Skip to main content

George Knoblach, 92

George Knoblach, 92

July 9, 1925 - Jan. 24, 2018
By
Star Staff

George Knoblach of Montauk, an accomplished photographer and pioneering spearfisherman, died on Jan. 24 at the Hamptons Center for Rehabilitation and Nursing in Southampton. He was 92. 

He served in the Navy during World War II and honed his photographic skills while overseas. After his discharge, he contracted polio and was paralyzed and confined for a time to an iron lung. 

“His recovery was slow until his mother decided that water, and swimming, might be therapeutic. She was right,” Russell Drumm wrote in a 2015 article in The East Hampton Star. Mr. Knoblach regained his strength and full mobility. He became an expert swimmer and diver, “a fish,” according to Martin Pedersen, a longtime friend and fellow spearfisherman.

Early in his photography career, Mr. Knoblach was an assistant to James and Kathryn Abbe and worked with Fernand Fonssagrives and Howell T. Conant Sr., who was known for his portraits of Grace Kelly. In the late 1950s, Mr. Knoblach worked as an industrial and underwater photographer for the Collins Submarine Pipeline Company, a job that took him around the world and for which he developed new underwater photographic techniques and equipment. 

Toward the end of his career he was an instructor at Pratt Institute. Former students continued to visit him long after he had retired, his friends said.

Mr. Knoblach was a member of the Long Island Dolphins spearfishing club and, according to the 2015 Star article, “usually ended the season as ‘high hook,’ or high spear in this case.” 

Mr. Knoblach was born on July 9, 1925, in Queens to George Knoblach and the former Mary Ann Schneider. He began coming to Montauk as a child and settled there full time after his retirement. 

As his health deteriorated, he was cared for by a large group of friends, including Patrick and Geraldine Forde, Paul and Carolyn Henneforth, Joseph and Lori Gerardiello, and Arna and Mr. Pedersen. 

His brothers, Herbert and Jack Knoblach, died before him. He is survived by three nieces. 

Mr. Knoblach was cremated. His ashes will be spread during a private gathering on the beach in the spring.

Thomas C. Whitehill

Thomas C. Whitehill

Oct. 20, 1946 - Jan. 25, 2018
By
Star Staff

Thomas Whitehill was a familiar figure at Georgica Beach in East Hampton, where he could be found most days in the summer in his baggy trunks, full beard, and deep tan. Mr. Whitehill, a law book editor, graphic designer, and assembler of found objects in an outsider art style, died of a heart attack at home on Hog Creek Road in Springs last Thursday. He was 71.

His studio, a one-story former dairy shed, was the original headquarters of the Springs Fire Department. Later, it was owned by Hedda Sterne, one of the first women artists in the Abstract Expressionist movement. 

“I always liked making things and collaging them,” Mr. Whitehill said in an interview in The East Hampton Star last year. “Then I started working with metal, blacksmithing, when I was in another life.”

“At one point, I tried selling stuff, but it was such a drag to have the inhibition of that looking over your shoulder.”

Thomas Charles Whitehill was born on Oct. 20, 1946, to Henry Whitehill and the former Margery Werner and grew up in Allentown, Pa., and Manhattan. 

He attended the Rudolf Steiner School in Manhattan and Long Island University’s C.W. Post campus and received a law degree from Brooklyn College. He lived for many years in Sea Cliff with his wife, Colette, and their two daughters.

Not interested in pursuing law, Mr. Whitehill turned to freelance graphic design. He made periodic visits to Morocco, which he loved. Many of his drawings reflected his appreciation of that country’s visual culture, his family said. 

The Springs studio, house, and property were filled with hundreds of whimsical sculptures made of things he picked up with what his family said was a magpie sensibility, collecting scraps and shiny things and putting them together in curious and striking ways. 

Music, especially playing the electric bass, was another love of Mr. Whitehill’s.

He was an excellent cook, they said, and had volunteered at the Glen Cove Soup Kitchen for many years while living in Sea Cliff. Mr. Whitehill was also a beekeeper, maintaining hives at Planting Fields Arboretum in Nassau County. 

