Porches logo dots green
News from The Porches Inn August 2008
in this issue
:: STARGAZING PACKAGE EXTENDED!
:: DOWNTOWN CLEBRATION
:: WILLIAMSTOWN THEATRE FESTIVAL
:: FARMERS' MARKETS
:: MASS MOCA DANCE PARTY & OTHER EVENTS
:: GALLERY EXHIBITIONS

Porches Firepit Keeps Toes Toasty Year-roundLabor Day Weekend is on the horizon so start planning your getaway now! September in the Berkshires boasts the best of the best with warm days, clear skies, crisp nights and dream-filled snoozies! Catch the beginning of the turning foliage while enjoying summer's last hurrah...

Indulge in our year-round heated outdoor pool and hot tub, then pick up some local micro-brewed beer and snuggle around our firepit! Drift away in our plush beds and cozy accommodations and make sure to enjoy the complimentary, hearty continental breakfast to ensure you start your day off right. We hope to see you soon!

Click here for some great ideas on hikes for all levels of ability...
Look to the stars with our Summer lodging special... Stargazing!

Spend the day exploring local arts events and galleries, hiking trails or simply roaming our charming Berkshire towns and then get ready for some good ol' fashioned star gazing!  We'll give you a book on identifying constellations - so you can escape the lights of North Adams with the book and a blanket to a nearby field and try to find your Zodiac in the sparkling sky. Come for the annual meteor shower, Perseid, which peaks in mid-August... view up to dozens of meteors per hour!! Upon your return to Porches, we will provide marshmallows for our on-site bonfire pit - kick back, relax and cozy up by the fire. Package includes overnight accommodations with our healthful continental breakfast buffet, a book of constellations and marshmallows. Priced from $189, Sunday - Thursday.
  *** Special available through August 31, 2008 (based on availability)***
Please call 413.664.0400 to reserve.


Click here for more Porches packages and specials or go to www.porches.com for all information!
Hang with the Locals!

August 20, 2008
North Adams' annual social, the Mayor's Downtown Celebration is on Wednesday, August 20, from 5:30-9:00 PM, with a rain date of the following evening. Thousands of visitors and residents will gather downtown, socializing and enjoying great food and music. The celebration is the 13th annual, which Mayor John Barrett III inaugurated in 1996 to celebrate the completion of an extensive downtown beautification program. Thanks to an overwhelming public response, the festival has become a yearly event and an excuse for residents of Northern Berkshire to get out and socialize. Approximately twenty five local restaurants and a handful of public service groups will take to the streets to sell all kinds of dinners, snacks, delicacies and baked goods. Highlights include a 5:00 PM Main Street walk and diverse musical performances.

For more information, contact the Mayor's Office of Tourism, 413.664.6180
Williamstown Theatre Festival is Calling You!

Nestled in the Berkshire Hills of western Massachusetts, the Williamstown Theatre Festival is a celebration of theater that brings together a vast array of artists and offers audiences varied cultural experiences. In past productions, WTF has highlighted actors such as Gwyneth Paltrow, Emmy Rossum, Blythe Danner, Christopher Reeve and Kathleen Turner! Check out the full schedule here and plan a night at the theatre.

Williamstown Theatre Festival
Williamstown, MA
413-597-2400
www.wtfestival.org/
The Clark Art Institute Events for Family and Friends!
 

"MinervaMation" Workshop Film Screening

Thursday, August 21, 2008
5:30 PM
 
Students of the Kathy O'Mara "MinervaMation" Animation Workshop will present a screening of their original film inspired by the art in the Clark's collection.
 


An Evening of Contemporary Japanese Fashion
Friday, September 26, 2008
6:00 PM
Mikki Brown, co-owner of theBrowns in Williamstown and former vice president of Issey Miyake North America, will host a fashion show of innovative textile and clothing designs by Japanese company Nuno, followed by a reception with the models. Cash bar at reception.

The Clark Art Institute
225 South Street
Williamstown, MA
413.458.2303
www.clarkart.edu
HARVEST TIME!

Support local Berkshire farms and merchants by shopping at Berkshire Grown's local Farmers' Markets. The Adams Farmers' Market, at 60 Columbia Street, is open Fridays from 12:00pm - 6:00pm, the North Adams Farmers' Market on 77 Holden Street is open from 8:00am - 12:00pm and the Williamstown Farmers' Market on Spring Street is also open on Saturdays form 8:00am - 12:00pm. Browse the fresh farm stands and take home some of the Berkshire's finest goodies!

