Creativity swarms Hunt Library for insect artmaking workshop

FALLS VILLAGE — Artist Erica Crofut led a bug sculpture workshop on the lawn of the David M. Hunt Library Wednesday, July 2.

About half a dozen children participated.

Crofut came prepared with bug shapes cut from plywood and painted a neutral color, assorted acrylic paints and brushes, and a box full of old shirts for smocks. (A Brooks Brothers label was attached to one of them.)

Crofut told her young artists that they had options. “We’ve got some happy bugs. We’ve got some grumpy-looking ones.”

She encouraged the children to try for realism with their bugs.

“Bugs hang out where?” Crofut asked.

The answers came back. “Leaves. Bark. Awnings. Your face.”

“They try to camouflage themselves,” concluded Crofut. “So design your camouflage for your bug.”

Eli Sher created custom insect artwork at the David M. Hunt Library workshop Wednesday, July 2.Copey Rollins

Crofut was assisted by Alesia Curletti of Housatonic, Massachusetts, and a student at the Berkshire Waldorf School in Great Barrington. Curletti said she has been helping Crofut on a major piece of sculpture destined for the Norman Rockwell Museum in Stockbridge.

Crofut and Curletti watched carefully as the artists got down to business, painstakingly painting their bugs one color at a time, in order to keep the process orderly.

“I don’t care if you get paint on my drop cloth,” Crofut said. “That’s what it’s for.”

At one point the entire group paused at the sight of a couple of fawns messing around in a grassy area across the street from the library lawn.

“Where’s the mama?” wondered Crofut.

Everyone held their breath as a car approached, and let out a collective sigh of relief when the fawns fled into the woods instead of wandering into the vehicle’s path.