After his wife’s death in 2005, Mr. Whitehill moved to Springs and set up his workshop. He did not cook as much there, instead going out to dinner almost every night, dining with a friend at Sam’s or Zokkon or Cittanuova, among other places.

He was tall and unmistakable, if perhaps selectively gregarious, and a summer’s day at Georgica Beach if Mr. Whitehill was not relaxing under his umbrella or standing and talking to friends seemed somehow wrong. Even arriving at the beach parking lot, Mr. Whitehill cut a noticeable figure in his bright red International, later a very old Mercedes sedan, and last, a highly decorated Toyota Prius. His family and friends said they would remember him for his sly humor, quiet dignity, and understated kindness.

His daughters, Rebecca Branwyn of Sunnyside, Queens, and Lina AhMee of Sea Cliff, survive him, as does a granddaughter. Mr. Whitehill was cremated. No service was announced.

Rosemary Kaufman

Rosemary Kaufman

Sept. 25, 1922 - Dec. 25, 2017
By
Star Staff

Rosemary Ryan Kaufman, who lived in East Hampton for over 25 years and had gone on too many cruises for her family to count, died on Christmas Day at the Tiffany Hall Nursing and Rehabilitation Center in Port St. Lucie, Fla. She had developed sepsis in the aftermath of Hurricane Irma, when she was without power for two days, and had been in declining health since. She was 95.

She was born in Bowling Green, Ky., on Sept. 25, 1922, to Joseph Kerlin Ryan and the former Lucille Eubanks. Her family soon moved to New York, where she attended elementary school, initially in Brooklyn, then at P.S. 101 in Forest Hills. She then attended the Cherry Valley School, now Garden City High School, and went on to obtain a degree from Ward Belmont College. 

Mrs. Kaufman’s family said she was their “all-round rock star” who was a world traveler and active in every community she called home. As a young woman, she was athletic and enjoyed dancing, basketball, and playing golf. As an adult, “her knitting bag was always by her side,” as she knitted sweaters and hats for family and friends.

Mrs. Kaufman’s first husband was Patrick J. Mahoney, whom she met after graduating from college and while working on Wall Street in a clerical position. They were married on June 3, 1950, and settled in Garden City with Mr. Mahoney’s sons, Edward Patrick Mahoney, who has since died, and Patrick J. Mahoney Jr., who lives in East Hampton. Her husband died in 1966.

The couple had three children who survive, Kerlin Walton Mahoney, now of Mineola, Myles Brian Mahoney, who lives in Manchester Center, Vt., and Stephen Ryan Mahoney, who also lives in East Hampton. They lost one child as an infant, Brian George Mahoney. 

After Mr. Mahoney’s death, Mrs. Kaufman went to work in the insurance industry, in what would now be called human resources. Her son Stephen Ryan Mahoney said, “She was really good with people. She would make friends with someone waiting for the light to change.”

Mrs. Kaufman was an active member of the Daughters of the American Revolution, often carrying the flag in parades. She also was a member of the Kentucky Society of the D.A.R. 

In 1972, she married Phillip Robert Kaufman. They made their home in Massapequa, while building a second home in Stuart, Fla. In Florida, she became a founding member of the Episcopal Church of the Advent in Palm City, and sang in the church choir. Mr. Kaufman died in 2003.

It was through her son Stephen Ryan Mahoney and later her stepson Patrick J. Mahoney Jr. that she was introduced to East Hampton. Stephen Mahoney had settled here, running a landscaping business before starting a tree farm on Long Lane, and she began summering with him and his family. She was an advocate for a large wind turbine on her son’s property, attending East Hampton Town Hall meetings and trying to educate others about alternate sources of energy.

Her granddaughter Tess Ryan Mahoney recalled her teenage years with her grandmother yesterday. She said that on many occasions her grandmother would take her and her brother Truman Bell Mahoney out in their father’s truck. Her grandmother, Tess Mahoney said, would put her in the driver’s seat, and have her drive up and down the long lanes between the trees. Driving wasn’t the only thing her grandmother taught her to drive on the farm, Ms. Mahoney said; she taught her to drive golf balls, too. She also taught her granddaughter to shoot a bow and arrow. “We had a lot of fun. We would go to Georgica Beach,” Ms. Mahoney said. However, whenever “Judge Judy came on TV, it was time to retire to the house to watch the show.”

