By Heidi Sutton
It’s time to celebrate the best of the best. This Saturday, the Smithtown Township Arts Council opens its annual Winner’s Fine Art Showcase at the Mills Pond Gallery in St. James. The show will highlight the talents of seven artists who were prize winners in the gallery’s 2019 and 2020 juried exhibitions.
It is a show that Allison Cruz, Executive Director of the Mills Pond Gallery, looks forward to every year.
“I always love the Winners Showcase! It gives us an opportunity to enjoy a larger body of work from these talented prize winning artists,” she said.
“For the artists, it is an excellent opportunity to share work with gallery visitors that they either haven’t shown or maybe was not selected in recent juried exhibitions. For me, this is an opportunity to find out more about the artists … maybe find out that they work in different mediums or styles other than those exhibited in our shows. It is always an adventure!”
This year’s Winners Showcase features artists from Long Island as well as Idaho, Buffalo, Maine and New York City.
“The out of town artists will show only a few works in this show … we could not expect them to pack and ship many pieces to the gallery,” explained Cruz. “We are grateful for their participation and the opportunity to see what artists across the country are creating! The public can explore a larger body of their work on our website.”
Participating artists and the juried exhibits they were in are: Ron Becker (Deer Park) “Celebrating Creativity”; Caryn Coville (Greenvale) “Hand Drawn”; Lupe Galván (Idaho) “Hand Drawn”; Yuke Li (New York) “Transformations: Figures of Our Other Selves”; Joseph A. Miller (Buffalo) “Contemporary Realism”; Holden Willard (Maine) “Transformations: Figures of Our Other Selves”; and Patty Yantz (Setauket) “Water, Water Everywhere.”
Cruz invites the public to come see this amazing exhibit. “There is nothing like standing in front of these original works of art … seeing the brushstrokes … and feeling the passions and the messages in their pieces. Enjoy the exhibit and experience Art’s capacity to bring joy and hope in challenging times.”
Mills Pond Gallery, 660 Route 25A, St. James presents the Winners Fine Art Showcase from May 8 to June 6. Gallery hours are Wednesday to Friday from 10 a.m. to 4 p.m. and weekends from noon to 4 p.m. Social distancing and the use of masks is required and limited numbers of visitors (25) are allowed in the gallery at one time (5 per gallery room). Admission to the gallery is always free.
For more information, call 631-862-6575 or visit www.millspondgallery.org.
Images courtesy of Mills Pond Gallery
