Stone Wall Show

Photographer Mariana Cook first noticed the timeless beauty of stone walls when her neighbor’s cows broke through the one that separates their properties in Chilmark.

“I realized how beautiful the wall was, and started wondering about who built it, and how the stones [were put together],” she said.

Multicultural Art Show

The Harlem Fine Art Show (HFAS) will present a multicultural art show at Island Inn in Oak Bluffs on August 9 through 12. This is the first time the show has traveled to Martha’s Vineyard from its usual home in New York city. It has also teamed up with Pathway to Your Success, an Island non-profit dedicated to helping parents and their children plan future career choices.

Ashley Medowski creates unique frames for her paintings with wood salvaged from barns or found on beaches. Her painting The Elizabeth Islands is a panoramic done on an old wooden waterski.

Gay Head Gallery

This weekend the Gay Head Gallery is hosting a reception on Sunday, Aug. 12, from 5 to 7 p.m. for its latest show entitled Endangered Lands and Water: The Intrinsic Value of Wild Nature. The gallery seeks to promote conservation and environmental education through its artists, and this show is no different. The exhibit is a benefit for the Vineyard Conservation Society and the Moshup Trail Project — an ongoing conservation effort to protect globally rare habitat.

Poet Terrance Hayes, a former college basketball player, prepares for all of his readings as if they were basketball games.
“I have got to bring my A-game,” he said. “If you score by making dunks, or even if you are playing great defense, people can be appreciative of what you are doing if you are doing it in an exceptional way.”

For one artist, the term all-Island art is literal. Amid the paintings, pastels and photographs, the seaweed collages by Kathy Poehler hung on the wire fence at the Tabernacle yesterday for the 54th All-Island Art Show.

It’s hard to pinpoint the best label to suit Louisa Gould. Is she a photographer, a painter, a business consultant or a sailor? She’s worked on Wall Street, photographed the Olympics and multiple sailing events and worked as a videographer. But this weekend, Ms. Gould will play the part of gallery owner, as she celebrates the 10th anniversary of the Louisa Gould Gallery, a fixture of the Vineyard Haven art community.

Peter Pap buys and sells art you can step on.

“It was rather by chance that I ended up an Oriental rug seller,” he said. “I simply started by working as an assistant at a store in Boston.”

After graduating from Whittier College in the 1960s, Guy Webster decided to join the army reserves for a six-month stint rather than go to Viet Nam. For the first three months he purchased, shipped and decorated Christmas trees. For the second half he taught photography, even though he had never even held a camera before that moment.

“I had never taken a photograph in my life,” remembered Mr. Webster. It wasn’t until his last month in the reserves that he shot his first roll of film. That was all it took to get him hooked.

Some of the earliest encaustic wax painters were probably the Greeks, who used the technique to fill in cracks in the hulls of their ships and to decorate their walls with murals.

Today, artists such as Debra M. Gaines still practice the art of encaustic painting, a process whereby beeswax is melted and pigment is introduced into the mixture. Ms. Gaines will be conducting an encaustic painting demonstration at the Louisa Gould Gallery, 54 Main street, Vineyard Haven on Monday, August 13, at 6 p.m.