Fred Buonocore honored by ARTSI Open Studios

When ARTSI opens its 16th annual Open Studios, visitors will once again be invited to step into the private worlds of Shelter Island artists, where imagination becomes tangible.

This year’s tour carries a special dedication, honoring the late Frederick J. “Fred” Buonocore, an artist whose studio will be quiet, but whose creative spirit remains very much a part of ARTSI.

Fred discovered woodturning in his late 70’s. During the pandemic, he began visiting the Shelter Island Recycling Center and bringing home discarded wood. What others had thrown away, Fred saw differently. He identified and labeled each species, then headed to his basement workshop and began experimenting with a lathe.

“He was passionate,” said his wife, Joan. Fred would disappear into his workshop around 8 in the morning, emerging for meals and sometimes returning afterward, unable to leave a piece unfinished.

After joining a woodturning society, he began combining wood with luminous resins, mother-of-pearl, pine cones and other natural materials. Polished to a near-liquid sheen, his vessels became paintings in the round, with natural grain flowing through brilliant color and shimmering inlays.

“He never had a definite vision,” Joan said. “The wood would talk to him.”

One piece she treasures is a sycamore vessel intricately inlaid with mother-of-pearl. Another was born from disaster. Joan once heard an enormous crash from the workshop below. A vessel Fred was turning had exploded. “My blood stopped,” she recalled.

Fred was unharmed. Within a week, he was transforming the shattered pieces into another work of art, embodying the words he kept in his workshop: “There are no mistakes, just design changes.”

“He lived by that,” Joan said.

Fred’s artistic eye was evident long before the lathe, in the gardens surrounding their Shelter Island home and the exquisite orchids he cultivated, blooms of astonishing color and intricate form. He sought unusual varieties from growers across the Northeast and even talked to them. While hospitalized, Fred called a grower to order a chocolate orchid, known for its chocolate-like fragrance. Joan still has it.

ARTSI offered Fred something he valued deeply: a place among fellow artists. Members encouraged his work, offered guidance and suggested places where it might be shown. “It was an acceptance that someone with an artistic background appreciated what he was doing,” Joan said.

Of this year’s tribute, she added, “He would have loved the appreciation, and the joy of knowing he was part of a group of people who are artists and appreciate artists.” Yet when asked what she most wants people to remember about Fred, Joan did not mention his art. “His kindness,” she said. “And generosity.”

Fred brought that same devotion to his family and faith, to his community, his gardens and orchids, and his art. A visitor seldom remained a stranger for long. There was always coffee to pour, something to share, and another place waiting at the table.

As Shelter Island’s artists open their studios, ARTSI’s tribute carries Fred’s creative spirit forward, celebrating a life shaped by curiosity, generosity and an enduring eye for beauty.

For Fred, beauty was something to nurture, transform and, ultimately, to share.