Art-Making for All in Amagansett

EAST HAMPTON, N.Y. – Among the things that are NOT bogus about this area’s reputation is its importance in the history of modern art. What is even more remarkable is that it continues — not with the physical presence of famous figures like Jackson Pollock, Lee Krasner, Willem deKooning, Robert Motherwell and dozens of other Abstract Expressionists who had strong Hamptons connections in the mid-20th century — but in the ongoing abundance of art fairs, art shows, art galleries and a unique waterfront studio where members of the public can take classes and set up at easels on a drop-in basis: The Art Barge in Napeague, moored halfway between Amagansett and Montauk.

It’s a former World War II naval vessel, towed to this spot in 1960, an inspiration of Victor d’Amico, then education director at New York’s Museum of Modern Art. With the later addition of a second level, there’s a downstairs painting studio ($50 for three hours of camaraderie, though it’s usually a bunch of silent, focused individuals getting walk-around instruction and encouragement from the Barge’s teachers), and an upstairs library and multi-media workspace, where a long wide table with stools on either side runs the length of the space, meadow views to the south, harbor views to the north.

That’s where, in June, I took a one-week workshop called the Bauhaus Preliminary Course, five 3-hour morning sessions exploring the teaching methods of the German art institute, whose short existence (from 1919 until shuttered by the Nazis in 1933) belies its enormous influence on world art and design in the decades since.

Fortunately, I have no ego investment in being an artist, because I soon discovered that among the 12 students in the class, I was the only one not already a visual artist of some sort, and way out of my league. Still, it was fun, messing around with materials from the block-long window ledges (the “junk buffet,” including such things as pieces of netting, foam insulation, feathers, astroturf and on and on) to make collages; cutting, arranging and squinting at pieces of colored paper as we learned principles of color; making rubber stamp textile designs and then trying our hand at weaving; and finally working with tempera paints in a way I hadn’t since 3rd grade.

I’ve since gone back to visit and walk along the deck watching sea birds and water snakes and dogs in the meadow, and have checked out the nearby modernist home of Victor D’Amico and his wife Mabel, also an art educator and prolific sculptor and assemblage artist, many of her works made with driftwood and found beach objects. Now known as the Mabel and Victor D’Amico Studio and Archive, it offers free public tours on Wednesdays and Saturdays by appointment.

The house itself, a humble affair built in the 1940s with recycled materials and the D’Amicos own labor, was one of the first modernist beach homes in the area. With concrete and linoleum floors, glass walls, pegboard cabinets, open shelving and Eames chairs, it has a mid-century modern aesthetic, as well as a look of having been constructed on a shoestring. Yet it stands, artful and atmospheric, and is being considered for local landmarks designation, which would offer it some protection from demolition. It seems the least the community can do.

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Hamptons August Rental, Walk to Water

SPEND A WEEK OR FOUR this August living the beachy life in my idyllic modern rustic/Bohemian chic summer house in East Hampton (Springs), N.Y.

Built in the 1940s as a fishing bungalow, with a c.1970 addition, the house is 1,400 square feet on half a landscaped acre. Share with friends or another family — it’s ideal for two couples with a total of two or maybe three kids.

• Swim in Gardiner’s Bay, at unspoiled, never-crowded Maidstone Beach, a 5 minute stroll from the house
• Walk the scenic ‘loop’ through Maidstone Park, or along nearby Gerard Drive with Gardiner’s Bay to one side and Accabonac Harbor to the other
• See egrets and ospreys, wild turkey and deer (not on my property, however; I’m fenced:-)
• Nap on the deck, watch the sun set over the jetty, picnic at Louse Point, make bonfires on the beach or in my fire pit, shower outdoors, grill on the brick patio, hang out on the porch at the Springs General Store
• Paddleboard or kayak in the bay
• Do yoga at one of several nearby studios
• Surf or swim in the ocean at Amagansett (10 minutes by car) or Montauk (25 mins.)
• Farm stands, greenmarkets, nurseries
• Yard sales, antiquing, shopping
• Art shows and galleries, live performance at Guild Hall, music at Stephen Talkhouse, historic house tours
• Garden tours + garden visits at LongHouse Reserve, Madoo, Bridge Gardens
• Restaurants and bars galore
• Explore nearby Sag Harbor (20 minutes), Shelter Island (30), North Fork, Block Island (day trip)

The house sleeps 6, officially — there’s a master bedroom with comfortable queen bed; guest room with two twins; as well as a separate 14’x17′ guest cabin with double bed and space for additional cot or crib (bathroom is in main house). There are also sofas comfy enough for overnight guests and a queen-size air mattress.

There are two showers, one indoors and one out, and plenty of room to spread out — there’s a dining/sitting room with sofa, chairs and fireplace, in addition to a great room with three sofas, and a home office with a partner desk, if you must work.

Live like Jackson Pollack and Lee Krasner in (whose home and studio is a mile away) in the 1940s… no TV, no air conditioning, no dishwasher.. but good Wi-Fi and fans in each room. (*TV and DVD player on request)

Flexible rental schedule, August through Labor Day, $3,000/week.

Contact me for more pics and info: caramia447 [at] gmail [dot] com

June in the Country

THE MONTH OF LONGEST DAYS is drawing to a close, and I feel compelled to celebrate it with a blog post before it fleets by. The alliums, lush purple just two weeks ago, are already browned on their stalks. Those are not my alliums, above, though I have a few, or my lily pool; they are attached to an East Hampton oceanfront estate I toured as part of the Garden Conservancy’s Open Days program on June 21.

