Hilltowns open studio tour a chance to see and learnDate: 9/26/2023 CUMMINGTON — The Hilltown Arts Alliance will present the fifth open studio tour of artists living in the Hilltowns on Sept. 30 and Oct. 1 — but the star this year is the town itself — Main Street in Cummington was named the state’s newest, and only, rural cultural district.
“There are many open studio tours,” said Kathryn Koegel, a publicist. “What makes this one different is it’s the Hilltowns. Super beautiful, you get to drive around some of these … 18th century roads.”
This year’s tour features 32 artists opening their studios to visitors for six hours, 11 a.m. to 5 p.m. An interactive map is online, with printed versions available at the Cummington Community House Tour Hub, in the center of Main Street, the new cultural district. Tour organizers also added performances at the hub and other locations.
Saturday evening at 5 p.m. the Lithia Quartet, a jazz band, will perform at the Cummington Community House. Also at 5 p.m., folk singer Jitensha will entertain at the Sena Farm Brewery in Worthington. Sunday at 4 p.m. the Human Erratics, a dance company, is scheduled to get physical at Chesterfield Town Hall, with Doug Abrams accompanying on piano.
Visual art remains as the main draw of the tour, but this year visitors may find the stops more interactive. A new focus is on process, how art is made. The artists, in their work spaces, will speak at leisure about the techniques of their craft, the tools and best practices.
“We’re very excited that so many of our artists will be not just opening their studios but giving the public a close up look at their process,” said Kathy Ford, president of the Hilltown Arts Alliance. “Whether you have wanted to learn how to throw a pot or understand various printmaking techniques, there is so much to choose from.”
A resident of the Netherlands and Cummington, Jeanne Johns will give a presentation at 11 a.m. on Saturday called, “What I see, I paint.” Presentations by Leni Fried, Mark Shapiro, Sergei Isupov, Kathryn Jensen, Cindy Spery and Beckie Kravetz will be given hourly.
Kravetz, a figural sculptor, began her artistic evolution doing makeup for Placido Domingo at the Los Angeles Opera, an outgrowth of her work making masks. Kravetz joked that as a mask maker she began with faces, started doing heads, then busts and torsos, and now full figures. For her presentation at 4 p.m. on Saturday Kravetz will return to her roots and use makeup to turn an audience member into a “wild and crazy operatic character.”
“Poets, the Cummington School of the Arts, the Greenwood Music Camp, it’s quite an astonishing, rich cultural cluster that needs more recognition,” Kravetz said of the Hilltowns. “The cultural district, along with the open studios tour, is a way for us to really make people aware of who we are and where we are.”
On Sunday, Sergei Isupov, a world famous ceramicist, will present at Project Art, on Main Street in the new cultural district. Valerianna Claff, another veteran of previous open studio tours, will make her presentation, the alchemy of watercolor, at her studio in Chesterfield, at 2 p.m.
“Chatting with an artist…digging through piles of work and asking questions, it’s a very different experience from going to a show where there’s this pristine presentation on a wall, this final framed thing,” Claff said. “In a studio, it’s about seeing the process. How do they do their work? What are the tools on the table? You get to see the process from start to finish and you can stay as long as you want. You can ask them questions. And you might want to buy something.”
The tour hub, the Community House at 33 Main St., will offer visitors a chance to see representative work by each artist. A gallery featuring pieces will be open for browsing. Visitors may also want to make stops at Project Art, the studios on the property of the Cummington School of the Arts, and the studios on Main Street.
An interactive tour map can be found online at: hilltownartsalliance.org/tour-map.
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