Raffael “Ralph” Michael Festa, 93, Died; Proud Italian born in Saugatuck

West Lebanon, NH — Raffael "Ralph" Michael Festa of West Lebanon, New Hampshire passed away on September 6, 2022 at the age of 93.

Born to parents Salvatore Festa and Rose Nuzzo on January 18, 1929 in Saugatuck, (Westport) Connecticut. Ralph was very proud of his Italian heritage and very large family. He is predeceased by 8 brothers and sisters. He is survived by his beloved wife of 64 yrs Claire Smith Festa. They were married in Greenwich, Connecticut at St. Mary's Church. His children Michael Festa, wife Mitzi Festa, Kathleen (Kathy/Katie) Festa Mnichowski, Debbie Festa Baldassare husband Frank Baldassare and John Festa wife Julie Festa. Ralph and Claire have 5 grandchildren and 6 great grandchildren.

Ralph served in the Army for 4 years and then worked at Condec Diesel Corporation in Old Greenwich, Connecticut for 40 yrs. He loved gardening and was once best in show for his beautiful roses which were his pride and joy. Ralph was a wonderful cook and loved to make Italian dishes he learned from his beloved mother. Ralph and Claire vacationed and then retired to New Hampshire where Claire his wife continues to reside.

Funeral services will be held on Saturday September 10, 2022 from 3-5pm at the Rand-Wilson Funeral Home 11 1/2 School St Hanover, New Hampshire 03755

Morning Weather Report

Today

Mostly sunny, with a high near 83. Southwest wind around 6 mph.

Tonight

Mostly cloudy, with a low around 64. Southwest wind around 5 mph becoming calm in the evening.

Tomorrow

A 20 percent chance of showers after 3pm. Mostly cloudy, with a high near 80. Calm wind becoming west around 6 mph in the morning.

Tomorrow Night

A 40 percent chance of showers. Mostly cloudy, with a low around 65. Calm wind.

High Tides

11:46 AM

Low Tides

5:41 AM / 6:04 PM

Suicide Survivor Shares Hope and Support during Suicide Prevention Month; “especially among our struggling youth”

United Way of Connecticut:

Steve MacHattie, LCSW and Owner of the Charter Oak Family Center in Manchester, has lived experience - he began experiencing suicidal thoughts and survived his first suicide attempt when he was six or seven years old. “I remember being in my bedroom alone. I had a suicide plan that I thought would work and I tried to carry that plan out. After some amount of time, I realized what I was doing wouldn’t work and went downstairs to find my mother. The conversation I had with her, which simply dismissed my experience as a childish incident, was just the beginning of a battle with depression and suicide that would last for decades.”  

Suicide does not discriminate. In 2022, to date 110,792 Connecticut residents have reached out to United Way of Connecticut’s 211 mental health crisis team via 988, Action Line and 211 Option 1 for mental health and addiction resources, which are provided thanks to a close partnership with the Department of Mental Health and Addiction Services (DMHAS) and the Department of Children and Families (DCF). These residents, your neighbors, were equally male and female, but nearly 12,000 were under the age of 18!

More than 40 years after Steve first experienced mental health issues, an award-winning mental health guide supported by United Way of Connecticut, Gizmo's Pawesome Guide to Mental Health, is available to support social emotional learning and mental health education. The Guide helps kids identify when mental health needs attention, daily activities for coping, and how to connect with trusted adults. Gizmo’s Guide was recognized by AMCHIP (Association for Maternal and Child Health Programs) as an “Emerging Practice” on their Maternal and Child Health (MCH) database. Gizmo’s Guide, featuring Gizmo and his fellow therapy dog and K9 First Responder friends, introduces youth to what can be a challenging subject for adults to discuss and for youth to understand, in an age-appropriate way, with the hope that they may keep and apply what they learn for a lifetime to help them stay healthy and safe.  

Even though resources like Gizmo’s Guide were not yet available, Steve began his journey of recovery, little by little, with the help of those around him. He shares that his “struggles with my illness resulted in my illness often being my first reaction to life. If I had a bad day or week, depression was right there to remind me who I was. I feel like I internalized the stigma of mental illness from those around me. Even as things were going better and I progressed in my recovery, I still held myself back. I spent years, literally, hiding from people. My need to hide started when I was a child, though it gained strength as I got older.”

Shortly after Steve’s father passed away, he was struggling with suicidal thoughts while driving to a meeting. He pulled over and called 211 because “I needed to connect with someone who cared.” In a moment when he thought no one cared, he said the contact specialist who answered his call was patient, not rushed, really listened and cared. “Being able to talk through it helped me feel less anxious and angry. Having someone listen decreased my suicidal urges. She reminded me that there were still things in my life I wanted to do – that I had a future with hope and goals.” 

Having experienced 211 as a lifeline, Steve, now a clinical social worker, pays it forward by sharing his experience, strength and hope with his clients and by referring them to 211 when in crisis. 

Steve says that faith and hope are an important part of his story, and he isn’t hiding any longer. He joined a suicide prevention board, specifically, the Board’s lived experience committee. He’s taking singing lessons, and he puts himself up front and center teaching at the college level and loves it. 

According to Steve, “Mental illness may be chronic, but it does not have to be terminal. We can still accomplish great things. Life comes with challenges, stresses, sorrows, even successes. Life is full of surprises, and I don’t have to allow those surprises to define me or stop me. My hope is that by talking about mental illness and my struggles with mental illness, I will help open a door that others will be able to walk through. I also hope that people with mental illness can learn to not judge themselves as harshly as I have been known to do.”

If you are struggling and need crisis and suicide prevention assistance, call 211. In Connecticut, 211 is the point of entry for all crisis intervention in Connecticut (988, National Suicide Prevention Lifeline [1-800-SUICIDE or 1-800-273-TALK (8255)], the Department of Mental Health and Addiction Service’s “Action Line” (1-800-HOPE-135) and the Youth Mobile Crisis Line through Connecticut 211.

MoCA Exhibit “From The Pen To The Knife” Opens October 15

Artwork by Marian Christy.

MoCA [Museum of Contemporary Art] Westport announces the premiere showing of the From The Pen To The Knife exhibition, featuring close to 300 watercolor paintings by the ground-breaking artist Marian Christy. Christy was a pioneer of the Knifed Watercolors® style, a process that shatters the traditional method of creating watercolors by using only palette knives and puddles of paint.

From The Pen To The Knife will be on view at MoCA Westport from October 15 - November 27, 2022. An opening reception for the exhibition will be held on Saturday, October 15, 2022 from 5 – 7 p.m. at the Museum. The reception is free and open to the public.

The exhibition was curated by Ruth Mannes, Executive Director of MoCA Westport; Liz Leggett, MoCA Westport’s Director of Exhibitions; and visual artist Tom Berntsen. 

Christy was an award-winning journalist for the first chapter of her life. She was an accomplished writer for The Boston Globe at a time when women had limited journalistic opportunities. Her writing garnered two Pulitzer Prizes and was considered innovative in the areas of fashion and celebrity reporting. 

She considers her time as an artist as a second chapter of her life, a time where she pivoted from “the pen to the knife.” She explains of her Knifed Watercolors process, “No drawing. Just the splash. My focus is to make this unique signature a 21st century contemporary style, elevating watercolors to new depths and dimensions. I want to pull the viewer into the image, arouse curiosity but, most of all, to make an emotional connection silently, one-on-one.”

“I paint most scenes of our outer life. The scenes are metaphors for our inner selves. The landscapes are full of these messages. To give the viewer a broad print, I detail the feelings with a title that is a kind of code about emotions that connect us all,” Christy added.

Christy, now age 90, did not receive formal training, and has been working for the last fifteen years in her basement, sitting at an ordinary easel, held firm by used bricks to sustain her forceful palette knife strokes. Christy does not work on site nor use the plein air process of "direct observation and painting outdoors with the artist's subject in full view." All of her paintings are process driven. Images and figuration emerge from her imagination, with no direct reference materials.

Christy’s relatively recent return to her art—originally discovered as a child—comes decades after she was discouraged from making as a youngster who was female. The sheer number of works, as well as the sensational palette and varied surfaces and textures, relay not only Christy's rekindled joy in artmaking, but illustrate a literal and metaphorical creative explosion after her long-awaited return to painting. Granting oneself permission to express “our inner selves” as Christy describes, is essential to every work and the artist’s unique history.

“Marian Christy is someone who has always pushed boundaries – as a woman, as a journalist and as an artist. She was not deterred by what others expected of her and she forged her own path,” stated Ruth Mannes, Co-Curator and Executive Director of MoCA Westport. 

“We are honored to have the opportunity to share Christy’s watercolors with the public. These specific paintings have never before been viewed together as a collection, and we are thrilled to give her work the exposure it deserves,” added Mannes.

The exhibition is on view during MoCA Westport’s Fall Gallery Hours: Wednesday 12 - 4 | Thursday 12 - 7 | Friday - Sunday 12 - 4 PM. 

The exhibition is generously sponsored by Hofstetter Baron Group at Wells Fargo Advisors.

For more information on the exhibition, contact Liz Leggett, Director of Exhibitions for MoCA Westport at liz@mocawestport.org or 203/222-7070.