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Berkshire Tidbits: Community Celebration, Co-Op Specials
By Judith Lerner, Special to iBerkshires.com
10:28AM / Friday, July 08, 2016
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What's better than free ice cream at the Berkshire Co-Op?

This Saturday, July 9, the towns of Becket and Washington will be holding a community fair, their Hilltown Brouhaha, from 9 a.m. to 4 p.m. in various locations around the center of North Becket Village in the elbow of Route 8.

All the towns' hidden treasures will show themselves for the benefit of the community.

There will be food samplings from Dream Away Lodge and cooking demonstrations by Kushi Institute. Jacob's Pillow will present a dance performance, fairy houses will appear and there will be a book sale. Becket Arts Center and Athenaeum will have a silent auction.

Bowie the Magic Clown will be there and Smokey Bear, as well. Artisans, crafters and other vendors will sell their wares.

All are welcome. No tickets are necessary. "Just show up!," the creators say. Children's activities are free.

In the evening, from 7 to 11 p.m., Becket Firemen's Association will provide a family friendly atmosphere with live music and food for sale. Pittsfield's own Wandering Star Brewery will host a beer garden.

The Central Berkshire Fund of the Berkshire Taconic Community Foundation and the Becket and Washington Cultural Councils have provided some of the support and funding for the fair.

 

Berkshire Co-op Market, 42 Bridge St. in Great Barrington, 413 528-9697, will have one of their Owner Appreciation Days next Tuesday, July 12. Co-op owners get 10 percent discount on everything they purchase that day, all day, from 8 a. m. to 8 p. m.

It being summer, this particular Owner Appreciation Day will be ice cream-themed. There will be ice cream demos, raffles and giveaways and free local ice cream at the Co-op's Ice Cream Social on the patio from 1 to 4 p.m.

 

You don't have to be Jewish to enjoy fresh, seasonal Israeli cooking.

Chef Julie Gale, owner of At the Kitchen Table Cooking School in Hillsdale, N. Y., will be teaching a pair of midday classes about Israeli cooking this summer at Hevreh of Southern Berkshire, 270 State Road/Route 23 (about 1/3 mile east of Route 7) in Great Barrington, 413 528-6378.

The first class, on Thursday, July 21, from 11:30 a.m. to 1:30 p.m., focuses on traditional Sephardic (Spanish and Portuguese) cooking in Israel. Julie will have the class make Swiss chard pie, eggplant and sweet red pepper salad and Shakshoukah eggs with tomatoes (a total Israeli classic).

The second class, on Thursday, Aug. 9, from 11:30 a.m. to 1:30 p.m., is about modern Israeli cooking. The class will prepare a typical Israeli salad, turkey-stuffed zucchini with apricot sauce and tahini/sesame paste cookies.

Each class costs $25, $20 for Hevreh members. Call to make reservations. Class size is limited to 12 students.

 

 

Other, more enduring news from Berkshire Co-op Market, 42 Bridge St. in Great Barrington, 528-9697, involves payment.

As of July 1, 2016, the Co-op is accepting BerkShares, the local currency created to encourage "money to remain within our region", to cover 100 percent of purchase price of any item purchased in the store. Up to that time, the Co-op accepted BerkShares for only 50 oercent of purchase price.

Sixteen branches of four local banks -- Adams Community Bank, Lee Bank, Pittsfield Co-operative Bank and Salisbury Bank -- exchange Federal currency for BerkShares. 400 local businesses currently accept BerkShares as payment.

 

 

In addition to summer shows in Berkshire museums, there are a number of art exhibits in local galleries worth seeing right now.

There is another elegant, varied and interesting show at the Diana Felber Gallery, 6 Harris St. across from Orient Express Vietnamese Restaurant in West Stockbridge, 413 854-7002, that will hang through Sunday, July 31.

The show includes luminous collaged watercolor still lifes by Great Barrington painter Stephanie Anderson; Mylar Ladies -- mixed media paintings and drawings on mylar -- by Kathleen Cammarata who lives in San Miguel de Allende, Mexico; deeply understood, tradition-inspired Berkshire pine trees by Great Barrington artist Michael Filmus; colorful, expressionist, almost abstract landscapes of Amherst painter Lorna Ritz; subtle photographs of burned paper by Hillsdale photographer Paul Solovay who is well known for his intensely colored moving music photos; richly colored abstract woven jacquard tapestries by North Adams fiber artist Betty Vera.

