The preservation and restoration project of the historic Heckscher Museum building is moving on schedule and the museum is expected to reopen in March. Check their web site, www.heckscher.org, for a series of “Open House” events to welcome the public back to the renewed space. 

Huntington Arts Council artist member Jane McGraw-Teubner, PSA, of East Northport won the Mortimer Freehof Memorial Award at the Salmagundi Combined Exhibit on January 15, 2008. 

Congratulations to Huntington Arts Council member organization Inter-Media Art Center (IMAC) for winning by a landslide as the “Best Concert Venue” in the Long Island Press annual Best of Long Island contest. In announcing the award, LI Press stated, “One of the highest scoring winners in all of the categories, the non-profit IMAC is the best concert venue on LI for a couple of big reasons: first, it’s a great concert-going experience, a beautiful venue with a wonderful sound system; second, they bring in a wealth of interesting and top-rate talent. The venue specializes in jazz, blues, folk and world music, and already scheduled for 2008 are such heavyweights as Ani DiFranco, Richard Thompson, Roger McGuinn and Angelique Kidjo.” IMAC plays a vital role in making Huntington a cultural center of Long Island and beyond. 

Council artist members Dan Brown and Marie Sheehy-Walker, PSA, have been invited to show in “Seven and Seven,” a showcase of Long Island professional artists featuring seven painters and seven sculptors. The show runs from March 24 to April 19 at the Hutchins Gallery of the Schwartz Library at C.W. Post College in Brookville. 

Nearly 12 years after its founding in the Town of Southampton, Herstory Writers Workshop has found a space of its own in Centereach, at 2539 Middle Country Road.  This new office has become the hub site for Herstory’s writing workshops for women, hosting bilingual workshops, facilitator training sessions and monthly day-long retreats. Herstory also recently established a Huntington home at the Unitarian Universalist Fellowship of Huntington, meeting Tuesday evenings from 6-9 p.m. for ongoing weekly workshops. 

Congratulations also go to the Charles B. Wang Center in Stony Brook on their fifth anniversary of bringing Asian and Asian-American programming to Long Island. The Wang Center has brought international and American artists, musicians, dancers, thinkers and scholars to the center to expand awareness of the complexity and beauty of Asian and Asian-American cultures. The building was designed by renowned international architect P.H. Tuan, and was funded by philanthropist Charles B. Wang in 2002. 

This past December, the Alpan Gallery was pleased to welcome Robert J. Kingston, Senior Associate of the Kettering Foundation, to its Board of Directors. A former president of the College Board, Kingston served as Deputy Chairman of the National Endowment for the Humanities in the Nixon, Ford, and Carter Administrations. Other members of the board are Professor Seung Lee and Judith Pynchon.