Usdan Center’s Portfolio Preparation Track Students’ Exhibit Extends Through 3/27

Usdan Center for the Creative and Performing Arts, the renowned Long Island summer arts camp whose alumni include Natalie Portman and Mariah Carey, announces that its currently running "First Class," the inaugural show of works by students of Usdan's 2011 Portfolio Preparation Track being presented at the Atrium at Tilles Center for the Performing Arts, has been extended through March 27. It was originally supposed to close March 22.  

It is open Monday to Friday from 10 AM to 6 PM and later on Tilles Center performance evenings on the weekend.  There will be a closing reception on March 27 at 6 PM. The exhibit moved from its Manhattan exhibit at The Lobby Gallery on Park Avenue in Manhattan, where it ran January 24 to March 7.  Previous exhibits by students in the program (formerly titled the Usdan Honors Art Intensive) have been presented at major public venues in New York City and on Long Island.  For more information, visit http://www.usdan.com
 
First Class features 6 of Long Island's talented 11th and 12 grade artists, each showing works that highlight their conceptual and artistic depth. Genres include life drawing, still life, self-portrait, landscape, photography, and sculpture. The artists are: Jessica Boyd of Shreiber High School, Manhasset, NY; Jessica Curry of Deer Park High School, Deer Park, NY; Denise Losee of Mepham High School, North Merrick, NY; Emily Rabinowitz of Plainview-Old Bethpage JFK High School, Old Bethpage, NY; Nicole Wildstein of Jericho High School, Jericho, NY; and Julie Zeitoun of Jericho High School, Jericho, NY.

Tilles Center, Long Island's premier concert hall, has long hosted exhibits in its public spaces by faculty and students of the LIU Post Art Dept., students from local schools, and professional artists.   In the spring of 2011 it hosted Self-Defining Mediums, the show by students in Usdan's Honors Art Intensive.
  
The program is taught by Derek Mainhart, an art teacher at Long Island colleges including Molloy, Hofstra, and Boricua.  Rochelle Morgan, Chair of Usdan's Visual Arts Department, worked with Mainhart to develop the Portfolio Preparation Track. 

Usdan Center  (www.usdan.com) is the nationally renowned summer arts day camp chosen for each of the past several years as a "Best Class or Camp" by TimeOutNY Magazine. Now entering its 45th season. Usdan is situated on a 200-acre woodland campus in the Huntington area of Long Island and is annually attended by more than 1600 children ages 6 to 18 from New York City and throughout the Tri-State Area.  Featuring more than 40 programs in music, dance, theater, visual arts, creative writing, nature and ecology and chess, Usdan Center has introduced the arts to more than 50,000 children, ages 6-18.  Usdan Center is an agency of the UJA-Federation of New York.