East End Collected 8 Returns to Southampton Arts Center Saturday

It’s that time of year on the East End where the roads are emptier, the towns are quieter, and the local artists have the peace they need to come up with their masterpieces.

Those masterpieces will be featured at the Southampton Arts Center for the next few months, as the eighth rendition of the East End Collected begins on February 1.

Spearheaded by former Dan’s Papers cover artist Paton Miller and Southampton Arts Center director Christina Mossaides Strassfield, the collective will feature art from as many as 27 East End-based artists, a couple of whom have also been featured on Dan’s covers.

Miller first came to Southampton in 1974, and had an art scholarship at Southampton College. During his time as a student, he realized the value of the location for an artist, and began exhibiting his art in New York City. Recognizing the value of the East End arts scene alone, Miller launched the first East End Collected in 2014.

“The idea was floated to do an art center here, and I was at a meeting in a private home in Southampton, and they asked me from an artist point of view,” Miller said. “I said that in order to succeed as an art center, you should focus on the arts of the area, and that’s exactly what happened. A couple months later, they asked me to do a show.”

Strassfield, who is entering her second year as director of the arts center, is no stranger to East End art. She previously worked for 29 years at Guild Hall, and sees how the East End fosters a great community for artists.

“It goes back to the 19th century. I think when you think about Thomas Moran being the first artist out here,” Strassfield said. “The East End has welcomed the artists continually, really, from that early period, from the 19th century all the way through the surrealist movement, the abstract expressionist movement, the pop movement, the realist movements, of so many different artists of every generation. Now we don’t have as many ‘isms,’ or movements, and there’s a great variety. But the East End is always welcoming to artists, and they found it a nurturing place.”

It’s a sentiment Miller agrees with.

“As a practicing artist, I can tell you that it’s very important to be in a place where people are interested in what you’re doing,” Miller said. “You’re not working in a vacuum. I think people forget how special it is out here.”

In addition to Paton Miller, other Dan’s cover artists who will be featured at the exhibition include Amy Zerner, Richard Mothes, and Georgia Suter.

“There’s no themes, although Paton has done themes  really in the past,” Strassfield said. “It’s really the quality of the work. In the past when he’s chosen all the artists, he’s chosen artists, and they were chosen once – everyone’s in the show one time, which is really kind of great, so it gives everyone a chance. But it really is sort of a showcase of the talent that’s here on the East End, and it’s a testament to the artists and the art community that’s here that supports one another. Paton has said in the past that if you live elsewhere as an artist, you’re looked at as a kook, but here you’re looked at as someone that people embrace and they’re excited by that prospect.”

East End Collected 8 opens on Feb. 1. There will be a curators’ tour on Feb. 23. Panels with some of the featured artists will be on March 1, March 15, March 29, and April 5. For more information, contact the Southampton Arts Center at 631-283-0967.