Before going home for the night, Kevin Penner, the executive chef at Della Femina in East Hampton, served the evening's last meal - a simple feast of porcini mushrooms - to fresh snails just in from the Pacific Northwest. The snails were for the next day's menu, as were the wild Scottish red partridge he would spend Saturday afternoon checking over for buckshot.

Each week, sometimes daily, he transforms his menu in some way. Ingredients are ordered from around the world - bay scallops from Nantucket, fish from Seattle, game birds from Scotland - but always with an eye to creating dishes that reflect and complement the season.

"There are all these chefs looking at their menus and wonder ing why they can't buy nice tomatoes in November," Mr. Pen ner said. He believes it takes more than that to elevate a menu.

He never studied at a culinary institute, yet he has cooked his way to head one of the most highly touted restaurants on the South Fork.

"My career wasn't mapped out at all," he said, looking back on his days at the University of Iowa when he planned to pursue a Ph.D in philosophy and thought, perhaps, that cooking was just a way to pay tuition.

While turning out 1,700 to 2,100 dinners a week in the summer is probably more stressful than academia, he acknowledges that in many respects cooking is an intellectual endeavor. "There is a rationale in the way a menu is constructed, a logic in the preparations of food."

When he first began at Della Femina in 1992 as the chef de cuisine, he said, most of the restaurants in the area had the same menu - "a bastardized version of Tuscan cuisine, unfortunately all prepared the same way."

Items that are fairly standard in many restaurants like veal chops and chicken don't appeal to him and rarely have a place on his menus. Since moving into the position of executive chef last year, he has also cut down on the role of pasta at the restaurant.

"The whole point is to expose people to a wider variety of foodstuff," he said. He often gives diners a chance to try more unusual fare like squab, rabbit, or antelope. International ingredients notwithstanding, he describes his creations as contemporary American with influences from around the world.

"I'm American," he said. "I'm interested in preparing American food." To him that's anything but restricting.

"You have to tread the line between educating the dining public and running a business," he said. In his current position, his responsibilities extend beyond the kitchen. Ultimately he is responsible for the reputation and financial performance of the restaurant, and this year both look quite good. He's not a chef looking to open a restaurant of his own. In fact, "for the time being plus," he's looking to help open some more Della Femina's in Manhattan and perhaps elsewhere.

His appreciation for a fine meal began when growing up in Iowa, where each night his family sat down and ate together and on Sunday afternoon had a virtual feast.

"American families rarely do that now," he said, guessing the change has contributed to the rise in popularity of eating out. "Before, going out to eat was to celebrate, now it is a recreational activity."

"A lot of people come here just to feed. They tell you what they want, ask you to change your dishes," he said. In his three-star kitchen, Mr. Penner has prepared grilled cheese and hot dogs for children, made simple pasta with garlic and olive oil, and heated babies' milk bottles, when asked. He says he doesn't have a problem doing special orders or substituting one thing for another on a plate, but it "isn't very rewarding on an intellectual or artistic level."

"To see dining as recreation, you have to view it like theater. When you go, you don't request the director change the script. . . . You see people who want to be blown away and people who just want to drop food into their stomachs."

When a meal is an occasion, however, he feels people appreciate it more. His advice: Apply some sense of aestheticism, instead of asceticism. It's a potential work of art, enjoy it for that.

"A lot of places are facilities rather than restaurants," he said. Like a director, Mr. Penner has won critical acclaim for his creations, but the many returning faces in the dining room are the best compliments.

Grilled Hudson Valley Foie Gras

Ingredients:

1 foie gras, grade "A" (occasionally available locally at the Red Horse Market or by special order through D'Artag non, 1-800-327-8246)

6 Bosc pears, fully ripe, peeled, cored, and rubbed with lemon

3 cups dry white wine

3 cups water

2 cinnamon sticks

2 oranges, zest only

6 allspice berries, crushed

Ginger Sauce and Prunes

2 Tbsp. sugar

2 Tbsp. apple cider vinegar

2 cups strong veal stock

1 Tbsp. freshly minced ginger

4 allspice berries, crushed

6prunes, preferable Agen, or domestic, pitted

Method:

1. Remove foie gras from its package. Carefully separate the two lobes. Remove the fat and any loose veins from each lobe. Slice six 3-ounce pieces and score in a cross pattern with a warm wet knife. Place on a plate, cover with plastic wrap, and keep cold until needed.

2. Bring the water, wine, cinnamon, orange zest, and allspice to a boil. Place the pears in the liquid and poach at a simmer, until done or until a knife is easily inserted.

3. Drain the pears and puree in a blender or food processor until very smooth, adding a little poaching liquid if necessary. Set aside and keep warm.

