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It’s official!

It’s official!
The Thorne Building is located on Franklin Avenue and will soon be converted into a multi-purposecommunity center. Photo submitted

After more than 125 years, the Thorne Memorial Building no longer belongs to the Village of Millbrook. Following many years of pondering what should become of the historic building, numerous public hearings and countless informational sessions, the one-time public high school is now part of the Millbrook Community Partnership 501(C)3. It will soon be transformed into a community center for the both the village and town to enjoy. It is part of a joint project with the former Bennett College property, part of which is being transformed into a public park. 

Millbrook Mayor Tim Collopy described what it was like to formally sign the title of the building over to the nonprofit on Tuesday, Aug. 17, after so many years of waiting. 

“I am very excited that we have achieved this important milestone so that the Millbrook Community Partnership can begin converting the abandoned Thorne Memorial School Building into the Thorne Building Community Center.” 

The title was transferred quietly and privately, but many, the mayor predicted, will be happy to hear that the historic moment was finally reached.

— Judith O’Hara Balfe

Judith O'Hara Balfe

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The Millerton News - November 12, 2026

The Millerton News - November 12, 2026

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Original art, attainable prices

Original art, attainable prices

Kenise Barnes Fine Art presents “Cool & Collected ’26,” its annual exhibition celebrating the joy of collecting, featuring works priced under $2,000.

D.H. Callahan

There’s a corner of YouTube populated by real-time footage of high-dollar art sales from prestigious New York and London auction houses like Sotheby’s, Christie’s and Phillips. Hundreds of thousands of viewers routinely watch with rapt attention, popcorn and cocktails in hand, as recognizable pieces from art history make their way to the upper echelons of grossly unattainable hammer prices. Pieces can often start with opening bids of tens of thousands of dollars and work their way up to multiple millions. Bidding increments alone can grow to sums unattainable for the average American family in several lifetimes.

Kenise Barnes Fine Art in Kent, Connecticut, wants to help make fine art more accessible. The 2026 version of the gallery’s annual “Cool and Collected” exhibition is subtitled “The Gift Edit” and features dozens of works by fine artists at prices that are much more in reach than an art-world outsider might expect. More than 30 artists contributed pieces to the show. Almost all available works are priced under $2,000, with many below $500. The collection features paintings, drawings, collage and ceramics.

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Jennifer Terzian’s sanctuary for contemporary art

Jennifer Terzian’s sanctuary for contemporary art
Jennifer Terzian, founder of Jennifer Terzian Gallery in Litchfield.
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The gallery is really meant to create a very intimate relationship with the artist and the story behind their work.
—Jennifer Terzian

On a recent crisp, fall afternoon in Litchfield, Jennifer Terzian welcomed a steady stream of collectors, artists, and art-world insiders into her jewel box of an art space on South Street, just off the town’s manicured historic Green.

The occasion was an opening for Jenny Kemp, an artist noted for balancing fluidity and structure in her abstractions through repetition, variation, and gradual shifts in hue. Hers is exactly the kind of tactile, process-driven work Terzian champions at a subterranean space that feels less like a commercial art gallery and more like stumbling into an impeccably edited sanctuary of contemporary thought.

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Peter Cusack is finding the eternal in North Canaan

Peter Cusack is finding the eternal in North Canaan
Peter Cusack in his studio.
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“I think art is the thing that allows us to feel there’s something in the universe that loves us,” said painter Peter Cusack in his new studio, a mid-19th-century stone church on Main Street in North Canaan.

For Cusack, art has always been a way of reaching toward something beyond the physical world. That sensibility runs through “Eternal: New, Recent, and Near Distant Paintings,” his upcoming exhibition in the church, a setting that seems an improbably good fit.

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Cowboy Junkies celebrate 40 years at the Mahaiwe

Cowboy Junkies celebrate 40 years at the Mahaiwe

Cowboy Junkies celebrate 40 years together at the Mahaiwe Nov. 14

Heather Pollock

Now celebrating 40 years, Cowboy Junkies will perform Saturday, Nov. 14, at the Mahaiwe Performing Arts Center in Great Barrington, Massachusetts.

The band is celebrating its long career with a triple-vinyl retrospective album called “Open to Beauty,” featuring a selection of songs from 2000 onward, including material from its most recent release, “Such Ferocious Beauty.”

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Mike Selbach finds the extraordinary in everyday life

Mike Selbach finds the extraordinary in everyday life
“R46 Interior” (2026). Solid cherry and acrylic, 21” x 26.75” x 0.75”
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Subway stations may seem unlikely places to encounter the divine, but amid the rumble of trains, the crush of commuters and the cavernous underground passageways, Salisbury artist Mike Selbach finds moments of unexpected beauty.

In “Subway Saints,” his solo exhibition opening Thursday, Nov. 12 at the Warren Family Gallery at Berkshire School in Sheffield, Massachusetts, Selbach transforms ordinary commuters and familiar transit spaces into sacred moments.

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