A ‘Glimpse of Tibet’ en route to Tanglewood

It was through our recent story on John Simpson of City Mosaic that we returned to Glimpse of Tibet, a locally-owned jewel of a store located in the center of Northampton, Mass inside of Thornes Market. Hand-made jewelry, clothing, fine scarves, and beautiful art work from Tibet can be found here. This is the family store of the incredibly talented Tibetan painter, Tenzin Rigden, who was one of the artists involved in the Kathmandu Project at UMass-Amherst. The series of temples made in honor of the deities Green Tara and Black Mahakala, years later, ended up at the Smithsonian and the Dalai Lama blessed the project on his visit.

Western Massachusetts became home to many Tibetan families starting in 1992 and visitors should include this store in a growing itinerary of Tibetan-owned business like  Lhasa Café just across the street from Thornes Market.

Also located in the area, make sure to visit the peace pagoda (photograph above) of Leveret and the Shambhala center for Buddhist studies. We highly recommend stopping by on your trip through the foothills of the Berkshires on your way to Tanglewood. And on that note, we’ll be promoting the July 31^st Chick Corea Trio concert featuring Christian McBride and Brian Blade. Northampton is the perfect resting point and you can take the back roads to Lennox, as well, a beautiful and peaceful alternative to the state turnpike: