NEWFANE — The Crowell Art Gallery, 23 West Street, celebrates Halloween all October long with Dennis Ciancimino's “Goosebumps in Vermont'' series. A reception with the artist is planned for Oct. 15 from 1 to 3 p.m.
Ciancimino invites visitors on a mystical journey deep into the Shadowland of Vermont using folk horror art and personal narrative to tell the lesser-known stories of the forces that go bump in the night.
His paintings of familiar fears of the unknown draw viewers deeper into personal and primal horror. Take the story of the Eddy House: “In the 1800s, three children were born in Chittenden Vermont. Descended from a long line of psychics, William, Horatio, and Mary were mediums: from playing with ghostly children to levitating school desks. Their father, finally tiring of all the weird antics, sold them to a traveling sideshow.”
Ciancimino paints them surrounded by their childhood ghosts, the carnival barkers and snake ladies. Another painting depicts the strange events in the Glastonbury Mountain area where a number of people went missing between 1920 and 1950. And then there is the Bennington Triangle.
The art of Ciancimino may look familiar to some from when he was a cartoonist for the Deerfield Valley News. “The show is colorful and lively, and sure to entertain,” say organizers.
The Crowell Art Gallery is free and open to the public during the library's operating hours: Tuesdays, Wednesdays, and Fridays 1 to 5 p.m., Thursdays, 1 to 6 p.m., and Saturdays, 10 a.m. to 1 p.m.