About Star

Hi there! Here’s a little information about me— My parents named me Stardust Alexandria Atkeson.

I am a fine arts painter from Charlemont, Western Mass. I’m renovating a home where I live with my husband and daughter that has an amazing view of the Catamount Range. My husband Christian Berg works for a company near Boston that makes analytical instruments for use in Mass Spectrometry. I’m volunteer podcast editor for Irish journalist Fergal Byrne’s Sustainability Agenda; A general contractor for our home deep-energy retrofit; a farmhand at The Benson Place (learning about maintained wild blueberry landscape farming, silvopasture, goats and many other amazing things) and a mom to my 9 year old daughter who is having a lot of new and wonderful experiences in the country.

In my previous life I was an artist/art handler in NYC where I painted, assisted painters and worked on large art installations.

I am passionate about a finding a way to propel green economic development in a way that could benefit workers and make green trades work more of a fulfilling pursuit. I’d like to do that by creating support for worker’s cooperatives to scale using (an apprenticeship program in green trades workers cooperatives) using existing educational networks, fiscal sponsorship, creative business modeling and collaboration.

It was while researching this idea that I came upon the hotbed of workers’ cooperatives which is Western Massachusetts.

MY FAMILY

I grew up in an artist family with dad Ed Atkeson and stepmother Cathy Frank of famed Albany restaurant Cathy’s Waffle Store; sister Summer Austin and step-brother Ze Frank in Albany, NY. On my mother Lynne Luft’s side I have brother Garland English, brother Cameron Rivers and Lance Sussman as well as my sister Summer.

WHERE I’M FROM

My mother’s parents were German with some Scandinavian and live(d) in Castleton, NY. My father’s parents lived in Columbus, Ohio. My father’s mother was born in NYC and was of Ukrainian descent. My Grandfather grew up on a farm in West Virginia and was a clock maker and photographer. My stepmother and her family are German (as is my husband Christian.)

EDUCATION

I got a Bachelor of Fine Arts degree from Purchase College near White Plains, NY, in painting and sculpture in 1998. I did two semesters of study abroad at the Amsterdamse Hogeschool voor de Kunsten in the Netherlands. I studied painting with Harriet Shorr and sculpture with Phil Listengart.

WORK

After graduating from Purchase I worked in the Fabrication department at the Guggenheim Museum in New York City, as well as other museums and galleries. This work often took place at night when the museum was closed. After that I worked as a building facade inspector for Vertical Access and other companies that did Rope Access work (like my maternal grandfather). I also worked in monument  conservation and restoration and as an art conservation technician.