Mrs. Kaufman loved to dress in hot pink or electric lime colors, complete with matching handbags, her granddaughter said. She was never hard to spot.

After Mr. Kaufman’s death, her family nudged her to try to reach a high-school sweetheart. They had planned to marry when World War II intervened and he became an Army Air Corps pilot. When she was in her 80s, they reconnected, moving in together until his death in 2013.

Mrs. Kaufman was cremated. A service will be held at the Episcopal Church of the Advent, 4484 S.W. Citrus Boulevard, Palm City, Fla., on Feb. 10 at 11 a.m. Donations in her memory were suggested to the May Institute’s Philanthropy Office, 41 Pacella Park Drive, Randolph, Mass. 02368.

Roland Stubbmann, Builder, Sailor, and Surfer, Was 67

Roland Stubbmann, Builder, Sailor, and Surfer, Was 67

April 14, 1950 - Jan. 20, 2018
By
Star Staff

Roland W. Stubbmann, who came to Montauk from California in the 1970s to surf and stayed on, died of an apparent heart attack on Saturday at Stony Brook Southampton Hospital. He was 67.

Mr. Stubbmann and his wife, the former Helen Hanly, lived on South Greenfield Drive in Montauk. He was a building contractor and one of the original members of the Montauk Shores Condominium organization, established at what had been a disorganized trailer park at Ditch Plain.

He was born in Brooklyn on April 14, 1950, to Roland Stubbmann and the former Mae Zeikus. He attended school there, and in 1968 left for California, where he lived briefly in Solana Beach, a friend from the time, Hank Byzak, said.

Arriving in Montauk in the 1970s, Mr. Stubbmann was hired by the Montauk Yacht Club as a carpenter and built its boathouse and worked on the bar area. Later jobs for his company, R.W.S. Building, were from Montauk to Sagaponack, both new houses and renovations. Throughout his career, Mr. Stubbmann drew on his ability to design and draw projects from the ground up, his wife said.

Ms. Stubbmann described her husband as a gifted mechanic who could come up with a solution to any problem. He was known for his sense of humor, as someone who could always make his friends laugh.

He was a sailor as well, keeping a boat for many years and racing aboard George Martin’s Osprey in the Breakwater Yacht Club series in Sag Harbor.

In addition to his wife, a daughter, Allison Stubbmann of Brooklyn, survives, as does Mr. Stubbmann's sister, Catherine Siebers, also of Brooklyn. 

Mr. Stubbmann was cremated. Visiting hours were Jan. 26 from 10 a.m. to 1 p.m. at the Yardley and Pino Funeral Home in East Hampton, with a brief prayer service at 1.

Donations in his honor have been suggested to the Rell Sunn benefit surfing competition, P.O. Box 1746, Montauk 11954.

Debra Y. Daniels

Debra Y. Daniels

Jan. 15, 1953 - Jan. 12, 2018
By
Star Staff

Debra Yvonne Daniels, who was born in East Hampton on Jan. 15, 1953, one of four children of the former Stella Grace and Kenneth Reney, died at home in Sebastian, Fla., on Jan. 12. She had been ill with diabetes and was three days shy of her 65th birthday. 

She graduated from East Hampton High School in 1971 and a year later married Terry Daniels of Amagansett, who survives. The couple lived in East Hampton for several years before moving to Sebastian. While she was here, she worked at a grocery store in Bridgehampton. In Sebastian, Ms. Daniels was a cashier for 32 years at a Publix supermarket. 

She and her husband had two daughters, Jessica Daniels and Michelle Watford of Sebastian, both of whom survive, as do six granddaughters.

Her sister Darlene Snyder of East Hampton said that Ms. Daniels enjoyed traveling with her family and spending time with her granddaughters. Her other sister, Marilyn DeCosta of Sebastian, and a brother, Kenneth Reney Jr. of East Hampton, also survive.

