The Watermill Center’s “In Process” series has a specific mission. As she introduced Saturday’s program of works-in-progress by three current resident artists — Carrie Mae Weems, Lexy Ho-Tai, and Lotte Nielsen — Elka Rivkin, the center’s director, said, “We try to do something in the middle of each residency that gives an audience an opportunity for a window into what the creative process is, or could be, for different artists.”

“Grace Notes: Reflections on Now,” a multimedia piece that Ms. Weems is working on, is much more fully developed than some other projects, having been previously presented at the Spoleto Festival and the Yale University Theater. In her 30-year body of work, Ms. Weems has used photographs, text, fabric, audio, installation, and video to explore family relationships, gender roles, and the history of racism, sexism, and various political systems.

She discussed the genesis of “Grace Notes” prior to the performance. “I conceived this project several years ago,” she began. “I wrote to 30 or 40 artists with the idea that we would put together a thank-you to Barack Obama for his service to this nation. By that afternoon, 20 or 30 had already replied to the idea.”

She approached poets, composers, writers, and choreographers to help her develop the piece, with the idea of putting “all of it in a beautiful series of boxes that we would ship off to the president and eventually to the Presidential Library.” But as her collaborative team emerged, she realized that the work should be a performance.

While at the center, Ms. Weems has been trying to understand “the meaning of grace — not necessarily as a religious idea, but as a quality of being. Something that came to me in the process of working it out is that, in looking at what has happened to people in very difficult circumstances, it became clear that those people seemed to hold on to the core of their humanity.”

The performance consisted of Ms. Weems reading from her text, Carl Hancock Rux reading his poetry, video projected in the background, and an intermittent music soundtrack. Tanya Selvaratnam, who sat next to Mr. Rux across the room from Ms. Weems, also read from the artist’s writings. 

The piece was somber, dark, and mesmerizing, as testified to by the hushed audience of about 90 people. Politics and race were key elements of the texts and the film footage, some of which was taken from early civil rights conflicts in the South. 

Mr. Rux spoke of “everybody taking matters in their own hands, roaming the streets, knowing that by the year 2020 manifest destiny would be a thing of the past, boxed up and put away, and compelled by growing senseless thoughts as confederates and conservatives were coming out again, despising Obama and voting for Trump.”

“Tripped up by forces beyond their control, white men were disaffected and disenfranchised, and black men were disaffected and dying,” Ms. Weems read. “But both were devoid of power, blinded by rage and historical circumstance. Each blamed the other.”

She also detailed, elliptically, the history of violence against African-Americans, reeling off ages that referred to men and women who were killed: “He was 43, a father, a brother, an uncle, a cousin, a boy, a friend; she was 35. . . .”  The names followed later — Trayvon Martin, Michael Brown, Eric Garner, and Freddie Gray among them. Brief video clips of the crime scenes ran in the background. 

While both Ms. Weems and Mr. Rux noted that the piece has some lighter moments, she did say, during the question-and-answer period, that “working with this material on a daily basis can be brutalizing for the psyche, painful for the mind, the heart.”

While “Grace Notes” drew a sustained round of applause from an audience that was deeply moved, it was also with some relief that the final studio visit couldn’t help but lift visitors’ spirits.

Ms. Ho-Tai, who recently earned a B.F.A. in fashion design from the Parsons School of Design, characterized herself as “an explorer, dreamer, and maker of things. I like making all sorts of things. Mostly, I enjoy making things that ignite joy and make people smile.”

For the past year and a half, she has been working on “Kookerville,” an imaginary world “where your inner childhood takes form as Kookers,” or monsters, as she called them. Hardly frightening, these colorful, life-size figures are made from recycled and found materials, including newspapers and pieces of fabric wrapped together by wire.

Ms. Ho-Tai’s art is inventive and playful. “Kookerville” was her response to New York City, where she moved in 2012 from a small town in Canada. “Nobody seems happy there at all. So I wanted to create this world that would kind of be a fleeting moment of joy and spontaneity.” 

A work in progress by Ms. Nielsen, a Danish artist whose ongoing video project “YAOI” includes footage of a long-abandoned cinema in Copenhagen and L.G.B.T. youth who hang out there, was introduced by Ms. Rivkin, Ms. Nielsen having had to return to Denmark unexpectedly to attend to a family matter. 

