Lucy Winton’s Wainscott studio is in a whitewashed barn with two large roll-up garage doors. Inside, the space is white, vast, and almost empty of furnishings, but the walls are covered with art. The adjacent bay is the studio of Bryan Hunt, a sculptor who has been her companion for 14 years.

While her workspace is more or less a white cube, her artwork is anything but minimal. She grew up in Minnesota in the 1960s in a Modernist house, one of five children, and she was exposed early on to Minimal art. “I was definitely fascinated by it. But I also thought, I want to create fairy tales.” And so she has, although her path to a life as an artist has been a winding one — through dark and scary woods, one is tempted to conjecture.

“The closest I came to art-making ambitions when I was young was maybe the hope that I would have a sort of bohemian life,” she said. In high school she discovered, at the age of 15, that “I could do fake Renaissance drawing, right out of the bag. I went to this life drawing class and I did hatching and assumed a Michelangelo stance. It was the first time I had picked up a pencil.”

Creatures, landscapes, fantasy elements, and the artist herself populate her paintings and drawings in combinations and juxtapositions. Her accomplished draftsmanship serves a vision that is personal, suggestive, moody, and mysterious.

“When I’m starting on a piece,” she said, “my focus is on an illustrative reference or a slightly cheesy piece of art.” Some pieces have taken off from Edwin Landseer, a 19th-century English artist who “did animals in a very emotional way.” She pointed out a drawing of a cow she took from one of his paintings. Among the many artists she cited as sources or influences are Fragonard, Kara Walker, and Neo Rauch. “The loose representational style of George Grosz and George Baselitz made me more comfortable with working representationally. I worship Kiefer so much it’s crazy.”

“I start with some irony or knowingness,” she said, “and as I work I fling myself into sentimentality, somewhat inadvertently. I sometimes feel I’m going to be banished from the art grown-ups’ table, even though I know contemporary art allows for multiple art vocabularies. I do like irony, but I still follow the siren call of sentimentality.”

In 2004, the Japan Society presented “Little Boy: The Arts of Japan’s Exploding Subculture,” an exhibition organized by Takashi Murakami, which, according to Jane Cavalier, a critic, promoted “the emergence of manga (comic books), anime (film animation), hentai (hard-core manga), kawaii (cute culture), and similar ‘low culture’ visual tropes.”

At the same time, “Drop Dead Cute,” a book by Ivan Vartanian that Ms. Winton owns, showcased the work of 10 Japanese “cute artists.” “When I saw that book, I thought they were so girlish, and so out there. Even though I’m not exactly doing their thing, I thought if they can do that then I can do my thing. Sometimes being illustrative works, and sometimes it doesn’t. When it doesn’t work, it can seem childish.”

Ms. Winton attended the University of California at Santa Cruz, where she took art classes and noticed, as she had in high school, how natural she felt when she was drawing. She considered majoring in art but decided she had to think about having a career.

After college she moved to New York, where her brother and sister were living. “My way into my work as an artist had a lot of delay to it. I wanted to survive practically and decided to work in human services when I got out of school. I was a paramedic for the 911 system in Manhattan for a really long time. Most of my co-workers quit before me.” She thought she, too, would quit after a year and switch to something creative.

“But I became addicted to adrenaline. I worked on the 12-hour midnight shift full time in Midtown, bringing patients to different hospitals around the city.” The urge to make art had continued to percolate, however, and, while in her 13th year on the midnight shift, she took courses at Fashion Institute of Technology, eventually earning a degree in fashion design. “I took life-drawing classes for the degree, and I was stunned by the feeling I had for drawing.” 

“I asked people, ‘What do you do if you want to draw for your whole life?’ ” She began taking classes at the New York Academy of Art while continuing to work part time on the ambulance. “The academy was really nice craft-wise, and I really love craft. It was fun using that muscle. But even then I thought nobody has a real career in art.”

After painting for a while in her bathroom, she found a studio and “cut the paramedic chord after 17 years. I had a new addiction. I felt, and even still feel, that if you do want to serve people, it doesn’t mean you have to go looking for drama. There was a lot of anxiety associated with the ambulance, and it was hard to make art in those circumstances. I became much more relaxed and free when I finally got off the ambulance.”

