Billy Rayner hasn’t been to China. Or Japan. But he’s been practically everywhere else during the past 50 years and kept diaries filled with watercolors, photographs, observations, historical information, and memorabilia. “Notes and Sketches: Travel Journals of William P. Rayner,” a two-volume set, has just been published by Glitterati Incorporated, allowing readers a view into a life fully lived.

    Born in Washington, D.C., Mr. Rayner was educated at the Taft School in Connecticut and the University of Virginia before moving to New York City to work for Condé Nast as an editorial business manager and writer.

    “I started traveling extensively when I was around 30 years old,” he said, “both for Condé Nast and on my own account.” His first big trip was to Egypt, where he went to see Abu Simbel before the construction of the Aswan Dam removed it to higher ground. “You didn’t fly in then,” he recalled. “You took a two-hour hydrofoil there and spent the day.” Abu Simbel, according to “Notes and Sketches,” was more dramatic in its original location on the banks of the Nile than it is today: “Now it rests on an artificial hill, making it look more like a movie set.”

    Early on, Mr. Rayner, a longtime East Hampton homeowner, started painting. “My mother and aunt both painted, and I used to paint with them. I’ve painted all my life, one way or another. When I was working for Condé Nast I could only paint on the weekends.” He still paints every day in the studio of his Manhattan brownstone.

    He began keeping travel diaries in the 1960s, inspired in part by the aunt, also a diarist. “Her diaries were strictly painting. At first, mine were watercolor-driven; then I began to make notes — I was a writer, after all — and then started to paste things in,” wine labels and other memorabilia. Of the pyramids, he writes that “the one thing that all can agree upon is that Giza is hot, so a cold bottle of Cru des Ptolémées for lunch is a welcome relief.” He has the label to prove it.

    Publishing the journals was never a consideration. In fact, nobody, not even friends, read them. “Maybe my wives read bits and pieces,” the author admitted, “but nobody else. Diaries are things you don’t pass around.” But then came Marta Hallett, the founder of Glitterati Press, a publisher of distinctive illustrated books, ancillary gift products, and electronic media, who looked through Mr. Rayner’s collection and said she had an idea of how to publish the disparate materials.

    “She came back with what I thought was a very good idea,” he said.

    Each location is brought to life by a combination of watercolors, photographs, text both handwritten and typeset, local currency, postage stamps, even a formal invitation to Mr. and Mrs. Billy Rayner to dine in Calcutta with the governor of West Bengal, who was the great-grandson of Mahatma Ghandi. “Calcutta is on the Hooghly river, spanned by a bridge under which refugees from Bangladesh sleep, while nearby a local country club caters to the ‘staying-on’ crowd who take their tea and Pimms cup there. Then there is a marvelous museum with the work of Tilly Kettle, an 18th-century English portrait painter who worked in India, while on streets nearby are once grand houses crumbling into decay.”

    While he describes moments of comfort and relaxation, for the most part Mr. Rayner strays far from the tourist-beaten path. He often finds himself in perilous situations. Of crossing a deep gorge on a narrow, swinging, rope bridge to reach a monastery in Phuktal, India, he writes, “It is necessary to blindfold the horses and attach bells so they can neither see nor hear the water rushing below.” Trekking in the Himalayas on narrow, treacherous footpaths and driving on rutted, serpentine roads flanked by sheer cliffs make for other hair-raising tales.

    Wherever he goes, Mr. Rayner travels with a sack of brushes, paints, and “an artist’s black book you can buy at any art store. The paper isn’t great, but it’s very utilitarian, and I can get down what I want to.” He has always admired traveling artists — Hercules Brabazon, Edward Lear, Eugène Delacroix — as well as such writers as Gertrude Bell, Richard Burton, and Robert Byron, all of whom “have inspired me to want to see things far from home.”

    He explains in the introduction to the book, “I sketch rather than take photographs to remember places and moments, because I love the process. I also like to sit in front of a scene for a while to take in the surroundings and the mood so as to give the subject some texture.” Asked if there were places where he felt intrusive or endangered, he shook his head. “A painter is no threat to anybody.” Onlookers often surround him as he works, and he has been warned countless times about pickpockets, but “never in 40 years have I ever lost so much as a pencil.”

