Arts

   Necessity breeds invention and eventually, the disparate but common threads of the East Hampton artistic community were bound to find a way to reknit themselves into a haphazard whole.

    Cynthia Loewen, an artist who found herself longing for the company of her colleagues between too infrequent events, said last week that she decided that what was missing was a place to regularly gather and share ideas and problems, that they could truly call their own.

   Hugh W. Wyatt, a black Cherokee Indian and Sag Harbor resident, is preparing to “put the beauty and creativity of the world on display” at Guild Hall’s John Drew Theater. The shows on Saturday and Sunday are in honor of Black History Month, and Mr. Wyatt feels that all of America’s musical genres have roots in gospel. Also celebrated will be the idea that “different cultures make beautiful music,” the producer and manager said.

   With our first winter storm behind us, some South Fork denizens may find themselves hunkered down in front of the fire, Wii, DVR or DVD player, or all of the above. Kate Mueth has other ideas though, for her and for us, if we are so inclined.

For Black History Month

    The Southampton Cultural Center will celebrate Black History Month with an exhibit titled “Visual Heritage III: 4 Contemporary Artists” opening on Wednesday in the center’s gallery on Pond Lane.

A rare, tall-case alarm clock made in East Hampton in 1798 by the Dominy family was sold at auction at Sotheby’s in New York on Saturday to an unidentified bidder. With a buyer’s premium — the surcharge an auction house attaches to sales — the final price was $110,500. The clock’s pre-sale estimate was $50,000 to $100,000.

The interior clockwork was made by Nathaniel Dominy IV, its 85.5-inch-tall case by his son Nathaniel Dominy V. Four generations of Dominys made clocks, furniture, windmills, and utilitarian objects in East Hampton from the mid-1700s to the mid-1800s.

Saturday will mark what would have been Jackson Pollock’s centennial birthday, and to inaugurate a year of events, the Pollock-Krasner House and Study Center in Springs will screen “Pollock” at the Springs Presbyterian Church on Saturday at 6 p.m.

   “Roadie‚” a film getting a lot of press lately, is about a burned-out, slightly pudgy, middle-aged roadie for Blue Oyster Cult who is fired after 26 years and returns to live with his mother at her house on Long Island. If Sirad Balducci, who produced it with Michael Downey, were to return to Long Island from her gig in Manhattan, it would be to the home of her parents, Gioacchino and Carolyn Balducci (the program director of the Montauk Library), in Montauk.

Love Inspired’

    On Saturday at 7 p.m., Soo Bae, a cellist, and Tania Bannister, a pianist, will perform romantic classical works at the Southampton Cultural Center on Pond Lane in Southampton. The program “Love Inspired,” will include the Saint Saëns Concerto, Fauré Elegy, and other romantic selections.

  Unlike the rest of us, when asked for advice Philip Galanes doesn’t have to wonder if it’s flattering or if an honest response would touch the third rail of social intercourse. As the “Social Q’s” columnist for The New York Times, it’s his job, and he’ll take on all supplicants and entertain all embarrassments.

    Beyond the professional veneer, the hell of other people is further mitigated because he writes, largely, from the comfort of his East Hampton home.

A rare, tall-case alarm clock made in East Hampton in 1798 by the Dominy family was sold at auction at Sotheby's in New York on Saturday to an unidentified bidder, who will pay $110,500.

Every small town has its traditions, lore, and characters that it takes for granted. What becomes fascinating is what happens when those same memes are refracted through an outsider’s lens. The latest East Hampton tradition to achieve a new life through this type of treatment is the town’s junior lifeguard and ocean rescue programs, the subjects of a documentary in progress. The film promises, like so many documentaries, to bring fresh insight and perhaps even fame to an institution old-timers here simply take for granted.

At Watermill Center

    The Watermill Center will hold two open rehearsals on Saturday beginning at 4:30 p.m.

    Catarina de Oliviera and Camilla Wills will present two collaborative pieces that will be performed as the sun sets. According to the center, the artists reject the generally accepted system of time and explore their own relation to time, duration, and history while referencing Christopher Isherwood, epileptic characters, Suely Rolnik, and a grandmother.

    A tall-case alarm clock made by Nathaniel Dominy IV in East Hampton in 1788 will be auctioned in a sale taking place at Sotheby’s tomorrow and Saturday. The clock is thought to be the first alarm clock that the artisan made and is rare for early American clockmakers, who often imported their clockworks from Europe instead of crafting them themselves.

Show Says Thanks

    Hampton Photo, Arts, and Framing of Bridgehampton will present “The Thank You Art Show” at Ashawagh Hall in Springs this weekend, beginning with a reception on Saturday evening from 5:30 to 11. It will be on view on Sunday from 11 a.m. to 4 p.m. as well. The theme is giving thanks to the shop’s friends and customers. More than 100 artists will participate in the mediums of painting, photography, sculpture, origami, and more.

    Three performance groups, the Choral Society of the Hamptons, the Studio Playhouse Community Theatre, and Center Stage at the Southampton Cultural Center, will hold auditions in the coming weeks, both musical and theatrical.

