A Lifetime of Art, a retrospective exhibit celebrating more than 50 years of impressionistic art from the estate of the late regional artist Jean Van Vliet Spencer.
The show — open Saturday, August 23, at the Trinity United Methodist Parish Hall in Oak Bluffs from 4 to 7 p.m. — will feature paintings ranging from the artist’s early works of Mexico, Provincetown and Europe, through her most memorable works completed during the time she spent at Martha’s Vineyard and New York city.
Strollers along Edgartown’s Dock street who would like to pause for awhile and watch the Chappy ferry come and go, can now sit on a brand new bench outside the Old Sculpin Gallery. It was dedicated last Sunday to Fred and Jane Messersmith of DeLand, Fla. and Edgartown for their decades of service to the gallery. And it was dedicated on the opening day of Mr. Messersmith’s retrospective show of watercolors of Edgartown streets and Island shores.
Caroline Hunter opens up a binder densely packed with years of newspaper clippings, decades-old photos, letters and other paper mementos. Beside her is a stack of books marked with dozens of blue Post-it notes. The meticulous bookkeeping is not a hobby. And though the man to whom these records pertain is Caroline’s late husband, Ken Williams, this scrapbook filled with Ken’s work, and articles and books mentioning him, is not a memorial: for Caroline, it is a civic responsibility.
The Field Gallery will host a Cancer Support Group benefit exhibition, with a free public reception on Sunday, August 24, from 5 to 7 p.m.
This is the seventh year that the gallery has hosted a benefit to aid local causes. A portion of the proceeds from sales of original art work will benefit the Martha’s Vineyard Cancer Support Group, a nonprofit that helps Islanders living with cancer.
Artists represented include Ben Johnson, Janet Woodcock, Jhenn Watts and Marlee Brewster Brockman. Artwork also can be viewed and purchased online atfieldgallery.com.
The Carol Craven Gallery presents an exhibition of recent watercolors by Vineyard artist Gretchen Feldman. This is Mrs. Feldman’s fifth show with the gallery, and her vibrant watercolors continue to grow in their complexity. There also will be a poster of one of her paintings for sale with all proceeds going to benefit Memorial Sloan Kettering Hospital in New York city.
The opening reception is this Sunday, August 24, from 5 to 7 p.m. at the gallery on Breakdown Lane in Vineyard Haven. The public is welcome.
Featherstone Center for the Arts announces the opening of a retrospective of the work of Dorothy Burnham, an artist who flourished both in New York and on the Vineyard.
Ms. Burnham began her artistic career in oil and acrylic with some watercolor. In the 1980s she became intrigued with collage and continues to work in that medium today. This retrospective of her work is primarily examples of her collage efforts and includes work inspired by her travels to Mali, Tanzania, Zimbabwe, Senegal, Kenya and Nigeria.