Martha’s Vineyard Insight and Imagination | Early Summer 201 2 | $ 4
Martha’s Vineyard
Arts & Ideas Celebrating Our Creative Island
New Generation
Imagine
Talking with Trudy Taylor
Sun As Electricity
How Creativity Works
Interconnected Life
Amelia Smith
Jonah Lehrer
Patrick Phillips
LLOYD KELLY
“Juillet en Provence”
40 x 48 oil on canvas
“Recent Paintings of Provence” July 5 - 20, 2012
ARTIST’S RECEPTION July 12 6:00 - 8:00 pm
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THE CHRISTINA GALLERY On The Island Of Martha’s Vineyard
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32 North Water Street Edgartown, MA 02539 508.627.8794 800.648.1815 www.christina.com Open Year Round
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Martha’s Vineyard
Arts & Ideas
Publisher & Editor
Patrick Phillips Art Director
Malcolm Grear Designers Poetry Editor
Jennifer Tseng Associate Photo Editor
Tova Katzman Ad Director
Molly Purves Ad Sales: molly@mvartsandideas.com Contact
Arts & Ideas PO Box 1410 West Tisbury, MA 02575 art@mvartsandideas.com 508.293.1693
About Arts & Ideas, INc.
Arts & Ideas print and digital magazine is published by Arts and Ideas, Inc., a Martha’s Vineyard publishing company. A&I’s uses media to engage all people who live here and who come here in the arts and ideas that help our community thrive. A&I is available for $4 per magazine, $22 for a one-year subscription (four issues) and $40 for two years (eight issues). Subscribers outside the U.S. must provide $15 per year for international postage. Subscribe to Arts & Ideas at www. mvartsandideas.com/store/subscribeto-arts-and-ideas. You will receive one of the most beautiful magazines anywhere, while you support our highly imaginative island community. p h oto ( l e f t )
Neal Rantoul O n t h e C o v e r ( L e f t to R ig h t )
Gretchen Feldman, Fat Cells II Neal Rantoul, Elizabeth Island Series Kenneth Vincent, Last Boat Lloyd Kelly, Pink Tree Tova Katzman, Trudy Taylor
Editor’s Letter
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snow fence in september Top Left, Clockwise Sam Low, Richard Koury, Richard Koury, Susan Savory
his summer A & I will publish three magazines loosely based on two themes: imagination and resilience. These are big, broad themes that touch us all. From my perspective the ideas of imagination and resilience come with a question: How do we
as individuals and a community imagine and create new things, and how do we respond to shock? This summer we won’t so much try to answer these questions as we will share the evidence of imagination and resilience found
healthcare. Imagination gives us bounce, relieves stress in reflection and in the act of creation. A & I won’t fix things, but by
here. This evidence is in each of us: In the life of a ninety-year-old.
surfacing and celebrating our imagination and resilience as a
In the loss of a loved one. In an innovative response to the cost of
community we hope to help us imagine.
fossil fuel. In imagining geologic time and glaciers. And, of course in imagination made evident in full through the arts. The reason behind these themes is straightforward. Imagination is essential. It’s on par with knowledge, food, clothing, money.
In this issue, Trudy Taylor shares her infinitely curious self. Sarah Das talks about the Laurentide and Greenland ice sheets. Sam Feldman, Sandy Broyard and others discuss grief and recovery from the loss of loved ones. We also look at the prospects
It carries us to the moon, to ancient China, to cures for cancer.
for solar energy and the potential to generate our own renewable
With it we make simple, tasty meals. Most of all, imagination
energy. We even draw on a national author to share his ideas
carries us beyond limits, and in limiting times that’s important.
on imagination and how creativity works.
This fits perfectly in these pages. The arts work hand in hand
Perhaps most important and relevant, imagination and
with our community’s health. They strengthen our imagination,
resilience are essential aspects of island life. They take on
so we might better overcome the collapse of the housing market
particular social value and meaning here in people’s make do,
or another spike in the price of oil, the cost and practice of
bring forth, create and recreate a life approach. Life on the margin does that. And, whether people are wealthy or struggling on this island living here is creative; it points to possibilities, to bounce and imagination. Here’s an opportunity to celebrate that, all summer. Patrick Phillips — Publisher & Executive Editor
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CONTENTS 30
F eat ur es 1 4
Talking with Trudy Tailor Interconnected life might be the measure of each of us, our curiosity, our fascination with the known and unknown. Trudy Tailor talks and shares a some of her life and connections as an endlessly curious person on this planet.
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Loss, Grief and Life Confounded by grief people are literally at a loss, for everything. The return from despair can be long, and the return always takes different paths. Sandy Broyard, Sam Feldman and George Cohn reflect on grief, bereavement and recovery and what the process may mean for others.
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New Generation Imagination is one measure of resilience and building a solar array in a grocery store parking lot takes imagination. With a new focus clean, local energy, the history of generated electricity here takes a new turn, and current solar projects redefine how collaboration could create an island-wide renewable energy utility.
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8 Eye on arts
D epa rt men ts
Brief takes on gallery openings, performances and Island art events. 1 1 Island Mosaic
The Chicken Alley Thrift Shop is a treasure of finds, people and a testament to resilience. Artist profiles 1 2 Lloyd Kelly 20 Antoinnette Noble 30 Ketz
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3 8 Kenneth Vincent 4 8 Jessica Pisano
Artist Portraits
2 7 Marston Clough 35 Barney Zeitz 45 Julia Kidd 5 6 Heather Goff 5 4 Susan Savory
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poetry 1 8 Jorie Graham 36 Kathy Garlick 5 2 Sarah Gambito
Essays 26 Disintegration / Integration Demaris Wehr’s final, transformative conversations with her dying husband. 5 1 The Nature of Nurture
Polly Hill’s “natural selection” turns out-of-zone seeds into hardy beauty. visiting artist 40 Camille Seaman With essay by Sarah Das Climate and ice sheets connect Greenland with Martha’s Vineyard.
fiction 28 Amelia Smith — Dreamscape: The Elizabeth Islands The Elizabeth Island are visually near, but form a landscape of the mind. 3 7 Laura Wainwright — Evening Watch An evening home alone brings an expansive world from the chair on the porch.
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50 Emily Cavanaugh — Mia Not even two days old, a twin saves her sister’s life.
non-fiction 3 2 Jonah Lehrer — Imagine The sublimity and the science of how letting go allows us to grasp how musicians and our brains bring beauty into the world. 46 Edward Hoagland — Alaskan Travels In cold, cold Alaska, an adventure where the human, and the man survives in a desolate boundary of nature and life. 5 9 Individual Artisan and Artist Guide 60 Gallery Guide 64 Advertiser Guide
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CONTRIBUTORS Amelia Smith writes on — and sometimes
Jeanne Campbell “I have been a part-time
Lloyd Kelly has been exhibited extensively in
about — Martha’s Vineyard. She is taking a hiatus from ‘round-the-world travels to garden, raise children, and do some writing.
islanders for forty-five years. As a photographer, I am an unofficial record keeper, helping our children and their children remember and feel what it is about the place that keeps us all coming back, year after year.” Page 11
galleries and museums in the United States, Europe, Mexico, Russia and Asia. He has been a summer visitor to the Martha’s Vineyard for years and lives in the Louisville, Kentucky area. Page 12
art and the creative process from as far back as I can remember. It has been a journey filled with experimentation, discovery and adventure. Page 20
Jessica Pisano grew up on the Vineyard,
Barney Zeitz has lived and worked on Martha’s Vineyard for forty years doing his art in glass, metal and drawing. He has tried to live a full life by trying different interests, 10 years of modern dance, 10 years of aikido (martial art), motorcycling, raising kids, being married, and traveling.
Marnie Stanton is a long time Tisbury resident who raised her kids on Lake Tashmoo. Her love of nature with a particular emphasis on island waters, is repeatedly expressed through her art and videography. Page 51
Page 48
Page 28 and 42
Antoinette Noble “I’ve been a student of
has a BA in Fine Art from Lewis & Clark College in Portland, OR, and a Masters in Arts Administration from the Art Institute of Chicago. She currently lives in Newport, RI.
Jorie Graham is the author of twelve collec-
tions, including “The Dream of the Unified Field”, which was awarded the Pulitzer Prize. She lives in Cambridge, Massachusetts, and teaches at Harvard University. Page 18
Page 35
Julia Kidd has maintained a private Camille Seaman was born in 1969 to a
Native American (Shinnecock tribe) father and African American mother. She lives in Emeryville, California and works in a documentary / fine art tradition. Since 2003 has concentrated on the fragile environment of the Polar Regions. Page 40 Demaris Wehr, Ph.D., lives with her Maine
coon cat “Mikey” in West Tisbury, where she has a small private psychotherapy practice. She is currently writing two books: a memoir of the final year she shared with her husband, Dr. David Hart, and one that chronicles the lives of eight survivors of the war in Bosnia. Page 26
Don McKillop left a senior corporate position in global technology and information systems to become a full-time artist in the early 90s. He has been painting for over 50 years. Page 54
Emily Cavanagh lives on Martha’s Vineyard with her family and teaches English at the Martha’s Vineyard Public Charter School. Her stories have been published in Grain Magazine, Transfer, and Red Rock Review. She is at work on a second novel. Page 50 Heather Goff lives in Oak Bluffs with her husband, artist Andrew Moore, their children, and their dog. She is the lead programmer and designer at goffgrafix, a website design company. Page 56
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Psychotherapy practice in Vineyard Haven since moving to Martha’s Vineyard in 2001. She holds an MFA from California Institute for the Arts. “I got all your messages and loved every one.” is her first public art project. Page 45
Marston Clough “I studied and taught science for years and find that art, like science, is a continual search. Through art, I have joined the Board of Featherstone and other local non-profits, re-engaging with the community where I was born and raised.” Page 27 Neal Rantoul is a career artist and educator. Recently retired from 30 years as head of the Photo Program at Northeastern University in Boston. He is the author of several books of his photographs. Neal Rantoul was featured in the second issue of Art & Ideas as a “Visiting Artist.” Page 28
Kathy Garlick’s chapbook, “The Listening World,” was published by Momotombo Press. She lives in Oakland, CA and teaches in San Francisco. Page 36
Sam Low is a photographer, journalist and writer who lives on Martha’s Vineyard.
Kenneth Vincent I paint because I have to.
at Woods Hole Oceanographic Institute (WHOI) on a number of research project on Greenland. She conceives of projects and submit projects to funding agencies and then manages them. Page 40
I paint the Vineyard because it is a major part how I have learned to perceive the world and I think my work reflects this. To be honest I don’t like to be an artist. Its a really crap way to live a life, and I am certain that anyone with any sense would avoid the profession. Page 38
Ketz Weiler Discrete personal experiences with abstraction are far more potent when kept unrevealed. I enjoy blurring lines of composition and setting up unique interactions with art. Page 30 Laura Wainwright, a graduate of Yale University, was a teacher and children’s librarian before becoming a writer. Her essays have appeared regularly in The Martha’s Vineyard Times. She lives in Lambert’s Cove with her husband, Whit Griswold; they have two grown children. Page 37
Page 3 and 54
Sarah Das serves as PI Principle Investigator
Sarah Gambito is the author of the poetry
collections “Delivered” (Persea Books) and “Matadora” (Alice James Books). She is Assistant Professor of English and Director of Creative Writing at Fordham University. Page 52
Susan Davy is a photographer who retired
from a career as a senior non-profit professional at the Isabella Stewart Gardner Museum, the Peabody Essex Museum, and the New England Conservatory of Music. Page 54 Susan Savory is a writer, illustrator and
photographer who supports her arts habit with a day-job as the children’s buyer at Bunch of Grapes Bookstore. Page 3 and 54
EYE ON ARTS “Summer Reflection” New works by Carol Rowan, Robert Jewett, Tim Coy and Maya Farber with live music by Wes Nagy June 27– July 18 Artist Reception Friday, July 6, 6–8 pm Carol Rowan will give an Artist Talk, Thursday, July 5 , 5 pm
FEATHERSTONE GRANARY GALLERY
The Granary Gallery organizes events for several other galleries across the island, including the Field Gallery and the North Water Gallery. Events for the beginning of the summer include the following:
THE LOUISA GOULD GALLERY
The Louisa Gould Gallery is an award winning gallery celebrating its 10th Summer Season with a wide range of artists and art. The Gallery represents 30 artists both national and international emerging and well-known in their respective fields. The hand selected artwork ranges from paintings, mixed media, new media, sculpture, furniture, ceramics, jewelry, works on paper, photography and ship models to glass sculptures. The Gallery hosts rotating shows throughout the summer and fall seasons.
“Memorial Day Group Show” Featuring the work of Chris Pendergast, Lesile Self, Thanassi, Warren Gaines, Janet Woodcock, Paul Beebe, Louisa Gould, Tim Coy, Debra Gaines, John Holladay, Debra Colligan and Donna Blackburn Ongoing exhibit in early June
Artists’ Reception Barry Rockwell, Kate Madsen, Heidi Lang-Parrinello & Wendy Lichtensteiger Sunday, June 17, 5–7 pm DRAGONFLY FINE ARTS GALLERY
Dragonfly Fine Arts Gallery, an award winning gallery located on Martha’s Vineyard, celebrates its 19 th Anniversary Season in 2012 with 30 new and returning artists, a broad selection of work in various media, and our always exceptional client services. We look forward to seeing you at the Gallery throughout the season.