    Volume I of the book is devoted to North Africa and the Middle East, including Turkey. Many places in the region are now out of bounds, since he was there, Mr. Rayner said, including Libya, Egypt, and Syria. “We were in Syria just before the war. There were hardly any tourists, but it was perfectly calm. We would go out to dinner with friends — some place that couldn’t be bugged — and talk politics. They said, ‘We don’t like Assad, but at least we know the devil. We don’t know what the next devil will be.’ ”

    Aleppo, he said, having been conquered by the Greeks, Romans, Mamelukes, Byzantines, Ottomans, and French, was an extraordinary mélange of architectural styles. “I’m afraid it’s all gone,” he said ruefully. “But it’s not only wars that change places. Tourism does, too. Though if you had to choose between the two, you’d take tourism.”

    Years ago there were very few tourists in Turkey, he mused, but it has lately become a popular destination, especially Istanbul and the Mediterranean coast. However, the interior of the country, where he has traveled extensively, hasn’t changed, he said, and tourists are a rarity there. During one visit he spent seven days driving through eastern Turkey over unpaved roads, staying in primitive lodgings. “Places like Lake Van, Erzurum, the area near the Russian border, probably haven’t changed much in 1,000 years,” he said.

    What emerges vividly from Mr. Rayner’s diaries is a fascination with far-flung, often exotic, locales, and a wide-ranging knowledge of people, history, and culture. It’s safe to assume it won’t be long before he crosses Japan and China off his to-visit list.

    Billy Rayner will be at BookHampton in East Hampton on Saturday from 5 to 6:30 p.m. to sign books and talk about his peregrinations.

    The Choral Society of the Hamptons will present “In Terra Pax” on Dec. 8. The program is named for Gerald Finzi’s piece of the same title, which mixes the verse of Robert Bridges, a British poet who died in 1930, with the Gospel of Luke. In passages the voices mimic the sound of church bells. Other works include Ralph Vaughan Williams’s “Fantasia on Christmas Carols” and compositions by Cecilia McDowall and Peter Warlock.

    Mark Mangini, the society’s music director, will lead the concert, joined by Jennifer Hoffmann, a soprano, and Dominic Inferrera, a baritone, as soloists, and the South Fork Chamber Orchestra. Ms. Hoffmann sings regularly in concerts, operas, and competitions in the United States and Europe. Mr. Inferrera, a regular with the choral society, performs opera and oratorio in addition to popular music and musical theater.

    The concert will take place at the Bridgehampton Presbyterian Church in two performances, at 3 and 5:30 p.m. A benefit brunch at Pierre’s restaurant will precede the first performance. The cost is $225. Reservations will be accepted until next Thursday.

    Tickets and reservations for the brunch are available at the society’s website, choralsocietyofthehamptons.org. Concert tickets are also available for $30 at the Romany Kramoris Gallery in Sag Harbor. At the door, tickets begin at $35. There are discounts for children, and preferred seating is available for $75.

    In March, the chorus will perform Vivaldi’s “Gloria” under the direction of Walter Klauss at the East Hampton Presbyterian Church, along with Bach’s Cantata 71 (“Gott ist mein König”), Vaughan Williams’s “Five Mystical Songs,” and works by Mendelssohn.

    On June 28 in Bridgehampton, Mr. Mangini will lead the chorus in “All Bernstein,” a celebration of Leonard Bernstein’s work, including “Chichester Psalms” and music from “Wonderful Town,” “Candide,” and “Mass.”

    Season subscriptions are available for $75 for adults and $30 for children.

Shinnecock Celebration

    The Shinnecock National Cultural Center and Museum is hosting a celebration of the artisans of Wikun Village, Saturday from 4 to 8 p.m. Wikun Village (“wikun” is the Shinnecock word for “good”), which opened in May on the grounds of the museum, is the first Native American-operated living history village on Long Island. While the village is modeled after life in the Shinnecock community from 1640 to 1750, the staff does not role-play. Rather, they are native people from the reservation talking about their own culture and history.

    Saturday’s event begins at 4 p.m. with a reception in the east wing of the museum to view the work of the village’s artisans. A traditional feast will be held at 4:45 in the neeswetu (long house), followed by dancing, singing, and drumming. A raffle drawing will take place at 7 p.m. The museum suggests a donation of $15. Those who give $50 or more will receive a Wikun Village T-shirt.

