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Wilton's Weir Farm Showing Visitors New View Of National Park

WILTON, Conn. -- Weir Farm National Historic Site in Wilton is launching a pilot system that will help show visitors around the park throughout the year.

Weir Farm National Historic Site's new “view poles” will guide visitors around the park year-round.

Weir Farm National Historic Site's new “view poles” will guide visitors around the park year-round.

Photo Credit: Submitted

Beginning Thursday, Oct. 29, visitors will be able to take self-guided tours with the aid of the new “view poles,” a system created by a team of designers from the Rhode Island School of Design.

“Painters and artists rave about the light and color in the park as it reflects off stone walls and the tree cover," said Weir Farm National Historic Site superintendent Linda Cook. "Focusing in on that light and looking closer at how special it is is the quick experience you get when you look through each of the fifteen view poles.”

The poles, which have a set of built-in viewfinders, will be located throughout the park and oriented towards items of interest by a rotating series of guest curators, including visiting artists, ecologists and historians.

The inaugural curator, American Impressionist Artist Dmitri Wright, will be orienting the poles to highlight the qualities of light and color which have inspired generations of artists to paint at the Weir Farm facility.

“The light that inspired the American Impressionists to capture the multiplicity of colors of this landscape is still calling to the artist’s heart to experience the art of nature," said Wright, who is also an instructor at the site. "I selected views that continually offer me a sense of place beyond time, ones that highlight a particular uniqueness about the way light plays upon the topography here at Weir Farm National Historic Site.”

The view poles are accompanied by an informational guide and a take-home postcard that allows visitors to create their own views at home.

Both the guide and the postcard are available on the porch of the visitor center, and the postcards will also be distributed to community and cultural centers across Southwestern Connecticut.

Visitors can contribute their own views of Weir Farm National Historic Site by posting photos to social media under the hashtag #seeweirfarm.

For more information on Weir Farm, visit www.nps.gov/wefa or call 203-834-1896. Weir Farm is located at 735 Nod Hill Road in Wilton, on the Ridgefield border. 

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