Artist Talk & Book Signing with Philomena Marano

HYSTERICAL CONEY ISLAND  an art Memoir of the Coney Island Hysterical Society

When I returned to my beloved Coney Island in the early 1980s, I found that it had steeply declined into a mere ghost of itself and I became “hysterical” at the rate the rides, games and attractions were shutting down. Myself and another artist of the same sentiments co-founded the Coney Island Hysterical Society in response to a community in crisis. With a handmade newsletter, proposals to surviving businesses and various on site projects including the  re-imagining of a defunct dark ride into a “ride thru gallery in the dark”, a handful of artists helped to pull the neglected amusement beach out of a nosedive. A spark was lit and continues to burn, bringing Coney Island back up to its rightful place in the cultural history of American amusement icons. - Philomena Marano

Philomena will share her Hysterical Society stories and memories along with a slide show of the  Coney Island landscape and of the colorful personalities she met there and how they deeply impacted her art.

She has been a member of the Arts Center since 2017 and had a solo exhibit in 2022 of her Coney Island and circus inspired paper collie’ (cut paper) works titled, SIGNS & WONDERS.

Her new book will be introduced & available:

HYSTERICAL CONEY ISLAND  An art memoir of the Coney Island Hysterical Society 

by Richard Eagan & Philomena Marano