To the editor:
An open letter to the Berkshire Museum board:
The Berkshire Museum is multiple museums (all laudable) with competing needs and goals. In following your announced course of action, you will be contributing to the homogenization, dumbing down and loss of visual culture in Pittsfield and the region. You will be making genuine sacrifices in order to fudge together a potentially questionable, trendy museum that you, the board and those who advised you view to be of highest value.
Apparently, you are unable to appreciate or see the long-term value in caring for these remarkable paintings (not to mention the character of the building) and have them nurture generations of Pittsfield families that are here now and may settle here because of such treasure. You don't get them back once they are sold.
We appreciate the many long hours you have already brought to the problem of sustaining the museum — but.
Work harder. Find more options. Build on what you and the citizens of this region already have.
Consider the demolitions of culture in so many cities. Wouldn't you have wanted those who wrote the checks for the wrecking balls to take enough time and have the patience and generosity of spirit to pause?
P. Lipman,
Stephentown, N.Y.