By Sally Moe

I am a small-town girl at heart, but I just love big-city treats. In a perfect world, I’d live in a house where I could leave the windows open and the doors unlocked and fall asleep to the music of crickets. There would be art galleries and a Crate & Barrel just around the corner, at least six great restaurants within walking distance, and I’d have season tickets to the nearby Performing Arts Center.

But we all know the world is far from perfect, and dreams and wishes often get put on the back burner in favor of more practical concerns. So when I recently visited the Berkshires area of western Massachusetts for the first time, I felt real excitement—for I’d found the best of both worlds.

Nestled within a quiet rural setting of rivers and wooded mountainscapes were picturesque communities looking unabashedly like a postcard or, not coincidentally, a scene from a Norman Rockwell painting. Enriching the idyllic atmosphere was a diverse assortment of museums, distinctive restaurants, performing and dramatic arts venues and inns of character and charm. So even if your appetite for cultural attractions and sunsets framed by rolling mountains is limited, you could learn about local Shaker history at the Hancock Shaker Village, or cut loose on a snowmobile tour to the summit of the state’s highest peak, Mount Greylock; you could parasail over Pontoosuc Lake in the summer, or indulge yourself nightly at one of the region’s superb restaurants. And I don’t use the word ‘superb’ lightly! My friends and I gorged on fragrant char-grilled tuna with fresh asparagus and spicy blood-red orange salsa at quietly luxurious The Orchards in Williamstown...and moved on to share wine, animated conversation and entrées like halibut provençal—with a side of centuries-old history—at cozily romantic, firelit Mill on the Floss in New Ashford. The blustery final night of our visit, we slaked our spirit of adventure with enthusiastic, table-wide sampling of appetizers including scrumptious spinach-stuffed eggplant with fontina cheese at the polished Main Street Café in Williamstown. Restaurants such as these provided us with much more than mere lunch or dinner. They communicated the warmth and deep history of the area, the sophisticated hospitality of its residents, an
ambiance ideal for memorable conversations and the wish to return, often.

It’s safe to say the Berkshires came by the motto, “America’s premier cultural resort,” honestly. All in one weekend, you can stimulate your inner child at the quirky Berkshire Museum and stir your heart in the Norman Rockwell. You can inspire your soul in the elegant Clark Art Institute and Williams College Museum of Art, and question everything you thought you knew at the audacious MassMoCA (Massachusetts Museum of Contemporary Art).

Each of these facilities impacts the surrounding community with its own unique identity. The Berkshire, in Pittsfield, offers an eclectic mix of kid-friendly, interactive life sciences, paleontology, earth science and biogeology exhibits; ancient art from the Middle East, Egypt, Greece, Rome and China; aquariums; European art; and abundant works from the Hudson River School. But perhaps most entertaining are its Refrigerator Art Gallery, displaying children’s works of art; and my personal favorite, the Vend-O-Mat—a whimsical, retro-futuristic yet fully functioning vending machine.

The Norman Rockwell Museum in Stockbridge houses the world’s larg-est collection of the iconic artist’s work, along with his actual studio, which was moved intact to the museum and remains as he left it: with a partially completed painting on the easel.

Picturesque Stockbridge—embraced by Rockwell (who lived there for 25 years until his death in 1978) as “the best of America, the best of New England”—has the familiar look of his paintings, as do many of its residents. This should come as no surprise: many of his neighbors acted as models for his meticulously executed paintings. That had not always been the case. Earlier in his career, he sometimes used professional models—but after a studio fire in Arlington, Vermont, destroyed many of his props and reference materials, Rockwell re-examined his working process, and began using more local people—particularly neighbors. The policeman in “The Runaway” really was a state policeman; the doctor in “Before the Shot” really was the town doctor. Rockwell, too, often acted as a model, assuring the physical realism that made his paintings so remarkable.

These very paintings, including all 322 of his Saturday Evening Post covers, plus drawings, photos and memorabilia—are part of a coast-to-coast tour organized by the Rockwell in conjunction with Atlanta’s High Museum of Art, entitled “Norman Rockwell: Pictures for the American People.” This exhibition can be viewed at the Rockwell Museum from June 9 through October 21, 2001, before the collection moves on to the Guggenheim in New York.

The impact of the Clark Art Institute, in Williamstown, is as much about its tranquil setting—amid 130 acres of lawns, herb gardens, meadows and walking trails—as it is about its beautifully displayed art collection, which is especially strong in the Impressionists, with more than 30 works by Renoir. Eagerly anticipated is “Impression: Painting Quickly in France, 1860-1890,” organized by the Clark in association with the National Gallery in London and the Van Gogh Museum in Amsterdam. It will be on view June 17 through September 9, 2001, and the Clark will be the exclusive American venue.

Situated on the stately campus of Williamstown’s Williams College, and celebrating its 75th anniversary this year, the architecturally stunning Williams College Museum of Art’s permanent collection contains some 12,000 objects spanning the history of art. But this venue is perhaps most remarkable for its sizable collection of work by American modernists, artist-brothers Maurice and Charles Prendergast—the largest in any museum.

In North Adams, MassMoCA—occupying the 27 buildings of the vast 13-acre Marshall Street Complex (formerly home to Sprague Electric Company)—has carved an indelible niche for itself in a mere two years. After marveling at its extraordinary exhibits and feeling as though immersed in the urban depths of New York, I stepped back outside, disconcerted, into quiet New England village life. According to Founding Director, Joe Thompson, “Our location ‘off center’ in a rural area is also significant since it creates a sense of pilgrimage for those who visit.”

I can totally relate. After my introduction to the myriad attractions and serene beauty of the Berkshires, I felt exactly such a sense of pilgrimage. And that’s a feeling I hope to revisit often in the years to come.