Storefront artists to showcase their work

By Kate Abbott12:00AM / Tuesday, December 09, 2003Print Story | Email Story

Maggie Mailer, founder of the Storefront Artists' Project, stands in her own studio on North Street with her painting as a backdrop. (Photo By Kate Abbott)

PITTSFIELD â€” Castles built of soap, alighting birds drawn in ink; hand-carded wool on antique spinning wheels and tap dancing under coppery cups of miniature colored lights; sculpture made of cut paper or unraveled crane cable â€” all the fertile jumble of the artistsâ€™ community on North and South streets waits to welcome visitors this weekend. The Storefront Artist Project will host a holiday Open Studios Day Saturday, Dec. 13, from 1 to 5 p.m. More than 20 artists will open their studios and offer demonstrations, according to Megan Whilden, a volunteer with the storefront artists. They will hold their fourth open studios at their three current locations and in artistsâ€™ studios all along the street. The event will include art demonstrations, dance lessons, crafts and art sales, along with Pittsfield holiday events sponsored by the Downtown Merchants Association â€” a Berkshire Music School piano recital, Santa at Belissimo Dulce and many others. Pittsfield artist Maggie Mailer founded the Storefront Artistsâ€™ Project a year ago. It is a fluid and flexible organization, she said. It shifts from one space to another, and people come and go. Local landlords allow them to move into empty storefronts until those storefronts are rented or sold; then they move on to new ones. â€œItâ€™s part of our goal to generate energy that was not there before and to bring in new businesses,â€ Mailer said. â€œTwo of our former storefronts have been rented, and one of our artists, Martha Peskin, found a permanent studio space and opened her own gallery on Union Street.â€ The storefront artists run entirely on volunteer efforts and a low budget. Itâ€™s spread out, changeable and as portable as a bazaar. Mailer said she plans to expand the groupâ€™s presence on North and South streets. She knows of more storefronts the artists could use on North Street, she said, and she will talk to more landlords as soon as the storefront artists gain nonprofit status. They are taking over Berkshire Festivals, a nonprofit that formed some 10 years ago to promote the arts and downtown Pittsfield and has since faded out. At the holiday festival, visitors can make holiday cards in Mailerâ€™s Studio at 297 North St., among her glycerine soap sculptures and the paintings that form a backdrop for them. Douglas Truth, the first artist to join Mailerâ€™s project, will host an art sale in his studio at 379 North St. Along with his own paintings, he will offer hand-woven wraps, throws and scarves made by the late Cliff Roberts, an internationally recognized Berkshire fiber artist. At 55 North St., the largest studio space, the artists will open their studios and teach their work. Twelve artists share studio space in 10,000 square feet that Richard Stanley donated to them for a year, in the building formerly owned by Arlo Guthrie. They built partitions dividing the studios with a grant from the Pittsfield Cultural Council, Mailer said. Stanley intents to put a new multiplex cinema in this space next year, but he has given the artists a six-month extension. The artists rotate exhibits in the storefront window. Phylene Amuso is creating sculptures there now from found objects. She was uncoiling thick cable she found at the Berkshire Medical Centerâ€™s construction site last week. Sculptures line the window and her studio: a tryptich made from materials she found in the 55 North St. building, and a shrine to disappearing birch trees. â€œI make little shrines,â€ Amuso said. â€œThis is an amazing opportunity, because Iâ€™ve been collecting all this stuff for years, and now I have a chance to use it. Iâ€™m loving it. I donâ€™t sell these things. They're permeable. It makes middle age a lot more bearable, to come in here and bang on things.â€ She said she plans to weave the crane cables around glass panes, and likes to think of taking crane cables that could lift a house and constructing with them something she could knock over with a finger. Ropei Matsumoto will teach Sumi-e ink brush painting with a hands-on demonstration. He said he enjoys being in an artistsâ€™ community. â€œYou meet everyone. Itâ€™s fun to work together and share a studio. It gives me encouragement and more energy. If I work alone, all the time alone, I feel depressed. If there are others working together and sharing ideas, I am more optimistic.â€ Matsumoto paints on absorbent rice paper, with an ink stick hand-ground on an ink stone and mixed with water from a plastic bucket he calls â€œmy well.â€ He gathers an audience as he paints a bird either just alighting on a branch or just leaving it. He wets the brush first. The bristles on a good brush form a very fine sharpened point. Slow strokes make thin lines, and quicker strokes make wider ones for down feathers and pinion feathers, or bamboo shoots and bamboo leaves. The pressure on the brush brings out changing tones in the ink, too â€” darker in harder and quicker strokes, and he paints from a palette of grays and blacks. He names the painting with the characters for â€œgreen stripe,â€ which means bamboo, and â€œnoisy fine day,â€ for the singing bird and signs it with a wooden seal he carved. Cheryl Hart, a weaver, will demonstrate spinning on a spinning wheel from Hancock Shaker Village. She hand-cards her own wool from sheep and llamas. And Stefanie Weber, a tap dancer who makes her own props, will give a free tap dance class in her dance studio at 55 North St. Visitors can also wander through all of the artistsâ€™ studios and see their work in progress. Lucy Sacco paints with a technique she invented â€” plaster spread on burlap, mixed media with an aged, tapestry look. Her work is all about relationship, she said, pointing our two pieces with primary colors and abstract shapes. The cracking plaster lends further abstraction, she said. She slathers the plaster on in a free-spirited application. She has painted portraits of all her family that way as well. Eric Drury creates geometric paper sculptures and paintings. He is interested in finding a middle ground between sculpture and painting, according to Whilden, and often uses Islamic motifs, part of his Middle Eastern background. He is recovering from a burst appendix and may not be at the open studios. Annie Laurie, a painter and sculptor; Scott Cole, a painter of abstract, elemental beings in deep reds, oranges, ocean shades of blue and dry-leaf browns; and a young painter, Peter Gordon, working on a series of paintings for graduate school, will open their studios for the event. The Storefront Artistsâ€™ Program has also provided unsuspected opportunities for the artists and allowed them to make offerings to the community. Photographer Jason Dennis volunteers to help local artists make slides of their work, to send as submissions to museum curators and artistic journals, Whilden said. His studio holds photographs he takes when he walks the streets of Pittsfield at night, up to 1 a.m., even in mid-winter, like the glass waiting area by the Amtrak station, looking bottle green and translucent under street lights. Gail Downey, a sculpture artist, is working with local high schools to bring students to the artistsâ€™ studios and talk about making a living as an artist, Whilden said. Students from Hibbard Alternative High School have come already, and Downey is hoping to have more come this year from other schools. Truth tutors children, and the artists held a â€œHoming Inâ€ benefit last May that raised $25,000 for the Berkshires Emergency Fund for Homeless Children.

