Community House Gallery

The matted and framed watercolor paintings by Kathryn Jensen that appear in the next year's Hilltown Calendar are displayed, along with descriptions of their subjects and locations. Calendars themselves are available for sale. The scenes pictured in the paintings are all from the Hilltowns.

Please join the opening reception on Sat, Nov 7from 5-7pm, and visit the exhibition throughout the month of November.

I have published the Hilltown Calendar starting in 2019, and have had an annual show of its originals at the CH every year except, of course, 2020. The project is my homage to our beautiful region.

Outdoor watercolor painting has been my avocation from young adulthood. Moving to the Hilltowns, with its rolling landscapes, villages, and barns, supercharged my painting practice. Publishing the Hilltown Calendar has encouraged me to paint throughout the Hilltowns and in every month.

It is my yearly practice to have an exhibit of my current work in the Community House. I have been a self taught professional painter for 58 years both here in America and in The Netherlands where I have a home for the last 50 years. Now & Then is a collection of works in oil painted between 2014 and 2025, mostly portraits, landscapes and interiors.

My work includes mainly oil paintings in an Impressionistic self-developed style. I also work in pastel, watercolor, charcoal, and graphite. I am fortunate to be able to paint and have studios in two worlds: Cummington,MA, and Noorden, Z,Holland, in The Netherlands. I believe that this activity enriches my life through working in lively color. I like to paint people in conversation. This has resulted in large exhibits of portrait/conversations I have painted over the last 35 years.

"Poetry of Puddles" are photos from places where water gathers for temporary refuge, that are passed without notice, where beauty and vulnerability meet. At the outset of Covid, I began taking photographs of reflections in puddles, ponds, and places where water gathers. In those images I saw the beauty and vulnerability in our surroundings. Jean-Pierre Pasche, the curator of the Elusie Gallery in Easthampton described my works as: “Inspiration at ground level, where most of us don’t even look. He captures fragments of life, themselves captured in the reflections of a pond, a puddle. Mundane,  anecdotical, intriguing. It is when he flips the images around that the magic happens: he creates a new reality – ambiguous, poetic, puzzling – to encourage a new narrative."

Dave Madeloni is an educator, activist, journalist, radio disc jockey, coffee drinker, and photographer who resides in Northampton, Ma. All of the reflections were captured since the beginning of the Covid Era.  If interested contact Dave at: dmadeloni@gmail.com

The exhibition, Material Dialogue: Improvisational Quilts from Repurposed Fabric, features 10-15 improvisational quilts made from second-hand garments, repurposed home textiles, and thrifted fabrics. Ranging from intimate 20” × 20” color studies to large quilts up to 80” × 70”, the works embrace asymmetry, variation, and surprise. 

The installation highlights the tactile and visual richness of the quilts, and allows viewers to appreciate the layers of past lives embedded in the fabrics. Smaller pieces will be hung at eye level to invite close viewing, while larger quilts will occupy prominent wall space. The gallery’s intimate scale complements the domestic references inherent in the work. The quilts evoke comfort, warmth, and protection, inviting reflection on the beauty of imperfection and the potential of materials often overlooked. Each piece embodies sustainability, turning discarded textiles into enduring art objects that honor traditional craft while speaking to contemporary concerns about consumption, reuse, and creativity. In this context, the exhibition is intended to foster reflection, and appreciation for craft, creativity, and community.

Laura Davis is a Greenfield-based quilt artist who works with second-hand clothing, home textiles, and salvaged fabrics. Her pieces reinterpret traditional quilting techniques through contemporary approaches, emphasizing pattern, texture, and visual rhythm. Davis’s work reflects an ongoing interest in the intersections of craft, design, and everyday life, demonstrating how materials carry meaning and memory. She shares her artistic journey online through her Instagram account, @buzz.ware, offering insights into her process and the evolving nature of her practice.

