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

    The film stars Ed Harris, who also directed it, as Pollock and Marcia Gay Harden as his wife, Lee Krasner. Jennifer Connelly plays Ruth Kligman, Pollock’s mistress. Other interesting casting choices include Val Kilmer as Willem de Kooning, Jeffrey Tambor as Clement Greenberg, and Amy Madigan as Peggy Guggenheim. Ms. Harden won an Oscar for best supporting actress for her performance. The film contains a number of scenes shot in Springs.

    Other Pollock events include an exhibit of his work at the Smithsonian’s American Art Museum in Washington, D.C. Called “Memories Arrested in Space,” it examines the artist’s legacy through family photographs, letters, writings, and scrapbooks from the personal papers of Pollock and Krasner. The show opens on Saturday and will be on view through May 15. Helen Harrison, the director of the Pollock-Krasner House, is the guest curator.

    On April 25, a Stars of Stony Brook party will honor Mr. Harris and the Pollock-Krasner Foundation at Chelsea Piers in New York City. The proceeds will support the Pollock-Krasner House’s efforts to establish an endowment this year to further its programs and preservation.

    In May, the house and study center will open “The Persistence of Pollock.” That show will be followed by “Men of Fire: Jose Clemente Orozco and Jackson Pollock” in August.

    He will also be feted at ArtHamptons this year, with a day of events tied to the centennial, including a performance by Mike Bidlo of “Jack the Dripper at Peg’s Place.”     J.L.

Love Inspired’

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

    Ms. Bae was the winner of the 2005 Concert Artists Guild International Competition and was praised by The New Yorker as superb. She was born in Seoul, South Korea, but moved to Canada soon after taking up the cello at the age of 6. By age 8, she was enrolled at the Royal Conservatory of Music. She eventually received her Master of Music degree and Artist Diploma from the Juilliard School and currently teaches at the Gordon College in Boston and runs the Angelos Mission Ensemble Chamber music program in New Jersey, of which she is founder and director.

    Ms. Bannister recently achieved victories at the Concert Artists Guild International Competition and the New Orleans International Piano Competition and praise from The Washington Post. She has performed all over the world and at Carnegie Hall and the Kennedy Center. She was born in Hong Kong and holds degrees from the Royal Academy of Music in London, Yale University, and the Mannes School of Music.

    Tickets are $20 and $10 for students and can be purchased at the door or online at southamptonculturalcenter.org.  

Watermill Goings-On

    The Watermill Center will present the second in a series of conversations marking the publication of “The Watermill Center — A Laboratory For Performance: Robert Wilson’s Legacy” tonight at 6:30. The discussion will focus­ on the center’s structure and its unique history as a research facility for Western Union.

    José Enrique Macian, the editor of the book, and Ann Lombardo, the president of the board of the nearby Water Mill Museum, will discuss the history of the site and center and share images of the Western Union building and an 18-minute film “Watermill 1993” by Stefan Kurt with new footage of the Watermill Center in the summer of 1993.

    In New York City on Sunday at 8:45 p.m. and Monday at 3:30 p.m, “The Space in Back of You” will be screened at the Walter Reade Theater at Lincoln Center. The film’s subject is Suzushi Hanayagi, a major influence on Robert Wilson. Mr. Wilson’s discussion of her contributions to dance and choreography are featured prominently in the documentary, which includes images of many of her performances and the recollections of other colleagues.

    When he discovered the artist was suffering from Alzheimer’s disease, Mr. Wilson resolved to work with her once again. They communicated through a shared language of gesture and stage movement, resulting in an homage that was performed at the Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum. The film was directed by Richard Rutkowski, who grew up on the South Fork and will speak after the screening. Tickets are $13 and can be purchased through filmlinc.com.

Opera Goes HD

    The latest offering in the Parrish Art Museum’s Opera and Ballet in Cinema series will be presented with the museum’s new HD projection system on Sunday at 2 p.m.

    The Royal Opera’s new production of Jules Massenet’s “Cendrillon” is a four-act opera based on Charles Perrault’s 1698 version of the Cinderella fairy tale. It premiered in Paris in 1899. This production, praised by London’s Telegraph newspaper, was directed by Laurent Pelly. Joyce DiDonato sings the title role. The running time is 170 minutes, including intermission. Tickets are $17, $14 for Parrish members.