In the short video sketch of a group of L.G.B.T. youth on the East End, the camera, shooting in extreme closeup and with jumpy informality, moves among a group of five or six girls, their faces often blurred by the movement of people getting between them and the videographer. The audio was mostly inaudible, so only fragments of dialogue could be understood, resulting in a tantalizing but elusive fragment.

Whether or not owing to Ms. Weems, who is African-American, Saturday’s audience was not only large but also diverse — unusually so for cultural programs on the East End. One visitor remarked, a bit wistfully, “We should build on this.” 

Montauk in the ’50s

The watercolors of Kenneth Bonar Walsh Jr., a commercial artist from New York who found his muse in Montauk will be on view at the Amagansett Library beginning Wednesday with a reception at 6 p.m.

Mr. Walsh, who died in 1980, moved to Montauk in the 1950s and built a house in Hither Hills. He also started the Bonart Gallery, initially at Gosman’s Dock. He captured in his paintings the natural beauty that marks the South Fork. The show will be on view through May 28. Another exhibition will open at the Woodbine Gallery in Montauk on May 27.

Pollock-Krasner House to Reopen

The Pollock-Krasner House and Study Center in Springs will reopen next Thursday with “East End Art World, August 1953: Photographs by Tony Vaccaro.” The exhibition will continue through July 29.

In August 1953, Look magazine sent Mr. Vaccaro to East Hampton to photograph Jackson Pollock and Lee Krasner for a feature article that never ran. The negatives, which also include photographs of Fairfield Porter, Larry Rivers, Elaine and Willem de Kooning, and Wilfrid Zogbaum, were only discovered 60 years later.

By 1953, Mr. Vaccaro was already established as a photojournalist who, as an infantryman in World War II, had taken more than 8,000 photographs. He subsequently freelanced for Flair, Look, Life, Venture, Harper’s Bazaar, Town and Country, Quick, Newsweek, and many other publications, photographing kings, queens, presidents, popes, writers, actors, and scientists as well as artists.

The exhibition will feature 20 images, including a previously unknown color portrait of Pollock.

Crush Curatorial Back in Gansett

Crush Curatorial will return to its Amagansett space after a winter hiatus with “Alt-Egos,” a group exhibition organized by Scott Bluedorn. The show will open with a reception tomorrow from 6 to 9 p.m. and close with another reception on May 6, also 6 to 9. Otherwise the gallery will be open by appointment through [email protected].

The premise of the exhibition, according to Mr. Bluedorn, “is to illustrate work by artists that is wholly different from that by which they are known in the public eye.” Among the more than 40 participating artists are Andrea Cote, Karen Hesse Flatow, Perry Burns, Lucy Winton, Philippe Cheng, Peter Dayton, Rossa Cole, Christine Sciulli, Steve Miller, Bryan Hunt, and Mr. Bluedorn.

New at Roman Fine Art

“Deceptive Spaces,” a solo show of new paintings by Sarah Slappey, will open at Roman Fine Art in East Hampton tomorrow night with a reception from 7 to 9, and remain on view through May 21.

Ms. Slappey’s painting style has roots in the Southern Gothic aesthetic — Bible Belt superstitions, ghost stories, swamp lore, and mysticism. Each of the paintings depicts an imaginary space that combines carefully rendered images with abstract components that undercut the illusionism. Many of the interior paintings contain paintings-within-paintings, with references to Boucher, Fragonard, and other masters.

Dennis Lawrence at Elizabeth Dow

Elizabeth Dow Home on Gingerbread Lane in East Hampton is presenting “Meditations,” a show of paintings by Dennis Lawrence, through June 6. A reception will be held on May 6 from 5 to 7 p.m.

Mr. Lawrence, who has lived in Springs since 1970, began his career as a sculptor, but since 1989 he has concentrated primarily on painting, with his feeling for East End landscapes, sea­scapes, and natural light transformed into abstract compositions that reflect his touch for color and line.

14 Photographers

An exhibition of work by 14 East End photographers will be held at Ashawagh Hall in Springs on Saturday and Sunday. A reception will take place Saturday from 4 to 7 p.m.

