North Adams Open Studios Gets a Gold Star for Effort

By Tammy DanielsiBerkshires Staff
12:40AM / Friday, September 18, 2009Print Story | Email Story

Rep. Daniel E. Bosley presents a Gold Star award to former and current Open Studios Chairmen Sharon Carson and Phillip Sellers. MCC representative Jenifer Lawless is at right.

NORTH ADAMS, Mass. — It started out with six artists getting together to show the community what they were up to in a refashioned mill; it's grown to encompass artists and galleries across the city and is creeping out to surrounding communities as well.

As a measure of its success in bringing community and culture together, the all-volunteer North Adams Open Studios was awarded a Gold Star by the Massachusetts Cultural Council. It was nominated by the local council, the Cultural Council of Northern Berkshire.

The framed certificate was presented to the most recent chairmen of the annual event on Wednesday evening by MCC representative Jenifer Lawless and state Rep. Daniel E. Bosley, who noted that the state's 329 local cultural councils submit thousands of requests for arts funding each year.

"Of the 5,000 that were funded, seven were given Gold Stars," he told the more than 50 local artists and community leaders gathered in the Eclipse Mill Gallery. "You are one of the elite in the state."

Open Studios is held one weekend each October, bringing upwards of 2,000 people to galleries and dozens of studios throughout the city. This year it takes place Oct. 17 and 18.

'Is this a podium or a piece of art?' joked Bosley. 'No, really. Is it?"

"Open Studios began in 2004 with just six studios and we got a 100 people," said Sharon Carson, chairman of the 2007 event. "It was our introduction to our neighborhood, though honestly most were former mill workers and were very curious about the building more so than our artwork."

In 2007, the organizers applied for a grant to Cultural Council of Northern Berkshire to promote the event, resulting in a 100 percent increase in traffic, said Carson.

But that first informal effort would not only lay the groundwork for the popular event, it would also create an atmosphere of inclusiveness between the arriving artists and the residents who had once labored in the mills now filling with galleries.

"Arts has changed this community," said Mayor John Barrett III. "And changed the way this community thinks about art ... Who would have thought that 10 years after Mass MoCA opened, we'd have 100 artists participating?"

Members of the Cultural Council of Northern Berkshire remind artists that a $1,000 grant is still available.

Carson and 2009 Chairman Phillip Sellers credited support from the city through the use of the North Adams Trolley, the Cultural Council and Bosley's advocacy in Boston and the many volunteers for making the event a success.

Bosley said he hears from many people how the state shouldn't be funding the arts during this tough times. But that's wrong, he said. "It not only creates an economic activity ... it can expand and grow because it's really part of our community, part of what we do part of who we are. ... It's so heartening to see that."

Barrett agreed: "This is economic development. It's economic development at it's best."

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North Adams Council OKs New Sustainability Committee

By Tammy DanielsiBerkshires Staff
05:13AM / Thursday, September 10, 2026

NORTH ADAMS, Mass. — The City Council on Tuesday night moved the establishment of a Sustainability & Tree Commission to a second reading and publication.

Mayor Jennifer Macksey back in February had presented the council with a list of objectives and how she thought a such a committee could support the administration. Councilor Andrew Fitch had raised the issue the year before, referred it to the mayor's office and pushed through the ordinance.

As the process moved forward, he recommended it merge with the Tree Commission, taking on that committee's objectives as part of the city's sustainability mission. It will make recommendations such as regarding climate change and impact on neighborhoods, and be able to seek grants, partnerships and other resources.

The language provided to the council on Tuesday had been reviewed by several committees and commissions and included changes advised by the city solicitor.

"It's been through a whole bunch of different reviews, and it took different tweaks from each of these committees," said Fitch, acting as president that night. "Each of these committees and commission provided excellent guidance of how to make this a little bit stronger, how to make this a little bit better."

Jenny Dunning, a member of the grassroots North Adams Sustainability Task Force, spoke at the beginning of the meeting to endorse the ordinance.

"I just want to say how much I appreciate that the council and the administration has moved forward to figure out a way to make this happen, and it's up for the vote tonight," said Dunning, who serves on the Windsor Lake Commission. "And we've got five of us who are here to support this change."

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