From the Vineyard Gazette edition of Jan. 30, 1942: The blue and gold and green Vineyard summer came alive in the midst of a New York winter last week when Eliena Krylenko (Mrs. Max Eastman) opened her exhibit of paintings at the Bonestell Gallery at 106 East Fifty-seventh street. Of the twenty-four gay, gallant little paintings before which old Vineyarders crowded at the opening, the majority were of Island people and scenes. Menemsha, Chilmark, the Roger Allen farm on the South Road, with Roger and his mother feeding the calves, portraits of Margaret De Silver and Benedict Thielen — these made one want to go straight through the city’s slush and take the next train to the Island. Perhaps not quite now, but how long is it to May when we can be heading for the ferry from Woods Hole?

Eliena Krylenko has found the way to give depth and serenity to her scene by using the tempera technique of the old masters. This method adapts itself well to the peculiarly difficult (from a painter’s standpoint) Island landscape, whose charm is elusive and not to be captured by any insensitive wayfarer. It is a landscape to be lived with, and studied over the years, and loved at length.

Max Eastman, who, at the opening, occupied for him the unusual role of the shrinking bridegroom at a wedding where everyone’s attention is on the bride, wrote an introduction to the catalogue in which he talked about this business of an artist living with her paintings and her scene.

“The great test of a painting after all,” wrote Max, “is to live with it. And I’ve lived not only with the paintings, but the painter and found that intelligent love of life which overflows them both sustained perpetually. It is a fountain that never fails. It springs besides from no boggy soil. Most people and most works of art, that abound in tenderness, lack strength. This artist meets the blows of fate and of her enemies, with rock-like force and fortitude. And I think that quality too — the stable equilibrium, the solid geometry — will be found in her paintings.”

The exhibit at the Bonestell will run until Jan. 31. This writer hopes that it can be taken bodily to the Island next summer and there repeated in the new home at Lobsterville which the Eastmans are building.

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With town meetings now so near, the recommendation of Governor Saltonstall as to Civil Defense expenditures seems to be a timely guide for voters and taxpayers. The governor suggests that towns provide whatever money may be necessary for the administration and organization of Civil Defense activities. But he declares that, in his judgement, the time has not yet come to make appropriations for major protective materials, such as fire-fighting equipment, helmets, uniforms, and the like.

He points out that “there is every reason to suppose that the federal government intends to provide either some equipment or the funds with which to purchase it.” Since this is the case, it would be premature and very likely unduly expensive for the towns to go ahead independently.

Another factor in the situation is, without doubt, the fact that many defense materials are scarce. The federal government wishes to make sure that there are enough to go around in the vital and strategic districts before non-strategic areas begin to buy up and pre-empt these materials.

Since all citizens are naturally desirous of doing all that may be advisable, with the least possible delay, the governor’s recommendation is particularly valuable as a guide for the action of town meetings.

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So the town of Tisbury is to have its hydrant rental reduced to $1! The water commissioners, it is to be noted, came before the town finance committee and suggested the discontinuance of the rental entirely, but legal technicalities require a normal charge. The immediate saving to the town is $1,000 — a fine, round sum.

In the year 1905 the voters of Tisbury decided to take the Vineyard Haven Water Company at a cost of a hundred thousand dollars which probably seemed a pretty tremendous sum. We daresay that there has never been a publicly owned enterprise which so completely vindicated the wisdom of those who advocated and managed its operation under municipal ownership. The history of the water system since 1905 proves that an enterprise of this kind can be run efficiently and can be made to serve the interests of the townspeople. It certainly proves, also, that Island communities are capable of providing able management over a period of years. The last bond was retired in 1936, and there have been reductions in the cost of water service again and again.

There has been a generally accepted belief that a town was never let off anything. No matter who else was able to reduce expenses or enjoy the benefit of operating economies, a town would continue to pay full-size bills. Not so now with the hydrant service of Tisbury. The pessimistic belief has been proved false, and the water commissioners and the town at large are to be congratulated.

Compiled by Hilary Wall
library@mvgazette.com