Past Initiatives
2025
benjamin lerner: Performer @ Barrington stage company
Composer, rapper, writer, and recovery advocate Benjamin Lerner (1761 Arts’ Artist-in-Residence) debuted his one-man show PERFORMER at Barrington Stage Company (BSC) in September 2025. PERFORMER was not only a creative milestone—it was a philanthropic one. The benefit concert, which kicked off Recovery Month 2025, raised funds for three organizations at the heart of the Berkshire arts and recovery community: BSC’s New Works Program, George B. Crane Memorial Center, and Living In Recovery.
2023-2024
the CJB Resident Artist Fund Established
Carolyn J. Blitz passed away on Sunday, May 21, 2023.
Carolyn began her career as an executive with the Indianapolis Chamber of Commerce. She subsequently worked with the National Basketball Association (NBA) for over 20 years, serving as Vice President of Community Relations and Vice President of Events.
Carolyn held several leadership roles with Vermont non-profit organizations including: Chairman of the Stratton Community Foundation; Founder and Chairman of the Stratton Family Fund; and Chairman of the Carlos Otis Medical Clinic. She served as a Board Member of the Southern Vermont Arts Center, the Bennington Museum, and was a Founding Board Member of both the Manchester Business Association and The Bennington Sports Foundation.
Carolyn had a deep love of music - a passion she shared with her husband, Dr. Joshua Sherman.
In her honor - and per her wishes, the CJB Resident Artist Fund was established to support artists and new works.
2022
LINCOLNFEST
In 2022, 1761 ARTS sponsored “Lincolnfest” in honor of The Lincoln Memorial’s Centennial. The memorial was designed and created by Daniel Chester French, whose summer estate and studio was Chesterwood in Stockbridge.
Created by 1761 Arts, Lincolnfest was a multi-organization collaboration stretching from the Berkshires and into Vermont.
The partners included: Arcadia Publishing, Bennington Museum, Berkshire Athenaeum, Berkshire Historical Society at Herman Melville’s Arrowhead, Berkshire Museum, Chesterwood, the Clark Art Institute, Hancock Shaker Village, Hildene, The Lee Library, Norman Rockwell Museum, Old Mill Road Media, The Red Lion Inn, The Stockbridge Library, Ventfort Hall, West Stockbridge Public Library, Williams College, and Williams College Museum of Art.
2019
Vermont Wax Cylinder day
In honor of the first anniversary of Old Mill Road Recording, 1761 Arts partnered with the Audio Engineering Society (AES) and the Thomas Edison National Historical Park to showcase the evolution and revolutionary technology of sound. Guest artists (recorded on both wax cylinder and in the state-of-the-art studio) included: Two-time TONY AWARD Winning composer, Adam Guettel and Vermont’s dynamic duo, Dwight & Nicole.
MISSING: Lea Ehrich
In the mid-20th century, Arlington, Vermont was home to a remarkable creative colony: Five celebrated Saturday Evening Post Illustrators (Norman Rockwell, Mead Schaeffer, George Hughes, Gene Pelham, and John Atherton); Best-selling Author and Social Activist Dorothy Canfield Fisher; Cartoonist Don Trachte; and Composer Carl Ruggles. One town over (seven minutes South) lived poet Robert Frost. Publisher Robert Haas (of Random House) split his time between NYC and Arlington. Just a decade or two earlier, Rockwell Kent called Arlington home
10 of the 11 names on the list are men. There is a 12th name missing: Lea Ehrich.
Like so many women of the mid-20th Century, Lea Ehrich was much more complex than she was allowed to demonstrate publicly. Despite being a member of the Southern Vermont Arts Center for 52 years (1945-1997), best friends with Kacy Hughes (George Hughes’ wife), and a respected fine artist (particularly adept at capturing the nuances of nature), Lea had not been recognized as part of the famed Arlington Artists’ Colony – until July 2019, when 1761 Arts sponsored an exhibition / pop-up gallery at Old Mill Road Gallery, featuring rotating Ehrich art, the first solo show of the artist’s work in over 20 years.
Magic rocks! with leon etienne
From "Late Night with Jimmy Fallon" and "America's Got Talent" to Radio City Music Hall, Leon Etienne has dazzled audiences around the world and been hailed by critics as "America's Rock Illusionist." In November 2019, Leon performed two intimate, family friendly, magic shows in East Arlington, Vermont for 1761 Arts.
2018
CONCERT: GRANT MALOY SMITH
Grant Maloy Smith® is a singer and songwriter of COUNTRY/ROOTS music - an artful blend of country, bluegrass, folk, and pop music. His album "Dust Bowl - American Stories" spent 17 weeks on the Billboard charts, including 10 weeks in the TOP 10 of the Americana/Folk Album Sales Chart, and reached as high as #12 on the Country Album Sales Chart, and #2 on the Heatseekers Chart (across all genres).
Grant performed for 1761 Arts in November 2018.
CONCERT: ELI WEST
Ben Winship and Eli West play Brother duets, both original and traditional. They have a sonic span that reflects and defies their geography. While both are rooted in the West, Ben in the Tetons and Eli in the PNW, they each have been moved by the traditions of SW Virginia, the Carter family fold, and broader fiddle tune traditions with pockets all over.
Eli performed for 1761 Arts in 2018.
4 FREEDOMS FESTIVAL℠
In June 1941, Prime Minister Winston Churchill and President Franklin Delano Roosevelt issued their Atlantic Charter, in which they described 4 essential human rights:
Freedom of Speech ★ Freedom of Religion ★ Freedom from Want ★ Freedom from Fear
At home, in Arlington, Vermont, the legendary artist Norman Rockwell was inspired. Rockwell was too old to enlist, but he wanted to make a statement in pictures why Americans were sending their boys to war. His wife suggested he “paint the ideas, not the words.”
One night, Rockwell attended an Arlington Town Meeting. One of his neighbors (a very likable farmer) stood up and spoke. Everybody in the room disagreed with the man’s opinion, but no one interrupted. After all, in America, everyone has the right to freedom of speech. Norman was, once again, inspired! He decided to illustrate “The Four Freedoms” in everyday American scenes, using his Vermont neighbors as his models.
The Saturday Evening Post published “The Four Freedoms” – and long before the term was used - the images went “viral”. The four paintings became iconic images.
By 1943, the U.S. Treasury was broke and the Allied Forces were struggling across the Atlantic. Because of the images’ popularity, The Treasury Department asked Rockwell to go on tour with his original “Four Freedoms” paintings - and sell war bonds.
At a time when the war was going against the Allies, those pictures raised $133 million dollars (The equivalent of $1.7 billion today!). That influx of cash changed the course of the war – and history.
And it all happened, because an Arlington farmer had the courage to stand up and proudly speak his mind at a town hall meeting.
In 2018, 1761 Arts sponsored the first ever 4 Freedoms Festival, including the Southern Vermont production of the new musical, ROCKWELL.
Since then, writers and poets have been challenged by 1761 Arts to personally interpret the essential meaning of these freedoms and how they impact our society today via the annual CREATE 4 FREEDOM℠ Essay and Poetry Contest, published each year by Berkshire Magazine.