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.

Washashore Art

One clever way to clean up a beach is to collect trash and turn it into art. That’s what artist and art teacher Wendy Shalen did, using found floating debris from beaches on the Vineyard, Long Island and Florida as subject matter for her handmade paper seascapes. The series is called Washed Ashore, and was recently exhibited at the Pound Ridge Library in New York.

The images show the closeness of nature and material culture. Garbage can be collected on some beaches as easily as drift wood.

Rose Abrahamson has a history of saying this is her last art show. Who can blame her? After all, she is 90 years old. But thankfully, thus far, she has not made good on her promise.