The Church's second annual Creativity Conference will bring six notables to the Sag Harbor venue for a full-day event, starting Saturday morning at 8:30. The speakers will include the actor and farmer Isabella Rossellini, the cartoonist Roz Chast, the writer Paul Greenberg, the toy designer Cas Holman, the musician Paul Winter, and the ecologist and writer Carl Safina.
After a light breakfast, the first session will begin at 9, when consecutive 30-minute presentations by three speakers will be followed by a group discussion with the speakers and a moderator. After a lunch break at noon, a second session, similarly structured, will start at 1:15. The day will conclude with a wine and cheese reception at 4:30.
Ms. Chast is a longtime cartoonist for The New Yorker, whose graphic memoir "Can't We Talk About Something More Pleasant?" won the National Book Critics Circle Award in 2014.
A regular contributor to The New York Times, Mr. Greenberg is currently the writer-in-residence at the Safina Center and a visiting scholar at The University of Washington’s Ocean Nexus. His most recent book is "The Climate Diet," published by Penguin Press.
For two decades, Ms. Holman has been designing playthings and play spaces that encourage exploration, imagination, and collaboration. Her philosophy and approach to designing for play was recently featured in the award-winning documentary series “Abstract: The Art of Design” on Netflix.
Ms. Rossellini has enjoyed success as an actor who has worked with such directors as Robert Zemeckis, David O. Russell, David Lynch, and Robert Wilson, and as a model and spokeswoman for Lancôme. She is the founder of Mana Farm, an organic farm in Brookhaven, where she raises endangered breeds of farm animals.
A saxophonist, composer, and bandleader, Mr. Winter's concert tours and recording expeditions have taken him to 52 countries and to wilderness areas on six continents, where he has traveled on rafts, dog sleds, mules, kayaks, tugboats, and Land Rovers.
Dr. Safina's many awards include MacArthur, Pew, Guggenheim, and National Science Foundation fellowships. He is the first endowed professor for nature and humanity at Stony Brook University and the founder of the Safina Center, a nonprofit conservation and environmental organization.
This year's event was organized by April Gornik, The Church's co-founder; Sheri Pasquarella, its executive director, and Mr. Safina. Tickets are $100, $85 for members.
Poetry Workshop
The Church has also announced a three-session poetry workshop with the poet Star Black, to begin next Thursday morning at 11 and continue on April 13 and 20. The author of seven books of poetry, Ms. Black has taught at the New School and Stony Brook University.
The workshop will focus on the use of a detailed description of a work of art as a literary device. Participants will create texts inspired by selected works in The Church's current exhibition, "Return to a Place by the Sea." Each session will conclude with a reading of written texts, and the sharing of thoughts and ideas.
The class is limited to 12 participants. The cost is $30 for all three sessions, with registration through The Church's website.
Resident Artists
The Church's resident artists for April are Naudline Pierre and Drew Zeiba. An artist working in sculpture and large-scale works on paper with themes of fantasy and other worlds, Ms. Pierre will be there until Friday, April 7. Mr. Zeiba is working on a novel and a companion video installation "speculating on the pasts and possible futures of 'lost islands.' " In residence from Wednesday through April 28, he will read from his novel on April 15 at 4 p.m.
