[LENOX, Mass] Sumptuous fabrics, antique furniture, glittering chandeliers, and elegant wallpapers can all be seen in the fourteen second-floor spaces and rooms at Ventfort Hall that have been imaginatively transformed by local interior designers, artists, and artisans for the Berkshire Designer Showcase, which opened last week and will be on view through next winter. For details, visit www.gildedage.org.

Each of the specially decorated rooms is different, from whimsical to elegant, so visitors will see a variety of styles and eras represented; many of the spaces boast custom murals or paint techniques on the walls and a wide assortment of window treatments have been incorporated as well.

The designers were able to use their imaginations without limitations. To mention just a few examples, Kate Morris created a delicate debutante’s dressing room with lovely murals by Joel Haines; Carl Sprague included an unusual marquetry dresser in his replica of Mrs. Morgan’s bedroom; and Karen Beckwith draped her meditation room in floor-to-ceiling linen fabric custom-printed with willow branches. Karen Cedar filled a large bedroom with paintings by Berkshire-based artists and Eric Hilton’s pink-and-lime sitting room includes luxurious pillows, stunning crystal sconces, and a magnificent lamp crafted from glass grapes, leaves, and vines.

The fifteen area designers who created room are Valerie J. Winig of Wingate Ltd.; Vivian Kimmelman of Berkshire Home & Antiques; Allison B. Crane, of Places + Spaces and Carol Newton Rumph of The Comfortable Home Interior; Barry Webber of Marlborough Cottage Arts and Interiors and The Source Collection, Inc.; Kate Morris of Morris House Antiques & Interiors; set designer Carl Sprague; Evan Hughes of Evan Hughes Design; Cecil Pollen of Designers Furniture Showcase; Karen Beckwith of Karen Beckwith Art & Interiors; Thomas and Kathleen Tetro of Corner House Antiques; Karen Cedar of Interior Design, Decoration & Display; and Eric Hilton of Eric Hilton Ltd. The Lenox Garden Club contributed the 100th anniversary display exhibit, “Then and Now.”

Ventfort Hall is one of Lenox’s largest Gilded Age mansions, a 28,000-square-foot summer cottage built in 1893 for George and Sarah Morgan, the sister of legendary financier J. Pierpont Morgan. Nearly demolished in the mid 1990s, Ventfort Hall has undergone massive restoration and is now the only historic house museum in the Berkshires open year round. Ventfort Hall is open daily, Monday through Thursday from 10 to 5, Fridays 10 to 7, and weekends from 10 to 3.

The Ventfort Hall Mansion and Gilded Age Museum is at 104 Walker St. in Lenox. For more information, call 413.637.3206 or visit www.gildedage.org.

Local journalist Lesley Ann Beck will lead a free seminar in crafting effective materials for communicating with the media

PITTSFIELD, MA, May 24, 2010—“How to Write a Press Release,” a workshop led by local journalist Lesley Ann Beck, will be given at 6 p.m. on Thursday evening, June 2, at the Lichtenstein Center for the Arts at 28 Renne Avenue in downtown Pittsfield. Open to the public and free of charge, the session will last 90 minutes and include time for questions. Megan Whilden, Pittsfield’s Director of Cultural Development, will be the moderator.

A well-written press release is essential for any business, organization, or individual wishing to generate publicity, whether in print or online. Fortunately, crafting an effective press release is achievable simply by following some basic, time-tested rules.

The workshop will cover style, organization, format, and structure, including tips on writing strong headlines and good leads. Making important decisions on content and timing will also be covered, as will attachments, photographs, design elements, and length.

The workshop will be useful for anyone who needs to generate publicity in the media, whether a small business owner, leader of a local nonprofit organization, an independent artist or performer, or even the representative for a religious institution or community action effort.

The workshop leader, Lesley Ann Beck, now the editor of BerkshireArtsAlmanac.com, has more than twenty-five years of experience as a journalist, most recently as managing editor of Berkshire Living magazine and editor of BBQ: Berkshire Business Quarterly. Before joining Berkshire Living, she was the editor of the Berkshires Week section in the Berkshire Eagle for nine years. Moderator Megan Whilden was the editor of Artful Mind magazine, a columnist for the Berkshire Eagle and a freelance writer for the Boston Globe and other publications before becoming the City of Pittsfield’s first Director of Cultural Development in 2005.

Examples of successful press releases will be available, and a handout covering the seminar topics and much more will be shared.

Please email mmoyborgen@pittsfieldch.com or call 413.499.9348 to reserve a space; seating is limited.

“Artists need to act as a constituency,” said Rocco Landesman, chairman of the National Endowment for the Arts (NEA) during his remarks at the Creative Communities Exchange event held last week at MASS MoCA in North Adams, Massachusetts.

The Creative Communities Exchange, a day-and-a-half of workshops and talks, engaged more than two hundred participants—artists and administrators representing a myriad of creative organizations—and culminated in a talk by Landesman. The conference, which was held Thursday and Friday at MASS MoCA in North Adams, Massachusetts, was a collaboration between New England Foundation for the Arts (NEFA) and Berkshire Creative, and attracted individuals from across New England. The event included thirty-two workshops presented by creative and cultural community leaders, designed to share successful strategies and useful tools, as well as networking opportunities.

Berkshire Creative co-chair Kevin Sprague of Studio Two in Lenox, Massachusetts, noting that everyone at the Creative Communities Exchange had “certainly brought their A game,” thanked the participants for offering “interesting and optimistic approaches to the challenges ahead,” in his remarks at the closing luncheon.

Massachusetts Cultural Council (MCC) executive director Anita Walker also made remarks at Friday’s luncheon, commending the participants for “engaging in collaboration and partnership.” She spoke about the public sector, specifically the MCC, as an important partner. “We act on the part of the citizens; we ensure there is public value.” Walker described the NEA as just such a partner on the federal level as she introduced Landesman, who has helmed the NEA since 2009.

“Art works,” began Landesman, citing the NEA motto as he took the podium. He then praised MASS MoCA and the city of North Adams as an important example of “creative placemaking.” In this day and age, he continued, “art is one of the few things that has to be consumed in person,” and place informs arts, a concept he likened to the idea of terroir in winemaking. Art, he said, reflects its unique local characteristics. We need artists to invest in the places where they live, he said, and the places to invest in artists.

Landesman then referenced a Gallup poll conducted last year that revealed that the top three characteristics that create community attachment for the residents are social offerings, openness, and aesthetics. The arts, he added, contribute to social cohesion and civic engagement. “Art creates community attachment.”

Speaking of a new NEA program called Our Town, Landesman explained that the program highlights “creative placemaking” projects, those that engage a community or neighborhood in the arts, one example being the creative use of repurposed buildings in urban areas. “Success as we’ve seen in North Adams in replicable,” he said, referring to the creation of MASS MoCA and the growing arts community. Artists, he said, are a vital part of the community.

The creative economy is vitally important, he said, and “artists need to behave like a constituency,” coming together and speaking as one voice politically.

Rebecca Blunk, executive director of NEFA, also spoke at the luncheon, commenting that “the creative economy movement is global, but we know the action really happens locally,” as she awarded the first of two Creative Economy awards at the luncheon; the first recipient was the Rockingham Arts and Museum Project (RAMP) in Bellows Falls, Vermont. Sandra Burton of Williams College presented the second award to Project Storefront of New Haven, Connecticut. The Creative Economy awards both included checks for $3,500.

For more information, visit http://berkshirecreative.org/ or http://www.nefa.org/.