Join Corinne Erni, Senior Curator of ArtsReach and Special Projects, in a live-stream conversation about affordable housing and preservation with Parrish Road Show artist Scott Bluedorn; Curtis Highsmith, Jr., Executive Director, Southampton Housing Authority; Bill Chaleff, Architect, AIA, LEED AP, Chaleff & Rogers Architects, P.C., and advocate of affordable housing and sustainable planning and design; and scientist and conservationist Josh Halsey who focuses on land and water preservation.

The panel is taking place in conjunction with the exhibition Parrish Road Show: Scott Bluedorn: Bonac Blind, currently on view in the Parrish Meadow. According to Bluedorn, who built the Bonac Blind from a repurposed duck blind structure, “The Bonac Blind is a multi-faceted art intervention: A floating, off-grid microhome that references traditional Bonac culture of fishing, farming and hunting while also serving as a comment on the erosion of this culture due to the compound problems of housing crisis, climate change, and modernity.”

For Bluedorn, the name is a double entendre, obviously referring to duck blind used during waterfowl season. But the title also points to the area’s current population, largely blind to Bonac culture and the many problems it faces. Bluedorn’s intention is to raise awareness to the drastic shortage of affordable housing in the Hamptons that has effected a mass exodus of working-class people, particularly in the generations of East Hampton families known as Bonackers or Bubs, who is increasingly leaving the area for more affordable regions, taking with them character, history, culture, and tradition. At the same time, the structure references current trends of tiny homes that are sustainable, resilient, and adaptive.

First installed on the water in Springs, East Hampton, Bonac Blind now sits in the Parrish Meadow amid the same switchgrass that covers the structure. Complete with off-grid amenities such as solar roof panels, solar batteries, a single bed, end table, side chair, and a wood burning stove—the tiny house is appointed with homey and practical objects like duck decoys affixed to the ceiling, a clam rake over the window, seining nets, and a lamp made of sea kelp from Montauk. Bluedorn also added his original artwork and books that are relevant to his practice.

About the Panelists
Scott Bluedorn (American, b. 1986) addresses climate change by integrating cultural anthropology, primitivism, and nautical tradition into his imagery that speaks to the collective unconscious, particularly through myth and visual storytelling, in a world he refers to as “maritime cosmology.” His new large-scale drawing Genesis Flux is a surreal vision of climactic upheaval, including change, renewal, and flux in the unnatural Anthropocene era and sixth mass extinction. The drawing Integrated Ocean Energy Farm is the artist’s proposition to repurpose existing structures like oil drilling platforms into floating multipurpose ‘farms’ for growing kelp (for food, biofuels, and regenerative ecosystem services), while combining value-added energy production including solar, wind, and wave power. Bluedorn, who received his BFA from the School of Visual Arts in New York (2009), lives and works in East Hampton, NY.

Bill Chaleff, Architect, AIA, LEED AP, Chaleff & Rogers Architects, P.C., is a long-time advocate of “Green” architecture, affordable housing, and sustainable planning and design. He has worked with local Townships to reduce energy expenditures, strengthen community by increasing economic and cultural diversity, and advocate regenerative restoration of the unbuilt landscape. He has developed technologies and plans for Affordable Housing Units that deliver high-performance / low operating and maintenance cost homes competitive with code-minimum homes usually selected for affordable housing projects. His homes have been built by the local Habitat for Humanity chapter. He is currently working on a “mother-daughter” home on the Shinnecock Reservation. Chaleff served as co-chair of Mardythe DiPirro’s Affordable Housing Advisory Committee from 1988 through her entire tenure. He is chair of the Governance and Planning Committee of the A.I.A. Peconic Chapter. His firm won a New York State engineering award for their Tuckahoe School addition. Chaleff has designed over 400 energy-efficient buildings since he began his practice on Long Island in 1974. Chaleff has been guest lecturer at U.C. Berkeley and at R.I.S.D. and New York Tech Architectural Schools and was adjunct professor at L.I.U. Southampton.

Josh Halsey, born and raised on Long Island’s East End, is a scientist and conservationist, an artist and gardener, among many other things. He holds a B.A. in Environmental Studies and Biology (combined major), University of California at Santa Cruz, 2008, and a M.S. in Agricultural Microbiology, Escola Superior de Agricultura “Luiz de Queiroz” / Universidade de São Paulo, 2012. Currently he works at Peconic Land Trust to conserve land and water resources for future generations on Long Island.

Curtis E. Highsmith, Jr., is Executive Director of the Southampton Housing Authority (TSHA/SCH&DC). He is a 1990 graduate of Riverhead High School, but was raised within the Town of Southampton from birth. While attending Riverhead High, he worked summers at Brookhaven National Laboratory, in Contracts and Procurements, where he learned to negotiate the payment of outstanding unpaid vouchers. Curtis attended Bryant University, (Smithfield RI), where he majored in finance and communications. During the summer of his freshman year, he interned with the Town of Riverhead, in the Assessor’s office. After a year of summer interning, Curtis was appointed Assessor’s Assistant, and for the next three summers, began working closely with the Town Assessors. Following Bryant College, Curtis began working for Evergreen International Trading, located in Manhattan’s World Trade 2, and Ross Investment Group, where he received his Series 7, 3 & 63. Curtis converted to retail banking in 2003, and was employed by North Fork Bank as a loan consultant. Curtis was recruited in 2005 by New Century Financial to run their Melville operations. In 2007, New Century became a casualty of the collapse of the financial and mortgage market and closed its doors. Curtis was hired by HSBC Bank in 2008 as a Sr. Premier and Mortgage Manager and Private Banker. From 2005 to 2018, Curtis Highsmith served as the Chairman of the Architectural Review Board for the Village of Southampton. Curtis is a member of Rotary International, sits on the board of directors for the Southampton Cultural Center, a member of the Garfield Langhorne scholarship committee, and has been a key note speaker for CAP “Just Say No To Drugs” campaign. Prior to accepting the position of Executive Director for TSHA in 2014, Mr. Highsmith was a TSHA board commissioner for over a years.

Friday Nights are made possible, in part, by Presenting Sponsor:
Additional support provided by Sandy and Stephen Perlbinder.