Stuart Bigley's effect on the cultural scene of the Hudson Valley is indisputable. His Unison Arts and Learning Center on the outskirts of New Paltz has become one of the key venues for great music, innovative theater and rock-solid art exhibits over a history of hardworking promotional activities, fundraising and the sort of marketing acumen that should be taught in arts administration classes. Unison may have demonstrated the best use of recent payola funds for innovative music programming, expanding offerings far beyond its own facilities throughout the past year.

This coming Sunday, June 1, they'll spearhead the local gallery scene with not one or two but four simultaneous openings - both in their home base just under the Shawangunk escarpment west of New Paltz, as well as in a pair of satellite shows at the Water Street Market complex by the river in New Paltz Village.

The big show, as always this time of year, will be Unison's 10th annual Sculpture Garden opening, where a host of new works will be celebrated alongside the scenic garden's stalwarts. Via its consistency of the highest standards, the Unison show has become something of a showcase for the region's best - not quite on the scale of the bigger internationalist shows each year at Storm King or Art OMI, or the biennials in Kingston and Woodstock; but solid work from the likes of Joy Brown, Donald Bruschi, Francois Deschamps, John Kahn, Shelley Parriott, Kaete Brittin Shaw, Judy Sigunick, Hans van de Bovenkamp, Edmund Trad and Kevin Vanhentenryck. This is the site for talent to rise and, moreover, one of the more pleasant situations in which to view a lot of local art in a contemplative woodland setting.

A smaller collection of sculpture will augment the Mountain Rest Road main act at Water Street Market's new Sculpture Walk, where a number of the annual show's alumni, whose works stay up year-'round, will have pieces on view through the coming months. A second sculpture show at Water Street Market features the work of SUNY Ceramics grad Hester Keith, whose pieces first surfaced outside the college at several Unison shows in recent years.

Finally, reminding one and all that Bigley is himself an accomplished artist, will be the opening of a one-month show of his paintings and drawings - an updating on the man's own creative process, as it were. "My artwork for the past several years has been an exploration of color, space and the mark," Bigley says of the unifying points that will hold together his first Unison solo show in several years. "The work relates to music as much as it does to the visual experience. Subtlety in color and the repetition of mark bring forth a texture rhythm, much as notes function in music. This work is not really conceptual as much as it is experiential."

All four shows open simultaneously, with reception goodies and beverages supplied by My Market and Rivendell Winery. Unison is located at 68 Mountain Rest Road just west of New Paltz; Water Street Market is located on the way out of town in that direction just before the bridge over the Wallkill, on the left. For further information visit www.unisonarts.org or call (845) 255-1559.