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April Gornik is on a mission. Actually, she’s on many missions, among them to save the historic character of Sag Harbor, help students at the Springs School, rescue wildlife, and save sharks.
The artist—who lives in North Haven with her husband, artist Eric Fischl, and their two sleek Bengal cats, Hooper and Bebop—spends a few hours of her day in the studio painting her evocative landscapes, or “Photoshop sketching,” as she calls her imagery based on manipulated photographs. But she also devotes much time to local causes.
A superstar in her own right, Ms. Gornik’s artistic trajectory has zoomed alongside the skyrocketing career of her husband. The couple just returned from traveling in Europe—first, Brussels, where Mr. Fischl had a show at Jablonka Maruani Mercier Gallery, and then Venice, where a painting of Ms. Gornik was shown in the “Frontiers Reimagined” show at the Museo Grimani.
“That was an exceptional amount of traveling in a month,” said Ms. Gornik, a Cleveland native whose work has also been shown in the Metropolitan Museum of Art, the Whitney Museum of American Art, and the Museum of Modern Art, among other public and private collections.
A typical day in Ms. Gornik’s life might entail an early morning walk with her cats, “who are usually dying to be out,” she said, followed by yoga, guitar practice (in her effort to master classical guitar), a swim at the YMCA, and lunch with her husband—“usually eggs and veggies and Eric’s amazing home-baked walnut bread and tea.”
She moseys into the studio in the late afternoon, rarely before. Her favorite working hours are from 3 to 8 p.m., she said. Lately, she has been working on her contribution to the inaugural Eileen’s Angels Art Auction & Garden Party, a fundraiser benefiting ProjectMOST, Springs Seedlings and a charity dear to her heart.
In 2001, Joe Realmuto, partner and executive chef behind Honest Man Restaurant Group, found himself inspired by the Edible Schoolyard Project, a program started by chef Alice Waters that built a teaching kitchen in an inner-city school in Berkley, California, not far from her restaurant, Chez Panisse. He created a similar program in East Hampton, which soon found funding from Eileen Roaman—a philanthropist, artist and master gardener, and Ms. Gornik’s best friend.
Ms. Roaman was a moving force behind the project. When she died of cancer at age 54 two years ago, many of her friends and supporters gathered to keep her legacy alive. They call themselves Eileen’s Angels, and their first order of business was to plan a fundraiser.
Colin Ambrose volunteered to host a private party under a tent behind his restaurant, Estia’s Little Kitchen in Sag Harbor, and Ms. Gornik recruited artists to donate work for an auction. With help from landscape architect Edwina von Gal, she managed to gather 44 participants, including household names in the art world: David Salle, Cindy Sherman and Ross Bleckner.
The art will be on display inside the restaurant this month, allowing the public to view and even make bids through Sunday, June 28, when bids will be coming in from all over the world, including by those in attendance.
“April was our conduit to the art world,” Mr. Ambrose said. “She’s a tremendously well connected and intelligent woman who’s passionate about the project because of her friend, Eileen—the reason everyone’s coming together. She was able to get some of the most highly respected artists to support the event.”
Other local artists who have donated works include Steve Miller, Dan Rizzie, Billy Rayner, Paton Miller, Toni Ross and Laurie Lambrecht. “I’m sure that if Eileen were alive, she would have donated one of her beautiful drawings,” Ms. Gornik said.
Though she and Mr. Fischl live across the bridge in North Haven these days, their first house was on Harrison Street in Sag Harbor Village. She was a founding member of Save Sag Harbor, though she left the board to join Sag Harbor Partnership. She also supports the Evelyn Alexander Wildlife Rescue Center in Hampton Bays—she threw a fundraising benefit with her husband last year—and is on the periphery of the No-Kill Shark Tournament in Montauk, which she originally helped organize.
“I just finished the book ‘H is for Hawk’ by Helen MacDonald, which I absolutely loved because she’s a woman who, like me, relates to wild things,” Ms. Gornik said.
Every so often while she works, Ms. Gornik catches a glimpse of a bird diving into her terrace feeder.
“Sometimes in my studio,” she said, “I just listen to the birds instead of music.”
The inaugural Eileen’s Angels Art Auction & Garden Party will be held on Sunday, June 28, from 5 to 8 p.m. in the garden of Estia’s Little Kitchen in Sag Harbor. Tickets start at $150. Online bidding begins on Friday, June 12, at paddle8.com. For tickets and more information, visit projectmost.com.
on Jun 2, 2015