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Dalton Announces New Supplier for Energy Program

10:46AM / Thursday, November 27, 2025

DALTON, Mass. – The Town of Dalton has signed a thirty-four month contract with a new supplier, First Point Power.

Beginning with the January 2026 meter reads, the Dalton Community Choice Power Supply Program will have a new rate of $0.13042 per kWh. The Program will also continue to offer an optional 100 percent green product, which is derived from National Wind Renewable Energy Certificates (RECs), at a rate of $0.13142 per kWh.

For Dalton residents and businesses who are enrolled in the Town's Program, the current rate of $0.13849 per kWh will expire with the January 2026 meter reads and the new rate of $0.13042 per kWh will take effect. This represents a decrease of $5 per month on the supply side of the bill given average usage of 600 kWh. Additionally, this new rate is 3 percent lower than Eversource's Residential Basic Service rate of $0.13493 per kWh. Residents can expect to see an

average savings of $3 per month for the month of January 2026. Eversource's Basic Service rates

will change on Feb. 1, 2026.

Dalton launched its electricity program in January 2015 in an effort to develop an energy program that would be stable and affordable. From inception through June 2025, the Program has saved residents and small businesses over $1.7 million in electricity costs as compared to Eversource Basic Service.

It is important to note that no action is required by current participants. This change will be seen on the February 2026 bills. All accounts currently enrolled in the Program will remain with their current product offering and see the new rate and First Point Power printed under the "Supplier Services" section of their monthly bill.

The Dalton Community Choice Power Supply Program has no fees or charges. However, anyone switching from a contract with a third-party supplier may be subject to penalties or early termination fees charged by that supplier. Ratepayers should verify terms before switching.

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