The East End Hospice will once again hold its Box Art Auction on Sept. 7 at the Ross School, but it will also offer a preview of the boxes, as has become tradition, at Hoie Hall in St. Luke’s Church in East Hampton on Wednesday and next Thursday.

   For the auction, chaired by Arlene Bujese, some 100 artists have transformed cigar boxes into personal statements of their creative vision. Many will be at the preview on Wednesday from 5 to 7 p.m. Connie Fox, April Gornik, William King, Julie Small Gamby, Daniel Pollera, Randall Rosenthal, and Frank Wimberley are some of the participants.

   The auction is now in its 13th year. At the benefit on Sept. 7, the silent auction will begin at 4:30 p.m. and the live auction will begin at 6. Bonnie Grice, the host and producer of the “Eclectic Cafe” and “The Song Is You” on WPPB, will serve as auctioneer. Wine and hors d’oeuvres are included in the $75 benefit fee.

   All proceeds from admissions and sales will benefit East End Hospice, which provides care for terminally ill patients and their caregivers on the East End. The hospice is about to break ground on an inpatient facility in Quiogue.

   The preview will be open from 10 a.m. to 4 p.m. both days. The meet-the-artists event is free. The boxes may also be viewed at eeh.org.

Modernism at Vered

    Vered Gallery in East Hampton is currently recognizing the centenary of American Modernism with a show featuring the work of some of its earliest practioners. “Celebrating 100 Years of American Modernism 1913-2013” will be on view through Sept. 12.    

    The show includes oil paintings by John Graham, Marsden Hartley, and Milton Avery, works on paper by Oscar Bluemner, Charles Sheeler, and Alvin Langdon Coburn, vintage photography by Coburn, Man Ray, and Alexander Rodchencko, and furniture by Carlo Bugatti.

    Janet Lehr, who brought the show together, has been a curator with the Library of Congress, the Cleveland Museum, the Detroit Art Institute, and many more, helping the institutions to build their photography collections.

    The organizers note that Modernism had to develop in order for the visual arts to stay relevant after the invention of photography, drawing similar conclusions to cultural critics who examined the relationship early in the 20th century.

    The exhibition traces the Modernist moment in this country to the Armory Show in Manhattan during the winter of 1913, which was a catalyst for American artists who were already choosing to channel the current styles of European painters into their own work and who exhibited alongside them.

    The Vered show ends with Milton Avery, whom the gallery deems the last American Modernist. The photographers whose work is shown were members of Alfred Stieglitz’s Photo Secessionists and other even more experimental groups.

Artists Do Montauk

    The annual juried fine art show on the Montauk Green, presented by the Montauk Artists Association, will return tomorrow through Sunday. The show, in its 19th year, has become a signature event for artists on Long Island.

    Eighty national and international artists and artisans will converge on the hamlet to present their original handmade creations. The show opens tomorrow from 12 to 6 p.m. and will continue Saturday and Sunday from 10 a.m. to 6 p.m. each day. There is no charge to attend.

Summer Favorites at Booth

    Tulla Booth Gallery in Sag Harbor is showing “Summer Favorites,” photographs, through Aug. 25. The artists include Eric Meola, who is showing images of Bruce Springsteen he took for the “Born to Run” album cover and other related pictures. Michael A. Clinton, Stephen Wilkes, Blair Seagram, Burt Glinn, Herb Friedman, and Ms. Tulla Booth herself are also featured.

McMullan’s Studio at 4 p.m.

    James McMullan’s Sag Harbor studio will be open today at 4 p.m. for Canio’s Master Artist Studio series.

    Mr. McMullan is known for his Lincoln Center Theatre posters, book cover illustrations, and New York Times Book Review illustrations, in addition to a number of award-winning children’s books with his wife, Kate McMullan. The cost of the visit is $30 and reservations are required through the store.

    On Sunday at the bookstore from 4 to 6 p.m., Canio’s will host a reception for James Britton’s show of paintings and woodcuts. Mr. Britton is known  primarily for his landscapes of Sag Harbor and eastern Connecticut; this show will include his rarer woodcuts of literary figures. He worked in Sag Harbor in the mid-1920s, where he created these woodcuts and some of the paintings. The show, which goes on view today, will remain at Canio’s until Sept. 12.

Lee Essex Doyle at Marcelle

    Peter Marcelle Gallery in Bridgehampton will show works by Lee Essex Doyle beginning Saturday, with a reception from 6 to 8 p.m.