Berkshire Grown is a 501 (c) 3 non-profit organization
Great Barrington, MA
413-528-0041
www.berkshiregrown.org
Retro Soul Dance Party with Sweet Divines at MASS MoCA

   

Retro Soul Dance Party with Sweet Divines
Sunday, August 31, 2008, 8:00 pm
Courtyard C or Hunter Center
$14 in advance/ $18 day of show / Members 10% discount

The Sweet Divines-four female vocal powerhouses and their hard-hitting backing band-create heavenly manna for soul purists, beat addicts, harmony lovers, and just about anyone else with a pair of ears and/or feet. "Soul nitroglycerine, shaken, not stirred!" says WFMU while Soul Spectrum says "Dance-able songs, pretty faces, taboo topics, and great performances." -- Soul Spectrum. Galleries open until 7 PM.


Nick Brooke: Time and Motion Study
Saturday, September 27, 2008, 8:00 pm
Hunter Center
$10/ 10% member discount

In a large arena somewhere between a factory, an office, and a Wagnerian opera, eight performers sing, lip-synch, bricklay, and shovel, coordinating their movements precisely with a dense electronic maquette of sound effects, song fragments, and recorded text. Composer and artist-in-residence Nick Brooke's playful and ingenious Time and Motion Study, co-directed by Jenny Rohn, is based on industrial efficiency studies of the 1920s and '30s and their relation to the invention of Muzak. The production spins a symbolic web that examines how recorded music seeped into the psychological landscape of the U.S., influencing our daily work rituals. Performed with Mass, a work which is half American Idol, half religious service, and combines virtuosic singing with hand-to-hand combat. Galleries open until 7:00 p.m.


LAST MONTHS TO SEE JENNY HOLZER!
Jenny Holzer: Projections
Building 5
Through November 15

At MASS MoCA, Jenny Holzer presents her first interior light projections in the United States. The projections transform the enormous, seemingly empty gallery in Building 5 into an engaging and provocative meeting place flooded with words, bodies, and light. Also on view is a new series of paintings from declassified government documents, first shown, in part, at the 2007 Venice Biennale. Holzer's display of government documents, such as planning maps for the invasion of Iraq, reveal the bureaucratic administration of war through the cloud of paint and the weight of a looming installation.

MASS MoCA
1040 MASS MoCA Way
North Adams, MA 01247    
413.MoCA.111  
www.massmoca.org

GALLERY SCENE

Interested in creating your own gallery tour? Click here for an extensive northern Berkshire Gallery Guide!



Kolok Gallery
1st Floor of Windsor Mill Gallery
Williamstown, MA
(413) 664-7381
www.kolokgallery.com

Kolok Gallery hosts Si Dios Quiere, photography by Katrina d' Autremont through September 30 at 121 Union Street at the Windsor Mill. Gallery hours are Wednesday through Friday from 12 - 6 PM, Saturday and Sunday 11 - 4.

Born in Denver to an American father and an Argentine mother, Katrina Marcelle d'Autremont moves between two continents, locates home amid two cultures.

Katrina seeks the familiar in the foreign, the transcendent in the immanent. Family, houses, and interiority animate her work. Investigating the relationship between people and place, she traces the formation and elaboration of identity.
 


Gallery 51

51 Main Street
North Adams, MA
413.597.2429



The Gallery is open daily, 10 a.m. to 6 p.m. For more information, 413-664-8718

Mapping the Invisible
through September 21, 2008
In Mapping the Invisible, artists Joshua Field and Melissa Lillie are using personal visual languages to portray dream-like worlds that seem at once familiar and unnatural.
Field is known for narrative paintings that use symbolic imagery to explore personal mythology. Lillie's colorful and lyrical work draws inspiration from the natural world, appearing simultaneously macroscopic and microscopic, internal and external.

Born in North Adams, Field grew up in St. Petersburg, Florida. He has exhibited nationally and internationally and also exhibits his work at Kolok Gallery located at the Windsor Mill in North Adams.

Born in Maryland, Lillie grew up surrounded by the strange and wonderful world of the National Zoo, where her father worked as a Zoo Keeper. In addition to painting, she frequently works sculpturally, creating forms that utilize both line and color. Lillie also exhibits her work at Kolok Gallery.

www.mcla.edu/Gallery51/