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

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

Glenn Purcell, a collector of Dominy furniture who was in the room during the sale, saidhe had not bought the clock and did not know who had. On Monday, Sotheby’s would only disclose that a dealer in American furniture had purchased it. The winning bid was $90,000, before the surcharge.

    The mood in the room during the early part of the sale appeared to be subdued. A few paintings that sold before the clock well exceeded their highest estimates, while one of the featured items in the sale, a rare goose tureen up for bid after the clock, failed to sell. Another very important piece, a Queen Anne high chest of drawers made in 1756 by John Townsend of Newport, R.I., one of the most sought-after cabinetmakers in colonial America, sold for just over its high estimate, for $3.6 million with the buyer’s premium. The piece was even more significant for being sold by a direct descendant of its original owner, Lt. Colonel Oliver Arnold of East Greenwich, R.I.

    Other clocks in the morning sale were not estimated as high as the Dominy clock. One, a rare Queen Anne tall-case clock by Anthony Ward of New York from 1730 with an estimate of $20,000 to $30,000, failed to sell. A clock from Philadelphia with works by Solomon Parke with restorations sold at its high estimate of $8,000, with a final cost of $10,000 with the buyer’s premium.

    The sale picked up some steam toward the end and later lots fared much better with many items of interest well exceeding their estimates.

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

    The low-budget “Roadie” won best feature at the 2011 Stony Brook Film Festival and received a favorable review at last year’s Tribecca Film Festival in Manhattan, which helped get it noticed by the mainstream press, including The New York Times, Newsday, and the New York Daily News.

    The story was written and directed by two brothers, Gerald and Michael Cuesta. Michael Cuesta has also written for “Six Feet Under,” “True Blood‚” and “Homeland,” which won a Golden Globe on Jan. 14 for best dramatic television series. He has also written and directed episodes of “Dexter” on Showtime.

    Ms. Balducci has produced several other films but said getting “Roadie” made was unique for her in that it had an extremely experienced director who knew exactly what he wanted and was mindful of its budget and limitations.

    Ms. Balducci, who has two young daughters, said the long hours were sometimes tough. “But I only work four to five months at a time and then get to be a full-time mom again, which is a lot more work!”

    A producer helps to bring a script to life and supports the director’s vision while also helping to balance the artistic and financial aspects of a film. The job entails guiding the decisions so the entire movie can make it to the finish line.

    “I like to think of it as landing a plane: You only have so much runway and you need to land it with exact precision,” Ms. Balducci said.

    Mr. Downey, although not her regular production partner, was on the set every day.

    The pair had to scout for a location that would accommodate two to three sets, cut deals with the actors, and hire interns. “It’s much more challenging to produce a low-budget film,” she said. “You are constantly negotiating and making compromises.”

    The featured actors are notable for their other roles in movies and on telvevision. Ron Eldard stars as Jimmy Testagross, the over-the-hill roadie, who is “buried in fat and facial hair.” Bobby Cannavale plays his old high school nemesis — these days called a bully. Jill Hennessey plays Jimmy’s former girlfriend, now married to the bully, and Lois Smith is Jimmy’s aging mother, who never lets an opportunity pass without reminding him how long it’s been since he visited.

    Michael Cuesta told The New York Times on Jan. 15 that the film is about “holding onto a dream, and not being aware of its expiration date. It’s also about aging and about grappling with this idea of relative success. How do you define successful?”

    In the trade papers, tales of working with actors with big egos, especially on low-budget films, are rampant. But Ms. Balducci said the actors in “Roadie” knew going in that they weren’t in it for the money but rather for the love of the script. “They were gracious, professional, and we had a great time making this film together.”

    For Ms. Balducci, success has been steadily building. She just wrapped “The Longest Week,” with Jason Bateman, Olivia Wilde, and Billy Crudup. She has also produced “Darkroom,” a horror film, and “A Little Help,” with Jenna Fisher and Chris O’Donnell. Released by Magnolia Pictures, “Roadie” ends its run at the Cinema Arts Center in Huntington tonight.

    Ms. Balducci spends holidays and part of each summer with her two daughters and their father at her parents’ place in Montauk. “I’d love to do a screening out there,” she said.