4. Ginger sauce and prunes: Combine the sugar with just enough water to form a paste in a heavy saucepan. Cook until it reaches a light amber color. Deglaze with the vinegar and reduce by 30 percent. Add the veal stock, allspice, and ginger and reduce until sauce coats the back of a spoon. Strain sauce and keep warm on the side. Place the prunes in the sauce.

5. Prepare a charcoal grill or preheat a kitchen grill until very hot. Salt and pepper the foie gras to taste and grill 11/2 to 2 minutes. The process is smoky and you may have to move the foie gras around on the grill to keep flames from getting too hot. Turn it over and grill for the same amount of time on the other side. It is done when soft to the touch. Remove from grill and keep warm.

6. Spoon a dollop of pear puree onto six warm plates. Return the sauce to heat and bring to simmer. Place one piece of foie gras onto pear puree on each plate, top with a prune, and spoon the sauce over top. If any fat from the foie gras accumulates on the plate, drizzle it onto each serving.

Serves six.

When Luis Chiappe looks out his windows in Sag Harbor and sees seagulls swirling around the dock and honking geese heading south over the water, he sees dinosaurs. When he peers from his office window at the American Museum of Natural History in New York and sees pigeons nesting on the sills, he sees dinosaurs.

That's right: dinosaurs, not just birds. Mr. Chiappe (pronounced key-AP-pay) is a paleontologist, a man very much in the forefront of paleo-ornithology, the study of ancient birds, one of the hottest topics in the natural sciences today. In recent months and weeks, his discoveries and his work to prove that birds are the collateral descendants of the largest creatures ever to roam the earth have been featured in National Geographic magazine, on the front page of The New York Times, in numerous science and nature-related publications, and on the World Wide Web.

"An amazing amount of new information exists that is important to the understanding of the origin of birds and their evolution," said Mr. Chiappe, a research associate in the museum's departments of paleontology and ornithology. "In the last five years, we've found more species of primitive birds - and named and studied them - than in the past 150 years."

Just Small Dinosaurs

And, he, said, in confirmation of his conviction that "birds are just small, short-tailed, and feathered dinosaurs," he and his colleagues must figure out how all these species are related in order to structure new hypotheses about the origin of flight and the evolution of warm-bloodedness and feathers.

The search for the dinosaur-bird link has taken Mr. Chiappe around the world - to Mongolia and its vast Gobi Desert, China, Madagascar, Spain and other areas of Europe, around North America, and to South America.

"The oldest dinosaur we know of," he said, "is 220 million years old, while the oldest bird, Archaeopteryx, whose fossil remains were discovered in Germany, lived 150 million years ago."

He suspects, due to the emphasis on and popularity of his subject and because "funding for research tends to be more forthcoming with hot topics," that the next few years will see more breakthroughs in this area of paleontology, "that discoveries, research, and the resulting knowledge will add another 30 million years to the age of the oldest bird fossil."

Origins Of Flight

The goals of his work, Mr. Chiappe said, are the answers to numerous theories, ranging from "Are birds really dinosaurs?" to "How flight was achieved (from the ground up or from trees down?), how old feathers are, and where did feathers come from."

Of course, like all serious scientists in this arcane domain, he must rely on the fossil record for his studies, his hypotheses, and his conclusions. "Since flight did not fossilize," he pointed out, "flight becomes the most difficult issue to embrace."

His own suspicions are that it was achieved neither from the ground up, against gravity, nor from the trees down, but rather over time "from creatures which ran down slopes, jumped from rocks, and glided."

Native Of Argentina

Mr. Chiappe, at 34, is a tall, athletic, bearded man of easy manner and the precise diction - with the accent of his native Spanish - of a university professor. He was born and reared in Buenos Aires, Argentina. His childhood interest in animals led him to study paleobiology at the University of Buenos Aires, and his first field of choice was the evolution of humans.

His work to prove that birds are the collateral descendants of the largest creatures ever to roam the earth has been featured in National Geographic magazine and on the front page of The New York Times.

As that particular area of research is played out mainly in Africa, and because funding for trips there was hard to come by, he initially concentrated on fossils of the Argentine type - specifically, crocodiles.

For his Ph.D., however, he switched to birds "because few people were involved with them and because bird fossils were available in Argentina." His doctorate was concentrated on the Mesozoic birds of South America, those from the era of "the big dinosaurs," 70 to 80 million years ago.

Greatest Adventure

After a research stint with the Argentine Museum of Natural Sciences in Buenos Aires, Mr. Chiappe won a fellowship at New York's Museum of Natural History. He has been conducting research there and in the field for nearly five years, currently with funding from the museum and from the Guggenheim Foundation.