New at Monika Olko

    An exhibition of work by Maria Schön and Justin Love opens Saturday at the Monika Olko Gallery in Sag Harbor with a reception from 5 to 8 p.m. Ms. Schön, who lives in Sagaponack, was born in Ann Arbor, Mich., of Venezuelan parents, and grew up in Baltimore, where she earned a B.F.A. in painting from the Maryland Institute College of Art. The images in her landscapes are inspired by her time spent in Venezuela. “My works are an exploration as much of the nature of painting as of memory of natural environment and nostalgia for a landscape where I enjoyed a sense of place,” according to a statement by the artist.

    Justin Love is a musician, singer, and composer who started painting 20 years ago. His colorful paintings and pastels have the exuberance of music and reflect his peripatetic past, which has led him to Costa Rica, Jamaica, Thailand, Vietnam, and Woodstock, N.Y., where he created his studio in a 150-year-old country church. His paintings are in many private and corporate collections. The exhibition will remain on view through Dec. 8.

Landscape Four Ways

    “Four Points of View,” an exhibition of work by Kirsten Benfield, Pingree Louchheim, Jerry Schwabe, and Richard Udice, will take place Saturday and Sunday at Ashawagh Hall in Springs. Ms. Benfield, originally from New Zealand and now living in East Hampton, will show watercolors of local landscapes. A photojournalist turned painter, Ms. Louchheim is exhibiting paintings of architecture, farms, animals, and landscapes.

    Mr. Schwabe is a painter, photographer, and sculptor. The exhibition will include photographs and paintings by the East Hampton resident, who is particularly drawn to beach scenes. Mr. Udice’s oil paintings focus on the impact of East End light on the landscape. A reception will be held Saturday from 4 to 8 p.m.

    The East Hampton Historical Society’s 2013 House and Garden Tour, scheduled for Nov. 30 from 1 to 4:30 p.m., will feature five residences, ranging from a historic East Hampton cottage to a compound whose main house’s low, modern profile recalls the work of Frank Lloyd Wright.

    The tour begins near East Hampton Village, then visits Georgica Pond and Amagansett’s Bluff Road Historic District before concluding in the Napeague dunes will the hexagonal house of David Netto, an interior designer.

    An opening-night cocktail party will be held Nov. 29 at the Georgica home of Jack and LuAnn Grubman from 6 to 8. Tickets are $200, which includes entry to the house tour the following day. For those wishing to attend only the tour, tickets are $65 in advance, $75 the day of the tour. All proceeds benefit the East Hampton Historical Society.

    Tickets can be purchased at the society’s office, 101 Main Street, or at easthamptonhistory.org.

    The Horticultural Alliance of the Hamptons is sponsoring two events this weekend, both at the Bridgehampton Community House. An informal discussion on cleaning up the garden and other preparations for winter will be moderated by Pamela Harwood, Saturday at 10 a.m. in the horticultural library. Admission is free.

    For those who don’t want to call it quits for the winter, Margaret Roach will give an illustrated lecture on “Nonstop Plants: A Garden for 365 Days,” Sunday at 2 p.m. in the main auditorium. Ms. Roach, a former editor at Martha Stewart Living, Newsday, and The New York Times, now lectures, teaches horticulture, and writes books and a blog, “A Way to Garden.” Admission is $10, free for members of the Horticultural Alliance.

    It seems perfectly appropriate that a meeting at the crossroads — in this case, Crossroads Music on Amagansett Square — should spark a local musical phenomenon.

    There was no selling of souls at this crossroads. But just as Robert Johnson, through his haunting, primitive recordings like “Cross Road Blues” and “Hellhound on My Trail” ultimately gave rise to rock ’n’ roll, the convergence of Michael Clark, Crossroads Music’s owner; Kerry Kearney, a professional guitarist and 2013 inductee to the New York Blues Hall of Fame, and Casey Baron, a 13-year-old boy from New Hyde Park, has local musicians buzzing about a new line of instruments on the scene.

    Upon seeing and hearing Casey’s cigar-box guitars, of which he has made nearly 60, Mr. Clark signed on to become the instruments’ exclusive dealer. On the same day, Mr. Kearney invited the young luthier to perform with him at an upcoming show, which took place early this month. And at least one local musician has purchased and incorporated a Casey Baron cigar-box guitar into his performances.

    Cigar-box guitars are not new: appearing sometime in the 19th century, they are among the homemade, do-it-yourself instruments, like the washtub bass, that have powered folk and blues soloists and ensembles for generations. The wooden cigar box serves as the resonator, such as the body of a standard acoustic guitar. The instrument’s neck is a broomstick or wooden slat, and strings — often three or four — are stretched from one end of it to the opposite end of the cigar box.

