More than 100 East Enders crowded into the North Fork Art Collective’s Greenport gallery for the group’s very first community show Friday night where more than 25 local artists shared their work with eager onlookers and prospective buyers.
“Some of the people have never even shown anyone their art,” NFAC member Madison Fender said in an interview prior to the opening. “I hope everyone is inspired by the end of the night.”
That was certainly the case for NFAC founder Kara Hoblin, who shed tears during the cathartic close where attendees attacked the show’s enormous centerpiece mural with sponges and spray bottles to reveal an inspiration quote as the chalk artist often invites folks to do during the “big erase” portion of her personal project series, “The Art of Letting Go.”
At the moment humpback whales breaching beneath a total eclipse was wiped away by East End hands seeking emotional release to reveal the words, “Much like the rising sea level lifts all ships, so the radiance of unconditional love within a human heart lifts all of life,” not a frown could be found in the crowd nor a distinction between community and collective.
“It’s the most amazing feeling,” graphic designer Erin Narumi Prince said of how it felt to display her first foray into watercolor entitled “Wisp”at NFAC’s first community show on Friday night.
“My natural medium is digital, so watercolor was a huge jump — a leap of faith — that I didn’t think that I would land into, but I did successfully. I never thought it would come to this point, but it did and I couldn’t be more proud, happy and anxious at the same time.”
The Baiting Hollow resident’s smoky-maned horse portrait was inspired by her first two weeks working as a volunteer at the North Shore Animal Rescue.
Works in watercolor, chalk and acrylics were joined by photographs, collages, sculptures and even objects made with found materials as was the case with some of the pieces displayed by Southold’s Peter Treiber Jr. The 29-year-old’s submissions included ‘sea saw’ objets d’art fabricated from old saws laden with oceanic references and a mask made from wood found on the beaches of Nova Scotia’s Cape Breton during an artists’ retreat.
“Lord Dingwall is a character that I had in my brain and had been drawing it for a while and I’d sort of written out his whole life story and then I brought it to life in physical, three-dimensional form,” he said of the wooden mask.
“I didn’t start making stuff until the end of college and it was from whatever materials I could find. It was usually to give a gift – wanting to pay somebody back for visiting their college; a birthday; Valentine’s Day – I didn’t think something purchased in a store represented how I felt about that person or that moment, so I began gathering materials from the basement of the house I was renting and it kind of went from there.”
The NFAC member, who works at Treiber Farms with his father, said he repurposes wood, paper, nails, images from old magazines and other found materials to recycle materials and inspire thought all at once.
“I hate waste,” he said. “ I like to grab what’s already been created in the world…and breathe new life into them.”
For more about the North Fork Art Collective, visit their website: northforkartcollective.com
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