Finding The Secret Of Life In The Berkshires

My education on NoHo, Tanglewood, the Seven Sisters, MASS Moca, and Emily Dickinson with my favorite "Smithie."

Mark Raynes Roberts

Like James Taylor sings, “The secret of life is enjoying the passage of time. Any fool can do it. There ain’t nothing to it.”

These lyrics by one of my favorite songwriters have always resonated with me and the way he found peace in his later years after early rock stardom.

Interestingly, Taylor has lived with his family in the small village of Lenox, a village of less than 5,000 people, in the heart of the Berkshires since 2002. That was due in part to meeting his future wife, Kim, (Caroline Smedvig) in 1993, who worked as the Director of Public Relations & Marketing for the Boston Pops Orchestra at the time. The famous outdoor Tanglewood music venue, and home to the Boston Pops since 1937, it is where Taylor now performs numerous summer concerts.

The glorious “Tanglewood” music venue in the Berkshire Hills is the summer home of the Boston Pops Orchestra. It was donated by Mrs. Gorham Brooks and Mary Aspinall Tappan in 1937.

There’s a connection here…James’s wife, Kim, is also a “Smithie” like my Sarah.

Not long after Sarah and I met in 2011, she mentioned that she would be driving to her alma mater, Smith College, in Massachusetts, for a reunion of her graduation year. Although we hadn’t known each other very long, we were smitten enough with each other that I offered to keep her company by driving her there. In some ways it was a test - to see if what we had kindled would blossom or die after 8 hours of driving both ways.

It’s fair to say we didn’t stop talking the whole time. I even got a speeding ticket because I was so involved in conversation. We still enjoy going on road trips anywhere as long as we are together!

I had been interested in visiting the Berkshires for years. I had exhibited my crystal sculpture at the prestigious Holsten Galleries in Stockbridge, Massachusetts, way back in 1990, in the beautiful village where the Norman Rockwell Museum is also located. As a Canadian newcomer in the world of art glass, I was thrilled to be exhibiting alongside the likes of Dale Chihuly, Peter Aldridge, Steven Weinberg, Harvey Littleton, and Mark Peiser.

But that first road trip was focused on Sarah’s “Smithie” reunion in Northampton, a town known by the students and locals as NoHo, a take on New York’s SoHo, as it is the heart of the arts community. NoHo has an abundance of art galleries and events going on for the liberal-arts-minded visitor. So while Sarah attended university talks during the weekend, I got a good idea of cultural life in Northampton and neighboring university towns of Amherst and Holyoke.

The glorious view from Mount Holyoke overlooking the Connecticut River and Northampton.

The Berkshire highlands are located in western Massachusetts and northwestern Connecticut, a range of hills that lie between the Housatonic and Connecticut Rivers. It’s a beautiful region and the continuation of the Green Mountains of Vermont, distinct only by their lower elevation. Interestingly, they were formed over half a billions years ago when Africa collided with North America, pushing up what is now known as the Appalachian Mountains which formed the basis of the Berkshires.

Smith is one of the Seven Sisters group of private liberal arts colleges in Northeastern United States, historically women’s colleges that included Barnard, Bryn Mawr, Mount Holyoke, Wellesley, Vassar, and Radcliffe. All of these colleges were founded in the 19th century, created to provide women with the equivalence of the all-male Ivy League Schools. (All have since gone co-ed with the exception of Smith and Mount Holyoke.)

Sarah and I enjoyed the perfect Convocation Day ceremony at Smith College, Northampton, in 2019, with fellow alumnae, Cornelia Oberlander, Canada’s celebrated landscape architect, who sadly passed away two years later.

And that’s not all: let me tell you that going to Smith College as a man is not for the faint of heart. There are thousands of women all over the campus for these reunions. Imagine, I was one of only two men at the special dinner hosted by President, Kathleen McCartney, (no relation to Paul) for Sarah’s college year, a room filled with over a hundred of the most intelligent women I’d ever met! Intimidating or what?

That’s not the funniest thing though. Imagine waking up the next morning in a dormitory filled with the opposite sex, thinking it might be wise for me to get up early to shower and shave before hordes of women come bursting through the door. Well I managed the showering bit, but stood there with only a towel around my waist when several early joggers came into the communal bathroom. I’m guessing for a post run pee!

Arghhh. Shocked! I’m not sure if I was more stunned than they were. Thank goodness my towel didn’t drop!

The shower scene was the breakfast chatter over the cornflakes that morning.

Similar to the first time we visited, Sarah would go off to planned “Smithie” events during the day, while I went off and climbed Mount Holyoke and visited the neighboring towns. We did manage a return trip together to the American poet, Emily Dickinson’s (1830 -1886) home in Amherst, which has now been turned into a museum. Regarded as one of America’s most important poets, she led a quiet life of isolation, dressing in white and viewed as an eccentric. Her poems were considered unique for the time, with short lines and often without titles. It wasn’t until after she died that her younger sister, Lavinia, discovered a cache of her poems, later published for the first time in 1890.

Views of Tanglewood outdoor amphitheatre, Sarah at the Emily Dickinson Museum, Helen Hills Chapel in Northampton, Tanglewood Estate residence, and views of the countryside.

Not far from Northampton is the beautiful colonial town of Williamstown, where Williams College, another private liberal arts college was established in 1793. It wasn’t until 1969 that trustees unanimously voted to admit women to Williams.

A few miles away is the industrial mill town of North Adams, named after Samuel Adams, the leader of the American revolution. The town reflects America’s past glories in manufacturing and production with many deteriorating factory buildings. But there has been a wonderful revitalization of the original Arnold print works into the Massachusetts Museum of Contemporary Art (MASS Moca). Initially opened in 1999, it has had further expansions in 2008 and 2017, creating over 130,000 square feet of exhibition space.

Sarah and I walking around the many exhibition gallery spaces at MASS Moca, North Adams.

It’s an expansive property now showcasing the latest contemporary art of the day. As a revitalization project, it reminded me very much of what Geoff Cape, the former CEO of Evergreen Brick Works, achieved on a smaller level in Toronto - revitalizing the Don Valley Brick Works into an environmental parkland and arts space.

On our way home, we stayed a night in Stockbridge as I wanted to visit the Schantz Contemporary Glass Gallery (formerly known as Holsten Gallery) and met with Kim Saul, co-owner, and wife of Jim Schantz. Jim and Kim bought the business in 2009, and ten years on had grown the glass art business considerably. Sadly, I understand they have recently retired from the gallery. I’m unsure if another owner acquired the business. That loss would be a blow to the community as well as to international glass artists.

Famed American illustrator Norman Rockwell seen at his easel, along with a selection of the illustrations he created for the Saturday Evening Post Magazine. Norman Rockwell Museum.

Our last port of call in Stockbridge was visiting the Norman Rockwell Museum, which houses the largest collection of his work. Norman Rockwell (1994 - 1978) was a prolific artist producing more than 4000 original works during his lifetime. Dismissed by serious art critics during his lifetime, he received more attention in his later years for his series of paintings on racism for Look Magazine.

Born in New York City, Rockwell moved to Stockbridge in 1953, after marrying his third wife, Mary Leete “Mollie” Punderson, in 1961, having divorced his first wife Irene O’ Connor, in 1930, and becoming a widow from his second wife, Mary Barstow, in 1959. He lived and worked in Stockbridge until 1978 when he died.

The Berkshires is a poetic region of natural beauty, which quietly goes about its day.

“It’s not what you look at that matters, it’s what you see’” Henry David Thoreau

The secret of life is most definitely enjoying the passage of time.