    Unlike the cigar-box guitar’s earlier days, when impoverished musicians built their own instruments out of necessity, technology aided in the development of Casey’s hobby, one he may turn into a business.

    “I guess it started when I was about 10,” Casey said last week. “I was getting into stand-up bass, and eventually stumbled across a video online of someone who made a 2-string stand-up bass out of a cardboard box.” Further research led him to the website cigarboxnation.com, where complete how-to instructions for building a cigar-box guitar are freely available.

    His first guitar, Casey said, turned out “okay, I guess.” On subsequent efforts, “I’d do that instead of this. Learn as you go, to improve.” He quickly added electric models to the inventory by sourcing the required additional parts. “I went to Radio Shack and got a piezo transducer contact mike,” he said. “The problem is, they feed back. But after doing more research, I started adding, sometimes, magnetic pickups to electrify them.”

    Casey has used standard electric guitar pickups in his creations, but now favors those made by boutique manufacturers in Austria and California, both of which he discovered online. Construction, which happens in a workshop in his basement, generally takes a couple of weeks, “depending on if I have the parts. The great thing is, if it doesn’t come out how you like it, you can always noodle around.”

    Last summer, Casey’s aunt dropped by Crossroads Music while on the South Fork to visit relatives in East Hampton. “My sister said to Mike, ‘I’m sure you hear this all the time, but I have two nephews that are quite talented. One builds his own cigar-box guitars,’ ” Casey’s mother, Lois Baron, said.

    “I get this a lot, to be honest,” Mr. Clark confirmed. “I wasn’t expecting too much, because she told me he was 13. But when he brought them in, I could see that they were done with quality.”

    As it happened, Casey had brought several of his instruments to show Mr. Clark on the day of Mr. Kearney’s workshop, one of several held at the store this fall. “I didn’t even know that he could play,” Mr. Clark said. “Once he started playing, I said, ‘You need to come back later and talk to Kerry, show him these guitars.’ ”

    At Mr. Kearney’s workshop, Mr. Clark said, Casey “sat down literally for 30 seconds and played, and Kerry said, ‘What are you doing next Thursday? I want you to open for me, and bring one of those guitars with you.’ Kerry did not hesitate for a second. He was just blown away by it. Everybody just loves the ‘coolness’ factor.”

    “ ‘This kid’s got to come jam with us. This is great!’ ” is how Mr. Kearney remembered his meeting with Casey. “We have a big show coming up in January called the Gathering of the Slides that we’ll be playing in Patchogue, and I would love for him to be on the show with us. It’s a true inspiration to see someone so young have such a deep-rooted love for the blues. He has a true musical soul.”

    “It’s so refreshing to see something like that happen,” Mr. Clark said of Casey’s meeting with Mr. Kearney. “This kid is so into it! Who knows what will happen in the future, but just to know that he met [Kerry] here is so cool.”

    Randolph Hudson, a guitarist who plays with local bands including Black and Sparrow, the Complete Unknowns, and Joe Delia and Thieves, was an early adopter, buying one of Casey’s 3-string electric models, which he uses with Black and Sparrow. “People flip over it, they love the sound,” he said. “I love that it’s three strings and limited in what you can do, but within that limitation there’s so much you can do. I am interested in talking to him next time he’s around — I might commission him to make another for me.”

    Casey, a soft-spoken teenager, is taking all the attention in stride. He performed with Mr. Kearney on Nov. 2 at Crazy Beans, a coffee house and eatery in Miller Place, and seemed pleased but almost bemused by the local reaction to his instruments.

    What do his peers think of his nascent avocation, he was asked. “They think it’s pretty cool,” he said.

    “Downton Abbey” fans who can’t wait for the Jan. 5 return of the PBS Masterpiece Classic can visit the Southampton Historical Museum for a taste of the era, starting on Saturday. “Downton Abbey Style In Southampton: 1900 to 1920” explores the village’s Gilded Age with an installation of women’s clothing, period furniture, dinnerware, vintage photographs, and more.

    Emma Ballou, curator and registrar, was wearing another hat when she paused to conduct a preview tour. Ms. Ballou was painting a mural of Villa Mille Fiore, the Alfred Boardman estate from 1910, modeled after the Villa Medici in Rome and since demolished. “ ‘Down­­ton Abbey’ is such a popular show, with sets and costumes done so beautifully, that we thought this would be a wonderful way to highlight that period of Southampton’s history,” she said.

