
Erica Recto, owner of BES at 50 Main St. in Millerton. Photo submitted
MILLERTON — “Bes” is a word in Taglish—a mash-up of English and Tagalog, the most common languages spoken in the Phillipines—that means “best friend” or, more colloquially, “besties.”
It’s the name that artist Erica Recto chose for her store, BES at 50 Main St., a marketplace of specialty curated gift items made by local artists.
Recto started out in the fashion industry, designing clothes and accessories for various corporations—“all the shops you’d find in the mall,” she said. She said that while it was a good place to learn some structure and skills, the mass production and pace became anathema to her own creative process and vision.
“It was so far from the art that I wanted to make,” said Recto. “Everything gets watered down in [mass] production.”
Noticing her burnout, Recto’s husband, product and toy designer Greg Morris, bought her a gift card for an eight-week ceramic workshop to get her back to something tactile. Enchanted with ceramics, Recto quit her job a few months later and began her own business, “for better or for worse,” she said.
Recto began selling her work at markets and working in wholesale. She even had a few international clients right out of the gate, but again found herself working constantly and struggling to keep up with the rate of production that wholesale requires.
Recto and Morris decided moved from Brooklyn in 2017, cutting costs and allowing for Recto to have a home studio. Scaling back also allowed her to “start making things just for the sake of making things.” She was able to “get back to the basics and explore all the different ways of making stuff…and just slow it down.”
In 2021, Recto opened BES in the building behind Oakhurst Diner, now the spot of the zendo. She was a new mother and between the isolation that parenting can sometimes bring and being at the height of the COVID-19 pandemic, she was deeply craving connection and community.
She partnered with Stella Yoon, whose company, Hudson River Exchange, offers an online shop where local makers sell their wares. Recto provided the ceramics and Yoon filled in the inventory for the rest of the store.
After a year together, Yoon had other projects in the works—she is now executive director of CREATE Council on the Arts based in Catskill—allowing her to “do what she does at a larger scale with funding,” said Recto.
Recto now does the curating of the shop herself. Much of the inventory is her own ceramic and textile work “because I can’t stop making things,” she laughed. The store is about 60% her work and the rest is all work of artists she’s crossed paths with along the way.
“Everyone in there is someone I personally know and almost everyone, except for maybe two or three people, are all local.”
BES is open Thursday to Monday, and Recto offers workshops for adults and children during the week. She recently hired a few helpers to ensure she still has time for studio days. Her studio is still in her home.
There is also a workspace at the back of the shop, so some of the items for sale are made in the BES location. There is a loom in the back of the shop, about which Recto said, “I’m dying to make rugs.” She buys wool from local sheep farm Caora Farm, and is hoping to get the loom up and running so that when there’s downtime in the shop, she’ll be able to work in-store.
She also incorporates textiles from other makers in the store in her work, creating low-waste products and adding to the store’s overall collaborative nature.
Recto has also made sure to be involved with other stores on Main Street. She said all the other shopkeepers have been very inviting, even urging her to move to her new location when it became available.
As for her own practice, Recto said, “Lately, I’m really excited. I’ve seen my pieces change from really utilitarian. I’ve been making bigger and more sculptural pieces.” Recto said she’s most excited right now about a new connection with Millbrook School, where she has use of the gas kiln. The gas kiln differs in its abilities from her own electric kiln and is opening up a whole new world of surface exploration. A self-taught ceramist, Recto still delights in the trial-and-error approach.
“I make a lot of mistakes, “she said. “Sometimes it’s frustrating. Sometimes it’s hilarious. Being self-taught, you don’t have the rigid, ‘can’t do.’ I don’t produce for other people anymore. I like to meander, and I’m just having so much fun.”
Dancers from Pilobolus will perform at the NWCT Arts Council spring fundraiser on April 26 in Washington Depot, Conn.
On Saturday, April 26, the Northwest Connecticut Arts Council will host a special evening, Arts Connected, their spring fundraiser celebrating the power of creativity and community. Held at the Bryan Memorial Town Hall in Washington Depot from 5 to 8 p.m., this event brings together artists, performers, and neighbors for a magical night filled with inspiration, connection and joy.
Award-winning designer and arts advocate Diane von Furstenberg and her granddaughter Antonia Steinberg are honorary co-chairs of the event. Their shared love of the arts informs the spirit of the evening.
Antonia Steinberg, above, President of Bucks Rock Camp in New Milford that she first attended as a camper when she was ten years old. Antonia is co-chair, with her grandmother Diane Von Furstenberg of the NWCT Arts Council fundraiser.Provided
“As someone whose life was profoundly shaped by the arts — as a child at Buck’s Rock and now as President of its Board — I’ve seen firsthand the transformative power of the arts; how creative spaces can empower young people, build community, and nurture well-rounded problem solvers. That’s why I’m so honored to co-host the Northwest CT Arts Council Gala. Their work in supporting artists and cultural organizations across Connecticut is essential,” said Steinberg.
Von Furstenberg’s influence in fashion and culture, and Steinberg’s leadership at Buck’s Rock reflect the intergenerational impact of the arts,” said NWCT Arts Council board president Sunday Fisher. “Their participation underscores the power of creative expression as a defining force in our community.” Steinberg is the president of Buck’s Rock Camp, a non-profit performing and creative arts camp in New Milford that she first attended as a 10-year-old camper.
Diane Von Furstenberg, co-chair of NWCT Arts Council fundraiser.Provided
Steph Burr, executive director at NWCT Arts Council, added, “Events like Arts Connected are at the heart of what we do — bringing people together, lifting up artists, and reminding us of the essential role creativity plays in our lives. The Council works year-round to ensure the arts not only survive but thrive across our region.”
