Happy Fall!

As we admire the changing leaves and anticipate the upcoming holidays, ALLI is getting ready for our annual fourth quarter appeal. As a nonprofit, we annually rely on dollars raised through our efforts, such as this appeal. We are dependent on you, our supporters, to continually maintain and grow our center, to make improvements, and to pay our bills. As you know, we are working to improve ourselves in so many ways and we absolutely need your support in order to continue to do so, ensuring that our mission of any student, of any background, is welcome at ALLI to be the artist that they want to be. I hope you’re excited to learn about how we are doing this, and how you can help.

On October 15th, we are partnering with Colored Colors to bring you a closing celebration of Latin Heritage Month. Bring your budding artist to create an Amate bark painting, celebrate with some salsa dancing and experience a pop up exhibition by Diego Garcia. Enjoy food and a cultural panel discussion as well. Your support helps to underwrite the cost of supplies, demonstrations, marketing, facility maintenance, our instructors, and staff time.

I am also very excited to announce that we have hosted our first introductory meeting of our Resident Artist Members for the class of 2022-2023. Please join me in welcoming Chris O’Donnell, Margaret Minardi, Sasha Pincus, and Despina Zografos as our 2022-2023 Resident Artists. They have been selected to develop their skills through mentorship, through learning a new medium and by developing skills in instruction. As part of their membership, our resident artists will be hosting their own workshops and cultural programs throughout the year and we cannot wait to produce more programs in this vein.

I know you are as excited as I am to see these programs flourish, which welcomes new students, new members, and tomorrow’s instructors! Again, we cannot continue to provide our wide array of classes, programs, exhibitions, and events without your support. Please be on look out for our appeal mailer and donate to the Art League of Long Island. Every dollar makes a difference.

Best,
Marianne Della Croce
Executive Director, Art League of Long Island

What Does the Art League Mean to You?

Dear ALLI Community,

Right now, we are in the heart of our Pre-College Portfolio Development program at ALLI, and watching these young adults come together in the Jeanie Tengelsen Gallery reminds me to think about how the arts provide us with what we need, when we need it.  Margaret Minardi, our Portfolio instructor during the school year, has said that ALLI provides her students with a safe space where they can go from being strangers to classmates to friends for life; where they can encourage learning and support for each other, and where they can draw inspiration from other like-minded teens.

I often think about how we worked our way through the pandemic.  When some of you ask me about why I came aboard here at ALLI, my answer is the following: during quarantine, you either survived, or you thrived.  Quite frankly, I just survived.  But it was through my participation in arts programs that I was able to survive.  Being spontaneously creative allowed me to find joy, peace, and expression during those months, and now, even beyond that time.  And that to me is why places like ALLI are so integral to the community.  We offer anyone the opportunity to be the artist they want to be, and that helps them in so many more ways than we can count…socially, mentally, or spiritually.

And so, tell me, what does the Art League provide for you?  A place of solace; a place to view beautiful art; a place to make new friends?  A place to create; a place to be inspired; a place to learn something new?  All of the above?

There are two ways you can ensure that ALLI keeps on providing what we need from it.  One is by becoming a new member or renewing your membership.  Your membership not only gives you a discount on your class tuition, but also guarantees you one entry into the Members Exhibition and discount on booth fees as a Holiday Fair exhibitor.  The other way is by enrolling in our Automatic Recurring Gifts Program (ARGP).  Your recurring donation provides ALLI with revenue to fund our programs, make needed improvements to our studios, and purchase supplies for our exhibitions.

Thank you again for all of your support.  I look forward to seeing you at our upcoming exhibition reception for our Pre-College students on August 13th and our Open House on August 20th…two times during this month where we can come together to celebrate what ALLI means to our community, all of the above.

Best,

Marianne Della Croce
Executive Director