    Much of the material in the exhibition comes from the museum’s collection, though several garments, including a 1918 opera coat, have been borrowed from Out of the Closet, a vintage clothing store in Water Mill. A floor-length, loose-fitting coat of luxurious fabric, meant to be worn over an evening gown, it is elaborately hand-detailed with brocade, beading, and embroidery.

    Two “day dresses” from around 1915 reflect the era’s changing gender roles. Women’s clothing of the Victorian period included crinolines, bustles, corsets, and other items that created the S-curve in vogue from 1901 to 1910. Within a few years, clothes became much looser. “At this stage, the ‘debutante slouch’ was popular,” said Ms. Ballou, referring to the limp, listless pose that would not have been possible on a corseted body. “The looser clothing also allowed women to participate in sports such as tennis and golf, which were popular at the time in Southampton, at the Meadow Club and the Shinnecock Hills Golf Club.”

    A woman’s suit from 1918 illustrates another fashion shift. “The tailored look became very popular during and after World War I, when more women were entering the work force and employers didn’t want men to be distracted,” explained Ms. Ballou. The result was a more masculine, less revealing, look.

    The exhibition is presented in two sections, one reflecting life “upstairs,” as lived by the gentry; the other, the environment of the servants “downstairs.” A working Victrola from around 1915 is placed next to the elegant opera coat. “It’s the real deal,” said Ms. Ballou, as she positioned the needle on a record and the turntable came up to speed. Music from the period will play during the exhibition, though not on the vintage machine.

    The servants’ section features an “ironing stove,” a cast-iron behemoth surrounded by irons of different weights that are heated by the device. “The bigger the wrinkles, the heavier the iron,” said Ms. Ballou. The top of the stove was used to heat water for steaming.

    Another unusual item, acquired by the museum just recently from a Southampton house being torn down, is a Lazy Susan, a name that doesn’t do it justice. A large, cylindrical wooden cabinet with a hand crank, the device allowed the cook to put hot food inside and the butler to turn the crank until the dish emerged in the butler’s pantry to be plated. The Lazy Susan kept the cooking aromas confined to the kitchen and maintained a distance between the kitchen and household staffs.

    In another alcove meant to suggest a lady’s dressing room, a lavender dress from around 1900 is flanked by an ostrich-feather Tiffany fan inlaid with gold and mother-of-pearl. Chairs, lamps, paintings, a vintage telephone, even a space heater, are among other objects on view.

    Also featured are photographs and wall texts describing some of the colorful characters of the period, among them the Cryder triplets, debutantes who, at society functions, wore different colored ribbons so they could be told apart; Frances (Tanty) Breese, who was married at the family home on Hill Street on the same day her brother Robert tied the knot at St. Andrew’s Dune Church; Zella de Milhau, who owned a home at William Merritt Chase’s Art Village and who, according to Ron Pisano, an art historian, “always managed to steal the show,” and Helen Parrish, daughter of James Cresson Parrish and favorite niece of Samuel Parrish, founder of the museum that bears his name.

    The exhibition will be on view through April 26 at the Rogers Mansion, which is open Tuesday through Saturday, 11 a.m. to 4 p.m.

       An artistic love child of Jackson Pollock and his mistress Ruth Kligman has garnered new legitimacy through the kind of police crime-lab science popularized in “CSI”-type television shows.

       Kligman was living with the artist in 1956 at his house in Springs while his wife, Lee Krasner, was in Europe, a separation prompted by the affair. It would be Pollock’s last summer, his life taken that August in a fatal car accident not far from the house. Kligman, who was in the car, survived, and lived on until 2010.

       According to Kligman, Pollock painted what would be his last artwork at her prodding that summer and gave it her. She named it “Red, Black & Silver,” and spent much of the rest of her life trying to have it authenticated. The trustees of her estate, along with Colette Loll Marvin, an art fraud investigator, have continued the effort.

       On Friday, at a conference in Manhattan, Ms. Marvin revealed new evidence that proved the painting was executed at Pollock’s house, now the Pollock-Krasner House and Study Center. Through the analysis of materials found on the painting, Nicholas Petraco, a forensics expert, was able to tie the work’s creation to the site, and, in fact, to materials that exist there to this day.

