A palm tree leans outward by a pool where the water ripples in concentric circles, as though a fish has just jumped and gone under … Gloria Calderon Saenz has come to the Berkshires to find space and time for her art, paintings and drawings, and most of all, woodcuts and woodblock prints.
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L’Shanah tovah — happy new year
Rosh Hashanah begins this evening at dusk, and friends of mine will welcome these days with honey and apples and family. I’m thinking of you all warmly tonight.
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How to meet a mountain in the rain (August 25 newsletter)
You can see 90 miles from here on a clear day. We can see about 30 feet across the meadow. Up here on the summit of Mount Greylock at the end of a storm, we’re islanded in cloud.
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Hostile Terrain 94 and West Coast artists reflect on immigrants’ lives
After nearly two years of work and a pandemic in the way, Massachusetts College of Liberal Arts’ Gallery 51 has finally opened a show that starkly illustrates the violence and peril that exist around the US-Mexico border.
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Theatre and art leaders commit to change
As the theatre season is reopening in the Berkshires, more than 30 arts and theatre organizations gathered with MCLA (in a virtual event) to talk with two nationally renowned theatre makers.
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Looking up to open sky (June 9 newsletter)
The circle of blue framed in the opening in the ceiling seems to float overhead like a new planet. In his newest work at Mass MoCA, James Turrell has turned a concrete water tank into a Skyspace.
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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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Kang Seung Lee honors kin in spirit (April 7 newsletter)
An artist is kneeling with his hands in the earth. Kang Seung Lee has come to Namsan Park in Seoul, and somewhere along the mountain paths and Joseon gardens and 14th-century houses, he is remembering a writer and a filmmaker together.
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Artists seek kinship in hard times in ‘Close to You’
Two men are dancing in the kitchen. They are barefoot, eyes closed, two black men holding each other at home, in a quiet lighted room. Los Angeles photographer Clifford Prince King offers an image of refuge and care in Close to You at Mass MoCA.
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Glenn Kaino invokes protest in light and shadow
Los Angeles musician Deon Jones is singing U2’s Bloody Sunday in a ring of light. A protest in Derry, Northern Ireland, comes together with a protest Selma, Alabama, as international artist Glenn Kaino brings his new work to Mass MoCA.
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