Highlights - APRIL GORNIK - Artist, Environmentalist, Co-founder of The Church: Arts & Creativity Center

Highlights - APRIL GORNIK - Artist, Environmentalist, Co-founder of The Church: Arts & Creativity Center

Artist · Environmentalist
Co-founder of The Church · Arts & Creativity Center
Co-director of Sag Harbor Cinema Board

I've chosen my work because I've loved the outside world. I love the things outside of myself. I love what isn't immediate to me. And I love projecting onto that as a way of kind of trying to reach the distance between my inner self and the vastness. To try to do that in a way that makes other people feel inspired by it, not be chided for not taking care of it. It's not something that I intend to be a message per se. I'd rather people look at the natural world and see the heartbreaking beauty of it and sense its fragility and its impermanence and their own impermanence and fragility and then have a response to that rather than say, you know, you have to act, you have to do something. I would hope that would inspire action rather than to cudgel them with a directive.

APRIL GORNIK - Artist, Environmentalist, Co-founder of The Church: Arts & Creativity Center

APRIL GORNIK - Artist, Environmentalist, Co-founder of The Church: Arts & Creativity Center

Artist · Environmentalist
Co-founder of The Church · Arts & Creativity Center
Co-director of Sag Harbor Cinema Board

I've chosen my work because I've loved the outside world. I love the things outside of myself. I love what isn't immediate to me. And I love projecting onto that as a way of kind of trying to reach the distance between my inner self and the vastness. To try to do that in a way that makes other people feel inspired by it, not be chided for not taking care of it. It's not something that I intend to be a message per se. I'd rather people look at the natural world and see the heartbreaking beauty of it and sense its fragility and its impermanence and their own impermanence and fragility and then have a response to that rather than say, you know, you have to act, you have to do something. I would hope that would inspire action rather than to cudgel them with a directive.

BENOIT DELHOMME - Cinematographer of At Eternity’s Gate (on Van Gogh's life), Artist, Director

BENOIT DELHOMME - Cinematographer of At Eternity’s Gate (on Van Gogh's life), Artist, Director

Award-winning Cinematographer of At Eternity’s Gate · The Theory of Everything
The Scent of Green Papaya · Minamata
Artist Painter · Director

If you want to do your art well, you need to have some pleasure. If talking is not a pleasure, it's horrible. And when filming on a set is a bad experience, it's one of the worst things in life. As a cinematographer, if you can't make what you do personal to you, there is no soul. You need to make it personal. I certainly like a handheld camera, It's a bit like playing a saxophone. It's like the pace of walking or how I stop or I decide to go closer to the actor or to take more distance is so free. No one is telling me to go one step forward or one step back. I have to decide on the spot. So there certainly a freedom like a painter with a brush. It's nice because you have even the vibrations, your rhythms, the actor's rhythms. It's this dance.

FABRIZIO MANCINELLI - Composer, Songwriter, Conductor

FABRIZIO MANCINELLI - Composer, Songwriter, Conductor

Composer · Songwriter · Conductor
The Land of Dreams ·The Snow Queen 3 · The Boat · Food 2050 · Green Book

I'm always trying to find my place here because, yes, I'm American. I'm an immigrant. I don't want to talk about the difficulties I face in my coming here, but it was not easy. So when I was writing the song called “Give Up”, and it's like a song that I'm singing to myself. Those are things, like there is a lot of personal experience. I was a luxury immigrant on a Fulbright grant on a J-1 Sponsor Visa, you know, with a solid family I could go back to in Italy in case anything went wrong. But at the same time, it was not easy. I want to do my job with a smile on my face, and it brought me to write the lyrics like: 'It's my turn. My time is now.' It's like something that I'm trying, we all try to get our turn to be our moment, to shine our moment. We're all waiting. We don't know if it will happen, but we need to try at least. We need to grab our life with our hands and make it work one way or another. So that's what I mean in my song “Orlando Dreams.”

In Memory of TONY WALTON · 1934-2022 (Part 2)

In Memory of TONY WALTON · 1934-2022 (Part 2)

Art and Theater Director, Costume Designer

Creativity is perhaps the ultimate mystery. I veer wildly between opposing views on it and have different feelings depending on whether the creator is isolated or a collaborator.

In Memory of TONY WALTON · 1934-2022 (Part 1)

In Memory of TONY WALTON · 1934-2022 (Part 1)

Art and Theater Director, Costume Designer

Creativity is perhaps the ultimate mystery. I veer wildly between opposing views on it and have different feelings depending on whether the creator is isolated or a collaborator.

(Highlights) DOUGLAS WOLK

(Highlights) DOUGLAS WOLK

Author of NYTimes bestseller All of the Marvels, Eisner Award–winning Reading Comics
Host of the Voice of Latveria podcast

I like the idea that your actions in the world can be motivated by both idealism and realism about how to achieve those ideals. I like the idea that morality is not simple. There is this idea that there are the heroes and there's the villains and you can easily tell who's who, and that's not so true as it used to be in comics and that's meaningful. One thing that is interesting about the Marvel story is there’s basically nobody who's just a bad guy to be a bad guy. Everyone has their reasons. Almost everyone is capable of redemption in some way, even the worst of the worst are capable of tremendous heroism and tremendous idealism and genuinely wanting to heal the world make it a better place.

DOUGLAS WOLK

DOUGLAS WOLK

Author of NYTimes bestseller All of the Marvels, Eisner Award–winning Reading Comics
Host of the Voice of Latveria podcast

I like the idea that your actions in the world can be motivated by both idealism and realism about how to achieve those ideals. I like the idea that morality is not simple. There is this idea that there are the heroes and there's the villains and you can easily tell who's who, and that's not so true as it used to be in comics and that's meaningful. One thing that is interesting about the Marvel story is there’s basically nobody who's just a bad guy to be a bad guy. Everyone has their reasons. Almost everyone is capable of redemption in some way, even the worst of the worst are capable of tremendous heroism and tremendous idealism and genuinely wanting to heal the world make it a better place.

MARK SELIGER

MARK SELIGER

Photographer

I always tell people the worst picture can ever take is one you don't take. And that is a simple philosophy. If you don't go out there and do the work, then you will never know. You may think there's going to be another great snowstorm. You might think there's going to be another great moment where a block is going to have a certain kind of rhythm or a culture is going to have a certain amount of innocence or a musician is going to be as reluctant or vulnerable or sympathetic. You just have to embrace the moment and do the work.

(Highlights) CHRISTINA MOSSAIDES STRASSFIELD

(Highlights) CHRISTINA MOSSAIDES STRASSFIELD

Museum Director & Chief Curator · Guild Hall of East Hampton

I think that what you're doing is definitely offering a service to so many people and letting them explore various forms of creativity and how you can use that creativity to enhance the world. I don't mean it in a highfalutin way, but I think that art does influence the world on many different levels. On a daily level, but on a more global level.

CHRISTINA MOSSAIDES STRASSFIELD

CHRISTINA MOSSAIDES STRASSFIELD

Museum Director & Chief Curator · Guild Hall of East Hampton

I think that what you're doing is definitely offering a service to so many people and letting them explore various forms of creativity and how you can use that creativity to enhance the world. I don't mean it in a highfalutin way, but I think that art does influence the world on many different levels. On a daily level, but on a more global level.