A local love to last a lifetime

John and Diane Walters of Millerton have been married for 61 years.
Photo by Krista A. Briggs


John and Diane Walters of Millerton have been married for 61 years.
MILLERTON – With Valentine’s Day on the horizon, love is in the air. But for John and Diane Walters, married 61 years, love is their way of life — and they intend to keep it that way.
Born one month apart at Sharon Hospital in Connecticut, John and Diane, who lived separate lives during childhood, came together in their late teens as the result of a blind date at a dance. The blind date, however, was one Diane was on with a friend of John’s, who fatefully introduced them to each other during the evening. Diane, the daughter of former village trustee and mayor William Bradley, was immediately attracted to John, originally from New York City, but who had relocated to the area as a ten-year-old. “I wanted to dance with him,” she said, reflecting on their first meeting. They were both 19 at the time.
By 21 they were married. For reasons she can’t explain, Diane felt very strongly about waiting until adulthood to marry. At one time, 21 was the legal age to wed in Connecticut. The law has since been amended to allow persons 18 and over to marry.
Diane, who describes herself as practical, is from a large family which includes seven siblings. While planning the wedding, which took place in 1963, she worried over expenses, so she recycled a dress which had belonged to one of her sisters. When her sister wore the dress ten years earlier, hoops were in style for brides of the times. But when it was Diane’s turn, she swapped out the expansive skirt to reflect the clean-lined styles of the early 1960s. “I wore the dress without a hoop,” she said, explaining that her mother, a skilled seamstress, assisted her with perfecting the headpiece.

