First Fridays Artswalk to feature new indoor and outdoor exhibits
Pittsfield — The First Fridays Artswalk on Friday, Nov. 6, from 5 to 8 p.m. will feature indoor and storefront art shows, murals, outdoor sculpture and 19 of Artscape’s Pittsfield Paintboxes.
The Marketplace Café will feature works by Kathryn L. Jensen with an opening reception during Artswalk. Hotel on North will feature the exhibit “Horizon” by Andrew DeVries through Monday, Nov. 30. There will be a reception with the artist during Artswalk.
The Lichtenstein Center for the Arts will feature “Next,” the Berkshire Art Association’s juried biennial show, through Friday, Nov. 20. “Next” features 37 works by 30 artists from New England and New York. Those wishing to view the show in person must call (413) 499-9348 and make an appointment to do so (including at Artswalk).
The Brothership Building Window, 141 North St., curated by IS183 Art School of the Berkshires will feature collage trees by Mrs. Callahan’s fifth-grade Egremont Elementary School class for the month of November.
NUarts Studios and Gallery will display the artwork of six artists in the storefront windows along Union Street across from Barrington Stage Company’s Boyd-Quinson Mainstage. Participating artists include Ilene Richard, Karen S. Jacobs, Caroline Kelley, Linda Petrocine, Sally Tiska Rice and Marney Schorr.
The Artswalk will also highlight new murals downtown, including “The Sun Will Rise” by Jesse Tobin McCauley, Jay Tobin and Stephanie Quetti at 443 North St.; and “Gaia” by Mike Carty on Melville Street. Also highlighted will be Artscape’s three outdoor sculptures throughout downtown, which will be in place through April of next year: Paul Angiolillo’s “Flame of Hope,” Joe Gitterman’s “Couple 3” and Joe Chirchirillo’s “Joshua Tree #2.”
All art exhibits are on display in participating venues throughout the month. Artswalk participants are asked to maintain a physical distance of at least 6 feet from other individuals and to wear masks. An online map of all indoor and outdoor locations is available. For more information, contact Downtown Pittsfield Inc. at (413) 443-6501.
–E.E.
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Berkshire South to hold arts & crafts festival
Great Barrington — Berkshire South Regional Community Center will host its fifth annual arts and crafts festival Saturday, Nov. 7, from 11 a.m. to 3 p.m. outside in the employee parking lot.
The festival is a pre-holiday market featuring contemporary artisans, crafters and food producers. Showcasing locally and regionally handmade goods, shoppers are given the opportunity to meet and support the makers of their gifts and keep their holiday spending local. Vendors will be spaced out more than in past years. Foot traffic flow will be managed at the entrance to be sure attendees are safely spaced. Attendees will enter on one side of the parking lot and exit on another.
The event is free to attend. For more information, including a list of participating vendors, see the Berkshire Edge calendar, or contact Berkshire South Regional Community Center at (413) 528-2810 x32 or email galexander@berkshiresouth.org.
–E.E.
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Trevor Paglen to deliver Plonsker Family Lecture in Contemporary Art
Williamstown — Artist, geographer and author Trevor Paglen will present the talk “Machine Visions” for Williams College Museum of Art’s Plonsker Family Lecture in Contemporary Art Friday, Nov. 6, at 6 p.m. online via Zoom.
Paglen’s practice spans a range of disciplines, including image making, investigative journalism, sculpture, technological devices and applications, drawing, photography, cartography, and scientific research. Paglen’s recent body of work, called “Bloom,” is rooted in his investigations of technology and machine learning and functions symbolically as a meditation on life and death inspired by the artist’s pandemic experience. The “Bloom” exhibition is on view at Pace Gallery in London through Tuesday, Nov. 10, and is accessible virtually through a unique assembly of in-situ cameras and monitors conceived by the artist called Octopus. Online visitors can not only observe the exhibition from a variety of angles but can also be “present” in the London gallery via monitors installed in the space.
The event is free and open to the public. For more information or to register, see the Berkshire Edge calendar, or contact the Williams College Museum of Art at (413) 597-2429 or wcma@williams.edu.
–E.E.
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New York City Big Book Award recognizes poet Owen Lewis
Stockbridge — The New York City Big Book Award recently recognized “Field Light” by Owen Lewis in the category of poetry as one of its Distinguished Favorites. The competition is judged by experts from different aspects of the book industry, including publishers, writers, editors, book cover designers and professional copywriters.
“Field Light” is a book of and about the Berkshires. Written as a unified work with some sections in prose and dramatic formats, it encompasses the social, cultural, and political histories of the area. The voices of W.E.B. Du Bois, Elizabeth “Mumbet” Freeman, Daniel Chester French, Norman Rockwell, Nathaniel Hawthorne, Herman Melville, and nearby writers such as Stanley Kunitz and Chris Gilbert form parts of this collage-like work.
Lewis is the author of two other collections of poetry, “Marriage Map” (2017) and “Sometimes Full of Daylight” (2013), as well as the chapbook “Best Man” (2015), which received the New England Poetry Club’s 2016 Jean Pedrick Chapbook Prize. Lewis was a finalist for the 2017 Pablo Neruda Award, the first-prize winner the 2016 Hippocrates Prize for Poetry and Medicine and the second-prize winner of the 2016 Paumantok Award. His poetry has appeared in publications such as Nimrod, the Mississippi Review, Southword and the Four Way Review. He is a professor of psychiatry at Columbia University where he teaches narrative medicine in the medical humanities and ethics department.
–E.E.
