Berkshire Mountain Distillers to host Berkshire Busk! throughout fall
Sheffield– Berkshire Mountain Distillers (BMD) has announced a continued collaboration with Berkshire Busk! Roadside to present Live Music Saturdays in their outdoor pavilion during autumn.
Musicians will take the stage on Saturdays from 2:30 to 4:30 p.m., rain or shine, through October 29. In inclement weather, performances will take place inside the distillery. Craft cocktails will be available for purchase in BMD’s tasting room as well as complimentary tasting flights and self-guided tours of the production facility for guests 21 years and older.
An organization harnessing artistic talent to create a vibrant immersive arts experience, Berkshire Busk! celebrates music and live performance each weekend in summer with ‘buskers’ throughout downtown Great Barrington and now in BMD’s Sheffield location.
“Berkshire Busk! is thrilled to keep our partnership going with Berkshire Mountain Distillers!,” said Carli Scolforo, general manager of Berkshire Busk! “Having performers in the BMD pavilion every Saturday was an excellent addition to our 2022 festival season, and we’re excited to have more opportunities to showcase the many talented local musicians in our network. It’s a great way to extend some of that summer excitement into the new season.”
For more information and the lineup of performers, visit the Berkshire Busk! Roadside website.
“We’re super excited to continue to work with the Berkshire Busk! team and offer live music at the distillery during one of the most beautiful seasons here in the Berkshires,” said Chris Weld, founder-owner of Berkshire Mountain Distillers. “Come on down and walk the grounds and greenhouse, check out our farmstand, sip a cocktail under our covered pavilion and enjoy the fire pit on cooler autumn days.”
BMD’s production facility, tasting room and retail shop, located at 356 South Main Street in Sheffield, is open every day from 11 a.m. to 5 p.m.
To find where BMD products are available or for more information, visit the BMD website at berkshiremountaindistillers.com and follow Instagram, Facebook and Twitter.
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Illustration program from Norman Rockwell’s Studio
Stockbridge— The Norman Rockwell Museum will host a monthly series of online and on-demand programs featuring leading illustrators from across the United States. During the programs, artists will demonstrate their craft and discuss ways in which published illustration reflects and shapes society and advances social good.
The series started on Thursday, September 15, and episodes can be viewed anytime after they air. The full series can be viewed for $50, and single episodes can be viewed for $5.
The following artists will be featured:
September 15, 2022: Loveis Wise
Loveis Wise is an Illustrator, Artist, and Capricorn drawing reimagined futures and playfulness in Los Angeles. Wise has worked with businesses including The New Yorker, Google, Harper Collins, Disney Hyperion, Adobe, Instagram, Dr.Marten, Birchbox, Mural Arts Philadelphia, L’Oreal, The New York Times, REI, Target, Cartoon Network, and Apple. Visit Loveiswise.com for additional information.
October 20, 2022: Shadra Strickland
Shadra Strickland studied design, writing, and illustration at Syracuse University and later went on to complete her M.F.A. at the School of Visual Arts in New York City. She won the Ezra Jack Keats Award and the Coretta Scott King/John Steptoe Award for New Talent in 2009 for her work in her first picture book, Bird, written by Zetta Elliott. Strickland co-illustrated Our Children Can Soar, winner of a 2010 NAACP Image Award. Visit jumpin.shadrastrickland.com for additional information.
November 17, 2022: Louis Henry Mitchell
As Creative Director of Character Design, Louis Henry Mitchell directs and oversees most aspects of character art for Sesame Workshop, the non-profit organization behind Sesame Street. From designing the Macy’s Thanksgiving Day Parade balloons and floats to directing Sesame Street Muppet photo shoots, Mitchell has been at Sesame Workshop, full-time, since 2020. Prior to that, Mitchell freelanced for the organization beginning in 1992. Mitchell designed the character Julia, the first Sesame Street character on the autism spectrum.
Noa Denmon is an award winning illustrator who has worked with clients such as The New York Times, Google, Penguin and Macmillan Publishers. She won a Caldecott Honor Award in 2020 for her debut children’s book A Place Inside of Me which tells the story of a boy who reckons with his identity as a black child in a world of pain. She loves to uplift and depict the stories of the underrepresented, and hopes to create work that displays humanity in all of its differences. Visit noadenmon.com for additional information.
January 19, 2023: Liza Donnelly
Liza Donnelly is a writer and award-winning cartoonist with The New Yorker Magazine, where she has been drawing cartoons and writing about culture and politics for forty years. She has contributed to CBS News and CNN, creating political cartoons as well as live-drawing special cultural and political events. Donnelly writes and draws for The New York Times and CNN Opinion pages and the Washington Post. Liza is also a screenwriter, working on her third feature and currently pitching a documentary. Visit lizadonnelly.com for additional information.
February 16, 2023: Victor Juhasz
Victor Juhasz was born in Newark, New Jersey. He exhibited an interest in drawing early in life but needed the prodding of his high school art teacher to abandon a fantasy of becoming a cross-country truck driver (in retrospect, a really awful idea) and recognize his calling to be an illustrator. A graduate of the Parsons School of Design in New York City, 1975, Victor began illustrating in 1974 for The New York Times while still a student. Visit juhaszillustration.com for additional information.
Shawn Fields’ interest in drawing began early. Pursuing that interest, he received a BFA in illustration degree at the School of Visual Arts, studied anatomy at the Arts Student’s League in New York, and received an MFA in painting from the New York Academy of Art. His work has been exhibited at ArtBasel Miami, Forbes Gallery NYC, Arcadia NYC, and is collected worldwide. Currently represented by Dowling Walsh Gallery in Rockland Maine, Shawn lives in Mill River, Massachusetts. Visit shawnfields.com for additional information.