    The contemporary artist takes inspiration from her travels in India and Africa and uses her own sense of color and rhythm in interiors and landscapes which are layered in patterns, textures, and colors, according to the gallery.

    The show remains on view through Aug. 25.

Something Wet

    “Water,” the next exhibition at the Tripoli Gallery in Southampton, will present various East End artists across many decades dealing with the subject of water.

    The gallery is marking its fifth anniversary  with a broad range of artists, including Ross Bleckner, William Merritt Chase, Willem de Kooning, James de Pasquale, Roy Lichtenstein, and Thomas Moran. Maya Lin, the designer of the Vietnam Veterans Memorial in Washington, D.C., will also have work featured.

    There will be an opening reception on Saturday from 6 to 8 p.m.

Sip and Sketch

    The Parrish Art Museum will offer a new “Sip and Sketch” social club tomorrow from 6 to 8 p.m. in its theater, with a theme of “at the beach.” All levels of skill and background will be welcomed.

    Participants have been invited to bring pads and drawing materials to sketch two live models, Sylvia Channing and Christian Scheider, who will be in bathing suits. Drinks will be available for purchase at the museum cafe.

    Barbara Thomas, who teaches other art classes at the museum, will be the instructor for those would like some help with their sketches. Tickets are $10, free for members, and can be purchased at parrishart.org. Advance registration has been recommended, as space is limited. 

Ray Parker in Southampton

    Ann Madonia Antiques in Southampton Village will show Ray Parker’s paintings beginning today through Aug. 29. The artist, an East Hampton Abstract Expressionist and associate of Willem de Kooning, died in 1990.

Take Me Out

    Eric Firestone Gallery in East Hampton will present “Seventh Inning Stretch,” a show organized by Carlo McCormick and Mr. Firestone, beginning Saturday with a reception from 6 to 9 p.m.

    The artists will include Daniel Arsham, Slater Bradley, William Coupon, Carlton DeWoody, Sebastian Errazuriz, Tony Fitzpatrick, Elissa Goldstone, Susan Grayson, Jeanette Hayes, Neil Jenney, Deborah Kass, Eva LeWitt, Justin Lowe & Jonah Freeman, Andrea Mary Marshall, Guy Overfelt, Raymond Pettibon, Garrett Pruter, Kathy Rudin, Tom Sanford, Shelter Serra, Randy Slack, Jim Thompson, JJ Veronis, Nari Ward, Eric White, Wendy White, Rob Wynne, and Dustin Yellin.

    The theme of the work is baseball, a “sampling of some of the ways in which baseball has entered the lexicon of contemporary visual art,” according to Mr. McCormick.

Last Chance in Riverhead

    Many favorite South Fork artists are included in a show Hope Sandrow has organized called “Summer of Love: Found and Lost” at Art Sites in Riverhead, which will be on view through Sunday.

    According to the artist and curator, the context of the show and its themes are centered around both Occupy Wall Street and the summer of 1967, known as the Summer of Love, when thousands gathered in San Francisco and New York City to press for social change. It was inspired by the recent bombings in Boston, which stand in stark contrast to the more reflective events.

    Some of the artists are students themselves at Stony Brook University, while others come from that other generation of protesters, and every age in between.    

    Brooke Bofill, Nicole Hixon, Nichols Warndorf, Geoff Hendrick, Nobuho Nagasawa,  Jameson Ellis, David Martine, Sabina Streeter, Christine Scuilli, Maria Elena Gonzalez, Caterina Verde, Ulf Skogsbergh, Peter Hujar, Sur Rodney Sur, Allan Wexler, Gabrielle Selz, Robin Tewes, Hideaki Ariizumi, Almond Zigmund, Christopher French, Walter Robinson, Deb Willis, and Ms. Sandrow herself all contribute to the varied responses and mediums on display.

Fonseca Paintings

    The Drawing Room gallery in East Hampton will show Caio Fonseca’s new paintings on paper beginning tomorrow through Sept. 30.

    The artist is currently working in gouache, an opaque watercolor, on paper culling abstractions of his surroundings here, in New York City, and Pietrasanta, Italy. As the gallery describes it: “. . . movement activates the picture field in which bold, rhythmic swath of color dance across textured white grounds recalling Mediterranean light.”

    Through all of his work, his background as a musician is also apparent, “the imagery coheres into rhythmic, animated synergy.”

   Great drama is found, most often, not in the lines the actors speak or in the sound and fury they unleash onstage. No, great drama reveals itself in silence, dreaded silence, when those in the audience peer into the souls of the characters onstage and by doing so look truthfully into their own souls, warts and all.