It was in the field - the Gobi Desert - in 1993, that he had perhaps his most publicized find and certainly his greatest adventure.

On a joint expedition sponsored by the Mongolian Academy of Sciences and his own workplace - to Ukhaa Tolgod, a valley in southern Mongolia - Mr. Chiappe badly burned his foot with boiling water at the campsite, so severely that he could not join his team on its hikes and searches for dinosaur bones.

"There was talk of evacuating me," he said, remembering how, because the group had no antibiotics, because the nearest "town" was a four-day drive away, he nursed the ensuing infection "with peroxide, unable to walk for three weeks, expecting to lose my foot."

Intact Oviraptor

Since he could not hike far enough to join the major dig, when he could walk again he helped to excavate a dune close to the camp. The result was the discovery of a very well-preserved, by sandstorms, Oviraptor nesting on "about 23 eggs, much as a pigeon does today."

Oviraptor (meaning "egg thief") was a small, toothless, carnivorous dinosaur of the Cretaceous period (144 through 66 million years ago), in appearance a bit like a modern ostrich. The fact that it was unearthed intact, its arms protecting its unhatched eggs, gave credence to the theory of birdlike characteristics of some dinosaurs and further proof to the dinosaur-bird link.

Mr. Chiappe recovered from his injured foot, but he reflected that "there are few places left that are so wild, and it was interesting to glimpse what life must have been like before antibiotics!" The Oviraptor fossils are on loan from Mongolia to the Museum of Natural History and are still being studied.

Most Important Work

While he describes all his, and others', research and findings - no matter how small, however time-consuming - as "significant to the cause of learning more about where birds came from so we can learn where they are going," he considers his most important work to be with Mononykus, a turkey-sized ancient bird with two powerful claws in place of wings.

He described Mononykus, which lived some 75 million years ago, as a "primitive, bizarre, dinosauran creature whose importance lies in its placement in the lineage of bird evolution."

It is closer to modern birds, he said, than Archaeopteryx, but probably not a direct ancestor of today's avians. Its claws rule out the direct link, but "certainly," he said, "it is an intermediary which has a lot to do with the origins of birds because it had crossed the line from dinosaurs."

Off To Patagonia

Asked why he thought dinosaurs might have evolved into things that fly, Mr. Chiappe said that evolution is an "open door that goes in many directions." Flying, he reminded, is "a way of locomotion, of fleeing predators, of crossing oceans and deserts. You can move pretty fast if you fly!"

He is not surprised that evolution has shaped flight in a number of different groups of animals, and he pointed to insects, of which millions of species are known today, and to bats, which make up some 800 of the 4,000 to 5,000 species of known mammals. And he said there are about 10,000 species of birds, or about 25 percent of all vertebrates, "more than anything that is not fish, so they should be of interest."

Mr. Chiappe moves pretty fast, too, even without wings of his own. This week, having spent a "week writing and relaxing" in his Sag Harbor house, he leaves for a month in Argentina - a field trip of sorts, to Patagonia.

Writing A Book

Earlier this year, he boarded the Trans Siberian Express for a 6,000-mile railway journey from Beijing to Moscow on which he lectured passengers about, naturally, birds. A down-to-earth birdman, he frequently writes for such magazines as Natural History, Nature, and Science. And he currently is writing a technical book about the evolution of birds. And planning another trip to the Gobi.

"I'm a little bit all spread out," Mr. Chiappe said with a laugh, "as the relationship between dinosaurs and birds comes from everywhere. But in my work," he said, quoting Emily Dickinson, "hope is the thing with feathers."

When Michael Corrente's screen version of David Mamet's "American Buffalo" comes to the Sag Harbor Cinema tomorrow, it will, in a sense, have traveled full circle.

Back in 1988, Mr. Corrente, who was a theater director for over a decade before breaking into film, wanted to produce "American Buffalo" on the stage at the Sag Harbor Cinema. Yes, there is a stage there, and this would have been the first live theater to grace it.

The plan didn't come to pass. But six years later, the Sag Harbor director got a chance to put his mark on the play in a different medium.

Mamet's Influence

David Mamet's "American Buffalo," the verbally charged story of Donny, a junk shop owner planning a big heist with the assistance of his young gofer-surrogate son, Bobby, and "Teach," a poker buddy who wants to cut Bobby out of the action, had deeply influenced Mr. Corrente. Were it not for Mr. Mamet's play, Mr. Corrente said, he might never have been inspired to turn his own one-act play into the full-length film "Federal Hill."

But he did, directing as well as writing his first feature film, and it was screened at the 1994 Hamptons International Film Festival. A hard-edged coming-of-age movie set in the Italian section of Providence, R.I., "Federal Hill" is shot in black and white.

