This month has been full of gifts already. I walk into Chocolate Springs one afternoon just as Joshua Needleman is making chocolate peppermint bonbons, and he offers me a taste …
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Chestnuts are roasting — over the river and through the woods
I’ve never cracked a hard-boiled egg on my dashboard before … The whole day has been like this, zany and surprising. We’re picnicking in my car in unexpected sun, eating with our fingers, in the middle of an expedition.
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Color and light kindle in the cold (December 8 newsletter)
In a weekend of holiday walks, I was wandering around in the flow of the North Adams farmers market, and I found Full Well Farm for the first time.
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Wallasauce creates fashion for the future
On the top floor of the Beaver Mill, Sarah DeFusco and Andrew Casteel are working in a room full of cloth. They are becoming known for their colorful crazy-quilt clothing — together they’re Wallasauce.
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Williams students celebrate the life of Paula Buxbaum
Bux Vintage has been a stop for Williams students on any walk down Spring Street since Paula Buxbaum opened her shop in late spring of 2021.
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Thankful for handmade improvisation (November 24 newsletter)
I was at WallaSauce in the Beaver Mill, in a room full of bright cloth, and then at the Bennington Museum in a show inspired by snow …
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We have liftoff into the Northern Lights (Nov 17 newsletter)
The berries make a vivid streak along the road, and there’s something buoyant about that wash of color now against a grey sky.
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New local shops spring up in North Adams
I keep hearing about new places in North Adams lately — offering everything from baked goods to books to begonias — so I’m taking a walk through town.
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Asking who Emily Dickinson loved
Emily Dickinson is more than I knew. The metaphysical recluse in white is a hurt, outspoken, ardent woman in a smock the wind can blow through.
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ArtWeek Berkshires is here in full colors (Sept 15 newsletter)
Murals and wood-fired ceramics, Japanese Shiburi tie-dyed cloth, graphic novels and living walls — the county is filling up this week with events and shows and painters out in the open, in ArtWeek Berkshires.
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