    More than just warts are revealed in Chad Beguelin’s fine new play, “Harbor,” currently playing at 59E59 Theaters in New York.

    Ostensibly set in Sag Harbor, “Harbor” thrusts us into the world of an apparently happily married gay couple, Kevin (Randy Harrison) and Ted (Paul Anthony Stewart). They appear to be a true union, right down to their hyphenated last name, never spoken onstage but listed in the program as “Adams-Weller.”

    Kevin is a writer. He has been working on the same book for 10 years. Ted is the breadwinner, a fairly successful architect. He tends to speak in corporate jargon.

    The couple’s wedding cake life is invaded by Kevin’s homeless weed-smoking misfit sister, Donna (Erin Cummings), and her brilliant 15-year-old daughter, Lottie (Alexis Molnar).

    Lottie reads Virginia Woolf. Donna thinks a misogynist is someone who gives massages. The two are their own couple, diving across America in a dirty van, spitting and fighting throughout.

    Lottie, who feels trapped in her relationship with her mother, is a voracious reader.

    “What are you reading now?” Donna asks her, early in the play, as she drives.

    “ ‘The House of Mirth,’ ” is the answer.

    “Is it funny?”

    “Hilarious,” Lottie replies sardonically.

    Mr. Beguelin is a master of our language, and of human nature. He finds the nuances in the interaction between the characters that, on one hand, make the audience laugh, while on the other, create an air of discomfort.

    There is a lyricism in his writing that is compelling. Not surprising, since he is a theatrical lyricist. He understands the sound of the contemporary language, as spoken by real people.

    Donna has driven them to Sag Harbor to visit her brother, whom she hasn’t seen in 10 years, since their mother’s funeral. She has a secret, one that is central to the plot, which she soon reveals: She is pregnant.

    As children of an alcoholic mother, Donna and Kevin clung to each other for shelter growing up. Now, she exploits that familial knowledge with one goal in mind — to get the couple to adopt her baby.

    She knows, in her heart, that Kevin wants to be a “mommy,” and she is more than happy to make that desire a reality.

    But a baby is the last thing that Ted would want in his neat, planned, controlled world. As Kevin says early in the play, “Ted hates babies. He thinks they all should be baked into pies.”

    The cast is superb.

    The part of Donna, played by Ms. Cummings, is the engine that drives this play. Ms. Cummings plays it with an ease and aplomb that brings a desperate, sad sense of truth to the character.

    She is making her New York stage debut in “Harbor.” I hope she likes the feel of a New York stage, because, judging from her preview performance last Thursday, she will be a regular there, if the nasty film business doesn’t steal her away.

    The other three players are equally adept.

    Paul Anthony Stewart, no stranger to the New York stage, gives the audience a very real man who has to control everything. There are moments that the character is hateful, but Mr. Stewart plays it with a deep sense of humanity, so he is never cartoonish. Sadly, there is a bit of him in all of us.

    That is true of all four characters.

    There is another moment, early in the play, when Kevin describes the plot of his book to Lottie, who recognizes it as that of a Virginia Woolf work. It is a telling moment, in which we realize that Kevin will never finish his novel, or even the pamphlet he is writing for the historical society.

    Mr. Harrison plays this character without ever seeking sympathy from the audience. Instead, he peels away the skin of the onion, until he gets to the heart of the matter, and the realization of what he needs to do.

    The same can be said for the wonderful Alexis Molnar. She moves us without ever pushing the matter. She feels out of place among her peers. “Maybe I shouldn’t have tried to explain malapropism to them,” she says at one point.

    She captures perfectly the awkwardness, and pathos, of the character.

    If Donna is the engine that drives “Harbor” onstage, then Mark Lamos is the engine that is driving the production behind the scenes.

    This is the second production of this play. The first was last year at the Westport Country Playhouse. Mr. Lamos has clearly been mentoring this piece, something he has done often in his illustrious career.

    He has put together a superb cast, as well as an excellent design team. Andrew Jackness’s set is perfectly partnered with Japhy Weidman’s lighting design, allowing extreme flexibility for the author and the players. Candice Donnelly’s costume design is a wonderful study in contrasts, capturing the preppy fastidiousness of Ted and Kevin’s world and the wild, natural grunge of Donna’s.

