OCEARCH's Chris Fischer to Give "Ocean First" Lecture

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A PRESENTATION BY CHRIS FISCHER AND OCEARCH

Groundbreaking Expedition Leader to

Research Great White Sharks in Local Waters

The Sag Harbor Whaling Museum is proud to present Chris Fischer and the OCEARCH team next Saturday, August 27th from 2:00 to 3:00pm. Their lecture on "Ocean First" and EXPEDITION NEW YORK will discuss their current endeavor: tagging and studying juvenile white sharks off the Long Island coast. This location is believed to be a breeding ground for this keystone species.

Dedicated to the advancement of science surrounding white sharks, Chris Fischer has pioneered more than 24 expeditions in order to better understand these aquatic giants. From uncovering breeding areas to tracking migratory corridors, his groundbreaking efforts with OCEARCH have helped 50 scientists from over 20 international and regional institutions. Their findings have also caught the attention of media outlets in over 178 countries and 29 languages. Together, Chris Fischer and OCEARCH have worked alongside Heads of State, lawmakers, policymakers, and conservation organizations.

OCEARCH and their Shark Tracker app is a recognized world leader in generating critical scientific data related to tracking and biological studies of marine species, most notably the white shark. The app allows the public and scientists to follow tagged sharks around the globe in real time. In 2012, this technology was used to locate Mary Lee, a local white shark tagged by Cape Cod. Since then, this popular and elegant creature has garnered a considerable amount of media attention that could perhaps rival Jaws. More importantly, researching Mary Lee has led to new studies in white shark behavior and habits. Through the app, scientists and the public can tell when Mary Lee is near our waters the moment her dorsal "PINGS."

The Sag Harbor Whaling Museum invites the general public to learn more about Chris Fischer and OCEARCH on August 27th. Admission for the event is free, but seating is limited and on a first come first serve basis. A cocktail hour provided by Cisco Brewers will follow the event. RSVP to info@sagharborwhalingmuseum.org or call (631) 725-0770.

This event location will be at the Sag Harbor Whaling & Historical Museum, located at 200 Main street in Sag Harbor.

Sag Harbor Whaling Museum Presents “Film Festival Shorts”

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DA Pennebaker. Photo by David Shankbone.

Sag Harbor Whaling Museum Presents “Film Festival Shorts” | Sag Harbor Express

The Sag Harbor Whaling & Historical Museum will hold Film Festival Shorts, new works by artists, with a premiere planned for Saturday, July 30 at 7:30 p.m. and a panel discussion scheduled for Sunday, July 31 at 7:30 p.m.

Starting the night with the work one of Sag Harbor’s own D.A. Pennebaker, the shorts festival will open with “Daybreak Express,” and following up with eight short films from various local filmmakers. Participating filmmakers will include Jackson Hyland Lipsky (“The Cloud”), Julian Thomas Alvarez (“The Land God Made in Anger”), Luca Ritter (“Dumbo in 16mm”), Benjamin Potter (“Drink 2”), Nick Whelan (“Cuba Cuba”), and Theo Gray.

These exhibits and events are made possible with funds from the Decentralization Program, a re-grant program of the New York State Council on the Arts with the support of Governor M. Andrew Cuomo and the New York State Legislature and is administered by The Huntington Arts Council Inc.

“Every Village Has a Story to Tell: People” Opens at the Sag Harbor Whaling Museum

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Bliss Fiddler serenades workers in a photograph from 1914-15.

“Every Village Has a Story to Tell: People” Opens at the Sag Harbor Whaling Museum | Sag Harbor Express | Michelle Trauring

First, Kathryn Szoka fell in love with the farm fields of North Sea—the wide, expansive swaths of land touched only by those who knew what to do with them.

Then, she stumbled across Sag Harbor—virtually nonexistent on the Hamptons tourist radar in the 1980s—and discovered a diverse haven with a real sense of community and work ethic. It was a community she wanted to join.

That same feeling, she would later learn, was once echoed by John Steinbeck in the 1950s. He ushered in a wave of fellow creative types who joined the longstanding backbone of Sag Harbor’s working people.

Together, they are the subject of “Every Village Has A Story: People,” curated by Ms. Szoka, on view starting Friday at the Sag Harbor Whaling Museum.

