Dawn Greeley, artist and longtime Chilmark resident, died at home surrounded by family on May 9. She was 59.

In an age of specialization, Dawn stood apart as a woman whose left and right brain hemispheres received equal oxygen. For decades she worked in the upper echelons of Digital Equipment Corporation, only to rediscover herself here on the Island as an artist of note.

In her recent battle with cancer, many of her closest associates thought that, by the sheer force of will that defined Dawn’s personality, she would hold out until her much-anticipated art opening on May 23 at the Shaw Cramer Gallery in Vineyard Haven. Unfortunately, this wasn’t to be, but friends all over the Island will congregate on that day, surrounded by Dawn’s vibrant canvasses, to celebrate her life, her art, and the beauty in which she walked.

The daughter of Nancy and Vincent Moorad, Dawn was born and raised in New Britain, Conn. She attended Simmons College, majoring in economics and political science, graduating in 1970. While still in college, she agreed to a blind date with a young man at Tufts who came down with a cold and, at the last minute, sent a classmate in his stead. The stand-in was Roger Greeley, who admits today that the first date was less than sensational. Roger said: “She told me, ‘I’m never going out with you again.’”

However, Dawn called the next day to report she’d left her glasses in his old Volkswagen. Not one to waste an opportunity, Roger countered, “I’ll look for your glasses, but how about we go out next Friday night?” She accepted, they saw A Hard Day’s Night, and then they began dating in earnest. They married in 1970.

Dawn’s ascent through the corporate ranks at Digital — she was the most senior of high-tech woman managers in New England — mirrored Roger’s career in marketing at General Electric. They lived in Sudbury for 22 years, with Dawn giving birth to their son, Alex, in 1984. A few years earlier, in 1979, they’d bought a condominium at Mattakeesett, renting it out in the summer to augment mortgage payments. During the single August week they used the condo themselves, they decided Katama was too crowded for them, so they purchased land in Chilmark. A newly constructed guest cottage paved the way for the gradual unfolding of the family home that rose on their summit on Old Ridge Hill.

Meanwhile Dawn signed up for art classes at the DeCordova Institute in Lincoln, and the curtain rang up on her life’s second act. Other circumstances mitigated a life change: At middle school in Sudbury, Alex was finding himself unsuited for the cookie-cutter life of suburban pre-teenhood. Dawn had been phasing out the corporate milieu in favor of time to reflect and paint on the Vineyard. Roger started a consulting company which gave him more flexibility as well. By the late 1990s, the three Greeleys slipped into a classic year-round lifestyle on Island.

Dawn, however, was not about to drift into a quiet life. Mere interests for other people became passions for Dawn: In rapid succession, she became a leading light in Whippoorwill Farm’s Community Supported Agriculture, chairman of the Women’s Symposium in Chilmark, director of the Martha’s Vineyard Regional Cultural Council, and board member of Featherstone Center for the Arts and the Martha’s Vineyard Garden Club. A visit to her home always entailed a tour of her terraced property, followed by a sumptuous meal prepared from the spoils of Whippoorwill and Dawn’s own herb garden.

One of the highlights of meeting up with Dawn was savoring the palette of her wardrobe: A lavender blouse might be paired with a mauve and celadon scarf and vivid, dangling earrings. Even in her last ventures out in the world in recent weeks, she continued to practice her own brand of sartorial perfection.

Dawn’s art flowed from her love of color, explosive with incisive shapes and vibrant hues, sometimes abstract, other times representational of landscapes that take full expression after we’ve looked on nature, then closed our eyes.

Her art teacher, Skip Lawrence, whose classes Dawn attended annually in Greenville, N.Y., wrote in a recent e-mail: “I know full well I am a better person for having known Dawn. [Her work] fills my eyes with a loving joy of the garden filled with her plants and enthusiasm. Her lessons to all of us are as clear as the shapes she created in her paintings. Lessons that scream, ‘Go for the best, smile all the way, and never let the bastards grind you down.’”

In the final days of Dawn’s life, as her friends gathered and comforted one another, we realized our individual impressions of the “best” friendship with Dawn made a larger whole. The day before Dawn died, someone asked Alex, “So who’s your mother’s best friend?” to which Alex replied, “We all are, for different reasons.”

Dawn’s dry humor was perhaps her best-appreciated trait. Some months ago when her diagnosis of terminal cancer led her to wrap up all loose ends, she decided to take her son for a crash course in fashion. At the mall she directed him to a men’s clothing store, instructing him to always buy Italian garments: “Italians understand your height and build, so you’ll look good in their tailoring. Stay away from French clothes unless you suddenly turn short and willowy.”

In the last few years, with Alex away at Carnegie Mellon (nowadays he’s developing training programs for EMC-2 in Franklin), Dawn and Roger tried various ways of making winter work for them as a couple. Roger fell in love with the Sonoma region in northern California, but Dawn was dismayed by the constant gray drizzle. For the past two years, she sought refuge under the blue and gold skies of Palm Springs, Calif. Even this past winter and early spring, with her health beginning to falter, she painted, attended lectures, and enlarged her already prodigious circle of friends.

In a final bestowal of beauty, Dawn left designs and funds for a garden to be constructed in the midst of Featherstone. Director Francine Kelly says that Dawn’s intent was to provide a quiet spot where artists and nature lovers can enjoy reflective moments. When the Dawn Greeley Memorial Garden is inaugurated in the fall, a corresponding event will take place for friends and other admirers to celebrate Dawn’s life and enduring legacy.

In addition to Alex and Roger, Dawn is survived by her mother, Nancy Moorad of Connecticut, sister Gail Fujisawa of Riverwoods, Ill., and brother Gregory Moorad of Oakland, Calif. Donations can be sent to Featherstone Center for the Arts, in care of the Dawn Greeley Memorial Garden, at P.O. Box 1145, Oak Bluffs, MA 02557.