Memorial Day weekend is upon us, and it brings the preview of the 2007 HeART of the Community art project with artworks to be auctioned at the Black and White Beach Ball—this year on June 2nd at the Atlantic Sands.

The artists in this year’s project found many connections to the theme, Six Degrees of Separation. As co-chairs, Mary Beth Ramsey and I thought the theme would speak brilliantly of our community, self-defined families, and of the beach as crossroads. There is not one time when we meet a new person that we don’t try to find the secret to our connection to them—and turn those secrets into a "sisterhood" forever.

Many of the artists used geometry, crossroads, directions, connections, isolation, and multiples in expressing the theme. But fundamentally the work in this year’s project is all about symmetry. To highlight a few of the works with some of my own connections . . .

In the work of Lee Wayne Mills, JS Adams, and Spencer Kingswell, mathematics affected the creative process to create balance and composition. They all used technical formulas—axis at 6 degrees, pixilated at 12 points, hue variations to 6 tones—to devolve the image to make it something other than how it began. Lee’s moon, Jim’s people, and Spencer’s hearts all multiply and shift into a larger abstraction.

For Brian Petro, Michael Muller, and Jim O’Dell, their emotional work derives from a great need to explore crossroads in life while addressing the paths that may pull in multiple directions. In each, the path to take or direction to choose is unclear but there is a heart—figurative, literally or implied—at the core of each work. Brian’s dramatic graphite gestures make crossed heart-shape connections; Michael’s compass points intersect both the genitals and the heart; Jim’s heart is situated among what seem to me to be isolated thunderclouds. Is it sadness? risk? Or the inevitable ying to the heart’s yang?

For each of us, the sense of our humanity can bring both a feeling of isolation and connectedness—an individual among the crowd, something singular, but part of an organic whole. For Aina Nergaard-Nammack, Rod Cook, and Terry Isner, people are at the center of their works. The crowd on the boardwalk, people within and without a house, or lined up in symbolic expression— the individuals are all related somehow. For Rod, the night scene on the boardwalk is lit by the radiating power of double moons, orbs that balance the crossroads of the world as community (incorporating moons like Lee). For Aina, there is strong geometry in her figures interacting (like JS Adams), and Terry’s multiple "peoplettes" reflect the playful quality of the work of Spencer Kingswell.

It is easy to find connections among the small space that separates us as individuals or as artists. Every one of this year’s participants had something to explain their creative choice. When you join us at the preview or the Black and White Beach Ball, you can read about each of the tremendous works in this year’s auction. You will see the symmetry within the work and throughout the exhibition.

Memorial Day and Labor Day form the symmetry that marks each passing year for me. Many thanks to this year’s artists, many returning, some new, but who each make connections through their creativity and dedication to bring a vision to life: JS Adams, Murray Archibald, Sondra N. Arkin, Julie Baxendall, Rodney Cook, Ward Ellinger, Gary Fisher, Spencer Kingswell, Terry Isner, Lee Wayne Mills, Michael Muller, Aina Nergaard-Nammack, Jim O’Dell, Brian Petro, Judy Rolfe, and Dale Sheldon.

For a preview of HeART 2007: Six Degrees of Separation, join us at CAMP Rehoboth for a reception with the artists on the Saturday of Memorial Day Weekend, May 26 from 4-6 p.m.