Their wedding was held at St. John’s Episcopal Church in Salisbury with the reception following at the Millerton Gun Club. In keeping with both Diane and John’s penchant for modesty, the reception was not an overly elaborate affair. There was no live band, and the venue was very practically adorned with bows being tied onto the antlers of the deer heads mounted on the wall. “We had soft drinks and sandwiches,” the couple both recalled.
After the wedding, “it was like we became one,” John said.
“We’re very compatible,” said Diane, who remains in sync with her husband after all these years. “Same foods, same personalities.” The couple settled locally, ricocheting between Amenia, Millerton and Sharon before returning to Millerton. John, a natural salesman, served as a factory representative for Amana, KitchenAid and SpeedClean. He takes pride in his past working experience, saying, “I helped pioneer the microwave oven.” Diane went full circle and landed back at Sharon Hospital where she worked as a medical transcriptionist.
In their 61 years together, the couple raised two children born three years apart — daughter, Deborah, now an IT professional employed by Dutchess County, and son, Eric, now a retired respiratory therapist living in Wyoming. Deborah, however, is not far from her parents, and lives a mere two doors down.
The couple credits the longevity of their union to familial influences. Diane’s parents were married 68 years, and one of her brothers was married for 63 years.
They also possess a shared sense of responsibility, both socially and fiscally, having once fallen into the trap of easy purchasing with a Sears credit card, a regret which was rectified in a timely fashion with hard work and commonsense.
“We’ve lived below our means,” said John. “That’s so important.” Diane agreed with her husband once again, saying, “Each contributed to the marriage financially and emotionally.” John also noted avoiding mood-altering pitfalls has been instrumental. “No alcohol, no drugs,” he stated.
One disagreement the couple did have centered around the possibility of relocating to North Carolina. While John supported a move down south about ten years ago, Diane couldn’t get onboard with the idea, saying it was probably one of the biggest differences the couple experienced in their relationship. John has since abandoned the idea, saying, “We’re too old now.”
Regardless of the march of time, the couple remains active. Diane often meets friends for bowling dates and spends time at the library. John enjoys walking, using the computer, and confesses he spends too much time watching TV. They’re also dog parents to their German Shepherd, Kim, whom they both adore.
Despite their similarities and their differences, John is certain of one thing — “I’m proud to be married for over 60 years.”
Graham Corrigan
North East Town Hall will be open on Thursday, July 2, for people who need a cool place to sit and sip water. The Town Hall is located at 19 N. Maple Ave. in Millerton.
Community cooling centers are opening across Dutchess County as extreme heat brings temperatures into the high 90s.
Many libraries, town halls and community facilities are serving as cooling centers, offering air-conditioned spaces, drinking water and restrooms. Temperatures are expected to reach triple digits in some areas of the county this week.
The centers will not be open this weekend. All locations will be closed on Saturday, July 4, and Sunday, July 5, for the holiday weekend.
Northeast-Millerton Library, located at 28 Century Blvd., will be open and air-conditioned during its normal business hours — 11 a.m. to 6 p.m. — Wednesday, July 1, to Friday, July 3. The North East Town Hall, at 19 N. Maple Ave., will be available as a cooling center Wednesday, July 1, and Thursday, July 2, between 9 a.m. and 5 p.m.
The Pine Plains Community Center, located at 7775 S. Main St. above the Pine Plains Free Library, will be open 24 hours a day from Wednesday through Friday. The Free Library downstairs is open noon to 6 p.m Friday, and Town Hall, at 3284 Route 199, is open 8 a.m. to 3 p.m. on Wednesday and Thursday.
The Stanford Free Library, located at 6035 Route 82, will be open Monday through Friday from 9 a.m. to 7 p.m., and Stanford’s Town Hall at 26 Town Hall Rd is available from 8 a.m. to 1 p.m. on Monday through Friday.
Extreme heat can cause dehydration and heat stroke. Residents are encouraged to remain inside or under shade whenever possible and drink plenty of water.
D.H. Callahan
On Thursday, June 25, a collection of eager art enthusiasts gathered at Olana State Historic Estate in Hudson to kick off the seventh annual Upstate Art Weekend (UAW).
Helen Toomer, founder, was joined by sculptors Ellen Harvey, Jean Shin and Gabriela Salazar to discuss their work and the legacy of painter Frederic Church. Church, whose 200th birthday is being celebrated this year, is widely credited as one of the founding members of the Hudson River School of painting. The discussion took place at Olana, Church’s grand estate, where the three artists’ installations are on view.
Church’s status as an early environmentalist was mentioned repeatedly during the conversation. Shin’s sculpture “Fallen,” which graced the lawn next to the estate’s main house during last year’s event, featured a fallen hemlock tree trunk planted by Church over 150 years earlier which had been wrapped in tanned leather. She described the work as a direct reference to Church’s experience witnessing the eradication of the area’s hemlocks as the leather tanning industry wreaked havoc on the natural environment of the Hudson Valley in the mid-19th century.
The relationship between art and the environment wasn’t isolated at Church’s former home. Instead, it seemed to be found all over UAW.
Now in its seventh year, UAW works to take the art world out of the city. At its best, the weekend gives artists and curators the opportunity to interact with unfamiliar environments. Just as often, however, it serves as a literal escape, allowing New York City galleries to bring works to pop-up spaces assembled for the express purpose of displaying fine art. The “Loading…” group show in Hudson did just this.
Transplanting six New York City galleries into an intimate event space, “Loading…” featured a wide variety of artists from around the globe. Sheroanawe Hakihiiwe, an Indigenous artist from Venezuela, takes ancient practices and translates his observations of the Amazon into minimalist works. Michael Assif’s “Plant a Weed” highlights the human impact on a natural landscape while feeling like a marshmallow dream. And Margaret Curtis’ “ ‘S ” uses the backdrop of a Hudson River School-style sunset to highlight the chaos of today’s state of the American dream.
The flip side of this art-world field trip is the variety of makeshift galleries in the garages and barns of the Hudson Valley. Places like Ugly Mud Studios and Ten Barn Farm, both in Ghent, along with Foxtrot Farm and Flowers in Stanfordville, housed unexpectedly refined exhibitions. These venues all integrate sustainable practices into their business: Foxtrot is a regenerative flower farm, Ugly Mud uses locally sourced clay, and Ten Barn Farm operates a farm-to-table restaurant called The Kitchen.
But at the end of the day, UAW is about getting the art world into the wild. So it was no surprise to see a panoply of eye-catching outfits, and out-of-this-world works at Art Omi, the sculpture and architecture park in Ghent, on Saturday evening. Complete with avant-garde ambient operatic metal, the Summer Kickoff event served as a testament to the continued growth of UAW. It seems the seeds that Toomer and her collaborators planted seven years ago are flourishing, with no signs of slowing down.

