First Fridays Artswalk
Pittsfield — The First Fridays Artswalk on Friday, Oct. 7, from 5 – 8 p.m. will encompass over 15 art shows featuring more than 15 accomplished regional artists. The Artswalk will kick off with opening receptions and artists present throughout. A free guided walking tour will begin at 5 p.m. at the BRTA Intermodal Center. The evening will culminate with a free afterwalk party from 8 – 10 p.m. at the Whitney Center for the Arts.
The Berkshire Alzheimer’s Partnership will present “Memories in the Making,” a program of the Alzheimer’s Association that provides memory-impaired individuals with new tools for expression when words fail, at Downtown Pittsfield Inc. during the month of October. Solider On will highlight its Veterans Community Arts Initiative at the Intermodal Center, showcasing some works created by the veterans in residence in Pittsfield and Leeds, Massachusetts. The Berkshire Organization for Original Music (BOOM) will host musicians John Davidson and Chad Tarves as well as a reception for “Eclectica: Visual Art by Musicians and Friends” at its BOOM Room, 137 North St.
New shows from local artists will also be displayed at the Lichtenstein Center for the Arts, Berkshire Paint and Sip, the Whitney Center for the Arts, Steven Valenti’s Clothing for Men, Hotel on North, Dottie’s Coffee Lounge, the Marketplace Café, Bagels Too, and the Kinderhook Group Real Estate.
For more information on First Fridays Artswalk, call Downtown Pittsfield Inc. at (413) 443-6501.
–E.E.
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Chesterwood, Boston Athenaeum collaborate on Daniel Chester French exhibit
Boston — Chesterwood is collaborating with the Boston Athenaeum on a new exhibition titled “Daniel Chester French: The Female Form Revealed.” The exhibit will be on view at the Boston Athenaeum from Friday, Oct. 7, 2016 – Sunday, Feb. 19, 2017. The Athenaeum will host a free opening reception on Thursday, Oct. 6, from 5:30 – 7:30 p.m.
“Daniel Chester French: The Female Form Revealed” explores French’s representation of the female figure primarily through a group of preliminary models and studies created not only for major public commissions, but also for a number of his more intimate and personal works. French’s fame for his male-oriented masterpieces such as “The Minute Man” and “Abraham Lincoln” is well deserved, but he was equally proficient at modeling the female figure, especially in its classicizing form. Often idealized, seductively posed, and classically draped, French’s female figures typically memorialize great human actions, events, or emotions. Feminine beauty in allegorical form was often at the forefront of French’s work.
The exhibition is co-curated by Boston Athenaeum Director of Exhibitions David B. Dearinger and Senior Curator of Paintings and Sculpture Susan Morse Hilles, and Donna Hassler, director of Chesterwood and administrator of the Historic Artists’ Homes and Studios Program of the National Trust for Historic Preservation. The exhibit will be accompanied by an illustrated catalogue and enhanced with a series of lectures, curator-led gallery talks, and an online version of the installation. For more information, call Chesterwood at (413) 298-3579.
–E.E.
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Ghana ThinkTank trailer at WCMA
Williamstown — Williams College Museum of Art (WCMA) is working with the international art collective Ghana ThinkTank to bring climate change solutions from Indonesia and Morocco—two countries already grappling with the devastating affects of climate change—to Williams College. The year-long project flips the power dynamics of climate change discourse and brings into high relief the nature of the community’s perceptions of the issue. WCMA’s student “action team” will be operating the Ghana ThinkTank mobile unit at WCMA from noon – 2 p.m. daily through Saturday, Oct. 8, to gather community members’ responses to a single question: How does climate change affect YOU?
Ghana ThinkTank collects problems in communities throughout the U.S. and Europe, and sends them to citizen think tanks they’ve created in “developing” countries like Ghana, Cuba, and El Salvador. The think tanks—which include a group of bike mechanics in Ghana, staff members of a rural radio station in El Salvador, and Sudanese refugees seeking asylum in Israel, among others—propose solutions that are then implemented in the “first world.” The range of interventions and exchanges that emerge from the process reveals blind spots and challenges cultural assumptions.
The project will produce a responsive and dynamic installation in the museum’s galleries to open in January 2017. WCMA commissioned the project with Ghana ThinkTank as part of the 2016–17 campus-wide academic program called “Confronting Climate Change,” a series of events, talks, and curricular initiatives aimed at raising issues around the science and policy of climate change.
–E.E.
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Hotchkiss School to welcome American Brass Quintet
Lakeville, Conn. — The Hotchkiss Concert Series will present the American Brass Quintet on Friday, Oct. 7 at 7 p.m. in the Katherine M. Elfers Hall of Hotchkiss School’s Esther Eastman Music Center. The program will feature works by Osvaldo Lacerda, Thomas Stoltzer, Kenneth Fuchs, and Eric Ewazen. The concert is free and open to the public.
Committed to the development of brass chamber music through higher education, the American Brass Quintet has served as ensemble-in-residence at the Juilliard School since 1987 and the Aspen Music Festival since 1970. The 2013 recipient of Chamber Music America’s Richard J. Bogomolny National Service Award for significant and lasting contributions to the field, the Quintet’s history includes performances in Asia, Australia, Central and South America, Europe, the Middle East, Canada and the United States; a discography of nearly 60 recordings; and the premieres of over 150 contemporary brass works. Highlights of the Quintet’s 2016-2017 season include its ongoing collaboration with avant-garde composer John Zorn for the world premiere of “Blue Stratagem” at Columbia University’s Miller Theatre, along with additional performances at the Guggenheim Museum as a tribute to American abstract painter Agnes Martin. A new disc comprised entirely of Quintet-commissioned works by Ewazen, Jay Greenberg, Robert Paterson and Sebastian Currier is scheduled for release on Summit Records in early 2017.
For more information, call Hotchkiss School at (860) 435-4423.
–E.E.
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Gabriel Squalia to launch new book “Viscera”
Pittsfield — Methuselah Bar and Lounge will host a book launch party on Thursday, Oct. 6, at 7 p.m. to celebrate the release of Gabriel Squailia’s macabre second novel “Viscera.” The event will include offal appetizers from Methuselah and Red Apple Butchers, papier-mâché organ jewelry, a fake-blood bath, and more. The author will give a reading at 8 p.m., and DJ BFG will provide a playlist from beyond the grave for after-signing fun. Tickets are $30 and include a signed, first-edition copy of the novel. For tickets and more information, see the Berkshire Edge calendar or call Darling Event Design at (413) 717-5362.
–E.E.
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Psychic medium Deborah Hanlon to appear at Club Helsinki Hudson
Hudson, N.Y. — Psychic medium Deborah Hanlon, who specializes in connecting people with loved ones who have passed on, will be at Club Helsinki Hudson on Wednesday, Oct. 5, at 6 p.m. and Wednesday, Nov. 2, at 6 p.m.
Since discovering her ability to connect with those who have passed on in August 2001, Hanlon has provided readings for more than 3,000 people across the country. Hanlon attributes most of her ability to the illness and death of her four-year-old brother, Christopher, when she was three years old. After reading an article about an unborn baby in TIME magazine when she was 12, information regarding life and the nature of time was suddenly revealed to her.
Tickets are $50 and reservations are required. For tickets and more information, see the Berkshire Edge calendar or call the Club at (518) 828-4800.
–E.E.
