Education
The After School
Anne Woodhull, Director of The After School, leads childrens' groups at Bramble Hill Farm investigating farm life and the natural world.
The After School also offers individual programs for children at Bramble Hill Farm and A.P.E. by appointment. For more information please contact Anne Woodhull at Bramble Hill Farm. Tel. (413)427-4543 |
Library

The Library is a flexible entity containing a growing number of interconnected collections of objects, writings, and creations. The concept of A.P.E.'s Library is based loosely on a model created by Richard Brautigan's in his 1966 classic work of fiction The Abortion:
We register all the books we receive here in our Library Contents Ledger. It is a record of all the books we get day by day, week by week, month by month, year by year. We don't use any index system to keep track of the books. We give the book back to its author who is free to place it anywhere he wants in the library, on whatever shelf catches his fancy.
It doesn't make any difference where a book is placed because nobody ever checks them out and nobody ever comes here to read them. This is not that kind of library. This is another kind of library.
The Library currently houses a remarkable body of work collected by artist and author Phyllis Kornfeld, and described in her book Cellblock Visions: Prison Art in America, published by Princeton University Press in March 1997.
The Cell Block Visions collection includes drawings, paintings, and objects made within the last twenty years by inmates of jails and penitentiaries in six states. Included are "decorative" art forms such as handkerchief art and decorated envelopes. Also featured are prison folk arts such as soap carvings, cigarette wrapper purses, toothpick clocks, and toilet paper sculpture. Paintings and drawings by self-taught artists in the collection have been illustrated in a variety of
publications and shown in prominent galleries.
The Library is also home to an extensive collection of Mail Art from around the world, assembled by HAMMER during the nineteen sixties and early seventies.
We register all the books we receive here in our Library Contents Ledger. It is a record of all the books we get day by day, week by week, month by month, year by year. We don't use any index system to keep track of the books. We give the book back to its author who is free to place it anywhere he wants in the library, on whatever shelf catches his fancy.
It doesn't make any difference where a book is placed because nobody ever checks them out and nobody ever comes here to read them. This is not that kind of library. This is another kind of library.
The Library currently houses a remarkable body of work collected by artist and author Phyllis Kornfeld, and described in her book Cellblock Visions: Prison Art in America, published by Princeton University Press in March 1997.
The Cell Block Visions collection includes drawings, paintings, and objects made within the last twenty years by inmates of jails and penitentiaries in six states. Included are "decorative" art forms such as handkerchief art and decorated envelopes. Also featured are prison folk arts such as soap carvings, cigarette wrapper purses, toothpick clocks, and toilet paper sculpture. Paintings and drawings by self-taught artists in the collection have been illustrated in a variety of
publications and shown in prominent galleries.
The Library is also home to an extensive collection of Mail Art from around the world, assembled by HAMMER during the nineteen sixties and early seventies.