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New Whaling Museum Exhibit Explores Roots of Sag Harbor’s Past

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The Cornerstone by Peter Solow.

New Whaling Museum Exhibit Explores Roots of Sag Harbor’s Past | Sag Harbor Express | Dawn Watson

From working-class whaling port to upper-crust vacation destination, Sag Harbor has witnessed its share of societal changes over the years. And even though its fiercely loyal local inhabitants have fought hard to retain its core identity, this quaintly charming waterfront village has evolved, for better or for worse.

The metamorphosis can be seen not just in the appearance of the people who live, work and summer here, but in even in the actual bricks and mortar that comprise the village’s structures. To that end, the Sag Harbor Whaling Museum is putting up an “Every Village Has a Story” exhibit, which explores the changing façades and uses of the buildings and how they reflect the transformation of the community. The group show, curated by Elise Goodheart, features nine local artists—Reynold Ruffins, John Capello, Paul Davis, Erica Lynn Huberty, Joan Tripp, Scott Sandell, Peter Solow, Carolyn Conrad and Michael A. Butler—who have been invited to explore the roots and underpinnings of Sag Harbor’s past through its buildings and places, and reflect upon how those past parts of the village inform their present points of view.

Ms. Goodheart says that she wanted to have the artists focus on the “largely unexplored” time span that has occurred since the end of the whaling industry and up to the present day. She tasked them with researching the period, finding an archival photo to serve as inspiration in creating a piece of artwork based on their findings, and writing a short blurb about it.

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Pierson Students To Exhibit Art From Their Recent Trip To Cuba

Pierson Students Use Art To Portray Their Recent Trip To Cuba | By Nicole Baryiski

This past February, 26 Pierson High School students traveled to Cuba as part of an educational tour. The visit was made possible thanks to the recent lifting of sanctions against the Caribbean island nation by President Barack Obama.

On Saturday, May 7th, The Sag Harbor Whaling & Historical Museum will present the first exhibit of its season, Cuba!, which explores the group's experience in the mysterious country.

"We signed up for this exhibit a while ago," said Peter Solow, an art teacher at Pierson High School, who chaperoned the trip and curated the exhibit. "They [The Sag Harbor Whaling & Historical Museum] jumped on the idea because they thought it was such a cool idea." The students were tasked with creating prints, mixed media pieces, and other works that were related to their trip.

When we spoke to Solow a few days before the exhibit opens, the students were still putting the finishing touches on their artwork and he was still working on the show's curation. "As is our norm, we haven't completely made the selection process. We're trying to represent as many kids as possible," he noted. "We have some really extraordinary photography and some really wonderful stuff. We're trying to put the best work in that we can and at the same time get a cross-section of the kids so everybody's represented who wanted to contribute." The exhibition will also include journal entries and photography.

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Students Bring Sights & Sounds of Cuba to Whaling Museum

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On Tuesday, May 3, Pierson High School students Eleanor Byrne and Sinead Murray work on a mural inspired by their trip to Cuba that will be displayed as part of a show of artwork at the Sag Harbor Whaling Museum on Saturday. Michael Heller photos.

Students Bring Sights & Sounds of Cuba to Whaling Museum | Sag Harbor Express | Douglas Feiden

The creative process of art-making — especially collaborative art, and particularly art that is the brainchild of a group of free-spirited students and teachers at Pierson High School — can be inspiring and uplifting. But at times, it can be a tad messy, too.

As they worked on the final preparations for “Cuba: An Exhibition of Art and Photography,” a Pierson project that debuts at the Sag Harbor Whaling and Historical Museum on Saturday, May 7, the focus of the young artists gathered in the second-floor classroom turned to a mixed-media mural based on composite images of photos they had taken during a February trip to the island nation.

Art teacher Peter Solow watched closely as sophomore Sinead Murray, gingerly holding a blue paintbrush, dabbed a few strokes on the 11-foot-wide by 7-foot-tall mural. He shook his head: “You’ve got some streaks in there!” he kvetched. Her dark blues should have been a little lighter, even as her light blues should have been a little darker, he complained.