After the screening, the producer Gregory Mosher came up to Mr. Corrente to say how much he had enjoyed it. And at a party later, Mr. Corrente talked with Mr. Mosher, a longtime collaborator with Mr. Mamet, about "American Buffalo." There had been discussion of turning it into a screenplay for quite some time.

No Kidding

When Mr. Corrente told Mr. Mosher how important the play had been to him, the producer suggested he direct the film. Although no stranger to Mr. Mamet's work, Mr. Corrente was so new to film he "absolutely thought Mosher was joking," he said.

At the party promises were made - a phone call and a meeting with Mr. Mamet after the festival - but still, Mr. Corrente doubted there would be a follow-up.

"Sure enough he called," Mr. Corrente said. A meeting with Mr. Mamet was arranged and the two "got along like gangbusters."

Mr. Corrente would direct, Mr. Mosher would produce, and John Sloss would be the executive producer. The film was produced in association with Dustin Hoffman and Murray Schisgal's company, Punch Productions, and much of the production crew from "Federal Hill" was tapped for "American Buffalo."

Trio Of Stars

Before long an impressive trio of actors was assembled. The Academy Award-winning Mr. Hoffman would star as Teach, with Dennis Franz, a Golden Globe and Emmy Award winner as Donny, and young Sean Nelson, who had starred in the stirring independent film "Fresh" when he was just 12, as Bobby.

Production information reveals that Mr. Hoffman, having just finished "Outbreak," at first turned down the starring role. But the young director wouldn't take no for an answer. He went to Mr. Hoffman to make a passionate pitch for what he saw as one of the three greatest male roles in American theater. It worked.

Mr. Franz, who stars in the Emmy-winning television series "N.Y.P.D. Blue," came on board shortly after. As a former stage actor and a friend and admirer of Mr. Mamet, he was anxious to work on "American Buffalo." The producer and director worked the shooting around his break from the TV series.

As for Sean Nelson, he so impressed the two that they gave the 15-year-old the part usually played by an actor in his 20s.

The film premiered in New York in September.

"I feel very fortunate to be dubbed the guy to direct 'American Buffalo,'" Mr. Corrente said Monday, of working with such big names of the stage and screen for his second-ever feature film.

"And here it is, back in Sag Harbor," he said.

Every Friday morning since the beginning of the 1980s, the Sixty Plus Club's painting group has met at the East Hampton Town Senior Citizens Center. Last weekend it held a well-attended two-day exhibit of some of its members' achievements.

Perhaps the one quality of the show that stood out was its youthful exuberance and spontaneity. These artists seem willing to take on just about any subject or media, jumping from landscapes to portraits to still lifes, from abstraction to realism to collage. There were even two sculpture entries, from Helen Lowry and Maria Ludwig.

Wandering around Guild Hall's large gallery, there was almost too much to absorb. But there were some entries that just grabbed you by the ear and made you take a second look, like Esther Berlin's masterly collage "New York Times Review."

Flowing Collage

Ms. Berlin had a number of bright, colorful collages, but this one, with its swirling, flowing composition of decoupage, feathers, fibers, and acrylics in tones of blues and blacks with a touch of red, was full of motion but totally in control.

Jeanette Molloy had an interesting range of work, covering the spectrum from Oriental patterns to watercolors of glassware, with the provenance of each piece identified in writing.

But there was no getting away from the star of her collection, a spectacular watercolor, "Tulips," which spins outward from the center of the canvas in an explosion of red, yellow, pink, and orange blossoms against a background of intricate mauve and blue fabrics.

Bold "Barn"

Some of Barbara Bonaventura's watercolors are a little inhibited, but two are notable for their spontaneity and bold use of color: "Red Barn," with its lavish, well-controlled reds and browns, and "Charles Bridge," a nicely atmospheric sunset.

Another artist who has a good hand with color is Beverly George, whose impressionistic "Garden by the Sea," where a woman stands in long grass scattered with poppies, is the very essence of a summer afternoon.

Then there were Marj Rooney's cynical, quizzical ducks, Ms. Ludwig's and Bernice Andeus's elegant black and white landscapes, and Charles Singer's whimsical Swiss cow with a watchface hanging from its neck instead of a cowbell.

But without doubt the most interesting paintings in the show are by Elizabeth Sonnanburg, because they act as a history of the accomplishments of the artists in this group.

At first glance, you feel sure the Sonnanburg paintings must be the work of two separate people. How could that wobbly windmill with the brilliant green grass possibly be painted by the same artist as "Fall Harvest," a beautifully composed, professionally rendered still life of vegetables, or "Rhythmic Branches," a masterly rendition of leaves without a wasted brush stroke?