To purchase access to the programs or learn more, visit www.nrm.org/drawinglife/
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Music and fundraiser at Becket Arts Center
Becket– This weekend at The Becket Arts Center is packed with entertainment. On Saturday, September 24 at 5 p.m., acclaimed singer-songwriter Louise Mosrie will perform with Simon Ruiz Guthrie. The concert, which is part of the Music Brings Communities Together program, is free and outdoors. Audience members are encouraged to bring lawn chairs, coolers, snacks and kids. In case of rain, the concert will move to the Federated Church across the street.
On Sunday, September, The Becket Arts Center will celebrate the season with its Fall for Oysters fundraiser at Canterbury Farm, 1986 Fred Snow Road in Becket. The event, which starts at 2 p.m., will include oysters, wine tasting, and music by Lady Di and the Dukes. Tickets are $25 per person in advance, $30 at the event.
For more information about both events, visit www.becketartscenter.org
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Artist Benigna Chilla opens art show at Berkshire Community College
Pittsfield— Internationally renowned artist Benigna Chilla’s solo art exhibition, From West to East to West, is on view at Berkshire Community College (BCC)’s Koussevitzsky Gallery through Friday, October 28. Gallery hours are Monday-Friday, 9 a.m.-5 p.m.
Specializing in the intersections between math, design and architecture, Chilla creates multi-layered paintings and wall hangings with vibrant colors and rich, varied textures. This exhibition features the artist’s recent series of large paintings, created after a 2011 stay in Bhutan and her retirement from BCC as a professor of visual arts.
Chilla’s artistic process begins with inspiration from geometric patterns found in architecture, textiles and nature. She explores both organic and constructed geometric shapes, which are organized through symmetry, and says the meditative and physical process of painting is as important to her as the final pieces themselves. The paintings in the exhibition feature actual texture embedded onto the canvas, layered with natural pigment like turmeric, saffron and minerals.
Chilla studied in her native Germany at the Folkwangschule in Essen and the Academy of Fine Arts in Berlin. She moved to America in 1969, completing her graduate studies at the State University of New York at Albany and the University of Massachusetts, Amherst. She held Visiting Assistant or Artist-in-Residence positions at the University of Massachusetts, Brown University, Cornell University and the Rhode Island School of Design until 1980, when she became a faculty member at Berkshire Community College. She has also held residencies at Yaddo, the Djerassi Foundation, the Atlantic Center for the Arts and the Fine Arts Work Center in Provincetown, Massachusetts.
At age 82, Chilla has continued to steadily produce work from her home studio in Chatham, New York as well as exhibit and lecture all over the world.
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Ancram Opera House becomes The Ancram Center for the Arts, hosts ceremony September 24
Ancram, N.Y. — Ancram Opera House is expanding their campus and becoming The Ancram Center for the Arts, which will include a community meeting room, outdoor areas for audience gatherings pre- and post-show, and housing for artists and interns. A volunteer clean-up day and ground-breaking ceremony will be held on Saturday, September 24.
New York City and Hillsdale-based Ackert Architecture PC has created a design for the newly acquired property at 1236 County Route 7, which will be known as The Annex. This design will link the new building with the existing Opera House in ways that are historically sensitive and which integrate current standards for accessibility in both buildings. Both buildings are zoned within Ancram’s Central Business District and are close to the hamlet’s main intersection.
“This expansion is in direct response to community requests for expanded programming and opportunities,” AOH co-director Jeffrey Mousseau explained. “It reflects our already thriving programs, a commitment to sustaining them, and an investment in our future as a vital resource for Ancram and beyond.”
“This project represents so much exciting progress for Ancram, and we really feel the community’s support behind us,” AOH co-director Paul Ricciardi added. “We hope everyone will join in and help us create this really needed community space for all.”
The ground-breaking ceremony, which is open to the public, kicks off at 2 p.m. AOH board chair Cathy Redlich, Ancram Town Supervisor Art Bassin, Assemblymember Didi Barrett, and Mousseau and Ricciardi will all make brief remarks. Weather permitting, this will be an outdoor event.
Volunteers are welcome – no experience necessary – for clean-up shifts from noon-2 p.m. and 2-4 p.m. Gloves, dust masks, hard hats (kindly donated by Herrington’s Lumber), water and snacks provided. To get involved, email info@ancramoperahouse.org.
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Hawthorne Valley Farm Store to host Makers Market series
Ghent, N.Y.– This fall, Hawthorne Valley Farm Store will host a Makers Market series featuring crafters and artisans who work at Hawthorne Valley. The markets will be held outside the Farm Store on September 24, October 29, November 19, and December 17 from 10 a.m.-4 p.m.
“Many of our colleagues are also amazing artisans and crafters,” says Jeremy Laurange, Director of Retail. “We came up with the idea of a Makers Market as a way to help really highlight their work and to bring staff members from across Hawthorne Valley’s initiatives together in a fun way.”
Vendors at the market will include: Aprilsaladino, Delsia Hilton, Double M G Crochet, Good Good Handmade, Juliette Geller, Jenifer Rosete, MEM, Mom’s Stitch, Peglet Life, The Promised Land Farm, Rolling Pin Pastries, Shannon Beaucage, Tree Drops Design.
Also joining the Market on September 24 is FollyFields artist-in-residence Patty Harris who will share information on her upcoming art installation on Hawthorne Valley Farm and offer an art activity. The inaugural FollyFields residency is a partnership between Hawthorne Valley and Millay Arts and is made possible by the generous support of the Joseph Robert Foundation.
For more information, visit the Hawthorne Valley website. The store is located at 327 CR 21C, Ghent, N.Y. 12075.