“My Dyslexia”

Philip Schultz

W.W. Norton, $21.95

I have read one scene in “My Dyslexia” over and over. Each time I read it, the writing is clearer, and the pain I feel when reading the words is more palpable: “I remember the first time I even considered the idea of being a writer. I was in the fifth grade when my reading tutor . . . asked me out of the blue what I thought I might like to do with my life. Without a moment’s hesitation, I answered that I wanted to be a writer.”

    This answer provoked uncontrolled laughter on the part of the tutor, a former school superintendent, who thought it was hilarious that an 11-year-old boy who could not read wanted to be a writer. Although we feel the boy’s pain at the presumed humiliation when he was laughed at, Philip Schultz claims he was not offended or hurt by his teacher’s laughter because he himself totally understood the irony. Writing and reading are woven into one pattern. If you can’t read you can’t be a writer.

    I keep imagining that the same teacher is still laughing at the same irony. His student has totally lived out the incongruity between what might be expected and what really happened. The boy who could not read has won the Pulitzer Prize for poetry.

    For many years, Mr. Schultz did not have a label for his problems. He knew he was different from most of the other children in his class, and he fought his mockers and was disciplined, even expelled from school. He describes in spare detail how he was bullied and ridiculed because he was in the “dummy” part of the class, but “I didn’t discover I had dyslexia until I was fifty-eight years old, when my oldest son was diagnosed with it in the second grade. I learned from his neuropsychologist’s report that we shared many of the same symptoms, like delayed processing problems, terrible handwriting, misnaming items, low frustration tolerance for reading and most homework assignments involving writing, to name a few.”

    The accumulated knowledge about dyslexia, including the diagnostic tools developed in the past few decades, has come about to the benefit of Mr. Schultz’s son and many others, but the author, with little help in the days when he was a boy, had to understand the tricks his mind played on his own.

    “Every decision or idea attracts a horde of fierce self-commentaries which automatically refer to a vast switchboard of do’s and don’ts.” Even now, after all these years and experiences, Mr. Schultz admits he still has difficulty sitting down to read unless he tricks his mind with some distraction like online solitaire before beginning. “And when I make the mistake of becoming aware that I am reading, and behaving in a way that enables this mysterious, electrically charged process to take place, my mind balks and goes blank and I become anxious and stop.”

    Developing a sense of self-worth is an important struggle for a child with dyslexia because dyslexics may be subjected to mockery and ridicule. The need for self-worth is not limited to children with dyslexia, however. Achieving a sense of it may be the central struggle for almost everyone. But individuals with dyslexia face additional hurdles. It is difficult to separate the idea that “there is something different about the way my brain processes information” from the idea that “there is something wrong with me.”

    Despite this, the author observed, “Even when the entire world seemed to be ganging up on me, some persisting sense of myself argued on my behalf.” The ability to receive and process the arguments about self-worth being made on behalf of a person with dyslexia must vary greatly from individual to individual.

    As I worked on this review, I became aware of why I was so interested in the passage about the reading tutor who laughed when the young Philip Schultz said he wanted to be a writer. Through my childhood and teen years, I had a speech impediment. I stuttered. Not all the time, but sometimes when faced with important moments.

    After the point I had publicly declared my intention to enter the ministry, a profession that required a great deal of public speaking, there was an assignment to make a presentation in English lit class, but when I stood in front of my classmates to deliver my prepared words, I could not get the first sound out of my mouth. No matter how I tried to form the first word, it would not release. I shuffled, turned in a circle hoping I could unwind what had struck me dumb, opened my mouth, closed it. Then tried again, formed the sound with my lips, but that first word, all words, in fact, were locked up safely and would not escape on that occasion.

    My classmates were laughing hysterically. It did not help when the teacher tried to explain, to cover for me: “Don’t you know what he was doing? He was miming.” I’m sure other people have had humiliating experiences that attacked their own sense of self-worth. My experience was an isolated incident, not a daily, lifelong struggle such as faces the person who lives with dyslexia throughout his childhood and youth.

    Many of us know the flavor of taunting, ridicule, and bullying. “My Dyslexia” provides a sweet taste of success in how to overcome it. No matter how difficult it is to maintain the internal dialogue about self-worth, the effort is worth it. We are in the debt of Mr. Schultz, who has shared his experiences and thereby encouraged us all to persist and believe in ourselves. We should try for what we want most and try with all our hearts.

