Glass tiles gleam like stone under water. They reflect light in wide eyes. Two owls look out of a mosaic in a stucco wall that seems to ease into the land around it, like a new outcrop from a vanished temple …
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Nikolai Astrup revives the spirit of Norway
It’s summer solstice, and the bonfires are lit. People from up the valley are piling tall cones of green branches. The flames churn golden and flow downhill over a glacial outcrop and coil like a dragon around the embers.
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The Mastheads’ INSCAPES taps into new Berkshire poets
What defines the Berkshires for those who live here? The Mastheads has partnered with MCLA’s Institute for the Arts and Humanities to launch INSCAPES, a yearlong regional community art project across the Berkshires.
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James Joyce voyages on Spring Street
Under the rafters in a sound old wooden barn, a group of people sit over a glass of red wine or a corona with lime, hearing the rhythms of a newspaper office in Dublin in 1904.
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Shaun Leonardo’s ‘You Walk …’ sets quests at Mass MoCA
Two women are talking together, their voices are confident and clear and touched with laughter. The elder woman repeats the word for blue heron in Apsáalooke. I have come to Wendy Red Star’s exhibit many times now, and this is the first time I have heard her language aloud — I have to thank Shaun Leonardo.
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Here comes the sun (June 5 newsletter)
Take a deep breath everyone. We’re standing on the edge of summer. In another week or two we’ll have sculpture shows opening and outdoor plays in the theaters. Already, live concerts are starting up in the grass.
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Walking up to the Dome Trail
It’s a hot, bright day up here on the back roads — late spring spilling into summer. I’ve climbed up Henderson Road until the land flattens out, and everywhere I walk I can hear the sound of a brook close by.
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Mindy Lam infuses spring into wearable art
The flowers tangle together like meadow grass in the morning, glinting with dew, and a small bright frog is climbing up the stems. Jewelry artist and fashion designer Mindy Lam opens the summer at Berkshire Botanical Garden.
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Summer is coming in (May 26 newsletter)
I don’t know about you, but I’ve been needing to get out. Spring is new and fresh everywhere. And after a year, live events are stirring again.
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It’s a beautiful morning — I think I’ll go outside for awhile (May 19 newsletter)
The earth felt cool and damp, and the sun was warm on the church steps, and I was holding a clump of bergamot in my arms. Last Saturday, the Hilltown Seed Savers held a plant swap and exchange …
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Hilltop Orchards transforms in spring
From the top of the hill here, the mountains show on the horizon in receding waves, and in the high meadow the trees stretch away in long rows against the sky. They are all in bloom.
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Why is a rhinoceros like a writing desk? (May 14 newsletter)
The rhinoceros is arresting — 600 pounds of bronze standing four-square at the door. French artists and writers seem fascinated by rhinos half a century ago, and François-Xavier Lalanne cast this one into a life-sized sculpture.
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Les Lalanne cast humor in bronze
Copper and bronze shapes appear around corners, like the veined rippling cup of a giant cabbage leaf … Sculptors Claude and François-Xavier Lalanne are known around the world for their whimsical organic lifeforms.
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