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Menders bring broken items back to life

Menders bring broken items back to life

Nate MacFarland works on a bicycle May 31.

Patrick L. Sullivan

SALISBURY — If you needed your bicycle tuned up or a wobbly chair leg secured, Library Street on Salisbury was the place to be Saturday, May 31.

In the Congregational Church hall, there were stations for book mending, clothes mending, jewelry repair, small furniture repair, and small electric appliance repair.

And bullhorn repair. This counted as a small electrical appliance, and the church pastor, John Nelson, peered intently at the device, trying to come up with a solution.

The Fix-It event, a co-production of the Congregational Church and the Scoville Memorial Library, was supposed to be happening on the library lawn.

But it was raining off and on, and hard when it did.

So the fixer-uppers prudently moved operations inside.

The weather didn’t bother Nate MacFarland of Berkshire Bike and Board in Great Barrington.

He was under a couple of tents on the library lawn offering what he called “simple fixes” for bicyclists.

As he chatted to a reporter, he examined and then adjusted a bicycle seat which had come unmoored.

“That should do it,” he said to the bike’s owner.

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State intervenes in sale of Torrington Transfer Station

State intervenes in sale of Torrington Transfer Station

The entrance to Torrington Transfer Station.

Photo by Jennifer Almquist

TORRINGTON — Municipalities holding out for a public solid waste solution in the Northwest Corner have new hope.

An amendment to House Bill No. 7287, known as the Implementor Bill, signed by Governor Ned Lamont, has put the $3.25 million sale of the Torrington Transfer Station to USA Waste & Recycling on hold.

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waste management

Juneteenth and Mumbet’s legacy

Juneteenth and Mumbet’s legacy
Sheffield resident, singer Wanda Houston will play Mumbet in "1781" on June 19 at 7 p.m. at The Center on Main, Falls Village.
Jeffery Serratt

In August of 1781, after spending thirty years as an enslaved woman in the household of Colonel John Ashley in Sheffield, Massachusetts, Elizabeth Freeman, also known as Mumbet, was the first enslaved person to sue for her freedom in court. At the time of her trial there were 5,000 enslaved people in the state. MumBet’s legal victory set a precedent for the abolition of slavery in Massachusetts in 1790, the first in the nation. She took the name Elizabeth Freeman.

Local playwrights Lonnie Carter and Linda Rossi will tell her story in a staged reading of “1781” to celebrate Juneteenth, ay 7 p.m. at The Center on Main in Falls Village, Connecticut.Singer Wanda Houston will play MumBet, joined by actors Chantell McCulloch, Tarik Shah, Kim Canning, Sherie Berk, Howard Platt, Gloria Parker and Ruby Cameron Miller. Musical composer Donald Sosin added, “MumBet is an American hero whose story deserves to be known much more widely.”

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history

In the company of artists

In the company of artists

Curator Henry Klimowicz, left, with artists Brigitta Varadi and Amy Podmore at The Re Institute

Aida Laleian

For anyone who wants a deeper glimpse into how art comes about, an on-site artist talk is a rich experience worth the trip.On Saturday, June 14, Henry Klimowicz’s cavernous Re Institute — a vast, converted 1960’s barn north of Millerton — hosted Amy Podmore and Brigitta Varadi, who elucidated their process to a small but engaged crowd amid the installation of sculptures and two remarkable videos.

Though they were all there at different times, a common thread among Klimowicz, Podmore and Varadi is their experience of New Hampshire’s famed MacDowell Colony. The silence, the safety of being able to walk in the woods at night, and the camaraderie of other working artists are precious goads to hardworking creativity. For his part, for fifteen years, Klimowicz has promoted community among thousands of participating artists, in the hope that the pairs or groups he shows together will always be linked. “To be an artist,” he stressed, “is to be among other artists.”

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exhibit