Artist Sky Hopinka to give WCMA's Plonsker Lecture

03:02PM / Thursday, April 09, 2026Print Story | Email Story

WILLIAMSTOWN, Mass. — Artist Sky Hopinka will give the annual Plonsker Family Lecture on Thursday, April 16, at 6 p.m. at the Williams College Museum of Art (WCMA).

The lecture will be preceded by a reception from 5 to 6 p.m.

Sky Hopinka (Ho-Chunk Nation/Pechanga Band of Luiseño Indians) was born and raised in Ferndale, Washington, and spent a number of years in Palm Springs and Riverside, California; Portland, Oregon; and Milwaukee, Wisconsin. In Portland, he studied and taught chinuk wawa, a language indigenous to the Lower Columbia River Basin. His video, photo, and text works center individual experience of Indigenous homeland and landscape and approaches to language. They act as containers of culture expressed through personal and non-fictional forms of media.

The Plonsker Family Lecture Series in Contemporary Art, established in 1994 by Madeleine Plonsker, Harvey Plonsker '61 and their son, Ted Plonsker '86, examines current issues in contemporary art. Past lecturers have included artists Stephanie Syjuco, Arthur Jafa, Lynda Benglis, Kenturah Davis, Cara Romero, and Kerry?James?Marshall.

The lecture is free and open to the public. For more information, contact the museum at 413-597-2429 or visit artmuseum.williams.edu.

iBerkshires.com Text Ads

rk MILES Blding Materials

Are You Ready to Update Your Home? Start With rk MILES. 4 Locations (800)670-7433

www.rkmiles.com

Save & Earn with Greylock

3.30% APY 6-month certificate. Click to learn more! Insured by NCUA.

www.greylock.org

If you would like to contribute information on this article, contact us at info@iberkshires.com.

Williamstown Select Board Evaluates Town Manager

By Stephen DravisiBerkshires Staff
05:39AM / Wednesday, October 28, 2026

WILLIAMSTOWN, Mass. — In 2022, the town still was recovering from the twin blows of a global pandemic and a lawsuit that exposed disturbing allegations against the town's police department.

The latter ultimately led to the resignation of the police chief and the town manager. To replace the manager, the Select Board at the time turned to Robert Menicocci.

Menicocci represented a break in style from his immediate predecessor, who was a more prominent voice in town government. That prominence, in part, was a product of the times: When town boards and committees were not meeting in-person and access to town hall itself was limited at the height of the pandemic, the manager's voice in Zoom meetings was more front and center.

In his four years in the corner office, Menicocci has helped shepherd the police department on its path to certification and helped the town weather the fiscal storm of skyrocketing costs linked to inflation – particularly sharp increases in the cost of health insurance that hit hard for a labor-intensive endeavor like municipal government. All the while, he has been a little more taciturn, while always willing to participate, when appropriate, with responsive answers in discussions of the Select Board and Finance Committee.

On Monday, the current Select Board – completely turned over from the 2022 edition – pushed Menicocci to be more of a cheerleader for the town.

"Do you see your role more as a behind-the-scenes guy and our role is to be out in public?" board member Matthew Neely asked Menicocci during the board's review of the manager's job performance. "Or is there more of a role for you in that? So many people, if I say your name, they're like, ‘Who?'

"I would have assumed your role would be more public facing as well, and more, for lack of a better word, leading the charge as opposed to running day-to-day operations. I feel you're strong running day-to-day. But something we all wish is we had a little more of a proactive [manager] …. Since we need development, need all these things in town so much. … I'd love to see more outward energy, I guess.

View Full Story