A service was held at Seawinds Funeral Home in Sebastian, followed by burial at Sebastian Cemetery.

Wendy Armstrong

Wendy Armstrong

Dec. 11, 1956 - Nov. 22, 2017
By
Star Staff

Wendy Patrice Damark Armstrong died at home on Nov. 22, the day before Thanksgiving, of respiratory failure as the result of stage 4 cancer, which had been diagnosed in late August 2017. She was 61 years old.

Over the years, Ms. Armstrong worked at the Damark family deli on Three Mile Harbor Road in East Hampton. She eventually became the principal clerk-typist at the East Hampton Middle School, remaining in the job for the rest of her life.

She was born on Dec. 11, 1956, at Southampton Hospital, the only daughter of the five children of the former Irma Ann Hasselberger and Allen Damark. 

She grew up at her parents’ house on Maple Lane in East Hampton and attended Most Holy Trinity Catholic School for the early grades, graduating from East Hampton High School with the class of 1974. 

As a young woman in high school, Ms. Armstrong worked briefly at an East Hampton restaurant called Spring Close House and then, in the late 1970s, at Eastern Seafood, where the East Hampton restaurant Serafina is today.

Ms. Armstrong attended a junior college in Boston, considering a degree in architecture, but instead went to work as a travel agent, first with American Airlines in New York City and then with East Hampton Travel. It was one of her favorite jobs ever, her son Tyler, who survives, said. She helped her mother, Irma Damark, run Damark’s Deli until her brother Bruce Damark took charge.

At that point, she worked again briefly as a travel agent but given the effects of the internet took a job at the East Hampton Middle School, going from paraprofessional to principal clerk-typist, a level second only to principal, her son Tyler said. 

“She loved working in the office there with the principal, Charlie Soriano. She always enjoyed numbers and math, and working with all the kids there, who loved her immensely,” he said. Michel Wirth, a lifelong friend, said, “She had the ability to always root for the underdog and would take on the student that had been given up on.”

She and Grattan Vincent Armstrong, a custom carpenter, were married in the late 1970s. They went to live in Monterey, Calif., returning after 10 years to East Hampton, where they designed and built a house on Talkhouse Walk with the help of Ms. Armstrong’s brother Allen Damark and Forbes Riva, a friend. Mr. Armstrong died in 1993 and in 1998 she married Todd Cunningham. They separated in 2011.

Tyler Armstrong remembers his mother as a Cub Scout den leader and said that in addition to teaching and helping children she enjoyed photography, traveling, cooking, and going to the beach. He said she “loved my dad and my brother and me beyond what anyone could imagine. She was the best mom anyone could ask for.”

Another son, Evan Armstrong of Maryland, survives, as do four brothers, Allen Damark, Bruce Damark, and Brian Damark, all of East Hampton, and John Damark of New Orleans. Two nieces and two nephews survive as well.

The family received visitors at the Yardley and Pino Funeral Home in East Hampton the week after she died. They plan a memorial service in the spring or early summer. 

Memorial donations can be sent to the Wendy Armstrong Memorial Fund, c/o Alyson Rogoski, East Hampton Middle School 76 Newtown Lane, East Hampton 11937. Checks should be made out to Student Activities.

Dr. Huntington Sheldon, Doctor, Teacher, Racer, and Sheep Raiser

Dr. Huntington Sheldon, Doctor, Teacher, Racer, and Sheep Raiser

Jan. 4, 1930 - Dec. 29, 2017
By
Star Staff

Huntington Sheldon, who came to live in Amagansett in 1937 with his mother and siblings, died on Dec. 29 at home in Shelburne, Vt., after a brief illness, his family said. He was 87.

Dr. Sheldon was a professor and researcher at McGill University in Montreal and was a pioneer in the study of electron microscopy while working at the Karolinska Institute in Stockholm. 

In addition to his medical and teaching career, he was a coach for the Canadian cross-country ski  team in the Winter Olympics in Innsbruck in 1976 and Lake Placid in 1980, as well as a successful sail racer and competitive sheep breeder.

