community

Rattlesnake Run sees biggest turnout in five years

Rattlesnake Run sees biggest turnout in five years

Runners beginning the second heat, the 10K distance.

Photo by Aly Morrissey

AMENIA — The rain held off for the fifth annual Rattlesnake Run on Saturday, June 14, which took place along the Harlem Valley Rail Trail.

With more than 110 registered runners, this year marked the largest turnout since the race’s inception in 2020, race organizer and founder Florent Lacroix said.

Photos By Aly MorrisseyGordon Simpson, 2, gets a head start during the 10K heat.Photo by Aly Morrissey

“It’s a fun community event,” Lacroix said. “The goal was originally to connect the towns of North East and Amenia, and the event keeps growing every year.”

In a shift from last year’s format, this year’s course began and ended in downtown Wassaic, allowing runners to pass each other along the trail for a more communal, interactive experience.

Participants chose from three distances — a half marathon, 10K, and 5K — each drawing a sizable group of runners.

Rattlesnake Run founder and organizer Florent Lacroix with Wassaic Project music director Tim Love Lee, who set the vibes as DJ for the event.Photo by Aly Morrissey

Named for the mountain that looms nearby, and surrounded by the vibrant presence of the Wassaic Project, the event offered a colorful and scenic environment. Spectators and runners alike enjoyed a festive atmosphere featuring a bake sale, live DJ, arts and crafts, and even a child magician.

Lacroix says he will connect with runners to see how they felt about the “out and back” format along the trail before determining the format for next year.

Sponsors of the race included Wassaic Project, Jack’s Auto Service, Four Brothers, Silo Ridge, Stoneleaf, St. Thomas Church, and the Food of Life Food Pantry. The logo and branding for the race were designed by Studio Bueno.

  

Photo by Aly Morrissey

community

Latest News

Juneteenth and Mumbet’s legacy

Juneteenth and Mumbet’s legacy

Sheffield resident, singer Wanda Houston will play Mumbet in "1781" on June 19 at 7 p.m. at The Center on Main, Falls Village.

Jeffery Serratt

In August of 1781, after spending thirty years as an enslaved woman in the household of Colonel John Ashley in Sheffield, Massachusetts, Elizabeth Freeman, also known as Mumbet, was the first enslaved person to sue for her freedom in court. At the time of her trial there were 5,000 enslaved people in the state. MumBet’s legal victory set a precedent for the abolition of slavery in Massachusetts in 1790, the first in the nation. She took the name Elizabeth Freeman.

Local playwrights Lonnie Anderson and Linda Rossi will tell her story in a staged reading of “1781” to celebrate Juneteenth, ay 7 p.m. at The Center on Main in Falls Village, Connecticut.Singer Wanda Houston will play MumBet, joined by actors Chantell McCulloch, Tarik Shah, Kim Canning, Sherie Berk, Howard Platt, Gloria Parker and Ruby Cameron Miller. Musical composer Donald Sosin added, “MumBet is an American hero whose story deserves to be known much more widely.”

Keep ReadingShow less
history

A sweet collaboration with students in Torrington

A sweet collaboration with students in Torrington

The new mural painted by students at Saint John Paul The Great Academy in Torrington, Connecticut.

Photo by Kristy Barto, owner of The Nutmeg Fudge Company

Thanks to a unique collaboration between The Nutmeg Fudge Company, local artist Gerald Incandela, and Saint John Paul The Great Academy in Torrington, Connecticut a mural — designed and painted entirely by students — now graces the interior of the fudge company.

The Nutmeg Fudge Company owner Kristy Barto was looking to brighten her party space with a mural that celebrated both old and new Torrington. She worked with school board member Susan Cook and Incandela to reach out to the Academy’s art teacher, Rachael Martinelli.

Keep ReadingShow less
community

In the company of artists

In the company of artists

Curator Henry Klimowicz, left, with artists Brigitta Varadi and Amy Podmore at The Re Institute

Aida Laleian

For anyone who wants a deeper glimpse into how art comes about, an on-site artist talk is a rich experience worth the trip.On Saturday, June 14, Henry Klimowicz’s cavernous Re Institute — a vast, converted 1960’s barn north of Millerton — hosted Amy Podmore and Brigitta Varadi, who elucidated their process to a small but engaged crowd amid the installation of sculptures and two remarkable videos.

Though they were all there at different times, a common thread among Klimowicz, Podmore and Varadi is their experience of New Hampshire’s famed MacDowell Colony. The silence, the safety of being able to walk in the woods at night, and the camaraderie of other working artists are precious goads to hardworking creativity. For his part, for fifteen years, Klimowicz has promoted community among thousands of participating artists, in the hope that the pairs or groups he shows together will always be linked. “To be an artist,” he stressed, “is to be among other artists.”

Keep ReadingShow less
exhibit