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Sandy Vaccaro: Rewarded with Award

The Chester Historical Society has done it again. The organization has won another Award of Merit from the Connecticut League of Museums, marking the third time that the society has been recognized with this distinction.

The present award is for the 86-inch interactive display—located at the society’s headquarters, the Museum at the Mill—of industries which were once located along the Pattaconk Brook in Chester.

The award-winning display was created by a team headed by graphic designer Sandy Vaccaro, who with his wife Marilena, runs Studio10, a design firm in Chester. Sandy adds that Hagen Cobb contributed to the technical aspects of the project.

The two previous awards for the historical society were for an exhibit on life along the Pattaconk and a book by Rob Miceli and Tom Miceli on letters from the American Civil War.

The interactive monitor shows the two branches of the Pattaconk Brook and the industries situated by its banks. For more than 100 years, the fast-moving brook’s reliable water power provided the necessary energy to keep the workshops going. There are 20 sites indicated on the map, including some 70 industries.

Visitors to the historical society need to only touch a location—indicated by purple dots for the south branch of the Pattaconk and orange for the north branch on the map—to get the story of the industries at that site. Repeated touches add background information.

Cary Hull, the president of the Chester Historical Society; and Skip Hubbard, a past president; provided Sandy with the needed information to create the large interactive display.

“There was a lot of information to get on here,” Sandy says. “It took months to do, though it wasn’t every day.

Not only did Sandy have to fit the information in an aesthetically pleasing way, he also had to make sure that it would be accessible to all visitors. This meant making sure that the large display screen was placed at a suitable eye level.

“We couldn’t have things too high because grade-school classes visit the historical society,” he explains.

Some of the products made in the various factories are also on display at the historical society. Sandy shows a wooden inkwell, small enough to fit in a pocket, made by the Silliman Company in Chester. Sandy explains that soldiers in the Civil War could carry the small inkwell in a pocket, and a spring catch would keep the ink from spilling. The inkwell enabled soldiers to write home.

“It was just like email in those days,” he says.

This is not the first time Sandy has created an interactive video display. He had already done one for the Mystic Aquarium. Sandy has worked on a variety of displays and exhibits at the aquarium for over 20 years, most recently creating a series of large free-standing information boards, complete with renditions of creatures from the aquarium, to guide people through the space.

Sandy’s firm won an award from the Connecticut Art Directors Club for that project. Studio10’s work has also won awards from the American Marketing Association and the Advertising Club of Connecticut. Other clients have included Guinness World Records, Carrier Global, and Sikorsky Aircraft, for which Sandy did an annual booklet of award-winning engineers.

Sandy has lived in Chester for some 20 years. While growing up as a youngster, he had a big passion for boats.

“When I was a kid, I didn’t want a car. I wanted a boat,” he recalls.

Sandy got one at 14 and still has a 16-foot Boston Whaler. He uses the boat for the pastime he cherishes: fishing.

“When you are on the water, you can forget everything else,” he says. “All stresses are gone.”

Sandy learned graphic design from working at his father’s business.

“In those days, they called it commercial art,” he says.

Sandy even met his wife Marilena through his father. Her father and his father were friends.

“She is as beautiful as her name,” he says.

The couple has a grown daughter.

Marilena’s younger sister Juliana and her husband Nino own La Marea Ristorante in Old Saybrook.

However, Sandy doesn’t have to go out to get a fancy meal. He loves to cook. Sandy has a woodfired pizza oven in his kitchen. On his cell phone, he shows a picture of a particularly tempting pizza he made.

Vegetables come from his garden.

“It’s small,” he says. “But it has tomatoes, eggplant, fennel, arugula, beets, beans.”

Sandy cures his own meat, making Italian specialties like capicola and pancetta.

“It’s time-consuming, but I like doing it,” he says. “I guess it’s in my blood.”

One of the things Sandy likes making the most is a rolled and twisted focaccia with, among other things, green onions, olives, and anchovies. He called it rucci. After a consultation with Marilena, Sandy reported that the formal name is Ruccolo di San Giuseppe.

Sandy knows just how he likes to eat that dish, which is usually made around Easter.

“The best part is opening a bottle of wine and sharing warm slices with friends and family,” he says.

For Sandy, his love of cooking and graphic arts both go back to the same impulse.

“It’s creative,” he says. “Creating—that’s what I live for.”

The museum of the Chester Historical Society has winter hours by appointment. For more information, contact: chestercthistoricalsociety@gmail.com.