Southampton - The opening of "Mixed Greens: Artists Choose Artists" on the East End marked a new chapter in the world of juried art exhibits in the Hamptons. This show represents a departure from the prototypical juried exhibit; nine established East End artists were individually tasked with selecting an artist from a pool of over 260 applicants - no small feat - each granting just one the opportunity of showing their work at the storied Parrish Art Museum in Southampton.

All three rooms at the Parrish were packed throughout the opening reception as crowds milled throughout the space admiring the work of both the selectors and the selectees.

"We've done juried shows here before but I wanted this one to be more about the community," explains museum Director Terrie Sultan. "We picked nine prominent local artists and sent out a call for entries. We got 260 applicants, had them submit their work online, put them on a C.D. and then asked our jurors to choose as many selections as they wanted. From there the jurors were able to visit each applicant in their studios. It fostered great interaction; it wasn't just artists choosing images, they were really choosing the artists as well. I really believe in what we're doing here; fostering a sense of community that's in keeping with the area's unique artistic heritage."

This process granted each of the selectees a rare opportunity - the chance to interact with some of the area's most acclaimed local artists such as April Gornik, Michael Combs, John Alexander, Richard Kalina, Michelle Stuart, Donald Sultan, Joe Zucker, John Torreano, and Mary Heilmann, and have the chance to work with them on a level not often afforded in the East End artist community. In addition to winning wall space at the Parrish, a prestigious honor in its own right, the winning applicant's work was shown alongside works done by the jurors.

"Inside The Green Zone" by Jessica Benjamin, oil on canvas.

"To have people just see my pieces in this museum is really great," said selected artist Jessica Benjamin. Chosen by artist John Alexander, Benjamin, who has called the East End her home since 2006, had three of her paintings hung in the same space that has laid claim to works by legendary artists like Fairfield Porter, William Merritt Chase and Childe Hassam. Her work, a series of pseudo-imaginary cityscapes, are an amalgam of actual studies of real locations blended with her own artistic vision. "These cityscapes are actually real, they are a combination of different scenes. I take a lot of photographs and then cut them up, make them into little collages and then paint them as if I'm looking at them through a window. I try to get the process of composition out of the way at the very beginning so then I'm just free to paint."

The xframes, led by participating artist Peter Dayton on guitar, played during the reception, adding another element to the high caliber art that was on display.

The opening, which wasn't solely dedicated to painters, drew an impressive crowd, and featured live music by the xframes, an experimental punk band led by participating artist Peter Dayton, whose three panel pieces evoked the "superslick" and unabashedly American commercial stylings of vintage surfboards with a medium of birch panels painted with oils, acrylics and then covered with spray enamel.

Due to the nature of the selection process, the jurors were exposed to work they might not have experiences with had it not been for the show. "This is really an artist's museum and I think the Parrish is really courageous for putting on an exhibit like this," said one of the selectors, North Fork sculptor Michael Combs who chose fellow sculptor Randall Rosenthal, a New York City native living in East Hampton since 1979. "I wasn't too familiar with his work until right before the selections were made. Having been in a show similar to this once before, being on the other side of things, I have to say it was an interesting process having to choose from a pool of 260 applicants," Combs confessed during the reception. "But what's really interesting is that some of the artists that I had considered choosing were picked by other jurors and ended up on the walls here tonight."

"Bridgehampton One 2003" by Frazer P. Dougherty, acrylic on canvas

Most notable among Rosenthal's work, were his pieces in the Trompe L'oeil style representative of the American masters John F. Peto and William Michael Harnett, and were hand-painted, and impressively carved from a single piece of wood to make near-perfect facsimiles of a stack of New York Times splayed out on a coffee table or a cardboard box filled with rubber-banded stacks of $100 dollar bills.

Not only does 'Mixed Greens' present a wonderfully diverse cross-section displaying the diversified talents of local artists in the community, but it is emblematic of what the East End of Long Island was before it became the tony playground for the rich and famous: a delightful and well-integrated community of artists supporting other local artists.

'Mixed Greens' will be on display through June 21 at the Parrish Art Museum in Southampton.