NWCT Arts Council is a nonprofit that serves as advocates for the arts. Through regranting efforts, public art support, legislative advocacy, and their regional events calendar, they work to ensure the arts are accessible and celebrated in every corner of their 25-town service area.
Burr continued, “The arts in Northwest Connecticut are vibrant, evolving, and deeply rooted in community. There’s a quiet but powerful creative pulse running through these hills — one that reflects the resilience, diversity, and passion of the people who call this region home. Over the past few years, artists and cultural organizations have navigated challenges with heart and determination, despite ongoing funding volatility. Through our advocacy and collaborative programming, we ensure the arts remain essential and accessible in our community.”
Highlights of the April 26 fundraiser include performances by Pilobolus, Sherman Chamber Ensemble, Ysanne Marshall & the Lotus Blues, hand pan musician Jeremy Driscoll, and a curated art exhibition, NW25 Gallery, featuring local artists. Sponsors Litchfield Distillery, Kent Falls Brewing Company, and Executive Cuisine catering will provide the food and drink.
Ticket prices are $125, open to guests 21 and older, available online at givebutter.com/artsconnected.For more information or to ask about sponsorship opportunities, email Katherine Pelletier at katherine@artsnwct.org or visit givebutter.com/artsconnectedsponsorship.
Arts Connected is made possible thanks to the generous support of sponsors; Antonia Steinberg is sponsoring all the artists for the event and Valiant Energy and Torrington Savings Bank are presenting the event.Additional sponsors include William Raveis Lifestyle Realty, Litchfield Magazine, Housatonic Heritage, Art Bank 7, Harney & Sons Teas, Aquarion Water, The Lost Fox Inn, George Home, NKYV Rituals, and Litchfield Distillery.
Lily Al-Nemri, founder and owner, and artistic director and painter Rudy Vavra at Tyte medispa and gallery in Millbrook.
The painter Rudy Vavra once created floor collages in Texas. You could, in theory, lie on them. Now, years later and much farther north, his work graces the walls of a medispa in Millbrook, New York where he also serves as the artistic director. You can still lie down, just not on the art. Instead, you might be undergoing an EmFace non-surgical facelift while surrounded by twenty-two of Vavra’s paintings.
The space, Tyte Medispa in Millbrook, is equal parts gallery and treatment center, the brainchild of Lily Al-Nemri, a medical aesthetician and now gallery owner. She also owns the nail salon, Bryte, down the street on Franklin Avenue. A few years ago, feeling she was outgrowing that space, she looked to expand and, just a few blocks away, found this rather sprawling maze of rooms with the gallery that now inhabits the grand central ballroom. “This used to be a gym,” she said. “It was way more than I was looking for, but I went for it.”
Vavra, a self-professed “painter’s painter,” has spent decades layering pigment in his barn-turned-studio in Milan, New York. “I find paintings as much as I make them,” he mused. “Some happen quickly, others are slow.” Of this latest collection, he said, “Some people call them busy. I think they’re slow.” His marks accumulate with a kind of devotional persistence, like petals left at a shrine. “A while ago, I saw a photographic image of a shrine,” Vavra said. “I don’t know if it was a Buddhist shrine or what, but there were colors on the ground all around it, and I realized they were the stains of flowers left in the worship. That’s very similar to the way I paint.”
The collection of paintings on view at Tyte — some as large as a shrine — are meditations on color, inviting the viewer to slow down. Or speed up. Whether viewers are activated or soothed by the images is neither Vavra’s intention nor within his control. Still, he said that watching people interact with the work has been a real treat. “Now that I have my paintings here, I get to see them all together,” he said. “It’s only when they’re all together that I see how they talk to each other. It’s interesting to see people come in and go to have a treatment and come out. It’s a very interesting connection.”
And what is the connection? What could be a disjointed pairing — aesthetics and aesthetic medicine — has become, improbably, a perfectly logical continuum. “They’re related in a sense,” Vavra said.
Aly Morrissey
Al-Nemri, a former radiologist who taught for over a decade at Westchester Community College, is no stranger to layering, precision, or the quiet rigor of care. Her incredible menu of services — Botox, body contouring, pelvic floor therapies — are the cutting edge of the industry. Of Vavra, Al-Nemri said, “I fell in love with his work, and we just hit it off.” It’s a kind of kismet that seems to hover over the place. Pilates mat classes take place twice a week in the main gallery space and both Al-Nemri and Vavra have loved watching clients pause, eyes caught by a stripe of cerulean or a vibrating cluster of brushstrokes. “Something will catch their eye,” said Vavra. “They’re looking for something in it.”
So, this gallery-meets-spa (or is it the other way around?) has plans. Vavra will be curating six shows a year. Laurie Adams’s photographs will be hung in June, a group show of local artists will share the space in July and August, and a Fall show will feature twenty women artists, which Vavra is eager to anchor with a piece by Judy Pfaff. “There’s nothing like this on this side of the county,” he said of the light drenched space. “It’s been a bit sleepier here. We want to wake it up.”
He means it kindly; sleep certainly has its place. But here in Millbrook, amid the low drone of machines designed to rejuvenate, something unexpected has emerged. Perhaps that’s what both Al-Nemri and Vavra are really after — not the quick fix or the final image, but the suspended moment, the long look. A face seen anew. A painting revealed slowly, in silence.
As for Vavra’s curatorial process? “I just unpack the paintings, lean them against the wall, and look,” he said. “Eighty percent of the time, they’re already where they’re supposed to be.”