—

    Philip Schultz’s collections of poems include “Failure” and “The God of Loneliness.” He lives in East Hampton.

    Gary Reiswig is the author or “The Thousand Mile Stare: One Family’s Journey Through the Struggle and Science of Alzheimer’s.” He lives in Springs.

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

    The auction lot, from the estate of Henry V. Williams of Long Island, is generating quite a bit of interest among local historians as well as national Americana experts and enthusiasts, with mentions in many of the trade journals.

    Richard Barons, the director of the East Hampton Historical Society, said last week that he thought the clock was “positively beautiful” and in excellent condition for an object with its original finish. “There hasn’t been anything like it sold at auction for 45 years,” he said, although some similar items may have exchanged hands privately.

    Although the clock’s provenance can be traced back to the mid-19th century, it appears that not much is known about its early life. The clock is in Charles Hummel’s book “With Hammer In Hand: The Dominy Craftsmen of East Hampton,” but because it was not in the shop’s logbooks that remain, no other information is currently available.

    Robert Hefner of Amagansett, an architectural historian, said the list of known owners of the clock in later years includes a name from an East Hampton family. Asa O. Jones, recorded as being from Newport News, Va., was listed in the “East Hampton History and Genealogies” book written by Jeannette Rattray. The address given was a house on Newtown Lane built by the Jones family. It appeared that Jones also had a store on Newtown Lane where Scoop Beach is now. Mr. Jones is recorded as having the clock around 1857. “I imagine one could trace it back further in the Jones family,” he said. “His ancestor presumably would have had it before 1857, either through his father, Edward Jones, and his family or someone who married into the family.”

    Among those who are awaiting the sale are Glenn Purcell and Charles Keller, two devoted and prolific collectors of Dominy objects who have become experts in identifying and researching objects that have emerged in recent years. Mr. Purcell said on Friday that Asa Jones was related to the Bakers, Hunttings and the Millers. The two other two clocks made in the Dominy shop in 1788 were made for Thomas Baker and William Huntting. The clock made in 1788 at Sotheby's was never entered in the logs. “This one is a puzzlement.” While it was not unusual to omit objects from the logbook if they were paid for in cash, it was unusual, he said, for such a significant piece not to be noted in the shop’s logs.

    “We’re definitely excited,” Mr. Purcell said on Friday. “It’s a very special clock.” While Nathaniel Dominy IV made the elaborate works, he said it was Nathaniel V who carved the simple, Shaker-like case. They have registered to bid on the clock and hope “to bring it home to East Hampton.” Mr. Purcell said that the market for early American furniture was down, but for clock collectors, this object could be worth a lot of money. “Aggressive collectors are not affected by the economy.”

    He added that he had been in contact with Mr. Hummel, who has become a friend over the years as each confers with the other over his discoveries. Mr. Purcell said Mr. Hummel told him that he has received some 50 calls from all over the country regarding the clock and its imminent sale. The clock is in Mr. Hummel’s book on pages 284 to 286.

    Not only is the clock in superior condition, it is considered a “masterpiece of his workshop,” according to Sotheby’s. The catalog describes it further: The minute hand is made of a series of arches and the hour hand has a void that serves as the alarm indicator. The face is pewter. The clock has several inscriptions including the date and “Time! OH! HOW PRECIOUS” on the front and some rather existential musings — “Where, oh! Where shall I be when this clock / is worn out?” on the back of the dial.

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

    As characters go, John Ryan Sr. could certainly qualify as larger than life, perfect as a movie subject, someone not going gently into the twilight of his life. Seen recently on East Hampton’s Main Beach with a plunger on his head at the New Year’s Day Polar Bear Plunge, Mr. Ryan defines character, both in personality and the dedication he has given to training junior lifeguards in the town for almost four decades.

    Mae Mougin and Laurie Wiltshire, the executive producers of the documentary on the trainers and trainees, tentatively titled “Big Bad John’s Lifeguards for Life,” recognized this quality and knew they wanted to capture the program while Mr. Ryan was still actively participating in it.

    Getting him to agree was the easy part. “I asked John if he would be willing to be filmed and he said, ‘Yes, our program starts tomorrow,’ ” Ms. Mougin recalled. “We started filming the kids the next day in the pool at the Y.” Since that day, they’ve collected hundreds of hours of footage, having followed them for a year.