    One wardrobe quibble, which must be a directorial choice: At that moment when Kevin decides to throw in with Donna, he leaves the stage wearing a Ralph Lauren shirt with matching shorts and returns in some grungy outfit. Really? Did he run out and scoop up Goodwill’s rejects? It’s hard to imagine anything like that would be in his bureau drawers.

    I have another quibble with this wonderful production: the setting. This play should be set in East Hampton Village, not Sag Harbor Village. It’s one thing for Donna to call Sag Harbor “the heart of the Hamptons,” as she does early in the play. She doesn’t know it simply is not.

    I know Kevin and Ted very well. There are plenty of couples just like them.

    Come a few miles down Route 114, Mr. Beguelin and Mr. Lamos, and your wonderful play will truly be situated in the “heart of the Hamptons.”

    Mr. Beguelin skillfully takes us on a journey of laughter and sadness. Toward the end of the play, he seems to offer an obvious ending, but I imagine he does so with a smile, knowing all along that he has a 2-by-4 of a final twist hidden behind his back. At the end, he smacks us with that 2-by-4, right in the gut, leaving his characters — and the audience — in silence, much wiser, but infinitely more alone.

    “Harbor” is produced by Primary Stages and is playing at 59E59 Theaters in Manhattan until Sept. 8. Running time is about two hours, with a 15-minute intermission included.

   The Bridgehampton Chamber Music Festival presented a concert called “Captivating Combinations” on July 31 at the Bridgehampton Presbyterian Church, and true to the usual format of this series, each of the four works on the program had a different combination of instruments, offering varying colors, well coupled with the individual character of each composition.

    The program had solid bookends of Beethoven and Ravel, and a poignant Shostakovich trio and less familiar divertimento by the contemporary New York composer John Musto in the middle.

    The Beethoven Trio (Op. 9 No. 2) for violin, viola, and cello, played by Jennifer Frautschi, Milena Pajaro-van de Stadt, and Edward Arron, showed the quick-witted, playful early period of the composer, within its classical framework of restraint.

    One thing that was immediately apparent was how closely the players were attuned to each other, with their eye contact and animated facial expressions darting back and forth as the instruments traded motifs and themes, much like actors bantering. Mr. Arron was especially animated and obviously immersed in and transported by the music. It was precise, subtle, and exciting playing. There was so much music in a rather sparse texture, and the audience was fully drawn in.

    Although all of the players in the festival are of world-class caliber, Ms. Frautschi’s tone on the violin was extraordinarily rich, resonant, and beautiful.

    For Dmitri Shostakovich’s String Quartet No. 8 in C minor (Op. 110), Karen Gomyo joined the three other players on violin. Written in 1960, the quartet was dedicated to “the memory of the victims of fascism and war.” Shostakovich had composed music for “Five Days, Five Nights,” a joint Soviet-East German film that takes place shortly after the devastation of Dresden in World War II, and then in three days he composed this incredible quartet.

    The opening movement was like an elegy, which showed one of the interesting coloristic features of this work: contrasting straight-toned string sound, an eerie quality often on long, sustained chords, with a solo string using normal vibrato. It is a way of getting extra hues of tone from the instruments, and it had an appropriately dark quality.

    There was fury and agitated despair, which required amazing rhythmic accuracy from the players. One section was almost a waltz, but really more like a danse macabre. The listener could easily vivualize a barren landscape and hear the depth of the anguish.

    The ending was one of those most breathtaking moments. Even when the last pianissimo chord was finished, the players couldn’t bear to lift their bows from their instruments right away. When they did, the audience still sat spellbound for a few seconds before the sighs, applause, and bravos.

    I can’t think of any other human endeavor, other than music making of this kind and caliber, in which such desolation and bleakness can be evoked and thereby vicariously experienced by others, and yet, paradoxically, done with such touching beauty and artistry.

    I would like to commend Marya Martin, the festival’s artistic director, especially for choosing the next work, John Musto’s Divertimento, for an unusual and vivid combination of instruments, composed in 1999.

    The scheduled clarinetist apparently had last-minute problems with a visa, and Romie de Guise-Langlois did an outstanding job of filling in for him on a week’s notice. Other instrumentalists were Ms. Martin on flute, Ms. Pajaro-van de Stadt on viola, Mr. Arron on cello, Wendy Chen on piano, and Ayano Kataoka on percussion. The array of percussion added layers of bright color to the other instruments: xylophone, cymbal, bass drum, glockenspiel, and tempo blocks.

    Mr. Musto has said that the Divertimento is “informed by a variety of popular music styles,” and in invigorating contrast to the previous work, it had a festival atmosphere, with the vibrant timbres of each instrument standing out.