Have you also wondered if there was more going on than what meets the eye? Have you ever walked through a field on a super humid hazy hot summer day, when rain feels imminent. The air feels like a wall of moisture filled heat that you have to push through. Maybe your glasses are fogging? Perhaps they are sliding down your nose, but you push those glasses up and press on through the thickness of the day and through the sharp blades of tall grass, because you know if you can make it through you will be rewarded. You will be shaded and cooled by a canopy of evergreen trees and a crisp, yet soft, bed of pine needles to stand on. The air feels somewhere between a gas and a liquid, yet you see through it to the forest. What lies between you and your respite? If you are still and look anywhere long enough, the lines between earth and sky blend. Are your eyes playing tricks on you or maybe there is another reality we are allowed to get a glimpse of, just for a moment. 

Amy Dawn Kotel is a vibrant, multidisciplinary artist originally from Long Island, but has lived in Western MA for over 25 years. She studied at SUNY New Paltz and after giving birth to her daughter, has come back to her original passion, fine art. She is known for colorful, patterned art depicting nature, surreal landscapes, and abstract scenes. She often uses small shapes to form larger images to explore connection and hidden dimensions, drawing inspiration from personal experiences with anxiety, dance, and a deep sense of spirituality, aiming to bring joy and hope to viewers. Amy shows her art all over the area, both in solo and group shows, and has also curated large group shows at the Great Falls Discovery Center and Go With the Flow. Additionally, she is also a mom, dancer, personal trainer, k-6 teacher, former puppeteer, and community organizer, wife, and community friend.

What it means to repurpose old works of art and bring new life into otherwise disposal of materials that now won't end up in the landfill. I am passionate about art. Im also passionate about saving old art. I like to take old discarded art work and add to it to make it new again. I find objects on the side of the road or at the Transfer station and design a new new image. I like to keep something from the original painting, background colors or an image and enhance to make it bolder. It feels like a collaboration between artists.

I am a self taught artist and paint with Oil and mixed media on Canvas or Canvas Board who began painting again in 2011 and my passion for art flourished. I had various shows and some gallery exhibitions and love engaging in conversation, love to hear the Good, the Bad and the Ugly then engage in conversation of the emotion that's evoked and why. I've been told that I am BOLD, BRAVE, and even SARCASTIC. I have been an artist all my life and have found my medium that makes me happy. Painting from my heart. Influenced by the era that I grew up... Having been told all my life to just SHUT Up Shutting UP! I have found my VOICE through art. Greta Gnatek Redzko, Potentially Posthumous Famous Artist

Watercolor Works is a watercolor series with concentration in architecture, food and insects. 

Ema Johnson holds a BFA in Art History, with a studio concentration in ceramics, from Syracuse University. 

Having moved to the Hilltowns in 2019, Ema began to practice watercolor as a pandemic hobby. Since then, she has found a unique style of pen and watercolor featuring street scenes and architecture. Ema previously served on the board of the Becket Arts Center and now sits on the Worthington Library board.

Grabstraction is the artist's creation/style combining graphic principles with abstract irreverence. Bold colors and lines cross themes and series in the artist's body of approximately 7 years of recent works of varying sizes and media.

I am interested in the iconic. Something so unique that whether it's simple or complex the idea, the newness of the concept, the look, the feel, crosses over into the viewer's mind/eye and we share an experience that is utterly visually unique. Although beauty may be a byproduct of my work, it's mostly ugly. This tends to grab my attention, the theme at the core of my work, and it is my goal to transform my inspiration into passionate works that stand apart and stare back at the viewer as much if not more than the viewer stares.

Andre Bowser grew up in New York City and attended the High School of Art & Design before graduating and attending the foundation year at Pratt Institute. Disenchanted by the slow pace of studying art, he joined the Navy and began a life of adventure and travel that informs his art. After retiring from the military in 2021, Andre has focused on studying his artistic style, amid other pursuits which inform his art daily.