Artists’ Reception David Fokos, Gigi Horr-Liverant, Don Wilks & Heather Neill Sunday, July 15 , 5–7 pm
Opening Reception “Across the Pond and Back” works by Inas Al-soqi and Marshall Pratt Sunday, June 10, 4–6 pm Opening Reception Martha’s Vineyard Artists of the Copley Society Sunday, July 1 , 4–6 pm Vineyard Stories Book Launch Party Where Horses Fly Sunday, July 8 , 4–6 pm Musical Mondays 6:30–8 pm on the outdoor stage
The Tashmoo Trio featuring Christine McLean, Chris Seidel & Penny Huff June 18 Jon Zeeman & Friends June 25
Featured Artists
Joanne Cassidy July 2
Nora Rosenbaum Thursday, June 14 Laura Wilk Thursday, June 21
Tristan Israel, Nancy Jephcote & Paul Thurlow July 9
Nan Hass Feldman Thursday, June 28
Kevin Keady July 16
“Island Contemporary” Featuring artists Carol Gove, Vaclav Vytlacill, Ethel Grodsky, Suzanne Hill, Genevieve Jacobs June 13–26
Peter Batchelder Thursday, July 5
Artist Reception Saturday, June 16 , 5–7 pm
Jessica Pisano Thursday, July 12 ARTS District STROLL
Thursday, July 14, 4–7 pm Artist Jessica Pisano will be in attendance.
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Artists’ Reception Alison Shaw, Kenneth Vincent, David Wallis & Dan West Sunday, July 1, 5–7pm
Opening Reception “The Art of iPhone Photography” Sunday, June 10, 4–6 pm
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KARA TAYLOR
Kara Taylor Fine Arts Gallery is located on Main Street, Vineyard Haven. In the summertime the gallery is open 11 am–6 pm, Tuesday–Sunday.
Opening Reception Case History June 1 , 5–8 pm
Featherstone Flea & Fine Arts Markets Every Tuesday, 9:30 am–2 pm The Pathways/Featherstone Summer Festival of Poetry Poets Laureate: Dan Waters, Fan Ogilvie, Justen Ahren & Steve Ewing Tuesday, July 17, 7 pm
EYE ON ARTS In the Community Museum Summer Opening Reception Friday, June 15 Museum Author Talk “Dorothy West’s Paradise” Thursday, June 21 Martha’s vineyard museum
The Martha’s Vineyard Museum is dedicated to furthering an interest in, experience of, and appreciation for the history and culture of the Island and its environs.
Museum Author Talk “Thomas Hart Benton: A Life” Tuesday, June 5 In the Community 5th Annual Lighthouse Challenge Saturday, June 9 Museum Shipwrecks Lecture “Disaster Off Martha’s Vineyard: The Sinking Of The City Of Columbus” Tuesday, June 12
Museum Special Event 2nd Annual Vineyard Haven House Tour Saturday, June 23 Lecture “Historic Vineyard Haven Architecture” Saturday, June 23, 11am Stone Church: 89 William Street, Vineyard Haven (corner of Church Street). Patron Tickets: Enjoy a patron’s brunch from 9:30–11 am, receive admission to the lecture, and enjoy the tour. $100 per person. Call 508-627-4441 x110 .
Museum Shipwrecks Lecture “In the Wake of Kon Tiki: Thor Heyerdahl and AndeanPolynesian Contact” Tuesday, June 26 Museum Special Event 14th Annual Evening of Discovery Saturday, June 30 Museum Special Event Dr. Stuart Frank and Mary Malloy present “Vineyard Sailor Ballads” Tuesday, July 10 Museum Special Event David Murphy presents Stanley Murphy artwork Thursday, July 12 Museum Book Launch: “To the Harbor Light: Lighthouses of Martha’s Vineyard, Nantucket, and Cape Cod” Tuesday, July 17
VINEYARD ARTISANS FESTIVALs 15 th Annual Summer Festivals Sundays: June 10 –September 30 Thursdays: July 5 –August 30 Grange Hall, West Tisbury 10 am–2 pm each day
Representing over 120 Island Artists & Artisans. All hand made fine art and craft exclusively by Island Artists. Catered food from Chesca’s of Edgartown. Free admission Rain or shine with Great Food and Free Parking! For more information: www.vineyardartisans.com
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EYE ON ARTS
Martha’s vineyard film festival
CHRISTINA GALLERY
The Christina Gallery will feature as part of its 2012 Summer Exhibition schedule, an extensive collection of Works on Paper by many celebrated artists including Camille Pissarro and Family, James Jacques Tissot, Mary Cassatt, Pierre-Auguste Renoir, and many others. The collection includes watercolors, drawings aquatints, etchings, pochoirs and original lithographs from the late 1800 ’s through the mid 1900 ’s. Please visit the gallery, which is located in the historic district of downtown Edgartown, to view this wonderful collection in person. The Christina Gallery 32 North Water Street Edgartown, MA 02539 508-627-8794
Summer Film Series June 27 –August 30 PIKNIK PIKNIK Art & Apparel is pleased to be welcoming several new and talented artist to the roster this season. Among them are Ketz Weiler...seen in this issue and the wonderful folk art paintings of Carl Ristaino. Vineyard son Max Decker is planning on picking up “the brush” after a two year break to pursue his music career in Brooklyn, and many Vineyard fans are anxiously awaiting his new work. Curator Michael Hunter will be splitting his time this summer between his new Edgartown location, while still supporting the events and strolls in The Arts District, as well as many new, and as yet nailed down events of music, fashion, and art in Edgartown.
Bringing you the best films in the world and combining them with filmmaker discussions, fresh local food, and live music, all within a laid-back community atmosphere. Screenings begin at 8 pm Arrive early to enjoy dinner & live music. Marina Abramovic: The Artist is Present Wednesday, June 27 The Chilmark Community Center Thursday, June 28 The Harbor View Hotel in Edgartown Under African Skies Monday, July 2 The Chilmark Community Center
CINEMA CIRCUS SCHEDULE
Starting June 27 The Martha’s Vineyard Film Festival catapults into another summer of Cinema Circus! The Cinema Circus “little big top” is open to all. Let the kid in you explore! Films are most appropriate for ages 3–10 . Visit www.tmvff.org for a full schedule
Upcoming Shows Wednesday, June 27 The Chilmark Community Center Monday, July 2 The Chilmark Community Center Wednesday, July 11 The Chilmark Community Center Wednesday, July 18 The Chilmark Community Center
Beasts of The Southern Wild Tuesday, July 10 Capawock in Vineyard Haven This screening is FREE for members! Chasing Ice Wednesday, July 18 The Chilmark Community Center Thursday, July 19 The Harbor View Hotel in Edgartown Visit www.tmvff.org for full schedule.
Special Membership Screening The Intouchables Friday, June, 8 pm
North Water Gallery
Coffee & Conversation with Ray Ellis Saturday July 7 , 10–11:30 am Artists’ Reception Traeger di Pietro, Ken Otsuka & Jim Holland Thursday, July 12 , 5–7 pm
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Field Gallery
Artists’ Reception Jhenn Watts, Kenneth Pillsworth & Jeff Hoerle Sunday, June 24 , 5–7 pm Artists’ Reception Eva Cincotta & Craig Mooney Sunday, July 8 , 5–7 pm
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The Capawock Theater Main Street, Vineyard Haven Tickets: Free for MVFF members, $9 for non-members. Seats on a first come first served basis. Nonmember tickets and memberships will be sold at the door.
davis house gallery
The Davis House Gallery Hours June: Saturdays and Sundays, 1–6pm July: Thursday–Saturday, 1–6pm
i s l and M o s aic
Jeanne Campbell —The Chicken Alley Thrift Shop Does not sell chickens, does not sell eggs
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mong the hundreds of items available at Chicken Alley: clothing furniture, books, dishes, glassware — small electrical appliances, vases, there is most especially a welcoming warmth, friendship and pride. For many residents of this small island the Thrift Shop is the first place to look for a warm jacket for a grandchild and an almost-new winter coat for a grandmother who generally goes without. “I come in almost every day, and I always find something we need and can use”, she said. “Besides, the folks who work here have become my friends. People I can talk to.” Phronsie Conlin has been a volunteer for close to twenty years. “I look forward to my time here,” she said. I meet people from all over the island. It’s like a social club working with friends and customers who come in almost daily who have become friends. What we do here is appreciated, and at my age — ninety two, that feels very good. Plus we know we are doing good for our island and people.” Other islanders find other reasons for stopping in at the large blue building on Lagoon Pond Road in Vineyard Haven. Viet Bachellor, Chairman of the Board of Directors of Martha’s Vineyard Community services has many occasions when she has to look her best. “The most elegant piece of clothing I own came from the Thrift Shop — a leather jacket I could not have afforded in an expensive shop off island. Every time I wear it, I receive compliments. And yes! I proudly tell people where it came from. “When my husband and I first moved to Vineyard Haven in 1969,” she continued, “the very first piece of furniture we bought was an old seaman’s chest from the Thrift Shop. It’s still one of our most prized possessions. Now I come in fairly often to look for unusual vases and other containers for flower arrangements for the Garden Club shows. I don’t go off island often and the Thrift Shop has become the first place many of us year round islanders go to.” It’s the first place others head to for the warmth of friendly human contact, knowing they are welcome to browse or just come in, out of the cold. Sandy Pratt, busy manager, takes time to talk to me. “The Thrift Shop supports the Community
Services organization, but is itself, unofficially an important community relations destination. There are lonely people, elderly, often living alone who stop by almost every day. The staff and I get to know them. If a few days go by and he or she doesn’t come in, one of us will call and checkup. A gentleman, bringing in clothing that belonged to a family member, needs time to express his feelings. We don’t take time; we give it.” It was my neighbor, Olga Hirshorn, ultimate thrift shop browser, who recognized the value of several donated art pieces, and came up with the idea of an annual art show. She gave the show its name, and began showcasing paintings, sculpture, photography, valuable first edition books, and other pieces of art, making the weekend in August a collector’s destination — bringing $40,000 to $50,000 to Community Services. In this sputtering economy, the Thrift Shop is a thread that weaves residents and visitors to each other and so to the island itself. Islanders have depended on the shop since 1962 — when it opened on Main Street, and more so now on Lagoon Pond Road in a roomier building where more people can come in, where strollers, cribs, and car seats, bicycles, and kayaks, tennis racquets and even wedding dresses are attractively displayed. I like to think of the Thrift Shop as a typical, yet unique island resource. I bring in household and clothing I no longer use. I take home household and clothing items someone else no longer uses — I feel pride and excitement in finding something I truly want. I’m also indirectly donating to Martha’s Vineyard Community Services, which contributes to the daily lives of hundreds of islanders. (Last year alone the Thrift Shop contributed over $380,000.00 to Community Services.) The Thrift Shop is daily proof of the resilient spirit of Islanders, rising to address community needs, each one of us contributing, discovering and adapting to what’s made available at “Chicken Alley”— and, for all generations here it’s also cool to be thrifty.
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A rti st p ro f i l e
Born of Abstraction Contemporary Realist With Hidden Balance
Lloyd Kelly B o r n o f Ab st r act i o n
My paintings are not about what is depicted. They come from within. They are born of emotions, experiences and concepts which surface subconsciously, and consciously. Utilizing opposites, the paintings attract, repel, create tension and come to a resolution through visual dialogue and interaction with the viewer.
C o n t em p o r a ry Re a l i st
This is a high wire act. Could be dismissed at a glance as trite, nothing new, decorative and illustrative. This is dangerous territory for someone who claims to be post modern. I balance the yin and yang of conceptual
Cupcakes, oil on canvas, 21 x 24”
abstraction and the use of conventional images and motifs that are accessible and familiar.
Exactitude is not truth — Matisse
A Story A woman from a Massachusetts first family invited me for tea at her Vineyard cottage. She said “Mr. Kelly, don’t get me wrong, I love your painting…” an opening every artist finds uncomfortable… “I bought your painting to match my chintz, which it does perfectly — I realize one is not supposed to do that sort of thing. But I must say, that painting is doing something in my sitting room. I can’t stop looking at it. This is some sort of Trojan Horse; I fear something is creeping out. Can you explain it?”
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Pink Tree, oil on canvas, 17 x 17"
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St. Remy de Provence, oil on canvas, 45 x 49"
Asy mme t r i ca l o r O cc u lt Ba l a n c e
Asymmetry has a way of inviting the spectator to participate in offbeat rhythms, elastic tempos, tensions, and the internal life of the design. The word occult denotes secretiveness, mystery, and there is something that wants to escape us in fine examples of this kind of hidden balance. Some of these are to be found in ancient Chinese and Japanese pairings, in the art of Japanese flower arranging and in the art of the Japanese garden.
There is no excellent beauty that hath not some strangeness in the proportion — Francis Bacon (essayist)
>> Christina Gallery website: www.christina.com Artist website: www.lloydkelly.com
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“Madame, I Have No Idea” Talking with Trudy Taylor This conversation took place April 19 , 2012 at Trudy Taylor’s small cape off Stonewall Beach in Chilmark. In earlier conversations she and I had wandered around the riches of memory, knowledge and curiosity. Trudy possesses interconnected sparks of life that take a conversation easily from a flower or a bird to the sun and back, in a blink. She told a story once of having “baptized” her children in Walden Pond, soon before they all moved to North Carolina from Massachusetts. She said, “They were all in their little swim trunks. One of them found a coke bottle, another a dollar bill.” Of course, with everything interwoven in Trudy’s mind and body, in her person, Thoreau is but a small, ironic step away. His ability to take walks, to teach us about nature, society and life is with her, her kids, and now with this conversation maybe a few more people. — Patrick Phillips
Patrick Phillips Trudy, last week you said to me you felt every cell in our bodies knows the sun. What did you mean by that? Trudy Taylor I feel that everything, all the cells in our bodies,
are there for a purpose. For some, you may wonder... (laughs) But all the cells fulfill some purpose. They are designated to be heart cells or brain cells or tooth cells, or skin cells or eye cells when they are very, very tiny. So, to me they have to know the sun because the sun is what allows us to live. If we have a huge surprise by an asteroid or something that bangs into the earth like the one that killed off the dinosaurs, if we had another one of those and it was dark for ten years because of the debris in the air, it would stop the sun from coming to the surface of the planet. It would create an environment in which we couldn’t live. Some other form of life would live through it and develop in a different way. So we are totally dependent upon the sun. It’s so fascinating. Animals know when to hibernate. A bear goes into hibernation, and when she’s pregnant and lies underground in a semi-comatose condition, while she develops her new bears inside and delivers them in an almost comatose condition — that’s all because of the sun and the length of the day, and she knows all that on some level. If you’re an animal all the cells are tuned into the sun. We don’t think about it.
