Mary Bishop Memorial Gallery

The Mary Bishop Memorial Gallery at the Crawfordsville District Public Library would like to invite the public to view the work of local woodworker, Dennis Furr. This exhibit is currently open and will be on display through June 9th. The public is welcome to visit the gallery during CDPL’s regular hours of operation and we encourage you to view these beautifully crafted functional artworks. During this exhibit, a limited amount of work will be available for sale through our Circulation department.

Dennis Furr is a longtime resident of Montgomery County and has been a member of the Montgomery County Woodworkers for over a decade. He recently retired from Subaru of Indiana Automotive (SIA) in Lafayette where he spent many years as a Maintenance Electrician. Furr states, “I now have the opportunity to expand my thoughts on my creativity as a craftsman and as a woodworker.”

Furr has been making wooden objects since he was 15 years old when he learned about woodworking in one of Mr. Van Arsdel’s Industrial Arts courses at North Montgomery High School. These days, creating tables has become the passionate focus of his body of work. He believes there is value in understanding the processes and encourages young people to explore woodworking. In this exhibit, he has included pattern forms that he created to help beginners visualize his method of ensuring consistency in shape and size. His grandchildren frequently work in the shop with him on their own projects and he hopes that one day they will pass these learned skills on to the next generation of his family.

You may have seen his work in unexpected places and you will know it is his because of his unique style of constructing table legs. He has become a master at building beautiful variations of the floating tabletop. He creates elegant, high-end works as well as small affordable, and practical objects, such as vases, cutting boards, rolling pins, bowls, and other eye-catching pieces from wood scraps. If you are interested in Dennis’s work please contact him at [email protected] or by phone at (765) 376-7997. If you would like to know more about the Montgomery County Woodworkers meetings or if you are interested in becoming a member, please contact Jack Stumph at [email protected].

For more information about CDPL’s hours of operation, please visit our website at http://www.cdpl.lib.in.us/. If you are an artist or a member of an artists’ group and are interested in displaying your work at the Mary Bishop Memorial Gallery in 2024, please contact Toni, the Gallery Coordinator at (765) 362-2242, or email her at [email protected] for more information.

-Toni Ridgway-Woodall is a Library Assistant in the Reference and Local History department and the Mary Bishop Memorial Gallery Coordinator at CDPL.