Thema Haida and Lore Jefferson during the evening. Steve Snaps Photo with permission from WineDown CT. Bottom: Lee and Monique Patrick. Lucy Gellman Photo.
Monique and Lee Patrick held each other arm in arm, taking in the scene around them. Down Central Avenue, members of the Little Lion Collective prepared a tasting table, bottles of Black Girl Magic Sparkling Brut and a Moscato Spumante Dolce glinting in the sunlight. Across the street, a vendor market had popped up, with new books of poetry alongside literature on reducing recidivism and healing with home remedies. By sundown, there would be a futuristic portal just feet away, ready to transport attendees to the 6th Dimension.
“No ageism allowed! No sexism allowed! No homophobia. This is love,” crowed emcee Frank Brady, jamming as he looked across the grass. On a tree strung with blank CDs, the disks emitted bursts of prismatic light. “We outside for love.”
That love—and a joyful, sun-soaked, early summer kind of vibe—defined WineDown CT’s "The R&B Block Party Experience” Saturday, as vendors from Westville’s annual ArtWalk gave way to an evening of music, poetry, visual art and sommelier-level conversations and tastings in the heart of the neighborhood.
In addition to a buzzing vendor market and lineup of food trucks on Fountain Street, the event included live performances and a packed DJ lineup, from poet Michell Clark and Sage Noel to Ru Love, the Dwayne Keith Project and Natasha Ramos among others. Hundreds attended.
It is the rosé-kissed brainchild of holistic healer Thema Haida and DJ and media consultant Loren Jefferson, who have worked to grow the pop-up series since November 2021. After capacity events in January and March, the duo wanted to return to Westville at the very cusp of summer. ArtWalk weekend, during which the Central Avenue Patio is a main artery, seemed like the perfect time to do so.
And it was: hundreds of people turned out, creating community shoulder to shoulder well into the night. Some came from as far as New York, Rhode Island, Maryland, and Dallas and Houston, Texas to support the event. Around them, Black and Brown businesses flourished all night long, from herbal tea makers to small-batch bakeries and entrepreneurs with a serious sweet tooth.
“It feels amazing,” said Jefferson, who appeared as her mellifluous alter ego, DJ Too Much before the night was over. “It feels great to be able to create an experience that people want to be a part of, and are excited to come to. Like, we need it at this time especially. So anything we can create to take peoples’ minds away from every day, even if it’s just for a few hours.”
“When they’re here, they’re here to experience something different, to meet new people, and to feel love and joy.”
Loren Jefferson: "We need it at this time especially." Bottom: The Art of Jahmane transforms the space.
Now in its fourth year of programming, WineDown began in late 2021, as people were beginning to pull out of a pandemic-induced fog of isolation. Folks were eager to get back out in the world, and needed a destination. Inspired loosely by Issa Rae’s eponymous series, which unpacks episodes of her HBO show Insecure, it was a space for adults to gather, celebrate, and bloom amongst each other, with an emphasis on having a good time and creating safe and joyful spaces.
The titular wine is perhaps secondary to the welcome: the series is a whole vibe, in which being seen and safe—and able to unwind—is the whole point.
Like a fine wine (or Rae, who now has her own brand of prosecco with E. & J. Gallo Winery), the series has grown and matured in ways that Haida and Jefferson could not have imagined when they started. Think of the classiest engagement party you’ve ever been to, take out the meddling in-laws, the oppressive straights, and that angsty teenager that definitely wasn’t invited. Turn the cool factor up a notch, and you’re getting there. Then make it all about friendship, with little touches like vases of flowers, plein air jenga and outfits that feel fit for a club, but will less of the fuss.
“It feels great to continue to grow and explore and create new events each time,” Haida said Saturday, as she fielded vendor questions in one moment, then doled out hugs and chirpy hellos in the next. “No event is the same as the other. We’ve done an event in this space before, but it didn’t look like this. So it’s a joy, always, to have different ways to express ourselves and different ways to engage community.”
Top: Sunday at work before the event. Bottom: Attendees Donisha and Cindy Lee, who drove from New London.
Around her, the street was transforming: curator, artist and writer Juanita Sunday and poet Josh “AnUrbanNerd” Brown slid a huge, chrome-colored pentagon onto the street, where a faded mural from artist Heather Hope still stretches out across the pavement in blue and pink. On the sidewalk, black-and-white pillars from the Art of Jahmane made the corner feel like an art park, as if a person had strolled momentarily into Storm King Art Center. Across the street, a line snaked down Fountain Street, the hum of conversation mixing with the music in the warm air.
“It feels really cool” to be a guest artist after coming as an attendee, Sunday said. When she launched the 6th Dimension as an exhibition in New London in 2023, Haida and Jefferson were supportive, enchanted with the idea of a portal like one in the show. Months later, they were still excited about the idea when Sunday reimagined the show at ConnCORP, just over the New Haven-Hamden town line.
That’s what she wanted to bring to Saturday’s event, she said. In the months leading up to WineDown, Sunday—who was also busy curating DiasporaCON—began to research portals, with the vision of a time machine. Saturday, she seemed a little amazed that the day had arrived.
Top: Poet Michell Clark prepares to perform. Bottom: The team from Winning Ways at the vendor fair. "If something is happening out in the community, we want to be a part of it," said Founder Kevin Paulin.
In a growing vendor market behind them, poet Michell Clark prepared to read two poems from his recent publication Eyes On The Road, copies of which he had also set out on the table before him. As an artist and author, he said, he’s constantly working—which makes joyful, creative and communal spaces like WineDown all the more vital.
“I need somewhere to be where I can just be,” he said. WineDown has become that place. The location was an added bonus, he added: he lives close enough to walk right over.
Meanwhile, the first guests of the night began to trickle in, in a sea of floral silks, gauzy fabrics, tinted sunglasses, tidy headscarves and bandanas, and jewelry that glowed and jingled. There with her friends Vanessa and Michelle, Sasha (“like Beyoncé, she said with a smile) remembered attending a WineDown at Bear’s Smokehouse, and falling in love with the series. So when she saw another event pop up, she knew she wanted to be there.
“I like the vibe,” she said. Michelle agreed, calling it the kind of series that helped put Connecticut on the cultural map. “All of the different things, the people.”
In line behind them, Hamdenites Monique and Lee Patrick showed off their matching, distressed denim, which Lee accented with an immaculate Knicks baseball cap. Despite Saturday’s semifinals game against the Celtics, there was no question that they would be out at WineDown, in part to get to know the region better. While they moved from New York 18 years ago, “we’re still getting to know Connecticut,” Monique said.
That sense of growing community is part of the team’s hope for the series going forward. Beyond basic needs, like financial support, new community partners and physical spaces to plan and stage events, Haida wants to cultivate joy, from feel-good music that can make a body move to the friendships formed in line for that perfect, dry prosecco.
“It feels quite necessary,” she said. “It feels almost like an emergency. Like a 9-1-1 emergency to do that. I’m just excited that so many people were excited to come here, because that just tells me how great the need is. And happy that we’re even able to do this today.”