After four years as a brick-and-mortar business, including its original location in Pittsfield, Familiar Trees, one of Great Barrington’s beloved bookstores, grievously shut its doors this past September.
Familiar Trees had become a beacon in the Southern Berkshires for academics, poets, designers, writers, philosophers, and outliers. It orientated visitors and locals alike into a welcoming space, fostering a sense of belonging and immediate community. Small but mighty, Familiar Trees impacted the town of Great Barrington. It was emblematic of the powerful influence a small business can have on a community’s social well-being. The closure underscored the vital role businesses like Familiar Trees play in promoting pride of place and enriching the region’s cultural fabric.
The bookstore is owned by Stephen Rudy and his wife Susana Gilboe, both creative professionals. Gilboe works as a full-time costume designer for TV and film, while Rudy has a background in set design. Behind the scenes, Rudy has sought literary hidden gems to collect and resell for over three decades since his first job in a used bookstore. His growing collection would eventually become Familiar Trees’ seed capital and foundation.
Ten years ago, with the possibility of creating a new start, Rudy and Gilboe decided to relocate out of Manhattan. They left behind a tribe of creative peers and spaces supporting obscure yet relevant programming, such as Peace Eye Bookstore, which inspired Familiar Trees. They found a home in the southern Berkshires—a culturally symbolic capital with diverse actors from the applied and non-applied arts as its portfolio. Rudy and Gilboe were drawn to the area because of the rich history of artists and creative communities.
In particular, Rudy was influenced by the interdisciplinary social movement Fluxus, which originated in Lower Manhattan in the 1960s, and eventually moved to western Massachusetts to join the already established community of published authors and poets. Carrying this mantle, Familiar Trees, essentially Rudy’s brainchild, would become an interdisciplinary community, with the Fluxus Movement, Mast Books, Peace Eye Bookstore, and social salons as a conceptual yardstick. “Much of the appeal had to do not just with Rudy and Susana’s warm personalities,” commented Carol Diehl, artist and art critic, “but an elegant, sophisticated, and peculiar aesthetic sense that made any corner of the bookstore look like an art installation.”
Upon entering, you could sense the space had its own heartbeat. Everything was carefully chosen. It was a curatorial project from the jump. The space contained a mix of antique tables, modern design objects, artwork, and handcrafted plywood bookshelves. Cinder blocks became pedestals to display sculptures and handcrafted lamps. The shelves were neatly labeled in black with Helvetica font, using vertical way finders extending from the bookshelves. Michelle Kaplan, radio host of Berkshire Community Radio, explains how the spatial design captured her attention: “When I walked in, I had to pinch myself to make sure I wasn’t dreaming. It was too good to be true, such a specific aesthetic that happened to be 100% my taste. I told everyone I knew and demanded that they go ASAP.”
Its terminus location on 80 Railroad Street in Great Barrington further redrew the edges of what a Great Barrington business looked like by incorporating the RA (Resident Assistant) Gallery as a shared spatial experience. This addition builds on the gallery wall that has been a part of Familiar Trees since its establishment. Reed Anderson, a local artist from a lineage of art dealers and gallerists, bridged the gap from one wall to a full-fledged gallery that inhabited a 550-square-foot space adjacent to the bookstore, flanked by a roll-top garage door. Its structure was distinguished by featuring seven exhibitions of two contemporary artists’ works at a time, inviting the audience into a dialogue between the two bodies of work. Blurring conventional practices in the gallery, the subversive act of changing the wording of RA for each show, such as “Rolling Around, Return Again, and Real Abstraction”, generated an aggregate effect. The gallery and the exhibitions created new entry points into the social landscape, further establishing the space’s collective and social characteristics. Anderson extended these openings into nongkrong (an Indonesian term for the act of hanging out, bodies leaning into space together, a social space, and slow time) by hosting artists and post-opening casual dinners at his home. The gallery would be a flexible space for readings, musical performances, and talks. These gatherings are a performative practice that further amplifies community, unpredictable collaborations, and possible becomings.
