east hampton Archives » Michelle Trauring

‘You Feel Bad For Being Safe’: East End Rallies Around Ukrainian Community

Blog March 9, 2022

At 12 years old, Vira Palamarchuk shouldn’t have a care in the world.

At 12 years old, she should not be tired, or sad, or worried. She should not be glued to the media, closely watching from over 4,600 miles away as Russia attacks Ukraine, her home country, where her father is fighting on the front lines.

At 12 years old, she should not be left to wonder whether he is alive or dead.

“It really is, like, you don’t want to even know what’s happening,” Vira said of the war from her home in Montauk. “I’m not on my phone anymore. I don’t look at the news anymore, because I don’t want to know. I just want to know if my family is okay and if my friends are okay. You see all those pictures and you don’t even want to …”

She paused, her voice hitching. “You feel bad for being safe,” she said. “That’s the feeling I get.”

The East Hampton Press Person of the Year: Hugh King

Blog December 30, 2021

Hugh King is a man of many faces.

On the surface, he is a historian, an actor, a teacher and an avid baseball fan — with an entire room in his Amagansett home dedicated to the sport. He is a husband and a caregiver, a trusted colleague, and a friend to so many across the East End and beyond.

At age 80, he is firm, yet gentle and kind, vibrant and welcoming. He is steadfast in his opinions, but always eager to listen. His wit and effortless humor shine through while challenging the status quo, and even though he loves history, he never stagnates nor lives in the past — always striving to be better.

This is why Hugh King is The East Hampton Press’s Person of the Year for 2021.

Robert Longo: Creating Art From Dust

Art Blog August 11, 2021

By the turn of the 21st century, Robert Longo was, as he puts it, sitting at the top of the junk pile.

He had once been a leading protagonist in the “Pictures Generation.” Alongside fellow artists like Cindy Sherman, Richard Prince, Louise Lawler and David Salle, he became one of the most collected, exhibited and talked about visionaries of the early 1980s, rising to prominence during the golden age of contemporary art through his “Men in the Cities” series, which depicted suited, dancing silhouettes drawn in charcoal.

But he was punished for it — and cast aside.

Alexis Rockman’s ‘Shipwrecks’ Reaches New Depths

Blog June 8, 2021

When Alexis Rockman considers the world’s waterways, he sees them as a network — a transport system that has carried all facets of human history.

From language, culture, art, food, architecture and religion to the more nefarious — such as disease, warfare and pollution — each can be traced back to historic ships.

And, in some cases, notorious shipwrecks.

The Horizon Is Not A Straight Line: Artist Karin Waisman Finds New Meaning

Blog April 28, 2021

When Karin Waisman contemplated the sentence, “The horizon is not a straight line,” two years ago, it held different meaning.

It referred to an open-ended future, an uncertain life full of twists and turns. In her own, that has included earning her architecture degree in her native Argentina and, in an effort to follow her passion, moving to the United States to study art at Cornell University — intending only to stay in New York for a few years.

That was almost three decades ago.

‘The Hamptons: No Vacancy’: Severity Of East End Affordable Housing Crisis Hits Fever Pitch

Award-Winning Blog Residence March 17, 2021

With just six weeks until May, Scott Bluedorn is stressed. He is drained. He is worried, bitter, anxious.

The 34-year-old artist has exhausted nearly all of his contacts. He has pleaded on social media. He is exploring alternative options.

And, yet, the East End native is hopeful that, come summer, he and his fiancée, 24-year-old Rowan Hausman, will not be homeless.

The East Hampton Press Person Of The Year: Holly Wheaton

Blog December 28, 2020

Holly Wheaton does not own a single little black dress or power suit. Those days are long behind her.

More than two decades ago, the Springs native traded in her sleek Chicago wardrobe for flannel shirts, blue jeans and work boots when she moved back home to join the ranks of the Springs Food Pantry that her mother, Betty Reichart, had started in 1992 — a time when feeding over 200 families was unimaginable.

But that is precisely what Ms. Wheaton faces today.

A Humanitarian in the Making: Mikayla Mott Helps Raise $10K for Nicaragua Hurricane Relief Efforts

Blog December 15, 2020

Mikayla Mott takes a seat outside the Ding Repair Cafe on a recent Monday morning, a warm winter breeze tousling her long blonde hair and dancing with the wind chimes nearby.

Under the basking sun, she and the restaurant are sheltered from the noise and traffic and throngs of people at the bustling heart of San Juan del Sur, a coastal town in Nicaragua that the 26-year-old East Hampton native has called her second home for nearly three years.

Here, it is mostly peaceful and quiet, just three blocks from the bay.

A month ago, it was an entirely different scene at the unassuming cafe, which served as a staging area following a pair of hurricanes, Eta and Iota, that landed within days of each other and devastated countless communities across the country. Here, Ms. Mott and her team of volunteers raised over $10,000 in donations and collected countless supplies, which they sorted, divvied up and delivered to those in need.

East End Clergy Brace for Restricted Holiday Season

Blog December 2, 2020

For nearly two decades, St. John’s Episcopal Church in Southampton had never once locked its doors, keeping them open for rest, prayer, solace and peace 24 hours a day, seven days a week — with no exceptions.

It was a tradition born from the devastation of September 11, 2001, a time when religious, spiritual and agnostic individuals alike needed guidance, or simply a place to go, following the terrorist attack on New York City that day, just 90 miles away.

Weighed down by uncertainty and fear, parishioners sought a similar degree of comfort when the COVID-19 outbreak reached the East End this past March. Some turned to their houses of worship as beacons of hope — and, in the case of St. John’s, knew the doors would always be open.

Until they weren’t.

From Trains to Canvas: Graffiti Artist Stash Paints His Way To New East Hampton Gallery

Blog November 4, 2020

By age 15, Josh Franklin had mastered truth by omission.

The scene unfolded every night around the dinner table in New York, his family’s focal point for catching up. “How was your day, guys?” his mother would ask him and his older brother. “What’d you do today?”

“Oh, nothin’,” the younger sibling would typically mumble — his predictable teen angst masking a secret no one knew, other than the crew who was in on it, too.

“I didn’t even share it with them, with my family,” Franklin, now 53, recalled nearly four decades later from his home in Brooklyn. “It was really for me and for us.”

Little did his mother and brother know, he had worked his way into an underground movement, one that lurked in the shadows, anonymous to the world — defined by breaking and entering, stealing, vandalism and, above all, creating masterpieces.