But then you look at the dates and realize that the less skillful works date from the early 1980s, when she must have just been starting out, while the others were painted recently.

Where artists with bigger egos would have shown only their best work, Ms. Sonnanburg has let us see every step along the road to becoming a really competent artist. Good for her!

The Joy Of Working

There was also work - some farther along the road than others, but all equally heartfelt - from Vivian Moss, Helen L. Petersen, Thelma L. Callahan, Ed Butler, and Arlene Coulter.

It was good of Guild Hall to give this group of senior citizens a platform to show their work, even if it was just for two days. But one gets the impression that shows and platforms don't really matter that much to them - they're all going to go on painting anyway.

To quote from Rudyard Kipling's aptly named poem "When Earth's Last Picture Is Painted": "And no one shall work for money, and no one shall work for fame,/ But each for the joy of working."

In the midst of moving, Bill Tarr wishes he might have done it the way Picasso did - simply walking away when the house became filled with artwork and going to live in another place.

Instead, Mr. Tarr and his wife, Yvonne Young Tarr, are loading several vans and a large flatbed truck with their accumulated goods and lives' work, and taking it all with them to a new house in Sarasota, Fla.

Just days ago, some of Mr. Tarr's large wood and metal sculptures towered in their Fireplace Road, Springs, yard. His studio contained more, plus numerous paintings and maquettes, and Mrs. Tarr's own studio was filled with notes and recipes from the 23 cookbooks she has written, as well as recently created photo-collages.

Turn And Look

Now, as they prepare to leave their house on the edge of Accabonac Harbor, the sculptures lie piled like puzzle pieces atop the flatbed, girded by hay bales and tires, in what promises to be a look-again highway sight.

Twenty years ago the Tarrs, then living with their sons Nick and John in a SoHo studio, were invited by a friend to stay for the summer in his historic farmhouse, once the home of George Sid Miller. After a second Springs summer, they bought a house across Fireplace Road, another Miller family house.

"I always regretted the fact that I didn't discover East Hampton sooner," said Mr. Tarr, who left a job in advertising and publishing to pursue his heart's work, sculpture, full time.

Dr. King Sculpture

Mrs. Tarr was a fabric-collage artist and playwright, the author of a prizewinning work called "Clap Hands Till Daddy Comes Home" and of "Decameron Nights," which was produced Off-Broadway in 1960.

Both found inspiration in their new house's view of wetlands, islands, and beaches, and in friendships with such neighbors as Willem and Elaine de Kooning and Ibram and Ernestine Lassaw.

Mr. Tarr used the cavernous space in his potato-barn-turned-studio to paint and to weld steel. His tribute to Martin Luther King, which, at 120 feet in girth, is one of the largest welded-steel pieces in the United States, if not the world, took almost five years to make.

It was erected on the grounds of the high school named for Dr. King, near Lincoln Center, in 1973, and was soon afterward declared the "best monument in New York City" by New York magazine.

"Morningside Heights"

Another massive Tarr sculpture, "Morningside Heights," achieved questionable renown when it rusted prematurely and dangerously and had to be removed from its Amsterdam Avenue and 123rd Street site.

The quality of the steel was "not consistent" with what U.S. Steel, the manufacturer, claimed of it, said Mr. Tarr, though U.S. Steel ran a picture of the sculpture on the cover of its 1967 annual report.

The rusty-brown "Morningside Heights," a playful piece adorned with alphabet-block letters, has lain alongside the Tarrs' driveway since its recall. Mr. Tarr wanted to rebuild it in aluminum but could not interest an aluminum company in the project.

Holocaust Museum

The sculptor's best-known work is probably "The Gates of the Six Million," for the Holocaust Museum in Washington, D.C. The project began 25 years ago with a model called "The Gates of Hell," which was purchased by William Mazer.

Many years later, James Ingo Freed, the museum's architect, saw it in Mr. Mazer's East Hampton house. Mr. Freed had a similar vision of sculpted gates, Mr. Tarr said, and he was commissioned to create it.

His latest metal work, "Broken Victory," is a 3,650-pound bronze memorial to Vietnam War veterans who, Mr. Tarr feels, have not gotten the recognition they deserve. He hopes the piece, which is now headed to Florida, will be bought by a town or village and stand someday as its memorial to its Vietnam veterans.

Carved From Tree Trunks

Downed trees - willow, maple, and walnut - brought to Mr. Tarr's studio by friends, form the core of his wood sculptures. "I was basically a welder, then guys started bringing me these trees," he said. "There was something interesting and mysterious about them."

The carved trunk forms, which look like exaggerated super-versions of themselves, display black pen-and-ink-like lines formed by spalting, a cracking process that occurs when the wood begins to rot.

