Thank you!
Your support is sustaining the future of local news in our communities.

Time To Start Bringing Plants Indoors

Time To Start Bringing Plants Indoors
Pottery for the home and garden by Ben Wolff (and his father, Guy Wolff) can now be found at 100 Main in Falls Village, Conn. The Milton Pot 4, shown in photo, costs $40. Photo courtesy 100 Main​

Ben Wolff has continued the tradition of exquisite and understated pottery and “horticultureware” that was begun by his father, Guy Wolff. 

The senior Wolff, who has just turned 70, continues to live and work (and sell his pottery) at his studio in Bantam, Conn. The younger Wolff (who is about to turn 40) is working from his home studio in Goshen, Conn.

Ben Wolff describes his father’s style as more historically inspired, with clay pots that feel like they could have come from a Jane Austen novel or someone’s 18th century Grand Tour visit to Italy. 

Ben’s work is similarly understated and elegant, but is, he says, more contemporary. 

The demand this year is unusually high for the work of both Wolffs.

“Everybody was home this year because of the quarantine, everybody was thinking about plants and wanted to have a garden,” Ben said. “But people who live in cities are stuck ; they can’t go outside to their gardens, they have to instead do something inside.”

Wolff has been throwing pots and firing them as fast as he can, to keep up with orders from his many retail clients across the country.

And in the middle of all that, he’s added a new shop, here in the Northwest Corner: 100 Main in Falls Village, Conn., the shop conceived by New York City interior designer Bunny Williams and curated by herself and Christina Van Hengel. 

The shop’s focus is work by artisans in the Tri-state region, with everything from candles to furniture. 

Prices range from $10 for the smallest pots to about $100 for the largest but vary from shop to shop. 

To learn more about Guy Wolff, go to www.guywolff.com; to learn more about Ben Wolff, go to www.benwolffpottery.com; and for information on purchasing horticultureware and more from the Falls Village shop, go to www.100mainst.com.

Latest News

A life reshaped by clay in “Matin”

Left to right: Hannah Wheeler, Matin Malikzada and Yonah Sadeh.

D.H. Callahan

On Monday, Oct. 26, a group of students, teachers and local residents gathered at the Hotchkiss School in Lakeville for a screening of the new short documentary “Matin.” The film tells the story of Matin Malikzada, a seventh-generation Afghani potter making a new life in New Milford, Connecticut. The film was made by local filmmaker Yonah Sadeh, creator of the Video Wall at the David M. Hunt Library, and Berkshires-based potter Hannah Wheeler, who were both present for the screening, along with Malikzada himself.

As a member of the seventh generation of his family to master the art of pottery, Malikzada had done things the way his family had for over a century. Istalif, the village where his family has lived for generations, was known throughout Afghanistan for its pottery, with wares sent across the country for use as everyday cups, bowls, plates and other vessels. The pottery-making families of Istalif gathered clay from the same mountain, about 30 to 45 minutes away by donkey. Every July, they would head north toward the Uzbekistan border to gather ishkar, a plant they processed by hand to make their signature glazes.

Keep ReadingShow less
Meg Sher finds her calling among the stacks

Meg Sher, executive director of the David M. Hunt Library in Falls Village.

L. Tomaino

When Meg Sher came to Falls Village in 2006 from Old Lyme, Connecticut, where she grew up, she never imagined she’d someday be the executive director of the David M. Hunt Library.

Although, in hindsight, perhaps it makes sense.

Keep ReadingShow less
Crescendo’s 23rd season speaks to the heart and mind

Christine Gevert, founding artistic director of Crescendo, conducts the audience at a performance.

Steve Potter

For Christine Gevert, founding artistic director of Crescendo, music from centuries past is anything but a relic. It is a living, breathing art form, full of drama, emotional complexity and, occasionally, surprises. As the regional choral and period-instrument ensemble launches its 23rd season, Gevert is once again bringing forgotten masterpieces into the present.

“Early Music has been my lifelong passion and the focus of my specialization in Europe and South America,” Gevert said. “Bringing this repertoire to our audiences in a nuanced way that does justice to its incredible depth, intensity, and beauty is deeply important to me.”

Keep ReadingShow less
google preferred source

Want more of our stories on Google? Click here to make us a Preferred Source.

Close Encounters with Music celebrates 35 years of musical discovery

Close Encounters with Music’s 35th season opens with “Saluting the Clarinet” featuring clarinetist Alexander Fiterstein.

Provided

For 35 years, cellist Yehuda Hanani has been inviting audiences to experience classical music in unexpected ways. As founder and artistic director of Close Encounters with Music, Hanani has built a concert series that goes beyond the music itself, exploring connections to literature, history, politics and the human experience.

This year, Close Encounters celebrates its 35th season with “Celebration & Discovery,” a seven-concert series that opens Sunday, Nov. 1, at the Mahaiwe Performing Arts Center in Great Barrington.

Keep ReadingShow less
Shinbone Alley brings spooky songs to Spencertown

Seeing isn’t always believing. Sometimes it’s the lack of a defined picture that can be the most compelling. And when Alex Harvey of Shinbone Alley sings his supernaturally charged sea shanties and street ballads, the unseen will be downright scary. On Oct. 30, the historically inclined storyteller and performer will create a spooky evening of forbidden tales and yarns through a carefully chosen series of songs at Spencertown Academy of Arts.

The repertoire for the performance is a bit fraught. Over the years, Shinbone Alley has explored the world of folklore through music. Though the group usually features two musicians, Harvey, a multi-instrumentalist and singer, will be performing solo. That is, of course, unless you include the spirits.

Keep ReadingShow less
Malian blues and Moroccan Gnawa meet in Sheffield
Vieux Farka Touré
Proivded

Desert winds rarely blow into the Berkshires, but on Nov. 5, they will carry the Malian blues and Moroccan Gnawa music to Race Brook Lodge.

That evening, Malian guitarist Vieux Farka Touré, often called “the Hendrix of the Sahara,” and Moroccan musician Samir LanGus will play at the lodge’s Event Barn in Sheffield, Massachusetts, at a benefit for the foundation Touré directs.

Keep ReadingShow less
google preferred source

Want more of our stories on Google? Click here to make us a Preferred Source.

google preferred source

Want more of our stories on Google? Click here to make us a Preferred Source.