River Gallery School announces fall schedule

River Gallery School of Art is enrolling fall studio classes for students of all ages. The school focuses on nurturing the creative spirit, while providing techniques and skills to students of all levels, from real beginners to working artists. Most classes start the week of Sept. 20.

Fall offerings include two printmaking classes, both beginning the week of the 20th. Helen Schmidt's Richly Layered Printmaking class on Monday evenings, will include traditional printmaking techniques as well as photo transfer and scrap metal printing. Kim Hartman Colligan will teach a Non-Toxic Printmaking class on Thursday mornings, exploring mixed-media techniques based on monotypes, plexi-drypoints and relief prints.

Schmidt is also offering a Sculpture class on Friday mornings, exploring three dimensional work in wood, soapstone, clay, metal, plaster and rice paper. In Art and Meditation, with Barbara Merfeld Campman, the meeting of art making and meditation opens new ways for creative energy to manifest.

Jason Alden is teaching a new course in Landscape and Visual Memory on Tuesdays, as well as Life Drawing on Mondays and Observational Drawing on Wednesdays. Matthew Peake will be teaching a Thursday evening course in Life Drawing and Painting this semester as well. Also on the fall roster is a relaxing and non-judgmental drawing class, Wicked Basic Drawing with Ross Smart.

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A tale of two nuclear power plants

Our family has been involved with two nuclear power plants, Oyster Creek Nuclear Generating Station (OC) in Lacey Township, N.J., and Vermont Yankee (VY) in Vernon. When we lived in Red Bank, N.J., 50 miles away from Oyster Creek, we worked to shut the plant down, and later since...

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Putting it together

An ‘arts corridor’ takes shape in Brattleboro

Imagine a corridor of art and music centered around the Connecticut River, Flat Street and the Whetstone Brook in Brattleboro. A waterfront park, perhaps. A museum at either end. Theaters offering plays, movies, classical music and circus arts. An open studio where people can watch glass being blown and...

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Lessons learned the hard way

When it comes to learning about a business from the ground up, Lisa Lorimer has definitely been there and done that. As a 21-year-old in 1982, she took a job as an assistant distribution manager with a small wholesale bakery on a dirt road in Guilford called Innisfree Farm, after the W.B. Yeats poem. She arrived just as Innisfree Farm was switching over from making organic cookies to baking organic whole wheat bread. From one mixer and one pizza oven,

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Colonels, Terriers open high school football season with losses

The Brattleboro Colonels football team opened the 2010 season with a 28-14 loss at Burlington on Friday night. Brattleboro had no way to stop Burlington tailback Austin Dober, who had 30 carries for 210 yards and all four of the Seahorses' touchdowns. It was 14-14 at the half, as Brattleboro got its touchdowns on a 20-yard run by Elliot Gragen and a seven-yard run by quarterback Nate Forrett. Forrett led the Colonels' ground game with 138 yards on 17 carries...

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Lerner is new Vermont dean of Union Institute & University

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BAJC rabbi takes an unconventional path to his new job

You know you've reached some kind of equilibrium when the president of the area Jewish community is also secretary of one of the two Rotary clubs in town. But that's Brattleboro. And that's part of what the new rabbi of the Shir HeHarim (Song of the Mountains) Congregation in West Brattleboro, Moshe Thomas Heyn, 49, finds so appealing about his new, part-time job, since July. And it's certainly what Marty Cohn, the president of the Brattleboro Area Jewish Community, says...

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Milestones

Obituaries Editor's note: The Commons will publish brief biographical information for citizens of Windham County and others, on request, as community news, free of charge. • Mary Janeway Conger, 87, of Wilmington. Died Sept. 2 at Grace Cottage Hospice in Townshend. Born in New Brunswick, N.J., daughter of John Conklin Conger and Katharine Abeel Janeway. Devoted her life to social work, counseling, lay ministry and the Episcopal Church. Was a veteran of World War II, serving with the Women's Army...

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Main Street Arts offers photography, other arts classes

Main Street Arts is adding the art of photography to its fall line up of classes and workshops with three special offerings for the digital photographer. Mark Thiel will offer Introduction to Photo Editing in a daytime class Wednesdays from 3 to 4:30 p.m. in two six-week sessions. The emphasis will be on editing and enhancing photos to make them pop. The fee per session is $55 for members and $70 for non-members. A workshop Introduction to Digital Photography will...

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Chroma earns spot on Inc. Magazine listing

Winning awards is nothing new for employee-owned Chroma Technology of Bellows Falls. For the second year in a row, it has made Inc. Magazine's 500/5000 list of the country's fastest-growing private companies. Chroma ranks No. 213 in manufacturing. This year, the Inc. 5000 were chosen on the basis of their growth over three years. Even during the long recession, Chroma showed a 1 percent three-year growth and a stable number of employees. In 2009, Chroma was on the list of...

