Art and Cookbook to Benefit the Bays

This Saturday, a benefit event aims to raise money and awareness for the safekeeping of the bays and waterways surrounding eastern Long Island.

Go Fish is the name of a newly-released cookbook by Carol Boye and the art exhibition benefit at .

Saturday’s event will be held from 5 to 8 p.m. at the gallery. The free event features live music by the Soul Sindicate, hors d'oeuvres and libations, the appearance of celebrity chefs and plenty of art.

Celebrity chef George Hirsch is expected to attend, said exhibition curator Candyce Brokaw. Artwork will be exhibited inside the gallery and outside during the event.

Southampton Town is expected to bestow a proclamation to Gloria and Donald Gewelke for the philanthropic support of the community through the arts, said Brokaw.

The art exhibition continues through Sept. 5. Artwork can be viewed and purchased online through Go Fish.

Artwork and cookbook sales benefit Southampton Town’s Shellfish
Reseeding Program and the . The cookbook was launched in June. It features around 150 seafood recipes from about 42 chefs plus artwork from 37 artists, many of them local.

Participating artists include Paton Miller, Mary Laspia, Alan Bull and Casey Chalem Anderson among others. Also participating is Susan D'Alessio, whose painting is on the cookbook cover. So is Tykie Ganz, a preservationist and wildlife artist.

Art for the benefit was selected to present a range of styles and perspective, Boye said. All of the work was inspired by area waters.

“We went for different styles and tastes,” she said. “You never know what people might like. We’re trying to reach out to everyone.”

Boye is an artist and a water lover. She grew up summering from Westhampton to Hampton Bays. Her time was spent clamming, boating and fishing. Now living in Sag Harbor and Florida, she’s still spends time each day in the water, she said.  

Loving the water didn’t seem enough.

Last year, she became inspired by a friendship (and net-gathering) with long-time fisherman Monte “Skeets” Hine to take action to try and improve the health of the bays.

Raising money to assist with research and methods to seemed the way to go, she said. The cookbook is dedicated to Skeets, Boye said.

Selecting the Peconic Baykeeper as beneficiary was a natural choice, and after speaking with local baymen the town’s reseeding program was repeatedly cited as important, Boye said. The program became a co-recipient for funds raised by the cookbook and the art exhibition.

Besides raising money, Boye hopes to raise awareness that the waters need attention and care. Having people start to stop and reconsider discarding plastic and cigarette butts at the beach would be one measure of success. Fostering further research on the problems plaguing the bays would be another.

After all, the Hamptons is laced and bound by water. Visitors and residents alike enjoy dining waterside.

“We wouldn’t be the Hamptons if we didn’t have clean water,” she said.