Herricks High School’s STAC arts program begins its annual residency at Sip This, a coffee shop and art gallery located in Valley Stream, on May 12.
The students of STAC will be exhibiting art ranging from drawings and paintings to photography and sculptural pieces, including a full window installation. The art will be up until the beginning of June, but the real special event of the residency is the opening night reception on May 12 beginning at 7 p.m.
The opening night reception is open to anyone and features the students of STAC performing original music and short plays. June 2017 was the first time STAC exhibited at Sip This, and the opening reception had over 200 attendees during the course of the evening.
“We had a terrific night at the STAC show,” said Stephanie Pontillo, owner of Sip This. “The STAC kids were great, the shop was packed, so we asked them to come in again this year.”
Sip This is located at 64 Rockaway Avenue in Valley Stream and is the center of a vibrant arts community in the town. The coffee shop/gallery hosts a different local artist each month as well as live music, open mic nights, poetry readings and most recently, a murder mystery evening that featured local actors playing the various parts.
STAC, the Student Television Arts Company, has been one of the premiere alternative arts programs on Long Island since its founding in 1979.
Multidisciplinary in nature, the students in STAC engage with all of the arts and treat projects in theatre, filmmaking, writing, design, music, dance, photography and the fine arts.
“The Sip This residency allows the students in STAC to do something most art classes never get to do, which is curate, organize and mount an entire art show,” said Luke DeLalio, the director of the program.
Senior Lina Kim, who supervised the hanging of the art said, “It was a long couple of days, and we ran into just about every problem you could run into. But it was so worth it. If I had to, I know I could hang an art show now.”
