LongHouse Reserve Commemorating Start Of Season With 28th Annual Rites Of Spring

The birds are chirping, the flowers are blooming, and the LongHouse Reserve is buzzing with excitement over its 28th annual Rites of Spring on Saturday, April 27.

“LongHouse is alive with activity, the grounds are being groomed and sculpture placed, trees are blooming, flowers bursting,” Matko Tomicic, LongHouse’s Executive Director, shared.

Rites of Spring will mark the premiere of new works installed for the 2019 season, which highlight artists Wendell Castle, Jun Kaneko, Joseph Walsh, Young Jae Lee, and Will Ryman. Additionally, throughout the grounds of the 16 acre reserve and sculpture garden will be magnificent displays of flowering trees and daffodils, which have multiplied over the past 30 years, resulting in hundreds of thousands beautiful blooms. To compliment the cheery yellow perennials, LongHouse has added vast swaths of tulips and other striking blooms.

“One flower by Will Ryman, LongHouse 6 (2019) a 24 foot tall red rose with scattered petals is astonishing,” Tomicic noted. “A magnificent Wendell Castle bronze bench has arrived and is elegantly waiting for visitors by the Black Mirror. Ceramic vessels by Young Jae Lee and a masterful wall shelf by Irish woodworker Joseph Walsh are on view.”

In addition to Ryman’s site-specific “Rose” installation – which marks his first time exhibiting at LongHouse, the afternoon will celebrate Kaneko’s Dango (1996), a gift to LongHouse from the Judith and Gerson Leiber Foundation that can be found in the Edward Albee Amphitheater, Vessels, an exhibition of extraordinary ceramics by Jae Lee, and Enignum Shelf XXXVI, a site-specific wall shelf from Walsh, a Cork-based furniture designer.

“Where are the Chihuly reeds? You will have to come and explore,” Tomicic added. “The Cherry trees are popping with color and a myriad of bulbs are making the gardens glorious. Join us Saturday, April 27 for our Rites of Spring opening.”

Rites of Spring will be held from 1 to 5 p.m.

Admission is $15, but free for members.

LongHouse Reserve is located at 133 Hands Creek Road in East Hampton. For more information, call 631-329-3568 or visit www.longhouse.org.