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A Fantastic Weekend in East Hampton
Art, Community, and a Moment When people met
By Jeannie Yi
What is the best way to celebrate the last weekend of
summer?
Before Labor Day arrives, before everyone returns to New
York, to work, to school, to the hectic fourth quarter of
the year—perhaps the best thing we can do is something very
simple:
Come together.
Come back to the community. Find our roots. Find art, music,
food, culture, and the common heritage that somehow binds us
together.
That was exactly what I found this beautiful Saturday in
East Hampton.
I had been invited by ACA Galleries and by Vaughn Bergen and
his family to participate in a weekend gathering at
Ashawagh Hall. ACA itself carries an extraordinary history.
Nearly a century old and now spanning four generations, it
was among the pioneering American galleries that opened its
doors to artists across racial and cultural boundaries.
Think about that: four generations.
A gallery is not simply a business when it survives for
almost one hundred years. Something else has been passed
from one generation to another—knowledge, relationships,
taste, memory, love of art, and a belief in community.
That is heritage.
And on this last weekend of August, heritage was everywhere.
Outside Ashawagh Hall, a wonderful local fair had sprung to
life across the lawn. People brought what they had grown and
made themselves: organic vegetables and fruits, fresh bread,
butter, goat cheese, coffee, yogurt, hummus—all those small,
delicious things that remind us that civilization is not
built only in museums, banks, universities, and government
buildings.
It is also built around a table.
People talked. Children wandered around. Neighbors greeted
one another. Artists showed their work. Vaughn’s Mom,
gorgeous wife, his amazingly kind mother-in-law from
Australia entertained and catered.
And then, quite unexpectedly, another visitor came walking
across the lawn.
Bill Clinton.
There was no grand entrance. He simply came across the
grass, accompanied by his security entourage, moving through
the same little community fair as everyone else.
He stopped at a stand selling yogurt and spoke with the
people there. Later, I went back to the same stand and
bought yogurt and hummus myself—a wonderful Greek treat.
A former President of the United States and the rest of us,
standing on the same lawn, stopping at the same food stand.
Then President Clinton walked into Ashawagh Hall.
Inside was another America—the America of painters,
musicians, collectors, gallery owners and people who simply
love art.
He greeted people, shook hands and spoke warmly with members
of the family behind the gallery, whose commitment to art
has now continued through four generations.
There, among contemporary American art, Korean and South
east Asia was something that had traveled much farther to
reach this quiet corner of East Hampton:
Jeff’s collection of ancient Chinese art.
For me, that was the moment. Suddenly, it seemed that the
world had become very small.
President Clinton occupies a particular place in the modern
history between America and China. During his presidency,
engagement with China became an important part of America’s
approach to a rapidly changing world. He traveled to China
and spoke directly to the Chinese people, at a moment when
the relationship between the two countries was becoming
increasingly important.
But standing in Ashawagh Hall, I wasn’t thinking about
geopolitics.
I was thinking about something much more human.
Years ago, Clinton told stories about his own childhood: a
father who died before he was born, a mother who raised him,
and the family experiences that shaped the person he became.
Those stories always interested me because underneath
nationality, politics and history, families are remarkably
alike.
Perhaps that is why this particular Saturday felt so
special.
Outside were farmers bringing vegetables from their gardens.
Inside were artists bringing paintings from their studios.
ACA brought nearly one hundred years of American artistic
heritage. Our Chinese collection brought another
civilization and another history into the room.
And Bill Clinton walked through it all—a man whose own
presidency had been part of an important chapter in the long
and complicated relationship between America and China.
Nothing had been planned this way.
That was precisely what made it beautiful.
For one sunny morning on the last weekend of August, before
summer slipped away and the machinery of autumn began again,
people simply came together.
American art. Chinese art. Jazz. Food. Families. Four
generations of a gallery. Thirty years of a collection. And
thousands of years of human creativity behind both.
Perhaps culture does not always need a grand conference
table. Sometimes it needs an old hall, a green lawn, a piece
of music, a loaf of bread, a work of art—and people willing
to stop for a moment and look at one another.
That was my fantastic weekend in East Hampton. And
perhaps that is what heritage really means: What we receive.
What we love.
What we preserve. And what we have and are willing to pass
on.
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