Henry David Thoreau’s younger sister, Sophia Elizabeth Thoreau (1819–1876), was a botanist, artist, editor, and abolitionist who worked as a teacher and managed the family’s pencil business. She significantly shaped her brother’s legacy to an extent that modern scholars argue was under-acknowledged by Thoreau’s early biographers.
Meet Fiona Kennedy, a collage artist who finds her greatest source of inspiration in color. Harmony, tension, and aggression—Kennedy uses her artistic practice to explore these dynamics that emerge from relationships between colors. Printmaker Joan Dix Blair practices primarily in woodcut and etching, and has exhibited her work across the United States and around the globe—from Berkeley, California to Galway, Ireland.
After an initially cautious re-emergence of its audiences post-pandemic, The Umbrella Arts Center this year has been buzzing with activity, sold-out events, and excitement as it celebrates its 40th anniversary season.
In a significant collaboration, the Concord Free Public Library, which is celebrating its 150th anniversary, and the Concord Museum are pleased to present “A Perpetual Invitation: 150 Years of Art at the Concord Free Public Library,” hosted by the Concord Museum and on view March 24 through September 4, 2023.
Welcome to Little Women Spring, the decennial collaboration between The Concord Players and Orchard House that culminates in a presentation of the play Little Women, based on the novel of the same name. It may seem odd, the pairing of these two Concord-based organizations, but their connection goes way back.
It is old and sometimes creaky. Like most of us, it has weathered many storms but is stronger for the wear. And like all of us, it has evolved over a lifetime. One hundred and thirty-five years of history have taken place at its doorstep and within its walls, shaping an identity that is vital to the life of the Town.
In fact, the building at 51 Walden Street is so constant, so enduring, so intimately connected to the lives of the people of Concord, that it sometimes seems a living thing: a grande dame; a cherished elder with wisdom to impart; a friendly neighbor ready to offer a warm welcome.
Something extraordinary happens when women come together around a shared purpose. Whether that purpose be social, political, or artistic, women’s voices carry a history, and their impact wields a transformative power. Concord Women’s Chorus has long known this and has nurtured and celebrated women’s voices since 1960, when a small group of women formed the Concord Madrigals to give women a chance to come together and express themselves through song.
There’s a joke that goes: “What are the four seasons in New England? Winter, still winter, and three months of bad sledding.” Any shrewd Yankee – or wise visitor – chuckles at this saying but knows it just ain’t true. Rather, winter in the northeast is a wonderland of opportunity. As the sage Henry David Thoreau observed, “a healthy man, indeed, is the complement of the seasons, and in winter, summer is in his heart.” And in Concord, where Thoreau tread across snowy dells and meadows blanketed in white, hearts are “warm and cheery, like cottages under drifts, whose windows and doors are half concealed, but from whose chimneys the smoke cheerfully ascends.”
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