She met Mr. Hunt in 2001. “Meeting Bryan and his friends, I entered a life of art talk instead of ambulance talk. I was suddenly hanging out with people who discussed and lived art. I had always had a sort of art community around me, but it didn’t really jell until I got off the adrenaline and the creepy schedule and the drama of the ambulance.”

She listens to music while painting. If she doesn’t have an exact illustrative reference, music will sometimes provide “a crazy poetic gift.” Among her musical inspirations are Edward Sharpe and the Magnetic Zeros, Iggy Pop, Le Tigre, P.J. Harvey, Leonard Cohen, and Joni Mitchell.

There are several striking self-portraits in which the artist is situated in the foreground of a nighttime tropical environment, light and shadow illuminating the scene, tiny parachutes visible against the distant mountains.

“Many of my pieces have been nocturnal,” she has said, “perhaps because I worked for more than a decade on the midnight shift.” The ghost of televised news footage from the Vietnam War hangs over several of the paintings.

In another ink drawing she is sitting on the floor, looking open-mouthed at the viewer while a monkey cavorts on one of her legs. According to April Gornik, who included Ms. Winton in “Other as Animal,” an exhibition she organized at the Danese Gallery in Chelsea, “The compulsion to erode boundaries between herself and other creatures is one of Winton’s great creative strengths.”

Some of the works break out of the picture plane. In one painting, a papier mache wisteria vine emerges from the encaustic surface. A work in progress includes two lion paws and two human hands, also of papier mache, protruding from the studio wall, inspired by “Androcles and the Lion” and by “Beauty and the Beast.”

“I like things that participate in the space a little more,” she said. “I love painting, but I love relief, too.”

A sure sign of summer is the arrival of free outdoor movies at various locations on the South Fork. For the third consecutive year, the Hamptons International Film Festival will partner with the Southampton Arts Center to show films on the lawn at 25 Job’s Lane.

The series, which happens every Friday at 8:30 p.m., weather permitting, will kick off tomorrow with “Caddyshack,” the 1980 comedy in which Bill Murray, Chevy Chase, Ted Knight, Rodney Dangerfield, and a dancing gopher provide the laughs. Subsequent titles will include “American Graffiti,” “Dirty Dancing,” and “Some Like It Hot.”

The Silas Marder Gallery will once again host Films on the Haywall on its premises in Bridgehampton, starting tomorrow with “Jurassic Park,” cleverly, if not intentionally, timed to coincide with the release of “Jurassic World.” Among the other films, chosen by Tucker Marder, are “Sleeper,” “2001: A Space Odyssey,” and “The Great Escape.” Films at the Haywall start at dark, and never before 9 p.m.

Both festivals encourage people to bring beach chairs or blankets and a picnic. The Southampton program will conclude Sept. 4 with “Jaws.” “The Party,” a 1968 comedy directed by Blake Edwards, will wrap up the films at Marders on the same date.

Amagansett Square, another alfresco venue, will also launch its summer films tomorrow with Andrew Kidman and the Windy Hills, a mixed-media program in which Mr. Kidman, a surfer, filmmaker, musician, and writer, will perform excerpts from his films “Litmus” and “Glass Love” and present his most recent film, “Spirit of Akasha.” Subsequent screenings at the square will take place on Wednesday evenings beginning July 8.

The Montauk Surf Museum, a new organization devoted to the art and history of surfing, will also show films starting in late July at its location next to the Montauk Lighthouse. Titles were not available by press time, though it’s reasonable to assume surfing films will be featured.

The Sag Harbor Whaling and Historical Museum has special screenings scheduled in conjunction with its exhibition “Shark! The Misunderstood Fish.” Naturally, “Jaws” will be screened on July 10, followed on July 11 by “Pirates of the Caribbean: The Curse of the Black Pearl.” In the event of rain the screenings will happen July 17 and 18.

Guild Hall will hold screenings at Mulford Farm on July 11 and Aug. 8, and other locations for occasional film showings include Christ Episcopal Church in Sag Harbor and the Parrish Art Museum in Water Mill.

Many venues list their screening dates at hamptonsdrivein.com, but the websites of individual organizations can be consulted for updated information.

Dirk Bell at Fireplace

“Delay,” a solo exhibition of work by Dirk Bell, will open tomorrow at the Fireplace Project in Springs and remain up through July 20. A reception will take place Saturday from 6 to 8 p.m. Mr. Bell, who lives and works in Berlin, superimposes new imagery on older found or modified paintings to add a new dimension to the original work. The exhibition will consist of 25 paintings and a new work in neon.

In addition to drawings and paintings, his work, which has been exhibited internationally, includes minimalist or surrealist sculptures and installations as well as video and sound pieces.

Group Show at Tripoli East

“A Walk . . . ,” a group exhibition organized by Rob Teeters, will be on view at Tripoli Gallery in East Hampton from Saturday through July 19. A reception will be held Saturday from 7 to 9 p.m. The exhibition was inspired by a 1917 novella by Robert Walser in which the protagonist encounters a series of characters on a circuitous walk. Mr. Teeters, an independent curator and art adviser, selected artworks he imagined one might come across on such a ramble.

The exhibition includes works by Yuji Agematsu, Quentin Curry, Lucy Dodd, Daniel Dewar and Gregory Gicquel, Ryan Estep, Bjarne Melgaard, Bruce M. Sherman, Michael E. Smith, Keith Sonnier, and Bill Walton.

Sculpture at Silas Marder

The Silas Marder Gallery in Bridgehampton will present a solo exhibition of sculpture by Anya Gallaccio from Saturday through July 26. A reception, which will include music by the Peter Watrous Trio, will take place Saturday from 4 to 8 p.m.

Ms. Gallaccio creates site-specific installations and objects that are often made from such organic materials as flowers, fruit, salt, chocolate, sugar, dirt, and stone. The exhibition will include four 500-pound open cubes constructed from varying arrangements of limestone, sandstone, and granite, which will be placed inside the gallery and in the adjacent landscape.

Cunningham in Southampton

“Bill Cunningham: Facades,” an exhibition of photographs taken during the late 1960s and early 1970s by the legendary New York Times fashion and society photographer, will open today at the Southampton Arts Center and remain on view through July 12. Mr. Cunningham’s photographic essay “Facades” paired models in period costumes with historic New York City settings. In 1976 he donated 88 silver gelatin prints from the series to the New York Historical Society, a co-organizer of this exhibition.

Brodsky at Red Horse

Studio 11 in East Hampton’s Red Horse Plaza will open an exhibition of new work by Eugene Brodsky with a reception Saturday from 5 to 7 p.m. The show will run through July 19. The works on view reflect Mr. Brodsky’s fascination with the blueprints and sketches of significant 20th-century architecture. Each piece fuses his vision with that of an architect or planner, resulting in images that suggest, but do not replicate, their origins. Mr. Brodsky, who lives in New York City and East Hampton, has described these pieces as “essentially creating a jigsaw puzzle of silk.”

Art Auction at Estia

Artwork by 45 artists is currently on view at Estia’s Little Kitchen in Sag Harbor and available for online bidding at paddle8.com. The exhibition and auction will benefit Project Most, which provides Springs and East Hampton elementary school students with a range of academic support, enrichment activities, and a positive social environment after school.

The Eileen’s Angels Art Auction will culminate with a garden party and live auction at Estia on Sunday from 5 to 8 p.m. Among the artists who have contributed work are Sydney Albertini, Eric Fischl, April Gornik, Judy Hudson, Paton Miller, Dan Rizzie, Clifford Ross, and Cindy Sherman. Tickets for the party, which will feature food and beverages from local producers and restaurants, are $150.

Paintings by Joe Novak

Lawrence Fine Art in East Hampton will open “Joe Novak: Recent Work” with a reception Saturday from 5 to 7 p.m. The show will be on view through July 16. Mr. Novak, who lived, painted, and exhibited his work in East Hampton during the 1980s, has focused throughout his career on color and light, creating large monochromatic color-field canvases with tonal gradations and soft edges. His work reflects the influence of Pollock, Rothko, and his mentors Peter Busa and Esteban Vicente.

New at Richard Demato

“The Revolution Hasn’t Started . . .” is a group exhibition of contemporary painters that will open Saturday at the Richard Demato Gallery in Sag Harbor with a reception from 6 to 8 p.m. The show will continue through July 19. Each of the artists — Drew Ernst, Adam Miller, Rick Garlands, Frank Oriti, and Kevin Muente — exhibits technical virtuosity in his rendering of people and objects, and all put that realism in service to provocative images in which unease and, in some cases, violence are expressed or implied.