According to Mr. Petraco, the evidence proves “beyond a reasonable doubt” that the painting was made at the house. However, he said he cannot prove that Pollock himself painted it, and at least one expert remains unconvinced that it is by the artist’s hand.

The forensic study included analysis of fibers, seeds, sand, human hair, and animal hair, all of which link the painting to the site. The fibers matched a rug in the attic. The sand was consistent with the sand that fronts Accabonac Harbor. The seeds matched the sea grass that grows there. Most compelling were the hairs on the painting, which matched hair found in a pair of Pollock’s loafers.

       The only mysterious piece was the animal hair, which turned out to be from a polar bear. “It left us all scratching our heads,” Ms. Marvin said. Yet, Mr. Petraco said a quick Google search turned up a photo of the polar bear rug in the Pollock-Krasner house around 1960. He learned from Helen Harrison, the director of the study center, which sponsored the conference along with Stony Brook University Manhattan, that the rug was still in the attic. The hairs matched.

       According to Ms. Marvin, another expert is using statistics to create a model from the evidence gathered so far with qualitative material, such as expert opinion and “information everyone has agreed upon,” to determine the probability that Pollock painted the work. The model addresses the question “Is it more reasonable to believe Jackson Pollock painted this work is or it more reasonable to believe that he didn’t?” She said the statistical information used supports the conclusion that he did.

       Another investigation is comparing Pollock’s poured painting skeins in the disputed painting with works in the catalogue raisonné, much in the way others have used fractal analysis to find consistency among his works.

       This extensive search for answers was inspired, Ms. Marvin said, by the questions raised by the authentication board, as well as the trustees of the Kligman estate’s pursuit of the truth. “Through new advances in scientific technology, questions have been answered that leave little doubt that ‘Red, Black & Silver’ is a work by Jackson Pollock, his last,” she said.

       Ms. Marvin connected  the new evidence to other forensic analysis that had been done on the paint used in the work as further proof that Pollock likely did make the painting. She also relied heavily on Kligman’s own account in a sworn affidavit, in which Kligman recalled that on an afternoon in July 1956, “I asked him to show me how you painted, to engage him in a playful and carefree activity. . . . I retrieved one of my canvas boards onto which I had begun painting; strokes that I had started are visible underneath Jackson’s painting . . . I stood near him and watched him paint. I saw him pour the silver aluminum and drop the black on the board and quickly gesture with the red enamel. It was an expression from Jackson to me born on the emotions of the moment, done with joy, effortlessly. When he was done, he gave the painting to me.”

       Ms. Marvin added that in examining 700 artworks created by Kligman through the years, she found no example of a poured painting or any attempt by her to paint in the drip technique employed here by Pollock. Kligman, she noted, was a 23-year-old art student at the time the painting was made; she presented two figurative paintings that Kligman painted at the time to demonstrate that her style was not imitative of Pollock’s.

       Others were less enthusiastic about the new findings and Ms. Marvin’s conclusions. Another speaker, Francis V. O’Connor — a close friend of Krasner, an original director of the Pollock-Krasner Foundation, a member of the now disbanded authentication board for Pollock’s works, and a co-author of the Pollock catalogue raisonné — said he found her presentation inconclusive. “I don’t think there’s a Pollock expert in world that would look at that painting and agree it was a Pollock,” he said, calling the science ambiguous and the rest of the rationale based “simply on the statements of the owner and her estate. It would be marvelous if we could figure it out, but we only have statements of the owner as proof.”

       Although Kligman avoided having the painting authenticated while Krasner was alive, she did bring it to the authentication board before it disbanded, but the members were not able to reach a conclusion. Ms. Marvin said in her talk that she based her investigation on the questions the board raised in its analysis of “Red, Black & Silver” and attempted to address them. Mr. O’Connor declined to elaborate further on his remarks after the symposium concluded.

       Trustees of Kligman’s estate were also on hand Friday, including Davey Frankel, a filmmaker and friend of Kligman’s, who said afterward that while he was happy to keep trying to make the case for the painting, he believed all the original Pollock authentication board’s questions have now been addressed.

       “The whole swirling ambiguity around the painting has shrunk to tiny points,” he said, adding that the only thing standing in the way of its acceptance was the personalities involved in the authentication process and their loyalty to Krasner. The estate put the painting up for auction in 2012 with an undisclosed estimate but withdrew the work prior to the sale in order to conduct more research. Mr. Frankel said there were no immediate plans to sell it.

