Dear City that Calls Itself a Town: My husband and I moved to Greenfield 10 years ago, selecting you intuitively after trying out overnight stays in many other towns and small cities in Massachusetts, Vermont, and New Hampshire. You felt comfortable, unpretentious, incredibly welcoming, caring, and possible. We built a house — or rather our son-in-law, a Vermont architect, designed and oversaw the building of it. We moved into our forever house and began to get involved in your civic life, eager to get to know better our newly-adopted forever town.
We brought with us a nonprofit arts and humanities corporation originally created in 1990 in Seattle, Washington, knowing that we’d find a way to contribute culturally to Greenfield in some way at the right time. That time came in 2019, when I ran into Lucinda Kidder, founder of Silverthorne Theatre Company, at a meeting about the creative economy of Greenfield. Long story short, we joined forces with Lucinda and Vanessa Query to open The LAVA Center in early 2020. On Main Street, tucked between the TD Bank branch and Pushkin, we created a community arts and humanities incubator. LAVA stands for Local Access to Valley Arts, a name that reflects our commitment to being a space where local creatives can develop new work and where local audiences can enjoy that new work.
Since that time, Covid notwithstanding, with the help of literally hundreds of creatives, faithful funders, engaged audiences, and devoted staff and volunteers, LAVA has produced
play festivals, film festivals, solo and community art shows, humanities displays, open mics, music programs, and community conversations. We’ve developed and produced two major documentaries. We’ve offered workshops and classes in writing, directing, acting, listening, puppetry, storytelling, and comedy.
Our in-person attendance has gone from several hundred a year to several thousand; our online programs have been viewed by many hundreds more, and our websites have attracted over 100,000 hits. We keep our programming affordable or free, dependent on the generosity of funders both large and small, from foundations, businesses, and individuals that support us with significant donations to patrons who put a dollar or two or more in the jar at the front desk when they pass by.
I’ve recently celebrated my 80th birthday. This month, I’m officially handing the reins to a new generation of creative leaders. It’s time for me to get back to finishing several writing projects, beginning new ones, spending more time with my grandchildren, indulging my interest in native plantings. It’s time for LAVA to continue to grow and thrive without depending upon my unpaid labor. It’s a challenging time. Grant money for all nonprofits is very tight, and LAVA’s situation is no different. So as I step back to take a supporting role instead of a lead, focusing on board development and fundraising, I invite you to step up to experience and support The LAVA Center.
If you’ve never enjoyed a program or event at The LAVA Center, check it out! If you already know about us, come back again (and again)! Meet the new staff. Bring your creativity, your urge to act, create art, tell stories, write plays, make films, play music, write poems, tell jokes, discuss important ideas, support the arts, the humanities, and the people who create them, connect with old friends and make new ones over self-serve coffee. LAVA has been growing and adding to your cultural and economic health going on seven years now. With your support, dear Greenfield, it will keep going and growing strong for many years to come. Learn more about all we do and how to be part of it at TheLAVACenter.org.
Jan Maher is a co-founder, current development director, and board member of Local Access to Valley Arts which operates The LAVA Center in Greenfield.