Participating photographers are Nina Bataller, Fred Bertrand, Marilyn DiCarlo-Ames, Davis Gaffga, Dave Gilmore, Dennis Maroulas, Bruce Milne, Joe O’Haire, Sandy Peabody, Joan Santos, Lou Spitalnik, Fred VenderWerven, Alex Vignoli, and Denis Wolf.

Spring Flowers

At Romany Kramoris

Romany Kramoris Gallery in Sag Harbor is presenting its annual Spring Flower Show from today through May 25, with a reception scheduled for Saturday from 5 to 6:30 p.m. The exhibition features a variety of styles ranging from realism to impressionism.

Featured artists include Liz Gribin, Joyce Brian, Joan Tripp, Barbara Groot, Muriel Hanson Falborn, Hazel Shearer Thomas Gray, Ghilia Lipman-Wulf, Pingree Louchheim, Veronica Mezzina, Richard Udice, Lois Bender, and Ms. Kramoris.

Art and Aromatherapy

“What Lies Within Us,” an exhibition of photographs by Asia Lee that will be accompanied by aromatherapy and specially composed music, is on view at the White Room Gallery in Bridgehampton from tomorrow through Wednesday, with a reception set for Saturday from 6 to 8 p.m.

According to the gallery, Ms. Lee hopes her art will help transform our culture and society while reconnecting us with nature. A percentage of art sales from the exhibition will be donated to the Retreat.

New at Harper’s Apartment

Harper’s Apartment, the Manhattan outpost of Harper’s Books in East Hampton, will present “Violet Paintings for the Red and Blue Studio,” an exhibition of work by the Los Angeles artist Spencer Lewis, from Tuesday through June 24. A reception will be held on Tuesday from 6 to 8 p.m.

Using raw pigment, oil, acrylic, enamel, and spray paint, Mr. Lewis creates aggressive impasto paintings on large cardboard substrates that elevate the utilitarian material, according to the gallery. 

Cindy Sherman in Manhattan

“Cindy Sherman: Once Upon a Time, 1981-2011,” is on view at the Mnuchin Gallery in Manhattan through June 10. The exhibition features more than two dozen works drawn from three of the artist’s most acclaimed series: “Centerfolds,” “History Portraits,” and “Society Portraits.”

Since the debut of her “Untitled Film Stills” in 1978, Ms. Sherman, who has a house in Springs, has played the role of both photographer and subject. Her work explores the nature of representation and the ways in which the images of film, television, and advertising have influenced our understanding of identity and the world. 

Protecting the Environment

“Sea Something, Save Something,” a group show aiming to raise awareness about protecting the marine environment, will open at Castello di Borghese Vineyard and Winery in Cutchogue with a reception Saturday from 6 to 9 p.m. and continue through June 1.

The show, a benefit for the Cornell Cooperative Extension Marine Program, includes works by Scott Bluedorn, Dalton Portella, Peter Spacek, Dan Welden, Michele Dragonetti, Emma Ballou, Candace Ceslow, and Rossa Cole, among others.

Bruce Lieberman in Setauket

An exhibition of recent work by Bruce Lieberman will be on view at Gallery North in Setauket from Saturday through May 26. A reception will be held Saturday from 4 to 6 p.m.

Mr. Lieberman, who has had a studio in Water Mill since 1990, is a painter of figures, landscapes, seascapes, and other subjects. He has characterized his work as “a conversation with contemporary art that fits my brand of representational painting.”

Leaves are budding. Daffodils are popping. Tulips are a-bloom. What would make this South Fork springtime scene more complete? “Rites of Spring,” the official opening event of LongHouse Reserve in East Hampton would.

Every year around this time the garden and sculpture center opens its doors for regular hours on Wednesdays and Saturdays. This Saturday will mark the official season kickoff and the big reveal of what new exhibitions and artworks are on view this year.

In the gallery is “LongHouse Collects,” a compendium of new acquisitions that herald LongHouse’s metamorphosis from private residence to public museum in the coming years. A sampling includes Sue Lawty’s stone panel, Wendell Castle’s rocking chair, Robert Whitley’s hand-carved podium, Japanese ironworks, and fabrics by Martha Burns, Claudia Mills, Ethel Stein, and Ed Rossbach.

