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Annemarie Waugh

By Mallie Kim

Runners and walkers wound through the hilly roads of Stony Brook for a Mother’s Day 5K race last Sunday, May 14, hosted by local advocacy group Sidewalks For Safety. At the event, a mix of athletes and local sidewalk fans numbering about 300 raised awareness in their bright “safety green” T-shirts as they made their way to the finish line at The Long Island Museum.

Sidewalks For Safety founder Annemarie Waugh was thrilled with the turnout, and said she looks forward to taking what she learned from this inaugural run to make it an annual event.

“There was such great energy, great cheer, and so many people in support of more sidewalks, especially around the schools,” she said. “I’m really hoping we can put children and pedestrian safety first.”

Long Island has fewer sidewalks because the suburban population expanded in an era when car was king. “Long Island’s sidewalks are here, there, everywhere and nowhere,” The New York Times noted back in 2004, adding, “The Island’s network of sidewalks is so haphazard.”

Waugh, a mother herself, makes the case to the public and to the Town of Brookhaven that sidewalks are a key part of keeping children safe as they walk to school and bus stops. She gathers volunteers as she goes — including this reporter, who proofreads the Sidewalks For Safety newsletter and helped check in participants at the race.

Waugh’s advocacy centers around connecting existing sidewalks in the Three Village area, particularly around the schools. She pointed out that secondary school track teams run on local roads. At Old Town Road in front of Ward Melville High School, that means students are running in the street alongside big construction trucks and heavy traffic. 

Detractors fear sidewalks would give the Three Village Area a more “urban” feel.

At the finish line, Setauket mother Dr. Samone Zarabi said she would like more sidewalks so she and her young son can be safer while walking their dog around town.

Zarabi brought her family to the 5K also to celebrate Mother’s Day. “I just wanted to do something healthy and good for the entire family — no expectations, just being together,” she said.

First-time 5K participants Loam Lapidus and Miko Alfredsson, both 10-year-old Nassakeag Elementary School students, said they found the race “tiring.” But they care about sidewalks, they said, because they don’t want people or animals “to get run over.” Miko also had a particular reason for joining. “My mom wanted me to do it,” he said.

Local politicians also came to support Sidewalks For Safety, including town Councilmember Jonathan Kornreich (D-Stony Brook) and Suffolk County Legislator Kara Hahn (D-Setauket), who said she grew up in the area and supports safe, walkable communities, especially for children. Sidewalks “they connect communities — people to each other, people to places like parks, downtowns,” she said. “All these things are important for a sense of place in a community.”

The top three men and women finishers went home with flowers in lieu of medals, on theme for Mother’s Day. First-place male was Keith Forlenza, of Stony Brook, who ran the 5K in 16 minutes, 55 seconds, and first-place female was Jessica Baisley, of Centereach, who finished at 21:45.

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A student shakes hands with Valerie Cartright after receiving an award for a video created to highlight health and safety benefits of sidewalks. Photo by Andrea Paldy

By Andrea Paldy

The Three Village school board welcomed Town of Brookhaven and Suffolk County officials Feb. 12 for a special presentation. 

Town Supervisor Ed Romaine (R), Councilwoman Valerie Cartright (D-Port Jefferson Station) and county Legislator Kara Hahn (D-Setauket) presented awards to four Ward Melville High School students for their public service announcements advocating for sidewalks to ensure safety in the community. 

Sidewalks for Safety, a local grassroots organization, sponsored a video contest to encourage high school students to highlight the health and safety benefits of sidewalks in neighborhoods and around schools. Student projects were sponsored by the Ward Melville art department.

Contest winners were Benjamin Dombroff and Nicole DeLucia, who tied for first place and received $500 each. Mia Schoolman was awarded second place and Elyas Masrour placed third. 

Three Village resident Annemarie Waugh, founder of Sidewalks for Safety, addressed those gathered for last week’s meeting and presentation. The organization’s vision for the community is to have “a minimal number of strategically placed sidewalks on only a few connector roads to enable students and residents to walk safely,” she said. 

Ward Melville Principal Bill Bernhard also spoke. He recalled an appointment with Waugh six years ago, when he was principal at Paul J. Gelinas Junior High School. 

“We had a rather unorthodox meeting,” Bernhard said. “We took a walk around the neighborhood. It was a picturesque, beautiful day … and what we saw, besides the beautiful nature, was something rather disconcerting, which was the lack of available places for our students to walk — our lack of sidewalks.”

The Town installed sidewalks in front of the junior high school in 2016. The $300,000 project also included a pole with flashing LED lights that could be activated by pedestrians with the push of a button. 

Waugh indicated that there is still more to be done.

“Our roads are not comfortable for pedestrians and cyclists,” she said. “They are full of dangerous blind corners and speeding, distracted drivers.”

The student videos, which were screened during the meeting, echoed those concerns.

“Walkable communities are associated with higher home values,” Waugh said. “Imagine your kids being able to walk safely to school, to walk safely to their friends’ houses. Imagine being able to jog safely to West Meadow Beach. Imagine being able to walk for a coffee and to walk to local shops.” 