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The plants all respond to it. There’s an interesting editorial in the New York Times about the plants and Thoreau. The plants are all timing themselves in a different way because of the warming of the planet, the changes in the planet. Some are blooming earlier in the spring and some are blooming even earlier. It’s all so connected. The birds fly up here because they know they’re going to have the blossoming and the new insects and something to eat... How do they know all that? It’s all in the cellular level at some point. They don’t think about it. PP I was watching something last night and they were talking about sentience, or awareness. And even small multicellular organisms have awareness. They bounce off things and move away. Attracting and repelling. Trudy Taylor They know why they are here. But, they don’t
think about it... And we don’t either... (laughter.) We say, Oh, I have to go to the post office. We have to open the sliding glass door, which is having trouble, and you have to close the door properly. And you have to walk out into the garden and be aware, or partially aware, of what’s going on there, and without asking the birds start singing, as if they are singing for me. And I start thinking about the birds. And I get in the car and go to the post office. There are a couple of aging people.
I intentionally make my mind go cheerful to greet them. “Hey Jack.” I think about all these things as I go along through the day, but my whole physiology has a life of its own. I mean, it tells me, ‘You’re sleepy, it’s time to go to bed.” You’re functioning on so many cellular levels, I call it. It’s a different part of you. Since you’ve been in utero they have been timed to do their function. A scientist once told me that when you are having a heart attack you can have pains in different places. And the reason for that is that those areas were once heart cells, and they are in trouble. It might be part of your jaw that might have heart cells, or did in the very beginning of you, and they respond in very unusual ways when you are having a heart attack. Don’t you just wish you were a physiologist or a microbiologist!? I do! PP I wish my eyes could zoom. I wish I could see the bird close
up, and look at the reflection of its eye. I also wish I could see on a molecular level and see all the teeming bacteria on things. I wish that were not a guess. Trudy Taylor I knew that when I was ten. It came to be near
Christmas and someone asked me what I wanted for Christmas and I said I wanted a microscope. And my darling mother went out to find me a toy microscope, and I was terribly disappointed. Christmas was always a terrible let down for me. PP With the microscope, did you get a legitimate... Trudy Taylor Things were enlarged. I could look at textiles, or a
piece of my hair, or dust bunnies under my bed. I could hone in to get some magnification, but it would have been a good time for me to have start taking some science courses with a really good teacher. But, those are things you learn. Instead of studying a lot of science when I was ready for it in the beginning I was just incredibly curious. I filled up the science part of me by
looking at things intensely and wondering and reading about them. One educates oneself. PP Were you following the dictates of your cells, building the
sentient awareness, mindful and curious? Is curiosity innate? Trudy Taylor I don’t know whether it is or not, but it’s some-
thing that needs to be really treasured in the child if they are curious, instead of putting them off. If you’re curious, it’s an itch you have to find out. Sometimes when I travelled a lot I would go ostensibly to visit a friend in Hawaii who I met in Bali. I’d see as much as I could in a sensory way while I was in the Hawaiian islands — I’d rent a car and drive all around. I’d learn as much as I could. I’d be in touch with the social history and the ecological history and I’d talk to as many people as I could, kind of like a journalist, with curiosity about how the place evolved with people on it. I wanted to know it in a more personal way. Then when I’d get home here I’d go to the library and I’d bring home 3, 6 or whatever was there, fascinating books about whatever I could find. For example, about Elizabeth Bird travels around the Sandwich Islands. I wanted an in depth perception about everything. I knew when I was a little kid that I was okay, you know, being here. I belonged to the planet. That I felt related to everything and everybody on the planet. I knew that we are all of us capable of terrible things and beautiful things. I knew that we were related to all animals. I could just tell. You’re part of the planet. You belong on the planet. Everything about you is related to the planet. Everything. You are a huge percentage of water and bone and all of that is interconnected with other animals. We all came out of the planet. Unless we flew in from outer space. When I first went to the zoo in Boston when I was a little kid I was so amazed looking in the eyes of the chimpanzee.
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The chimpanzee was looking right back at me. I knew that we were connected, and the animal knew we were connected. It was a very big occasion for me. It taught me something amazing. When you’re a kid you get a burst of knowledge. Where does that understanding come from? You put it together in your mind somehow. Here is this creature that doesn’t look much like you, although the hands do and the eyes do, and their faces do in a way. Then you wonder what happened as we evolved and changed, what we did with the hair for instance. A chimpanzee’s hair. When you get chills, you get what I call duck bumps. You get cold and the little parts of your skin fluff up. If you had hair on you they’d be fluffing up the hair for insulation, like a bird when it gets cold. So we lost the hair but we still have the tools physiologically to keep us warm, to a point. I had an uncle named Nicholas who, when he was sixteen or so, froze to death on a salt marsh up in Newburyport. He froze because he made a couple of serious mistakes. It was near Christmas and he evidently shot a duck. It came down in the water in the middle of winter. So he naturally took a rowboat from shore, and went out. Whether he had one sculling oar or whether he had two they don’t know. He got caught in the podge, which is a word for ice floating out that was cracked up and floating out to the sea. He yelled from the river but it was a blizzard and no one could go out there. He managed to get the rowboat up into the salt marsh so he wouldn’t go out to the sea. He had a couple of matches and he tried to light a haystack on fire. My father found him, his brother, frozen into the marsh. So, I think about him once in awhile. The fact that my family lived on those meadows and fished and were there making a living, it connects me with that part of the world, of the land, that I miss very much. What you’re connected to and how you’re connected to the planet. PP There’s a kind of metaphor about your uncle being frozen
into the marsh. It’s similar to you seeing yourself in the eyes of a chimpanzee. Or what you were saying the last time we met that a flower is connected with everything. It’s not independent. Trudy Taylor Everything is connected and everything is changing
in a subtle and dramatic ways all the time, but all on a planetary scale. One of the great, huge mysteries that we’ll probably never know is what really goes on in the universe in this floating orgy of whatever it is out there. Sometimes I prefer to think that our little planet is flat. (Laughter.) It’s flat. That’s it. No more talk. (More laughter.) Once when I was in the middle of the Atlantic, I climbed up to the top of the main mast, and there, once again, you are learning something that you’ve never known before. And once you feel secure being there, and you know you’re not going to fall, you can look out and actually see ships going off the edge. You can really feel the curvature of your little planet. All those experiences put you on a footing.
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PP If we say that awareness is really a matter of knowing and responding to boundary in some way... Trudy Taylor To boundary I’m not sure, but I love thinking
about how the human being has evolved on the planet. The more complicated it becomes the more interested I am. For instance, I love the idea there may have been several different humanoids evolving on the planet. It’s just not, you know, simple... There were a lot of them. Were they melding? How did the different kinds of animals evolve? How related are we to the Neanderthals? I love the idea of the Neanderthals. The idea that my distant ancient forebears may have procreated... I mean I love that idea. PP That we were somehow connected to a different genetic make up, a different... Trudy Taylor ...way of survival. I mean anything you can tell
me you have found in the bottom of the deepest cave off the west coast of Africa. I would love to know who they were. I would love a little vignette, a little CD . What kind of music did they have? I’ve seen little horns and flutes and stuff made of bone. I suspect we had music millions of years ago that we could make. That we could tell jokes, and make jewelry. Make pictures of animals in caves. That so delights me. ‘Cause in one human lifetime it’s so brief, you can’t really see the movement of the species. But you can imagine it in your mind. PP What is that? As we move from curiosity to what we thinkis the object of curiosity, like the Neanderthals. What is that motivation to move from absence of understanding to understanding. Trudy Taylor You want to know more about yourself, maybe. PP Or is it a preexisting state of being human. That we find essential pleasure in sensing and feeling and understanding and sharing that grasp of something. Trudy Taylor It’s how we learn. It’s how we develop. We throw
ideas into the great melting pot and stir it around over and over and over again, until we get some awareness and belief that some of it really does apply to us, I think. PP Belief can lead to consciousness, or belief can lead to... Trudy Taylor Belief is not written in stone. It can be changed
and modified and chucked. It’s whatever sustains you in your spiritual life. Once I decided I was going to drive around America by myself to see what people in different areas believed in. It takes a long long time. I soon gave up on that, because you have to know people and get into them to let them tell you how they get their spiritual sustenance, just to stay alive. Some people told me they got sustenance from going down to the Battery in New York and putting their feet in the water, or listening to music, or they’d go out to Walden Pond. I got very
My Delights Thoughts on the Solstice, December 21 , 1996 Knowing my bones are the same stuff as the coral reefs, that my blood is of the ancient seas, that I share the same cells with all the animals, that I belong for this miraculous moment on this planet. Standing in the garden with the sea and horizon to steady me, with the garden of my world at my feet. Flowers, like some cats, purring at my knees. When I casually join a group of people and discover some of my children or grandchildren among them. From “My Delights,” a small chapbook drawn from Trudy Taylor’s journals
few people to think about it, if I dared ask the question. Americans I thought, as John Lennon was quoted as saying, “I went out to America but found that no one was home.” And I find that about Americans. PP What is that? Trudy Taylor I don’t know. I think that we’re such a young coun-
try and we’re such a melting pot of different cultures with different ideas and religions. In one way, the reason for our curiosity and our recklessness and our feeling that we can do whatever human beings can do, and do it better. When I first went to China, I saw people who came from a very, very different philosophy and very established civilization. Their attitude was very, very different, and their ideas were very, very different from ours. I could only think of one word — harmony. Couldn’t speak the language, but I felt very at ease and, in a queer way at home there. PP Was it because that centuries or millennia provide intercon-
nectedness as basis for... Trudy Taylor I’d have to go back again and back and back looking
for some explanation for how we are different and they appeared to be so at ease in their environment. And knew how to be there. PP What’s an example? Trudy Taylor For instance I was walking with a young inter-
preter down a side street in an ancient town, in probably Sujo somewhere. I came across a well in a community — not a monastery but something similar to that. And there were these older men, there was a roof over the well. These men were sitting around talking, as they often do in the countryside. My interpreter and I were walking slowly through this village. It was different, the look of that group of men, bonding to each other. They had old costumes on — faded blue or gray from the Revolution days. And I suspected they were of a cadre, or neighbors. I stopped and looked at the whole scene. They were sitting on a rise with a structure over it. I spoke to the translator. At that time the men looked up. I call them old men but they weren’t necessarily old. One of
them said some question. And he said to me “They are interested in why you are interested in them.” I said, “I just wondered how long people had been sitting around this well talking, and if this is the original well that served this community. How long have they been doing this?” He said that to these men, and one of them perked up and said, “How perceptive of her to even ask such a question. Yes, it’s the original well.” That was all. PP That’s just beautiful. Here’s something I’ve been reading. How John Coltrane would practice and practice and practice. Then he would get out on stage and create hours of beauty, coming out of him. Life is, if we are truly aware, much the same. That we practice and practice and practice and that we can have these moments where you’re able to ask this question. Because we live so brief a time our relationship to that practice of life... Trudy Taylor There’s no dress rehearsal for dying, and you’ve
always got dying looking at you, peeking around the fence at you. Life is never long enough, cause there’s so much you want to know and feel and so many things you want to try to experience and know more. I can’t imagine that anyone is satisfied with death and the prospect of death, unless you lose your cells and your brain isn’t functioning anymore. PP I guess what I’m saying is the clues to awareness to all of us are there all the time, if we remain curious... I like your socialanthropology. You just posit the question. Trudy Taylor I threw it all in. I’m very, very interested in any
community I’ve lived in. I like to learn about the geology and what happened in the past. I was once in Lugano with my kids in Italy, and I was trying to find out about how they could get little boats so they could row themselves around. They found condoms floating around in the water and asked “What is this mother? Do they come in different colors?” (Laughter) I went to the desk fairly soon after our arrival, and I said to the manager — “Did the glaciers go through here?” I was trying to picture this landscape, and he said, “Madame, I have no idea.” (Laughter.)
