Hilary Barber will be exhibiting photographs of local and South Florida wildlife and landscapes at the Henion Bakery,174 North Pleasant Street in Amherst from June 9 through July 24.

Five love letters have intrigued and inspired writers and artists for centuries--from them come the Dangerous Liaisons, Richardson's Clarissa and Elizabeth Barrett Browning's Sonnets from the Portuguese. Braque and Modigliani have tried to imagine her. Debated by historians and literary scholars, the letters have shuttled between being claimed fiction or fact. Who was their author? A French courtier intent on making a name for himself? Or were they the words of a young Portuguese nun whose affair with a French officer ended with his departure and her abandonment?

Luckily for us, Dean Nimmer came to Holyoke two years ago after retiring as Professor Emeritus from the Massachusetts College of Art in Boston. Here is Stuff I stole from his website-->Dean has lectured on art at Harvard, Vanderbilt, and James Madison Universities here in the US as well as at the Central Academy of Art and Design in Beijing, China, Burren College of Art, County Clare, Ireland and the Royal Melbourne Institute of Technology in Melbourne, Australia. Dean is currently writing a book for Watson-Guptil entitled "Art from Intuition" that will be published in 2007.

I haven't decided yet what to wear to his book signing but am going to start back at the gym Monday.

In his 36 years as an artist (he's 46) , Dean has participated in more than 200 solo and group exhibitions across the U.S. and in China, Japan, Australia, Spain, Ireland, Germany, and France.

Locally, he has exhibited 1000 drawings at the Herter Gallery at U. Mass-Amherst and another 300 drawings and paintings at the Tabor gallery at HCC this spring. Also, the Smith College Museum of Art has recently acquired a painting by Dean Nimmer for their permanent collection.

Without going into the rest of his lengthy resume and because it's time for my evening walk, I will say it is clear that Dean brings a wealth of artistic and teaching experience to the Pioneer Valley. He chose me for the last OS show so his taste is now indisputedly impeccable. Since moving here in 2004, Dean has applied his experience to helping to build up the arts community in the city of Holyoke. In his position as the Art Director for the Open Square mill complex in Holyoke, Dean has worked very hard to bring the talents of our regional artists together with the strengths of the art departments of the Five Colleges and Holyoke Community College. Beginning last fall, Dean launched the "Arts of the Valley" series at Open Square that combines an open studios showcase for the in-house artists at OS with an exhibition by a broad (meaning all female) range of regional artists, students and faculty members from the Five Colleges and Holyoke Community College. The last event in April at Open Square included the works of over 50 artists (including me) and installations by another 44 student artists from HCC and the Five Colleges. This event was a spectacular success, attracting over 1000 people and rave reviews in the Republican newspaper and 5 other publications. These events are made possible because of the generosity of OS owner, John Aubin, who has allowed as much as 70,000 sq. ft. of his complex to be used without charging the artists rent for use of the space.

As all artists know, having space to work and display your art are rare and precious commodities these days, and it is a major factor in the exodus of artists like Dean from the city of Boston where artists are being priced of studio and exhibition space at a frightening pace. Dean convinced Holyoke Community College (he also teaches there) of the advantages of setting up a classroom at OS so that their art students could work on large-scale paintings and sculptures that HCC does not have facilities for. This venture has also proven to be very successful as they are offering innovative classes in installation art taught by HCC faculty Chris Willingham and HCC plans to expand the curriculum into several community based programs in the coming year. In the future, we hope to develop an HCC and Five College gallery at OS so that these schools can share the resources and rotate exhibitions in the same venue.

The next "Arts of the Valley" show, opening in October, will feature sculptors who have won grants from the Mass. Cultural Council together with OS open studios. As a former grant winner himself, Dean proposed this show to the MCC as a way to bring strong artists from across the state to show their work in the city of Holyoke.

P.S. Us non grant winners are invited to the reception.~Mo