After retiring from McGill in 1985, he spent the next 25 years raising purebred Suffolk sheep. Amagansett remained his summer home throughout his life, and where he had begun raising sheep some years before with the help of Alan Walcott, who took care of the Sheldons’ grounds on Atlantic Avenue. With Mr. Walcott, he would show his sheep at the Eastern States Exposition in Springfield, Mass., winning best in show for many years running.

He was born on Jan. 4, 1930, in New York City to Magda M. and Huntington D. Sheldon. When he was 6, his father left the family, and he and his brother, Peter, and sister, Audrey, moved to a house that had been owned by Joshua B. Edwards on Atlantic Avenue. He remembered well being sent home from the Amagansett School on Sept. 21, 1938, as what would become known as the Great New England Hurricane raged around him, toppling trees. He went on to the East Hampton School and then to the Brooks School in Andover, Mass.

The Amagansett property was gradually added to and turned into a farm, where the family raised chickens, cows, goats, and kept ponies. Much later, in the 1970s, Dr. Sheldon had a seasonal you-pick strawberry operation there. He also planted mulberries, in order to grow leaves with which to feed silkworms that he kept for study of their silk in Montreal.

He received an undergraduate degree from McGill as a Markle Scholar and a medical degree from Johns Hopkins University in Baltimore. His medical residency was at Johns Hopkins in pathology.

His summers were always spent in Amagansett, where he had learned to sail as a child at the Devon Yacht Club. He continued gardening, turning a handful of fingerling potatoes he had been given by the chef Pierre Franey into a crop that in subsequent growing seasons was sold at the Barefoot Contessa shop in East Hampton Village.

“He loved that property beyond any other property,” his wife, Del Sheldon, said. “Amagansett meant more to him than anything other than his family.” Dr. Sheldon’s academic honors were many, including the Johns Hopkins Society of Scholars, Distinguished Alumnus, and Distinguished Medical Alumnus, and he was a founder of the Institute of Basic Biomedical Sciences there. He was named to the university’s board of trustees in 1995, a position he retained until the end of his life. He was also a 60-year member of the University Club of New York.

While living in Montreal, Dr. Sheldon enjoyed cross-country skiing in the Laurentian Mountains. He was president of the Viking Ski Club and chairman of the Canadian Ski Association. He raced as well, taking part in the Vasaloppet, Finlandia, and Birkebeiner competitions.

In Vermont, he was one of the region’s first certified organic farmers and was instrumental in forming the Charlotte Land Trust in the early 1990s.

He continued to sail nearly all his life. After his retirement, he competed in and several times was aboard winning boats in the Transatlantic, Fastnet, Newport to Bermuda, Middle Sea, and Sydney-Hobart races.

He also spent several summers cruising in the high latitudes of Scandinavia with his family, including a voyage above the Arctic Circle to Spitsbergen, Norway, in 1996. Dr. Sheldon was a member of the New York Yacht Club, the Royal Ocean Racing Club, and was an honorary commodore of the Royal Swedish Yacht Club.

In addition to his wife, he is survived by his daughters — Greta Sheldon of Venice, Calif., and Zoe Sheldon of Berkeley, Calif., and from an earlier marriage, Karan Sheldon of Milton, Mass., and Jennifer Sheldon of Bozeman, Mont., and eight grandchildren. His brother, who lives in Windham, Me., survives; his sister died in 1979.

A private burial will be held in the spring.

Memorial donations have been suggested to the Charlotte Land Trust, P.O. Box 43, Charlotte, Vt. 05445.

Peter Donohue, 68, Newspaper Veteran

Peter Donohue, 68, Newspaper Veteran

June 29, 1949 - Jan. 18, 2018
By
Star Staff

Peter Donohue began a lengthy career in newspapers in the early 1970s at The New York Daily News. In 1982, when USA Today launched, he became general manager of the New York region and was credited with implementing daily deliveries to hotel rooms. He retired in 2008 and moved to Sag Harbor the following year, after briefly teaching management at Nassau Community College.