Contemporary Pop

The Chase Edwards Gallery in Bridgehampton will present a solo show of work by John Stango, a contemporary Pop artist based in Philadelphia, from Saturday through July 8. A reception will be held Saturday from 6 to 9 p.m. Mr. Stango draws artistic inspiration from retro advertising, pop icons, B-movies, midcentury Modernism, magazines, film noir, and vintage signs. Movie stars, action heroes, and politicians, sometimes in combinations, populate his colorful canvases.

Peabody at Marcelle

Louise Peabody, a figurative painter who lives in New York and Southampton, will have a solo exhibition at the Peter Marcelle Project in Southampton from Saturday through July 12, with an opening reception set for Saturday from 5 to 7 p.m. Much of Ms. Peabody’s work can be divided between individual portraits and paintings of people at play. The beach and party pictures have an impressionistic quality, bathed in light and built up from small brushstrokes, while the portraits tend to capture the character of the subjects.

Four at Ashawagh

“Within a Frame,” an exhibition of work by Kirsten Benfield, Michele Dragonetti, Peter Tooker, and Claudia Ward, will occupy Ashawagh Hall in Springs from tomorrow through Sunday, with a reception scheduled for Saturday from 4 to 8 p.m.

East End landscapes figure prominently in Ms. Benfield’s work, though she is comfortable with abstraction, still life, and people. Ms. Dragonetti’s photographs cover a wide range of subjects, from architecture to landscape to artworks. Light and water and the effects of nature on both are central to Ms. Ward’s photographs. Mr. Tooker is a painter and photographer drawn to both urban and pastoral subjects.

New at Depot Gallery

The Depot Gallery, home of the Montauk Artists Association, will show work by Phyllis Chillingworth, Rita Zimmer, and Cathy Hunter from today through July 6. A reception will take place Saturday from 5 to 7 p.m.

The association will conduct a variety of art classes at the gallery throughout the summer, starting the week of July 6 with oil and acrylic painting taught by Mary Delany, and continuing through August. More information is available on the association’s website.

Franz Joseph Haydn’s “The Creation,” considered by many to be his masterpiece, will be performed on Saturday at 7 p.m. in the Parish Hall of Most Holy Trinity Catholic Church in East Hampton by the Choral Society of the Hamptons. The gorup will be joined by the Greenwich Village Chamber Singers, the South Fork Chamber Orchestra, and four soloists — Alison Davy, soprano, Nils Neubert, tenor, Dominic Inferrara, baritone, and Enrico Lagasca, bass. Mark Mangini, the choral society’s music director, will conduct.

With the exception of Handel’s “Messiah,” “The Creation” is the most frequently performed oratorio. The work is Haydn’s musical representation of the creation of the world as described in the Book of Genesis and Milton’s “Paradise Lost.”

The music evokes the sun, moon, seas, plants, animals, and humans with some of the most experimental music of its time. Influenced by Handel’s oratorios, which he heard when visiting England, Haydn conceived “The Creation” in both English and German. The choral society will perform a traditional English version with small changes to modernize the language.

Immediately following the concert, the choral society will host a benefit dinner at Osteria Salina in Wainscott with wines by Channing Daughters Winery. Today is the deadline for dinner reservations, which cost $300 and include preferred seating at the concert. Tickets are available at choralsocietyofthehamptons.org.

The choral society is an auditioned chorus with a professional music director, soloists, orchestra, and accompanist that has been presenting high-quality choral music on the East End since 1946. The South Fork Chamber Orchestra consists of musicians from Long Island and New York City.

The Greenwich Village Chamber Singers are a mixed chorus of approximately 40 voices that attracts members from throughout the New York metropolitan area. Led by Mr. Mangini, its music director, it performs secular and sacred choral music of all periods.

Tickets to “The Creation” cost $30 in advance, $35 at the door, with tickets for youth priced at $10 in advance, $15 at the door. Preferred seating tickets cost $75. Tickets and information can be found at the choral society’s website.

“MOTHER (and me),” a solo play written by and starring Melinda Buckley, will come to the Bay Street Theater for one night on Monday.

Ms. Buckley uses humor to tell the story of her Hungarian mother’s descent into dementia. She plays both herself as a Broadway actress and her mother. Laced with Ms. Buckley’s family history, the performance follows the journey of this mother-daughter duo as they age and confront questions around loss and memory. Kimberly Senior, a freelance director and adjunct at Columbia College, will irect.