    On a recent weekday, Ms. Mougin was at work at LTV Studios logging footage of the Polar Bear Plunge, which John Ryan Jr. oversees as the chief of the town’s lifeguard corps and in which the Ryan family and the East Hampton Town Volunteer Ocean Rescue Squad is always well represented. The event raised money for the town’s food pantries.

    The footage was added to hours and hours of training footage and the National Lifeguard Championships, in which the East Hampton junior lifeguard team took titles in the beach flag and the distance swim competitions. Catherine Tambini is the director and producer of the film. She was a winner at Sundance for the documentary “Farmingville” and was a co-producer of “Suzanne Farrell: Elusive Muse,” which was nominated for an Academy Award. Their director of photography, Wolfgang Held, and sound recordist, Peter Miller, also have award-winning credits to their names.

What they do not have are abundant funds. Ms. Mougin said that friends and community members have been generous with donations and LTV has been generous with equipment and time and has even provided them with a platform to raise money through its own nonprofit status. But, to realize their vision, they continue to need a sizable infusion of cash, ideally well into the six figures as “finishing funds.”

Seth Redlus at LTV said his role is to “hold the hands of local documentary filmmakers working on various sorts of projects.” Given the community-based nature of the subject matter, he said it was easy to lend the filmmakers a hand with a workplace, advice, and a way to raise money.

With so many hours of footage and big plans for next season and the next national competition, the film is very much in its early stages, but the outlines of a story are beginning to take shape. “It’s a real journey,” said Ms. Mougin. “It’s the story of a father passing his legacy onto his son, something he started that is so unique to a waterfront community.”

    Ms. Mougin sees the film as a community effort about a community effort. “These really are lifeguards for life. Even when they’re no longer certified they will always know what to do.” It’s the story of several aspirants as well, including a 21-year-old champion swimmer from Belarus named Andrei; Ace, an 11-year-old challenged by the swim test; Amanda, an expert paddleboard racer at the age of 13, and Paloma and Jeremy, both 16 and struggling to achieve their certifications. Also central to the stories are John Ryan Jr., John McGeehan, and Robbie Lambert. Mr. McGeehan is the town’s assistant chief lifeguard and Mr. Lambert is a former assistant chief. The Ryans’ family life will also be explored.

    “The goal is to not have it be a talking heads documentary,” Ms. Mougin said. A 90-second promotional DVD for the film has been professionally produced and edited. It hints at an active and dramatic narrative. “They’re training in freezing cold water. This is not about ‘Baywatch,’ it’s about them devoting their lives to saving other people.”

    The voice-overs on the video are like homilies. “This is not a place to be a hero, yet,” a voice intones as the new trainees in wetsuits hit the beach. John Ryan Sr.’s voice is heard saying: “The easiest part of the rescue is getting to the victim, the easiest part. . . . The hardest part is keeping upward. [The victim] is going to sink you to save himself.”

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

    MoMA’s interpretive scholarship is exhaustively informative on its own. Yet, it was a treat to explore the show on more intimate terms with someone who was as acquainted with the artist’s working methods as anyone could be. In this respect and others, Athos Zacharias, an artist who has lived in Springs for several decades and became friends with de Kooning in the early 1950s, was an excellent tour guide for the show, which closes on Monday.

    In a 1965 letter of recommendation for Mr. Zacharias for a teaching position, de Kooning wrote: “I have known Zacharias for more than 12 years personally. During those years he was, I can say, ‘one of us.’ ”

    “He was, of course, much younger than most of the artist[s] who were then so very much involved with one another. But since that period, there was little self-consciousness about who was younger or older. Zacharias was as much in the middle of it as anyone.”

    By “middle of it,” de Kooning meant the intellectual and critical scene surrounding the Eighth Street artists’ club (known familiarly as “The Club”) and the attendant socializing and posturing that centered around the Cedar Bar just down the street. But Mr. Zacharias, as a young artist recently arrived from the Rhode Island Institute of Design, also became close to a number of artists, as an assistant first to Elaine de Kooning, then to de Kooning himself, and ultimately to Lee Krasner, who kept him around as a workmate but also as a friend and companion. In between, he helped other artists and they, in turn, helped him.

