Melissa Etheridge: Rockin' On with the Revival Tour

"Fearless, committed, compassionate, and grounded: Melissa Etheridge embodies my idea of strong women," declares 35-year old Sherry Hutto, a registered nurse in Burlington.

The inspirational qualities that Hutto points to, as do so many of her fellow Etheridge fans, are what make the singer so much more than just a pop rock star.

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After the Diagnosis: Living with Multiple Sclerosis

Two years ago, I was diagnosed with multiple sclerosis. My first reaction was relief. It was a beautiful, sunny October day in Vermont. I arrived in the parking lot of the neurologist's office, expecting little. This was just another in a long series of medical appointments I had shown up for over the previous four years.

None of my doctors had been able to explain my puzzling symptoms. The fingers in my right hand were tingly and numb. So was the bottom of my left foot. I had repeated bladder infections, bright flashes in my eyes, thumping noises in my ears, dizziness, sudden and incapacitating fatigue, foot pain, leg cramps, unrelenting constipation, depression. I was 52.

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Mary Cassatt: Her Brilliant Career, a Retrospective

Forever obscured to our contemporary eyes - by the array of serene mothers with their cherubic children, or images of refined Victorian-era young ladies replete in their formal wear sipping tea - is the extent to which the artist Mary Cassatt was a rebel in her own time. Personally, politically, artistically, and as a feminist - in all these ways this late nineteenth-century artist was among the cultural vanguard.

Vermonters have the opportunity to enjoy a major retrospective of this extraordinary artist's work at the Shelburne Museum's Webb Gallery between now and October 26. The exhibit, Mary Cassatt: Friends and Family, features more than 60 works - by Cassatt, as well as several pieces by Cassatt's colleague and (on-again, off-again) friend Edgar Degas, and a Monet from the museum's collection. The inclusion of paintings, pastels, drawings, and prints by Cassatt reveal the scope of her artistic talents, which extended beyond Impressionism. And one of the "friends" referred to in the exhibit's title is Louisine Elder Havemeyer, a major figure in the history of art collecting and patronage in the United States. The close personal and professional relationship between these two women is a key dimension to the exhibition.

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