Falls Village library presents abstract paintings showcase opening March 11

FALLS VILLAGE — The David M. Hunt Library in Falls Village will host the exhibition Shape+Movement+Color featuring the abstract paintings of local Dutchess County artists David Crum and Joel Foster, and the kinetic sculptures of Richard Griggs, the “Thingmaker” of West Cornwall.

The exhibition opens with a reception from 4-6 p.m. March 11, and will remain on display through March 31. For more information, call the library at 860-8247424 or visit huntlibrary.org/art-wall. The library is located at 63 Main Street, Falls Village.

About the artists, provided by the David M. Hunt Library:

David Crum, selftaught artist, and resident of Millerton NY, said, “What I knew about paintings, I got from looking at them. Maybe a little listening too, but mostly looking.”

Pointing to de Kooning, Frankenthaler, and Pollock as inspirations, Crum’s paintings are intended to speak to the visual centers of the mind and emotions, leaving social, political, and conceptual art to others. Crum’s works, while grounded in direction, color, and structure, are also flexible and open to suggestion. “A work intended to be generally blue may, through observation in process, become red,” he said.

Joel Foster, residing in Wassaic N.Y., says he “builds” his paintings from layers of basic colors and architectural shapes, eschewing nature to focus on what is deliberate and manmade. He repeats shapes and alternating colors in metric grids run through with curving, sinuous ribbons, evocative of a jazz musician riffing in odd combinations of punctuation and rhythm.

Foster’s work is more remarkable because he has been legally blind since 2008, coping with Stargardt’s Disease, a genetic condition which usually presents in childhood, but in Joel’s case didn’t become apparent until he was in his late 50s. He has learned to work against this handicap, using the manipulation of masking tape as a device in achieving line and shape in large compositions on paper.

Richard Griggs lives and works in West Cornwall and refers to himself as the Thingmaker, as his kinetic sculptural creations fuse together found objects, discarded and repurposed in combinations that belie their original function. With a background in electrical, lighting, and carpentry work, Griggs’s work in theatre design, concert staging, and as assistant to sculptor Tim Prentice, has provided him access to objects of all sorts, from scraps of metal to obsolete computer drives and disks.

“I try to find a different purpose for the materials I use,” Griggs said. “I like whimsy and movement. If it doesn’t move, I’m not interested.”

Richard’s work can be found in numerous collections and galleries, and also at The Wish House, run by his wife Bianca Langner-Griggs in West Cornwall.