    I can’t describe it better than the delightful program notes: Some of the sections include “a jazzy strain to which the dance sequences in ‘West Side Story’ stood as godparent,” “fragments of a cheesy cakewalk and a sentimental waltz,” and “a tango melody with a klezmer-like panache.”

    Even with such disparate elements, Mr. Musto creates an exotic fantasyland or escapade that has its own bright aura. In the end, the tango takes the work to its rousing finish. I wasn’t familiar with the Divertimento, but it should be heard more and could easily become a standard in the repertory.

    To change the palette, we heard the Trio in A minor by Maurice Ravel, with Ms. Gomyo on violin, Mr. Arron on cello, and Ms. Chen on piano. The sources for Ravel’s inspiration range from Basque folk music to a Malaysian poetic form to the Baroque passacaglia dance form. Yet overall there was a more pastel, impressionistic sheen, and the changeable moods were more muted than earlier, and the concert closed with an elegant and decidedly optimistic tone.

    The program booklet proclaims “30 Summers of Music: A Special Anniversary Season.” With this noteworthy background, the festival has also launch­ed its own CD label, BCMF Records, featuring selected summer performances.

    Tomorrow at 6 p.m. is the annual Wm. Brian Little Concert at the beautiful Channing Daughters Winery Sculpture Garden in Bridgehampton. There are four other concerts left this season, on Sunday, Aug. 14, Aug. 17, and Aug. 18, all at the Bridgehampton Presbyterian Church. More information is at bcmf.org. You won’t find better on the East End this summer.

    Tomorrow, Guild Hall will hold its Summer Gala in conjunction with the opening of the Chuck Close exhibition at the museum. A cocktail party at the show will be followed by drinks, dinner, and dancing at the Bridgehampton estate of Louise and Leonard Riggio. A live art auction will also be part of the festivities.

    Tickets begin at $500 for the exhibition preview and cocktails, and $1,200 for the entire evening and can be purchased through Guild Hall’s special events department.

    On Saturday at 3 p.m. preceding the public opening of his exhibition “Chuck Close: Recent Works,” Mr. Close will participate in a free discussion with Robert Storr about his work. Mr. Storr, a former curator at the Museum of Modern Art, is a professor and dean of the school of art at Yale University.

    The exhibition will feature his recent paintings, prints, and tapestries of his iconic portraits of people he knows, or what he refers to as “heads.” Mr. Close was the recipient of the 1995 Guild Hall Academy of the Arts Lifetime Achievement Award for visual arts. He has also been a part-time East End resident for more than 40 years, primarily in Bridgehampton. The exhibition will be on view through Oct. 14.

Prince Does Sutcliffe

    On Saturday, Harper’s Books in East Hampton will present an exhibition featuring 21 paintings and works on paper by Stuart Sutcliffe.

    “Stuart Sutcliffe: Yea Yea Yea,” organized by Richard Prince, is the first United States show since 2001 of work by the British artist, known best as a “fifth Beatle.”

    Sutcliffe died from a brain aneurysm in 1962, when he was only 21. The exhibition focuses on the body of work that he left behind and it examines its continued influence. The show will be on view through Oct. 14. There will be an opening reception on Saturday from 6 to 8 p.m.

“Updates” Is Open

    Pritam and Eames in East Hampton has opened “Updates” featuring American studio furniture and other decorative objects, which will be on view through Sept. 17. 

    The show is being held in conjunction with the publication of gallery’s book, “Speaking of Furniture: Conversations With 14 American Masters,” to be published by the Artist Book Foundation in September. The show will include updates of pieces featured in the book as well as recent work actually illustrated in the book.

Monkey See

    The Crazy Monkey Gallery in Amagansett will present the art of three of its members, Cynthia Sobel, Dianne Marxe, and Kathy Hammond, in a show opening today.

    Ms. Sobel is an abstract painter who is influenced by music and the rhythms of nature. Ms. Marxe, who has a background in wildlife rescue and rehabilitation, expresses her love for animals in her sculptures. Ms. Hammond focuses on the unconscious in her abstractions, which evoke childhood impressions.

    The exhibit will be on view through Aug. 26. The opening reception will be on Saturday from 5 to 7 p.m.

Something Fishy

    The Southampton Historical Museum will open the exhibition “Fabulous Fish: Sculptures by John Rist Jr.,” with a reception on Saturday from 4 to 6 p.m.

