A Bayport-Blue Point High School art teacher and a dozen of the students he taught have hung their work side by side at the Bayport-Blue Point Public Library. The show pairs Frank Salino's own art with pieces by former students who kept making art after graduation, across classes from 1999 to this past spring, and it stays up through mid-December.

Who is on the wall

The Bayport-Blue Point School District announced the exhibit on November 6. The twelve alumni run the range from teachers and designers to potters, photographers and current art students:

  • Katerina Kyriakakis, Class of 1999: a Pratt Institute graduate who now teaches art at Rocky Point High School
  • Andrew Francis, Class of 2000: a Stony Brook University studio art graduate with a master's degree in library science from LIU
  • Matt Schnepf, Class of 2001: a graphic designer, MSXDesign
  • Giovanni Vitale, Class of 2002: The Art of Bodybuilding
  • Krysten Zummo, Class of 2007: a potter and fiber artist with a background in wildlife science
  • Kara Hoblin, Class of 2007: a photographer and the founder of the North Fork Art Collective
  • Jaime Foley, Class of 2008: Reverie Fabrications in Austin, Texas
  • Shannon Foley, Class of 2011: Shannon Foley Art in North Carolina
  • Liz Koehler-Crean, Class of 2013: a graphic designer and textile artist
  • Matty Califano, Class of 2017: a studio arts graduate who works as a photographer at Walt Disney World
  • Kaiden Logan, Class of 2024: a BFA student studying ceramics at UNC Asheville
  • Haley Jones, Class of 2026: a BFA student studying interior design at the Fashion Institute of Technology

Twenty-seven years of one classroom

The list reads as a timeline of a single art room. The earliest graduate in the show finished high school in 1999, and the most recent finished last June. In between are people who turned what they started in Salino's class into careers in teaching, design, photography and craft, and others who are still in art school now.

Several of the paths lead back to Long Island. One alumna teaches art to high schoolers a few towns east in Rocky Point. Another founded an artists' group on the North Fork. A third studied studio art at Stony Brook. Others carried the work further, to Texas, North Carolina and Florida.

What comes next on the same wall

The alumni show runs through mid-December. After that, the library hands the space to Salino's current students, whose work will be on display through the end of January. A visitor who comes in December and again in January can see the class of 1999 and the students in Salino's classroom today on the same wall, a month apart.

Visit the exhibit

  • Where: Bayport-Blue Point Public Library, 186 Middle Road, Blue Point
  • When: through mid-December; current students' work follows through the end of January
  • Library hours: Monday to Thursday 9 a.m. to 9 p.m., Friday and Saturday 9 a.m. to 5 p.m., Sunday 1 to 5 p.m.
  • Phone: 631-363-6133

Sources