Art in Oyster Bay, LI

Coming back to New York gets more and more difficult.  The longer I live overseas, the less connected I feel to American culture; what movies are out, what the latest fads are for kids, who's hot in the celebrity world, and what the big local news is.  This time I came home faced with picking up a people magazine, and not knowing the person on the cover.  This was a sad first.  I anticipated this visit home might be worse than others, so I decided to do something about it.  When living abroad as an expat, there are many "groups" you can join to get social.  There's MeetUp, MeetIn, and more specific expat groups like the British Social Club (worth going to a few events if you speak English!) and still others which I can't name at the moment.  Anyway, at the encouragement of friends, I signed up for scavenger hunts, pasta making and a mass blind date (such a great story... let's just say it involved finding a man in a bar with a banana), all in the city of Amsterdam.  Those were just a few of the fun things I did in the attempt to get to know other expats living in Amsterdam.  Great fun, but in the end I met expats, not the Dutch which is maybe what I should have tried to do.  In any case, we did in fact meet some interesting people, but what stands out is that you actually can have fun with strangers.  Huh.
Before discovering these 'meet" groups, I also decided that taking classes would be a cool, cultural enriching way of forgetting I was single, and yes, to improve myself in someway by learning something new.  So, I took and oil painting class because I love art so much.  I had played with acrylics in the past and felt that if I were to invest in a class with real instruction, I would need to think about investing in oils.  I did, and the result was painting a still life of a tea bag.  When my instructor came to my easel to see my progress, she had no problem taking the paintbrush out of my hand and reworking the feeble efforts that I had began on my canvas.  She reworked it, and put eyes on my tea bag.  Eyes and a mouth.  I saw the tea bag before me, with no eyes thank you very much, and was enraged on so many levels that she could destroy my crappy painting.  I wanted my crappy tea bag to look as crappy as I had made it.  Not as crappy as she had made it. This experience did not deter me.  No!  I went on to take belly dancing, pilates, and yes, even a writing course.  Working as hard as I do, it was great for me to get out and mingle with non-teacher types.  (Oh, and ladies, is you think taking a class is a great way to meet me, you are wrong.  These classes, even in Europe are filled with women looking to meet men.  Save for the occasional gay man who could indeed become your new best friend and shopping companion, there are no single men taking art or writing courses as a form of self-improvement.) The truth is, I was searching for a serious course.  I could not afford to go to a local university to do this, so I was unlucky in finding exactly what I was looking for.  Who would have thought I would find it right in my hometown backyard?
A few weeks before coming to New York I decided to sign up for the MeetUp group here in NYC.  Staying at my mom's on Long Island I thought might put me at a slight disadvantage (Manhattanites often refer to anyone not living in Manhattan - commuters - as the bridge and tunnel crowd).  Also, it is only excusable that I am staying with my mother because I live in Europe the rest of the year. I made a few trips into The City to MeetUp events and did meet up with some interesting people who have followed up and kept in touch and even made plans to get together outside of the MeetUp realm.  But then, continuing on my search for more ways to entertain myself this summer,  I found one lonely class in the list that stood out.  Figure drawing and Painting in Oyster Bay, LI and Brooklyn.  I read more, and signed up.  I was hesitant, as Oyster Bay in my pre-Europe days was a quaint little fishing village.  Quiet.  Sleepy.  Salted with summer and oysters fresh from the bay.  Home of the world famous Oyster Festival which takes place each fall.  But art?  I noticed a few years ago a ceramic do-it-yourself craft shop had opened near Main Street, but never thought of Oyster Bay as an artist's haven.  My thinking has recently been changed.
On a Wednesday night I dragged my friend Norbert to the MeetUp class we pre-registered for, which took place at the Teaching Studio of Art on Audrey Avenue just across from Town Hall.  I was surprised to see it there, and wondered how long it had been there, since Oyster Bay is a town I do go to every chance I can when I am home. This was my first time back in a year, and later Rob would tell me that in fact, the studio had been opened for about that long. When I walked into the studio, I was pleasantly surprised, and immediately breathed in the air of art in progress.  There were small stands set up with fruit, vases and various items with spotlights for still life drawing.  Each station had a chair; some empty but 2 or three with artists already beginning work on sketch pads.  To my left I could see paintings and a stage but kept moving forward to see a lounge area with couches and art on the walls, columns, and pieces of Greek and Roman artifacts. The entire space was fluid and clean, but had distinct areas. Turning back to my left, was the stage again.  It was only about a foot off the ground, and small.  Enough room there for 3 or 4 people standing close together, with a stool and nothing more on it.  Around the stage in semi-circle formation were a dozen to 15 chairs with easels.  We were greeted by Rob (Robert Zeller) who told us class would begin in a few minutes.  He remembered me from my MeetUp profile, and was very welcoming.  When the rest of the students arrived (there were about 10 of us in the class) Rob began with a brief lecture on the four main building blocks that artists consider when sketching anatomy:  1-head 2- ribcage 3- pelvis and 4-legs.  The handouts showed how these blocks look and how sketches can begin.  Rob talked about this a bit, and then showed us these sections on the model we had the pleasure of sketching for the evening.  She must have been between 19 and 21 years old, with a flawless figure, skintone, and face.  We sketched her in five poses for five minutes each keeping in mind the four building blocks.  This was especially challenging for me.  I have been drawing abstract for years in my own strange style because I cannot draw bodies and facial features the way I want to.  Rob was very ecouraging to all the students, and used a piece of paper on the side of our easels to show how we could adjust our strokes or lines.  He gave each of us some specific constructive advice and remembered everyone's name.  As a teacher myself, I especially appreciated that!  He found a way to make the class personal and relevant to each of us.  We were all on different artistic experience levels but Rob was consistent in focusing us on the technique of making a good sketch using those main building blocks.  There were no judgements being made.  He simply took what he saw us doing and advised how to make the work more technically correct - not prettier or better - just technically more precise.  This is exactly what I had been looking for. Serious focused instruction from a working artist and time to work with a live model.  I am looking forward to attending more classes with Rob and The Teaching Studio of Art.

Robert Zeller Figure Drawing and Painting in Oyster Bay, Long Island and Brooklyn takes place on Wednesday and Thursday nights this summer.  To learn more about the Teaching Studio of Art, the faculty and classes, visit their website at :  www.teachingstudios.com .