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p o e try
Jorie Graham — Of Inner Experience
Eyes shut I sense I am awakening & then I am
awake but
deciding to keep eyes shut, look at the inside, stay inside, in the long and dark of it,
if it were a garden what would I plant
in it, for now I am
alive I think I feel who among you will tell me
after all this time
the difference & yet again now I am alive & what does that mean lying here eyes
closed first winter morning coming on all round,
yes, this is the start of winter is what
my body
sensing a new dis-
equilibrium says, hypnotized, trembling with fiction, love, the sensation of time passing,
& fear of a-
temporality, & this is
the play of heaven the mind in-
side this body lying here still
alive for
now thinks—if you could only see my body and beyond me the three windows in the room
letting the uninvented
in—and how true it is
because of the closed
eyes on my human being lying there in the room glistening with plenitude, all conquest gone from the air—you could say here god owns everything, it is a discharge of duration,
the floor the panes the mirror the single stalk of
freesia the gilded frame the two lionclaw-footed chairs and the tree-knots
still in
the floors someone laid in 1890, the
wormholes here and there in them from those creatures’ work long ago, not long after the counter-revolution, the troubles—& the wreck here of consciousness—as long as the
person’s eyes
stay shut—beyond the limits of thought—(& who am I
then?)(& don’t go there says my hand as I need it, my
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hand, here in this
writing )—and yet
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I am also lying on the bed eyes closed
and keeping them so, god owes us
everything I
think from out here, there is not god I think lying in the non-dark of the mind, eyes
closed, hearing the crows rustling in
the nearest
trees, the hayfork in the next field—I want to pray says the person behind the eyes—you cannot do so I say with these fingers—I want to break the dark with the idea of God says the non-sleeping person on her back in the beginning of the 21st century, trying to hold onto duration which is slipping, slipping, as she speaks as I write, active translator, look
I can make a tale of the sinking sun I can begin
summer again here are its
swallows they have
just returned
look up—but no, they did not come back after that one year, we waited—but here they
are again, do not be
fooled, here, breaking their circles
across the evening air, and there is still sun up near the children’s bedtime, we still say
bedtime, it is a habit, and the bells
ring vespers, or the recording of it, and somewhere there must still be a crafty
animal digging a long tunnel under
this strange hard ground, finding some moisture in there, turning it, grain by grain,
perhaps there is still
the creature
which when it
was known
was known as
the blind mole
somewhere.
>> Author website: www.joriegraham.com
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A rti st p ro f i l e
Word Series: The Most Important Thought, mixed media on paper/panel, 30 x 40"
Antoinnette Noble I ’ v e bee n w r i t i n g j o u r n a l s — was encouraged to do it
after reading the artist’s way in 1993 . She suggested 3 pages every morning — in a kind of stream of consciousness style to clear the garbage out of your head, to clear the creative block. After I finished the book I kept writing journals daily. I can’t tell you how many journals I have — boxes and boxes. I then said, “Okay, I have to do something with the journals.” I was going to pack them up and get rid of them. Even though they were taking up all the room in the house I couldn’t throw them out. — I thought, Maybe I can take the words and do something with them to make them matter. Make MY life matter. They are my private journals. They’re not for reading, not public, not a story about my life. I liked the public private thing. So going back to the Artist’s Way, let me stay with the process of the book. I would take a few pages, not read them, tear them up, and work quickly. Just put them down and see what happens.
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Word Series: Fluttering Thoughts, mixed media on paper/panel, 30 x 40"
Initially, I used paper the size of notebook paper, so the scale of the paintings were kept close to the size of the paper. I created 30 to 40 pieces. But, it was not enough. I thought, “maybe I should read them, and not just tear them up. So, I started reading 2004 to see if the process of reading would change anything. I only read the amount I would tear up, glue it down spontaneously and see what came out. As I worked, the defined lines of the page would keep the chaos within the defined limit. The contrast between the words could be disturbing and could be presented as a calm painting There is a flux between words and painting, and that is my current process and situation. I’m an intuitive person, but know the journal was directing me in some way — it created a life in art. I needed to have one constraint and then to go for it — to do a free for all on a small piece of paper… Then the idea of coming back with a different palette, or composition came to me because of the constraints I would arrive at through the use of the journals. To me, matter is action oriented. Materializing something is very important. Meaning is important, and journal writing is a meaningful act. The matter was, “How am I going to take action and put it out there and make my mark for myself?” Because the words are painted over and cut out people can’t see the meaning, but they can see the material. I like taking the thoughts and meanings in my world and making something of it that you can see and touch. It makes me matter Putting the journals on the paintings mattered to me — whether
The Space Between Words, mixed media on paper/panel, 30 x 22"
my words are profound or silly, they are me, and I’m here. It’s a point in time where I can take action, and a meaningful action at that, in my life — where I bring these things together is important because it’s me. I honor that. When I glue the words, they might be in specific area, and I’ll work in another area without attending to the words. Sometimes I’ll do the opposite. Paint large color areas without paper on the canvas. I work in imbalance. But when I finish there is a cohabitation. I might be bothered by it, but it is what it is.
>> Shaw Cramer Gallery: www.shawcramergallery.com Artist website: www.antoinettenoble.com
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Loss, Grief and Life A conversation with Sandy Broyard, Sam Feldman and George Cohn
This conversation between Sandy Broyard, Sam Feldman and George Cohn took place on April 24 , 2012 . The “article” focuses on a single question: “What is grief, and how might we recover from loss?” The conversation is presented as a Q & A in the interest of living through the words of people who have suffered grief, and who have, each in their own way, recovered from the loss of a life partner. The purpose of this piece is to “sit in” on a conversation on loss and recovery. Through it we share how we as human beings can be resilient in life and discover how people we may know have responded to death and who, after loss, have engaged in vibrant life.
Patrick Phillips What is grief? Sam Feldman Grief, to me, was an atomic
blast of loneliness and a black cloud over my head, not a gray cloud, but a black cloud, and feeling totally dismembered as if half of my body had been lost and ravaged. [Pause] Sandy Broyard Sam, I would agree with
that. Your words describe something that is a very physical reaction. I certainly had that when my husband died. It’s an emotional experience, but it’s also a physical experience. There were moments when I couldn’t catch my breath, where I felt like my insides were going to vomit out of me. I couldn’t predict when I was going to be normal or presentable. There’d be times when well-meaning friends would want me to come to dinner or do something, to make me feel better. But, I’d realize as I was going out the door I couldn’t do that. I physically couldn’t do it, because I was shaking and trembling...
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SF That’s another issue — the triggers
PP What’s the difference between
that bring you back to when your grief started, and the period of grief. It was a combination of a physical and emotional experience for me of tremendous, tremendous, tremendous loss.
bereavement and bereft?
George Cohn What Sandy and Sam are
talking about is somewhat different than my experience with grief. I have not lost a mate but a very dear friend. He was a house officer, married with a young child, when he took his life. He did it in a way that was bereft of the fact that we did not know he was that seriously depressed. He was so caught up in his own problems, problems which he did not share with any of his two close friends. The experience of the feelings I had after I had heard he had taken his life was catastrophic because we had shared life together as house officers and as residents... I lost parents when I was in my fifties. Nothing compared to this. They died after I lost my good friend. Their death was nothing compared to what it felt like to lose this close friend.
GC I think bereavement is the process
of healing from your grief and moving on. It’s quite different. The word “bereavement” has a completely different connotation from grief. My bereavement groups are for healing, for moving on in your life, for not being depressed, and for starting to live again. SF I think bereft and bereavement are
quite different. You can feel bereft, but you can’t feel bereavement because that’s moving forward. GC Bereft is something being sapped
from you. It seems to be something that’s sucked out of you that you can’t put back in. I agree with Sam about bereavement being different from bereft. It’s a feeling that something cannot be replaced. You can make it over again. You can do it again. You can start again. With bereavement, yes, you can get to a point where you can resolve it yourself. Life has to go on.
Gretchen Feldman, Fat Cells II, 2007, watercolor on paper, 29 x 37" Fat Cells II was second in a series of paintings made after Gretchen was diagnosed with stage four lung cancer. She began to study and paint the molecular cell structure of the body.
SB Bereft and bereavement are not the words that were front and center when my husband died. I was 53 and that was twenty years ago. In the first couple of years of losing my husband I had a lot of trouble with the idea that when people suffer a terrible loss there will be something good that will come into your life. You will learn something, or you will be spiritually much more or in touch with yourself. Those attitudes really bothered me. They bothered me tremendously... I remember reading a book by some kind of guru who had this horrible anecdote about a mother who had to identify her six year old daughter who had been dismembered by a shark, and this guru said
that this was such an incredible opportunity for her spiritual growth. I thought that’s just total B.S.
PP Is there a consistency? Are Time and Reconnection ideas / concepts that are universal?
SF The part that you bring out, Sandy,
SF Time is very flexible for each person.
so well is that it is such an individual thing, and each person has his or her own ownership of it, and trying to impose a formula on anyone in handling their grief and their life is not very productive, because it is such a personal thing. It’s like the Kubler-Ross thing of the stages of healing was the way of thinking 20–25 years ago. But, there is no one-size-fits-all in this whole arena. And, the more we realize that each person has to do it in his or her own way I think the better the healing process will be.
I’m not sure they are universal. Maybe they are, but I’m not sure about it. Being involved in the men’s bereavement group with anywhere from six to twelve men every other week, everyone’s story is unique. There are some similarities. You’re right. PP How do we engage that interconnectedness, that social, human, symbolic referencing that we do with another person that’s gone. That needs to be reconstituted in our soul, in our body. How does that occur?
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SB I still think, and Sam you would
probably agree with this, when you have such a major loss in your life you’re really isolated in the beginning. Nobody really knows or can know the extent of what you’re feeling and experiencing, and that’s all right. I had a good friend. She was also a social worker, and she used to say, “This must be hard, Sandy.” And that was enough. She would just acknowledge that it was hard. That was very comforting. SF A lot of people say that friends and
SF For me, the loneliness drove me to
seek companionship. So, I started seeking female companions. That is very common with men, mainly to assuage their loneliness. PP Was that very hard, at first?
family are great distractions after a major loss. I didn’t find it that way. I felt it was such an inward thing that was inside of me that external things did not help at the beginning.
SF It was terrible. Terrible. Because
GC I think there’s a major issue here
[Long Pause]
that we’re not addressing, and that is that death is a part of life. When you’re alive, you don’t think in terms of death. And there’s no training for the process. You sort of go on, live your life, go on and do what you’re supposed to do. Then suddenly, there’s a loss. Someone dies who is very close to you. You’ve had no training, no experience, and no one has told you what you’re supposed to do and how you’re supposed to react to all this. You’re suddenly supposed to find out for yourself. I agree with both Sandy and Sam; it’s an individual process — how well you’re brought up to live your life and experience death. My experience is different than that. My grandmother had four sisters and two brothers, and I was a little boy and I went to a funeral home for every one of those deaths. So I was inculcated with death at a very early age — except, when it happens with someone you’re close to, it’s entirely different than with all the training you could possibly have. You still have that feeling as if someone has sucked something out of your life that you can’t get back in. SF I agree with you completely, George. SB I too.
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PP As you were saying George, there is no dress rehearsal for death, but it is part of our lives. I’m trying to understand what happens that allows you to live, move on within new connections. What is that, and how did it occur in your lives?
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everyone who I was with I would sit across from a dinner table and compare them to Gretchen. It was awful. It was terrible. It was painful.
SB I kind of assumed that I would find
someone. But, my husband was so unusual. I have male friends, and I’m not with anyone in particular right now. Since he died, and it’s been twenty years, I’ve had a number of relationships. None of them have evolved into long term relationships, and that’s because my husband was a hard act to follow. For a number of years I felt I’d have to have that in order to feel okay about myself — I would have to have an “other” in my life. But, my life was very rich and very full before my husband died, and I think that’s just who I am... I think I’m fortunate in my own personality, in who I am, because I have things that I love to do that I’m passionate about. I discovered fly fishing. I moved to the Vineyard permanently. I’ve always been a dancer... So, I feel very fortunate in those ways. PP Having read your book [Sandy] there’s this River Styx thing that happens when you take the ferry from Woods Hole to the Vineyard — [but going from death to life.] And that you have an internal will that’s both guided by and released from this grief is profound.
SB I’m not sure it’s profound. It’s who I am. I think everyone is born having this profound experience of living. I don’t judge. Even people who have “failed” lives, or what we consider a difficult life, their experience is profound. Even if they are frozen in their feelings, that can be a horribly profound experience. I think people and their lives are so endlessly, amazingly interesting. The trajectory of a person’s life and unique stories are incredible — how people manage or don’t manage, how they fall down, how they can’t go on, and how they do go on. GC I think something we are addressing is that everyone has their own coping skills. And the question is how grief interferes with one’s ability to have coping skills. Those who have problems with coping skills will try to find ways of assuaging the feeling they have. So, they take up a drug or alcohol and they begin to use that to modify or temper the feeling that they have. But, they don’t understand. That becomes more destructive than the original processes. It’s very, very difficult... Sam wanted to found a group with men who have lost. All of them have different coping skills that have been brought out. They use their own individual skills to the best of their abilities. SF It’s about people who share their own
experiences. Sharing your experiences seem to help you in moving on. PP So shared experience and intercon-
nectedness is very important in your own experience — the capacity to learn to cope, to learn to reengage. GC The fact of the matter is that with men having a bereavement group is they come to realize that they are not alone. They come to realize that there are other men there who can begin to share their feelings. It’s very difficult for men to share their feelings openly. Women can do it very easily. It’s a lot more difficult for men. It’s not perceived as manly to cry. But it is manly to cry, to get the
Sandy Broyard lives in Chilmark. She facilitates the improvisational dance group, “What’s Written Within” and serves on the Advisory Board of The Yard. Her husband,
motif, the provider, the solid continuity provider for family?
NationalWidowers.org, is a very important resource for men whose spouses or significant others have died. If you take a look you will see many of the things we have discussed on that site. We have also started a peer to peer program. All of our meetings are peer-led. They’re not led by professional therapists or psychiatrists. They are led by people who have gone through the experience. We are having a peer-to-peer program on a national basis where people can give us their names and telephone numbers and we’ll have someone who has gone through the experience speak with them on the phone and let them know that they are not alone and that they will be helped through the process. There’s also a women’s group very similar to ours that has been organically created called the WConnection.org. They are doing wonderful things and are trying to be a national organization to help women.