    Mr. Rist is a Southampton native and the owner of the Herbert and Rist Wine and Liquor Store on Job’s Lane, where many of his creations have been on display for years.

    His interest in the sea stems from his childhood and it inspires him to portray fish and other marine life as his subjects. They have been the focus since 2001 of his unique sculptural works using found wood, colorful acrylic paint, and assorted hardware.

    The exhibition will be on view at the Roger Mansion through Nov. 2. The opening night is free, but regular admission will be $4 for adults and free for members and children.

Parrish Road Show

    Sydney Albertini and Almond Zigmund will be the featured artists in the Parrish Road Show this year. The program from the Parrish Art Museum takes art off the walls and outside of the museum and into different communities.

    Ms. Albertini’s project, “And Also, I Have No Idea,” will be on view from Saturday through Sept. 2, at the John Little Studio at Duck Creek Farm in Springs. The Parisian-born artist will feature soft sculptures and costumes in an interactive piece, allowing visitors to try on the costumes and sculptural heads and then be photographed. A reception will be held on Saturday from 6 to 8 p.m. This exhibition will be open on weekends, from 12 to 5 p.m., by appointment.

    Ms. Zigmund’s “Interruptions Repeated” will be hosted by the Sag Harbor Whaling and Historical Museum from Aug. 24 through Sept. 10. Her installation consists of two large-scale sculptural works in the parlor of the museum. The Brooklyn artist’s blockade-like structures explore the properties of real and representational space. The reception for her work will be on Aug. 24 from 6:30 to 8:30 p.m.

More Art for Amagansett

    “Amagansett Art: Across the Years,” the second annual exhibition and sale to benefit the Amagansett Historical Association, will include the work of 30 different artists. It will begin tomorrow at the Jackson Carriage House on Main Street and run through Sept. 15.

    The artists featured in the show all live in or draw inspiration from Amagansett. It will be open Fridays through Sundays from 2 to 6 p.m. through Labor Day and then on weekends through Sept. 15. Admission is free, but donations are welcomed.

Davies’s Icons

    Ted Davies’s woodblock prints of New York City will be at the Romany Kramoris Gallery in Sag Harbor today through Aug. 29.

    “American Icons-New York City,” will feature a bygone interpretation of the city with Chinese laundries, in-town gas stations, and the El as some of its subject matter. The artist, a Sag Harbor resident who died in 1993, used warm ochres, yellows, and browns, set off by black and the occasional flash of red, pink, and blue to add to the amber-tinted vision.

    Linda Stein’s “Bully-Proof Vests” are also on view through mid-September, along with work from another series, “Cards of Life, Cards of Death,” which examines life and culture in the 1960s.

“Evening of Art”

    The Queen of the Most Holy Rosary Church in Bridgehampton will host its annual “Evening of Art” on Saturday from 6 to 9 p.m. in the parrish center on Main Street.

    The evening includes a cocktail reception and silent art auction of work by artists such as Ted Asnis, Susan Alessio, Gayle Tudisco, and Alice Ryan.

    Admission is $35 and will support the church’s community outreach activities.

Boltax Is Back

    Boltax Gallery on Shelter Island is popping up this year at 21 North Ferry Road. A reception will be held on Saturday.

    Karen Boltax, the proprietor of the gallery, which operated for many years at the North Ferry Road address, will show work by gallery artists on a rotating basis. Among them will be Sarah Bereza, Nuala Clarke, Juan Doffo, Allison Evans, Meg Franklin, Matt Gag­non, Sylvia Hommert, Osamu Kobay­ashi, Julian Lorber, Andrew Nash, Pilar Olaverri, Peter Opheim, David Pappaceno, Pasha Radzeski, Reinaldo Sanguino, Mark Silverstein, and T.J. Volonis.

    The gallery will be open from noon to 5 daily, except Wednesdays.

   Geoff Gehman has a question for you. When was the last time you rode a bike through Wainscott without a giant S.U.V. over your shoulder?

    “I don’t remember being tailed by a car one time,” he said, thinking back to his happy childhood in the hamlet. As the years in question were 1967 to 1972, ideally his prepubescent backside would have been astride a lengthy banana seat, his grip high on a chopper-style set of handlebars as he bombed down the hill heading east from Town Line Road, heedlessly through the Wainscott Hollow Road intersection, to his left the tiny Wainscott School, where his sister, Meg, raised a ruckus in the fourth grade and was made to contemplate her behavior from the inside of a wastepaper basket, then, out the school’s back windows, the profound commentary of the cemetery, and on into the lindens and maples along the main drag of a place so bucolic it makes Sagaponack look like a metropolis.

