FALLS VILLAGE — “No art. Just fluff.”This matter-of-fact motto says it all about The Falls Village Marshmallow Company, which is the brainchild of local writer and actor Betsy Howie. She launched her new business a little more than a month ago after creating marshmallow treats as gifts for friends and family for the past three to four years.“My friends kept pushing me,” Howie said of her inspiration to start this endeavor. “It’s taken off faster than I anticipated. It’s been an amazing first month, and I’m riding the rollercoaster.”With the help of Lori Hoyt, owner of Lori Hoyt & Co. Salon in Salisbury, Howie creates handmade marshmallow delicacies at the Trinity Lime Rock Episcopal Church (where there is a certified kitchen for food production).Current flavors include s’mores, peanut butter and chocolate, chocolate creme de menthe, caramel chocolate, banana chocolate, Bavarian Easter and lemon. The list continues to grow as Howie finds inspiration for new combinations. She hinted that most of her concoctions will likely contain chocolate, although the possibilities are endless.While the rewards are certainly sweet, Hoyt said that both women have a lot on their plate.“We’re both balancing a lot,” she said, noting that Howie taught her everything she knows about making marshmallows. “We work all the time. It’s really exciting — and overwhelming.”Hoyt’s children, Christopher, 11, and Brianna, 13, and Howie’s daughter Callie, 11, have all gotten their hands dirty (with ingredients, of course) to help their parents with this new business.“They’re really good at pitching the flavors,” Hoyt said.The marshmallows are currently being sold at a variety of local retailers, including the Crossroads Deli in Falls Village; the Falls Village Inn; Toymaker’s Cafe in Falls Village; LaBonne’s in Salisbury and Watertown; On the Run Cafe in Lakeville; Paley’s Farm Market in Sharon; and Whippoorwill Farm in Salisbury.Howie and Hoyt can also fill special orders for gift boxes, wedding remembrances, birthday party favors, holiday specialties and more.To go along with her motto, Howie referred to her product as “the working man’s marshmallow” due to its low price of $4 per package. She also emphasized that the shelf life of her treats is almost indefinite.Even though the business has only been in existence for a month, Howie already has the lifelong mark of a confectioner.“My hands permanently smell like powdered sugar,” she said.For more information on The Falls Village Marshmallow Company, call 860-248-9338, email JustFluff@comcast.net or go to www.facebook.com/FallsVillageMarshmallowCompany.
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Artist Victor Cella with his recent painting “White Dog” in his studio and shop, Little Store Antiques in Great Barrington.
L. Tomaino
Cella greets visitors while talking with a fellow painter who comments about his work and Cella himself: “Eclectic, amazing! Victor is decidedly loved in the community and exhibits to everyone his completely open heart.” She added, “He inspires the rest of us who paint.”
Cella began devoting himself to painting about four and a half years ago. He remembers taking art classes in high school. He had finished all his credits early and was allowed, in his senior year, to take art for four hours a day. He credits his art teacher, Mr. Owen, with giving him a good foundation in art.
“Now that I paint, I rely on my teacher’s words: ‘To unify a painting, pick a color and wash it over the painting,’ or, ‘You need to mix the colors!’”
He won a scholarship to New York University to study art, but his parents said no.Instead, he attended North Adams State College, where he also took an art class at Williams College, repeating a pattern from high school in which he finished his required credits early and used the extra time to study art.
He earned a teaching degree in special education and ended up working in schools in Massachusetts and Connecticut for 37 years. He retired in 2019.
Then, four and a half years ago, he got the urge to paint, and the paintings flowed out of him.
He has sold 757 paintings, with 95 of those sold since May 7. “I am having bizarrely good luck with my paintings.” He estimates he has painted 2,000 paintings in four and a half years.
He modestly attributes his success to “I sell low and I have a built-in client base of 51 years,” he said, referring to recurring customers in his antique shop. “A billion people give me feedback.” He has two patrons who each have several of his paintings. “Unbelievably,” says Cella, “one person owns 32 and the other owns 27.”
His studio is in the back of the shop. He paints now on 16-by-20-inch canvases, some of which he recycles, finding them at Goodwill.
Cella’s paintings are tucked in almost every available space thoughout Little Store Antiques. L. Tomaino
To keep his painting fresh and himself interested because, as Cella explained, “I can’t stay with one idea for long,” he has gone through several phases: crazy dogs, grids, flowers with black backgrounds, a geometric phase and “weird people.” The “crazy dogs,” as he calls them, are popular now. One person bought eight, left to go to her car and came back for a ninth, spotted in the shop’s window — the one that brought her into the shop in the first place.
He may even illustrate a children’s book with the “crazy dogs.” A local author liked them so much she asked Cella if he’d illustrate a story about three dogs if she wrote one.
Cella was also approached recently by a person who said, “Do you know you were my favorite teacher?” She came into The Little Store, attracted by the paintings in the shop’s window. It turned out the former student owns Crystal Essence on Railroad Street in Great Barrington and has asked to sell Cella’s paintings there.
Cella, who will soon be selling the building where The Little Store is located and move it nearer to his Southfield home, was glad to be offered a new venue for his paintings.
An artist he knows, Scott Prior, a painter from Nantucket, bought one of Cella’s paintings and gave him this advice: “Never go to art school. You are an artist. Let it pour out of you.”
Cella said, “You have to follow your own path.” He mused, “If I taught art, I’d teach it in a different way. I could teach it as an awareness — how to free yourself up.”
To see more of Cella’s work, visit The Little Store (88 Main St.) or Crystal Essence (39 Railroad St.) in Great Barrington.
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