    On Dec. 14, Mr. Zacharias agreed to serve as a chaperone for the retrospective and offered some insights into what he saw in de Kooning’s paintings and his development as an artist as well as some anecdotes about what kind of person he was and what he chose to share about his art.

    Mr. Zacharias recalled first meeting de Kooning at the Cedar Bar, having a discussion with him as others tried to get him to go to a table. De Kooning waved them off for the better part of an hour as the two talked about various things. Then, de Kooning said at last that he had enjoyed speaking to him. “Now, I will go join my friends,” Mr. Zacharias recalled him saying.

    He moved slowly through the exhibit, passing through the early academic works and heading straight to the surrealist explorations and early figurative dissections that would become the “Woman” series, a theme he would return to repeatedly throughout his career. There was a lot of Joan Miro in those early works, he observed.

    A few paintings from the mid-1930s had a similar composition and paint application to that of Stuart Davis. Mr. Zacharias said he remembered Davis visiting de Kooning’s studio. Of the oil paintings on view at the time, “Bill said that Stuart Davis called them the biggest watercolors he had ever seen,” a quip, “because Davis himself painted so thickly.” For de Kooning, whose early life as a painter was often a struggle, using more fluid and thinner paints was a way to save money, just as many used house paints as well.

    During this period, Mr. Zacharias said, “You have to know he’s painting with his mind, exploring, but always painting the figure” in these early abstractions. “The straight lines, curved lines, and angled lines of his work would reveal an arm or a breast,” but he took them out of context in some of the first “Women” paintings, and that would become a recurrent theme throughout his career.

    Of those works, Mr. Zacharias said, “In my mind, it’s all figurative painting. It’s the human form, but he’s giving it to you as a number of pieces, like a list: Here’s a breast, here’s a mouth, there’s an arm. Otherwise, why bother to tell us what it is.” The balance of the simultaneous flatness and three-dimensionality of the works were one of the powerful elements of his art, said Mr. Zacharias. In a later painting of two women he said “it’s wonderful to see how flat he gets the two figures. A teacher can’t show you how to do that. It must come from an understanding of other work, beginning with Cezanne.”

    The later “Women” paintings, he thought, included elements of the comics in them. The extreme expressions and sometimes frenzied style and exaggerated lines, could have been early forebears of the more literal translations of comics used by Roy Lichtenstein. While the series continues to inspire controversy, Mr. Zacharias said “he was not a violent person, he was just having some fun with it.”

    Although he served as de Kooning’s assistant in New York and was then his friend     “I rarely talked to Bill about his art. I once asked him a question and his answer was three words. He had all these books about his paintings, works I had never seen. I asked him, ‘Bill, did you mean to paint these faces?’ He said ‘yes and no’ and walked away. It was the only question I ever asked him.”

    On approaching “Excavation,” from 1950, Mr. Zacharias remarked on its airiness. “It looks a bit like Pollock. Bill would usually give you flatness, but here it’s like those aspects of space that Pollock would look at.” It reminded him of a “whole obsession with the flatness of the picture plane, the idea not to make too many holes in the plane, otherwise it would just be illustration” that dominated American art at midcentury.

    Channeling influences and cross-pollination from other artists’ work was an issue when the community of artists was so tight and there was such a demand on breakthrough creativity. Mr. Zacharias said he stopped painting for a time, because he felt his work was becoming too derivative of de Kooning’s paintings.

    “Soon after that, I went to his studio and he asked me ‘Why aren’t you painting?’ I had told Elaine that I found I was painting a lot like him and felt funny about it.” De Kooning brought out a book of his work and stood over Mr. Zacharias, pointing out his paintings. “Here you see I’m influenced by Picasso, here I am influenced by Soutine, here I am influenced by Miro. You are influenced by me and I am influenced by you,” de Kooning told him.

    “That’s a great teacher,” Mr. Zacharias said. “It didn’t sink in at the time, but he was saying ‘It’s okay kid, you have talent, too. Learn from us.’ ” What Mr. Zacharias took away from de Kooning’s paintings was their variety, spontaneity, and dynamism. He also adopted one of the artist’s primary tools, a liner brush, typically used by sign painters, which he used in many of his paintings. “The long hairs hold a lot of paint. It’s the control of the hand that determines whether the lines are thick or thin.” Mr. Zacharias said de Kooning gave Arshile Gorky a liner brush and it was how he developed the long oil lines that characterized his later work.

