A.P.E. Ltd. Gallery
126 Main Street
Northampton, MA 01060

Phone: 413.586.5553
Fax: 413.387.6027

Gallery Hours:
Tues. – Thurs. 12-5
Fri. – Sat. 12-8
Sun. 12-5
Closed on Mondays

A.P.E., in conjunction with four other arts organizations, The Northampton Center for the Arts, New Century Theater, the Northampton Arts Council and Young@Heart Chorus, has created an 'urban' community arts trust that would provide for the arts the type of support that land trusts currently provide for local farms and affordable housing initiatives, and that broad-based taxation provides for other important cultural enterprises.

The Northampton Community Arts Trust would create a bridge between the cultural economy and the market economy that both recognizes the currently understood value of the cultural economy for the market economy, and addresses the fact that the cultural economy is not based on commodity exchange, and its value is not accurately measured by money. For more information, visit the website at: http://www.northamptonartstrust.org/

Craig Harbison, a local art historian, is creating a series of artist profiles for A.P.E., designed to enhance the public outreach of its exhibitions and bring greater visual acuity to the casual gallery visitor.  The profiles and photographs are posted on the gallery wall at the time of installation and later archived on the web. Mr. Harbison taught art history at the University of Massachusetts for 32 years, from 1974-2006.  He was originally an artist before he turned to art history.  Since he has stopped teaching he has become more involved with contemporary artists, many of whom have always been friends.  Mr. Harbison is working on a project of interviewing artists in their working environments with the aim of producing an exhibition or publication of this material.  A provisional title for this project is:"Artists at Work Here: Picturing the artistic impulse and creative environment of western Massachusetts artists."
See them here.

On June 24, 2008, the Northampton Design Forum was formed under the umbrella of A.P.E. The Design Forum consists of Northampton citizens interested in fostering quality urban design and sustainability. It invited the University of Notre Dame Urban Design Studio here in September 2008 to advance that goal. The Notre Dame group included six graduate students under the direction of Professor Philip Bass. They spent a week engaging with the community and offering design recommendations that illustrate sustainability and traditional urban design. The Northampton Design Forum advances Northampton's sustainability goals by promoting high-quality urban design and architecture through open and inclusive public processes. They work with diverse constituencies and City officials to create an inspiring and practical shared urban design vision for Northampton's future.

For more information, visit: http://northamptondesignforum.blogspot.com

Bramble Hill Farm, a former 120 acre dairy farm, is  located across the river from A.P.E. in Amherst. It is owned by “The Open Field Foundation”, a nonprofit private operating foundation, created by Gordon Thorne and Anne Woodhull in 1996 to legally hold the assets of the Farm. 

The old farm buildings have been renovated to provide living and working spaces for a range of people and projects. A new set of farm structures have been built to accommodate small scale pasture based livestock initiatives and a range of organic growing programs.The Foundation has absorbed the major capital costs of this project to date. The goal of The Foundation and the Farm is to test innovative ways to build a sustainable, healthy, and creative farm centered community, accessible to and interactive with the larger community which surrounds it.

 A.P.E. artists have created site specific work at Bramble Hill Farm, and Farm personnel have showcased work in the APE space. Both organizations are by intent linked in their missions and values, despite the surface differences in their enterprises.