Kevin Sprague Remembers Jonas Dovydenas
Mentor and Friend
By: Kevin Sprague - Sep 25, 2025
I was devastated to hear the news of Jonas’s death on September 23 - and of Betsy’s and his sister Liuda's injuries from the accident.
Jonas and Betsy have been a part of my life - and the life of my extended family - since they moved to the Berkshires when I was a kid. Jonas and my father Peter were great friends and engaged in some epic cross-country aerial adventures over the years.
I worked for Jonas - and with him - on myriad projects over the years - we were in touch just a few days ago about making some updates to his website, which I’ve managed since the web began back in the early 2000s.
The summer I was 17, I helped Jonas dig a ½ mile long, 6-foot-deep ditch to replace the waterline through the woods between his house and the spring that supplied them with water. We had a backhoe, shovels, and chainsaws - it was ridiculously hard work as the line had been laid a century before, when there were no woods - now there was an entire forest of fully-grown evergreens and their roots. It took us a good part of the summer to pull it off. Having grown up doing hard work on Undermountain Farm I was a good candidate for the task but the really unexpected part of the job was how much I enjoyed working with Jonas - he was strong as an ox, never complained, never bossed, never avoided something hard in favor of having me do it - we worked side by side day in and day out till it was done.
Jonas hired me after college for two summers as the House Manager for the Berkshire Performing Arts Center - the former Lenox School for Boys ice hockey rink that had be transformed into a 1200-seat auditorium by the Bible Speaks. The position was one-half glorified house manager and one-half janitor - I cleaned bathrooms, mopped hallways, managed building security, and was about the only person on earth who could operate the giant A/C system in the building that had an esoteric kind of BASIC programming language you had to key in manually to get it to operate correctly during events.
We had incredible - and dysfunctional - bands and performers coming through all the time and Jonas always took it in stride - the bizarre green-room requests, various kinds of physical plant disasters, and the one time one of the band members we had performing abruptly left the stage - he thought he was dying (it turned out to be a severe kidney stone) and I had to call 911, manage the arrival of the EMT’s, and then had to stand on stage and announce to the audience, 15 minutes into the performance, that everything was cancelled and they needed leave and no, there would be no refunds. Another boss might have found fault in how I managed the situation, but Jonas always had my back and I never forgot it.
The auditorium had been equipped with a (then mid-90s) state-of-the-art video production studio with two Sony ¾ U-Matic machines and a 1’ AMPEX videotape recorder, as well as a host of related technology and cameras for producing broadcast-quality live productions. The facility hadn’t been fully finished and didn’t function. Jonas asked me to look into it. Being both technically minded and adept at wiring things to each other, I stripped out all the half-done cabling in the studio and rewired it according to my own logic and the available technical manuals that were lying around - we got it working and ended up producing some rather good recordings of the acts that were coming through the Center.
The first time I edited a production together - taking the raw footage and splicing and dicing it onto the master 1” tape - was one of the great epiphanies of my life - from that moment on, I knew I wanted to work with images. I credit everything that happened to me professionally after that moment to Jonas giving me the keys to the studio—and the trust to figure it out. Because of that experience, I became a professional photographer, designer, videographer, editor, marketer, and business owner - my entire career, spanning over 32 years, is a direct result of Jonas giving me that opportunity.
When I started Studio Two in 1994, Jonas became a client and collaborator. As a photographer, he was negotiating the transition from Film to digital in the ensuing years - something I gained expertise at early on - so we collaborated. I spent hours in his attic studio helping him scan, edit in Photoshop, catalog, and print his photos. My team produced numerous books featuring his photos and Betsy’s artwork over the years, and developed graphics for exhibitions and lectures. As my own photography started to take shape in the context of my commercial work for clients, I remember the times when Jonas complimented me on an image or other. He was so particular about his own photos and the role that photography played in the world that receiving recognition from him was a significant achievement. He would - on occasion - say, “Hey Kevin, that’s pretty good…” - which was about as high-praise as you could get from him!
Anytime Jonas had an idea that required someone who could A: operate a camera and B: didn’t mind significant personal physical danger, he would call me. I remember doing aerobatics in his Falco plane a number of times while I photographed something or other out the window upside-down. There were also numerous times when I had to run over and help with massive landscaping projects involving the removal of 100-foot-tall trees and all the ensuing chainsaw and chipper work. Good times! (truthfully). Don’t ask me about the time I managed to get his bulldozer stuck while trying to recover the two other tractors I had already gotten stuck (oy).
Jonas and Betsy were key drivers in a lifelong goal of mine and my mother, Tjasa, to ensure that the land and buildings of Undermountain Farm were preserved. They were early supporters of the Lenox Land Trust, when I and others in town created the organization - they were key donors to ensuring the conveyance of the conservation restriction we put on the open space to BNRC - and instrumental in the establishment of the Home Farm Undermountain non-profit, which now owns, operates, and preserves Undermountain Farm - my family home.
Our family is especially grateful to Jonas and Betsy for organizing an event to honor Tjasa and her work with Ventfort Hall - and the greater Lenox community - in 2023.
What a complete and amazing life Jonas had. His energy, good humor, sense of adventure, and creative ideas were fuel for so many others around him.
I will miss him. My heart goes out to Betsy, Elena and John for their loss. Rest in Peace, dear friend.
This has been reposted from Facebook.