The show will run at 8 p.m. Tickets are $20.

Ms. Buckley will relinquish the Bay Street stage to Colin Quinn on Tuesday when, at 4 p.m., the first of four workshop presentations of “Colin Quinn’s New York Story,” directed by Jerry Sein­feld, will take place. Mr. Quinn will present the complete show, which is scheduled to open at the Cherry Lane Theater in Manhattan in July, with minimal staging and production elements.

Based on his just-released book “The Coloring Book,” “New York Story” brings the comedian’s satiric outlook to bear on the prejudices, peculiarities, and paranoia of the Big Apple. A veteran of five years on “Saturday Night Live,” Mr. Quinn has many television and film credits in addition to three one-man shows, the most recent of which, “Colin Quinn Unconstitutional,” debuted on Broadway in 2013.

The curator of the Jazz en Plain Air series at the Parrish Art Museum, Richie Siegler, will headline tomorrow even­ing’s concert, accompanied by his quartet. Guest musicians will also play, but the remaining lineup has not yet been announced.

Mr. Siegler, raised in Greenwich Village and the founder of Escola de Samba BOOM, a 50-person percussion group, has become a familiar sight onstage at Parrish concerts. He plays primarily standard jazz, but his sets include Latin and Brazilian-influenced twists.

The concert is the second of four performances this summer. Guests can listen for free with museum admission, which is $10 for adults, from 6 to 8 p.m. tomorrow. The Golden Pear Cafe at the museum will serve food and drinks, which can be enjoyed on the lawn on blankets and chairs brought from home.

Carol Steinberg was speaking before an audience of creative types at the New York Foundation for the Arts in Manhattan, where she teaches courses on artists’ rights, when a choreographer came up to ask her about a problem.

The choreographer had engaged a filmmaker to film her dance routine, planning to use the film as part of her next performance. “At the last minute,” Ms. Steinberg recalled, “the filmmaker asked her to sign an agreement. Typical of many artists, she was so involved in what she was doing that she didn’t think much about it.”

As opening night approached, the filmmaker called the choreographer and said, “ ‘You can’t use this [film] in your performance.’ “

“A very unfortunate situation,” said Ms. Steinberg, an arts lawyer who has represented clients in the city and on the East End for the past 23 years. In the end, the choreographer settled it out of court, by giving the filmmaker a sum she “would never have agreed to in the first place, but it took a long time and was very stressful.”

The lesson is clear, she said, for any creative artist: “When you’re collaborating, it’s really a good idea to have an agreement before you begin,” and to have a lawyer check it out.

Ms. Steinberg, who spends summers and long weekends in a part of Springs discovered by the masters of the 20th-century art universe 70 years ago, often gets questions like that one; contracts are one of her specialties.

“People say, ‘I work in a gallery, I’m not getting paid, what should I do?’ ‘My work was in a museum and it was damaged, what should I do?’ ‘How do I get out of a contract, what should I do?’ ”

There was the artist who called her complaining that “I can’t get my work back from the gallery,” which, she said, had sold only $700 or $800 worth of her paintings. She was sure she could do better somewhere else.

Her contract, however, wasn’t as clear as it should have been, Ms. Steinberg said. For one thing, “the commission was lower than normal, 30 percent of the net proceeds. It should be 50 percent of the sales price.” For another, “the gallery had the right to terminate the agreement, but she did not.” The gallery could have argued that it could represent the woman forever, the lawyer said.

The gallerist was “stubborn and difficult,” and absolutely refused to hand over the paintings. When the artist ignored him and went with a van to pick them up, “he actually threatened to call the police.”

“I wrote a letter to the dealer pointing out that the consignment statute says he holds the work in trust.” (He had the paintings on his website as well, without crediting the artist — a violation, she said, of “moral authority.”)

The artist is now suing the gallery for copyright infringement. Ms. Steinberg referred the matter to a litigator — she does not try cases herself — and barring settlement, it is to be tried in a federal court, under the 1990 Visual Artists Rights Act.

In New York State, she said, a dealer can be found guilty of criminal acts more quickly today than in years past. “After Salander, so much art was lost that they got the law strengthened.”

