Huntington Station
Est. 2007
At First Glance
ART (that matters) in Huntington Station encourages members to produce and share work on a regular basis in a welcoming and nonjudgmental atmosphere. Exhibitions at their own space also allow members to share art with the community.
On Curating
ATM members are focused on creating new works that reflect and process personal experience. Group exhibits are the result of this goal and various tasks in which members immerse themselves, such as their show White on White, where all works had to be white. Another exhibit featured the art of a young woman who had been attacked by her boyfriend when she was a teenager. “We featured her art before the attack, after, and her most recent work [from] many years later,” explains cofounder Christine Benjamin. “We want artists who understand that you get back what you put in. We are interested in making art that means something.”
Benjamin said ATM looks for artists who want to grow and improve, try new things and are open to giving and receiving group feedback. “There are many out there who want to join to see what we can do for them. We are not interested in those artists,” she stresses.
On Collaborating
ATM relies on collaboration as a way of giving their artists an environment where they can feel safe creating and being critiqued. This goal is what binds the collective together and ensures an intrinsic collaborative approach. “Our artists sit around a table twice a month and talk about their art, their lives and how the two interact,” Benjamin says. “To keep it fresh, we often agree to a challenge, which gets people to think about art in a different way and tends to inspire those who seem a bit stuck.” Example: Make a piece of art in five minutes, any medium, any size, any style, and bring it to show the group. Member Beth Costello said ATM is “a group of fellow artists that offered creative inspiration and conversation that I was not able to easily find.”
ART (that matters) has a working studio space in the Huntington Station Yankee Peddler Building.