Romaine commended the students.

“Your students really know how to advocate and make a point,” he told school board members.

Also honored last week were members of the Setauket Elementary School student council, who raised more than $700 for Australian Wildlife Rescue, and varsity athletes who competed in fall sports. 

The school board also finalized the 2020-2021 school calendar. The first day of school will be Sept. 8, 2020.

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Be inspired and create! On Thursday, September 28 from 6 to 8 p.m. the Long Island Museum, 1200 Route 25A in Stony Brook will welcome local artist Annemarie Waugh, who will host Sip and Create Art, an adult painting workshop with local fine wines. The work of women artists such as Joan Mitchell, Agnes Martin and Beatriz Milhazes will be the inspiration as participants create their own masterpieces will enjoying a selection of fine, local wine.

Annemarie Waugh

Annemarie Waugh is a painter from England who lives and works on Long Island. Waugh weaves perception into form by way of an interdisciplinary approach. Inspired by the intersection of art and science as well as the subtle structures of visual communication, the artist utilizes motifs found within the fringe of mainstream culture. Her representations of abstract and figurative forms elicit the close relationship that exists between line and color as well as illusion and fantasy, investigating research-based details and the disenchantment of fictitious desire. To see Annemarie’s work, visit annemariewaugh.com.

Fees for this fun-filled workshop are $30 per person, $25 members and include paints, supplies and wine. Pre-registration and pre-payment are required. Anyone interested in participating may contact the museum’s Education Department at (631) 751-0066 x212.

 

 

 

"Remembering Things Past"

Waugh's painting from her exhibit "Across the Pond" looks at how the same language renders different meanings "across the pond."

When it comes to the power of Annemarie Waugh’s art, the writing is on the wall — elegantly scrawled in technicolor chalk on a black cloud of paint that remarkably, though unintentionally, resembles a map of the United States.

Her latest work, “Across the Pond,” features 166 “Britishisms” brought to life in paintings on canvas and with expressions written directly on the walls of the Islip Museum of Art.

It’s all part of the show, “Remembering Things Past,” running at the museum until the end of March.

The small room where her art is displayed is filled with wonderful British idioms, like “snog,” (to kiss), “faff,” (to waste time) and “mucky pup”, (dirty child). My personal favorite is “all fur coat and no knickers” (to have a sophisticated appearance but no substance). They’re the sort of expressions that would make you feel oh, so witty, were you to slip them into your daily conversation. Though, I’m not sure they’d sound nearly as nifty without the equally smart British accent.

Annemarie says the idea for the project began to percolate last Christmas when she was at home in England. The almost clichéd advice, “write what you know,” got her thinking.

“I know England. I know these expressions,” she says.

Inspiration to begin her text series, illustrations of some of these expressions — almost like an onomatopoeia in pencil and acrylic— soon followed. She describes the process as “thinking about the differences of the two countries and finding a visual voice that brings those memories and experiences into the work.”

Before she picked up her tools though, she started with a short story — about a paragraph long — to go with the words. Her first word was “snog.” From there, she went on to do more research in books and dictionaries, rediscovering and uncovering more expressions. She still uses some. Some, she’d forgotten. Her list has grown so much that she is actually compiling it into a book.

Annemarie told me that when she first showed the series in Patchogue last October, she didn’t want to display only paintings, so she had to figure out a way to showcase additional expressions.

“I started thinking of England and chalkboards and schools… chalkboard brings you back to remembering days long ago. It was a natural fit,” she says.

So she started practicing on the chalkboard in her son’s playroom. Though she’d used stencils for her paintings because she thought of her handwriting as “chicken scratch,” the artist says she found chalk freer and less inhibiting.

As the whole concept formed, “It was like another person stepped in and did it for me,” she says.

Installing the chalked portion of the exhibit was a project in itself. Annemarie says she was at the museum from 11 a.m. to 3 p.m. — leaving in time to get her son off the bus —for four straight days.

She painted the wall and wrote the 166 British expressions on one wall and the corresponding “American translations” on another. She very nicely numbered everything so they can easily be matched. On the fifth day, she worked with a proofreader. After all, that is a lot of writing!

Annemarie_definitionsAs Annemarie explains it, evenings were spent going through her lists of expressions to choose which would fit thematically and physically in her piece.

To see how she has managed to perfectly alternate each color — red, pink, blue, yellow, green, orange, purple and white— for each expression, so that the same color is never contiguous, is an impressive and powerful feat.

It’s almost like performance art, because to show the exhibit elsewhere, Annemarie would have to do it all over again!

When I asked her if the thought made her want to take a nap, she laughed. “Oh no! I’d love to do it again!” she said.

“Remembering Things Past,” can be seen at the Islip Museum of Art, 50 Irish Lane, East Islip, through March 29. Viewing is 10 a.m. to 4 p.m., Thursdays and Fridays, and noon to 4 p.m., Saturdays and Sundays. Call (631) 224-5402.