Sunday, January 26, 2025

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Bits & Bytes: Susan Pettee at First Fridays Artswalk; book give-away at Mason Library; Tannery Pond concert; student arts collective exhibit at Olana

At the Mason Library in Great Barrington, thousands of books in good but less than pristine condition will be offered in order to make way for the abundance of donations being readied for a fall sale.

Artist Susan Pettee to showcase at First Fridays Artswalk

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“Common Milkweed” by Susan Pettee

Pittsfield — Susan Pettee of Great Barrington has been chosen as Shire City Sanctuary’s featured artist for the September First Fridays Artswalk. Pettee creates watercolor illustrations depicting different botanical subjects. She has lived in Paris, Munich, and Washington, D.C. She studied at Radcliffe College, Corcoran School of Art, the J.D. Washington College of Law, and with the Society of Botanical Artists.

Shire City Sanctuary will host an opening reception and Meet the Artist session at its BINGO! Gallery on September 4, 2015 from 5 p.m. – 8 p.m. Refreshments will be served.

Also during the Artswalk, Shire City Sanctuary will feature tours of its permaculture garden with Matt Lamb of Berkshire Earth Regenerators at 4:30 p.m., and the new monthly Fringe Music series begins at 7 p.m. with Eleonore Oppenheim.

–E.E.

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Free books at Mason Library

Great Barrington — Friends of the Great Barrington Libraries will hold a massive book give-away from 10 a.m. to 2 p.m. on Saturday, September 5, on the lawn of the Mason Library. Thousands of books in good but less than pristine condition will be offered in order to make way for the abundance of donations being readied for a fall sale.

Offerings include mysteries, teen, books on cassette, self-help, history, classic literature, old bindings, CDs, and more. The regular, on-going mini-sale will continue inside the library in the main reading room with books priced from 50 cents to $1.

Book lovers are encouraged to bring bags or boxes for their loot.

–E.E.

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Labor Day weekend concert at Tannery Pond

New Lebanon, N.Y. — On Saturday, September 5 at 8 p.m., Tannery Pond Concerts will present clarinetist Todd Palmer, pianist Gilles Vonsattel, and cellist Edward Arron. The program will begin with Beethoven’s “Trio in B-flat major, Op.11;” continue with a medley of works by Debussy, Poulenc, Henryson, and Messiaen; and ends with von Weber’s “Le Grand Trio.”

For information and tickets, see the Berkshire Edge calendar or call (888) 820-1696.

–E.E.

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BASC: Arts Collective Performance at Olana

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Marion Albers, left, and Ezra San Millan of the BASC Student Arts Collective.

Hudson, N.Y. — Student artists from Bard College were accepted, through a rigorous application process, to be artists-in-residence at the Olana State Historic Site this summer. When they arrived onsite in June, they were handed a Mystery Box (a large archival storage box filled with reproductions of primary resources about th Hudson River School painter Frederic Edwin Church and Olana, his home). In the box were about 25 different items and documents that the staff at The Olana Partnership had assembled around the topic of trees and tourism.

During their orientation, the nine students were informed that they could make whatever they wanted while working at Olana, but they needed to use the materials from Olana’s history, things in the box, and the site itself as their creative muse or their “point of departure.” See the finished products from the BASC Student Arts Collective on September 5 from 5 p.m. – 8:30 p.m. at Olana’s Wagon House Education Center. The event is free and open to the public.

–E.E.

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