MILLERTON — The expansion of an international business is having an impact on the village of Millerton, to the tune of 25 new jobs being created. News of ITW’s expansion hit the streets last Thursday, March 31, and had village Trustee Jay Reynolds praising the hard work of the Dutchess County Economic Development Corporation (DCEDC), which helped broker the deal.“This is a bit of a news flash,” he said after learning of the arrangement. “Anytime jobs come to a community, it’s great for the business environment. New jobs are the lifeblood of the community.”ITW stands for Illinois Tool Works, Inc. According to its website, it is a “plastic custom molder for precision and micro precision plastic compounds.” The company has a plant in neighboring Lakeville, Conn. According to a release from DCEDC, ITW has “825 decentralized business units that comprise their international business corporation and are located in 52 countries and employ approximately 60,000 men and women.” It is also on the New York Stock Exchange as ITW.The ITW Deltar division has leased a 25,000-square-foot space at Arnoff Moving and Storage for its operations. Arnoff renovated its facilities in 2005, when it moved its central operations from Lakeville to Millerton. The ITW division that is moving to Millerton, will be producing “seating components for the automotive industry,” according to the release.“Arnoff’s goal has always been to attract industry and jobs to this most northeastern corner of Dutchess County,” stated Mike Arnoff about the arrangement. “This is a win-win situation for ITW, Dutchess County and New York state.”According to Reynolds, Arnoff originally tried courting Skip Barber’s Driving School, but that deal never came to fruition. When Barber decided not to take the space at Arnoff’s, the DCEDC helped negotiate on behalf of ITW, which had been looking for something to rent. Gordon Rutherfurd, director of business for DCEDC, said it worked closely with Elyse Harney Real Estate and Mike Arnoff to pull off the deal.Reynolds said the end result is that Millerton comes out a winner. “It helps all of the businesses because you have people who will go to local places to do shopping, or to eat lunch, it could help any of the service-based businesses,” he said. “And ultimately, anytime you bring more salaries into a community, there’s an opportunity for some of that to be spent in the community, and all of that generates sales tax that comes back to the community to some extent.”Reynolds added that the opportunity for Millerton to provide for a company like ITW was limited, so the fact the deal worked out was worth appreciating.“It’s very special, because the opportunity for drawing something like this is very limited because we don’t have the buildings with this kind of space really,” he said. “We normally can draw smaller businesses because we have smaller facilities, drawing businesses with two to five jobs. But having something larger, like in manufacturing, we don’t have the infrastructure to do something like that and we don’t have the buildings, nor do we have the land to put the buildings on, and the town has a very limited supply of correctly zoned places for a place like this. So we’re very lucky this happened.”Bill Thurston, business manager of ITW Deltar, stated he’s “pleased” about the expansion as well as being able “to provide the opportunity for additional jobs in Dutchess County.”
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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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