Category: Voices

Our local communities share their stories — the Hill Country Observer offers a place to lift up many perspectives, from many backgrounds and experiences, bodies and minds, places and languages — from many migrations and diasporas and Native roots and more.

  • Issue:

    Cadillac Crew celebrates women who drove the civil rights era

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    WAM Theatre presents ‘Cadillac Crew’ Oct. 13-29   Cate Alston and Kyra Davis perform in a rehearsal last month for WAM Theatre’s upcoming production of “Cadillac Crew.” David Dashiell photo/courtesy WAM Theatre   By KATE ABBOTTContributing writer LENOX, Mass. It’s late spring or early summer 1963, and four women are talking in the office of… read more

    Cadillac Crew celebrates women who drove the civil rights era
  • Issue:

    Williamstown festival works to transform and cast off a toxic legacy

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    Williamstown festival works to transform, cast off a toxic legacy   Students head out the back door of the ‘62 Center for Theatre & Dance at Williams College, where the college and Williamstown Theatre Festival have set up a new intensive training program this summer. Photo by Susan Sabino   By KATE ABBOTTContributing writer WILLIAMSTOWN,… read more

    Williamstown festival works to transform and cast off a toxic legacy
  • Issue:

    MCLA artist’s residency lifts portraits of a community

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    Exhibit reflects artist’s yearlong residency in North Adams       Conrad Egyir’s new exhibit, “Travelogue,’ which opened in June at Gallery 51, includes his portraits of, from left, Odiase Williamson, Winston Wall and Delano Mills, along with others he met in the course of his artist residency at MCLA. Courtesy photos   By KATE… read more

    MCLA artist’s residency lifts portraits of a community
  • Issue:

    New Lebanon farmers market expands to year-round storefront

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    Farmers market expands through year-round retail storefront   Volunteers and staff of the New Lebanon Farmers Market — Phoebe Young, Josh Young, Lucas Cipkowski and Eleanor Young — stand behind some of the fresh produce at the market’s new year-round retail storefront. Susan Sabino photo   By JOHN TOWNESContributing writer NEW LEBANON, N.Y. The food… read more

    New Lebanon farmers market expands to year-round storefront
  • Issue:

    Jacob’s Pillow opens 90th season with celebration of diverse traditions

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    At Jacob’s Pillow, opening show draws on diverse traditions   Mythili Prakash, one of a new generation of dancers in the Indian tradition of Bharatanatyam, is among the diverse group of performers in “America(na) to Me,” the opening show in this year’s Jacob’s Pillow Dance Festival. Photo courtesy of Mythili Prakash   By KATE ABBOTTContributing… read more

    Jacob’s Pillow opens 90th season with celebration of diverse traditions
  • Issue:

    Ceramics and sculpture anchor new shows at Mass MoCA

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    Ceramics, sculpture anchor new shows at Mass MoCA   Tomato frames bound together with kudzu vines form one portion of Lily Cox-Richard’s new installation, “Weep Holes,” at the Massachusetts Museum of Contemporary Art in North Adams. The museum also has a new group show, “Ceramics in the Expanded Field,” with works by eight artists. Photo… read more

    Ceramics and sculpture anchor new shows at Mass MoCA
  • Issue:

    In New York’s new farm overtime rules, progress or ruin?

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    In New York’s new overtime rules, some see agriculture’s transformation — or its ruin   Stewart Ziehm tends to the cows at Tiashoke Farms, a dairy operation near Buskirk, N.Y., on a cold winter day. Joan K. Lentini photo   By EVAN LAWRENCEContributing writer CAMBRIDGE, N.Y. Labor and social justice activists are calling it a… read more

    In New York’s new farm overtime rules, progress or ruin?
  • Issue:

    Robert Blackburn changed views of printmaking

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    Show at Hyde celebrates master printer Blackburn and those he inspired   Robert Blackburn’s “Refugees” (also known as “People in a Boat”) was completed about 1938, when he was still a teenager, and nearly a decade before he opened the printmaking workshop that would reshape his own art and the works of many others. He… read more

    Robert Blackburn changed views of printmaking
  • Issue:

    For winter, art inspired by snow and ice

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    Famed snowflake photos offer starting point for Bennington group show   Erik Hoffner’s “Ice Fishing 12” is one of a series of photographs he’s taken of ice-fishing holes that have frozen over. Some of these photos are included in the new group show “Transient Beauty” at the Bennington Museum. Courtesy of Bennington Museum   By… read more

    For winter, art inspired by snow and ice
  • Issue:

    Japanese prints in the 20th century – Tradition reshaped in a changing world

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    Exhibit traces evolution of Japanese prints in the 20th century   Kawase Hasui’s “Rain in Uchiyamashita, Okayama District” (1923) is among the works included in the exhibit “Competing Currents: 20th Century Japanese Prints,” which opens Nov. 30 at the Sterling and Francine Clark Art Institute in Williamstown, Mass. Courtesy of Sterling and Francine Clark Art… read more

    Japanese prints in the 20th century – Tradition reshaped in a changing world