You have to get up pretty early in the morning to be first in line for Guild Hall’s annual Clothesline Art Show and Sale, which opened under sunny skies on Saturday at 9 a.m. sharp, with hundreds of works of art arrayed behind the building.
Harry Hunkele of Riverdale, N.Y., and his weekend hostess, Suzanne Zacharius, left her house in Northwest Woods at 7:30 and arrived before 8, coffee in hand, expecting to wait an hour, as usual, right behind the earliest birds of all, a mother and daughter who have been numbers one and two out of the starting gate for — wait for it — the last 48 years.
A few weeks ago, however, the pair, Nancy Grossman and Jillian Hirsch (who was in a stroller the first time they went) learned that the sale had been rescheduled this season from early August to late June. Ms. Hirsch called Guild Hall to say, regretfully, not to expect them. She herself hadn’t yet moved in to her house in Amagansett, she explained, while her mother had just arrived at hers, in Sagaponack.
“I was living on Mako Lane when that sale started,” Mrs. Grossman recalled this week. “All my art was from there.”
The pair’s absence left Mr. Hunkele and Ms. Zacharius in the number-one post position. “We’ve been to a number of clothesline shows over the years,” he said on Monday, “and we like to arrive early for a sneak peek of the artwork. I was very surprised not to see Nancy and her daughter. Last year we discussed some of the works we’ve purchased over the years, and how much we love Guild Hall and how important it is to support it.”
Normally, Mr. Hunkele said, he walks through the show twice, maybe three times, before making a selection, though “there have been some years when I didn’t purchase anything.”
This was not to be one of them. Right away, he said, he spotted Barbara Bilotta’s “Inspiration Beneath the Waves,” a “beautiful abstract rendering of an underwater view of the ocean.”
“I made the complete circuit and then came back to the painting. Bilotta had three works in the show” — (artists were allowed to submit up to five) — “and as I was admiring the painting a couple came and scooped up one of the others, so I was like, ‘Better act fast!’ You got to grab it and carry it away!”
A volunteer helped him carry the $3,500 painting to the cashier. “After I paid and loaded it into my car, I came back for one more round, but didn’t purchase anything else.”
“The works that I’ve bought over the years have been an eclectic mix,” Mr. Hunkele reflected. “I’m always looking for transcendence in art, work that speaks to my everyday experiences but then takes me to a new place.”
Last year, he said, he bought a work by Donna Corvi titled “That Time of Day — Golden Light” — “a fir forest at sunrise with mist swirling, almost like a Van Gogh. I love that painting.” He was looking for another by the same artist this year, he said, but didn’t see one.
The Corvi is displayed in his living room in Riverdale. As soon as he got home Sunday night, he hung the Bilotta in the dining room. The Clothesline Art Sale, he said, is “the best deal in town.”
