In Harm's Way at the Long Island Museum

I recently got to do a bit of collaborative design work with Paul Orselli Workshop (POW!) for a very exciting and timely project called, In Harm's Way. It is currently being exhibited at the Long Island Museum of American Art, History, and Carriages through December 31st. In Harm's Way explores hurricanes and other storms throughout Long Island's history.


I described it as timely due to the onslaught of hurricanes we've recently experienced here in the south with Hurricane Harvey in Texas, Hurricane Irma here in Florida and Caribbean and then Hurricane Maria in Puerto Rico and other Caribbean islands. As if that wasn't crazy enough, shortly after Maria hit Puerto Rico, Ireland was hit by Hurricane Ophelia.

The reason why I was excited to work on this project, besides the fact that Long Island is where I grew up, is because I'm fascinated with bizarre weather phenomena. For the record, I did not enjoy experiencing Hurricane Irma. It was actually very scary nor do I enjoy people losing their homes or electricity and running water but I've always enjoyed the science behind meteorology. I actually spent an entire semester in art school devoted to a thesis project where I created three-dimensional children's illustrations about bizarre weather stories. Here's a few of them:

May 15, 1963: Near Liberty, MO, a large barn was set down nearly intact and upright after a tornado lifted it from its foundation and carried it some 100 feet. The contents of the barn were relatively undisturbed.

March 25, 1900- Snowflakes of unusually large size fell on Richmond, VA during the late afternoon. Most were oblong-there were some whose greatest diameters could barely be covered by a teacup.

June 21-22, 1791: A hurricane (El Temporal de Barreto-the Storm of Barreto) generated a huge wave that carried off the coffin of a rich but hated Count as he lay in state in his mansion near Havana, Cuba. The coffin and the body were never seen again.

One of my professors encouraged me to show these illustrations to the Providence Children's Museum and they wound up offering me my very first museum job. So here we are 18 years later and I finally had the opportunity to work on a project about hurricanes and other crazy storms while in the midst of one of the biggest hurricanes to ever hit land in the United States.

To get more information about this exhibit and for schedule and directions to the Long Island Museum click here: In Harm's Way