The wire sculptures of larger-than-lifesize, nude women by Naomi Grossman of Long Island City, N. Y. and the Berkshires, remain at the gallery. They have been very well received and will stay through the end of this show.

The Diana Felber Gallery is open every day except Tuesday, from 11 a. m.; to 6 p. m. on Monday, Wednesday and Thursday; to 9 p. m. Friday, Saturday and Sunday.

 
 

Painters Scott Taylor and Joanie Ciolfi (whose painting is seen at left) are having an expansive, colorful, summery show, Brilliant Colors, at Good Purpose Gallery, 40 Main St. (connected to and sometimes part of Starving Artist Café) in Lee, 413 394-5045.

Most of the work both artists are showing is large.

Scott's latest flower pieces, maybe 4-foot square or more -- landscapes, long views to distant farmhouses, sunsets and full moonrises, old trucks are concrete reality based even when they roll into abstraction and delicious brushwork.

Joan's paintings are inner experience and spirit focused. Even all her little paintings of barns hanging like little jewels around the doorframe.

The paintings alternate, Scott, Joanie, Scott, Joanie, side-by-side. You have to see the show to get how well the work of these two so different artists go together and highlight each other.

Good Purpose Gallery is open every day from 9 to 3, to 4 Saturdays. Brilliant Colors is up through Monday, August 8.

 

Here's a nice dual event: a wine tasting enhancing an art exhibit reception.

The accomplished and inviting Berkshire-born artist Lucy MacGillis is having her (nearly) annual show of recent landscapes and stilllifes at the Hoadley Gallery, 21 Church St. in Lenox, 413 637-2814, through Sunday, July 24.

Lucy lives in Umbria, Italy, and has been painting in Italy since 2000. She lives in wine country so her reception, Saturday, July 9 from 4:30 to 6:30, catered by Spirited Wines of Lenox, will feature both the red and the white wines of Antonelli vineyards of Montefalco, Umbria.

Gallery owner Stephanie Hoadley said there are nearly 30 pieces.

"She's so prolific," Stephanie enthused.

Lucy shipped her paintings to the gallery. A number of them will remain on view after the show is over.

Hoadley Gallery is open daily 10 a.m. to 6 p.m. in summer.

 

The Housatonic Valley Art League/HVAL is presenting its juried summer show of League members work at 107 Stockbridge Road/Route 7, the small building near Cove Bowling and Shiro Japanese Restaurant, in Great Barrington.

HVAL has some very good artist members. Their shows are always interesting.

The show will be up through Sunday, July 31. The gallery will be open Thursday through Monday, from 11 a. m.; to 5 p.m. Thursday, Sunday and Monday; to 7 p. m. Friday and Saturday.

 

Lauren Clark Fine Art, 25 Railroad St. in Great Barrington, 413 528-0432, is having an opening reception to meet the artists this Saturday, July 9 from 4 to 7, for their Interiors, four painters and a glass artist show.

The four Massachusetts painters are Bart Arnold, Susan Gott, Kate Knapp and Carolyn Letvin who are all showing their viewpoint of interiors. Tina Sotis, a glass artist from Tampa, Fl., is new to the Berkshire art scene.

Interiors will hang through Sunday, July 24. Lauren Clark Fine Art is open daily from 11 to 5:30, to 7 Friday and Saturday. 5 Sunday; closed Tuesday.

 

The Richmond-West Stockbridge Artists' Guild will have a summer show of 30 of its members' work at the Welles Gallery in the Lenox Library, 18 Main St. in Lenox, from Friday, July 8 through Thursday, July 21.

The artists will be showing oils, watercolors, pastels, photography, sculpture, stained glass and ceramics.

There will be an opening reception to meet the artists on Saturday, July 9 from 2 to 5.

The Welles Gallery is open when the library is open, Tuesday through Saturday from 10 to 5.

 


St. Francis Gallery

It is always a delight to spend some time at the St. Francis Gallery, 1370 Pleasant St./Route 102 at the corner of Church St. in South Lee, 413 717-5199.

Founder, curator and artist Philip Pryjma gathers art of if not every at least many imaginable sort. Paintings, drawings, photographs, collages, mixed media, printed materials, sculpture, pottery, objects, jewelry, realism, surrealism, abstraction, figurative work, portraits, landscapes, small, large, enormous, wild, simple. On and on. But the gallery works.

Philip runs the gallery as a non-profit to raise money for the Sawa Sawa Foundation, a creative and educational project in Kenya in which he is involved.

MOJO, the current show, is on through Sunday, July 31. St. Francis is open Friday through Monday, 10 to 5.

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