Kismet Kapers
By Bradlee White

Kismet’s beach fishermen came up with some pretty exotic catches last weekend. Bicycle Bill hooked a huge stingray, which obviously presented a problem. Alan of Lawn House worked to unhook it while Bill and Risque’s Harry used an umbrella to stabilize the tail and get it turned over. It swam away about 20 minutes later, no doubt muttering curses on all Fire Islanders, including the Alley’s Burt, an avid onlooker. Sunset’s Steve Hopkins caught a baby sand shark that was also unhooked and set free.

Brian Crawford’s been on the beach for 40 years, some of that time as a year rounder… Caroline Jenks is off to art camp while Dylan and his mom, Chris, head to Italy to peruse Roman antiquities... Sam Breier graduated from college and is now job hunting. Despite a B.S. in biochemistry, he’s interested in politics and government service in D.C… Ann Littlejohn has been invited by a University Foundation Project to China to photograph pandas in Chengdu. She hasn’t been there since before Tiananmen Square… Old-timers who knew Greg’s old house as the Rusty Tit will appreciate this anonymous quip: “It should be renamed the “Boob Lift.”

Andrea Wikso witnessed and photographed the annual memorial tribute to former Kismet resident Paul Sarle who perished on 9/11. Bagpipers John Hillen and Bob Madden of Massapequa Park played as friends and family disembarked the Captree Star and gathered around the flagpole by Paul's memorial bench two weeks ago.

The big event of the weekend was the Kismet Art Crawl, featuring 11 different artists and locations. It was like a series of parties, with refreshments and a chance to visit different houses. Brittany Barrett (Mooney family) shows a lot of talent with her digitally altered pictures as well as hand-painted T-shirts and masks. She will be attending Boston University’s School of Fine Arts this fall and is hoping to get into the Theatrical Production department. Jacques Dumont was exhibiting by the southern Boatel fence, where it was shady. He’s added new subjects in Kismet and Saltaire, with some beautiful shots of the pond near the old firehouse. Several children who visited our kittens for adoption at the KLAW T-shirt table had already purchased some of his prints… Kirk and Ellen of Avalon described Andrea Wikso as the true renaissance woman. Known for her extensive computer/electronic knowledge and creative furniture renovations, she spotlighted her impressive photographic talent with a presentation on a wide range of themes. I’ve run several of her pictures (usually without photo credit) with my column.

Bill Poindexter, who also coordinated the event, reproduced his showing at the recent Lighthouse exhibit (featured in the Suffolk County News). Almost all the paintings had the sea as a theme, many featuring mermaids and a double image technique. “Children get it right away,” Bill said. “It takes adults longer.” An exception to these themes was an intriguing picture of his father’s “Mammy,” painted from a composite of photographs. Originally a slave, the woman had stayed with the family after the Civil War, raising all of Bill’s aunts and uncles. Alyson Breier’s impressionistic oils looked beautiful in the setting of her prolific garden. New works included West Walk in Saltaire, winter in the Adirondacks, and early April Kismet daffodils. She’s been away for a month and had major kitchen renovations. She now plans to concentrate on larger canvases, a transition that can be difficult. She also exhibited her son Sam’s black and white photography. I arrived concurrently at Carolyn Durso’s with a large group of visitors so I got to hear Carolyn describe the origins and Long Island settings of her many photographs hung on a long fence. She also had albums available for view.

Jonathon A. Toft (aka Johnny Thunder) describes his technique as “Kismet Expressionism,” which incorporates the use of sand in oil–”stipple”–to create a textured look and feel. John’s father’s hobby was painting. When his father died last Christmas, it inspired John to begin his own work, which is currently limited to landscapes. In his fourth year as a server in Kismet Inn, John showed his paintings and sketches at the Cole house. Ann Littlejohn is experimenting with new watercolor photo paper, which makes the photo look like a painting. This is particularly appropriate to her ocean and some nature works. After the initial pictures are printed onto slides, she scans the slides, making archival digital prints—supposed to last 80 years. Teri Dahl, who did the artwork for the KLAW T-shirts, showed several new and revised works including a series of illustrations made for a children’s book which, after the author’s illness, was never published. Three of her daughters and grandchildren were visiting for the weekend.

I arrived at Margarita Villas just as Alice Shultz was putting away the prints made from the extraordinarily detailed nature paintings of the late Peter Lynch, her long-time companion. Like many of his paintings, one featuring mice scurrying along a heavily vegetated stonewall, was inspired by his long walks on the bay beaches. Peter, a summer resident of Kismet for 18 years, had shown his work all over the world as well as Fire Island. Caroline Stern’s house and grounds are works of art in and of themselves. Her guest cottage—Cory’s old surfboard shed —is a marine masterpiece suggesting dolphins, shells, and deep water blue. In addition to Caroline’s photographs, the exhibit included works by her friends Avri, a painter; Louda, a textile artist from Paris, who invented a special technique and has worked for many name courtiers; Kourlan, a painter and Nathan Joseph a sculptor.

Coincidently, the esteemed nature photographer, Warren Boyd Wexler, had scheduled his one-day Kismet showing on Saturday. He is currently overseeing a new series of postcards and notepapers and has been asked to speak to a nature organization on his philosophy and techniques. “I can’t believe someone would pay me to talk about my life,” he mused.