Photo Flash: Sneak Peek at Winners of EMBRACING OUR DIFFERENCES Usdan Student Exhibit on Long Island

Sixteen visual arts students from Usdan Center for the Creative and Performing Arts have been selected as prizewinners in the 2015 Embracing Our Differences competition, sponsored by the Suffolk Center on the Holocaust, Diversity and Human Understanding, Inc. The winning works will be exhibited from October 28 to November 8 at the South Ocean Middle School, 225 South Ocean Avenue in Patchogue, Long Island.

The prizewinning Usdan students and their work are: Emily Kehrli, for Multicolored People; Marie E. Saint-Cyr, for Beauty; Molly Kaye, for Multicultural-Rhythms; Isabella Eustate, Raquel Gomrerman, Violet Cole, Jacqueline Moskowitz, Tessa Low and Sam Siegal for Terracotta Warriors; Jessica Grant, Yetta Levin, Lin Greenberg, Yana Serry and Mathew Pisano for Untitled; Sierra Schlesinger for Laughter Erases Our Differences; and Julia Ferrugio, for Machine. The work of several of these students was exhibited this spring in special Usdan exhibits in Manhattan on Park Avenue and at the UJA 7th floor gallery space.

The Embracing Our Differences - Long Island (EOD-LI) project is now in its ninth year. Endorsed by a Nassau County proclamation and a Suffolk County resolution, it has the objective of building a better community by promoting cultural understanding and reinforcing values that respect human dignity.

The 27 winning works and their artists were selected from among 208 entries, and announced by Steven Schrier, Executive Director of the Center. They were selected by a group of guest curators, including Marilyn McCall, retired Professor of Art of Suffolk County Community College, Talia Mochi Cliff, Art, Design and Visual Communications Teacher at the Eastern Long Island Academy of Applied Technology, and Marc Courtade, Executive Director of the Huntington Arts Council, Inc.

Usdan Center for the Creative and Performing Arts, one of America's premier summer arts day camps, has just completed its 48th season. Featuring more than 60 programs, it is annually attended by students from Long Island, New York City and additional neighborhoods throughout the Tri-State Area. Usdan has introduced the arts to more than 60,000 young people since its inaugural season in 1968. The Center is situated on a magnificent 200-acre woodland campus in the Town of Huntington, Long Island, and is open to all young people from ages 5 to 18. A hallmark of Usdan's mission is its tradition of welcoming all students based solely on their expression of interest in the arts, as no audition is required for most courses. The Center offers programs in music, dance, theater, visual arts, creative writing, nature and ecology, and chess, in flexible 3, 4 and 7-week sessions. Although the mission of the Center is for every child to establish a relationship with the arts, the unique stimulation of the Center has caused many to go on to arts careers. Alumni include Natalie Portman, Mariah Carey, jazz star Jane Monheit, Seth Rudetsky, Jackie Hoffman, Olivia Thirlby, Taylor Dane and members of Broadway shows and major music, theater, and dance ensembles such as the New York Philharmonic, Los Angeles Philharmonic and the New York City Ballet. Usdan Center is an agency of the UJA Federation of New York. For more information, write to info@usdan.com, Call (631) 643-7900, or visit usdan.com.###

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