Artist finds his way to North Adams & contemporary art to Eagle Street

12:00AM / Tuesday, April 11, 2000Print Story | Email Story

Contemporary art has come to Eagle Street in North Adams. The story of how it got there could be seen as an example of how new people, ideas, and creativity are making their way to Northern Berkshire. Bennett Sykes Blackburn, of Peconic, Long Island, N.Y., is a sculptor and woodcarver who works as an architectural woodworker. He is the first artist to take advantage of gallery row â€” the storefront spaces on Eagle Street In North Adams available to be rented by artists. These gallery spaces â€” several are left â€”are part of the historic â€œflat ironâ€ building revitalized by North Adams artist and developer Eric Rudd. Blackburn, with help from his wife, Louise, has installed two elaborate sculptures in the window, and they are meant to be viewed from the street. The works are on platforms that rotate so that the viewer can get the three-dimensional effect and are lit up by lights on a Victorian-style framing structure, which Blackburn referred to as a gazebo or baldichin. â€œIâ€™m basically a woodcarver,â€ he said. â€œActually, itâ€™s an interesting show in that itâ€™s two variations on the same piece, one of which is a woodcarving, the other of which is a bronze that was the plasticine study that I did before the woodcarving.â€ The vertical work is black walnut and is called Angelfire. The horizontal work is in bronze and called Flight. â€œI built what we somewhat sarcastically refer to as baldichins based on Berniniâ€™s baldichin at St. Peterâ€™s, with a canopy and so forth,â€ he said. â€œI just wanted a structure that would hold lights to light the sculpture, and I tried to focus on doing what would basically be a three-dimensional presentation of sculptures ... that would make the work accessible from the street. â€œSo I built motorized bases that turn at every minute and 20 seconds,â€ he said. â€œI built these two nice window installations, and we hope to change the pieces every four to six weeks, so thereâ€™s something new.â€ â€œWe would like to participate in whatâ€™s going on around, in the energy, and maybe be part of the catalyst seed,â€ Blackburn said. â€œOn a conceptual level, I suppose my installation recapitulates North Adams as a Victorian town housing modern art, and thatâ€™s what I did in the window is build a Victorian structure that repeats the building and change the sculptures in the middle of it.â€ His gallery space at 48 Eagle St. is called sykesgallery.com and is interconnected with a Website of the same name. The site was set up by Blackburnâ€™s son, Barak Blackburn, who works at the Internet firm Tripod in Williamstown and lives in North Adams. Barak Blackburn went to Binghamton University and applied for and got a job at Tripod. Bennett Blackburn said his family has strong roots in Northampton. â€œWhen Barak moved up here, of course we came up to visit and went to MASS MoCA ... and joined and then decided that ... something could happen here,â€ Blackburn said. He said he heard about the downtown art installation that the Contemporary Artists Center sponsors every summer in storefronts downtown. His son put him in touch with Eric Rudd, who noted that he had space for rent. â€œWe thought about it and decided to go ahead and rent that little, teeny space right at the point of the flatiron building,â€ he said. Blackburn and his wife, Louise, who is a social worker, said they think North Adams is undergoing sort of an art renaissance. â€œWeâ€™re telling everybody we know on Long Island about it up here,â€ said Louise. They have bought some land in Stamford, Vt. for a summer retreat or camp. Blackburn said the gallery is basically a gift to the street and the city. â€œAnd it would be nice if people looked up the Website, and it would be nice if people bought art,â€ he said. â€œBut you try to keep your expectations within the realm of reason. â€œHopefully, it will plant some seeds in some of the other spaces along there in gallery row.â€

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North Adams Becomes a Purple Heart Community

By Jack GuerinoiBerkshires Staff
05:16AM / Tuesday, August 11, 2026

Veterans Service Officer Kurtis Durocher, a Purple Heart recipient, tells his own story of how he was wounded in Iraq.

NORTH ADAMS, Mass. — City leaders last week held a ceremony marking the city as a Purple Heart Community to honor local military service members wounded or killed in combat.

"This designation is much more than a sign that will stand at the entrances to our city," said Kurtis Durocher, Northern Berkshire veterans service officer at City Hall on Friday. "It is a lasting commitment and a promise to this community. We'll never forget the sacrifices made by those who are wounded or killed while serving our nation. It is a public declaration of the courage and sacrifices of combat wounded. Veterans will always have a place of honor here in North Adams."

As a Purple Heart Community, North Adams will place signs throughout the city acknowledging the designation. The city will also hold a ceremony every Aug. 7 on National Purple Heart Day.

During the inaugural ceremony, Durocher said he was asked by the Military Order of the Purple Heart to find a keynote speaker for the event, preferably a Purple Heart recipient. But he was unable to find someone willing to speak. With the date approaching, he decided to tell his own story.

"I don't like standing up and telling my own personal story ... But I realized, in my position as a VSO, I get so many ... children of veterans who will say, 'I didn't know anything about my father until after he passed because he just didn't talk about it,'" Durocher said. "... I have been that way until I've gotten into this position, and so, now, I try to tell my story as much as I can when it is brought to me."

Durocher served in the Army for 20 years and retired as a master sergeant. On Friday, he recalled a time early in his career while serving in the 82nd Airborne Division deploying to Iraq during Operation Iraqi Freedom. On Sept. 12, 2003, his squad was conducting a patrol on Route Irish in Baghdad. He was serving as a gunner on an LMTV when it was struck by a 155-millimeter artillery shell. He said the explosive had been hidden behind a guardrail and detonated using nothing more than a washing machine timer.

"In an instant, everything changed. The blast knocked me unconscious. When I regained consciousness, I instinctively was removing my helmet," he said. "Almost immediately my training took over. We had been taught repeatedly that attacks like this were often followed by a secondary attack or an ambush. I quickly put my helmet back on and began searching for my machine gun."

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