New Life for Connecticut Trees: Furniture by City Bench explores the environmental benefits, beauty, and history of urban trees in Connecticut, through a unique and artistic storytelling display of hand-crafted furniture, photographs of urban tree projects, and thought-provoking facts about Connecticut’s urban tree canopy.
Ted and Zeb Esselstyn, brothers, from Higganum, CT, created City Bench in 2009 out of their passion for building beautiful objects with meaning, soul, and a compelling stories. Preserving a tree’s history is part of City Bench’s mission for each table, chair, and bench it creates. The exhibit will include 23 City Bench pieces, complete with accompanying photographs and stories of the trees from which they came, often including the tree’s birthplace and significance.
As a complementary exhibit, “Lost Landscapes” includes albumen prints of some of Greater Hartford’s noble trees taken by Frederick S. Brown in the 1880s. Most of these massive elms, oaks, maples, and hickories are no longer standing, but their images are reminders of the beauty and value of CT's city trees. To learn more, visit www.chs.org.