That was the infamous case involving the Salander-O’Reilly Gallery in New York City, which was sued for fraud by numerous business partners and celebrity customers in 2007. Among them was Earl Davis, the son of the artist Stuart Davis, who claimed that his friend Larry Salander had sold 90 of his father’s paintings, entrusted to him on consignment, without his knowledge. Mr. Salander, who was sentenced in 2010 for running a Ponzi scheme that cost his clients some $120 million, is now serving a 6-to-18-year sentence in an upstate prison (he is eligible for “merit release” next month).

After that scandal, the New York State Legislature strengthened the state’s Arts and Cultural Affairs Law, among other things establishing criminal penalties for dealers and giving artists who sue the right to seek attorneys’ fees from the defendant. 

“Artists don’t understand that they have a bundle of rights that give them control,” said Ms. Steinberg. “They can be taken advantage of so easily. Say a restaurateur likes an image he saw at Ashawagh Hall and decides to put it on his menu. The artist may say, ‘I’m so flattered,’ — but she may not. Then what?”

“No one can show someone else’s work, or adapt it, without their consent.” But there’s a catch. “Artists have to register their work if they want to sue for copyright infringement, within three months of the infringement” — a process that Ms. Steinberg readily acknowledged is “problematic.” She estimated that only 5 to 10 percent of all artists register.

One who did was a Haitian photographer named Daniel Morel, who was in Haiti at the time of the earthquake. He sent out his images over social media, where another man found them, copied them, put them on his website, and claimed them as his own work. The photographs were picked up and distributed by Getty Images and Agence France-Presse and used by The Washington Post, ABC, CBS, and many other agencies, which paid the usurper about $45 per print. Mr. Morel sued for copyright infringement, and after four years a Manhattan jury awarded him $1.2 million.

“He registered his copyrights and sued and won,” said Ms. Steinberg. “The point is, he was able to enforce his rights.”

That has become more and more complicated for photographers and artists in the digital age. “One question I get asked the most,” said the lawyer, “is, ‘what can I use of other people’s work?’ ” (in collages, for example, or other mixed media).

She cited the recent case of Patrick Cariou, a photographer, who sued Richard Prince, the well-known “appropriation artist” — he had an exhibition called “Covering Pollock” at Guild Hall four years ago — for copying a number of his photographs and using them in a series called “Canal Zone,” shown in 2008 at the Gagosian Gallery. The photos had been published by Mr. Cariou years earlier in “Yes, Rasta,” a book about the Rastafarian community in Jamaica.

“Canal Zone” sold millions of dollars worth of art, said Ms. Steinberg, and in 2009 the photographer sued the artist for copyright infringement, along with the gallery; its owner, Larry Gagosian, and Rizzoli, which published the show’s catalog.

The defense turned on whether the copyrighted material had been used for a “transformative” purpose — commenting on, criticizing, or parodying it. In large part because Mr. Prince did not claim to be “commenting upon” Mr. Cariou’s photos, the court concluded that “Canal Zone” was not “transformative,” and ordered that the unsold works from the show be destroyed, along with any remaining catalogs.

The New York Times wrote that the lawsuit was “of high interest to the art world, which largely favored Prince’s position, and to the photographic community, which largely favored Cariou’s.”

Mr. Prince appealed the decision, and this time he won. Most of the art at issue (though not all) was indeed “transformative,” said the court, in that it presented, “to a reasonable observer,” a new and different aesthetic.

The two men settled the suit for an undisclosed sum last year before it could go back before the lower court, but, as often happens, the case left many unanswered questions and a lot of angry people in the art world. Ms. Steinberg said her students “are outraged when they hear of that case, especially the photographers.”

“Some people say artists have to be able to use anything when they’re making work. But photographers would say, ‘That’s my work.’ ”

The problem was compounded a thousandfold by the coming of the digital age. In this case, for example, Mr. Prince’s works involved all sorts of “transformations” — copying the original photographs, printing them, making them bigger or smaller, blurrier or clearer, adding content, putting several photos together to make one, and on and on. There is a show going on right now in East Hampton in which, according to the gallery, the artist uses “images of people, including herself, from Internet platforms such as Facebook and Tumblr.”

Ms. Steinberg, who teaches legal sessions and classes for artists in conjunction with the East End Arts Council’s JumpStart program as well as the ones in the city, once offered a class at the School of Visual Arts called the Visual Artist and the Law, and was puzzled when not many people signed up to attend. The next semester she offered it under a new name: Legal Concerns for Artists in a Digital Age.