    Biking was on the writer’s mind this July day because he was leading a guest on a tour — two wheels having turned into a rented Nissan Versa’s four — of his old haunts as detailed in his new book, “The Kingdom of the Kid: Growing Up in the Long-Lost Hamptons,” from Excelsior Editions. It opens with a blow-by-blow of his usual 4.3-mile bike route from his family’s four-bedroom, two-bath house on Whitney Lane, over to the end of Town Line Road to take in some avant-garde Norman Jaffe architecture (“a house seemingly built by masons from outer space”), and back through the Georgica Association, its dense thickets “where I fell in love with nature.” Or maybe its speed bumps were just kinda fun.

    Mr. Gehman lives in Pennsylvania now, where he was an arts writer for The Morning Call in Allentown for many years, but was in town to give a few readings, and there will be more of them, on Saturday at 2 p.m. at the East Hampton Historical Society’s Mulford Farm, for one, and that same day from 5 on he’ll be at Authors Night, the East Hampton Library’s vast book fair and fund-raiser. Can’t make those? He’ll be back at the library on Sept. 7 at 2 p.m.

    His appearances tend to turn into reunions and gabfests. Mr. Gehman is an engaging raconteur, easily charming his way past a Georgica Association guard with a touch of the shoulder and a flash of a book cover (“That’s me and my sister!”). At one point in the book he compares his adventures with his best friend, Mike Raffel, to those of Huck Finn and Tom Sawyer, and he retains an all-American boyishness, reddish of hair, bucked of tooth, skinny as a dirt farmer.

    “Even with folks who have no connection here, the book takes them back,” Mr. Gehman said. “We all have had beach experiences; everybody has had a six-year period of formation.”

    Early on, he describes camping out with a friend in a “Where the Wild Things Are” haven, “a grove of Shad trees sculpted by the wind into gnarly, giant witch fingers. . . . We ate peanut-butter-and-jelly sandwiches and read comic books by flashlight. We felt completely, blissfully independent, even though his parents were only a stone’s throw away. We were lulled to sleep by the crashing waves, which the dunes muted to a hushed roar.” Almost 50 years later, he still wondered at the freedom.

    Particularly for those born during the Kennedy and Johnson administrations, the cultural touchstones in “The Kingdom of the Kid” are nearly complete and uncannily accurate, from Hot Wheels and Corgi toy cars to shaggy hair and plaid flannel shirts to the “Sister Mary Elephant” routine off the Cheech & Chong comedy album “Big Bambu.”

    “For me, the years ’67 to ’72 were the years when I got every single passion in my life — baseball, nature, fast cars, rock ’n’ roll, sex, drive-ins.”

    The book is more than a memoir, though, as Mr. Gehman turns those passions into chapters that explore essentially everything that was good about the South Fork but is gone. There’s Henry Austin Clark Jr.’s Long Island Automotive Museum in an oversized Quonset hut in Southampton, former home to Al Capone’s 1933 Pierce Silver Arrow, riddled with bullet holes. The old Water Mill Penny Candy Shop and its counters of heavy glass. The Hamptons Drive-In in Bridgehampton, with its goofy double features, scratchy window speakers, and vintage intermission reels touting concessions — endless Cokes floating by onscreen and animated hot dogs that, smiling, flipped themselves into spread and waiting buns. And of course the distant whine of the Bridgehampton Race Circuit, now an exclusive golf course.

    All are recalled with the same wide-eyed enthusiasm, for sure, but all are also fleshed out with research befitting a project 20 years in the making. (Plenty of locals don’t know, for instance, that the old Wainscott train station sits on the farm field side of a Sagaponack dune, now the residence of some lucky renter.) To say nothing of interviews with figures as varied as the racing legend Mario Andretti and the Sagaponacker Tinka Topping, who was a close friend of Truman Capote, one of Mr. Gehman’s literary heroes.

    He wouldn’t want us to sign off without a tip of the cap to another one, this newspaper’s own Jack Graves, whose stylish and witty news coverage inspired Mr. Gehman to enter the field. It was a good run — he was at The Morning Call until 2009, when a corporate takeover cost him his job. From his point of view, he got out just in time, just as writers were being asked to make slipshod videos of what they were trying to write about, interfering with what Mr. Geh­man called his “gentleman journalism.”

    And then came all that free time to write a book.

