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With North East’s EMS contract ending, looming issue is cost

MILLERTON — The Town of North East discussed the five-year contract EMS provider NDP Emergency Medical Services which ends in January, at a Town Board meeting on Thursday, July 11.

The EMS service has a three-town contract with the towns of North East, Amenia and Dover. The community is searching for providers willing to station ambulances for fewer than one emergency call per day as the contract is coming to an end.

“I met with the supervisors of Amenia and Dover and we all met with the representative of Empress,” said Chris Kennan, the Town of North East’s supervisor. “Empress is another ambulance provider. They operate in the southern and southwestern part of the county, basically Poughkeepsie on down.”

Kennan said Empress is larger than NPD, contracting with East Fishkill, Fishkill, Wappingers, Lagrange and more communities in the Hudson Valley. Empress is a union shop. The town will not know the specific costs of services until it is out to bid.

“We are bracing ourselves for a significant increase,” Kennan said.

“It’s important that we anticipate this as far ahead as possible, which is what we are doing and I will report back in August. I anticipate knowing a lot more … Any and all thoughts are welcomed because this is a huge item on our budget. It is more than ten percent of the town’s budget.”

Colleen Flynn

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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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