An angel is kissing a woman. It’s an arresting way to begin. As you walk into the rooms of fantasy paintings at the Norman Rockwell Museum, he stretches out wings shimmering pale pink and green like the inner side of a mussel shell.
Read articleMCLA and Berkshire museums bring energy in hard times
This spring, museums in the Berkshires are moving online. Cultural and creative places have faced abrupt disruption, and they are cutting back, but at the same time they are reaching out.
Read articleIn ‘Finding Home’ artists tell stories of travel at the Norman Rockwell Museum
Artists Yuyi Morales, Frances Jetter, David Macaulay and James McMullan in a group show, Finding Home, at the Norman Rockwell Museum.
Read articleNorman Rockwell Museum offers a tribute to the summer of ’69
In the summer of 1969, Norman Rockwell told a reporter for the Associated Press that his work had changed. He wanted to paint an image “that would bring America back together again — promote understanding.” He had just finished a broad canvas textured with earth from the Southwest; a Dinee […]
Read articleWinter holidays from Hanukkah to Kwanzaa glow at the Norman Rockwell Museum
People sit knitting in rocking chairs, someone at the piano and someone playing guitar. A woman on her way to college speaks a gorgeous poem of her own. People bring books and give readings — if they are working on a play or a song, they can try it out […]
Read articleA collage shows the first statewide Artweek festival in images
Get behind the scenes, get muddy, get up close to paper and paint and clay. ArtWeek crossed the state to the Berkshires in April and May 2018 with dozens of events, most of them free …
Read articleArtweek festival crosses Massachusetts and the Berkshires
The Germans called them the Night Witches. In World War II they flew planes made mostly of wood and canvas at night, without parachutes or radios. They were a Russian regiment, a few hundred women as young as 17. In 1941, the Soviet air force became the first in the […]
Read articleAndy Warhol meets Norman Rockwell in the Berkshires
James Warhola remembers his Uncle Andy in his uncle’s first New York apartment, sketching high-heeled shoes for an advertisement in the New York Times. He would ink the drawing and blot it, a technique he would use later in his artwork. When his uncle first painted a Campbell’s soup can, […]
Read articleAmerican artists re-interpret Norman Rockwell in the 21st-century
Roberta Dews and Eric Williams appear as a father and mother standing by a bed where two children sleep. She stands close to the boy and the girl, who lie quietly, and he looks out the window at the night. Dews and Williams are local models setting a scene as […]
Read article10×10 Festival heats up in Pittsfield
Drum beats and improvisation, bonfires, dance, oil paintings and spoken word … the city is getting ready. As I revise the poem I’m working on for the WordxWord Project on Friday, Pittsfield is preparing for its annual 10 days of performance and art — with tacos. And chocolate.
Read article