In his own words, Edsel Williams was “a poor starving dancer” who first came to the East End in 1985 when Patricia Grantham, who had a house in Bridgehampton, thought he had a lot of potential and asked him to come teach aerobics and yoga during the summer.
“I don’t know if any of this would exist if she hadn’t asked me to teach here,” he said, during a conversation at the Fireplace Project in Springs. The classes moved around, first to the Methodist Church in East Hampton, then to 66 Newtown Lane, and finally to Amagansett.
“I met Shelley Aarons in those classes,” which was important because she and her husband, Philip Aarons, were instrumental in helping launch the Fireplace Project. Mr. Williams opened that art exhibition space in the summer of 2006. Currently on view is “All Our Affairs,” a show of work by 95 artists and the final one before its transition into the Fireplace Collective, a new business model.
His own transition, from a ballet dancer to an art dealer, happened over a number of years as he began meeting artists and showing their work in his exercise studios. That led to his starting the contemporary art program at Glenn Horowitz Bookseller, which he ran for three years. “I did shows for April Gornik, Ross Bleckner, Bryan Hunt, Donald Baechler, and Cindy Sherman. I went big there.”
From there he launched the Green Barn, an exhibition space in Bridgehampton that he had for a couple of years. But having moved from Sag Harbor to Springs, he had his eye on a vacant garage on Springs-Fireplace Road that he had driven past “thousands of times.”
Talmage’s Garage sat empty for some 10 years before the Talmage family found something that would honor their father’s legacy. “His children are my landlord. I have a lifetime lease, and this is a unique situation. Richard Talmage would sit in that wood-paneled office” — the paneling remains, as does most of the original interior — “and Pollock and de Kooning would visit him multiple times a week. Those two weren’t really friends, but they had a mutual friend in Richard.”
Enter, in 2005, the Aaronses, who lived up the street and said that if Mr. Williams wanted to turn the building into a gallery, they would help him do it. “They said I could do amazing things there, and they were right. I care so much about this project. I’m just grateful to the community for letting me have a chance to do it.”
The Aaronses’ generosity enabled Mr. Williams to launch the project. “They’ve seen every single exhibit here since we opened and have bought from all of those as well.” Other supporters he cited are Susan Jacobson and her late husband, Steven Jacobson, who died in 2019. “He was like my Jewish father,” said Mr. Williams. Ross Bleckner and Cindy Sherman, both of whom live nearby, have also been important supporters. They are represented in “All Our Affairs.”
For that exhibition Mr. Williams emailed every artist who ever exhibited there to be part of the Fireplace Project’s last exhibition. Over the years the gallery has mounted some 80 shows of work by more than 320 artists. The only gallery that has been here longer is the Drawing Room, which opened on Newtown Lane in 2004.
He pointed out that over the 20 years he has stuck to his business model, “which is, we’re a project, we don’t represent any artists, we present their work. And not being a traditional gallery gives me the ability to borrow from any gallery in the world.” That said, he tries to stay with artists who have some representation in New York and to stay with artworks that will fit in his Jeep. “Then you don’t have to pay shipping costs.”
However, in situations where shipping is necessary, a company called Uovo, whose owners live on the East End, have supported the project by donating shipping services many times. Indeed, Mr. Williams seems to have a magic touch — or just compelling ideas. When he spoke about the Fireplace Collective at the opening of “All Our Affairs,” he was able to secure substantial commitments from people willing to help make the transition happen.
The project’s website has a detailed listing of all the exhibitions it has mounted. A perusal quickly reveals how eclectic, provocative, and wide-ranging its shows have been. “Intimacy,” for example, from 2008, included work by Sophie Calle, a noted French artist, and Tracey Emin, one of the “Young British Artists” who had a huge impact in the late 1980s, as well as Tara Donovan and Ugo Rondinone, a Swiss artist who came to the U.S. in 1997 and now lives on the North Fork.
By contrast, the “Annual Hamptons Show,” also from 2008, included such East End mainstays as Robert Harms, Mary Heilmann, Judy Hudson, Billy Sullivan, and Joe Zucker. Familiar names in the current show, in addition to Ms. Heilmann and Ms. Hudson, are Almond Zigmund, Peter Dayton, Jeremy Dennis, Matt Satz, Daniel Arsham, Agathe Snow, and Josephine Meckseper.
Mr. Williams moved to Hudson, N.Y., three years ago and opened a second Fireplace Project there last year. “When he was 10, I told my son, Charlie, that when he finished at East Hampton High School I’m selling the house and moving upstate.”
When asked why he moved he gave one facetious answer: “I like to drive 65 miles an hour, which you can do everywhere upstate.” Then he added, “I grew up in Appalachia, in the middle of the mountains. Upstate is exactly like where I grew up. There are mountains all around you, everywhere you go there’s a beautiful view.”
Of the current exhibition’s title, he said he chose it “not because I had affairs with all these artists, though there are a few that I did. I’ve been in recovery for a very long time. The last step of every 12-step program ends with ‘to practice these principles in all our affairs.’ “ He pointed out a painting by Stephen Neidich titled “Practice These Principles.”
“It’s a very powerful message and it’s been a really important part of my life for a very long time. It provides a morality to your life that makes a lot of sense and makes you a better person, a better everything.”
