CORNWALL — Looking for unusual, fun and (mostly) useful art? Head for Art at the Dump, April 29 and 30, 10 a.m. to 4 p.m. at the Cornwall Transfer Station.This is the 12th annual Art at the Dump, which is the first social event of the season. A long, snowy winter means there is now plenty of room in the sand shed for art. And rain or shine, it’s always a good time. Bring the kids. Bring the dog. Bring the checkbook, because 30 percent of the proceeds go to the Cornwall Consolidated School art department.And there are always things there that people just have to have. What sets it apart is this guideline for contributors: Whether they are professional artists or regular folk inspired to make something for the show, everything must be made from recycled materials.Although she is no longer running the show, Art at the Dump was the brainchild of Gail Jacobson. Fortunately for devotees of the annual fundraising show, she now has more time to devote to making art for the show. A tip: Get there early if you want to buy any of her things.Jacobson is the queen of high-quality recycled art. Materials inspire her. And that’s exactly where one needs to begin with an Art at the Dump project. It’s about what’s lying around — maybe even curbside waiting for the garbage man — and is ripe to be transformed from trash to treasure.A little over two years ago, Jacobson started a blog that is essentially an outlet for her rampant creativity. She has easily been able to post a project, and sometimes a recipe, too, a week. The steps are easy, the tasks require no special skills or talents, and all can be done with inexpensive or found materials. She has also demonstrated a knack for being able to write instructions that make sense, which she posts along with clear and attractive photographs that pop up just when you need them. She has kept it simple. There are no ads. All the information is free. “The only thing I get out of it is an archive of everything I do,” Jacobson said. “And I like that I only have to make something once for the blog, but then I have the photos and instructions all there. It’s especially great for recipes. I love experimenting with recipes, and I have to make sure I write them down for the blog. Sometimes I have to go back to the blog to find one.”Has it been a success? For her own purposes — definitely. And numbers don’t lie.A year ago, she had about 300 followers and 200 hits a day. Now she has more than 1,000 devotees and about 600 hits per day.Even those not inclined to do more than browse can enjoy the site. Jacobson’s humor makes even crafting instructions entertaining. And she writes a brief background for deserving projects.A simple graphic that can be transformed into greeting cards and more is her version of a poster produced by the British government at the beginning of World War II. The original read “Keep Calm and Carry On.”Jacobson’s reads, “Keep Calm and Party On.”A pretty little “Moroccan box” project is made out of plastic pipe, transformed with Jacobson’s simple, yet almost magical techniques so that, “You can tell your friends that you picked up this box on your travels — you don’t have to mention that you traveled to Home Depot.”A clown project begins with, “As a child, I had no idea that clowns were people in make-up; I thought they just came that way. I found out the truth on a View Master reel and was more disappointed than when I learned about Santa.”So what does Jacobson have in store for Art at the Dump? We wouldn’t want her to give it all away, but much of it will be blog projects.“I have so many of them lying around now. Art at the Dump is the perfect place to take them.”Her practical side is kicking in as well, and in an effort to find something to do with something “everyone saves but can’t figure out what to do with,” she has come up with projects for cookie tins. Among them will be trophies, such as World’s Best Mom, that double as flower holders.Her website is at cantstopmakingthings.com.For more information on Art at the Dump, contact Richard Griggs at 860-672-6208 or thingmkr@optonline.net
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Meg Sher, executive director of the David M. Hunt Library in Falls Village.
“I was a library kid. I walked to the library after school,” she said.
For Sher, the library is as much about the people as it about the books.
“Part of the job I love so much is that running the library is such a community,” she said.
She treasures the relationships she has built, whether recommending books, celebrating accomplishments or helping patrons through difficult times.
“I am thankful that our community is so supportive of the library, unlike what is happening in some other places where librarians are villainized,” Sher said.
Sher takes pride in the Hunt Library’s reputation for being “open and welcoming to everyone. People come in and see things and get pulled into things they weren’t expecting. Our library is seen as a positive force.”
Sher came to Falls Village after being awarded a fellowship at Adamah Farm, then a program of the Isabella Freedman Jewish Retreat Center. She worked at pickling, in the greenhouse and later in the development office. She also worked as a nanny.
At the same time, “I was in the library all the time,” she recalled. “I’m a voracious reader. The library is where I met a lot of my first friends in Falls Village.”
She became assistant librarian at Hunt and worked in that position for almost a decade before becoming the executive director four years ago.
Meg Sher, executive director of the David M. Hunt Library in Falls Village.L. Tomaino
Sher met her husband, Adam, while working at Adamah. They had their wedding there in 2012. He now emcees many events which she co-organizes with the Falls Village Recreation Commission.
Sher and her family live near the library.
“It’s an easy commute,” she said with a smile. “My kids run back and forth. I can go home to walk the dog if I need to.”
“My kids have grown up here.” Her oldest son, Eli, “loves volunteering. He helps with Augustfest and often helps set up chairs for ArtWall gatherings.” Her younger son, Noah, is often at events and was eager to taste cookies at last year’s holiday cookie swap.