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Sag Harbor Students Exhibit Their Writings, Artwork, and Photos from Cuba Trip

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Pierson student Drew Fisher (center right) and isex-Pierson student Jack Muth (right) exchange social media connections with Cuban students at a Havana high school. Peter Solow photo

Sag Harbor Students Return from Cuba with Love | By Douglas Feiden

The music was rapturous, the art was mesmerizing, the people were embracing and the long history of bad blood seemed like a fading and distant memory.

But the poverty was grinding, the standard of living was shocking, the wages were unfathomable and the sense of time rolling back into the 1950s and 1960s was inescapable.

Those were just a few of the thousands of impressions garnered by the 26 students from Pierson High School who traveled to Cuba last month for a week-long tour of the island nation that has long vexed American policy makers.

“Amazing,” said ninth grader Charlotte Johnson. “Eye-opening,” said 10th grader Emiley Nill. “Really beautiful and super-cool colonial architecture,” said 10th grader Sinead Murray. “And no one was on their iPhones all the time, which I find such a distraction, and that was just awesome!” marveled 12th grader Emma McMahon.

Accompanied by four chaperones, the high school students arrived at a historic pivot point in relations between Havana and Washington, which have been strained at best and hostile at worst since Fidel Castro seized power in 1959 and the Eisenhower administration severed diplomatic ties on January 4, 1961.

Now, the deep freeze is finally beginning to thaw: President Barack Obama restored diplomatic relations last year, removed Cuba from the list of state sponsors of terror, reopened the U.S. embassy in Havana for the first time in half a century, eliminated many travel restrictions and has pushed Congress, unsuccessfully so far, to lift the long-standing trade embargo, which remains the last major impediment to full normalization of relations.

In fact, the students were exploring the sensory worlds of Cuban music, dance, art, culture, cuisine, gardening, orchid farming and

tobacco farming even as two new breakthrough deals were being unveiled on February 16 and 18.

In the first, commercial air traffic between the two countries will be restored. And in the second, an agreement was hammered out for President Obama to tour Havana later this month and huddle with Cuban President Raul Castro, making him the first sitting U.S. president to visit since Calvin Coolidge arrived on a battleship in 1928.

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A group photo of Pierson High School students and their faculty chaperones at an interactive musical workshop in Havana, Cuba. Peter Solow photo

The Pierson contingent witnessed the rapprochement firsthand. In a popular craft market selling goods and tchotchkes, students were asked the inevitable question, “Where are you from?” As ninth grader Halle Woelk recounts the story, the answers quickly came back, “America” and “New York” and “Sag Harbor.”

The vendors were overjoyed: “Our new friends!” they told her.

“Every one of them was so welcoming to all of us, and really happy to see us, and many of them had never met an American before,” Halle added. “But they were ready to be in a relationship with America.”

In a group interview at Pierson, eight trip participants said they encountered propaganda on street billboards and in classrooms, but not a single student saw or personally experienced instances of anti-Americanism in their exchanges with scores of Cubans.

Yes, there were dark and unflattering caricatures of Uncle Sam on billboards, Charlotte said. And the glorification of revolutionary icon Che Guevara is such that schoolchildren still chant, “Pioneers for Communism, We will be like Che!”

But the genuine warmth of the islanders was unmistakable. “They were open and kind and welcoming and everybody really wanted us to be there,” said ninth grader Emily Hallock.

She was so stirred by island music — Afro-Cuban, samba, salsa, rumba, mambo and cha-cha — that she’s endeavoring with other students and teachers to put together a Cuban-style band, which will play the rhythms they learned and introduce them to the East End.

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A Piece of History Returns to Sag Harbor

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The 1796 powder horn. A. Hinkle photo.

A Piece of History Returns to Sag Harbor
By Annette Hinkle | Sag Harbor Online

It’s not every day that a piece of historic Sag Harbor finds its way back home.

But that’s exactly what’s happened in recent weeks at the Sag Harbor Whaling & Historical Museum.

It all started back in early fall when museum manager Greg Therriault and collections manager Richard Doctorow were approached by a private collector from North Carolina who had a powder horn which he purchased at an antiques show a few years ago.

The horn, which was used to store gun powder while hunting, dated to the late 18th century and it was etched with images of ships, animals and text reading: “Sagg Harbor Feb 10th 1796 • Stratten Conkling • his horn made by himself.”