On the grounds are new sculptures by John Chamberlain, John Crawford, Marilyn Dintenfass, Judith Kensley McKie, Mark Mennin, Bernar Venet, and Fred Wilson. 

The grounds are open from 2 to 5 p.m. on Saturday. LongHouse will then open for regular hours on Wednesday and Saturday at the same times through June, expanding to Wednesday through Saturday in July and August. Admission is $10 and free for members.

Like a breath of fresh air, 11 young artists ranging in age from 18 to 29 have taken over Ille Arts, bringing about a kind of spring renewal in Amagansett.

Young artists have been attracted to the East End for decades and come and go as opportunities and housing flow and ebb. This group was brought together by Sara De Luca, the gallery director, and her assistant Brianna Ashe, an artist who has work in the show. They wanted to honor a new generation while not strictly adhering to geographic limitations.

In addition to Ms. Ashe, the exhibitors are Amanda Brown, Glorimar Garcia, Evan Halter, Claire Hentschker, Adam Jonah, Burleigh Morton, Kevin Pomerleau, Sara Salaway, Morgana Tetherow Keller, and Ella Wearing. Ms. Ashe, Ms. Salaway, Ms. Keller, Mr. Pomerleau, Mr. Morton, Ms. Wearing, and Ms. Brown, who is Ms. De Luca’s daughter, have East End ties; the others come from UpIsland, Brooklyn, and as far away as Massachusetts.

With loose geometric shapes that can seem jewel-like or representational, Ms. Ashe’s work is marked by text and word play with tart irony. In a drawing titled “Journey to the High Point and Clap,” the words “Half Sour” hang in a purple cloud over boxes that look like an urban landscape viewed from a drone. Is it the air quality or a mood that she is describing? “I have personal standards,” she says in black lettering on a purple-striped background in “Will Tell You Twice.” In a free-floating installation of small mounted objects, “Little House on Lincoln,” she collects figures, tickets, plastic teeth, toy cars, a Scrabble tile, birthday candles, and more, evoking a family history culled from a junk drawer.

Mr. Morton also evokes the past, with platinum palladium photographic prints in frames he makes himself. This older process, most popular in the 19th century, makes contemporary landscapes feel historical. It brings out a moodiness that the artist may or not be feeling, but at the very least an ironic distance from modern life.

Adopting the techniques of 19th-century American trompe l’oeil still life, Mr. Halter’s paintings of flowered fabrics draped over frames and other objects still manage to push the limits of flatness and two-dimensionality, while creating an illusion of its opposite.

Ms. Brown does something similar in her otherwise abstract paintings. In an untitled work resembling a series of patterned lines with no references to naturalism, she coaxes the eye to find the relationship to an object, in this case a block of wood. It’s a delightful surprise, and it makes her other, more specific paintings — “Sun on a Building” and “Lake” — seem that they are more than what they appear to be.

Also confronting the notion of illusionism in painting is Ms. Wearing, whose triptych “Plot I, Plot II, Plot III” lines up squares to look like the cubes we all doodled as children. Her objects look more like glass vessels with solid-colored bottoms. Her more representational constructions build on the overlapping of squares and rectangles, in complicated configurations.

Ms. Keller works with shapes and lines, but her dense compositions look like building and room layouts all tumbled together. She introduces needlework as well, with stitched segments that look machine-made and others that appear more hand-stitched and homespun.

Mr. Pomerleau depicts curtains and fabric on rods and clotheslines that veer off on the diagonal and help advance the underlying theme of illusionism and geometry.

These artists seem to work the best together, thematically and visually, but each of the others still has something in common with at least one other. 

Ms. Salaway’s “Salt and Silver, 1-6” uses the old photographic techniques, like Mr. Morton, but the hints of subject matter and her salt-and-silver prints on long strips of crumpled and torn paper look much different. Ms. Garcia’s “What If There Are People You Can Never Untie Yourself From?” is a pair of shadowboxes that hold playing card-size images embellished with stitching and thread. Ms. Hentschker’s photos are abstracted 360-degree views of what look like damaged interiors.

