The vibrant storefront space at 20 Terry Street has been a hotbed for art well over a decade.
The latest offering at the Patchogue Arts Council’s Museum of Contemporary Art LI (MoCA-L.I.) is the annual juried exhibition, “Patchworks.”
“We invite a guest curator, in this case, Lisa Petker Mintz, a large-scale abstract painter. She’s also co-curator for The Painting Center in Chelsea,” said PAC MoCA-L.I. executive director Beth Giacummo, a mixed media installation artist. “We have 34 artists in this exhibit chosen from over 75 artists. It’s quite a big show for us.”
You can catch it until August 25.
(Hours are Tues. – Sunday, from noon to 6 p.m.)
The annual mural project is also in progress on the walls outside the Patchogue-Medford Library.
“We call it the Theme Scape Mural, an annual collaboration we’ve done with the library since 2018,” Giacummo added. “A chosen artist makes a large mural on the library’s south side facing the Terry Street parking lot. Every year, we make an international call to as far away as Holland. Brinkmann’s True Value in Blue Point donates the paint.”
The mural is created in full view of the MoCA-L.I. gallery across the street during Alive After Five. Witness artist Laura Kessker as she paints her giant, whimsical, magical octopus, Pollock, one of the oldest creatures on earth.
Giacummo leads the organization like a bursting star. Enthusiasm spills out of her like sparks. She is imaginative, upbeat, and a ceaseless advocate for the arts.
Look for Giacummo and her group at Patchogue’s Alive After Five on July 25 and August 8; she’ll be there.
“We’re sponsoring Arts Alley,” she said. “It’s the entire Roe Walkway (adjacent to Toast and PMLIB) and there’s live music and poetry curated by Jackie Guma of Equilibrium Booking in the library courtyard. She takes care of the music and sound; we care for artist vendors and live painters.”
It doesn’t get much better than this, but there’s an Alive Community Painting on Arts Alley where community members participate with a lead artist.
“We’ve been collaborating with organizations like the Greater Patchogue Chamber, whether it’s a public art project like a mural, we have been helping to make the art connection however it fits them.
“We also have the sculpture garden being installed at Patchogue’s Community Garden, cared for by the Patchogue Garden Club (at Terry Street and South Ocean Avenue). We have two artists who have won NYS Council of the Arts awards. They will be unveiled in August.”
The beauty of all these events is that they’re steps away from the gallery, so you can spend a few creative hours wandering.
The On the Spot Long Island Performing Arts Festival will take place September 6, 7, and 8 at different locations in the village. Arts on Terry is planned for September 22.
Brookhaven Town gifted a building at 312 Montauk Highway in East Patchogue so the organization can increase their art offerings.
“It will greatly expand all the art we’re doing,” Giacummo said. “We have the RFP to architects now. We were awarded an $800,000 Jump Start grant through the town. A major contribution is also coming in, but we need quite a bit of funding to make this happen. It fills in a void because we have a lot of people asking for workshops. We’ll also have space for small theater productions that need rehearsal and performance space or bands.”