The collector was looking to sell the horn and because it was so Sag Harbor specific, he wanted to give the museum the first shot at acquisition. So he contacted the museum to see if they might be interested.

“We were,” admits Mr. Doctorow.

With no money up front, the collector agreed to send the horn to the museum for appraisal. It was around that time that Greg Fukutomi and Phoebe Barnard, museum members and part time Sag Harbor residents, stopped by the museum with friends Stephen and Karen Clark who were visiting from California.

“We love the Whaling Museum and we try to visit as much as possible when we have guests,” explains Ms. Barnard.

Both couples have great interest and experience in the arts, and when Mr. Fukutomi and Ms. Barnard introduced the Clarks to Mr. Therriault, Ms. Clark mentioned how impressed she was with the museum’s collection — especially the scrimshaw.

“I said, ‘You seem knowledgeable about whaling artifacts,’” recalls Mr. Therriault.

She certainly was.

In a strange bit of kismet, it turns out that Ms. Clark once worked at Sotheby’s Auction House where her specialty was Americana and maritime artifacts — specifically powder horns.

That’s when Mr. Therriault asked if the two couples would like to see the powder horn being considered for acquisition by the museum.

“They said, ‘We’d be thrilled to see it,’” he adds.

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Co-President Linley Pennebaker, Greg Fukutomi, Phoebe Barnard, and Museum Manager Greg Therriault.

Limited Edition Holiday "Whale" Ornament 2015!

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The Sag Harbor Whaling Museum is thrilled to announce this year's Holiday ornament!

We've partnered with artist Donald Sultan and ceramist Mae Mougin to create our first ever hand-crafted and exclusive ornament for the 2015 holiday season. Available only at our Holiday Cocktail Party & Fundraiser on Saturday, December 5th, the ornament is limited to just 50 pieces. And because they're hand made and painted, no two pieces are alike!

Click HERE to get tickets to our Holiday Party.

Michael Butler & Barbara Hadden: Our Town Remains Open at the Whaling Museum

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Barbara Hadden, Sag Harbor Cinema, oil on canvas.

Michael Butler & Barbara Hadden: Our Town Remains Open at the Whaling Museum | Sag Harbor Express

Our Town, an exhibit featuring Michael Butler and Barbara Hadden will close its almost two month run at the end of October at the Sag Harbor Whaling & Historical Museum, 200 Main Street in Sag Harbor.

Barbara Hadden is a self-taught artist whose works can be found in many collections. Settled in Sag Harbor, she is a long-time resident of the South Fork who finds the architecture and landscapes of Eastern Long Island a continuous source of inspiration. Beginning to paint in the late seventies in a primitive style using acrylic and ink, she made a departure to watercolor and now enjoys working in oils.

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Michael Butler, Tempest-Tossed, acrylic on canvas

Michael A. Butler is a self-taught, regional artist whose preferred medium is acrylic on canvas. The deep jewel tones in his paintings are reminiscent of Henri Rousseau or the early works of Romare Bearden. His style has been described by others as naïve and/or primitive but his preferred description is intuitive or narrative. His works do tell stories with source material derived from mythology, either current or ancient, religious or spiritual references, stories overheard or purely from his imagination. Another important component of his work is that of historian or documentarian. Mr. Butler has a Masters degree in Public Administration, is semi-retired and describes himself as a full-time, summer resident of Sag Harbor.

Our Town is the second exhibit as a part of a two-part series celebrating the 375th anniversary of the founding of Southampton Town, and is partially funded through the Town of Southampton. For more information, visit sagharborwhalingmuseum.org.

Barbara Hadden Paints Windmill for Dan's Papers

Barbara Hadden's HarborFest cover (detail)

Dan's Cover Artist Barbara Hadden | Dan's Papers | By Joan Baum

Barbara Hadden’s lovely “Sag Harbor Windmill at Sunset,” one of several recent paintings she’s exhibiting at the Sag Harbor Whaling and Historical Museum in celebration of this weekend’s HarborFest, evokes a sense of storybook serenity, nature as sweet harmony. It’s a charming scene without people. This is not, of course, the way HarborFest really is—streets are jammed, and the iconic windmill area by Long Wharf at the foot of Main Street is crowded with residents and tourists who have come to see, hear, shop and amble along.

