Artists and shop owners support each other in an eclectic community in Cherry Valley’s historic district, and invited the public to celebrate the start of the holiday season this weekend.
The tree lighting ceremony kicked off the events on Friday, while local businesses offered holiday shopping, performances and food.
The activities are scheduled to continue today and Sunday, with Santa Claus from 1 to 3 p.m. today at the Cherry Valley Museum, artist-led cookie decorating workshops at 25 Main Collective and a sweater swap from 11 a.m. to 4 p.m. both days the Telegraph School.
A raffle to benefit the Historic Cherry Valley Businesses backpack program at Cherry Valley-Springfield Central School, featured gift certificates, baskets and prizes from local businesses.
Noelle Adamoschek creates commissioned stained glass mosaic pieces at the art gallery and shop she runs, 25 Main Collective, which showcases work from more than 40 area artists. Paintings, ceramics, jewelry and textiles are among the artwork.
“I have my studio in the back,” Adamoschek said Friday, “so I’m always working, and it lets me be focused on doing that while I’m here to serve customers.”
She encouraged creative and artistic people, and others who are attracted to art, to explore and discover hidden gems, both in her gallery and throughout Cherry Valley.
“There’s lots of musicians who live here, lots of poets,” she said. “Cherry Valley is a kind of a funny place, just because it’s kind of a blip in a way, but it has collected some really cool shops.”
Pink Squirrel, a boutique at 4 Main St., is owned by Elizabeth Graham, a former stylist for film and print.
“I still do the same thing, I move things around,” she said.
Her space spans two storefronts, which are packed with vintage and new items — clothing, home goods, greeting cards, tree ornaments, menorahs and dreidels, candy, jewelry, candles and kitschy-inspired gifts.
Also inside the store is the front end of a yellow Lincoln Continental, a holdover from previous owner Nancy Erway who installed the car as a tribute to Elvis Presley.
It’s a “discovery store,” she said, meaning the shop has no online counterpart.
“If I build it, they will come,” Graham said, as she prepared her store for shoppers during the holiday weekend events, writing out price tags and finding just the right place for items to display.
She’s offering 10% off this weekend. For store hours, call 518-339-2846.
Across the street at Cherry Valley Bookstore, 81 Alden St., Bill and Lynne Compton have curated a large collection of mostly pre-1960s books and magazines.
“The oldest thing I have in the shop right now is 1780s,” Bill Compton said.
They took over the two-story book shop in 2019 from Franzen Clough, who had operated the shop since 1995.
Bill Compton said the shop has one of the largest collections of children’s books in the region, in addition to general fiction, science fiction, paperback mysteries, short stories, westerns, cookbooks and biographies.
The books are purchase from estate sales and libraries mostly.
“You can kind of tell about [when the book was published] the price,” Bill Compton said, “This one has a cover price of 45 cents. And that one’s $1.50. And this one is $3.50. So, the higher the price, the newer the book.”
A popular seller is “blind date with a book,” wrapped in brown paper with a description of the contents handwritten on the outside. Bill Compton said they sell about 50 a year.
For the holiday weekend, the bookstore is offering a break on sales tax. Follow the shop on Facebook and Instagram at “cherryvalleybookstore.”
The building, circa 1840, has its origins as Amos Swan’s cabinet shop. Swan was the village undertaker and also made melodeons. It was also in the building where Samuel Morse visited Swan and did some tweaking on the telegraph key and developing Morse code.
As if that wasn’t enough history, the building was owned by jazz pianist Paul Bley and videographer Carol Goss, where they raised their family. Bley actually put in the fireplace, Bill Compton said.
Bley and Goss also owned the building next door at 83 Alden St., current home of the Telegraph School, a performance and healing arts space run by their daughter Angelica Palmer, and their record label, Improvising Artists Inc.
Palmer hosts open mic nights, as well as provided space for dance lessons, yoga, tai chi and movement classes, energy healers and women’s full moon red tent nights.
For the holiday weekend, she’s hosting the sweater swap and a fundraiser with hot drinks and baked goods benefitting the local Cadette Girl Scout troop.
She can be reached online at www.thetelegraphschool.org.