Former commercial artist Dalton Portella now earns his living as a fine artist, photographer, and sometime musician. After a successful career in advertising, the last decade creating movie posters for Miramax Films –from Pulp Fiction to Aviator – he moved to Montauk to “forsake the almighty dollar to concentrate on fine art.”

The mobiles and sculptures of Geoffrey Kuzara are an expression of the Wyoming native’s long immersion in the natural world. And yet he is not the kind of artist who deals in faithful renderings of flora and fauna. All the wild creatures in his remarkable bestiary--herons in repose, raptors in flight, monolithic fishes--suggest elemental forms.

There aren’t too many Hamptons real estate professionals (if any) who can claim to be both a working artist and have an entry on Internet Movie Data Base (IMDb.) After pursuing an acting career in New York, Joseph De Sane moved to the South Fork where the thespian switched to a career in real estate, a move that has led to his current position as a manager at Compass. More on his IMDB credits later.

Connie Fox, who’s now in her 80s, remembers her early life in the Dust Bowl when the wind blew clouds of soil, called “black rollers,” through her Colorado town. While the village ladies predicted the end of the world, six-year-old Connie found it “kind of interesting.” She also marveled at the tumbleweed that rolled over the prairie.

Perhaps no other artists capture the spirit of the East End’s farms, forests, ponds, bays, salt marsh estuaries, beaches and dunes as well as its plein air painters who set up their easels in their “outdoor studios” in the midst and mists of our storied landscapes. Working on site allows them to capture the authentic light and subtle colors, which they must execute quickly.

Holiday shopping in the Hamptons can be a unique and rewarding experience. Treasures abound in the many local shops and stores throughout the chic towns of the Hamptons, featuring stylish clothing, fine jewelry, children’s toys, fancy pet apparel, and so much more. Shop local and discover the many fine gifts the Hamptons has to offer during the holidays.

When Sag Harbor photographer Blair Seagram attended a cocktail party/open house this summer at “The Back Bay,” an enchanting waterfront property in Water Mill, she was pleasantly surprised to find one of her photographs hanging in the entry foyer – a print of a field at the corner of Scuttlehole and Mitchell’s Lane – that the owner had purchased at a Clothes Line Sale at Guild Hall.

outhampton painter Dinah Maxwell Smith’s brush seems to be loaded with a smidgen of nostalgia along with oil paints. Her many beachscapes peopled with sunbathers could have captured a moment at any time in the past century. A master at portraying the interplay of bright light and deep shadow, she uses rich saturated colors to make her paintings “sing.”

Geoff Kuzara, who grew up on a small subsistence farm at the foot of the Big Horn Mountains in Wyoming, still lives part of the year in that state while also residing in the Hamptons. Having spent his childhood with drill presses, lathes, welders, farm machinery, and livestock learning the basics of engineering and fabrication, it’s no wonder he’s gone on to produce hundreds of wheel-thrown stoneware pieces, dozens of chairs, tables, benches, custom furnishings, and countless small sculptures from multiple materials.

There are even more artists in the Hamptons than real estate professionals. Here’s the latest installment of our ongoing series...