SF My experience has been that when a
SB Well, I just think it’s important to
rounded by water. Her love and passion
widow has a relationship or gets married her children cheer. When a widower has a relationship the sons say “Yeah, dad, go for it.” And the daughters say, in many cases, “It’s awful.” “You’re doing the wrong thing.” This bereavement, this healing, spreads out concentrically in the family and that has been very interesting to me to see how many people it really affects. It often affects the people where the person works and their relationships with others. It’s a big deal. It’s not just 415,000 men a year, and 975,000 widows being created a year. It’s the 1,300,000 people and the 3 or 4 million people who are affected on an annual basis just in this country.
keep breathing and to find ways to continue to be present in your life, to stay connected to your community, to be loyal to one’s friends and to be very forgiving to one’s self and not to expect a lot in the early stages of grief. To be gentle and kind to one’s self. There’s a beautiful poem by Wallace Steven’s, “Waving Adieu, Adieu, Adieu.” It’s about staying still. It’s enough to stay still when saying good-bye. For me, it really speaks so deeply about just being present and being still.
for the Vineyard was expressed in the way
feelings out. What the bereavement group has taught us is that men can express this, and that men can go beyond the group and find a life for themselves without their mate. SF One of the shocking things for many
of the men in the group, and was certainly so for me, is when they start dating they’re not the only ones involved. It’s their family. It’s their children, their in-laws, their grandchildren. Many of the men in our group have had a particular problem with their daughters when they start a new relationship. “It’s not mom. She’s so different from mom. She’s not up to mom. How can you do this to us, Dad?” And, “You’re disrespecting mom.” That is a common theme that has come up in our meetings which I never expected. PP Is that associated with the protector
PP In the interest of time... is there
something important I have missed that you’d like to share before we call it a conversation? SF I think it’s important that men know
that they are not alone. And, the national organization that we have created,
GC I think the points that Sam and
Sandy have made are very valid. I also think that everyone should understand that death is a part of life. That when we make out a will, we don’t ever expect it to be enforced. You sit in the attorney’s office and you say “This is not going to happen to us. We’re just going to go on...” People should be aware of the fact that death can be beautiful, that it can be a blessing for someone to die a very graceful, peaceful, quiet death.
Anatole Broyard who died in 1990 was a book critic and essayist for the New York Times. Her book, “Standby,” (Knopf, 2005) chronicles that loss. Read “Waving Adieu, Adieu, Adieu” by Wallace Stevens here: jayx2.livejournal. com/63285.html Sam Feldman After selling my national chain of apparel store in 1990, we moved to Martha’s Vineyard from Baltimore. Gretchen loved painting and I was able to use my entrepreneurial skills to help create institutions to fill community needs. We were involved in the start up of the Charter School, Polly Hill Arboretum, The Martha’s Vineyard Donor’s Collaborative, Mopeds are Dangerous, The Farm Institute, and after Gretchen died, the National Widowers Organization. Gretchen Feldman When Gretchen moved to Martha’s Vineyard she thought nothing would be more appropriate than becoming a water color painter since she was sur-
she blended the landscapes, ocean and beautiful sky. In the last year of her life she painted colorful microscopic cancer cells. However the last one on her easel before she died was dark and foreboding. George Cohn I practice Psychiatry on the Vineyard,after spending almost 30 years at Yale. My practice involves individual and group therapy with adults. The National Widowers’ Organization is a nonprofit organization whose goal is to educate the public about the special needs of men who have lost their life partner. They strive to provide support for men who have lost and are suffering through bereavement groups and widower-towidower support. For more information go to their website: nationalwidowers.org The WConnection strives to help widows to cope with the difficult loss of their husbands by providing emotional support as well as information and training to help them adjust to their new lives. Learn more about the WConnection here: www.wconnection.org
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es s ay
Disintegration/Integration David Hart and Demeris Wehr discuss life at the end of life. About eight months before my late husband David Hart passed away, I realized that he was saying some very important, very transcendent things. I felt I had better write them down as a record for myself and possibly for others. With this realization, our “Conversations” began. Starting in early January of 2011 , I began sitting with David, taking dictation while he talked. He was able to articulate his perceptions as he approached the border between this life and the next one. His perceptions are a life line to me now when I reread them. They are a gift.
August 1 2 , 20 1 1
David: I sense that where there is disintegration, there is an even deeper integration going on. Demaris: What, in your experience, is disintegration and integration? Disintegration — the best way I can describe it is an old habit I’ve had of not making ultimate sense out of life. I’ve carried that with me a long time. Now, something else is turning up. Integration is a way of describing it, which is very meaningful to me. What’s getting integrated? laughs…I can’t really…. It’s that, there is a much greater meaning in life than I’ve ever recognized before — sharing life, growing, changing, developing — especially in recent times I’ve been very aware of that process. The word ‘integration’ says to me, no matter what you think, there’s an ultimate meaningfulness about life and that’s something you can discover ongoingly. Even when you’re sick and almost dying some of the time, you discover this? Yes. I think so. That’s a very important aspect of it, because the large and small issues, like inadequacies or losses of certain abilities — but there’s something else that’s quite in the other direction. Like what? The Truth seems to be emerging somehow that there’s no end to learning or coming to the reality of life. Some of the time that you’re in this sickness you’re closer to the Light. Yes, I agree. There are examples, like in the material that I’ve been reading today. It’s about a remarkable process of becoming one with life, as though every aspect of life becomes a part of the awareness of its own meaning. And that means a process of recognition, as though the Reality or Truth were being recognized more and more. Maybe it recognizes Itself. Yes. That could very well be, that there’s a Self-recognition involved. And the basis of all this goes well beyond the usual basis of reason and argument. It’s bigger. And there’s no competition, and there is no argument here for Something that’s Beyond. It just is.
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It’s an amazing area to be in. It’s not the usual methods of understanding, or reason, or argument. It’s outside of all that. Could you give it a name? I’m sure there is one, but it’s hard to find. How can I express something which goes beyond the usual expression? It helps even to put it this way, to try to…. it amounts to another view of life. What I really sense is that reality is the nature of life beyond everything that is generally accepted as ‘this’ or ‘that.’ Beyond dualism. Yes. So this includes everything it sounds like. Yeah. Very interesting. It really is. I could imagine setting this up in order to avoid opposition or argument or something, but this isn’t that. Yeah, that would be avoidance and this isn’t that. Yes. As I go on experiencing life now, some new way of experiencing enters into it. And it’s meaningful. This is a very important point, because there’s a temptation I’ve had at least, to dismiss life as meaningless. And that’s not it at all. Life is expressing Itself, being out there, being there. I’ve never looked at it this way before. It’s way beyond ego. This whole belief in a separate ego isn’t true. Exactly true. Because what we so often feel is that we’re separate, but we’re not separate. We can’t even use the word. Something in you is absolutely related to this. (We got cut off by the nurse, Linda, coming in.) August 13, 2011
David: I sense that love is all around…. Love is our guide, too.
Demaris Wehr, David Hart’s widow, is a psychotherapist in private practice on the Vineyard. She is currently finishing a book about work she did in Bosnia and writing another book about her last year with David. It is provisionally entitled “From Loss to Legacy: A Gift of Healing in Later Years.” After it is finished, she plans to offer workshops called “Grieving as Soul Work.”
A rti st p ortrait
Front, oil on canvas, 16 x 20"
I was b o r n o n t he Vi n e ya r d, love the beauty of the land,
Marston Clough
sea and sky. My art is my response to the endlessly changing light and color. I often make monotypes without using a brush, and with my oil paintings I attempt to keep some of the same simplicity — sometimes to the point of abstraction.
>> Artist website: www.marstonclough.com
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F I CT I O N
Photographs courtesy of Neal Rantoul, Elizabeth Island Series, 2011
Amelia Smith — Dreamscape: The Elizabeth Islands
I
have never visited Naushon, not in my waking life, but I’ve dreamed myself there dozens of times. I’ve watched its landscape roll by, season after season, as I take the ferry to and from my home, Martha’s Vineyard. As the ferry pulls through the waters of Woods Hole, I gaze at its low, grassy hills. I’ve constructed a landscape in my mind from these glimpses, and follow its contours as I sleep. I visit the house that’s just over the hill, in a little valley. Further west lies a mansion where there might be a party, or perhaps the guests have just departed. I wander through its dusty rooms, looking out to sea. The real Naushon, on my horizon, is tantalizingly out of reach. The Forbes family has owned it, the largest of the Elizabeth Islands, since 1856. They also own Uncatena, Nonameset, Pasque and Nashewena — almost the entire group of these low-lying lands. I know some people who’ve been to Naushon, legally and illegally, but so far, I haven’t touched its shores. Sometimes I imagine myself in their virgin forests of windswept trees, as I traipse, trespassing, through the lesser woods on my side of the sound. Sometimes I look across to the Elizabeth Islands as I sit on the beach at Lambert’s Cove or lean against the fence at the top of the Aquinnah cliffs. In summer, yachts sail along the sound, tantalizingly close to that other shore. Tidal waters run through the gaps between the islands, from Wood’s Hole beside the mainland to Robinson’s Hole and Quick’s Hole, all the way out to Robinson’s Gap and Cuttyhunk. Beyond lie Buzzards Bay and the continent of North America. The sun sets across those waves, illuminating the islands, then obscuring them as they fade against the vibrant sky. Another island sits out of sight, in Buzzards Bay. Once upon a time, Penikese served as a leper colony, a place to cast away the victims of that unsightly disease. Now it’s the site
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of an alternate juvenile detention program for teenage boys, today’s undesired citizens. I’ve thought of getting a job there, just so I could visit. So far, I haven’t. The final, seawardmost island in the chain is Cuttyhunk. This one, I could legally visit, without any special permission from the Forbes family or grappling with the problems of troubled adolescents. A town covers the lee side of the island’s main hill. About 30 people live there year-round, but its population swells in the summer months. I could sail there from Menemsha on the catamaran Arabella, but only in July and August. I went to Cuttyhunk on my cousin’s fishing boat when I was about 12 years old. I remember running up through the town, but then we were hurried back to the boat and home. I’ve always wanted to return. A ferry runs from New Bedford every day in the summer, but only once a week in the colder months. In winter, Cuttyhunk is nearly as inaccessible as those other islands. From the sands beneath the cliffs, the clear light of a December sun sometimes refracts its low profile into a mirage city. Cuttyhunk’s dreamscape pedigree is more exalted than my night-time ramblings over the sunny hills of Naushon. In 1602, the explorer Bartholomew Gosnold and his crew landed there. They intended to establish the first English settlement in this part of the world. During their three-week stay, the Englishmen built a fort on a tiny island in Cuttyhunk’s seaward pond, and gathered sassafras roots to sell back in their home port. In those days, Wampanoags came to Cuttyhunk and the other Elizabeth Islands in the summer, to hunt, fish, and gather, but their homes were on the mainland or Martha’s Vineyard. The island was mostly uninhabited, which partly explains its appeal to the small expedition. In their journals, members of Gosnold’s crew wrote about the island and their feast with the visiting native Americans, who they described as tall and fair. When Gosnold’s ship prepared to sail back across the Atlantic, few crewmembers were willing to remain. They abandoned their fort on this wind-swept island, vulnerable as it was to hurricanes and lesser blasts from the sea. On their return to England, Gosnold and his crew presumably reported to their
>> Author website: www.ameliasmith.net Photographer website: www.nealrantoul.com
queen, Elizabeth I , for whom they had named these islands. Less official reports of their voyage were probably circulated over pints of ale and bitter. Stories of these new world adventures could have spread through their letters, journals, and tales told. William Shakespeare, writing at this time, most likely heard rumors of newly discovered islands. In the early 20th century, someone speculated that Cuttyhunk was the model for Prospero’s island, featured in The Tempest. The theory rests on several descriptions within the play. Like Prospero’s island, Cuttyhunk has two harbors and a pond. On it, a group of shipwrecked sailors could completely lose track of one another, but not for long. The island is windswept and virtually bare of trees: “Here’s neither bush nor shrub to bear off any weather at all, and another storm brewing.” (The Tempest, Act II , scene 2, lines 18–19). Also, a breeze comes to the island from the Bermudas, suggesting that it is in the north. More serious scholars argued that Caliban’s blackness and a mention of marmosets, a South American primate, pointed to a location in the Caribbean. As a writer, Shakespeare need not have relied on a single account for his imaginary island. More likely, he knit together the dreamlike setting of The Tempest from a variety of sources, including his imagination, and stories from Gosnold and his crew. Prospero’s island is more dreamscape than real, just like the view of Cuttyhunk from the shores of the Vineyard on a sunny winter day. In my basement, there is a pile of white oak and marine plywood, the very sketchy beginnings of a boat. I believe that some day my brother and I will finish it and sail across the Vineyard Sound. Then, we could join the yachts crowding Tarpaulin Cove on Naushon every August. Or, I could wait until the crowds and summer haze have given way to clearer autumn light, and the land and sea shine in saturated, crisp colors, just before the cold turns them brown. I could take my small boat and beat through the waves along the shores of the Elisabeth Islands, all the way to Cuttyhunk, then sail back home, to dream of them again.
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A rti st p ro f i l e
B2, (double sided), acrylic paint on panel, 44 x 44"
M y d r i v e to pa i n t i s ro ot e d i n t he d es i g n p ro c es s and letting people draw their own
conclusions. I enjoy the uninterrupted, materialization of the object and the potency of the end
Ketz
product. Things that happen quickly tend to retain underlying concepts. There isn’t enough time to pick away at an idea when something happens in a matter of days. In my experience, the original concept of a design can sometimes get lost in the act of collaboration and construction. I guess I have a strong desire for creative control and these paintings are a part of that. If I desire anything from my art it would be for viewer to take something away from the experience and keep it to themselves. I feel its a very personal experience. I guess I want different people to connect with the art in different ways. The only way to do this is to not force ideas or meanings onto a viewer and allow a unique interaction. I don’t title the works or force a particular orientation as this gives someone the chance for a unique interaction with the art. I don’t think people want to be told what they should see in my art. I trust the process and don’t have a set approach except to do what I’m sure to love. I like the idea of blurring the lines between painting, sculpture and an interactive object. By not forcing an orientation for a painting you leave open the possibility for multiple people to view the art differently. I like this level of interaction between the art and the viewer — I look at most of my paintings as interactive sculpture.
