Eclipse Mill Gallery

In a relatively short time Real Eyes Gallery. located in the heart of Adams in the Berkshires. is notable for programming museum level exhibtions. Marjorie Minkin: The Shape of Light sets the bar high. Gallerist Bill Reilly has been able to work with artists from an expanding and ever more remarkable community of artists. How long can MASS MoCA ignore phenomenal work being created in its own back yard?

In 1969 Howie and Dale Levitz moved to the Berkshires when he became head of the photography department at Williams College. After seven years they opened a photo store which had a smaller iteration on Holden Street in North Adams. He was the piano man with a vast command of songs. Howie loved to entertain with tales, anecdotes and jokes. He passed away over the Memorial Day weekend.

Amigos: Charles Giuliano, Robert Henriquez, David Zaig is the final exhibition of the season of Eclipse Mill Gallery in North Adams. The commonality of these Berkshire based artist friends is the scale and ambition of their work. The exhibition opens on Friday, November 16, 5 to 8 PM.

Cross-Section, the inaugural exhibition of North Adams Fiber Artists (NAFA), will open at the Eclipse Mill Gallery on September 7 and run through October 8. The gallery is located in a 40 unit artist/ loft building ar 243 Union Street in North Adams.

Since 2008 North Adams' DownStreet Art celebrations have become a monthly summer-time destination for Berkshire residents and visitors alike. Serious, fun, cultural activities and art mix and match during this day. The celebrations have always happened on the last Thursday of the month.

The special exhibition Objects of Desire pairs whimsical narrative paintings by Joan Kiley with relief sculpture and polychromed assemblages by Larry Alice. There is a confluence and empathy of fantasy and the surreal in work that will be on view in the Eclipse Mill, 243 Union Street, from Friday, June 29 through Sunday, July 29. A receptiom will be held on Friday, July 6.

The landscape, particularly as inspired by visionary experiences with the indigenous people of Colombia, have long been key to the large paintings of Rick Harlow. In the past couple of years, taking off from the radical technique of Jackson Pollock, nature has been a more subliminal signifier in dripped and spattered abstract paintings. During a studio visit we discussed the dozen paintings to be included in "Landscape of Energy" at the Eclipse Mill Gallery. It will be his first Berkshire solo show.

The North Adams Winter Arts Festival was launched in December with a holiday celebration at the Eclipse Mill Gallery. It resumes with four events starting with Kathline Carr Wednesday, February 28. It continues with Mark Miller, Wednesday, March 7, then Charles Giuliano and Astrid Hiemer, Wednesday, March 14 concluding with Sarah Sutro on Wednesday, March 28. Speaking well for the depth of the creative community all of the authors live and work in North Adams.

All are invited to join a holiday celebration and launch of the Eclipse Mill Winter Arts Festival. A gala evening of music by Michelle Wiley, and poetry by Stephen Rifkin, will occur on Wednesday, December 13, starting at 7:30 pm, at the Eclipse Mill, 243 Union Street, in North Adams. A program of other events will be announced in the New Year.

Out on a Limb explores the creative process and how it engenders a final product. The exhibiting artists employ painting, collage, fiber art, and preliminary drawing to embody how new ideas push change. The exhibition at Eclipse Mill Gallery in North Adams features work by Debi Pendell, Sarah Sutro and Betty Vera. The opening will occur Saturday, September 30, from 6-8pm.

The special exhibition Figuratively Speaking, at the Eclipse Mill Gallery, September 1 to 24, offers fresh and evocative interpretations allowing for a broad range of approaches to the perennial conundrum of the human condition. The five Berkshire based artists include William Archer, Joanna Klain, Linda O’Brien, Opie O’Brien, and Wilma Rifkin.

The Eclipse Mill Gallery, in North Adams, is featuring a special exhibition of unique drinking vessels "I'll Drink to That." It opens with a reception for the artists on Friday, August 4, from 6 to 8pm. It remains on view, Thursday to Sunday, from 10 am through 5pm, through August 27. Some 25 renowned potters from coast to coast will display their work.