Want more of our stories on Google? Click here to make us a Preferred Source.
Jennifer Almquist
Benjamin Reynaert
Creating a home is, at its core, an act of love.
— Benjamin Reynaert
Benjamin Reynaert is focused on creative direction and interior styling. He is market director at Elle Décor, a design consultant, and author of “The Layered Home: Inspiration for Crafting Cozy, Collected Rooms,” published this year by Clarkson Potter. He co-founded Ticking Tent, a market featuring antiques, luxury items and vintage treasures. The biannual event is held in New Preston, Connecticut, and Bedford, New York.
Adopted from South Korea at 3 months old, Reynaert grew up in Bloomfield Hills, Michigan. He always knew he wanted to be an artist. “I just loved drawing. I loved making things with clay,” he said. “Remembering what it felt like to be creative as kids and applying that to our creativity as adults is essential.” A graduate of the Rhode Island School of Design (RISD), where he earned a BFA and a degree in architecture, Reynaert also studied bookbinding in Rome. His attention to detail and aesthetic sense reflect years of training and a finely tuned eye for objects. “Attending RISD nurtured my creativity and taught me how to problem-solve,” he said.
His career began at Martha Stewart Living. A contributor to Architectural Digest, Elle Decor, House Beautiful and Veranda, Reynaert has also served as style director at Domino. He has worked with Farrow & Ball, Chairish, Neiman Marcus, Sunbrella, Anthropologie, Gap, Bunny Williams Home and Stella Artois. He shares his work on Instagram via @aspoonfulofbenjamin.
“I’ve been fortunate to travel the country and abroad for Elle Decor, covering design fairs and trade shows like Deco Off in Paris, London Design Week in England, Cersaie Tile Show in Bologna, Italy, High Point in North Carolina and the Kitchen and Bath Industry Show in Las Vegas,” he said. He is drawn to unique objects and textiles. “As a market editor, the pieces that stick with me are not the newest. They are the ones I stumble upon and imagine living with.”
Reynaert is also co-founder of Ticking Tent with Christina Juarez, president of Christina Juarez & Company. The biannual event has become a destination for collectors and designers seeking curated antiques and design objects.
“I met Ben about 15 years ago when he was a young design editor and I was early into my career as a design communications strategist having switched gears from the fashion world," Juarez said. “We immediately clicked. I was impressed by his multidisciplinary creative talents — styling, writing, vision and impeccable eye — and his passion for the thrill of the hunt. I could not ask for a better partner and friend — my brother from another mother — and a yin to my yang. Two creatively minded people with a love of old and new beautiful things, and the ability to curate what the luxury shopper doesn’t know they need and most definitely wants.”
Reynaert described the most recent Ticking Tent as the largest yet. “We hosted over 2,000 guests and transacted our most sales to date with 75 vendors,” he said. “The most exciting part is seeing friends and watching new connections being made. I’m excited for the next event, Nov. 13–14, in Bedford, N.Y.”