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C5, (4 sheets), acrylic paint, perm ink, oil pastel on paper, 46 x 70"
>> PIK NIK Art and Apparel Gallery: www.piknikmv.com Artist website: www.ketzweiler.com
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non - f iction
This excerpt is reprinted courtesy of Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Copyright © 2012 by Jonah Lehrer, Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company www.hmhbooks.com
Imagine | Jonah Lehrer The struggle of maturity is to recover the seriousness of a child at play. — Friedrich Nietzsche
C hapter
4 The Letting Go
T
he theater is empty; the house lights are low. Yo-Yo Ma is lugging his cello across the stage toward a lonely metal chair at its center. The instrument looks heavy, and Ma takes delicate steps, the long horsehair bow jutting out into space. He sits, steadies himself in the chair, and stares for a long moment at the sheet music. Then he raises his right arm, positions his fingers on the wooden neck, and drags the bow across the strings. The first note sounds like a beautiful moan. I’m sitting next to Bruce Adolphe, the composer of the piece Ma is rehearsing, and he seems a little nervous. Because Ma is such a celebrity — in the previous two months, he’s played twenty-three concerts in eighteen cities — this is the first time Adolphe has heard him play the music. “There’s always that anxiety that comes during the run-throughs,” Adolphe says. “I’ve been living with these notes for so long, but it always sounds different when it’s up on stage.” Ma is sight-reading the piece, so he begins playing slowly, like someone trying to decipher the first pages of a novel written in a barely familiar language. Sometimes he stops in the middle of a phrase and then repeats the notes with a slightly different interpretation. And then, after a few tentative minutes, Ma begins to disappear into the music. I see it first in his body, which begins to subtly sway. The movement then spreads to his right arm, so that the bow starts to trace wider and wider arcs in the air. Before long, Ma’s shoulders are relaxed and expressive, drawing together whenever the tempo increases. And when he repeats the theme of the piece, his eyes briefly close, as if he were entranced by the same beauty he’s pouring into space. I look over at Adolphe: his tension has turned into a faint smile. Bruce Adolphe first met Ma at the Juilliard School in New York City. Although Ma was only fifteen years old at the time, he was already an established performer, having played for JFK at the White House and with Leonard Bernstein on national television. Adolphe was a promising young composer who had just written his first cello piece. “Unfortunately, I had no idea what I was doing,” Adolphe remembers. “I’d never written for the instrument before.” He’d shown a draft of his composition to a Juilliard instructor, who told him that the piece featured a
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chord that was impossible to play. Before Adolphe could correct the music, however, Ma decided to rehearse the composition in his dorm room. “Yo-Yo played through my piece, sight-reading the whole thing,” Adolphe says. “And when that impossible chord came, he somehow found a way to play it. His bow was straight across all four strings. Afterward, I asked him how he did it, because I had been told by the teacher that it couldn’t be done. And Yo-Yo said, ‘You’re right. I don’t think it can be done.’ And so we started over again, and this time when the chord came I yelled, ‘Stop!’ We both looked at his left hand, and it was completely contorted on the fingerboard. The hand position he had somehow found was uncomfortable for him to hold; his fingers were twisted in a most unnatural way. ‘See,’ Yo-Yo said, ‘you’re right, you really can’t play that.’ But he did!” For Adolphe, the story is a reminder of Ma’s astonishing talent, his ability to play those unplayable chords. It’s a virtuosity that has turned Ma into one of the most famous classical performers in the world, an artist celebrated for a wide variety of recordings, from the cello suites of Bach to the swing of American bluegrass. He’s improvised with Bobby McFerrin, recorded scores for Hollywood blockbusters, and popularized the melodies of Central Asia. “Sometimes, I’ll watch him play and I’ll feel that same awe I felt as a student at Juilliard,” Adolphe says. “He can take your notes and he can find the thing that makes them come alive. Ma is a technical master, of course, but what makes him such a special performer is that he also knows when to release technique for something deeper, for that depth of emotion that no one else can find.” But Ma wasn’t always such an expressive performer. In fact, his pursuit of musical emotion began only after a memorable failure. “I was nineteen and I had worked my butt off,” Ma told David Blum of The New Yorker in 1989. “I knew the music inside and out. While sitting there at the concert, playing all the notes correctly, I started to wonder, ‘Why am I here? What’s at stake? Nothing. Not only is the audience bored but I myself am bored.’ Perfection is not very communicative.” For Ma, the tedium of the flawless performance taught him that there is often a tradeoff between perfection and expression. “If you are
only worried about not making a mistake, then you will communicate nothing,” he says. “You will have missed the point of making music, which is to make people feel something.” This search for emotion shapes the way Ma approaches every concert. He doesn’t begin by analyzing the details of his cello part or by glancing at what the violins are supposed to play. Instead, he reviews the complete score, searching for the larger story. “I always look at a piece of music like a detective novel,” Ma says. “Maybe the novel is about a murder. Well, who committed the murder? Why did he do it? My job is to retrace the story so that the audience feels the suspense. So that when the climax comes, they’re right there with me, listening to my beautiful detective story. It’s all about making people care about what happens next.” Ma’s unusual musical approach is apparent during these rehearsals, as he carefully refines his interpretations of Adolphe’s score. Over the course of the afternoon, his performance steadily accumulates its feeling; his body grows more loose-limbed and expressive. Ma’s slight shifts of interpretation — hushing a pianissimo even more, speeding up a melodic riff, exaggerating a crescendo — turn a work of intricate tonal patterns into a passionate narrative. These shifts are not in the score, and yet they reveal what the score is trying to say. Most of the time, Ma can’t explain what inspired these changes, but that doesn’t matter: he has learned to trust himself, to follow his storytelling instincts. And this is why Ma sways as he plays: Because he can’t restrain himself. Because he is experiencing the same emotions that he is trying to express. Because he is letting himself go. “The best storytellers always get really into their own stories,” Ma says. “They’re waving their arms, laughing at their own jokes. That’s what I try to be like on stage . . . I know that some of the best music happens when you let yourself get a little carried away.”1 To make this kind of performance possible, Ma cultivates an easy, casual air backstage. Thirty minutes before the concert begins, Ma disappears into a quiet room. When he reemerges, I expect him to be somber and serious and maybe a little nervous. Instead, Ma is just as disarming and funny as ever, teasing me about my tie, eating a banana, and making small talk with Adolphe. This ease is not a pose: Ma needs to stay relaxed. If he is too clenched with focus, too edgy with nerves, then the range of his musical expression will vanish. He will not be able to listen to those feelings that guide his playing. “People always ask me how I stay loose before a performance,” Ma says. “The first thing I tell them is that everybody gets nervous. You can’t help it. But what I do before I walk onstage is I pretend that I’m the host of a big dinner party, and everybody in the audience is in my living room. And one of the worst things you can do as a host is to show you’re worried. Is the fish overcooked? Is the wine too warm? Is the beef too rare? If you show that you’re worried, then everybody feels uncomfortable.
This is what I learned from Julia Child. You know, she would drop her roast chicken on the floor, but did she scream? Did she cry or panic? No, she just calmly picked the chicken off the floor and managed to keep her smile. Playing the cello is the same way. I will make a mistake on stage. And you know what? I welcome that first mistake. Because then I can shrug it off and keep smiling. Then I can get on with the performance and turn off that part of the mind that judges everything. I’m not thinking or worrying anymore. And it’s when I’m least conscious of what I’m doing, when I’m just lost in the emotion of the music, that I’m performing at my best.” 1. There is something scary about letting ourselves go. It means that we will screw up, that we will relinquish the possibility of perfection. It means that we will say things we didn’t mean to say and express feelings that we can’t explain. It means that we will be onstage and not have complete control, that we won’t know what we’re going to play until we begin, until the bow is drawn across the strings. While this spontaneous method might be frightening, it’s also an extremely valuable source of creativity. In fact, the act of letting go has inspired some of the most famous works of modern culture, from John Coltrane’s saxophone solos to Jackson Pollock’s drip paintings. It’s Miles Davis playing his trumpet on Kind of Blue — most of the album was recorded on the very first take — and Lenny Bruce inventing jokes at Carnegie Hall. Although this kind of creativity has always been defined by its secrecy, we are now beginning to understand how it happens. The story begins in the brain. Charles Limb, a neuroscientist at Johns Hopkins University, has investigated the mental process underlying improvisation. Limb is a self-proclaimed music addict — he has a small recording studio near his office — and has long been obsessed with the fleshy substrate of creative performance. “How did Coltrane do it?” Limb asks. “How did he get up there onstage and improvise his music for an hour or sometimes more? Sure, a lot of musicians can throw out a creative little ditty here and there, but to continually produce masterpiece after masterpiece is nothing short of remarkable. I wanted to know how that happened.” Although Limb’s experiment was simple in concept — he was going to watch jazz pianists improvise new tunes while in a brain scanner — it proved difficult to execute. That’s because the giant superconducting magnets in fMRI machines require absolute stillness of the body part being studied, which meant that Limb needed to design a custom keyboard that could be played while the pianists were lying down. (The setup involved an intricate system of angled mirrors, so the subjects could see their hands.) Each musician began by playing pieces that required no imagination, such as the C -major scale and a simple blues tune memorized in advance. But then came the creativity
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condition: the subject was told to improvise a new melody as she played along with a recorded jazz quartet. While the subject was riffing on the keyboard, the scanner was monitoring minor shifts in brain activity. The scientists found that jazz improv relied on a carefully choreographed set of mental events. The process started with a surge of activity in the medial prefrontal cortex, an area at the front of the brain that is closely associated with self-expression. (Limb refers to it as the “center of autobiography” in the brain.) This suggests that the musician was engaged in a kind of storytelling, searching for the notes that reflected her personal style. At the same time, the scientists observed, there was a dramatic shift in a nearby circuit, the dorsolateral prefrontal cortex (DLPFC ). While the DLPFC has many talents, it’s most closely associated with impulse control. This is the bit of neural matter that keeps each of us from making embarrassing confessions, or grabbing at food, or stealing from a store. In other words, it’s a neural restraint system, a set of handcuffs that the mind uses on itself. What does self-control have to do with creative improvisation? Before a single note was played in the improv condition, each of the pianists exhibited a “deactivation” of the DLPFC , as the brain instantly silenced the circuit. (In contrast, this area remained active when the pianist played a memorized tune.) The musicians were inhibiting their inhibitions, slipping off those mental handcuffs. According to Limb, this allowed them to create new music without worrying about what they were creating. They were letting themselves go. But unleashing the mind is not enough — successful improv requires a very particular kind of creative expression. After it slips off the handcuffs, the brain must still find something interesting to say. This is the generation phase of the improv process, in which performers unleash a flood of raw material. What’s so astonishing about this creative production, however, is that it’s not reckless or random. Instead, the spontaneously generated ideas are constrained by the particular rules of the form. The jazz pianists, for instance, needed to improvise in the right key and tempo and mode. Jackson Pollock had to drip the paint in a precise pattern across the canvas. Or look at Yo-Yo Ma: his emotional release always fits the exacting requirements of the music. He sways, but he sways in perfect time. “I think the best way to perform is when your unconscious is fully available to you, but you’re still a little conscious too,” Ma says. “It’s like when you’re lying in bed in the early morning. I always have my best ideas then. And I think it’s because I’m still half-asleep, listening to what my unconscious is telling me. But at the same time, I’m not in the midst of some crazy dream, because then it’s just crazy. I guess it’s a controlled kind of craziness. That’s the ideal state for performance.” How does the brain find this liminal space? That was the question asked in a recent fMRI study by neuroscientists at Harvard in which twelve classically trained pianists were told to invent melodies. Unlike the Limb study, which compared brain
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activity during improv and memorized piano pieces, this experiment was designed to compare brain activity during different kinds of improv. (This would allow the scientists to detect the neural substrate shared by every form of spontaneous creativity, not just those bits of brain associated with particular types of music.) As expected, the various improv conditions — regardless of the musical genre — led to a surge of activity in a variety of neural areas, including the premotor cortex and the inferior frontal gyrus. The premotor activity is simply an echo of execution, as the new musical patterns are translated into bodily movements. The inferior frontal gyrus, however, is most closely associated with language and the production of speech. Why, then, is it so active when people compose on the spot? The scientists argue that expert musicians invent new melodies by relying on the same mental muscles used to create a sentence; every note is like a word. “Those bebop players play what sounds like seventy notes within a few seconds,” says Aaron Berkowitz, the lead author on the Harvard study. “There’s no time to think of each individual note. They have to have some patterns in their toolbox.” Of course, the development of these patterns requires years of practice, which is why Berkowitz compares improvisation to the learning of a second language. At first, he says, it’s all about the vocabulary words; students must memorize a dizzying number of nouns, adjectives, and verb conjugations. Likewise, musicians need to immerse themselves in the art, internalizing the intricacies of Shostakovich or Coltrane or Hendrix. After musicians have studied for years, however, the process of articulation starts to become automatic — the language student doesn’t need to contemplate her verb charts before speaking, just as the musician can play without worrying about the movement of his fingers. It’s only at this point, after expertise has been achieved, that improvisation can take place. When the new music is needed, the notes are simply there, waiting to be expressed. It looks easy because they have already worked so hard. These cortical machinations reveal the wonder of improvisation, the mirrors and wire behind this magic trick of creativity. They capture a mind able to selectively silence that which keeps us silent. And then, just when we’ve found the courage to create something new, the brain surprises us with a perfectly tuned burst of expression. This is what we sound like when nothing is holding us back. 1. In many respects, Ma’s obsession with spontaneity and expression — and his disinterest
in perfection — evokes an earlier mode of performance. The classical music of the eighteenth century, for instance, is full of cadenzas, those brief parentheses in the score where the performer is supposed to play “ freely.” (The practice peaked with Mozart, who wrote cadenzas into most of his compositions.) In these frantic and somewhat unscripted moments, the performer was able to become a personality and express what he felt.
