FALL 2025
OFFERINGS + EVENTS
(click to enlarge)
part of the exhibition CONFLUENCE:
FRIDAY, NOVEMBER 21, 6-7:30pm
SLOW AESTHETICS
An offering of time and attention to the work of CONFLUENCEWith Mollye Maxner + Kathy Couch
Join A.P.E. Co-Directors/Stewards Kathy Couch and Mollye Maxner for an evening of encountering the artwork in CONFLUENCE. Kathy and Mollye have spent decades tending to the dynamic partnership between artwork and those experiencing it. They invite you to join them in guided practices which tune our awareness and enliven our perceptions, through the gift of slowing down.
RSVP encouraged (but not required)
FRIDAY, DECEMBER 5, 6-7:30pm
POETRY READING
With Carol Potter + Maya Jansen
CAROL POTTER’s sixth book of poems, What Happens Next is Anyone’s Guess, won the 2021 Pacific Coast Series in Poetry from Beyond Baroque, and was a finalist for the 2022 Vermont Book Award. Book number five, Some Slow Bees, won the Field Poetry Prize from Oberlin College Press. Other awards include a Creation Grant from the Vermont Arts Council, 2019, the 1998 Cleveland State Poetry Center award for her book, The Short History of Pets, and the Balcones award as well as a Pushcart Award and residencies at Yaddo, MacDowell, The Fundación Valparaíso, and Millay Colony of the Arts. Publications include poems in The American Poetry Review, Poetry, The Green Mountains Review, Hotel Amerika, Sinister Wisdom, The Kenyon Review, Hayden’s Ferry, The Massachusetts Review, The Los Angeles Review, Willow Springs, River Styx and the anthology of contemporary Vermont poetry, Roads Taken. Potter has poems forthcoming in The Massachusetts Review and The Cape Cod Review. She lives in Tunbridge, VT.
MAYA JANSEN’s most recent poetry collection On the Mercy Me Planet was published by Blue Edge Books in 2022. The book was selected as a “Must Read” by the Massachusetts Center for the Book. Her poetry has appeared in The New Yorker, Best American Poetry and elsewhere. Janson has been a recipient of a Massachusetts Cultural Council Fellowship and has been a MacDowell Fellow. She has been a lecturer in poetry and creative writing at Smith College and currently works as a community mental health nurse. She lives in Florence, MA.
FRIDAY, DECEMBER 12, 6-7:30pm
PERCEPTIVE COLLABORATION
With Maren Brown, Felice Caivano, Tekla McInerney + guests
THE SURREAL TIMES DINNER
An evening of chance, connection, and dishes inspired by women who shape us
Hosted by Tonya Lemos
NOVEMBER 4, 6-8pm
Since January 2025, The Surreal Times Dinner Project has gathered two guests each week at Lemos’ cabin in Conway, MA, for an evening of shared food, conversation, and collaborative art-making. Each dinner becomes part of an ongoing archive of community voices, images, and gestures—a living record of our times. This gallery iteration expands the project into a public space, inviting participants to share a meal, contribute creatively, and experience how art, dialogue, and ritual can nurture connection and hope.
Guests will be chosen at random from submitted applications (notifications sent by October 20). Each participant will bring a dish special to them, inspired by a woman in their lives, creating a collective table woven from memory, nourishment, and story.
FLIP FACTORY and ValleyCreates present
SPRINGFIELD 2 NORTHAMPTON
Hosted by A.P.E.
OCTOBER 3, 7:30-10pm
Preceded by ETERNAL:ELEMENTS with NAGO + LESN1015:30-6pm, rear entrance of A.P.E.
Not just another art event; but a ValleyCreates initiative with a mission—to bring together two communities that, for too long, have thrived in parallel but rarely shared the same creative stage. For the night of October 3rd, Springfield’s burgeoning hip-hop culture and visual arts scene will take up residence within the heart of downtown Northampton, carrying the energy and urgency inherent to the “City of Firsts.”
The night will feature four music producers showcasing their craft, demonstrating the range of Springfield’s hip-hop scene—from the esoteric and whimsical, to the hard-hitting and brutal. Alongside them, four Springfield visual artists will give concise presentations of their work, giving context to the music through sharp, moving exercises in storytelling and world-building.
Featuring Music Producers: NAGO (@love.nago), Truck Julius (@truckjulius), Lennos Barnel (@l3nn0s_barn3l) and Boombostic Beats (@boombosticbeats)
Visual artists to be announced soon!
Come ready to listen, feel, and be changed.
ARTIST RESIDENCY: KPAULM
AUGUST 11 - 24AWESOME
BLOSSOM
FLOWER
SHOW
AUGUST 22, 7-9pm Reception
Sliding scale: Free-$10
Flowers are a unique and intense expression of life. So simple and so complex. They radiate resilience, fortitude, and ingenuity, and thrive on a constant quest for the light. Join us for an evening of FLOWERS and ARTWORK.
This is a curated event with artists from Hatfield, Amherst, Greenfield, Whately, Northampton, Westhampton and more. Support the Artists, Designers, and Farmers from this precious valley with your attention, and feast your eyes on this Brilliant Harvest. Bring the family.
FOR INFORMATION CALL 413-687-4578
KILL TALK
a reading and discussionAUGUST 15, 7pm
Anthropologist Janet McIntosh, and Vietnam Veterans Doug Anderson, Marc Levy, Preston Hood, and David Connolly will speak and read together.
A discussion will follow.
Brandeis anthropologist Janet McIntosh interviewed fifty combat veterans from three different wars over a period of eight years for her book, Kill Talk (Oxford University Press, 2025). In addition to these interviews, she visited the famous/infamous Marine Corps bootcamp at Parris Island in Beaufort County, South Carolina, and interviewed drill instructors. There is the language of training: brutal and sometimes outrageous, intended to prepare men and women for obeying orders under extreme stress; and there is the language created by veterans themselves as they experience situations for which no training could have prepared them. It is a language rich with wit, insight and the testimony of survival. From these interviews McIntosh, employing her long experience as an ethnographer, wrote Kill Talk. Some of the veteran men and women she interviewed became writers themselves and transformed the language of their experience in their own way. The intersection of a disciplined and imaginative anthropologist and combat veterans produced a book revealing a world of language not known by many, and deeply important for the understanding of what happens to human beings in war. McIntosh will give a brief talk and four veteran poets will read briefly from their work at A.P.E, Gallery, 126 Main St. Northampton August 15, at seven P.M. A discussion will follow.