SALISBURY — The Lakeville Journal Street Fair took place on a blocked-off Academy Street Saturday, as families brought children to get their faces painted, receive a custom-tied balloon, a toy duck and/or octopus, and sing along with Danny Tieger.
Meandering down Academy Street attendees encountered the sibling team of Izzy and Charlie Wolff, who were selling bracelets they made themselves for $10 apiece to benefit Camp Jabberwocky, a camp for persons with disabilities in Martha’s Vineyard.
Missy Wolff, their mother, said that this was the third summer the children had been selling the bracelets. They had raised some $6,000 over that period, which is impressive at $10 a pop, and even more so at $5, which was the original price.
Audrey Cole, whose business card refers to her as being with the “Senior Medicare Patrol” for the Western CT Area Agency on Aging in Waterbury, was securing her signs and pamphlets from a persistent breeze.
She said her specialty is Medicare fraud as committed against unwary senior citizens.
In a nutshell, her advice to anyone who gets a dodgy phone call about their Medicare status is “Don’t engage.”
What makes a call dodgy?
“If you didn’t initiate the call.” In other words, this isn’t someone calling the senior back with an answer to a question.
Other signs of skullduggery are calls that raise fear in some way. (Sometimes it’s as crude as a threat to cancel a person’s Medicare unless they give up bank account information.)
Or calls that come during holidays.
Cole said that when banks and government offices are closed, it gives the crooks more time to empty a victim’s bank accounts.
On a more bucolic note, Danny Tieger (with his guitar) was singing to an ever-shifting group of children, most of whom seemed to know him.
Danny Tieger played guitar and sang for a group of children during The Lakeville Journal Street Fair Saturday, Aug. 2.Patrick L. Sullivan
As parents held up phones to record the doings for posterity, Tieger got a group to pitch in on a number called “Penelope Poppins.”
Over in the non-profit organization tent, State Rep. Maria Horn (D-64) chatted with Lakeville Journal Editor John Coston as well as Anne Childs and Caroline Collins from Great Mountain Forest.
Christine Gevert was urging visitors to sign up for season tickets for Crescendo, and Craig Davis and Lynn Martorell were spreading the word about East Mountain House, a new hospice facility opening soon in Lakeville.
Vance Cannon from the 21st Century Fund for HVRHS had a special treat for the younger set: little octopi that were made with a 3D printer at the Mahoney-Hewat Science and Technology Center at Housatonic Valley Regional High School.
The octopi made an excellent set when paired with the toy ducks available at The Lakeville Journal tent.
At the balloon and face painting tent, the youngsters who weren’t having their faces adorned were choosing from a balloon menu that included a sword, dog, flower, snake and magic wand.
Northwest Passage, with Ed Thorney, Scott Camara, Greg Riess and Dave Mallison started their set at about 1 p.m., opening with “Drift Away.”
Those with an appetite could try a lobster roll, tacos, specialty candy and vegan wraps and burgers.
Contemporary chamber musicians, HUB, performing at The Clark.
MASS MoCA is known for its 20th-century holdings spread throughout a sprawling complex of industrial brick buildings. Installations by Sol LeWitt and James Turrell have permanent homes there. Just down the road in Williamstown, the Clark features masterworks by Winslow Homer, Frederic Remington, John Singer Sargent and Claude Monet.
But what visitors might not immediately associate with those established names is how deeply both institutions invest in art happening right now.
On Saturday afternoon, a panel of young artists discussed their relationships with art, identity and technology as part of MASS MoCA’s “Technologies of Relation” exhibition, which opened that evening. The artists represented a broad range of cultural backgrounds, drawing on ancestry while exploring the future of art and technology.
The work itself ran the gamut: wax relief paintings, stained glass, interactive video and sculptural installations. One immersive piece automated the traditional Armenian practice of reading fortunes from coffee grounds. Particularly striking were Roopa Vasudevan’s hand-drawn QR codes and Taeyoon Choi’s large-scale weavings of binary code.
Opening the same night was Zora J. Murff’s “RACE/HUSTLE.” Through photographs, paintings and installations, Murff explores the wide-ranging and sometimes violent implications of being Black in America today. Each piece — whether confronting the rise of white supremacy or examining stereotypes imposed on Black communities — carries razor-sharp visual commentary designed to unsettle.
Pelenakeke Brown’s “Reverb” (detail) at Mass MoCA. D.H. Callahan
On Sunday, the Clark continued the contemporary thread. A small exhibition of work by Raffaella della Olga, titled “Typescript,” features intricate patterns created using a typewriter on varied paper surfaces. The effect seems almost impossible until viewers watch a video of della Olga loading her typewriter with 140-grit sandpaper and typing in a hypnotic rhythm. Though the typewriter is considered obsolete technology, she continues to find new applications for it, completing some of the works in recent months.
Next door in the Clark auditorium, HUB New Music performed works written specifically for its unusual instrumentation: violin, cello, clarinet and flute. While that combination may not stand out to casual listeners, relatively little classical repertoire exists for it. The ensemble regularly commissions composers to expand the possibilities.
The results were striking. From the opening notes of Francisco del Pino’s “Passacaglia,” the quartet’s command and layered repetition pulled unexpected emotion from the audience.
After three pieces came the world premiere of Daniel Wohl’s “Mirage,” a roughly 25-minute work accompanied by digital blips, static and electronic textures evoking radio transmissions and UFO lore. Hearing four virtuoso musicians extract entirely new sounds from traditional instruments echoed the weekend’s larger theme: old tools made new again.
Like della Olga’s typewriter, Vasudevan’s QR codes or Murff’s charged imagery, the performances demonstrated that contemporary art often grows from familiar materials — reimagined.
The old masters will always draw visitors to these institutions. But when living artists command equal attention, this quiet corner of the Berkshires feels less like the middle of nowhere and more like a creative epicenter.
D.H. Callahan is a voice actor, creative director and trail steward. He lives with his artist wife in West Cornwall, Connecticut.
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