HarborFest is an unofficial homage to the end of summer and a celebration of local history. Hadden’s pleasant, muted-color oil painting invests the familiar scene with nostalgia, albeit created: the Sag Harbor windmill, unlike authentic gristmills and wind pumps on the East End, is only 49 years old, but Hadden’s picturesque composition captures the community mood of “Our Town,” the name of her exhibit at the Whaling Museum with fellow local artist Michael A. Butler. The image also exemplifies Hadden’s recent work—pleasing land and seascapes that show her turn from acrylic and ink and watercolor to water-based oils.

The “Our Town” exhibit may, for some folks, call to mind Thornton Wilder’s Pulitzer Prize–winning play of that name. You left your town of Peekskill and came to New York City to pursue an acting career. How long did it take you to realize that acting was not for you and when did you start drawing and painting?

I was serious about wanting to be an actress when I settled in the city. I took classes at the Actors Studio. I also met and became friends with Kim Stanley, whom I saw multiple times in the same show because I thought she was that good. I felt I couldn’t be that kind of actress. We remained close friends, however, until her death. Dusty Hoffman was a classmate, a wonderful guy. We did improvisations together—once we were both drops of water coming down a shower curtain. Mildred Dunnock was a teacher. I didn’t start painting until I was out in Southampton and settled in with my partner of 46 years now, Jane. She’s from England. She was a nurse and midwife whom I met at Roosevelt Hospital in the city. She studied at the Art Students League for a while and now works in glass.

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Of Whaling and Museums

Richard Doctorow shows off a whale vertebra from the 1884 ship Phenix at the Sag Harbor Whaling Museum. Michael Heller photos

Of Whaling and Museums | Sag Harbor Express | By Stephen J. Kotz

Throngs of people crowd Long Wharf and Windmill Beach to watch teams compete in the annual whaleboat races at Sag HarborFest each September. But lost on many is the fact that whaling, the very reason the village holds the festival in the first place, was Sag Harbor’s version of the real estate industry during the half of the 19th century. Ships crowding the port provided the economic engine that powered many other businesses, from rope making to barrel making, and the village drew thousands of men seeking fortune as crew members on the ships that set sail on long and dangerous voyages from the village.

“It was better to own a whaling ship than sail on a whaling ship,” said Richard Doctorow, the collections manager at the Sag Harbor Historical and Whaling Museum. “It was like working in a combination of a slaughterhouse and an oil refinery with the added chance of drowning thrown in. Every part of this business was dangerous.”

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Whalers’ Scrimshaw.

The Main Street museum, which just happens to be housed in the mansion built by Benjamin Huntting II, one the lucky Sag Harborites who made a fortune as a ship owner, offers visitors a glimpse at just how perilous, arduous and tedious the pursuit of these giants of the deep could be.

Take that whaleboat on the museum’s grounds. It came from the Concordia, a ship that sailed from Sag Harbor in the late stages of the whaling boom in the 1860s. “It’s probably the oldest whale boat extant, although it was extensively rebuilt in the 1970s,” Mr. Doctorow said.

Whaling ships typically carried three to five whaleboats, which carried a crew of six men each, who rowed out from the mother ship, harpoons, fastened to thousands of feet of line. When a whale was harpooned and tried to escape, often diving to elude capture, the line would uncoil at such speed it was often necessary to douse it with buckets of water to keep it cool. “It could literally tear your arm off,” Mr. Doctorow said.

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Streeter’s Sister Sailors & Sons of Sag Harbor Opens at Whaling Museum

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The artwork of Sabina Streeter will be on view at the Sag Harbor Whaling & Historical Museum.

Streeter’s Sister Sailors & Sons of Sag Harbor Opens at Whaling Museum | Sag Harbor Express | Dawn Watson

There’s more than meets the eye in Sabina Streeter’s mixed media portraits of iconic historic characters. Every image she creates represents decades of history, and hours upon hours of research into the lives of her subjects.

For her latest exhibition, “Sister Sailors & Sons of Sag Harbor,” opening at the Sag Harbor Whaling Museum on Thursday, August 27, the artist has set her sights on quite a few interesting personalities from days of yore. The poetic interpretations for “Sister Sailors,” illustrated in charcoal and ink on paper, will include likenesses of war hero Captain David Hand, Whalers Church architect Minard Lafever; Captain Benjamin Hunting II, who built the Sag Harbor Whaling and Historical Museum, and a number of pioneering whaling women. The 20-piece show is a continuation of Ms. Streeter’s 2014 exhibit, “Captains, Mates, + Widows,” also at the Whaling Museum.

