Now and Then: Pierson Students Explore Sag Harbor Through Art

Earlier this year, Liz Cataletto asked her art and photography students at Pierson High School to imagine what they would see on a Sag Harbor Village postcard.

For their upcoming show, “Sag Harbor Now and Then,” she requested anything but that.

What she received instead now fills a gallery at the Sag Harbor Whaling and Historical Museum — their ruminations on the theme at hand, a visual representation of what her students value about their hometown — now on view through May 3.

“It captures the essence of Sag Harbor, really highlighting their interpretation of Sag Harbor,” Cataletto said. “We wanted it to be about what’s behind the scenes, the in-between moments that people don’t normally see — almost educating people about Sag Harbor through the eyes of teenagers.”

The work — 47 pieces in total — runs the gamut, from acrylics and photography to graphite and mixed media. Some students even explored fashion. While some of the pieces are deeply conceptual, others tap the power of observation. For senior Elliot Schimdt, that means through his lens.

His photo of the Custom House in fall plays on colors and light, he said, and the scene stopped him in his tracks while walking through the village one day.

“I’ve always been very interested in visual art, and I’ve always been very interested in the way that different elements of life interact with each other,” he said. “So seeing the natural frames and all of the ways that the colors interact with each other, both in the natural and not natural world, really have always captivated me. I’ve been documenting that for as long as I can remember.”

Images created by his peers in his photography class hang alongside work by sophomores, juniors and seniors in Pierson’s visual arts studies, design and draw, and the International Baccalaureate visual arts classes. The latter requires students to dive into research and embed their work within a historical context, prompting junior Viola Goodale to explore fashion.

She designed two dresses that are sisters to one another. The first represents a child, with its longer sleeves, shorter skirt and a more modest neckline, while the other skews older, featuring a deeper neckline, tied ribbon traps — to add a modern and accessible touch — and laced hems to give the silhouette a more feminine and fuller dimension.

“This piece is called ‘Girlhood’ and represents the changing nature of girls growing up in Sag Harbor,” she said in a statement.

Junior Lily Kaplan looked into the wildlife of the East End and painted, in acrylic, an anatomically correct heart filled with the waterways of the winter versus the summer, and the fish that populate them.

“This artwork illustrates the concept that the surrounding waters are an essential element of Sag Harbor,” she said in a statement. “Local fish are depicted moving in and out of the heart, reflecting the seasons they inhabit in our waters.”

Sabrina McManus, who is a junior, made scrimshaw out of wood while her peer, Hannah Salazer, created a more conceptual piece based on the historic understanding of Sag Harbor, dating back to its roots.

“She took old newspapers, laid them down and did a mixed media piece where she painted tipis and historically accurate canoes and things of that nature of the Native Americans who inhabited the area,” Cataletto said, “and then put in a whaling ship, and the iconic Sag Harbor Cinema as symbolism of now and then.”

“Using sense of place as our prompt, they really were thinking in terms of, what places are important to me?” she added. “Say the town changes again in 50 years: What do you want to show people, what you grew up around? What was important to you then?”