Summer at the Sangha 2026 – Week 2

Week 2 Sessions

MONDAY JULY 13TH

AM – Cold Porcelain Claywork Making with Ester de la Fuente, Artist & Yoga Instructor

We welcome one of our more recent community partners, Esther de la Fuente of IndigoAzul29, who creates jewelry and pottery inspired by nature to help cultivate our artistic abilities through cold porcelain claywork making, design, and painting over three sessions. Cold porcelain is a versatile, air-dry modeling clay made primarily from cornstarch, glue, and oil. Its durable and smooth finish is perfect for sculpting and jewelry making! Once fully dry, it hardens to resemble traditional porcelain but is lightweight and shatter-resistant. Esther will guide us in cold porcelain making by mixing and cooking the different materials, followed by product design making! 

PM – Cold Porcelain Claywork Design with Ester de la Fuente, Artist & Yoga Instructor

During our afternoon session, we will select items with textures from outdoors in nature and from samples brought in by Esther to create our own unique pendants, ring dishes, or keychain holder designs. The cold porcelain claywork making process requires instruction on handling the clay after it’s cooked and cooled and ways in which to create various patterns. Strings and chains will be provided and added to the clay based on each design choice. Once fully dry, we will paint and decorate our creations during our third session on 7/27.

WEDNESDAY JULY 15TH

AM – Marine Life Education & Touch Tank with The WaterFront Center of Oyster Bay 

We are excited to have The WaterFront Center of Oyster Bay with us once again for a marine life education session that includes a touch tank filled with various invertebrate that inhabit the local waters of Oyster Bay and the Long Island Sound. Participants will handle and identify different species and explore their characteristics, learning about locomotion, feeding behavior, and habitats. In addition, come to understand how we can protect our waters and marine life. Species usually consist of clams, oysters, hermit crabs, spider crabs, sea stars, horseshoe crabs, and more. These interesting creatures are interdependent in our ecosystem(s), and we can take part in further discovery through an outing to The WaterFront Center and Friends of the Bay during the Fall or Spring seasons.

PM – Expressing Yourself Through Mixed Media Collage with Gae Polisner, Attorney, Writer, and Artist

Gae Polisner is an attorney and author of seven award-winning novels for young readers. Gae’s most recent endeavor, developed during the COVID-19 Pandemic, is a unique form of collaging which she refers to as “Lyric Collage” that has also won her several awards, including from the prestigious Art League of Long Island. She will be sharing her talent and creativity with us today. This class is intended for every level of artist. Through the combining of pre-existing images, including those in nature with oil crayon, found poetry, and more, participants will be inspired to create a vibrant and distinctive work of personal expression. Covering basic concepts of color, contrast, and technique, all of those involved will create works that bring their worldview or current mood to the canvas, whatever form that canvas takes. Examples of Gae’s art will be brought in for viewing so that how this unique art form takes shape becomes clear, serving as a base for participants’ vision.

FRIDAY JULY 17TH

AM – Modge Podge Art Enchantments with Christine Keller, Educator and Rob Gaudio, Mentor

The magic of Modge Podge alone has a way of enhancing art with either a matte or glossy finish that helps designs come to life. But we will be creating “art enchantments” by using Modge Podge and various craft supplies to mystically elevate the scenes of our Mixed Media Collages completed with Gae Polisner. A sparkle here, a 3D flower there, a charm or drop of color on a black and white piece, creates the ambience that enables the piece to feel enchanted! These finishing touches on our collages will demonstrate how to take art to a different level. Gae will provide insight and examples from her work, and we will determine how to incorporate these ideas into our own art.

PM – Remember Liss: A New American Founding Figure with Claire Bellerjeau, Historian & Author 

Join historian and author Claire Bellerjeau for this impactful community class as she shares her discovery of a new American founding figure named Elizabeth, or Liss, for whom her book Remember Liss is dedicated. Liss was enslaved by the Townsend family of Oyster Bay and Jericho, New York – including by James Townsend, who once lived in part of Malcolm House. The most famous member of the Townsend family was Robert Townsend, aka “Culper, Jr.”, George Washington’s lead spy in Manhattan during the Revolutionary War, as retold in Espionage and Enslavement in the Revolution. Liss’s escape from Oyster Bay with the British during the Revolutionary War, re-enslavement in Manhattan and later Charleston, and her complex struggle for freedom give new insight into the country’s founding era through the eyes of an enslaved Black woman seeking liberty in a country fighting for its own. Participants will learn about techniques used by the spies, including invisible ink, the Culper Code, and other methods of secret communication. 

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