Between dislocation and belonging

From Yvette Mayorga’s current show, “Dreaming of You,’’ at the Aldrich Contemporary Art Museum, in Greenwich, Conn.

The museum says:

“Inspired by her mother’s work at a bakery after immigrating to the United States from Jalisco, Mexico, Mayorga frosts thick acrylics onto sculptures and canvases with piping bags and icing tips to achieve delectable textures. … Mayorga’s handicraft intimately immerses the viewer in the tension between dislocation and belonging that defined her girlhood as a first-generation Mexican-American in the Midwest in the ‘90s and 2000s.’’

Find shelter where you can

From Chiffon Thomas’s show “The Cavernous,’’ at the Aldrich Contemporary Art Museum, Ridgefield, Conn., through March 17.

The museum says:

“Chiffon Thomas’s first solo museum exhibition will unveil a new body of work, including the artist’s first public sculpture. Thomas’s interdisciplinary practice, spanning embroidery, collage, sculpture, drawing, performance, and installation, examines the ruptures that exist where race, gender expression, and biography intersect. Thomas’s practice is informed by his background in education, percussion, and stop motion animation, as well as a childhood steeped in religion.’’

In Ridgefield’s rather spiffy downtown

— Photo by Doug Kerr

‘Decomposition and rebirth’

“Last Steps,” by David Shaw, in Ridgefield, Conn., in the The Aldrich Contemporary Art Museum’s Main Street Sculpture program through next April 23.

The museum says:

“Shaw’s recent work explores the indistinct boundaries that separate nature, technology, and consciousness. ‘Last Steps,’ which takes the form of a step ladder, is in a process of decomposition as well as rebirth, with gleams of spectral light appearing in gaps in the moss-like growth that has enveloped it, suggesting an alternate reality or a regenerative possibility lurking beneath the surface.”

“The artist’s use of the ladder form—but with missing rungs—speaks of the challenges we face as a civilization as we try to heal what has been lost.’’

Shaw says: “As we begin to embrace our responsibilities to the natural world, ‘Last Steps’ is both an image of our frustrated, unattainable, and perhaps misguided desire for progress, and a symbol of hope that the world wants to rebuild, that life wants to continue.”

Ridgefield’s Peter Parley Schoolhouse (c. 1750), also known as the Little Red Schoolhouse or the West Lane Schoolhouse, is a one-room schoolhouse in use by the town until 1913. The site and grounds are maintained by the Ridgefield Garden Club. The building is open certain Sundays and displays the desks, slates, and books the children used.