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Last night the Storefront Artists Project held a fundraiser at Spice -- an evening of Dada cabaret and fine art. Well attended by local artists, gallerists and art money-supporters, the event sparkled late into the night in the restaurant's second floor banquet space. Among those present I recognized several people who two nights before had also been at the Berkshire Museum at the reception for Berkshire Living magazines's photographers.

At the Museum event I stepped away for a moment to the permanent galleries to view Gregory Crewdson's photograph Untitled (Beneath the Roses), a huge digital image staged and shot in Pittsfield in the summer of 2004. The photo depicts a woman alone in a car at the very corner of North Street now occupied by Spice but back then the site of a vacant Goodwill store. Three scant years before the glittering festivities of last night, Crewdson chose to shoot his image in this location for its dreamy sense of desolation. Things are moving very quickly in Pittsfield!

Interestingly, Joyce Bernstein and Larry Rosenthal, who brought us Spice, also helped bring the Crewdson photo to the Museum. Clearly they belong in the Pittsfield Renaissance Hall of Heroes.