Standing almost completely apart from the rest of the show is Adam Jonah’s “United Imagination” project, a series of photographs with ink drawings on them, mounted under a covering that can be further drawn upon. He encourages viewers to add their own images, which can be erased at the end of the day for new encounters. When one of these is purchased, another one is donated to a school, a hospital, a library, or similar organizations.

The exhibition is o­n view through Monday.

“In Process,” the Watermill Center’s ongoing series of programs designed to connect its artist residents with the community, will feature performative works by Carrie Mae Weems, Lexy Ho-Tai, and Lotte Nielsen on Saturday afternoon from 2 to 4. The center will also offer a tour of its building, collection, and grounds from 1 to 2 p.m.

Ms. Weems’s work in many mediums has investigated family relationships, gender roles, and the history of racism, sexism, class, and various political systems. During her residency she is refining her song cycle/performance, “Grace Notes: Reflections for Now,” which examines the role of grace in the pursuit of democracy.

Ms. Ho-Tai, a costume designer, is developing her multidisciplinary and interactive thesis collection, “Kookerville,” for which she was named a finalist for “Designer of the Year” upon graduating from Parsons School of Design. She is creating three new kookers, or monster-like costumes fashioned from found materials. 

Ms. Nielsen is working on “YAOI,” her video project on LGBT youth in an abandoned cinema in Copenhagen and at the Watermill Center. Collaging footage and sound, the piece conveys the youth’s emotional life in the context of the center’s specific character.

The open studios and tour are free, but reservations are required.

The Met Live in HD will present Tchaikovsky’s 1881 opera “Eugene Onegin” on Saturday at 1 p.m. at Guild Hall in East Hampton. Adapted from Pushkin’s verse novel, the opera is a meditation on love, betrayal, art, and the pitfalls of society.

The title character, played by Peter Mattei, is a dandy who visits the estate of Madame Larina, where one of her daughters, Tatiana (Anna Netrebko), falls in love with him. However, he rebuffs her. Over the course of the story, Onegin flirts at a party with the wife of his friend Lenski (Alexey Dolgov), who challenges him to a duel, which Onegin wins.

After several years of travel, Onegin returns to St. Petersburg, where at a ball he falls in love with Tatiana. As these things usually go in opera, she admits she still loves him but will not leave her husband, thereby precluding a happy ending.

Tickets are $22, $20 for members, and $15 for students.

The Southampton Cultural Center’s Rising Stars piano series, which creates performance opportunities primarily for participants and alumni of Pianofest of the Hamptons, will open its 14th season on Saturday at 7 p.m. with a concert by Leonid Nediak.

The 13-year-old pianist made his solo recital debut at Carnegie Hall and has had eight concerto performances with such orchestras as the Montreal Symphony, the Quebec Symphony, and the Canton Symphony in Ohio. Among his prizes are the top honor in the Canadian national composition competition in 2016 and grand prizes in the Canadian Music Competition in 2013 and 2014.

Tickets are $20.

Sarah Hunnewell, who has served as the executive director of the Hampton Theatre Company in Quogue for more than 20 years, has announced that she is stepping down to turn the company over to new leadership and new ideas.

In 1990, Ms. Hunnewell was a practicing architect when she was asked by Jane Stanton, a stage director, to join the cast of A.R. Gurney’s “The Dining Room” at HTC. After several years of acting, she became a company board member, first turning her attention to the administrative side of the theater. 

She began directing for the company with “The Rainmaker” in 1998 and has since directed more than 30 productions. She has also been a member of the selection committee.

The Slocan Ramblers, a young bluegrass band from Canada, will perform two shows on Saturday at 6 and 8 p.m. at the Sylvester Manor Living Room on Shelter Island.

The four-member band, winners of the 2015 Edmonton Folk Fest Emerging Artist Award, has become an important part of Canada’s roots music scene, known for their energetic live shows and impeccable musicianship. Tickets are $25, and seating is limited.

Josh and Hannah Faye Huizing will present a free concert of Disney songs and anecdotes about the media giant on Sunday at 4 p.m. at the East Hampton Presbyterian Church. A married couple, they are both classically trained singers who performed as soloists with the Choral Society of the Hamptons in December. They will be accompanied by Jane Hastay on piano and Peter Martin Weiss on bass.