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Artists to light up Grangebel Park this summer

Calling all artists! It’s time to light up Grangebel Park. 

A collaboration involving East End Arts, the Riverhead Business Improvement District, the Riverhead Chamber of Commerce, the East End Tourism Alliance and I Love NY is seeking ideas for a temporary display of “light-inspired art” this summer at Grangebel Park on Peconic Avenue.

“We’re doing all types of art in the park,” said Bryan DeLuca of the tourism alliance. “It’s a light festival. Everything will have some type of reflective element on it, whether it’s a glass mirror or compact discs.”

“The concept is ‘Reflections,’ so it going to be centered on light and reflective surfaces,” said Clayton Orehek of Riverhead, the project’s curator.

Informational meetings for artists interested in the project will take place at Grangebel Park Sunday, April 29, at noon and Saturday, May 5, also at noon. Officials hope to get ideas and answer questions at those meetings.

A request for artist submissions described the project as an attempt to make Grangebel Park “accessible as a free public art space” and said organizers hope it “will encourage the use of this under-utilized park.”

As an example of what to expect at the event, Mr. DeLuca, who also is the executive director of Atlantis Holdings, which owns the Long Island Aquarium and Hyatt Hotel, is currently working with artist Eli Fishman of Riverhead on a nine-foot-long, six-foot-wide chicken-wire fish with compact discs acting as its scales.

Project proponents are actually encouraging the use of CDs in other project displays, and hope to gather donations of as many as 500 old CDs for that purpose.

“Take your old collection of James Taylor CDs and donate it,” Mr. DeLuca suggested during last Wednesday’s Business Improvement District Management Association meeting. “Nobody listens to CDs anymore.”

The idea of the project is to create a “walkable, interactive experience for visitors to the park,” Mr. DeLuca said.

There be both a daytime component, with standalone art displays that are not illuminated, and a nighttime component with lighted displays.

Light sources can include things like Day-Glo, LED, laser, fire and other types of lighting.

The light display is planned for the weekend of Aug. 10-12, after the final “Alive on 25” event on Aug. 9.

Some of the displays will be installed at the end of July and remain at the park into the fall; others will be removed right after the event.

Mr. DeLuca said other art projects involving light may be planned for the fall, but no dates have been set.

The project cost will be partially offset by about $30,000 in grants already received from the BID, PSEG Long Island, Tanger Outlets and I Love NY.  But Mr. DeLuca said the group also hopes to receive sponsorship money from companies, which can then place their logos and advertise their businesses on banners during the event.

The deadline for artists to submit proposals is May 12.

Proposals can be emailed to Mr. Orehek at [email protected], chamber president Bob Kern at [email protected] or Mr. DeLuca at [email protected].

Anyone with questions is asked call Mr. DeLuca at 631-523-5095.

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