Yoruba Culture Topic of Art Lecture

Print Story | Email Story

WILLIAMSTOWN - Professor Babatunde Lawal will present "Making the Spirit Manifest: Art and Life in Yoruba Culture" on Tuesday, March 4, at 5:30 p.m. at the Sterling and Francine Clark Art Institute.


The free lecture is sponsored by the Williams College graduate program in the history of art.


Lawal, of Williams College and the Virginia Commonwealth University, is the spring 2008 Robert Sterling Clark visiting professor.

His talk will focus on art in sub-Saharan Africa - specifically how the Yoruba of Nigeria and Republic of Benin use the visual and performing arts to incarnate and communicate with the spiritual and to reinforce their quest for eternal life.

The Clark is at 225 South St. The galleries are open Tuesday through Sunday from 10 to 5 and admission is free through May. For more information, call 413-458-2303 or visit www.clarkart.edu

If you would like to contribute information on this article, contact us at info@iberkshires.com.

Williamstown Planning Board Narrowing in on Subdivision Bylaw Changes

By Stephen DravisiBerkshires Staff
WILLIAMSTOWN, Mass. — The Planning Board late last month discussed specific features of what it plans to pass as a new subdivision control bylaw this year.
 
The board long has discussed the complex set of regulations as being out of date and cumbersome to both potential developers and the board itself, which has needed to hear requests for waivers of outdated rules for the handful of residential subdivisions that have been proposed in town in recent years.
 
This spring, the town engaged consultants from Northampton's Dodson and Flinker Landscape Architecture and Planning to go through the existing bylaw, compare it to more contemporary regulations in other communities and help craft a revised bylaw.
 
Unlike the zoning bylaw, where amendments require approval of town meeting, the subdivision control bylaw is a creation of the Planning Board, which can make changes on its own after a public hearing process it hopes to complete this year.
 
At a special Planning Board meeting on May 26, Dillon Sussman of Dodson and Flinker and his colleagues walked the board through a dozen different decision points that the board must resolve — either by leaving the bylaw as is or making a change — and offered suggestions based on best practices.
 
All of the issues are technical and ranged from the fundamental, like how the bylaw will define types of subdivisions, to the highly specific, like what turning radii will be required in new streets that are constructed to serve planned developments.
 
One example of a topic that came up in the recent approval of a four-home subdivision off Summer Street is stormwater management.
 
View Full Story

More Williamstown Stories