Mr. Donohue died last Thursday at Stony Brook Southampton Hospital of complications of throat and neck cancer. He was 68.

Mr. Donohue was born on June 29, 1949, in Flushing to Peter and Rita Donohue. His father had also worked at The New York Daily News. The younger Mr. Donohue attended St. Andrew Avellino Elementary School and graduated from the Cathedral Preparatory School and Seminary, a private Catholic high school in Elmhurst, where he played on the varsity baseball team. After high school he went to Iona College, where he was an avid sports fan and played collegiate hockey, earning the nickname Glider. He graduated from Iona in 1973 with a business degree,  following it with a master’s degree from Fordham University. 

Mr. Donohue and Lynn A. Daly were married on Dec. 11, 1996, and lived in Centre Island. The family included the couple’s sons, Peter and Brendon, and two children from Ms. Donohue’s previous marriage — a daughter, Jocelyn Daly, and her twin brother, Sean Daly.

Mr. Donohue was known to attack the Newsday crossword puzzle daily and the New York Times puzzle on Sundays, as well as  watching the television show “Jeopardy” every evening at 7. According to his family, he had a broad smile and easygoing personality, and was an enthusiastic golfer, a sport that became his passion.

A devout Catholic and a member of St. Andrew’s Catholic Church in Sag Harbor, a funeral Mass was said for him there on Monday. He is survived by his wife, who lives in Sag Harbor, his sons, Peter Donohue and Brendon Donohue, both of Brooklyn, his stepdaughter, Jocelyn Daly Osborn of Wainscott, and his stepson, Sean Daly of Hampton Bays, as well as two grandchildren.

Memorial donations have been suggested to the Cancer Research Institute, 29 Broadway, 4th Floor, New York 10006.

Barbara Jean LaGarenne, 85

Barbara Jean LaGarenne, 85

Sept. 13, 1932 - Dec. 09, 2017
By
Star Staff

Barbara Jean LaGarenne, who had a long nursing career, died of congestive heart failure on Dec. 9 at her son’s home in Washington, N.J. She was 85 and had Alzheimer’s disease for several years.

Ms. LaGarenne, who became a full-time resident of Amagansett in the 1980s, loved caring for and speaking with people, her family said, adding that people were drawn to her compassion and generosity. 

She was born in Windsor, N.C., on Sept. 13, 1932, to Clarence Phelps and the former Annie Sue Lawrence. She grew up there and graduated from Windsor High School in 1950 before attending East Carolina University. 

She and Harold LaGarenne, a Brooklyn native and New York City transit police officer, were married on March 9, 1953. The couple summered in Amagansett until becoming year-round residents. They had been married for 53 years when Mr. LaGarenne, who was known as Harry, died in 2006. 

Living in Brooklyn, Ms. LaGarenne continued studying at Kingsborough Community College, from which she received her nursing degree, and at Hunter College in Manhattan, where she earned additional nursing credits. She worked at Kings Highway Hospital in Brooklyn for 10 years, going on in 1984 to work at Southampton Hospital for 10 years. After retiring, Ms. LaGarenne continued to work as a private nurse, caregiver, and companion. 

Ms. LaGarenne enjoyed reading, and she solved the New York Times crossword puzzle every Sunday, her family said. She also liked to clam (with her toes, her family said), and to go bowling. They added that she “sang beautifully and played a mean ukulele,” often gathering her sons, along with their wives, children, cousins, and friends, around a bonfire on Napeague to sing. 

Ms. LaGarenne’s six sons survive her. They are Harold LaGarenne of Montauk, Thomas LaGarenne and William LaGarenne of Washington, N.J., Robert LaGarenne of Tamarac, Fla., James LaGarenne of East Hampton, and Glenn LaGarenne of Dayton, N.J. Twelve grandchildren and nine great-grandchildren also survive, as do four daughters-in-law, with whom she was close. A sister, Sissy Crisci of Connecticut, also survives. Four siblings died before her. 