Young men in straw hats were stationed to direct mortals like myself through this sensational south-of-the-highway estate, pointing the way to wildflower meadow, cottage garden, woodland walk, vegetable garden, parterre and croquet green (pool and tennis court go without saying). Have a small look:

  

It was a month of yoga on the beach, lobster in Montauk, sunsets from the jetty, and the humble satisfactions of my own half-acre compound shaping up (as I type, two men are working by night to finish the transformation of shed to guest cottage; photos to follow).

I introduced two friends to one of the oddest and most photogenic places I know of on the East End: Multi Aquaculture Systems, an Amagansett fish farm, below, the last on Long Island. Besides tanks of striped bass and other fish, it has ducks and dogs and a cafe selling Provencal pottery and picturesque decaying buildings and wildflowers in abundance by the bay.

       

I swam a couple of times at my local beach, below. It was exhilarating, and that’s how I know it’s really summer.

Garden Inspiration: Late-Season Lushness in Amagansett

HERE, TO MANY, IS WHAT THE HAMPTONS is really about — not the ocean beaches but the native oak woods and the gardening that is possible within them, with the help of a sturdy deer fence.

This green and lovely 1-1/3-acre spread belongs to Paula Diamond, a self-taught gardener who learned much of what she knows working at The Bayberry, a nursery in Amagansett. To my surprise, Paula only started gardening here in earnest in the late ’90s, which goes to show how much can be accomplished in a mere decade-and-a-half.

Paula’s garden, around a classic cedar-shingled cottage, is very much a shade garden, cool and romantic. I can imagine how spectacular it is in spring, when hundreds of rhododendrons and white irises around the pool are in bloom, but even in early September, it is lush and inviting.

The free-form pool was conceived as a water feature as much as a swimming hole. Paula tells how “the plan” presented by the pool company consisted of a workman with a can of spray paint, who outlined the pool’s shape in one big sweep, and that’s how it remained.

Come along and have a look…

All the hardscaping choices are simple and unpretentious, including pea gravel and river stones used for steps near the house, and bluestone in the pool area. Mulch paths, lined with branches and logs, wend through the woods at the rear of the long, narrow property.

One of two gates, below, leading to the backyard. The fragrant flowering shrub behind is clerodendron trichotomum fargesii.

Above, ligularia in several varieties can be counted on for late-season color.

Rear of the house, above…

 

The gunite pool, designed and installed by Rockwater, is surrounded by boulders and has a gray-toned interior.

Carex Morrowii ‘Ice Dance’ used as a groundcover, above.

Above, an existing six-foot stockade fence was topped with a couple feet of wire as reinforcement against hungry deer. (This is very interesting to me, as my property is surrounded by similar fencing. I especially love how the plantings have come to pretty much obscure it.)

Views back toward the house, above, showing shade perennials (hostas, ferns, hakonechloa) as well as hydrangeas and Japanese maple.

Much of the property remains wooded, with shrubs and perennials profusely planted in semi-cleared areas.

A fiberglass cow in a bed of liriope surveys the back of the property.

Lazy Point ‘Grandma’ Beach Cottage 450K

I DON’T OFTEN PICK UP those glossy real estate brochures you see piles of on Main Street in East Hampton. They feature mostly multi-million dollar properties, not the sad fixer-uppers I’m interested in.

However, I did grab one the other day, and there on a back page were two side-by-side cottages in a low-key area of Amagansett that I just love: Lazy Point, where the sky is big, the vegetation is scrubby and piney, and the lapping waters of Napeague Bay are right there.

One of them appealed more than the other — the cedar-shingled one with a deck that reminds me fondly of Fire Island (asking 425K), below — and I called about it right away. Naturally it’s gone to contract.

The property next door (owned by the same family), top three photos, is still available at 450K. That one has no curb appeal whatsoever; it’s shingled with the rigid asbestos tiles that were so popular in the ’50s, and is just a box.

Still, I made the field trip yesterday, when 8″ of weekend snow had melted and been washed away by Monday’s rains. I had to see if regret was in order on cottage #1, and whether cottage #2 had possibilities. The answers are no and maybe.

 

I loved the drive out there, about 20 minutes from my home in Springs (and 20 minutes further from NYC), dipping through pine woods and meadows. I turned onto Mulford Lane, and drove along it toward the bay, looking for the addresses. As I got closer and closer to the water, I got excited… this is really good! Then I realized that too close to the water is not a good thing on Mulford Lane. The last two houses, below, once inhabitable, are now in the water and boarded up, and the beach at the end of the road is sand-bagged against further encroachment. These are maybe 8 or 10 houses in, which seems far enough to be safe from flooding, for my lifetime at least.

#1 (the cedar-shingled one) is smaller than it looks in the brochure — quite tiny, at 500 square feet — and I put that out of my head. #2 (the nondescript white one) is slightly larger, 700 square feet. It has nothing — nothing — to recommend it architecturally. It’s hard to see how it could be charmed up, though I daresay the editors of the late Domino magazine could do it. I didn’t see the interiors, but as the listing agent, JF Kuneth of DevlinMcNiff put it, “It’s very Grandma.” As such, it only garners about $11,000 a season in rental income — potentially $15-18,000 after those Domino editors get through with it.

No add-on building is possible, because it’s a flood zone. Not even a deck. There’s a cute old shed at the back, large enough for a guest bed.

And of course, at a 450K price point, which must seem completely nuts to those in the heartland (anywhere except perhaps California, that is), it’s top o’ the market. But then, the one next door was snapped up quickly, assuming the sale goes through.

I’m going to pass and continue my search. If you feel differently, go here for the listing, and give JR a call (631/324-6100 x 354, wkuneth@halstead.com).

To read about my discovery of Lazy Point two summers ago, and see lots of cute beach cottages, go here.