    The exhibit is difficult on some levels. There are so many knockouts that those works that would normally attract interest seem diminished in comparison. “Some hit you right away, others he’s just giving people a laundry list of objects and effects.” A painting like “Police Gazette” with its varied lines and forms in color prompted Mr. Zacharias to say “What more could you ask for?” But “Interchanged” nearby did not impress him so much. “I don’t think with this one he quite nailed it.”

    De Kooning was an artist who “worked so hard, over and over the canvas,” Mr. Zacharias said. At a certain point a painting becomes a puzzle, “interlocked so that you can’t change one thing without affecting the other. He said he never knew when it was done. He would just walk away.”

New Year, New Art

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

    Mr. Zacks has stated that “my love of history has inspired me to focus on the disappearing landscape of Eastern Long Island — old farm buildings, fishing boats, colonial cottages; mid-century movie theaters, ice cream parlors, luncheonettes, and the remnants of their signs.” He is also known for his portraits of fading icons of earlier eras in Manhattan.

    According to Ms. Reit, “I grew up on Long Island, where I played in the woods, summered at the shore and visited the many family farms that were still thriving. . . . The barns of the Hamptons inspired my early paintings. Their massive forms monopolized the canvas, producing feelings of solidity, density, and weight.” Eventually those forms became abstracted, although she has kept enough identifying information.

    Ms. Milne, a glass artist who has worked in stained and fused glass, has exhibited in many East End shows. She uses the “tranquil beauty and intense colors” of the natural environment of the South Fork as her inspiration. Mr. McDowell’s landscapes can evoke dreams and even Renaissance painting. Lynn Martell’s work will also be on view.

    The reception on Saturday from 5 to 8 p.m. will feature wines of South America from Domaine Franey. The show will be on view Saturday, Sunday, and Monday.

Tonic Takin’ Over

    The Tonic Artspace on Main Street in Bridgehampton is the temporary home base for the Bonac Tonic art collective and friends. The group has taken over the Kathryn Markel Gallery space in January and February and the space will be open Friday through Monday.

    According to Grant Haffner, the space will showcase “a fun and vigorous program of emerging artists from the East End. The artists now on view there include Bruce Milne, Carly Haffner, Scott Gibbons, Grant Haffner, Justin Smith, Maeve D’Arcy, Ingrid Silva, and Oliver Peterson. The gallery will have a reception on Saturday from 6 to 8 p.m. Its Web site is haffnervision.com.

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

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

    Rehearsals began on Monday and will continue weekly from 7:30 to 10 p.m. at the church. Auditions will begin this week after the rehearsals and can be scheduled through the Veronika Semsakova, the society’s executive director, at execdir@ choralsocietyofthehamptons.org.

    The Studio Playhouse Community Theatre is producing a new variety show for the winter, “Valiant Vanities,” on Feb. 10 and 11 and is looking for acts featuring comedy skits, singing, dancing, stand-up, quartets, bagpipes, and more. “Anything goes, if it is good” is the guiding principle, according to the theater’s directors. Auditions will take place on Jan. 23 and 24 from 6:30 to 9:30 p.m. at LTV Studios in Wainscott. Slots can be reserved by calling 324-4067.

    Center Stage will hold open auditions for performances of Christopher Hampton’s “Les Liaisons Dangereuses” on Jan. 23 and 24 at 6 p.m. in the Levitas Center on Pond Lane in Southampton Village. Auditions will begin promptly at these times. Late arrivals will be seen at the discretion of the director. Performances will begin on March 15 and run through April 1. Michael Disher will direct.

    The play is adapted from the 1782 novel of the same title by Pierre Choderlos de Laclos and focuses on rivals who use sex as a weapon of humiliation and degradation. Their targets are the virtuous, and they pretend to help them with their secret lovers so they can use them later in their own seductions and betrayals.

    The roles include La Marquise de Merteuil, who is manipulative, cunning, seductive, and in her 30s, and the Vicomte de Valmont, her male counterpart, who is equally manipulative and seductive and also in his 30s. There are roles for younger and older actors, too, including Cecile Volanges, a cloistered young woman, and Chevalier de Darceny, both of whom are around college age, and two older women in their 40s and 50s.