   Davina Dobie, an artist who grew up in Kenya, will present a screening of the National Geographic film “Battle for the Elephants” at Guild Hall on Saturday, with cocktails at 6:30 p.m. and the screening at 7. The film examines the plight of the African elephant and its decimation from an estimated 10 million in 1900 to under a half million today.

    John Heminway, the writer, producer, and director, will be at the screening, as will Donna Karan. Ticket sales will benefit several African wildlife conservation efforts and will be tax deductible through an American charity, Empowers Africa. Regular admission is $150, with V.I.P. seating $300. Tickets are available through [email protected].

   The Adventure Bandits Art Club will return to the Nova’s Ark Project in Bridgehampton on Saturday for its second art show there.

    The Adventure Bandits is an artist collaborative founded by two South­ampton natives, Chloe Gifkins and Margaret Braun. They had the idea for several years while in art school together, until they finally “made it happen,” they said, by getting a space and a sponsor for their first collective show, which was at Nova’s Ark last year. Featuring a variety of bands and artists, it was received with “a lot of positive feedback from everyone,” Ms. Braun said.

    The Adventure Bandits’ mission statement is to “collaborate and connect with young and talented artists who are in the early progression of their careers,” according to the group’s Web site. The co-founders reach out to these artists through friends to establish “expanded networks” of new acquaintances.

    The multimedia group brings together artists including photographers, paint­ers, sculptors, and musicians. Among the many people they meet, the Adventure Bandits choose artists whose work relates to their philosophy of collaborating across different mediums.

    Hoping to build on the success of last year, the Adventure Bandits promise an exciting show. This year’s event will be in the barn again, offering live music, works of art on display, and even a farmers market — all to encourage the work of local artisans.

    Among the East End bands performing will be Olde Sake, the Montauk Project, and Porches. Art will be by painters and sculptors including Miles Braun, Alex Larsen, Leanna Pascual, Ms. Braun, and Ms. Gifkins. “We’re trying to incorporate everyone as best we can,” Ms. Gifkins and Ms. Braun said. They also praised the “beautiful location” of Nova’s Ark, an art and sculpture park that is “all about art and the artist lifestyle.”

    The two took a cross-country road trip for three months this past year to meet new artists, and said they particularly enjoyed driving down the West Coast and through the Southwest because it was all very “scenic and spiritual.” For the new show, artists from California to Baltimore will be sending work, and others will be in attendance.

    Having made lasting connections, Ms. Gifkins and Ms. Braun hope the collaborative network of artists will “branch out naturally.” In the coming year, they plan to curate similar events in other cities as well, and hope to feature the work of South Fork artists.

    The Adventure Bandits art show will take place from 2 to 10 p.m. It is free, but donations have been encouraged.

   The Old Whalers Church in Sag Harbor will have a Sunday recital this week by Walter Klauss, and next week by John Walker, both at 3 p.m.. The musicians will use the church’s historic 1844 Erben pipe organ.

    Mr. Klauss, who made his debut as an organ recitalist at 17 at the Cleveland Museum of Art, is making his third appearance at the church. Mr. Klauss has been minister of music at All Souls Unitarian Church in Manhattan since 1976, while appearing as a recitalist with various symphonies. On Sunday, he will perform works by Bach, Buxtehude, and Langlais, as well as a piece he arranged for organ and handbells.

    Mr. Walker will present his first recital at the church. He has appeared in recitals with orchestras and choruses across the country, including several seasons with the San Francisco Symphony Orchestra, and is currently Minister of Music Emeritus at the Brown Memorial Presbyterian Church in Baltimore.

    His performance will include an 1845 Mendelssohn sonata and concert variations on the National Anthem.

    Each performance will be followed by a reception to meet the artist. Admission is $10 for adults, $5 for children 12 and younger.

The Aviva Players, one of the first chamber ensembles to feature the music of women composers, will perform at the Montauk Library on Sunday afternoon at 3:30.

Part of the library’s “Women Celebrating Women” series, the free concert will include Piano Trio in D minor (Op. 11) by Fanny Mendelssohn and piano rags by Adaline Shepherd and May Francis Aufdeheide. Several works for voice will be performed, as will selections with music and lyrics by Mira J. Spektor, the group’s co-founder.

Also at the library, Dorothy Leeds, an actress, playwright, and film critic, will perform “Memoirs and Boudoirs,” a 60-minute journey through the ballrooms, backrooms, and bedrooms of queens, consorts, heroes, and heels, on Wednesday at 7:30 p.m.