The exhibition closing out the year at The Church in Sag Harbor is built around a name from the village's own shoreline. Dear Mazie: Sanctuary, Speculation, and Sky runs through December 27, and its subject is Amaza Lee Meredith, the architect, artist and educator who co-founded Azurest, the Sag Harbor waterfront community established in the 1940s as a haven for Black families during segregation.

Admission is free. The galleries at 48 Madison Street are open Thursday through Monday, 11 a.m. to 5 p.m.

Who Mazie was

Meredith, who lived from 1895 to 1984 and was known as Mazie, is described by the exhibition as the first known Black queer woman to practice architecture in the United States. She worked as an educator and designer, and she co-founded Azurest North, the community that still sits on Sag Harbor's east side.

The exhibition arrives as a traveling show organized by the Institute for Contemporary Art at Virginia Commonwealth University and curated by Amber Esseiva, the institute's senior curator. Rather than a case-by-case biography, it pairs Meredith's story with newly commissioned work from artists, architects and collaborative practices responding to her life and the places she made.

A building with its own second act

The venue carries some parallel history. The Church began in 1835 as a Methodist church on High Street, was moved about five blocks to its present Madison Street site in 1864, and lost its original clock tower to the Hurricane of 1938. After the congregation deconsecrated the building in 2007, it passed through three owners before artists Eric Fischl and April Gornik bought it in 2017 and converted it into the arts center that opened after a 2018 renovation.

Programs through the fall

The Church has scheduled a run of programs around the exhibition. On Friday, November 13, an After Hours evening brings curator Amber Esseiva together with architects Emanuel Admassu and Jen Wood. A members tour of the exhibition follows on Saturday, November 21. And on Friday, December 4, the Knowledge Friday series hosts Dr. Georgette Grier-Key, the leader of the Eastville Community Historical Society, whose work covers the historically Black and working-class neighborhoods of Sag Harbor, Azurest among them.

Details and registration for each program are on The Church's event calendar.

If you go

Dear Mazie: Sanctuary, Speculation, and Sky runs through December 27 at The Church, 48 Madison Street, Sag Harbor. Galleries are open Thursday through Monday, 11 a.m. to 5 p.m., and admission to the exhibition, the arts and design library and the garden is free.

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