image description
Rep. Richard Neal is greeted by Mount Greylock School Committee Chairwoman Carolyn Greene, Assistant Principal Jacob Schutz and Principal Mary MacDonald.
image description
The congressman visits an art class in progress at Mount Greylock.
image description
Art teacher Jean-Ellen DeSomma shows Neal the student mural in the school's library.
image description
Sheldon and her original painting 'Quiet Ferocity.'
image description
image description
Anya Sheldon's mother, Lisa, and grandparents, Virginia and Tom, look on during Monday's ceremony.
image description
image description
image description
Neal offers an impromptu civics lesson to Mount Greylock students on Monday.
image description
image description
'Quiet Ferocity' will be displayed at the Capitol in Washington, D.C.

Neal Recognizes Mount Greylock Student Artist

By Stephen DravisiBerkshires Staff
Print Story | Email Story
Mount Greylock junior Anya Sheldon is recognized by U.S. Rep. Richard A. Neal for her artwork that will hang at the U.S. Capitol.
WILLIAMSTOWN, Mass. — A veteran of elections for more than 30 years, U.S. Rep. Richard E. Neal knows a lot about the art of politics.
 
But it is not the only art he likes to talk about.
 
"Back in the worst days of the Great Depression, Franklin Roosevelt insisted that artists be paid," Neal recalled on Monday during a tour of Mount Greylock Regional School.
 
Neal was at the school to pay tribute to one of its own, junior Anya Sheldon, whose acrylic painting "Quiet Ferocity" is this year's winner of the Congressional Art Competition for the First Congressional District.
 
Sheldon's work was chosen from among 111 entries from 16 high schools throughout Neal's district, he said. And in addition to Monday's recognition, Sheldon will have the honor of seeing her work hung in a hallway at the U.S. Capitol among other winning entries from around the country.
 
"I can't really picture what it will look like hanging there," Sheldon said after an unveiling on Monday in the school's meeting room. "I really hope to be able to get there and see what other works were selected. I think that would be really interesting."
 
Neal said on Monday that he always enjoys the opportunity to view those works — from his constituents and beyond.
 
"For me, it's particularly important because it's located in a tunnel between the Capitol and the Cannon House Office Building, and as you can imagine, after 27 years, you get pretty good office assignments," Neal said. "So from my office in the Cannon Building on rainy days or cold nights, I go through the Cannon tunnel. And every chance I have stop and look and view the art work, it's just astounding how good these artists are.
 
"And I also take some satisfaction that our office, we were one of the first to participate in the Congressional Art contest. Now, just about everyone in Massachusetts does it, but there was a time when it wasn't embraced with the same enthusiasm. I want the artwork up. I want it published. I want people to see it so we can all take satisfaction in Anya's moment."
 
Sheldon, a quiet teen not given to blowing her own horn, used the moment to thank her family and her teacher, Jane-Ellen DeSomma, for their support.
 
"I was just really surprised [by winning]," she said. "I didn't believe it at first. It's been a shock in general, and it all escalated very quickly. Entering the contest, I did not think I would win."
 
That said, Sheldon did take a lot of pride in "Quiet Ferocity," a painting that she developed on her own, not as a class project, but with guidance from DeSomma.
 
"It's evolved quite a bit," she said. "It's been three different people that I was unhappy with.
 
"It was just something I started on a weekend in the summer time and spent a lot of time on."
 
DeSomma on Monday praised Sheldon as, among other things, prolific, and several works from her portfolio were on display on Monday for Neal's visit. "Quiet Ferocity" stood out as something a little different, the artist said.
 
"I think generally I don't work on very large scale," she said. "It's bigger than some of my other drawings, so it has more of an effect I think, in that way. And also I didn't use a reference photo for it, so I'm a little bit proud of the originality of it."
 
Among the art that Neal saw on Monday was a mural that Sheldon created along with other Mount Greylock students that now adorns the school's library, where the congressmen made reference to the Works Progress Administration artists of FDR's New Deal.
 
DeSomma used Monday's ceremony to note that Sheldon is an example, not an anomaly, when it comes to Mount Greylock's arts program.
 
"We have a lot of kids who work very hard," DeSomma said. "Anya is a renaissance woman. She is good in just about everything she does. She does make things look easy sometimes, however, I think it's really, really important to understand that when someone turns out the level and the quality of work that Anya produces, you have to acknowledge the hundreds and hundreds of hours that have gone into this."

Tags: artwork,   Congress,   MGRHS,   Neal,   recognition event,   student art,   

If you would like to contribute information on this article, contact us at info@iberkshires.com.

WCMA: 'Cracking the Code on Numerology'

WILLIAMSTOWN, Mass. — The Williams College Museum of Art (WCMA) opens a new exhibition, "Cracking the Cosmic Code: Numerology in Medieval Art."
 
The exhibit opened on March 22.
 
According to a press release: 
 
The idea that numbers emanate sacred significance, and connect the past with the future, is prehistoric and global. Rooted in the Babylonian science of astrology, medieval Christian numerology taught that God created a well-ordered universe. Deciphering the universe's numerical patterns would reveal the Creator's grand plan for humanity, including individual fates. 
 
This unquestioned concept deeply pervaded European cultures through centuries. Theologians and lay people alike fervently interpreted the Bible literally and figuratively via number theory, because as King Solomon told God, "Thou hast ordered all things in measure, and number, and weight" (Wisdom 11:22). 
 
"Cracking the Cosmic Code" explores medieval relationships among numbers, events, and works of art. The medieval and Renaissance art on display in this exhibition from the 5th to 17th centuries—including a 15th-century birth platter by Lippo d'Andrea from Florence; a 14th-century panel fragment with courtly scenes from Palace Curiel de los Ajos, Valladolid, Spain; and a 12th-century wall capital from the Monastery at Moutiers-Saint-Jean—reveal numerical patterns as they relate to architecture, literature, gender, and timekeeping. 
 
"There was no realm of thought that was not influenced by the all-consuming belief that all things were celestially ordered, from human life to stones, herbs, and metals," said WCMA Assistant Curator Elizabeth Sandoval, who curated the exhibition. "As Vincent Foster Hopper expounds, numbers were 'fundamental realities, alive with memories and eloquent with meaning.' These artworks tease out numerical patterns and their multiple possible meanings, in relation to gender, literature, and the celestial sphere. 
 
"The exhibition looks back while moving forward: It relies on the collection's strengths in Western medieval Christianity, but points to the future with goals of acquiring works from the global Middle Ages. It also nods to the history of the gallery as a medieval period room at this pivotal time in WCMA's history before the momentous move to a new building," Sandoval said.
 
Cracking the Cosmic Code runs through Dec. 22.
View Full Story

More Williamstown Stories