CT State Northwestern Presents Mad River Festival 2026
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Press Release
March 12, 2026
Winsted—CT State Northwestern is happy to announce Mad River Festival 2026 - A Day of Celebrating Resilience through Art, Poetry & Community is scheduled for Wednesday, April 8, with events happening throughout the day 4 to 8 p.m. in Founders Hall, 4 Park Place, Winsted. This multi-faceted event concludes with the Main Stage event featuring Connecticut’s Eighth Poet Laureate, Antoinette Brim-Bell, and interdisciplinary artist and designer, Janis Stemmermann. Mad River Fest 2026 is free and open to the public
Public events start at 4 p.m. with the exhibition reception featuring artist Janis Stemmermann; The Whey Station Grilled Cheese Truck back by popular demand with gourmet sandwiches for purchase; family friendly events including t-shirt design and creation; and live music with student Ella Gannon setting the stage for the evening.
At 5 p.m., the Mad River Anthology, featuring original and exceptional student work, will be launched with copies for all attendees as a lead-in to the mainstage event at 5:30 featuring poet Brim-Bell who will give a reading before being joined by artist Stemmermann on stage for a dialogue between the two, and a question and answer with the audience. The evening will conclude with the annual open MIC session, bringing the community and the campus together in a celebration of poetry and prose readings.
Antoinette Brim-Bell is the author of three full-length poetry collections whose work has appeared in various journals, magazines, textbooks, and anthologies. She has also published many critical works and hosted a series of Black History Month television programs.
In Her Image, a ballet based on Brim-Bell’s poetry collection These Women You Gave Me was commissioned by the New England Ballet Theatre and performed in Connecticut and on the renowned Alvin Ailey stage in New York City. Brim-Bell is also a printmaker who has exhibited poetry and monoprints in various galleries. She has been nominated for the Pushcart Prize for both poetry and essay and is a Cave Canem Foundation Fellow and an alum of the Voices of Our Nations Arts Foundation. A sought-after speaker, editor, educator, and consultant, Brim-Bell is a Professor of English at CT State Community College, Capital. Visit www.antoinettebrimbell.com for more information.
Janis Stemmermann is a visual artist and designer whose interdisciplinary practice spans sculpture, ceramics, textiles, and printmaking. Her work draws on the language of domestic objects and the landscape, exploring the blurred lines between art and function through process-driven, craft-based methods.
Stemmermann received her BFA in Sculpture from the Maryland Institute College of Art. She has exhibited widely, and her studio practice has been supported by the Pollock-Krasner Foundation, Vermont Studio Center, and the Tyrone Guthrie Centre in Ireland. She has been based in Williamsburg Brooklyn since 1988, and in 2019, set up a studio in Sharon, CT. Visit www.janisstemmermann.com for more information.
The Northwestern Community College Foundation has been a generous sponsor of Mad River since 1993. For more information on the event, please contact DeborahKline@ctstate.edu.
