May 04 Saturday
ART SHOW. BOOK SHOW. LIVE MUSIC. COMMUNITY PAINT. GRAFFITI BOARD. ARTWORKS WESTFIELD SCHOLARSHIP RAFFLE. BBQ by North Elm Butcher Block.
ADMISSION IS FREE. CREATIVITY & TALENT ARE PRICELESS.
The ice is out. Cultural creativity is in ... on the arena floor. Come explore!
Articulture Westfield, our annual expansive community art and cultural experience featuring local and regional artists, authors and musicians all indoors under one roof at the same time, returns to the Amelia Park Arena, 21 South Broad Street Westfield, MA on May 3 and May 4, 2024. Seventy-five new, emerging, experienced and professional artists and authors will showcase their creativity and talent in their individual 10’ x 10’display spaces on the floor of the arena!
Wear your walking shoes and come prepared to explore … there will be so much to experience!
Featured art work will include painting, drawing, sculpture, mixed media, collage, photography, printmaking, digital art, functional art, wood, glass, metal, fiber, clay, ceramics and scratch board created by artists from around New England. All works will be available for purchase.
Also featured are local and regional published authors, writers and poets. Signed copies of their literary works will be available for purchase.
Live musical performances by: 10:00am - 11:30am: Ari + Jeff Lynch 11:45am - 12:45pm: Jane Martin Pelletier with Ed Bentley1:00pm - 2:30pm: The Rock Duo featuring Harry Rock & John Severance.2:45pm - 4:00pm: Bow & Slide featuring Neal Liptak & Todd Severance
May 10 Friday
Sundog Poetry and Green Writers Press present an evening of poetry featuring Julia C. Alter, winner of the 2023 Sundog Poetry Book Award for Some Dark Familiar, and special guests Pablo Medina, Rage Hezekiah, and Ben Aleshire.
May 11 Saturday
Climate change is quickly approaching a series of disastrous turning points. Joshua Goldstein, an award-winning scholar of international relations, suggests in his book, A Bright Future, that a solution is hiding in plain sight. Goldstein explains how Sweden, France, and South Korea have already replaced fossil fuels with advanced nuclear technology while enjoying prosperity and growing energy use.
The Salisbury Forum invites you to stream Nuclear Now, a film co-written by Oliver Stone and Joshua Goldstein, free and on demand May 3-19. To get your invitation code, go to www.salisburyforum.org.
May 14 Tuesday
In celebration of Preservation Month, The Landmark Trust USA is excited to bring noted scholar and vernacular architecture historian Thomas C. Hubka to Southern Vermont to speak on his seminal book on one of Northern New England’s most unique and distinct forms of architecture. The book, which received the Abbot Lowell Cummings Award from the Vernacular Architecture Forum, has been in continuous publication for 40 years and has become a scholarly and popular standard for New England architecture history and cultural studies. It has been widely cited as a model for regional architectural studies combining architectural and social/historical study.
This engaging talk will highlight the four essential components of the stately and beautiful connected farm buildings made by nineteenth-century New Englanders that stand today as a living expression of a rural culture, offering insights into the people who made them and their agricultural way of life. It will feature numerous local examples as well as The Landmark Trust USA’s own Amos Brown House in Whitingham, VT.
Books will be available for purchase to be signed by the author with all proceeds supporting The Landmark Trust USA’s historic preservation work.
This program is supported in part by Vermont Humanities.
Jun 06 Thursday
INTERACTIVE BOOK READING WITH HILLTOWN SLEDDOGS MEET & GREET
Local author Marla BB will read from her book while its illustrations are projected on the big screen for the audience to follow along and enjoy. A question and answer session will follow. Come meet the Hilltown Sleddogs Team in the Rainbow Room after the reading.
ABOUT THE BOOK:
"We're going to Alaska! Pass it down the lane. We're going to Alaska, from where our grandmother came..."
This is the tale of the Hilltown Sleddogs' journey across North America to the motherland of mushing, Alaska. They traveled by truck and trailer for 7 days. They trained in temperatures from 35 to 55 degrees below zero for 7 weeks. Finally on a frigid day in February 2020 this team of 12 Alaskan Huskies and their dog driver set out to mush 750 miles across the frozen Yukon River and Bering Sea, camping outside for 3 weeks on their way to Nome. From the eyes & ears of the Hilltown Sleddogs we bring you, Our Serum Run Story by the T's, U's, V's & Me!
ABOUT THE AUTHOR:
Marla BB, once known as New York City’s Sassy Mama Blues Singer, became a Martial Artist and Self Defense Teacher, then a Mama and finally, a Musher!After a decade of raising 24 Alaskan Huskies and 1 daughter in the Hilltowns of Western Massachusetts, Marla realized her dream of bringing her own sled dog team to mush the 750 mile Serum Run Trail across Alaska!
When she started Hilltown Sleddogs, racing was her passion! With a wheeled rig on dry land and sled on snow, Marla raced across North America and Sweden. Touring was her business. Thousands of hands of campers and clients have pet, hugged, and loved the Hilltown Sled Dogs. Sled Dog Camps and empowering youth became her mission! Campers became jr. handlers, camp counselors even racers.
"My sled dogs are my family, my daughters’ canine siblings, my work companions and the reason I go to bed feeling loved and wake up with a howl in my heart!" - Marla BB
Jun 09 Sunday
Join us for the Ruggles Center's annual Founders Day event: "Nell Irvin Painter in Conversation with Lisa Baskin" in the Bombyx Sanctuary. Professor Emerita of American History at Princeton University and collector and historian Lisa Baskin will discuss issues ranging from race in America, to Sojourner Truth in Florence, to making art in later life. She will also sign copies of her new collection of essays entitled, I Just Keep Talking. This event is sponsored by the David Ruggles Center for History and Education. Please join us after the talk for refreshments at the David Ruggles Center on 225 Nonotuck Street in Florence.