This time the room was almost full.

Born in Danville, Ill., Ms. Steinberg went to Indiana University (“My father wouldn’t let me come east”) and married too young. The marriage lasted seven years, during which she taught English literature in high school before doing what she’d always known she would, leaving the Midwest behind for the East Village.

“I am very happy to be living in the East,” she said. “It’s much more interesting.”

At some point, she decided to become a lawyer. “I thought law school would be like teaching English. You read, you write, you speak!”

It wasn’t, much, at least not until she discovered art law. “Working in the arts is really satisfying,” she said. “Artists really need help. Law can be a foreign language.”

Bay Street Theater will present the East Coast premiere of “Five Presidents,” a play by Rick Cleveland, an Emmy Award-winning writer, from Tuesday through July 19.

Originally produced at the Arizona Theatre Company and the Milwaukee Repertory Theater, the comic drama focuses on a meeting of America’s most private club, made up of former presidents. Thrown together at the funeral of Richard Nixon, the sitting president and the four “exes” vent frustrations, revisit grievances, and reveal the toll the presidency takes on its occupants.

Directed by Mark Clements, the play stars John Bolger (Gerald Ford), Mark Jacoby (George H.W. Bush), Martin L’Herault (Jimmy Carter), Steve Sheridan (Ronald Reagan), and Britt Whittle (Bill Clinton).

“Five Presidents” will play at 7 p.m. on Tuesdays, Wednesdays, and Sundays, at 8 on Thursdays, Fridays, and Saturdays, and at 2 p.m. on July 1 and 5. Tickets are priced from $53.75 to $75.

Jesse Harris and Star Rover will play songs from their new album “No Wrong No Right” tomorrow at 7 p.m.

Mr. Harris is a singer, songwriter, guitarist, and producer who has released 13 albums as a solo artist and many with his former backing band, the Ferdinandos. He won a Grammy Award in 2003 for Song of the Year for Norah Jones’s hit “Don’t Know Why.”

Last winter, Mr. Harris joined forces with Will Graefe and Jeremy Gustin of Star Rover, a Bushwick-based duo that “specializes in an alluring sort of pastoral punk that suggests a collaboration between Deerhoof and John Fahey,” according to Time Out New York.

Botanical Compounds on Canvas

“Plants of the Gods,” new monumental paintings by Kelsey Brookes, will open at the Eric Firestone Gallery in East Hampton with a reception Saturday from 6 to 9 p.m. and run through July 7.

A microbiologist, surfer, and self-taught painter, Mr. Brookes, who lives in San Diego, explores such varied areas as the nature of existence and perception, science and philosophy, Hindu and Buddhist deities, and fractals and math-based patterns.

The paintings are based on his investigations into ancient botanical compounds. One of four plant-based hallucinogens underscores each composition, making visible the normally unseen world of atoms and molecules while touching on the realms of Pointillism and Op Art.

Marie Jacotey at Blumenthal

“Dirty Summer of Love,” an exhibition of paintings by Marie Jacotey, a French artist now living in London, is on view at the Robert Blumenthal Gallery in East Hampton through July 4.

The show includes work from her Babe Cave series, a group of oil paintings on plastic that are hung using static electricity. “This process gives them an ephemeral aspect; they could fall,” she has said.

Ms. Jacotey often takes images of people, including herself, from Internet platforms such as Facebook and Tumblr. Many of the images are candidly erotic, and often accompanied by text. The influence of artists such as David Hockney and Philip Guston can be seen in her work, which also is informed by cartoons and illustrated books.

Jack Lenor Larsen at Art Barge

“Artists Speak: Conversations at the Beach,” the Art Barge’s summer series of artist interviews, will kick off Wednesday at 6 p.m. when Jack Lenor Larsen, the renowned textile designer, master weaver, gardener, collector, and founder of LongHouse Reserve, will be interviewed by Janet Goleas, an artist, writer, and independent curator.

Seating is limited, and tickets, which are $20, can be purchased in advance at theartbarge.com. A reception will follow the conversation.

Margaret Garrett

At Birnam Wood

The Birnam Wood Gallery in East Hampton will present a solo show of paintings and collages from Margaret Garrett’s “Choros” series from tomorrow through July 6. A reception will be held Saturday from 4 to 6 p.m.

