At times the boardinghouse resembled a summer camp, where leisure activities filled the hours not consumed with painting, eating or sleep. Depending on the time of day or the weather, the artists would relax on the grounds or enjoy an excursion away from the property. Often, leisure activities would take place indoors, specifically in the front parlor after dinner.

“If those two boys [William Chadwick and Will Howe Foote] would only spend as much time with their brushes as they do with their golf sticks, they could fill the Pheobe Noyes Libr’y up to the ceiling with one summer’s work.”

~ Journalist J. Hedges (writing in dialect in the role of a Connecticut Farmer), 1917

Outdoor Leisure

There was a horseshoe pit in full view of the side porch and the colony had its own baseball team. The boarders would also host track and field days and award medals, fashioned out of paper, at such events as the “fat man” races and shooting.

“Field Day at Miss Florence’s – athletic games for ladies & men – tied with Heming in 100 yards. Won shooting.”

~ Artist Clark Voorhees (in his diary), 1908

Trips to the beach aboard a wagon, or up the river by canoe were common activities. Using one of the artist’s motorboats the painters and their guests might venture up the Connecticut River and into Hamburg Cove for a moonlit summer evening picnic where they would eat sandwiches and grill chops on a campfire on the shore.

However, the moon over the river was not always so innocent. Willard Metcalf’s wife Marguerite had grown tired of her husband’s nighttime hobby of collecting moths by candlelight. Instead, she spent several nights floating in a canoe about the marsh with one of her husband’s students, the young and talented Robert Nisbet. She and Mr. Nisbet fell in love and ran away together in July of 1907 causing “a great scandal in the house."

Parlor Games

About the merriment that happened at the boardinghouse, artist Arthur Heming remarked that “entertainment was rarely ever planned. It just happened.” Often after supper, the guests gathered in the parlor for games and impromptu musicales. Music was an important part of the colony. Miss Florence played the piano, artists Harry Hoffman the flute or banjo, and Lewis Cohen the mandolin. Henry Ward Ranger was an accomplished organist. He had his organ shipped to Old Lyme from New York one season to add to these evening concerts. Unfortunately, Miss Florence’s English harp, a gift from her seafaring father, had been damaged and was not playable during the years of the art colony.

“Another who generously afforded enjoyment was Harry Hoffman, for what with his tap-dancing, his sleight-of-hand tricks, his playing upon his banjo and flute, his wit and humor, and his laughter-provoking singing, he was an ever ready source of pleasure.”

~ Artist and Author Arthur Heming in Miss Florence
and the Artists of Old Lyme, c. 1938

Other parlor games were also popular. Card games such as poker and bridge filled these leisure hours, as did spelling bees, charades, and amateur theatrics. The artists also devised their own parlor game called the wiggle game, a creative endeavor that championed their artistic skill and clever wit.

The Wiggle Game

The wiggle game was played by the Lyme Art Colony artists after a long day of painting. The rules were simple. One player began by drawing several curvy lines, or wiggles, on a sheet of paper, using colored pencil.  The second player would use the lines to create a funny cartoon-like drawing. This game was both entertaining and educational as it challenged the artists to use their talents and their wits. The images the artists conjured out of the random squiggles range from caricatures of the artists themselves to fictional characters such as a cowboy, debutante, farmer, and even Santa Claus.

“Many evenings were spent filling the famous Wiggle Book. A few lines on a paper were passed about among the men, and each had to draw a sketch including those lines. Many turned out to be real works of Art and hundreds of drawings were made. At first they were kept in a table drawer, but soon the good ones would disappear, and to save them, a book was started to paste them in, then of course it petered out, as so often happens.”

~ Local Author Caro Weir Ely

Gifford Beal (1879-1956)
Wiggle Drawing (clown with hoop)
Graphite on paper

To learn more about the School of Lyme click below:

• Intro
• Bottle of Mastic - Artists at Work
• Painting En Plein Air
• Painting in the Studio
• Bottle of Rye - Artists at Play