Local Artists Add Color to Gallery North's Outdoor Art Show

Nearly 200 artists and craftsmen from Long Island and beyond and spectators numbering in the thousands descended upon Setauket for Gallery North's 45th annual outdoor art show this past weekend.

Among them was potter Gina Mars of Huntington, whose uniquely envisioned and masterfully stained pieces will be featured in an upcoming book called 500 Raku Vessels. There was Matthew DiBernardo of East Quogue, whose detailed wood carvings of birds and other wildlife had many spectators stopped in awe of their lifelike features. There was Jeremy Moss of Maplewood, N.J., whose photographs on canvas captured the simple honesty of nature close-up.

And then there was East Setauket artist-musician-photographer Paul Jay, whose three-dimensional art creations gave a playful new life to discarded pieces of colorful pop culture and other assorted plastic findings.

"I call this beach crap art," Jay said.

Jay creates his art by collecting pieces of plastic, lost toys, and other discarded materials from the Long Island Sound after storms. He reimagines their functions, connecting very different items – pieces from buckets and pails, holiday decorations, doll parts, a plastic fish – to produce one-of-a-kind wall art.

While it might not be everyone's cup of tea, perhaps the universal beauty of Jay's art lies in its environmental significance. For all intents and purposes it's an individual trash collection effort for a higher cause. He never uses any type of engine-operated boat to collect his materials, opting instead for a canoe or sailboat, and conserves energy by working outdoors in the daylight rather than an indoor studio.

"I'm very environmentally conscious," said Jay, who studied at the School of Visual Arts in New York City. "I try not to use a car...I can spend a weekend without turning on a motor and be perfectly happy."

Another local artist who shared his vision this weekend was Chris Saunders of Stony Brook, a carpenter and general mechanic whose love for artistic creation began years ago when his son (now 20) needed something to race in a pinewood derby.

Now a wood carver who also works in plaster, paint and other media, one of his masterpieces is the bust of an exotic female with elongated features and an expression of simple optimism. She is carved from a cherrywood burl that required Saunders to use a chainsaw in certain places. The natural flaws of the wood are reminiscent of scars on skin, and yet she smiles on as if either accepting or ignorant of those surface imperfections.

"That piece, I had to find the personality within the wood," Saunders said. "Michaelangelo said when he carved marble the figure was actually in there and he just had to remove the excess."

The faces in his carvings and his pressed sand-and-plaster reliefs come from inside his imagination and aim to embody a feeling.

"Nowadays I'm all about peace and tranquility with a sense of humor," Saunders said. "Almost all good art is about some kind of emotion."