       Ms. Harrison, the conference host, said at its end that she did not take sides in authentication disputes — Ms. Marvin’s presentation was “provocative,” she said diplomatically — but was happy to make the center available for investigations into the veracity of claims surrounding works outside the catalogue raisonné. She allowed the hairs from Pollock’s loafers to be examined as well as the polar bear rug, both the one in the attic and another rug that contributed fibers to the painting.

       Mr. Petraco, who is on the faculty of John Jay College of Criminal Justice, said after the symposium that he had investigated “lots of paintings in my life,” but this situation was unique in that he was allowed to remove samples from the painting, and the place in which it was thought to have been made was so well preserved to the time of its making. “I would have no problem going to court to testify that the painting had been made there,” he said. Whether that is enough to prove Pollock painted it, “I’ll leave up to the jury or in this case, the public.”\

Nature Times Two

    “East/West,” an exhibition of work by Annie Sessler and John Todaro, will be on view at Ashawagh Hall in Springs Saturday and Sunday. The title of the show reflects Ms. Sessler’s use of the Japanese craft tradition of Gyotaku, fish printing, and Mr. Todaro’s travels to the American West. Nature is subject and inspiration for both artists.

    Ms. Sessler and her husband, who live in Montauk, create original relief prints using water-soluble nontoxic inks and freshly caught fish. At Ashawagh Hall she will show limited-edition prints and crafted objects that incorporate the prints. Her work has been featured by such diverse media as The New York Times, Edible East End, and “CBS Sunday Morning.”

    Mr. Todaro, who lives in East Hampton, will show new pieces in both color and black-and-white from the East End and his annual trips west. A full-time photographer since 1987, he has won many awards and has exhibited extensively. His work has been published in The New Yorker, Men’s Journal, Town & Country, Decor, Metropolitan Home, Elle Canada, and other magazines.

    An opening reception will take place Saturday evening from 5 to 8.

Open Studio in Springs

    The Springs studio of Elizabeth Delson, a painter and printmaker who died in 2005, is now open year round for visits by appointment. Ms. Delson, who graduated from Smith College and studied at Pratt Institute and Hunter College, enjoyed a 50-year career as a painter and printmaker, working for many years in Park Slope before moving to East Hampton in 1999. Her work is in the collections of the Brooklyn Museum and the Whitney Museum of American Art, among other public institutions.

    Nineteen works are installed in her studio, which includes her Charles Brand etching press, and others are available in portfolios for browsing. Appointments may be made by e-mailing [email protected].

Bluedorn Out East

    Scott Bluedorn is a busy man, an artist, designer, and illustrator, who works with various media including painting, drawing, print process, design, and found-object assemblage. The Outeast Gallery in Montauk will present his first solo show, including both recent and older work, from Saturday through New Year’s Day. A reception for the show, “Scott Bluedorn: Theo Blue,” will be held on Saturday from 7 to 10 p.m.

    Mr. Bluedorn is also the director of Neoteric Fine Art in Amagansett. Beginning tomorrow, the gallery will host life-drawing classes with Linda Capello. The classes will be held Fridays throughout the winter from 10 a.m. to noon in the main gallery. The cost is $30 per class with a reservation, $35 for drop-ins.

    Next weekend, Neoteric Fine Art will open a group exhibition derived from the concept of synesthesia, a condition in which one experiences the blending of senses in response to stimuli. The participating artists were asked to pair their work with an instance of one of the other four, nonvisual senses. “Synesthesia,” which includes work by Matthew Satz, Darlene Charneco, Christian Little, Maggie Harrsen, Colin Goldberg, Lisa Trivell, Jeff Muhs, Melissa Mapes, and Nika Nesgoda, will open on Friday, Nov. 29, with a reception from 6 to 10 p.m., and run through Dec. 31.

Grenning Holiday Show

    The Grenning Gallery in Sag Harbor will kick off its annual holiday show with a reception Saturday from 5:30 to 7:30 p.m. The exhibition, which will remain on view through Jan. 27, includes work by Sarah Lamb, Maryann Lucas, Joe Altwer, Daniel Graves, Greg Horwich, Michael Kotasek, Kevin McAvoy, and Kevin Sanders.

