WINSTED — Despite losing his Board of Education seat at November’s municipal elections, Joseph Hanecak was appointed to a vacant two-year board seat by members during a special meeting on Thursday, Dec. 1, at Batcheller School.The vote to approve the appointment was 6-1, with board member James Roberts the only one against it.Board member Christine Royer did not attend the meeting.The seat was vacated due to former board chairman Kathleen O’Brien’s resignation on Aug. 9.Because O’Brien resigned right after the deadline for parties to name their endorsements and for petitioning candidates to submit their election forms to the town, it was necessary for the board to appoint a new member to the seat.According to current Board Chairman Susan Hoffnagle, the board contacted the Democratic, Republican and local Independent parties to see if any candidates would apply for the seat.Hoffnagle said Hanecak was the only applicant for the seat.Despite being the only applicant, before being approved to take the seat, board members asked Hanecak several questions.When asked what he would like to contribute to the Board of Education, Hanecak said he would like to push the board to move forward with new technology for the district.“First, we have to square away our email, that issue is the biggest thing,” Hanecak said. “The second thing is our website server capacity and what we can do to up its capacity. The third thing is putting the district’s policies and bylaws up on the Internet so people can actually read them.”Hanecak said the district is “light years” behind when it comes to technology.“I would like to see the fourth, fifth and sixth grades have much more technology, even beyond the smartboards,” Hanecak said. “There’s really no reason why we should be spending more money on textbooks and things of that nature anymore. We have a whole slew of library books from the fifties that are outdated.”Board member Brian Shaughnessy asked Hanecak about the potential for the school district investing in a “digital backpack” program.“The issue we have with that is finances, and that will be a struggle,” Hanecak said. “Getting grades, test scores and putting homework assignments on the web so parents can keep track on students, all of that costs money.”Board member Roberts asked Hanecak if the results of the fiscal 2009-2010 audit surprised him.“Yes, and no,” Hanecak said. “Yes because we have been told for so long that we were good, and in the end it turns out we were lacking some documentation. Moving forward, at the finance meetings, we need to ask if it’s purely documentation that’s the problem or whether or not something was left out.”Hanecak originally was chosen to serve on the board in 2010 when he was named as a replacement for John Rogers.
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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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