Purchase at Bunch of Grapes Bookstore: site.booksite.com/7205/showdetail/?isbn=9780547386072
>> Author website: www.jonahlehrer.com
A rti st p ortrait
Barney Zeitz I h av e s p e n t 4 0 y e a r s t ry i n g to figure things out. I want to
infuse objects with meaning, where a centerpiece on the table not only holds flowers, or a cat, but makes a ceremony of sitting in front of it. Building my house / studio made for many opportunities to figure out a solution to a problem by creating objects of glass, metal, and drawing to function as doors, lighting fixtures; even the garbage bin. Designing and building the studio and enclosures for the yard became a large art piece with the outdoor shower, arbors with sculptures on top and the large metal and glass wall of the welding studio. Working on a functional item is just as important in that moment of creation as a public memorial. Being present in the moment is my greatest challenge. Not looking ahead to finishing, or back at what is done, but just being here. >>  Artist website: www.bzeitz.com
p o e try
Kathy Garlick Letter to the Insomniacs You see, you have to go deep inside your own history, and find what trembles there, on the ice on the middle of the continent— a little deer standing just three feet high and ask, what are you doing here? and you have to let the stars look
What Did You Hear?
and be blind to the ghost dance while the delicate play of causes forgets you
Angels, who fell nine days
and the red faced man lying
And nine nights, how much pity
beside a wall, worked over by men
You must have felt for yourselves.
who hated their days and nights
Falling, did one of you dream
who drank and spit in a light rain.
Of a crippled child sitting at your knee,
You are supposed to stay still—
Looking up at you with his big gold eyes?
you’re to call to each other
Did you say, I envy you.
at night when you hear your enemies
Did you hear crackles of seeds
pray, and the cries from the street
Pushing through
which make you afraid as teeth are big—
The plowed earth below?
I tell you now because I love you, and
Or were the sounds around you
if you think I’m lying, you’re lost.
Only your own voices Falling through the reverse of life? Everyone knows it is not because of you That we don’t love the world enough. You must grieve for us now; it’s only fair. We gave you so much time.
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Martha’s Vineyard Arts & Ideas Early Summer 2 0 1 2
F I CT I O N
This essay is published by permission of Vineyard Stories, from the collection of twenty-seven essays titled: “Home Bird Four Seasons on Martha’s Vineyard.” Published in June, 2012.
Laura Wainwright — Evening Watch
E
ven on summer evenings I don’t often linger outside. I’ll walk down to the beach and take a swim, but once I hang my wet suit on the line and step into the kitchen, this room becomes the center of my concentration. I flick on the lights, turn up the radio, and start dinner. One of the kids or a guest may call me out onto the back porch to admire the sunset, but no matter how lovely it is, my attention remains with the meal on the stove. The ding of a timer or the scent of finely chopped basil tugs me back inside. So I usually miss the time when light slowly fades and so many animals become active. Not this evening. Tonight I am home alone. I pour a glass of cold white wine, drag a chair into the far corner of our porch and sink into it. The cottage next door is empty of its usual summer tenants. There are no sing-song voices playing hide and seek in the small yard. No screen doors bang. The grill sits unlit. The porch light is off. I notice three catbirds hopping along the low stone wall between our house from theirs. The undiluted quiet is a gift. Fog blankets the dropping sun. This isn’t one of those nights with wild reds and oranges swirling across the sky. The fading light is the dusty color of a blueberry. As the dusk slowly ebbs, I watch the color bleed and thicken to a deep plum against the umber of the newly mown field. A tawny smudge moves at the bottom of the field, catching my eye. I wait. Out from behind a huckleberry bush steps a young doe. Her four legs are delicate and lanky, thin strips of gold against a puddle of the blue grey light. She must sniff me, since she stops and looks my way, but she does not startle. Instead, she twists to rub her hind leg with her head, indulging in a long, thorough scratch before continuing along the path. I can’t count the number of times I’ve watched my own children and dogs meander down this same trail heading for the beach. I anticipate where she will vanish behind two beetlebungs and then move my eyes to the exact spot where
>> Publisher website: http://vineyardstories.com/book.php/21/Home-Bird
she will reappear. I track her journey until she disappears at the far end of the field, absorbed by a purple patch of oak. Just as I lose sight of the deer, two skunks saunter into view as if on cue. Separated solely by a low stone wall, these solitary animals seem oblivious of one another. What innate signal roused these animals from their burrows at the exact same moment? One patrols our yard, while the other commandeers the cottage field. They notice me: both tails are up in warning, but otherwise they sniff the ground for grubs, fully absorbed with the business of dinner. Their black-and-white coats look glossy and thick. The white stripe glows iridescent in the advancing dark. I have an urge to run my hand through their fur, but it’s short-lived. The skunk in our yard comes closer and closer to my perch on the porch. He’s more at home than I am comfortable with. I click my tongue to remind him I’m here. It works. He races across the lawn and slithers over the wall and vanishes in a tangle of bittersweet and wild cherry. Stars pepper the sky. It’s fully dark now, and the thought of my own dinner pulls me inside. Encircled by the yellow glow of my cozy kitchen I try to picture all the other animal lives I run parallel to but rarely intersect with. Who else do I routinely miss? Otters? Owls? Raccoons? Moles? Spiders? I wonder how many species use the path I think of as ours and which animals are just now getting up and starting their day in the night? I’m grateful to be reminded of the extraordinary way living things fill each niche. It’s too easy to forget how remarkably complex and rich our world is. From the kitchen window I can just make out the outline of my bathing suit on the line. Tomorrow morning when I put it on, I’ll be following the deer’s path to the beach and looking for signs of other travelers. Tomorrow evening I hope to be back on the porch watching and listening to the vibrant world that’s always there. It’s just a matter of paying attention.
Martha’s Vineyard Arts & Ideas Early Summer 20 1 2
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A rti st p ro f i l e
Bull, oil on canvas, 54 x 85"
Kenneth Vincent Arts & Ideas How would you describe the
I’m looking for. It forces a particular construct
importance of your geometric approach to
upon myself.
volume and light?
Kenneth Vincent I focus on the composi-
A& I So your geometry is a prism of sorts that allows you to see?
tion of things, and the geometry of things is a template for me to place over what I see. I’m interested in shape. I organize my paintings around geometry. It forces me to come to a point, to the tip of the spear.
A& I What do you mean “tip of the spear?”
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Martha’s Vineyard Arts & Ideas Early Summer 2 0 1 2
KV It gets rid of other people’s noise. A& I What do you mean? KV As an artist you’re constantly aware of the viewer — somebody’s going to see this. And, as an artist, you’re looking and
KV It’s almost like looking through the key-
seeing through other’s perspectives, what
hole of the door. Everyone has their own
other artists are doing and have done — in
perspective and my geometrical perspective
your awareness, you kind of make a gumbo
forces me to look through this little hole and
at times. That’s fine, but I want to make very
makes me organize space around whatever
intentional ideas, and this does it.
A& I So, why landscape? KV My response to place is about trying to find out who I am and about reconciling my history— my painting puts me someplace solid. Landscape is a starting point for me evolving into different things. Slowly I’m getting closer to people and animals. The landscape is constantly evolving as I become more immersed.
A& I So there is a formal process of refinement and there’s an overarching process of refinement. In that refinement process, are you trying to say something or see something?
Last Boat, oil on canvas, 12 x 15"
Slack Tide, oil on canvas, 43 x 48"
KV Seeing things is the ultimate goal. There are so many things to see. Seeing is usually the hardest thing. Whether you’re a photo-realist or an abstract artist. I’m ruled by a visual world — I have to let visual things come out. I don’t focus on the other things, so I’m always trying to get the visual out.
A& I Where are you going in your work? KV It’s funny. It’s like looking back in your memory. I look at what I’m doing now and my first painting and I think of it as a thought process. I can revisit things in the past that I want to keep and decide what I want to do as I go forward — it fits into the refinement process — or the evolution.
A& I Where do you think you’re going? KV God, I don’t know… It’s kind of weird. I always have had this thing for people who are into psychics — you know, the people who want to fast forward the movie. I don’t. I’m really committed to process. I have faith that I’ll keep going.
A& I Let’s just hope you keep going. KV Well, I think that’s the thing about being an artist — you have no choice. When I was 5, I couldn’t get this fire truck just right and I wanted to quit right then. Obviously, I didn’t. So, you can’t stop until you pull your plug for real.
>> Granary Gallery: www.granarygallery.com
Martha’s Vineyard Arts & Ideas Early Summer 20 1 2
39
v i s iting arti st
Camille Seaman — Grounded Iceberg, East Greenland
Camille Seaman, photographer, knows time and earth. She brings us in through expansive images and helps us appreciate our place on the planet. Sarah Das, a WHOI scientist, sees and documents a planet in motion through a lens of geologic time. They see the
S
cientists are trying to understand
on the scale of human history. Greenland and
the [Greenland] ice sheet in two
Martha’s Vineyard are both islands —
ways — “What is the mass balance.”—
are both dominated by glacial processes.
about the snow coming in and ice going out.
Martha’s Vineyard was formed by sediments
collapse of Greenland’s ice shelf as
Over the last couple of decades the ice sheet
and rocks from the [Laurentide] ice sheet
process of both timeless change
has been losing more ice every year and
that covered North America.
and climate change. Greenland and
smaller, faster.
Martha’s Vineyard are connected through their perspectives.
the rate of loss has increased — so it’s getting One of the ways the ice sheet loses mass
is an island made of rock with ice coming off of it. And, we wouldn’t have Martha’s Vineyard
into the ocean. The amount of ice mass, the
without ice sheets.
into it. I’m a geologist by training and the human
Martha’s Vineyard Arts & Ideas Early Summer 2 0 1 2
Greenland is being formed and shaped by an ice sheet that is disappearing. Greenland
is the ice moving more quickly with is moving pace of ice loss and climate change all figure
40
Greenland I think is the largest island? They
What is new snow and new melting. So, it’s
Sea level rise and erosion is one thing — but Martha’s vineyard arose out of an ice sheet. In that process is both growth and
time on earth is a microscopic fingertip
loss. One real connection is that here
change — these [geological] changes are large
are global climate imprints on a local scale.
A big connection between Greenland and Martha’s Vineyard can be seen by looking at it on geological time: Martha’s Vineyard is a
We don’t konw what those will be, so we don’t
into the fjords and melting the glaciers.
know what the temperature will be.
We are just learning about this now.
But there are projections that Greenland
Obviously, the ocean connects this region
bit of the Laurentide ice sheet. It is temporary.
[ice sheet] melting can increase ocean level
to Greenland in a big way — not to say we
An iceberg and an ice sheet is temporary.
from millimeters to a meter over the next 100
could put a bottle and find it in Greenland.
A moraine is temporary. Like changes on
years — that’s a lot of water. It’s a big place.
But, water can warm up here and be
Greenland, Martha’s Vineyard is here now, but
One of the proposed mechanisms for
then one day it could the gone; it’s ephemeral.
some of the speedup and loss of ice has been
We are forced to look at climate models.
warming of the ocean water around
transported northward by the Gulf stream and spill off into the fjords to melt ice. So, it goes both ways — it heats up here
We still get a variety of interpretations
Greenland — not just by warming of the air.
and goes up there. And, around Greenland
about how Greenland would contributed to
The current scientific question is, “Are the
the air / water temperature increases ice
sea level rise. We then have to know how
ocean currents just getting warmer, or are
melt and could increase ocean levels down
well our climate models are distilling what we
there new ocean currents that haven’t been
here. It’s as if there is a bit of Greenland
understand of our climate system.
there in the past?”
floating around.
What’s driving the temperature change is
There is some indication that the Gulf
the build-up of greenhouse gasses, carbon
Stream has spun off warm sub-surface rivers
emissions and methane releases in the arctic.
of water at depth and these are heading up
>> Artist website: www.camilleseaman.com Sarah Das Whoi website: www.whoi.edu/profile.do?id=sdas
— Sarah Das
New Generation Synergy of imagination, finance, business and design creates innovative ways to generate renewable energy — where we live, farm and shop.
p h otoS
Tova Katzman
By Amelia Smith, in collaboration with Patrick Phillips We are like tenant farmers chopping down the fence around our house for fuel when we should be using Nature’s inexhaustible sources of energy — sun, wind and tide. ... I’d put my money on the sun and solar energy. What a source of power! I hope we don’t have to wait until oil and coal run out before we tackle that. — T homas Alva Edison dison in conversation Henry Ford and Harvey Firestone (1931), quoted as a recollection of the author, in James Newton, E Uncommon Friends: Life with Thomas Edison, Henry Ford, Harvey Firestone, Alexis Carrel & Charles Lindbergh (1987), 31.