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Embracing the social model of disability

In my last article for The Commons, I wrote about the distance I often feel from the non-autistic world, saying “[I]f you are a typically abled person, we live worlds apart. You see, I am autistic, and there are many things that I cannot do.” The feeling was an honest one, and yet, I've been troubled by these words from the time I first saw them in print. I've thought long and hard about why, and I finally have an...

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How about them apples

One of the best times of the year in Windham County is when the first apples of the season arrive. That first bite into a freshly picked apple is pure heaven. It's shaping up to be a good apple season in Vermont. The hard spring frost in early May did little damage to local orchards, and the dry and hot weather of the summer has apparently improved the size and quality of the apples. Vermont used to be one of...

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A different way to run a station

Sitting in the control room of WVEW LP, 107.7 FM, behind the console, I see the walls decorated with flyers for particular shows, upcoming music events, and announcements for the D.J.s. There is a shared-living-room kind of feel about the place. Pitching in is an everyday necessity. One of the announcers decided to clean up the studio while her show was on last week. Another noticed the need for blinds in the windows, and made some. An air conditioner appeared...

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Metropolitan Opera Live in HD ready to burst on the Brattleboro scene

After years of planning and months of fund raising, Brattleboro Arts Initiative and Brattleboro Music Center, in a special joint venture, have announced that the Metropolitan Opera Live in Hi-Definition broadcasts will be coming to the Latchis Theatre starting in October.  The first of 12 operas to be broadcast for the 2010-2011 season, Wagner's Das Rheingold, will air on Oct. 9 and 10 at the Latchis. “We're over the top,” according to Gail Nunziata, managing director of Brattleboro Arts Initiative.

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Vermont Land Trust, Pinnacle Hill Association close in on goal for preserving Athens farm land

The Vermont Land Trust and Windmill Hill Pinnacle Association say that they are just $23,000 away from the needed amount to protect the 171-acre former Sleepy Valley Farm in Athens and the adjoining Lake Trust property in Grafton.  A public tour of the farm will be held Sept. 12, from 3-5 p.m. The farm is just south of Cambridgeport on Route 35 and connects with the neighboring Lake Trust property across the town line in Grafton, in the Ledge Road...

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A history of Lost Hearts: An interview with Vincent Panella

Vincent Panella says he is “lucky enough to have a foot in two worlds” as a writer. His grandfather came over from Sicily in the 1900s, and Panella grew up in Queens in New York. He was an avid reader. “A lot of books inspired my writing,” Panella says. “I read a lot of pulp fiction and Westerns. I first started writing when I was 19, an engineering student in college, and I found I didn't like [engineering.] I wrote...

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Musician, climate activist concludes coast-to-coast bike tour

Jesse Peters is a changed man after trekking on his bike with attached trailer - named “Bob” - from New Hampshire to California. He left May 17 and ended his journey Aug. 7,  just a little short of the West Coast after having to stop due to a shoulder injury. Having returned home, Peters, a lifelong Vermonter from Westminster West, said he is humbly “proud of what [he] did.” Body tanned and honed, his eyes still seem to reflect long...

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‘Sending a nice message’

Dummerston Elementary students started the school year last Tuesday with 35 new computers, thanks to collaboration between U.S. Sen. Patrick Leahy, Hewlett-Packard and Microsoft. The 30 HP ProBook 4425s Notebook PC Energy Star laptops and 5 HP TouchSmart 9100 Business PC desktops with touch-screen technology filled a hole left after $34,000 worth of computers were stolen in June. The new computers were installed before students returned Aug 31. “I just think it's a remarkable thing and it sends a nice...

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Jewish high holy days begin at sundown on Sept. 8

At sundown on Wednesday, Sept. 8, Jewish people will welcome Rosh Hashanah, the Jewish new year 5771. Rosh Hashanah marks the beginning of a sacred period known as the Days of Awe, a time of reflection and introspection that culminates 10 days later on Yom Kippur, the Day of Atonement, observed this year on Sept. 17. During these days, marked by contemplation, confession and prayer, Jews around the world assemble in synagogues to pray and reflect upon the past year.

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Organic Trade Association is moving to Brattleboro

In a public celebration and lease signing last Friday, representatives of the Organic Trade Association, Marlboro College President Ellen McCulloch-Lovell and U.S. Sen. Patrick Leahy signed on the dotted line. Later this fall, the OTA, a nonprofit membership-based business association serving North America, will move from Greenfield, Mass. -  its home for the last 20 20 years - to the Marlboro College Graduate Center in Brattleboro. “We're thrilled to be here,” said Organic Trade Association CEO/Executive Director Christine Bushway. “We...

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