicius with Levine’s assistance and aims to offer “the community at large” a rare opportunity to experience this extensive and diverse collection. “It’s an opportunity to see a lot disparate work in one setting,” said Levine.
Opening is Nov. 1 from 6 to 7:30 p.m. Gallery hours are Monday to Saturday, 8:30 a.m. to 5 p.m., or by appointment.