"The deeper you get into the wood, the more you see. When you work that intimately with something, you see it in a new light," said the you see it in a new light," said the sculptor.

Like their parents, the Tarrs' two sons are both in creative fields. John is a writer who lives in Connecticut. Nick, who lives in Springs, creates boxed sculptures containing mysterious worlds. He "really has all the characteristics I think an artist should have," said his father.

"Now You See It"

Sculpture is not Mr. Tarr's only area of expertise. He is also a magician, a master of sleight-of-hand since the age of 9 and the author of four books on the subject. "I joined the Boy Scouts just to give a magic show," he said.

"Now You See It, Now You Don't: Lessons in Sleight of Hand," is a best-selling two-volume set credited with inspiring many young magicians. Following "101 Classic Magic Tricks You Can Do," his soon-to-be-published fourth book, "Bill Tarr: A Retrospective," is "all pure magic," he said.

Yvonne Tarr, for her part, grew up in Pennsylvania, where she learned about cooking, gardening, and other homestead chores. She "loves to cook and eat," she said.

Last-Minute Guest

One night, when friends brought unexpected guests to a dinner party, she whipped up a complete extra meal to feed them. One of them was the publisher Lyle Stuart, who was sufficiently impressed with his last-minute dinner that he asked her to "write it up."

Thus was born "The 10-Minute Gourmet Cookbook," which was followed by "The 10-Minute Gourmet Diet Cookbook," because, Mrs. Tarr said, "It's always natural to think of a low-calorie way to do it."

"The Complete Outdoor Cookbook" and a book of fish recipes grew out of the Tarr family's camping and fishing experiences at upstate Lake George and in the Caribbean.

"The Tomato Book"

Mrs. Tarr tended a big vegetable garden in a sunny spot between the family house and Accabonac Harbor, where she grew vast numbers and varieties of tomatoes. "The Tomato Book" catalogued uses for them.

It was illustrated with etchings and drawings from old seed catalogues and newspapers she had collected, from Civil War times to World War II, in what she smilingly called the Yvonne Young Tarr Turn-of-the-Century Archive.

More of the old-fashioned and homespun is contained in Mrs. Tarr's "The Up-With-Wholesome, Down-With-Store-Bought Book of Recipes and Household Formulas," which includes instructions for raising livestock as well as recipes and formulas for homemade cheese, beer, sausage, household cleaners, and natural cosmetics.

Paper Collage

Mrs. Tarr's friendship with Herb Nagourney, then of The New York Times, led to several more books, including "The New York Times Bread and Soup Cookbook," which, Mrs. Tarr said, editors initially rejected as a "Depression-era" idea, but which was popular with cooks.

A book called "That's Entertaining," for which Mrs. Tarr did the styling, design, and photographs (of picnic repasts at Town Pond and outdoor table settings in her own backyard) led her to explore photography in more depth and to revisit the art of collage.

"Four or five years ago, I said, 'No more cookbooks for a while.'"

Paper collages, on which she paints, and collages made from old family photos found when packing up her mother's belongings, are her latest endeavors.

At The Benson

"I love being an artist," she said, "because all these years I've had artists around me saying, 'I'm creating,' and I was just working for a living."

Actually, Mrs. Tarr has worked on a number of artistic projects over the years, "intensely, for short spurts." She has made jewelry of crystal and stones that she describes as "luscious" and "very ethereal," some of which she has kept, and some which has sold.

Seven or eight of her collages will be included in a show next May at the Elaine Benson Gallery in Bridgehampton. Encouraged by friends to show her work to Ms. Benson, she hesitated, but finally did, whereupon the gallery owner asked if she would mind showing her pieces in an exhibit of "emerging artists."

Mrs. Tarr was delighted. "That's sort of what I am," she said.

A New Landscape

She is hoping to corner a small space in her husband's new studio, which was bought, along with the house, from a relocating Florida sculptor.

Both artists will, as Mr. Tarr said, "try to get as quickly as possible into the same groove" in Sarasota.

"It's so hard to leave in the fall, when it's so beautiful," said Mr. Tarr. "We wish at least there were a frost."

And though both love and will miss the Accabonac landscape, "We'll be looking at the live oaks," said Mrs. Tarr - "different, but beautiful."

The candidates for East Hampton Town Trustee, Lisa Stewart, the Democrat, and Joe Holmes, the Republican, are vying for the unexpired term of the late Gordon Vorpahl. In spite of some petty politicking by others, they have proved themselves sensible, down-to-earth candidates.

They take the role of the Town Trustees seriously and would work hard to protect it. Both understand that the Trustees have a remarkable opportunity to help preserve the East Hampton they have known and both would seem to be able to work without partisan concerns.

