Clark Art Institute First Sunday Free

08:00AM / Wednesday, February 25, 2026Print Story | Email Story

WILLIAMSTOWN, Mass. — The Clark Art Institute continues its First Sunday Free series on Sunday, March 1.

To celebrate Aboubaker Fofana's sculpture, "Bana Yiriw ni Shi Folow" (Trees and Seeds of Life), part of the outdoor sculpture exhibition Ground/work 2025, the March First Sunday Free theme is "Sprouting Seeds."

Enjoy free museum admission from 10 am–5 pm and take part in free special activities from 1–4 pm.

The Clark will offer an activity card to take a closer look at the artist's artful trees of indigo-dyed cotton. At 2 pm, join a Clark educator for an all-ages tour of Fofana's sculpture that embraces art, nature, and mindfulness techniques. From 1–4 pm, drop in to decorate a flowerpot or create swirling, sprouting sculptures that you can add to a large-scale map of the Clark's campus as part of a collaborative mini-Ground/work. Enjoy a tea tasting from Wild Soul River inspired by Fofana's connection to the medicinal—and spiritual—nature of plants.

A special "Tree Portraits" print room pop-up, featuring prints, drawings, and photographs that spotlight trees, will be on view in the Manton Study Center for Works on Paper from 1–3 pm.

Admission and activities are free. For accessibility questions, call 413 458 0524. For more information, visit events.clarkart.edu.

Family programs are supported by Allen & Company.

Tags: Clark Art,

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Williamstown Finance Committee Begins FY27 Budget Review

By Stephen DravisiBerkshires Staff
05:49AM / Tuesday, February 24, 2026

WILLIAMSTOWN, Mass. — The Finance Committee last week began its review of an "unexciting" fiscal year 2027 budget while continuing to monitor an unappealing trend line that could see the town facing a Proposition 2 1/2 override as soon as FY29.

Town meeting will have the levy capacity to approve the FY27 budget as drafted and presented by the town manager on Wednesday, partly because the spending plan for the year that begins on July 1 includes just one noteworthy increase in discretionary municipal spending.

As drafted, the FY27 budget would result in a projected 7.69 percent in the property tax levy from the current fiscal year — pending the final numbers from the town's largest cost center, the Mount Greylock Regional School District, which will not finalize its assessments to its member towns until March 19.

The town hall side of spending is up by about 2.8 percent in the proposed budget. Most of that is attributable to cost-of-living increases for current employees and fixed costs, like the town's contribution for employees' health insurance.

"The one thing I would say is apologies for bringing a boring budget forward that doesn't have a lot of excitement," Town Manager Robert Menicocci told the Finance Committee. "But with this audience, it's, 'Hey, we brought something really exciting to you guys. The growth is modest given all the pressures that are out there.'

"We're maintaining services as we know them. I think that's really strong news given the pressures that are out there. There's no erosion of services. There's no erosion of staff. We haven't had to go through a cut exercise. Still, that's at the expense of relying on the taxpayer to pay more taxes this upcoming year."

Finance Director David Fierro Jr. told the Fin Comm that most of the increases in expenses are because of the town's negotiated cost-of-living adjustments. He also included an estimated 9 percent increase in the assessment from Mount Greylock and a 10 percent increase in the much smaller assessment from the Northern Berkshire Vocational Regional School District (McCann Technical School).

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