For Black History Month

    The Southampton Cultural Center will celebrate Black History Month with an exhibit titled “Visual Heritage III: 4 Contemporary Artists” opening on Wednesday in the center’s gallery on Pond Lane.

    The artists featured in the exhibit are Sheila Batiste, Nanette Carter, Danny Simmons, and Frank Wimberley. A reception will be held on Feb. 4 from 4 to 6 p.m. As part of the celebration, the artist Danny Simmons will hold a poetry reading and book signing to introduce his third collection of poems, “Deep in Your Best Reflection,” at 2:30 p.m.

    Ms. Batiste earned bachelor’s and master’s degrees from the University of North Carolina-Greensboro and has exhibited widely. Her art features graphite-on-white expanses that yield gestural yet figural forms. The show will include her wire sculptures.

    Ms. Carter attended Oberlin College and the Pratt Institute, where she is now on the faculty. She has exhibited her work at Yale University, the Studio Museum of Harlem, and the Library of Congress. “Bouquet for Loving,” her series of paintings on paper, was inspired by the late Al Loving, a highly regarded artist who was her mentor and friend.

    Mr. Simmons is self-taught and inspired by Surrealism and African culture and history. He will show abstract paintings on canvas, monotypes, and a new series of paintings.

    Mr. Wimberley brings his abstract imagery to painting as well as collage and assemblage. He has exhibited widely and has won a Pollock-Krasner Award. Here, he will show a series of pigment prints, including a tribute to James Baldwin.

Benjamin in Greenport

    The Greenport Harbor Brewing Co. will exhibit Laura Benjamin’s wrapper assemblages beginning Saturday with a reception from 6 to 9 p.m. The show, called “Wrapper’s Delight,” will be on view through February and uses torn, cut, and expired candy wrappers to depict often famous subjects in unusual and colorful ways.

    Ms. Benjamin, who lives in East Hampton, said her work is “inspired by food and the carnal delight of candy.” But the recycled nature of the artwork and its preoccupation with gluttony and pop culture infuse it with more topical meanings.

    She graduated from American University and earned a master’s degree in art education from New York University and an associate’s degree in textile design from the Fashion Institute of Technology. A teacher of art who has freelanced as a textile designer for most of her career, Ms. Benjamin has been recognized for the “successful practice in crossing the digital divide through art and technology” by the federal Department of Education. She has studied at the Art Students League, Parsons School of Design, and the New School in New York City.

Maiwald Goes to Jersey

    The work of Christa Maiwald of Springs is in “The Wicked Twins: Fame & Notoriety” at the Paul Robeson Galleries at Rutgers University-Newark. The exhibit, which was organized by Anonda Bell and includes 11 artists, will open tonight with a reception from 5 to 7 and remain on view through April 19.

    Her two series, “Blue Chip,” from 2009 to 2011, and “Musical Chairs: Economic Crisis in G Minor,” from 2009, will be featured. “Blue Chip” entails hand-embroidered portraits of 50 established and financially successful artists, among them Dan Flavin, Eric Fischl, April Gornik, Jennifer Bartlett, Marcel Duchamp, Lynda Benglis, Dennis Oppenheim, Gerhard Richter, Alice Aycock, Joseph Beuys, and Roy Lichtenstein.

    “Musical Chairs” takes as its subjects a number of people now famous or infamous for helping to lead the world economy into collapse. In this selection of six children’s school chairs are hand-embroidered portraits of Milton Friedman, Ben Bernanke, Timothy Geith­ner, Lawrence Summers, Alan Green­span, and Bernie Madoff.

The New Gruen

    John Gruen, who has trained his camera lens on practically every important New York artist of the postwar period, has a new book, “As Time Goes By: Portraits by John Jonas Gruen.” The cover, which features Larry Rivers and Marisol, gives a hint of the lost world of midcentury artistic elegance and debauchery some of the photographs evoke.

    Mr. Gruen will sign copies at the New Museum in New York City next Thursday at 5 p.m.

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.”

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.