Ms. LaGarenne was cremated and her ashes buried beside Mr. LaGarenne’s at Calverton National Cemetery on Jan. 6. A service and celebration of her life will be held on March 10 at 10:30 a.m. at St. Michael’s Lutheran Church in Amagansett, the Rev. George Dietrich presiding.

Across Boundaries of Sound

Across Boundaries of Sound

Naama Tsabar’s “Work on Felt (Variation 17) Burgundy,” from 2017, near, and “Work on Felt (Variation 19) Midnight,” from this year, are on view at the Fireplace Project through Sunday.
Naama Tsabar’s “Work on Felt (Variation 17) Burgundy,” from 2017, near, and “Work on Felt (Variation 19) Midnight,” from this year, are on view at the Fireplace Project through Sunday.
Naama Tsabar at Fireplace Project
By
Jennifer Landes

Naama Tsabar’s carbon fiber felt pieces have a visual resonance that alone would suffice in deeming them worthy art objects. But viewing the pieces merely as cut and manipulated colorful felt sculptures, shaped and complemented by piano string, would ignore at least 50 percent, if not more, of the work’s content.

The fact is, the Israeli-born artist’s felt works, “Transition” pieces, and dismembered guitar pieces are most fully realized when the artist herself is manipulating their aural qualities, plucking the strings, tapping the surface of the miked felt pieces, and otherwise interacting with them physically.

In her “Transboundary #2” installation at the Fireplace Project in Springs, the three felt works, preparatory drawings, guitar piece, and “Transition” wall sculpture lack her presence, but still offer viewers a chance to interact with them, and to create their own performance art in the process. 

A wine-colored felt piece with a slice one-third up the sculpture and about halfway into it has a piano string mounted in that lower third, which appears to pull the end of the piece inward to create a taut curve. Inside, she has planted tiny microphones. They attach to an amplifier placed nearby. It broadcasts the sound created when the surface is tapped or beaten like a bongo. The string can be plucked, strummed, or rubbed with a bow or other object along its length to create different tones.

The two other felt pieces sharing space in this gallery do very much the same in different colors, different slices, and different configurations and forms. Their tones and ranges are also quite different.

In these works, Ms. Tsabar uses multiple layers of felt to create varied thicknesses. Into these layers she introduces sheets of carbon fiber and epoxy to give them their stiff structure. The result is a strong and durable sculpture with a lovely tactile surface. 

Given her training and M.F.A. from Columbia University, the obvious allusions to Joseph Beuys, Lucio Fontana, Barry Le Va, and Robert Morris are all valid. Yet she approaches her work from a feminine perspective, creating curves from hard edges, and removes them from a hierarchical context so that anyone can approach, touch, and even “play” them. Indeed, that must happen in order for the works to be fully realized.

The same motivation is evident in her “Transition” and broken guitar work in the other gallery. Ms. Tsabar was a punk rock musician and bartender. As such she witnessed nightly how gender roles played out in both occupations. With “Melody of Certain Damage #1,” she bolts portions of a broken electric guitar to the floor some six feet apart and stretches long strings between them along with a microphone. Included in the piece is usually an amplifier. In this installation, she has connected it instead to one of her “Transition” pieces, constructed of wood, canvas, and deconstructed amplifier parts that she has artfully reassembled to produce sound.

Her easy way with the hardware and technical aspects of making these pieces functional is enough to make them worth noticing. Yet adding to their practicality is the wholly original approach she takes in blowing up the stereotypes associated with guitars and rock music. As one grasps the sophistication of their inner workings, they seem at once superficially easy and exceedingly complex.

Rounding out the show is a series of white preparatory “drawings” that function more as paper maquettes. On their own, they might appear rather basic and bland: white paper with thread on a white wall. In this context, however, they gain architectural importance and seem like structures not too far removed from an Alice Aycock sculpture.

Ms. Tsabar’s career has taken off quite a bit in the past couple of years, and this year alone she has had six solo exhibitions, with an acclaimed stint in Basel, Switzerland, in the spring. It is well worth taking in this intimate view of her work right in our backyard that offers a chance to say you knew her when.

The exhibition is open through Sunday.