JARVIS ROCKWELL'S TOY COLLECTION is housed in a suite of offices on the corner of Main and Railroad in Great Barrington, Massachusetts. This is Norman Rockwell country, and Jarvis is Norman’s eldest son. I first saw the collection with the poet Geoffrey Young, who thought I might find some things to borrow for my work. But given the cloyingly nostalgic image of a kinder gentler America Rockwell’s lineage evokes, I assumed I would only find a bunch of tin toys from the ’30s and ’40s. He and I were both wrong. First, you don’t borrow from Rockwell’s collection. I had to stick to looking (though
James Archibald Mitchell III, a world renowned nautical painter and local treasure, passed away at his Noank home on Feb. 22 surrounded by his friends,