The Gay Head Gallery, a fine art and photography gallery on State Road, located in the center of Aquinnah, is now open for the summer. This is the second season for the gallery which seeks to promote issues of conservation and sustainability. Several shows are planned for this summer that will integrate art with environmental concerns and issues. Shows also benefit featured non-profits.

Traeger di Pietro first started painting for love. He was 15; she was artsy and he was a jock, a baseball player. He knew her ex-boyfriend had painted her things and he wanted to impress her too. His first paintings were small still lifes of flowers and roses.

“I never stopped, I just kept going and going,” he said. Now he’s a full-fledged member of the Island arts scene, and has received acclaim from art collectors and artists alike.

Dana Nunes perched naked on a pedestal of pillows and blankets inside a studio at Featherstone Center for the Arts.

“I get a kick out of the flea market go-ers who look through the window and back up . . . and then look again,” she said.

Ms. Nunes was the model for the Tom Maley Life Drawing class which last Tuesday morning was experiencing another full house, as the flea market was in bloom right outside the doors.

Class facilitator Anne Gallagher asked everyone to make room for old and new faces alike.

Those attending the Arts Stroll in Oak Bluffs tomorrow, July 14, can expect paintings, sculptures and prints, naturally. But be prepared for capes and crowns, too.

Lucinda Sheldon of Lucinda’s Enamels, located at 11 Vineyard avenue, has dedicated a whole corner of her studio to decorative fabric capes and complementary felt crowns.

“I’m an artist,” she said, looking at her collection of fantasy costumes for kids, “But I’m also a grandmother.”

Ray Ellis has been painting for over 70 years, much of it on the Vineyard. This year one of his paintings was auctioned off for $120,000 at the Taste of the Vineyard fundraiser for the Martha’s Vineyard Preservation Trust. Two years ago at the same event, a painting by Mr. Ellis went for $250,000. Last year, his tie was bought for $150,000. To hear him talk will only cost $75.

Arts Crawl

The Arts District on Dukes County avenue in Oak Bluffs invites everyone to crawl with them evert Thursday evenings in July. All the galleries will stay open late for lingering over art with the artists, gallery owners and friends.

First evening crawl is this Thursday, July 5.

The art of Lyn Hinds is on display at the West Tisbury Library for the month of May and an opening reception will be held on Friday, May 11, at 4 p.m. at the library.

Ms. Hinds studied at the University of Connecticut and the University of Hartford Art School. Her work has been exhibited at the New Haven Paint and Clay Club Show, Works by Artists of New England and New York, the Connecticut Woman Artists, Inc.Show (Best In show Award), Dragonfly Gallery and the Hermine Merel Smith Fine Art Gallery.

Alida O’Loughlin is the featured artist this month for the Vineyard Haven Library’s Art of the Stacks program.

Ms. O’Loughlin is a photographer who went public with her calling late in life; she showed her work for the first time when she was over 70 years old. Since then she has made up for lost time and in 2003 won first prize for professional photography in both the landscape and seascape categories at the Martha’s Vineyard Agricultural Fair.

Museum Opens Theatre Exhibit

Martha’s Vineyard is, of course, known for its beaches and endless summer breezes. But it is also known for its theatre; after all, the Island has been a haven for artists for, well, what do you think those whalers did for fun?

The Virginia Weston Besse Gallery at Featherstone Center for the Arts is hosting an exhibit called the Martha’s Vineyard Artists of The Copley Society. The exhbit runs from July 1 through July 18, with an opening reception held on Sunday, July 1, from 4 to 6 p.m.

Participating artists are Leslie Baker, Laurene Krasny Brown, Stephanie Danforth, Mary French, Nancy Furino, Anne Grandin, Barbara Leiner, Meg Mercier, Jessica Pisano, Rosalie Shane, Jeanne Staples, Max Stern and Ovic Ward.