COLEBROOK — Sportsmanship was on display at the finish line of the Housatonic Mountain Bike League’s (HMBL) culminating race of the season on Nov. 6.
“I’ve never seen a more collaborative, congenial group in 20 years of coaching many sports” said Salisbury School Assistant Coach Ian Johnson in a brief speech before announcing the season’s winners.
“These guys are just having fun, that’s the emphasis,” said Kent School Head Coach Curtis Scofield. “It’s the best kind of competition.”
More than 80 riders from eight regional schools convened at Norbrook Farm Brewery’s esteemed trails system on a warm and blustery Wednesday afternoon for the race, which snaked through varied topography in the forest behind the brewery. Out of four competition categories, category 1 holds the highest opportunity for points, and thus presents the most grueling course: three laps around a 3.3 mile loop that encompasses jumps, steep berms, and tough uphill climbs. The other categories follow variously abridged circuits, though none escape the challenges of pedaling through unpredictable and exhausting terrain.
“It’s one of the best networks in Connecticut — even New England,” Johnson said of the brewery’s extensive system. “It provides everything you could possibly imagine” for a cross-country mountain biking course, Scofield said, noting that it caters to “a nice cross-section” of abilities and strengths.
Alec Linden
The Hotchkiss School, Kent School, Salisbury School, Indian Mountain School, Berkshire School, South Kent School, Trinity Pawling School and Rumsey Hall School all provided energetic teams for the day’s contest. Most participating institutions had hosted a race during the regular season, with the final occurring on neutral territory.
Despite the camaraderie and genial atmosphere, it was a competition, and there had to be winners. After a 54-minute ride, the top three competitors all finished within a minute of each other. Hotchkiss sophomore Thatcher Meili beat out Kent School senior Shaun Neary by about 20 seconds, while Cyrus Taber, a Berkshire senior, finished closely behind in the bronze position.
True to Johnson’s appraisal of the athletes, riders who finished stuck around and enthusiastically cheered on other competitors who crossed the finish line well after the podium spots had been claimed.
Neary won the overall individual title in Category 1 for the season after ending up second last year. Neary was humble about his achievement, quick to comment on the skill of his competitors, claiming that Hotchkiss rider Asher Frankel, last year’s victor, might have taken it if he weren’t sidelined by injury. Neary was proud of his performance during his final year with the team, though: “I was consistent — I was second in every race,” he said.
Meili finished second in the overall individual standings, with Taber taking the third spot. Each rider was satisfied with the day’s conditions, comparing the unseasonable warmth to last year’s race day which was plagued by flurries and frigid temperatures. “Last year I wore my ski gloves,” Taber said.
Hotchkiss took first in the team rankings for the third year in a row, despite having lost their top athlete halfway through the season.
Awards were doled out in the other categories as well. The trophies themselves were a stylish design, consisting of a bike gear mounted on a sleek wooden frame, which recipients proudly toted while a crowd of riders, parents and coaches cheered on.
The ceremony concluded under the darkening sky, and the riders wheelied and drifted back to their team buses in the carefree, contented manner that follows the end of a good season.
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Saturday November 8 Tag Sale in the Barn: 91 Main Street in Falls Village 10 to 3 pm. Please Park in town parking available along Main St. Tools, wood working tools, bench, furniture, antique doors, out door planters, Halloween and Christmas decorations and much more.
That sense of shared purpose is at the heart of the invitation Gast extended to artists Natalie Baxter and Janis Stemmermann to process a bumper crop of Japanese indigo (Persicaria tinctoria) at her studio this fall. All three artists’ practices intersect through material, process and an interest in the handmade. Gast and Stemmermann have collaborated on a series of hand-knit vests dyed with black walnut, available through Stemmermann’s store, Russell Janis. Baxter is a Wassaic Project residency and fellowship alum, who is leading a community quilting workshop there on Nov. 15. She also co-directs “Cottage Courses” with artist Polly Shindler, a series of hands-on artmaking workshops throughout the region.
“Lisa Dachinger of Hilltop Farm & Fiber Arts north of Pittsfield, Massachusetts had an abundance of indigo this year,” said Gast of her learning about the crop’s availability.In two trips to the farm, Gast harvested the plants and began experimenting with the ancient art and science of extracting pigment from the plants and transforming it into rich, layered blues.
Artists Christy Gast, left, and Natalie Baxter in Gast's studioPhoto by Natalia Zukerman
“There are a lot of steps,” Gast noted with a laugh, as vats of aerated indigo bubbled in the corner of the studio. The process is slow and physical, dependent on timing, temperature and a kind of faith in chemistry. The freshly harvested Japanese indigo leaves are first soaked in warm water and left to ferment for several days. The plant matter is then removed, the solution is strained and the pH is raised with the addition of calcium hydroxide, and then the mixture is aerated, poured back and forth between containers until it oxidizes and the pigment turns dark blue. After the indigo settles to the bottom, the resulting paste is filtered, dried and ground into powder. Only then is it ready for dyeing.
But as Stemmermann pointed out, “It’s not a dye. It’s a coating and reaction.” Indigo’s elusive chemistry means each piece is unpredictable, shaped as much by chance as by control. To achieve a deep, saturated blue, “you have to layer it and dip it up to eight times,” she explained.
Each artist uses dye in their work, albeit quite differently, yet all share a deep sensitivity to material and process. “There is a seasonality to textile work,” said Baxter, referring to dye plants.“First, there’s the planting. And then you wait for them to grow, you harvest them, you dye the fabric and then it’s wintertime.” During quilt season when our attention turns inward, the patient, hands-on process becomes a meditation on slowness for Baxter, mirroring the rhythm of the earth and a quiet longing to move with it.
Processing Japanese indigoPhoto by Natalie Baxter
For Gast, working with plant dyes is a way to align artistic practice with ecology and activism. “I’m working on a project that will be showing at Mass MoCA in 2027,” she explained. “It’s a collaborative opera about peatlands for which I’m producing a textile installation that functions as the curtains. I’m using as many natural and regional processes as possible because our work has to do with local-to-global activism and conservation. There is a chemical alchemy in peatlands, which despite covering just 3% of the Earth’s surface, capture more than twice the carbon of all the planet’s forests combined. There’s a direct poetic alignment between plant dye processes and peatlands, which preserved some of the earliest textiles we know of. And the color palette is ancient, both familiar and uncanny.”
There’s a certain chaos in balancing experimentation with intent. For Gast, Baxter, and Stemmermann, this first attempt at pigment extraction has been as much about curiosity as outcome, a communal act of making, rooted in patience, experimentation and discovery.
To find out more about these artists, visit: christygast.com, nataliebaxter.com and janisstemmermann.com