History, especially local lore, has always fascinated the artist. Ms. Streeter’s interest in Sag Harbor’s past is fueled by the fact that she lives in what is considered one of the oldest homes in the village. The circa-1820 house on Madison Street was built by ship maker Abraham Vail for his son, whaling captain David Vail, the master of the ship “Sabina.”

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Thank you!

The Sag Harbor Whaling & Historical Museum would like to thank those who contributed to our Capital Campaign exhibition and fundraiser, SHARK! The Misunderstood Fish, over the weekend of July 10th, 11th and 12th. We could not be more grateful for such a giving community of friends and neighbors.

With sincere thanks,
Barbara Lobosco and Linley Pennebaker
Co-Presidents, Board of Directors

Volunteers
Anthony Brandt
Tom Dakin
Holly Dunn
Annette Hinkle
Ann Marie
Catherine Ross
Laura Silva
Lynda Sylvester
Bob Weinstein
Lizette and Ben Whelan

Staff
Michael Butler
Richard Doctorow
Stephan Scheck
Greg Therriault

Sponsors
Apple Bank
Cisco Brewers
Douglas Elliman Real Estate
OCEARCH
Peter Marcelle Project
Sylvester & Co. Modern General™
Sharks Eye
Wölffer Estate Vineyard

A special thank you to Richard Ellis and Stephanie Guest

Ellis Honored by Sag Harbor Whaling Museum After Shark! Opening

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Ellis Honored by Sag Harbor Whaling Museum After Shark! Opening | Sag Harbor Express

Co-curators of Shark! The Misunderstood Fish and Sag Harbor Whaling and Historical Museum board members Peter Drakoulias (left) and Stephen T. Lobosco (right) present an award of appreciation to featured artist and world-renowned marine biologist, Richard Ellis, after his lecture “The Adventures of a Shark Painter” on Sunday at the Whaling Museum. Shark! The Misunderstood Fish will be on view at the Whaling Museum through July 29.

Richard Ellis Headlines 'Shark!' Exhibit in Sag Harbor

"Tiger Shark" ©Richard Ellis

Richard Ellis Headlines 'Shark!' Exhibit In Sag Harbor | 27east | By Michelle Trauring

From a beach near his home in North Haven, Dan Rizzie is wading in Shelter Island Sound and feeling mostly unafraid—even with little sharks swimming around his feet.He has heard the stories of irresponsible or simply unlucky swimmers and seen the infamous 1975 blockbuster “Jaws.”

The baby boomer once bought into the hype—but no longer.

“You just assume that if there’s a shark in the water, it’s going to kill you, when, in fact, they don’t want to mess with you at all,” Mr. Rizzie explained. “But you’ve got to remember that you’re in their territory.”

Beautifully designed, extremely efficient and spread out all over the world, sharks are the ultimate predators. There are hundreds of species, ranging from the 9-inch-long pale catshark to the whale shark, the largest predatory fish in the world, measuring in at 55 feet, with a mouth the size of a Volkswagen that could swallow a sofa, though they prefer to filter feed.

As a whole, sharks are perhaps the most misunderstood creatures on this planet, according to marine biologist and artist Richard Ellis, whose illustrations will be on view starting Friday—alongside work by Mr. Rizzie, April Gornik, Donald Sultan and more—at the Sag Harbor Whaling and Historical Museum.

“The whale shark looks like a shark, but it’s harmless,” Mr. Ellis said during a telephone interview from his home in Manhattan. “What is responsible for their bad reputation is the occasional shark attack by certain sharks on people. So if there is a creature that gets to be 30 feet long that has gigantic teeth and feeds on things like seals and whales, it becomes fairly obvious—though not necessarily true—that they do terrible things to human beings if they find themselves in the water with one of these babies.”