    Ms. Lamb is showing 10 new paintings in which she captures the details of everyday objects in still lifes and landscapes. Ms. Lucas, who lives and works in Sag Harbor, creates loose and painterly plein-air landscapes and still lifes. Mr. Altwer is a realist painter whose work depicts his environment in Sweden, where he recently moved.

    Four new landscapes by Mr. Graves reflect his commitment to classical academic painting. Mr. Horwich will exhibit a nocturne of Sag Harbor and an interior of a woman in her bath, painted with a high-key palette of blues and pinks. Farmhouses at twilight are the subjects of Mr. Sanders’s paintings. Mr. McEvoy will show a new still life, while Mr. Kotasek will draw upon his meticulously painted landscapes and still lifes.

    This year’s Black Film Festival opens tonight at 6:30 with a screening of “The Central Park Five,” a 119-minute documentary by Ken Burns, David McMahon, and Sarah Burns about the five young black and Latino men convicted of raping a jogger in Central Park in 1989 and exonerated 13 years later.

    The free program, which will take place at the Southampton Cultural Center on Pond Lane, will be followed by a panel discussion featuring one of the wrongly convicted men, Yusef Salaam; Dr. Anael Alston, an award-winning educator; the Rev. Kirk Lyons Sr., founder of Brothers Keepers; Kyle Braunskill, director of Safe Harbor Mentoring, a program that operates in prisons, and Audrey Gaines, a licensed clinical social worker.

    In keeping with the festival’s traditional format, tomorrow from 7 to 9 p.m. the cultural center will provide a venue for spoken-word and jazz performances, this year featuring Charles Certain of Certain Moves, who brings jazz, rock, funk, and R&B, Sheree Elder, who is a jazz singer, and guest poets. The $20 admission fee helps fund the festival.

    Saturday the program moves to Stony Brook Southampton, where an episode from season one of “Roots” will be screened at 3:15 p.m. A question-and-answer session with John Erman, the director of the episode, and Tina Andrews, an actress who played Kunta Kinte’s girlfriend, will follow.

    On Sunday the festival concludes at the Southampton Center, in the old Parrish Art Museum building on Job’s Lane, with the world premiere of Nigel Nobel’s “Prison Terminal: The Last Days of Private Jack Hall,” a 40-minute documentary shortlisted for the 2014 Oscar for best short documentary, and a showing of “Voices of Sarafina!” The Saturday and Sunday events are also free.

    A project of the African American Museum of the East End in Southampton, the festival is organized by Brenda Simmons, co-founder of the museum, together with Cheryl Buck and the film committee. Over lunch, Ms. Simmons talked about the challenges of getting one of the Central Park five to join the panel discussion.

    “I contacted Dr. Natalie Byfield, a writer whose forthcoming book, ‘Savage Portrayals: Race, Media, and the Central Park Jogger Story,’ will be published by Temple University Press. She put me in touch with Sarah Burns.”

    Ms. Simmons and Ms. Burns played telephone tag throughout the summer, until they finally connected and Ms. Burns referred Ms. Simmons to the Innocence Project, a national litigation and public policy organization dedicated to exonerating wrongly convicted prisoners. Two months ago, Yusef Salaam, who was 16 at the time of his arrest and now works for a New York City hospital managing the wireless system that doctors and staff there use to communicate, agreed to attend the screening and join the panel.

    The Saturday program will include “Beat the Drum” (2003), a prize-winning South African film about a young orphan who must confront the realities of urban life; “Beasts of the Southern Wild” (2012), the acclaimed story of the effect of a flood on a bayou community and a young girl, played by Quvenzhané Wallis, who was nominated for an Oscar; “Tug O War” (2013), a short film, and “Roots,” season 1, part 2 (1977), from the Emmy Award-winning mini-series.

    The day will conclude with “I Am Slave,” a 2010 film based on the real-life experiences of a 12-year-old girl abducted and sold into slavery in the Sudan. According to Ms. Simmons, “We chose this film before the release of ‘12 Years a Slave,’ with which its story has so much in common.”

    Sunday’s premiere, “Prison Terminal: The Last Days of Private Jack Hall,” is a cinema verite documentary shot in one of the country’s oldest maximum-security prisons. It tells the story of the final months in the life of a terminally ill prisoner who was tended by hospice volunteers, themselves prisoners.

    The festival’s concluding film, “Voices of Sarafina!” is a documentary based on the 1987 Lincoln Center musical “Sarafina!” with members of the original young South African cast. The musical retold the story of the Soweto uprising in South Africa in 1976.