When she is not at the library, Sher likes to hike with her family. Bella, their Portuguese water dog, often accompanies them.
Sher enjoys seeking out people to offer events at the library.
“I do a lot of different community programming. It is one of my favorite parts of the job.”
Augustfest, featuring food, music and an auction, is the library’s biggest fundraiser.
“This summer we had a record 152 attendees, which was pretty incredible.”
Yonah Sadeh, a filmmaker from Falls Village, inaugurated the VideoWall this year, Sher explained.
“I’ve known Yonah since he was two. It’s wonderful to work with him as an adult.”
The VideoWall complements the library’s ArtWall, which showcases a new artist each month. Sher praised the ArtWall committee for its work and highlighted December’s popular “12x12 Show,” featuring works by local artists, each measuring 12 by 12 inches and priced at $150.
Sher added that some of the artists who exhibit at the ArtWall offer workshops to students at Kellogg School, next door to the library. In September, artist Danielle Mailer worked with the children. Vincent Inconiglios taught a class last November.
Being next to the school, said Sher, is a great advantage.
“Kids are coming after school, to see friends, work on projects, find a great book. Kids that love the library end up using the library as grownups.”
This past year, in partnership with Adamah, the library and school created a garden, with excess produce made available at The Center on Main.
This year is Sher’s second year participating in the Troutbeck Symposium in Amenia with James King, director of the library at Salisbury School. The Troutbeck Symposium is “a gathering of a year of student historical inquiry across the region” in which students “uncover stories that have been overlooked, forgotten, or never recorded.”
Last year, Sher and King began a project with a group of students researching Irish immigrants in Falls Village, exploring ancestry and creating small magazines about their findings.
They continued this year, visiting St. Patrick’s Catholic Cemetery on Dublin Road, cleaning seven gravestones and even righting one with the help of stonemason and gravestone restoration expert Karl Munson. Paul Kozeazny, a representative of the Catholic archdiocese, helped secure access to the site.
A film documenting their activities will be shown at the symposium in spring 2027.
A full schedule of programs and events, ranging from tech help to ceramic mug-making, can be found on the library’s website.
Despite spending her days surrounded by books, and a busy schedule of programming, Sher still loves to settle in with a book at home.
For more information on library programs and events, visit huntlibrary.org
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Touré was born in northern Mali in 1981. His father, the renowned guitarist Ali Farka Touré, came from a family of soldiers and wanted his son to join the army. The younger Touré studied drums and the calabash and practiced guitar in secret. He earned his father’s blessing to pursue music shortly before Ali died in 2006, and they played two tracks together on Vieux’s debut album.
Touré is known for his deft, polyrhythmic playing, and his songs grow out of riffs that repeat and layer to hypnotic effect. He draws on rock, blues, Latin music and various African traditions. This distinctive blend builds on his father’s work adapting the sonic traditions of Mali’s arid north to the guitar.
Vieux’s album “Mon Pays” (“My Country,” 2013) honored Mali’s culture after Tuareg separatists and extremist groups seized the north in 2012. “Samba” (2017) was recorded before about 50 listeners in Woodstock, New York. In 2022 came “Les Racines” (“The Roots”), a return to his father’s desert blues, and “Ali,” on which he and the trio Khruangbin reworked eight of the elder Touré’s songs.
Touré leads the Ali Farka Touré Foundation, which focuses on cultural and educational work in Mali. Around the anniversary of Ali’s death, it holds a festival in Bamako, Mali’s capital. Bamako has been under blockade for much of the past year, besieged by JNIM, an al-Qaeda affiliate. Against this backdrop, Touré continues to carry the music of Mali to audiences abroad.
At the Nov. 5 concert, Touré’s desert blues will share the bill with Gnawa, the music LanGus plays, which developed in Morocco among West Africans who were brought north across the desert as enslaved people. Gnawa is religious music traditionally performed at all-night healing ceremonies called lila, intended to carry participants into trance.
Samir LanGusProvided
LanGus was born and raised outside Agadir, Morocco, and began learning Gnawa from its masters at age 8. He plays the sintir, a three-stringed bass lute made of wood and camel skin. The player strikes a low string with the thumb to create a deep, resonant pulse. Iron castanets clatter over the sintir’s bass line, and vocalists trade call-and-response refrains.
LanGus infuses the tradition with jazz and improvisation. In New York, he founded the ensemble Innov Gnawa. His first solo album, “Gnawa Love,” came out in February.
Touré and LanGus’s Nov. 5 concert is one of the last public events at Race Brook Lodge, which is for sale and ended full-service operations at the end of 2025. The lodge’s final scheduled event, on Nov. 6, is an evening of Rumi’s poetry with translator and vocalist Haleh Liza Gafori, cellist Isabel Castellvi and ceremonial bard James Bird.
For tickets, visit rblodge.com.
James FitzGerald is a student at Yale Law School, where he focuses on ecological restoration and international environmental cooperation. He splits his time between Lakeville and New Haven.
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