St. Stanislaus School benefit, 9 to 4 in Kolbe Hall, Adams. Bake sale, snack bar, games, Chinese auctions, money raffle, crafts, and pierogi.
Blackinton Union Church, 1373 Massachusetts Ave., North Adams; 10 to 2. Crafts table, bake sale, Chinese auction, the Christmas table, and kid's grab bag. Lunch $4, $2 kids.
First Congregational Church, North Adams, 9-2.
Nov. 28 Becket Federated Church, Route 8, holiday bazaar from 9-3. Lunch, crafts, baked goods, holiday and other items. Information: Mary Peltier, Parish House, 413-623-5217.
Dec. 5
Holiday Fair at First Congregational Church, 25 Park Place, Lee, from 10 to 3; handcrafted items, raffles, children's shop, bake sale, cut Christmas trees and lunch from 11 to 1. Includes angel-themed goods from SERRV. Information, 413-243-1033 or www.ucc-lee.org.
Dec. 12-13
North Adams Country Club, crafts 9-4; food from That's a Wrap from 11-2. Information: Sheryl Morehouse at 413-822-3329.
Planning a bazaar this season? Submit information to info@iberkshires.com to have it listed here.
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Send press releases and announcements to info@iberkshires.com. Need to contact someone at iBerkshires? Here's how.
Mammography Dispute The government's issued controversial new guidelines stating that women shouldn't get annual mammograms until age 50, rather than age 40.
iBerkshires will be meeting with local medical experts Monday. Have a question you'd like answered on this issue? Send it info@iberkshires.com with "mammogram" in the subject line.
NORTH ADAMS, Mass. — A half-dozen years ago, Building 7 was full pigeon dung and pockmarked with rotting floors. But Sunday, it opened to acclaim as the repository for the 40-year progression of minimalist and conceptualist Sol LeWitt.
"He loved this building right away," said Reynolds, as he ushered a group through the 105 massive wall drawings created by nearly 60 artists over the past six months.
Hundreds of visitors were on hand Sunday for the grand opening of the MoCA exhibit, a 25-year display and the largest gathering of LeWitt's works anywhere.
"I think it will take awhile but I think it will build," said museum Director Joseph C. Thompson as he stood on the open stairway's second-story platform, overlooking a looping video of a rare interview with LeWitt, who died last year. "I think people who like Norman Rockwell and go the Rockwell Museum and who like the impressionists at the Clark [Art Institute] will like this."
Carol LeWitt and Mayor John Barrett III at the Sol LeWitt retrospective opening
Reynolds thought they would "become a canon of art for all time" equal to the Italian frescoes.
The works cover 40 years of LeWitt conceptualizations, written instructions that can be recreated virtually anywhere. The artists selected and mapped out where each work would go; Reynolds said 98 percent of gallery was exactly as he had planned (there was a slight change because of an elevator).
Beginning on the first floor are his earliest works, precise lines in primary colors drawn horizontally, vertically and diagonally (four directions) that create subtle patterns in grids that, like the impressionists, can be appreciated close up and at a distance. They continue on to the second floor, with greater use of ink washes to create depth (always working in primaries) and up to the third with its neonlike acrylics and vibrancy.
Thompson described LeWitt's concepts as a paradox both hopeful and liberatin. "It's all kinds of paradoxes, it doesn't always line up. You read six words on a label and then you see this amazingly complex drawing that's 60 feet long. It's almost magic that six words would be interpreted into that."
It also inspired visitors to have their pictures taken against the walls, interacting with the works.
LeWitt's archecturally resonant works were reflected in the ribbon-cutting ceremony opening the exhibit to the public. Six red strings were pulled taut from different exterior points on Building 7 to the windswept pavilion where visitors were gathered. Each string connected to one of the access points into the gallery.
Each one was snipped by the individuals who made the dream come true, first and foremost Carol LeWitt, the late artist's wife.
"It's Sol's paintings in there but your fingerprints are all over it," Mayor John Barrett III told her, adding her daughters played equally an important role. Fellow collaborators Reynolds, Thompson and Lisa Corrin, director of the Williams College Museum of Art, each cut a line; the mayor got two.
"This is good news for future of North Adams and Mass MoCA," said the mayor. "It's going to benefit not only our generation but future generations."
Barrett has often spoken about the city's gamble on Mass MoCA, supporting what was then considered the crazy idea of turning the vacant manufacturing space into a contemporary museum and looking at the arts as an economic catalyst.
"This is probably the smartest move we made in the last 20 years — diversifying our economy and using the arts as catalyst," he said. "If Sprague Electric had been here today, we probably would have seen layoffs of a 1,000 to 1,500 people, General Electric would have been similar. ... We're much better positioned than we were 20 years ago."
The LeWitt exhibit is more than just a display — its the center of a major educational partnership tightening the bonds between Williams College and reaching out to Yale University. LeWitt trained Williams students in 2001 to execute one of his wall drawings at WCMA; this year, Williams and Massachusetts College of Liberal Arts students interned on the retrospective.
WCMA will continue to explore educational opportunities related to LeWitt, including access to some 11,000 works the artist and his wife collected.
Veronica Bosley was inspired by LeWitt's wall drawing at WCMA after seeing it on a class trip.
"It was sort of in passing, and there was all these rainbow colors and it thought it was the greatest thing ever and since then I've been into Sol LeWitt," said Bosley, former coordinator for MCLA's Berkshire Cultural Resource Center. "I like it so you can come back. ... [with other MoCA exhibits] it's hard to come back and see them again. When I go to the Clark there's always paintings that I want to see."
Art lovers will have 25 years, probably more, to linger over the mile of walls, and the chance to return again and again.
It's what Williams instructor Cassandra Cleghorn is planning to do. Surrounded by seven youngsters (four hers) she said, "I wanted to see what they did with the new space."
"We thought it was a pretty historic day and that they would like the art," Cleghorn continued, pointing to a particularly bright wall on the third floor. "So we just had this idea that every year for the next 25 years we'll come and stand in front of it and have our picture taken."
I personally really enjoyed the day at mocca, as my girlfriend and I followed Lewitts works. I saw a gathering of a mass of people, but one thing really sparked in my mind, while there are huge numbers of people here, why oh why is the down town a ghost town? The bridge must be gapped to get these people downtown to local merchants, and I do not see the town and mocca taking an active roll. my suggestion is to do street instalations,, like the river event, we all remember the one night display,,, 10k we spend on that instalation. why arent we doing things like that, but litterally from mocca to downtown ,,, making the town litterally a walking gallery of contemporary art?
from: business as usual
on: 11-18-2008
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Art lovers will have 25 years, probably more, to linger over the mile of walls, and the chance to return again and again.