The Mastheads: Arts Programming in Upper Housatonic Valley National Heritage Area

September 13, 2018 || Posted by: F. Calarco (NERO) –

The Upper Housatonic Valley National Heritage Area works to preserve and promote its historical, cultural, and natural resources within the Upper Housatonic River Valley and its watershed. The heritage area footprint encompasses 848 square miles, including nearly 30 towns across northwestern Connecticut and western Massachusetts.

One way the NHA promotes local efforts, is by working with grassroots programs like The Mastheads, a public humanities project in Pittsfield, MA. Specifically, the heritage area helps provide support in a three-part partnership with the City of Pittsfield and staff of the Mastheads.

The Thoreau studio in Springside Park in Pittsfield, MA. This studio references the astronomy observation tower where Thoreau spent a night surveying the Berkshires on top of Mt. Greylock. In the distance lies Building 100, a relic of Pittsfield's industrial past.

Iwan Baan / The Mastheads

Since 2017, the Mastheads has held an annual writers’ residency program. Out of a pool of national applicants, five selected writers are invited to come to Pittsfield during the summer where they live and work on their writing in special mobile studios. Architect and Mastheads Co-Founder Tessa Kelly described, “The whole idea is to use the program to simultaneously celebrate and learn about local history, while also using that local history as a platform for the production of new creative work in Pittsfield.”

These unique workspaces are architectural interpretations of the historic spaces of five famous American Renaissance authors who wrote in Pittsfield during the 19th century: Herman Melville, Nathaniel Hawthorne, Henry Wadsworth Longfellow, Oliver Wendell Holmes Sr., and Henry David Thoreau. Throughout the summer, these five mobile studios are positioned in natural environments similar to those that inspired authors like Melville and Thoreau, and allow for the writers-in-residence to draw similar inspiration in the present day.

Mariam Rahmani (2017 writer-in-residence) working inside the Longfellow studio in Mass Audubon Canoe Meadows Wildlife Sanctuary. The studio is modeled after the Elm Knoll residence’s front entry tower in Pittsfield where Longfellow wrote the poem “The Old Clock on the Stairs.”

Iwan Baan / The Mastheads

The Mastheads is also involved in providing support to local public schools during the academic year. Their work includes operating a poetry-in-schools program called Fireside in Pittsfield Public Schools. This program is named after the 19th century group called the Fireside Poets, to which both Oliver Wendell Holmes and Longfellow were members. Students participating in this program compose original poetry, and each course culminates in a Fireside anthology of student work, as well as a community reading.

Furthermore, each summer the program produces bi-weekly Mastheads inserts for the local newspaper The Berkshire Eagle, which include transcripts of lectures and community conversations, work by Mastheads’ writers-in-residence, as well as drawings, cartoons, poetry, and other writing by local authors and Fireside students.

The front of the Hawthorne studio. Large pivoting doors open to vast views of the surrounding landscape. When the studios open, the interior light wood and the exterior black finish create dynamic compositions of light and dark.

Iwan Baan / The Mastheads

To learn more, listen to the NPS National Heritage Area Podcast Episode with Upper Housatonic Valley’s Executive Director, Dan Bolognani and The Mastheads’ Architect and Co-Founder, Tessa Kelly.

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