Rendering of the proposed Arts and Education Center at the David Hayes Sculpture Fields
A Proposed Cultural Center for Eastern Connecticut

Where sculpture, landscape, education, and community meet.

Supported by the David Hayes Art Foundation, the proposed Arts and Education Center will expand the public mission of the David Hayes Sculpture Fields in Coventry, Connecticut.

Support the CenterExplore the Vision
The Need

A permanent home for arts learning east of the Connecticut River.

The Sculpture Fields already offer a rare encounter with major modern sculpture in open air. The next step is a year-round center for learning, interpretation, preservation, and public gathering.

The proposed Arts and Education Center will serve residents, students, families, scholars, artists, and visitors in a region with limited cultural infrastructure. Located in Coventry, near the University of Connecticut, the Center will connect rural landscape, modern art, and civic education in one accessible destination.

Its purpose is practical and ambitious: to make the legacy of David Hayes a living public resource while strengthening Eastern Connecticut’s cultural life.

905South Street, Coventry
FreePublic access to the Fields
Year-RoundEducation and programs
What the Center Will Do

A center designed for education, preservation, and community use.

01

Student Learning

School visits, guided field experiences, curriculum materials, workshops, and hands-on encounters with sculpture, landscape, history, and design.

02

Public Programs

Lectures, readings, concerts, artist talks, family days, and seasonal programs that bring residents and visitors into active contact with the Fields.

03

Archives & Preservation

A dedicated setting for documentation, conservation planning, scholarly research, and the long-term care of David Hayes’s work and records.

Proposed center in the landscape with David Hayes sculptures
A Regional Anchor

Close to UConn. Open to the region.

The Center will strengthen the cultural corridor around Coventry, Storrs, Mansfield, Willimantic, Tolland County, and the communities east of the Connecticut River.

For Families

A welcoming destination for discovery, walking, learning, and shared cultural experience.

For Students

A field-based arts classroom connected to sculpture, architecture, ecology, and Connecticut history.

For Scholars

A place to study Hayes’s six-decade career, public collections, exhibitions, and archival material.

For Communities

A convening space for partnerships, regional nonprofits, educators, artists, and cultural organizations.

The Setting

Sculpture, meadows, orchard, pond, gardens, and historic Connecticut landscape.

The David Hayes Sculpture Fields occupy the artist’s longtime Coventry property, where sculpture is encountered among orchards, hayfields, gardens, wooded edges, and open lawn. The proposed Center is conceived as an extension of that experience, not a replacement for it.

Visitors will move naturally between indoor learning spaces and outdoor sculpture, allowing the Fields themselves to remain the central classroom.

Supported by the David Hayes Art Foundation

Help create a lasting cultural resource for Eastern Connecticut.

Contributions, partnerships, and institutional support will help move the proposed Arts and Education Center from vision to reality.

Contact the FoundationVisit the Sculpture Fields