The carousel in Mitchell Park is surely one of the jewels of the North Fork with its colorful antique horses and old fashioned brass ring grab. Recently its beauty was enhanced with the installation of 14 reproductions of paintings depicting historic Greenport scenes on the rounding boards beneath the carousel’s canopy.
The original paintings, which are approximately four feet wide and nine inches high, were commissioned by the village’s carousel committee with funding from the Friends of Mitchell Park. The paintings depict scenes of old Greenport: the lifesaving station in East Marion, Bug Light, a fire downtown, the railroad station, an old oyster factory, the circus coming to town.
Carousel committee member Gail Horton said that she and the other members spent months going through historic photographs, paintings and drawings to choose the subjects for the panels.
“We went through and decided what images would reflect the history and culture of Greenport,” said Horton. “We had 14 concepts we wanted to represent. It took a long time to find images of Greenport that would be exciting and tell our history.”
Once they chose the images, the committee put out a call for artists and eventually decided on four artists to create the paintings: Marla Milne of Greenport, Cindy Pease Roe of Greenport, Keith Mantell of Aquebogue and Enid Hatton of Fairfield, Connecticut.
Choosing which artist to paint what image was done by drawing names out of a hat.
Once the paintings were completed they were enlarged onto vinyl and installed by Bill von Eiff of Reflected Image in Greenport. The final panel was installed in April.
On July 7 the original paintings – some are oils and others are acrylics – will be auctioned off to raise money to commission 14 more paintings which will be installed on the inner panels of the carousel.
Greenport artist Cindy Pease Roe, who painted four of the panels, was surprised by how much she learned about Greenport history from participating in the project.
“I wasn’t born here and it was interesting to me to learn about how the ferries used to meet the trains, what the harborfront looked like before Claudio’s was there,” she said in a phone interview. “I discovered things about Greenport that I’d never known.”
Depicting a scene on a 44 5/8″ X 8 1/8″ canvas was challenging, says Roe, who spent the winter working on her paintings.
“It was so long and skinny and I knew it was going to be enlarged, so I had to make sure there was enough detail. I really didn’t know how it was going to translate to a larger format but when I saw the panels mounted on the boards, my jaw dropped. It was so cool looking.”
“Gail Horton really had vision,” says Roe. “She saw how that was going to look. And it’s beautiful.”
The silent auction of the original paintings will be held on the deck above the marina office in Mitchell Park on July 7 from noon to 9 p.m. in conjunction with the Greenport Gallery Walk. Opening bid is $350 for each canvas; bidding ends at 8:30 p.m. and the winner will be announced at 9 p.m. In case of rain the auction will take place in the Red Schoolhouse on Front Street.