    The Choral Society of the Hamptons is beginning rehearsals for its spring concert, to be held at the East Hampton Presbyterian Church on March 18, and is seeking experienced singers. The spring concert will be conducted by Jesse Peckham and feature John Rutter’s Requiem, among other works.

Almost as often as his last name is mispronounced, Joe Delia (Da-lee-ah), leader of the band Joe Delia and Thieves, is mistaken for Mick Jagger by fans who follow him around the East End trying to take his picture. The resemblance is uncanny, from facial features to body type, and his overall cool, rock-star vibe. Those who have experienced firsthand his style and talent, those of a true rock ’n’ roll artist, understand the case of mistaken identity completely.

New Year, New Art

    “Art in the New Year” is the next show at Ashawagh Hall this weekend. The show will feature work by Cynthia Loewen, Mary Milne, Stephanie Reit, and Lewis Zacks. Ms. Loewen has a long résumé of exhibits and memberships in numerous South Fork arts groups. A painting of hers was featured in the short film “The Sea Is All I Know,” which was shown at the Hamptons International Film Festival. She is also a curator.

By all accounts, the exhaustive and redefining Willem de Kooning retrospective on the Museum of Modern Art’s entire sixth floor is a blockbuster, and an opportunity to come to terms with the artist’s unique contribution to 20th-century art.

 The future of the Bay Street Theatre will be discussed next Thursday night from 7 to 9, with all interested members of the public welcomed to join. The year-round, not-for-profit theater’s management and board members will explain their plan for relocation to a permanent home in 2013.

New Shows at Vered

    Vered Gallery in East Hampton has two shows on view in January. The gallery will continue the “Landscape/ Seascape” theme with works by Robert Dash, Wolf Kahn, Thomas Hart Benton, Balcomb Greene, Thomas Moran, and Milton Avery, among others. Mr. Kahn’s “Mammoth Vista,” a massive autumnal water view from 1992, is the centerpiece of that exhibit.

This year’s Grammy Awards include four nods for Randy Brecker, an East Hampton resident, veteran jazz, rock, and R&B trumpeter, flugelhorn player, and composer.

    Mr. Brecker’s “The Jazz Ballad Song Book,” with the Danish Radio Big Band, was recently nominated for best large jazz ensemble album. The album also received a nomination for best instrumental arrangement, with credit to Peter Jensen. One of its tracks, “All or Nothing at All,” was nominated for best improvised jazz solo.

Those who like their Shakespeare productions out in the cool summer night air will be heartened to hear that a new festival is taking root through the Hamptons Independent Theatre Festival, more familiarly known as HITFest.

Ashawagh’s Illuminators

    “East End Illuminations,” a group show at Ashawagh Hall in Springs, curated by Cynthia Sobel, will feature landscapes, abstract watercolors, prints, mixed-media works, and photographs.

    Ms. Sobel has brought members of the Wednesday Group of plein-air artists and the Crazy Monkey Gallery artists cooperative together for the exhibit. They include Ms. Sobel, Frank Sofo, Daniel Schoenheimer, Andrea McCafferty, Alyce Peifer, Anna Frank­lin, Deborah Palmer, Gene Samuelson, Lynn Martell, Jim Hayden, and Jana Hayden.

We’re all different people every day, as is said. You might be a Broadway singer and actress reprising “Camelot” with Jeremy Irons one day, playing opposite Matthew Modine’s Thomas Jefferson the next, and going on to headline the Noel Coward Awards, maybe squeezing in a dinner with Alec Baldwin.

    Elizabeth Taylor’s diamonds weren’t the only items attracting interest at New York City auction houses last week. On Dec. 13, many well-heeled city and East End art aficionados gathered on the top floor of Sotheby’s Upper East Side auction house to view a small but strong collection of Jackson Pollock works rarely seen outside of the houses of the private collectors who own them.

     It was November in Northwest Woods and Walter Weissman’s front lawn was blanketed in crunchy tobacco-colored leaves. The cottage on Atlantic Street, which he shares with Eunice Golden, a painter, gives her the bright and airy studio space she needs and him his own space to work on his photography as well as a basement to work on his sculpture of constructed and deconstructed objects.

Frank Wimberley And East End Artists

    Beginning today, Spanierman Modern is showing both new work by Frank Wimberley and “Artists of the East End II,” which highlights works created from the mid-20th century to the present.

    Mr. Wimberley’s paintings are thick impastos of palette-applied, high-keyed colorful acrylic paint. Sometimes monochromatic and sometimes with sections or stripes, they all have a dynamic feel and a rich depth to them.

    Dennis Leri has been showing his work — mixed-media wall pieces blending metal and canvas and paint, and large works of abstract sculpture — for more than 20 years on the East End.

    He started by studying figurative sculpture at the Art Students League and the Sculpture Center, but his love of art began before that — at home.

    “I lived in a house full of art,” Mr. Leri said of his upbringing in Brooklyn. “It was a typical Italian-American family with several generations living together. My uncle John Nappi was an artist and had his studio in the house.”