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Hamptons Magazine: Whaling Museum Turns Spotlight on Sharks

The Sag Harbor Whaling & Historical Museum Turns the Spotlight on Sharks | Hamptons Magazine | By Emily J. Weitz

When Richard Ellis began his work at the American Museum of Natural History in the early ’60s, one of his first tasks was to design a blue whale. That original 94-foot-long specimen, which hung in the Hall of Ocean Life as if in motion through the open sea, became iconic. Humbly, Ellis says he didn’t know much about whales at the time, but that assignment launched him into a lifelong pursuit to capture the essence of whales and sharks in their living natural splendor, in contrast with the way they were historically seen—dead on a dock. “Transposing dead animals onto a canvas was no good,” says Ellis. “I felt what the world lacked was a reasonable record of what live whales actually look like, and that’s why I started painting them.”

Ellis went on diving expeditions all over the world, and in his travels, he realized that there was another animal that needed saving—“the much-maligned creature known as the shark.” Says Ellis, “As an illustrator I became interested in what sharks look like, their design, their graceful lines. They seem to represent an element of wildness in the world that we don’t see much of anymore. We tend to attempt to control nature, but sharks remain out of our realm of control.”

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Newsday Previews Marathon Reading of "Moby Dick"

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Marathon Reading of "Moby-Dick" Returns To Sag Harbor | Newsday | By Stacy Altherr

It'll be a whale of a weekend.

A marathon reading of the American classic "Moby-Dick" is returning to a Sag Harbor bookstore after more than a decade long hiatus.

The former whaling village is mentioned in Herman Melville's 1851 novel, so it's an apt setting for the reading, organized by Canio's Books, a longtime independent bookstore in the village.

The idea was originally sparked in the 1980s after Canio Pavone, founder and past owner of the shop, had a conversation with a friend about a marathon reading of James Joyce's "Ulysses" on WBAI, a New York radio station.

"We were already doing a lot of readings," says Pavone, 80. "I said, 'Let's do something that hasn't been done.' So, with Sag Harbor being a whaling town, I thought of 'Moby-Dick.'"

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A Whale of a Show Brings Salt Air to the Sag Harbor Whaling & Historical Museum.

Smiling Whale by Dan Rizzie

A Whale of a Show Brings Salt Air to the Sag Harbor Whaling & Historical Museum | The Sag Harbor Express | By Dawn Watson

Dan Rizzie, an artist for more than 40 years, is best known for his colorful bird imagery. But whales have actually been on his mind for years.

He was certainly thinking about them when he and gallery owner Peter Marcelle hatched up an idea to raise money for the Sag Harbor Whaling and Historical Museum approximately four years ago. That’s when they conceptualized the idea, and the name, of the Sag Harbor Whaling and Historical Museum’s first “Whale of a Show” art benefit exhibit and sale, which debuted in 2013.

The idea behind the show was primarily to raise money for the building’s much needed renovations, Mr. Rizzie said during a telephone chat on Sunday afternoon.

“We needed to save the building from demise,” he says. “It was literally falling into itself and falling apart in front of our eyes.”

But the group art exhibition is also meant to bring people together to celebrate the village’s whaling history, and now the preservation of the whale population, in addition to strengthening the artistic community within and around the village, the artist and the gallery owner agree.

The benefits of the show are great, says Mr. Marcelle, who owns a gallery in Southampton and lives in Sag Harbor. First, the museum benefits, he says. Second, the local artists get a chance to show their work. And third, collectors get fantastic pieces, while writing off their purchases as charitable contributions.

“Everybody wins,” he says.

Now in its third year, as part of the “Salt Air Exhibition” series, the group exhibition featuring renderings of the various marine mammals of the Cetacea order kicks off the summer arts season in Sag Harbor. Participating artists for this show include: Anna DeMauro, Jamey Ellis, April Gornik, Susan Lazarus, Edwina Lucas, Jill Musnicki, David Slater, Donald Sultan, Barbara Thomas, and John Torreano. Mr. Rizzie and Mr. Marcelle served as curators of the exhibition, which opens on Friday, May 22, with a reception from 6 to 8 p.m. and remains on display through June 21.

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Sag Harbor Whaling Museum featured on Music Festival Poster

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Artist Maryann Lucas presents the new Sag Harbor American Music Festival poster art on Sunday, featuring the Sag Harbor Whaling & Historical Museum with Alfreo Merat Radio Europa performing.

Click HERE for more information about the Festival.