They agree on most issues. Both support a strong role for the Trustees in the Local Waterfront Revitalization Plan and in any environmental review affecting beaches and waterways, in guaranteeing public access to beaches and waterways, and in maintaining the Trustees' authority before the State Department of Environmental Conservation. Both support no-discharge zones, the seeding efforts of the Town Shellfish Hatchery, and dual review, by the Trustees and the Town Zoning Board of Appeals, of waterfront applications.

Neither supports a totally unregulated fishery, carte blanche beach driving rights, or a laissez-faire approach to aquaculture on public bottomland, although Ms. Stewart seemed somewhat more enthusiastic about the future of the latter. An organizer of the Boys Harbor fireworks in Three Mile Harbor for years, she supports the event; Mr. Holmes, who said it has polluted the harbor, said he had seen an improvement and was no longer opposed.

We believe whichever candidate wins will do well in office, although we think Ms. Stewart has the edge for being the more analytical of the pair. Whoever loses should continue, as both do now, to attend Trustee meetings and should run for a Trustees' seat the next time around.

We've said it before: A State Supreme Court justice who runs on the Right-to-Life ticket essentially pledges allegiance to a belief not acknowledged by current law but that may nevertheless color the justice's vision.

After eliminating those with Right-to-Life endorsement, we have, in all honesty, no basis for endorsing seven of the 11 in the remaining pool of candidates.

For County Court judge, we have three candidates for two seats after eliminating, again, the Right-to-Lifers. Intuition steers us to Stephen A. Grossman, who comes from our own hometown, and William De Vore, who, like Mr. Grossman, is a Democrat and Independence Party candidate. (The third candidate is Louis J. Ohlig, a Republican and Conservative who also has a Property Tax Cut endorsement.)

The election of judges is calculated, if anything is, to make cynics of voters. Reform has been urged for decades, but cronyism continues to hold sway.

Melissa A. Walton is the surprise of the local election this year. Those who knew her before she stepped up to bat against one of the most popular legislators to come out of the East End since former State Assemblyman John Behan didn't prepare the public for what was in store.

Here is a woman who is tough, idealistic, calm under pressure, and extremely articulate. The alacrity with which she has become well informed on state and local issues is impressive. A single mother, she has moved out of welfare and up the educational ladder to become a pre-law student and candidate with ideals that have translated into well-reasoned policy statements. As a resident of the Shinnecock Reservation, she knows very well how to recognize when government helps or hurts its citizens in need.

On the other hand, the incumbent State Assemblyman, Fred W. Thiele Jr., has given voters many strong reasons to support him. He is in close touch with his constituents and has been a bipartisan leader for such East End objectives as the preservation of open space and farmland and self-determination through the formation of Peconic County. He has worked to tighten the budgetary belt and for reforming government in a reasonable manner, and has stayed the course as an effective, dedicated, and sincere public servant.

Although Ms. Walton has little chance of scoring big this time, she has made her mark. She should be encouraged to run for office again in the near future. Whether this is feasible or not, however, we expect that she will find a way to right some of the wrongs she has so knowingly identified.

If we have given short shrift to the other two candidates in the race, Peggy Eckart and Michael J. Bradley, it is because we find their focus too narrow, because both oppose abortion rights (Mrs. Eckart with some exceptions), and because neither seems to understand the cultural and philosophical divide that underlies the drive for Peconic County. A story explaining the Peconic proposal on Tuesday's ballot - which we urge you to support - appears in this issue.

There is something very unsettling about Michael P. Forbes's unwillingness to go out among the grass roots and campaign. Mr. Forbes did not have our endorsement in his first bid for Congressional office; his positions on major issues were too far from our own. But we thought highly of this pleasant young East Ender. Now, after almost four seemingly successful years in Washington, he seems even less of a good candidate than he did then. As an associate of Alfonse D'Amato, one of the worst Senators New York has ever sent to Washington, and a powerful one, Mr. Forbes had a favorable position as a freshman in Congress. He seemed a man to be watched. From time to time he even has voted against the directives of the G.O.P. majority as interpreted by Newt Gingrich, most often when his constituents' opinions were loud and clear. He has a much lower rating from the League of Conservation Voters than other New York Representatives. He voted against controlling assault weapons. He has favored a balanced budget and Dole's 15-percent tax cut. Even more, perhaps, he has not inspired confidence as a leader. He seems in fact to be less interested in the health and well-being of constituents than in advancing his own career. That, coupled with his tactic of refusing to engage fully in the campaign, and his reliance on reams of press releases and smiling pictures throughout his tenure, have worn thin.

