Studios open and kilns and conversations – #berkshiresweekend

In the next week, we can make paper out of old jeans … or see a potter lift the top off a raku kiln while the bowls inside are glowing like molten glass.

Artsweek Berkshires is coming back to celebrate. And after a summer of wandering through museums and studios and fields, I’m thinking about what I would offer you. Where would I go to sit quietly with art that moves me on a summer afternoon?

In the morning, I would head up to Field Farm, to see Rose B. Simpson’s sculpture. I’ve wanted all summer to see her women at sunrise. They look east, and I’ve come in the early light when they held a glow, and the redwing blackbirds were calling in the meadow, and a heron was fishing on the pond.

Then I might wander into an open studio or a workshop, so I can feel the clay in my hands, or the paper pulp, or the ink and the silkscreen.

And in the afternoon, I’d head south. I want to see Nayana LaFond’s paintings at the Lichtenstien, and I want to go back to the Norman Rockwell Museum — their broad summer show is still with me, bright with music and people holding each other.

This weekend …

Artsweek Berkshires is coming back through Sept. 25 with open studios, art shows and events across the county. Novelist Lara Tupper will hold a virtual writing group on September 21, and the Plant Connector in North Adams will offer workshops throughout the week.

Acclaimed artist Loveis Wise will hold a virtual workshop with the Norman Rockwell Museum, Jeanne Marklin will show her fiber art in Williamstown, and the Old Stone Mill and Cheshire Glassworks will hold open studios, amont many others … Plein air painters gather oudoors, and WAM Theatre holds community conversations …

Events coming up …

Find more art and performance, outdoors and food in the BTW events calendar.

Parents and their young daughter laugh and exclaim over the art in Kidspace at Mass MoCA.
May 2 2024 @ 10:30 am
Families with children up to 6 years old are invited to join Mass MoCA museum educators for a storytime and related exploration in the galleries.
Two women hold each other in a painting a building high, as Sylvia López Chavez' mural Sisterhood brings vivid color to North Street in Pittsfield.
May 3 2024 @ 5:00 pm
First Fridays @ Five brings a new festival to downtown Pittsfield, with fire dancing with Opal Raven Cirque at Persip Park, a makers market and beer garden, live ceramics and more.
Victoria Palermo's Bus Stand turns a bus stop into color as vivid as stained glass on a sunny day in North Adams.
May 3 2024 @ 5:00 pm
May’s First Friday comes to North Adams with Flower Power — with live music, food trucks and vendors, openings and events focused on starting fresh.

By the Way Berkshires is a digital magazine exploring creative life and community — art and performance, food and the outdoors — and I’m writing it for you, with local voices, because I’ve gotten to know this rich part of the world as a writer and journalist, and I want to share it with you.

If you’d like to see the website grow, you can join me for a few dollars a month, enough for a cup of coffee and a cider doughnut. Members get access to extra stories and multimedia, itineraries a bookmark tool. Let me know what you're looking for, and we’ll explore together.

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