Familiar Trees and RA Gallery formed an axis that was brought to life not just by the choice of books, artwork, and events but primarily by the individuals attracted to the space. At the heart of their vision was a shared desire to create connectivity, the spirit of individualism, and a collective network. Both Rudy and Anderson were motivated to reach out to others and overcome the isolating enclosure that modern rural existence tends to be.
Best put by Gabriel Adams, an internationally recognized artist and curator, “Familiar Trees’ presence in downtown Great Barrington added a swath of creative and intellectual juice that this region is thirsty for. Being so rural yet a hub of New England’s cultural capital, this micro-encyclopedic intellectual haven was able to draw otherwise hidden personalities out of their woodsy shell and put them onto the main street. One by one, the artists, poets, philosophers, designers, and cultural workers emerged to buy books and some to linger so long we must say—loiter!”
It has been said that our need for belonging supersedes our desires for power, money, and fame. Community is how we maintain our personal ballast in times of turmoil. On any given day, you could find the Familiar Trees regulars engaging in discourse about philosophy, films, political and social debates, economic diversity, or personal angst. Familiar Trees perpetuated an informal peer-to-peer learning environment.
Rudy and Gilboe embraced the philosophy of the guest-host relationship, welcoming visitors as warmly as they did locals into their shop, treating it like their own home. Rudy, with his charm and charisma reminiscent of Charles Eames, would often be heard shouting, “Hey, do you know so and so?” and he would generously and enthusiastically introduce two people who, a minute ago, were strangers, knowing this connection would reaffirm their sense of belonging. This inclusive tendency would establish one’s connection to Familiar Trees or by relation to the town of Great Barrington. It’s no wonder the business thrived on word of mouth.
“The contribution FT made to the town was enormous,” said Diane Crespo, a producer and director of feature films and documentaries and a regular patron. “The store offered rare books and titles you would not find anywhere else, and the readings, music, and art exhibitions they hosted made us feel connected to our community and that we belonged here.”
Familiar Trees had a knack for erasing boundaries by joining individuals from all walks of life. This produced a trusted localized community that extended the standard expectations of social discourse. As Jon Rosen, a writer and close friend of the owners, states, “Familiar Trees was an intellectual oasis in the middle of Great Barrington…It also served as a creative public square, where I met like-minded people who were up for stimulating conversation. The monthly readings and occasional presentations (Dina Giordano’s presentation on Gordon Matta-Clark and Phenomenology, Susan Jennings’s presentation on Death, and Diane Nerwin’s videos) were fascinating. I also enjoyed Reed Anderson’s gallery.”
It is vital to have businesses such as Familiar Trees and RA Gallery, which redefine what a small New England town can be. They push against the Norman Rockwellian status quo to something, dare we say, progressive. Perhaps in the future, economic development will include subsidies for local businesses that provide well-being and initiatives that create viability in the for-profit sector. As poet and book publisher Geoffrey Young commented, “Knowledgeable and friendly, together with great books generously presented. How rare that combination is. And what a pleasure it was to have Familiar Trees in town, to watch it become a hive of activity…The audience that grew during this brief time already misses the action.”
The truth is that local economics depends on a network of novelty, from small businesses to restaurants and venues, to attract visitors and residents. If towns don’t bolster these enterprises, where will we find places that nurture the spirit of the community, that give back, and where profit is not at the center of their vision and prove that time is not always money? Time is our most precious resource, and how we spend it speaks volumes about where our values lay! In an era of digitization, it could be argued that there is a place for brick-and-mortar because it’s where thinking, community, and material reality take shape.
Familiar Trees and RA Gallery might have closed their doors at 80 Railroad Street. However, Rudy and Gilboe are quietly working on Familiar Trees’ second chapter, reimagining what retail can be and how to rematerialize the creative movement and the community. For now, the bookstore has moved online, and Anderson continues to create art and collaborate with other artists. I share Carol Diehl’s optimistic promise: “Hopefully, this is not the last we will see of Familiar Trees, but they will resurface in another venue to again be like our own, unique Cedar Bar [a popular New York City hangout for Abstract Expressionist artists and Beat writers and poets in the 1940s and 50s].” We might not know how it will happen, but I am confident that Familiar Trees will continue to transform the creative landscape of the Berkshires.