Works by Stephen Hannock are in global museum collections. His Oxbow painting in the Metropolitan Museum of Art will be included in a survey of Hudson River artist Thomas Cole. Hannock's mate Sting will also be involved in the project. When he created paintings for his friend's hometown of Newscastle the studies were shown at the Berkshire Museum. He gave one of the studies to the museum to honor philanthropist Nancy Fitzgerald. The fact of that work and the entire fine arts collection of the museum is unknown. We talked at length with the Berkshire based global artist about the impact of the museum's strategy to sell its fine arts collection with a radical makeover as an interactive educational museum for history and science.

The occasion of an opening for Large Watercolors by Robert Morgan inspired a winter break weekend. On Friday night we visited the spacious and lively AVA Gallery and Art Center in Lebanon, N.H. We spent Saturday at Dartmouth College in nearby Hanover viewing the Orozco murals and works in the Hood Museum of Art. There was a lot of remarkable work to enjoy and think about.

After one season the Rudd Museum of Art in North Adams has been renamed with a new mandate as Berkshire Artist Museum. It recently reopened with a Rudd installation Iceberg in the nave and That '70s show as phase one of Then and Now which will be complete later in the season.

80 artists from 22 countries are currently participating in an art book exhibition in Bucharest, which is following the 2014 Moskow, Russia, Biennale. Organizers are the National Association for Visual Contemporary Arts in Romania and D. Fleiss & East West Artists Association of Germany. A program with daily events adds to the exhibition's lively cultural activities.

Now in his final weeks as director of the Clark Art Institute Michael Conforti hosted a media event promoting a blockbuster season for Northern Berkshire County. There were presentations by Joe Thompson for Mass MoCA, Tina Olsen for the Williams College Museum of Art, and Mandy Greenfield for the Williamstown Theatre Festival. Notably absent from the media event were North Adams based arts presenters Downstreet, The Eclipse Mill Gallery, The Rudd Museum of Art and the fall annual Williamstown Film Festival.

The Caruthersville Area Arts Council invited Pennie Brantley and Gary Lucy, their most prominent artists and former citizens, to exhibit their work at the Caruthersville Armory, which will be transformed into a large gallery space. Both artists, both realist painters, have made their marks in the art world nationally and internationally. Caruthersville is preparing for the biggest art event yet!

During the final days of her exhibition at the Eclipse Mill Gallery in North Adams, Mass. we spoke with Marjorie Minkin about her painted Lexan reliefs. We discussed the current exhibition and background of her relationship with renowned critic, Clement Greenberg, and curator/ critic, Kenworth Moffett. As well as a 2005/06 project in collaboration with her son Mike Gordon of the rock band Phish and engineer Jamie Robertson.

Cotton was the material that drove the economy of numerous mills in the Northern Berkshires. That left a terrible legacy of involvement with slavery and child labor during the era of King Cotton. As a part of a healing process the fabric artist Betty Vere is bringing cotton back to the gallery of the Eclipse Mill in North Adams. In the exhibition Hiding in Plain Sight she is displaying a series of Jacquard weaving.

Visitors passing along Route 2 and the Mohawk Trail on their way to Mass MoCA and nearby Clark Art Institute and Williams College Museum of Art can pause and refresh with a taste of locally created work in the 7th Annual Berkshire Salon. (May 9 to June 1)

Massachusetts funded Mass MoCA initially, and now again, as an economic development to drive the creative economy of cultural tourism in the depressed Northern Berkshire County. In addition to the Clark Art Institute expanded and coming back on line this summer, in a few years, Mass MoCA plans to double its exhibition space. A key result of that expansion will be a shift of visitors from day trips to weekends. In this next phase more involvement with the local community, particularly its artists, will be crucial.

The September/ October edition of Art New England includes a section devoted to the Berkshires. To celebrate there was a reception hosted by the Eclipse Mill Gallery in North Adams. We got a chance to catch up with publisher Tim Montgomery whom we knew back in the day when he was in sales for the legendary Rock of Boston the pioneering WBCN. Several years ago he acquired the publication and continues its mandate as the foremost publication covering New England.

The Eclipse Mill at 243 Union Street in North Adams houses the Eclipse Mill Gallery, The Brill Gallery and River Hill Pottery and studio. The pottery is open daily and the two galleries on weekends through the fall. Both galleries have openings of new shows on June 15.

The Eclipse Mill Gallery at 243 Union Street in North Adams launches its 2013 season with The Sixth Annual Berkshire Salon. The unjuried exhibition which includes work by 47 regional artists remains on view weekends, from noon to 5 PM, from May 10 through June 2.