We also have found exceedingly distasteful a last-minute appeal Mr. Forbes has made to those constituents who, like him, believe that abortion should be considered murder. A story on this appears in this issue.

Nora L. Bredes, on the other hand, is a person who got into politics because of personal convictions. In her time on the County Legislature she has proven to be public-spirited, hard-working, and even studious. She is an advocate for women and families. She refuses to be guided by the kind of knee-jerk responses we see in other officials, and should be given a chance to prove herself in higher office. We'd like to see her victory over Mr. Forbes on the issues that divide them, and we'd also like to see her help the Democrats take back the majority in the House for the next four years, while third-party candidates such as Ralph Nader's Greens help shift the political debate from being between the radical right and the center back to the center and an emerging, populist left.

We believe the Peconic Greens, who have called Ms. Bredes too soft on Brookhaven National Laboratory (which is under investigation for radioactive and chemical pollution) and urged a write-in vote for their own candidate, Lorna Salzman, are misguided in seeing this campaign through a single prism. Nora Bredes has had an impeccable environmental record, and is committed to fighting the Republican Party line Mr. Forbes has followed on the overwhelming social issues of our time. She was dealt a low blow by some of those who should have been working in her behalf.

Critics and art historians have spent years picking apart Jackson Pollock's Abstract Expressionist masterpieces. Now art fans and jigsaw buffs are devoting their time to putting them back together.

Jackson Pollock jigsaw puzzles. The thought is enough to intimidate even the most jaded puzzle pro.

"Autumn Rhythm Number 30" reduced to 500 maddeningly identical puzzle pieces? That's exactly what one can order through the 1996 Christmas catalogues of such prominent art repositories as the Metropolitan Museum and the Smithsonian Institution.

Three Jigsaw Puzzles

Painted in 1950, "Autumn Rhythm Number 30" is the third Pollock work to be licensed by the Pollock-Krasner Foundation for reprint as a jigsaw puzzle. It joins the 1952 painting "Convergence," published by Battle Road Press in New Hampshire, and the Guggenheim Museum's "puzzle-in-a-can" version of "Alchemy" (1947).

The Guggenheim, incidentally, has also worked its "Alchemy" on a scarf, diary, baseball, and "note cube."

With their layers upon layers of dripped paint and chaotic color fields stretching from one end of the canvas to the other, Pollock's paintings would certainly present a challenge to reconstruct from a pile of puzzle pieces.

"It's challenging, all right," said Helen Harrison, the director of the Pollock-Krasner House and Study Center. "A girlfriend of mine was given ["Convergence"] by a friend who wanted to twist the knife a bit."

Her friend "agonized over it for days," said Ms. Harrison.

The Study Center sells copies of the "Convergence" puzzle, along with a small collection of other Pollock merchandise, in a gift shop it set up this year.

The center does not own any of Pollock's paintings nor any licensing rights to them - that is done through the Pollock-Krasner Foundation, which was established by the artist's wife, the painter Lee Krasner, in her will.

The Floor Store

The center does, however, own Pollock's studio, with its paint-dribbled floorboards carrying the legacy of the master. Some people regard the floor as a work of art in itself.

Hence, "The Floor Store." That's how Ms. Harrison refers to the center's new museum shop.

First, there's the solar-powered T-shirt. The shirt, made by a company called SunWorks, depicts the studio floorboards in somewhat drab tones. But once activated by sunlight or any ultraviolet source, the colors jump to life and glow off the shirts.

Then there's the studio-floor computer mouse pad. The mouse pad was the Study Center's own idea.

"Your mouse can run all over the Pollock-Krasner floor without damaging anything!" Ms. Harrison said with sales-pitch inflections. The mouse pads are produced by Town and Country Photo in East Hampton.

The studio floor is also seen in the cover design of a compact disc the Study Center sells, featuring interviews with Jackson Pollock and Lee Krasner.

But do posthumous Pollock puzzles, solar-powered T-Shirts, and "Alchemy" baseballs trivialize the artwork?

Trivialization?

"I'm somewhat ambivalent about it," said Ms. Harrison. "It depends on the product."

"The floor? No problem. A floor's a floor. But when you're talking about a work of art, it's different."

"Of course, once you complete 'Convergence' you have a beautiful piece of art. Doing the puzzle also makes you look at the painting in a very intense way, and that I don't think is trivializing it. The note cube? That's a toughie."

Museum merchandise and fine-art reproductions are, of course, big business, and the modest "Floor Store" has been catching on fast. The Study Center sells its items - which also include books and postcards - by mail order as well as on-site.

"We even got an order from someone in Bosnia," Ms. Harrison marveled.

The Pollock-Krasner House and Study Center is quartered in the former home of the two artists, at 830 Springs-Fireplace Road in Springs.