Originally trained as a dancer, Ms. Garrett, who lives on Shelter Island, has likened the canvas or paper to an empty stage, with the development of line, texture, form, and color involving a motion and energy reminiscent of choreography.

She works in extended series. While her previous series, “Turning Fields,” had a lyrical, calligraphic quality and all-over compositions, the “Choros” pieces consist of floating abstract shapes of a single solid color, with a graphic quality reminiscent of Matisse’s cutouts.

New at White Room

The new exhibition at the White Room Gallery in Bridgehampton, which will be open through July 7, features work by Paton Miller and Mark Seidenfeld, along with a selection of pieces by gallery artists. An opening reception will happen Saturday from 6 to 8 p.m.

Mr. Seidenfeld, who has a studio in Bridgehampton, is a man of many styles and mediums. His photographs range from the mythological to the erotic to the ghoulish to the surreal. His paintings include all-over abstractions with suggestions of imagery peeking through the layers of paint, and in-your-face representational works with overtones of pop, surrealism, and satire.

Mr. Miller’s paintings emerge from the events that have shaped his life, particularly his travels in Europe and Asia. He has referred to the latter as “my National Geographic work.” His often exotic subject matter is offset by his preoccupation with working the surface, which he attributes in part to his having worked with dynamite, in construction.

Poetic Realist at Grenning

An exhibition of new paintings by Sarah Lamb will open today at the Grenning Gallery in Sag Harbor and run through July 12. A reception will be held Saturday evening from 6 to 8.

Ms. Lamb, who earned a B.S. in studio art from Brenau University in Georgia and studied in Florence, Italy; France, and New York City, brings her mastery of European illusionistic still life and trompe l’oeil techniques to bear on American comestibles and antiques, from lobsters to Seckel pears to weathervanes.

Her recent move to Texas has added Southwest Americana to the East Coast objects already in her vocabulary.

Collage at Dodds and Eder

“Strength in Layers,” an exhibition of work by Ruben Marroquin, Steve Mitrani, and Oliver Peterson, will open Saturday at Dodds and Eder Home in Sag Harbor and remain on view through Aug. 4. A reception is set for June 27 from 6 to 8 p.m.

All three artists will exhibit collages. Mr. Marroquin, who is a visual artist, textile designer, and weaving instructor, combines cotton, linen, and bamboo fibers with modern industrial cords and other materials in his wall works. Mr. Mitrani’s work incorporates screen printing, intricate and psychedelic patterning, and ambiguous imagery. Mr. Peterson experiments with paints and patinas, and he often applies random studio detritus to his compositions, which are inspired in part by graffiti, the pop zeitgeist, literature, and politics.

“Resolve” at Ashawagh

“Resolve,” an exhibition of the work of 50 artists, will be on view Saturday and Sunday from 10 a.m. to 5 p.m. at Ashawagh Hall in Springs. A reception will take place Saturday evening from 5 to 8.

The artists were asked to present their viewpoint of “resolve,” which, according to the show’s organizers, “encompasses many of the qualities necessary to an artist’s career.” Works on view include painting, sculpture, photography, and mixed media.

30 Paintings in 30 Days

“Best of 30 Squared,” an unusual exhibition of work by 18 artists, will open today at the Water Mill Museum and remain on view through July 12. A reception will be held Saturday from 4 to 7 p.m.

The show is the result of a challenge conceived by Aubrey Grainger, a member of Plein Air Peconic, and disseminated via social media, to paint 30 paintings in 30 days. The resulting works feature landscapes, beaches, people, children, fish, flowers, fruit, and both urban and rural scenes. Stylistically, they include both realism and abstraction, and they range from very small to large, framed works.

The show will be open daily from 11 a.m. to 5 p.m., except Tuesdays. Thirty percent of sales will benefit the museum.

“Wattsup Montauk”

“Wattsup Montauk: Photographs by Ben Watts,” is on view through July 11 at the Milk Gallery in Chelsea. The exhibition coincides with the launch of Mr. Watts’s new monograph, “Montauk Dreaming.”

The show includes images from the book as well as a survey of the photo­grapher’s 30-year career. The book is a celebration of “the End,” Mr. Watts’s home since 1995 and, in his words, “paradise three hours outside the walls of the greatest city in the world.”

An established commercial and fashion photographer, Mr. Watts has collected the photographs he takes on his days off for the book, which has an introduction by the actress Naomi Watts, his sister.