For Reynaert, objects are defined as much by narrative as by design. “An object is about the story — whether it’s passed down in your family, something you worked hard for, bought on a trip, or a friend gave you,” he said. “With that added narrative, it doesn’t need to be the most aesthetically pleasing thing. The memory attached makes it beautiful. I like the idea of simple, seemingly insignificant items having a ton of meaning. Treat a thrift store painting as you would a Picasso.”
Greg Domres and Peter Nichols’ residence in Litchfield, which they share with their miniature schnauzer, Bunny, is one of 15 homes featured in Reynaert’s book, “The Layered Home.” The couple hosted a book signing at George Home in Washington Depot. “I first met Ben at press events during my time at John Derian,” Domres said. “We became friends and stayed connected professionally over the years.”
The book spans interiors from Eric Goujou’s shop The Wolf Tile in Paris’ 5th arrondissement to textile designer Schuyler Samperton’s Litchfield farmhouse. “Sharing the stories of talented, stylish people I’ve met during my tenure in magazines has been a privilege,” Reynaert said. “The most inspiring interiors are layered — with personality, patina and the poetry of a life lived. This book is my love letter to that idea.”
Reynaert said he would like to travel to Japan and Australia and hopes to develop his own product line in the future. “Balancing work and life is a challenge,” he said. He spends downtime with his husband, Luis Illades, in Delaware, where they are renovating a Victorian home.
“I feel incredibly fortunate to blend my work and my life in the home I share,” he said. “Creating a home is, at its core, an act of love.”
Natalia Zukerman
Mickalene Thomas and Delano Dunn at Wassaic Project.
Before “Echoes in the Margin,” Delano Dunn’s new solo exhibition at Troutbeck in Amenia opened, the artist sat down with curator and artist Mickalene Thomas for a conversation at the Wassaic Project on Wednesday, June 24. Their wide-ranging discussion offered an intimate look into Dunn’s practice while situating the work within broader questions of history, memory and representation.
Presented by the Wassaic Project, the exhibition brings Dunn’s richly layered paintings into conversation with Troutbeck itself, the historic estate long associated with artists, writers and civil rights leaders, including W.E.B. Du Bois, Langston Hughes and many more.
Thomas, an artist whose multidisciplinary practice spans painting, collage and installation, first met Dunn when she was his graduate adviser at the School of Visual Arts. “I think your work needs to be out there more,” she said, noting the urgency of this collection in the current socio-political moment.
Dunn’s layered collages often begin with an image unearthed from flea markets, used bookstores and forgotten archives.
“I go to secondhand shops, old bookstores, any place that looks like it has history in it,” he said.
Sometimes, he explained, an image becomes the centerpiece of a work. Other times it simply sparks an idea.
“There’ll be an idea that pops into my head. I’ll read something or hear music or a lyric, and then I’ll think, ‘I’ve got to find an image that matches that.’”
His color palette also carries its own history.
“I grew up in L.A. during the L.A. riots,” Dunn said. “I would sit on my porch as a kid. I was watching the neighborhood burn, but the sky was beautiful.”
He still paints with those saturated blues, reds and oranges.
“Color can transport you. Color can make you feel safe, or happy or scared,” he said. “Those colors made me feel safe.”
For Dunn, Troutbeck’s own layered history became an active part of the work. Learning that the estate had hosted W.E.B. Du Bois, Langston Hughes, Ida B. Wells and generations of civil rights leaders informed his direction.
Dunn was given access to Troutbeck’s archives and found handwritten notes by Langston Hughes, and writings by Du Bois and Wells that found their way into the exhibition.
“There was a letter between Amy Spingarn and Martin Luther King Jr.,” Dunn recalled. “To be in its presence and hold it... you don’t see communication like that every day.”

Much of Dunn’s work invites viewers to dig deeper into history rather than accept simplified narratives.
“I want them to look at it and go, ‘Wow, this is really amazing and interesting and colorful and beautiful,’” he said. “And then I want them to be terrified shortly after that.” He accomplishes this through bold, colorful, and often playful compositions that draw the viewer in before revealing their more complex historical underpinnings. As Thomas wrote, “Dunn’s compositions invite viewers to sit within that tension and take it in.” That impulse toward deeper investigation extends to Dunn’s own children, who are often his first audience.
“They’ll ask, ‘What is this? Why does this person look the way they look? Why are you using that color? Why are you using glitter?’”
Those conversations, he said, become lessons in looking beyond appearances.
Thomas framed collage itself as a kind of storytelling practice —“the gathering of information… piecing things together”—and praised Dunn’s ability to translate research, memory and visual pleasure into a unified language. She also underscored the importance of creative joy in the process. “If you’re going to your studio and you’re not having fun,” she said, “you shouldn’t be doing it.”
Dunn said one of the biggest misconceptions he hopes to challenge is the idea that there is a monolithic Black experience.
“There are so many different perspectives out there. This is just one of them,” he said. In the same breath, Dunn said he adopts the label “Black artist” because “it would make my Grandpa proud.”
The nearly two-hour conversation shifted seamlessly between humor and history, studio practice and social commentary, ultimately returning to what both artists believe art can accomplish: encouraging curiosity, complicating familiar stories and inviting viewers to question what they see.
As Dunn put it, “History is so much more nuanced than what we’re taught. There’s so much more going on below the surface.”
Millerton News
Crescendo, the Lakeville-based nonprofit specializing in early and rarely performed classical music, is taking a deep dive into the works of Johann Sebastian Bach this summer as artistic director, Christine Gevert, explores the genius of one of history’s greatest composers through a series of public masterclass workshops at Saint James Place in Great Barrington. More information at crescendomusic.org.

Want more of our stories on Google? Click here to make us a Preferred Source.

Want more of our stories on Google? Click here to make us a Preferred Source.