O
Chilmark in the 1940 s. Gay Head didn’t ne hundred thirty years ago, in September of 1882, get electricity until the 1950s. We no Thomas Edison switched on longer had to rely directly on fire, coal and the world’s first electrical oil lamps for light. Convenient, flick of supply network. It carried direct current a switch electricity had arrived. electricity to 59 customers in Lower ManAt first, the island’s electricity came hattan. In the summer of 1883, less than from generators located on-island but owned and controlled off-island. In 1955, a year after Edison’s Manhattan network, Martha’s Vineyard got its first small electric the island’s last diesel power plant shut plant — a generator in Hiawatha Park which down and the island became entirely relipowered about a dozen arc lights along ant on the mainland for our electricity. We Circuit Ave. The lights were smoky, danger- were connected to a plant in New Bedford, ous, and burned only on summer evenings. and to the growing industrial power grid. A few years later, a year-round power Over the past century the amount of plant was built in Eastville to supply coal, oil and gas used to light homes, busiVineyard Haven and Oak Bluffs. The rest nesses, towns and cities has expanded on of the island caught on slowly. Edgartown’s massive scale. The U.S. uses about a billion streets were lit by oil lamps until 1896. “short tons” of coal a year in electricity production.1 On a regional basis, figures Electric lines crept up South Road into
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Martha’s Vineyard Arts & Ideas Early Summer 2 0 1 2
from February 2012 show New England uses one hundred and thirteen thousand tons of coal to produce electricity.2 Overall, the burning of fossilized plant and animal life accounts for ninety percent of America’s energy. These fossils are limited resources. Some project extraction and production of oil, coal and natural gas will peak — likely within this generation.3 Fossil fuels is not the only story in the last one-hundred-thirty years. The first solar electric cell was built in the 1880 s. After a century of slow product and market development, photovoltaic (PV ) panels became a technically practical way to generate electricity for homes. On Martha’s Vineyard, PV panels were put on houses that had never been connected to the grid — as with some on the camps on Cape Pogue.
In the 1990s and early 2000’s PV panels were installed around the island. Some of those early systems produced solargenerated power that flowed back into the grid. Grid-tied panels on these homes could be thought of as small “cottage industry” energy production sites. Other solar panel projects gave a few households energy independence — free of the grid and industrial electricity. But because of relatively high upfront cost, and consumer habit, decisions to install solar panels were for the most part made on moral, not economic, grounds. Since before the first Earth Day in April 1970 there’s been a powerful refrain: “We’re destroying the earth to light our homes.” Like it or not, moral arguments didn’t provide much market incentive. Until recently that’s where things stood. However, as Edison bet, things are changing. Today, here on Martha’s Vineyard, a new solar energy economy is emerging. As a result of state and federal rebates, competitive mortgages on solar installations and Solar Renewable Energy Certificates (SREC s) it is now feasible and economically practical to conceive of, design, finance and build modest scale energy production sites on Martha’s Vineyard. As a result of these economic incentives, local towns and businesses are refocusing attention on the financial practicality of solar energy and landleaseprojects. Aquinnah has agreed to install an array. Tisbury is looking into the economics of leasing land to install an array — potentially contributing four hundred thousand dollars in town revenue. Farmers are also leasing land to smallscale energy developers.4 Not all underused land suitable for solar arrays is farm or undeveloped land. For municipal and retail land, parking lots are a good example of underused land which can be put to use to generate local renewable electricity. The array over Cronig’s parking lot is an up-close example of these new “generators” going up in a high-traffic, public space. The arrays are a small-scale local power station at a grocery store. They offset the building’s fossil energy use by 25%.
The “Farm Array” on Andrew Woodru’s land will generate 250 kilowatts of energy. Bill Bennett has leased the land from Mr. Woodru. The fertile ground below might soon be planted in a shade-crop.
In economic terms, when the arrays are generating more electricity than Cronig’s uses, they will pump that energy back into the grid for credit. In addition, with every 1000 Kilowatts generated, Vineyard Power will receive SREC s which can be sold back to the energy supplier. A social benefit exists alongside the economic. With a nod to the future of electric cars on-island, people will be able to drive to the store, park in the shade beneath the arrays, and charge their cars. Perhaps most importantly, the arrays are a model of energy generation. The arrays at Cronig’s will familiarize people with a real life story of energy generation here on Martha’s Vineyard. In the near future, the relationship between people, open public parking space and energy production could become routine. The solar arrays at Cronig’s went up quickly; however, they didn’t just spring into being. It took the collaborative interests, design and / or construction capacity of a bank, a retailer, a community organization and a design / build / energy company. The project is primarily a collaboration between Vineyard Power, Cronig’s, and South Mountain Company. Vineyard Power is building a cooperative of residents and businesses “that own their energy future,” says Richard Andre of Vineyard Power. “We can build a renewable energy infrastructure around solar energy. The solar arrays at Cronig’s are a real demonstration of the physical thing.” To be viable the arrays must be more than a physical model; they must be a financial model as well. “This solar array also creates income. We need to have a functioning business model. Our success depends upon it. Edgartown National Bank is jazzed. Their financing helps it happen,” says Andre. Beyond financial viability and public awareness,
the arrays, of course, reduce fossil fuel consumption. “The renewable energy put into the grid backs out and replaces fossil fuels,” says Andre. “The state of Massachusetts’s power comes primarily from natural gas, coal, and oil. That money goes away from the island to OPEC , and strip mining,” says Mr. Andre. “Vineyard Power’s goal is to transition the island away from a fossil fuel based energy economy to a renewable energy economy, first through solar and then through large-scale offshore wind, then later through biomass.” This is another “future story.” But, the work done now to finance, design and build early models is important. Vineyard Power’s goal is to become a public utility. They would like to produce 75% of the island’s energy needs locally, through renewable energy, while keeping money, jobs, and control in the island community. “These could happen at the airport, or the High School. We’d like to get to 5 megawatts of island solar energy generation in three years. We’ve built this one, now let’s see.” In 2003 Steve Bernier, owner of Cronig’s Markets, installed a solar array on the porch of Healthy Additions as a demonstration for the Vineyard Energy Project. As with the new array in the parking lot, part of that collaboration was to raise awareness of solar energy. “I’m doing this because I’m conscious of fossil fuel depletion,” says Mr. Bernier. “We’re tearing down mountains in Appalachia to dig coal, to create energy, to transport food. We have to do something about the fact that all the engines on this planet run on fossil fuel. This gives us a platform to experiment,” Mr. Bernier says. “We have a beautiful community. We are blessed. I just hope we are resilient enough to create shifts in our thinking. I think it’s better if we do this in our front yard, where we can all see it and feel it and talk about it.”
Martha’s Vineyard Arts & Ideas Early Summer 20 1 2
43
The structural steel installation at “All of our utilities are electric,” says Cronig’s is designed in part to inspire Madeleine Ezanno. “It doesn’t take a lot other businesses and individuals to move to keep the house warm. Our houses towards solar power. It was also designed have lots of light and they’re all southand built by South Mountain Company, facing.” With three adults and a teenager known more for wood and architecture in the house, they use plenty of hot than for steel and engineering. The initiawater, but despite not trying too hard tive at Cronig’s “is about energy, cars to save energy, their bills are relatively and people. People can now drive to the low. “I’d love it if one day we could store, park in a shady place, and charge not be reliant on N-Star,” Ms. Ezanno their electric vehicles while they shop,” says. Although they rely on the power says John Abrams, President of South system, that system also benefits from Mountain Company. “Most of all, it’s the contribution these households make. about appropriate land use. Parking lots Home solar panels help create a reciproare plentiful, and they consist of disturbed cal relationship between homeowners and real estate used only for the temporary energy suppliers, rather than a world in storage of vehicles. Now we can make which consumers are entirely dependent them into renewable energy power plants on industrial power. Through our homes rather than using valuable habitat, woodwe can understand our relationship lands, or agricultural land for this purpose. to fossil fuels and to resilient, renewableWith Vineyard Power, instead of ‘them’ and low-energy systems. (the off-island utility) it’s ‘us’ (our local Solar is a small part of the energy mix ratepayer-owned cooperative). “Vineyard in this country. In 2011, solar energy Power is bringing banks, investors, production in the U.S. accounted for less solar designers and businesses together than one percent of the total energy to cooperatively imagine and complete produced. Coal produced 42 percent. Even innovative solar systems,” says Abrams. so, solar power generation is happening “For South Mountain, these projects, and here. Innovative models are emerging and our new ability to provide solar leases enterprising. Forward thinking people are to residential and commercial customers, imagining and collaboratively implementare expanding our business beyond our ing new solar systems. Soon, it will be traditional areas of interest and expertise. possible to imagine a solar array on every This is the first parking lot canopy project roof and to actually see multipurpose in New England and the Aquinnah landfill farm land with solar arrays shading letproject is one of the first on a capped tuce fields. With these initiatives we landfill in Massachusetts. We’re constantly could imagine even larger, well-financed learning and taking this in new directions.” initiatives on state land with solar generaSo what happens when people drive tors producing renewable, grid-tied home from the store? The Cronig’s array power we all can benefit from and own. is a 210 kilowatt (kW ) photovoltaic We could piece together our very own power utility. Because of solar’s emerinstallation, but it can take as little as 5kW gence as a close-to-home power source, to power a single family home. South within the next decade we could cash Mountain company also built a group of in on Edison’s hundred and thirty year bet energy efficient houses on Eliakim’s Way in West Tisbury. Some residents of Eliakim’s on sun and solar and realize our own form of energy independence. Way, like Matt Coffey and his family, have attained zero net energy use — over Energy Note “The energy in the photons the course of the year, their solar panels that strike the earth each hour is roughly provide enough energy to power the the equivalent to the total energy, from all whole house. Even those who still pay the sources, that humans use in a year.” electric company appreciate the combined Source: Owen, David. “The Artificial Leaf.” New Yorker 14 May benefits of solar power and efficiency. 2012: 68–74.
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Martha’s Vineyard Arts & Ideas Early Summer 2 0 1 2
The Jennibeck building on State Road in Vineyard Haven, recently sealed, reshingled and fitted with a new solar array. (Work done by South Mountain Company.)
For more information about Solar and Solar incentive programs, see: www.mass. gov/eea/energy-utilities-clean-tech/ renewable-energy/solar US Energy Information Coal Use: 205.254.135.7/energy_in_brief/ role_coal_us.cfm Table of National Electricity Use: 205.254.135.7/electricity/monthly/epm_ table_grapher.cfm?t=epmt_2_5_a Vineyard Power is an energy cooperative based on Martha’s Vineyard dedicated to the transition toward renewable energy while simultaneously maintaining the culture of the island. Learn more about Vineyard Power here: www.vineyardpower.com Learn more about South Mountain Company here: www.southmountain.com
1. US Energy Information Administration — http://205.254.135.7/energy_in_brief/role_coal _ us.cfm 2. US Energy Information Administration — http://205.254.135.7/electricity/monthly/epm_ table_grapher.cfm?t=epmt_2_5_a 3. Amory Lovins; Reinventing Fire, Chelsea Green, October 2011 — Humans started burning fossil fuels at a recognizable scale in the mid-to-late 1800s, and have consumed roughly one-third of the planet’s technically and economically recoverable stock of fossil fuels. Half of this consumption has occurred since 1985. Projections from resource experts, although quite approximate, suggest that we are approaching peak consumption for oil (some assert the peak has already passed). Perhaps more surprising, projections also indicate that peak coal may be decades off, not a century or more, since much of the coal resource now looks too costly to recover. — http://www.rmi.org/RFGraph-Fossil_fuels_global_production 4. Andrew Woodruff a local farmer has leased land to Bill Bennett, who is, among other things a local, small scale energy developer.
A rti st p ortrait
Julia Kidd — The Messages Project J u l i a K i d d i n sta l l e d e l ev e n temporary, site specific signs around the
island, from April 23 –May 8 , 2012 . The project was titled “The Messages Project.” Most signs were in the landscape — Tashmoo overlook, Keith Farm, Aquinnah. One was in the Regional High School, another on a banner above Main Street, Edgartown. One was set on the side of the Shenandoah. In Julia’s words: “ The Messages Project” [was] about love and the power of our connection to others through love. The idea was inspired by messages I received that were so beautiful and healing I couldn’t help but think anyone would love to receive such a message.
F I CT I O N
This excerpt of Edward Hoaglands “Alaskan Travels, Far-Flung Tales of Love and Adventure” is published courtesy of Arcade Publishers. Published April 1, 2010.
Alaskan Travels | Edward Hoagland It was February 27 th, cold enough to sting the lungs, weigh down your arms, and pinch the muscles in your heart.
Walruses and Whales
A
month after returning from the Kuskokwim, we boarded another Boeing 737, converted for carrying goods until only four rows of seats were left. A Nome businessman wore a sealskin coat with a polar-bear collar. Hurtling through the clouds on Bering Standard Time, I listened to the thin metal wall rattle between us and eternity, reminding me of my creaky berths on the old Cunard Queens, crossing a stormy North Atlantic two decades before, when nature also slapped against human certainties. “Welcome to Nome. Facilities are quite limited,” our pilot announced ironically. After the seal-skinned businessman had debarked, the pilot cowboyed up and off the spindly runway, past a talky-looking, tiny-looking, Cold War White Alice advance-warning radar station — the black hole of the jet engine was just outside my window — and over the tundra of Seward Peninsula: settlements such as Iron Creek, Mary’s Igloo, Coarse Gold, Coffee Creek, and the Bering Land Bridge National Preserve, to Goodhope Bay and Kotzebue Sound. Kotzebue (pop. 2,700) was situated on salt water on a marshy peninsula at the mouths of two Brooks Range Rivers, the Kobuk and the Noatak. This meant a hunter could go inland thirty miles and shoot a moose or caribou, or seaward the same distance and shoot an “oogruk,” a hefty bearded seal, whose hide the whalers traditionally used for their skin boats. A walrus provided still more meat — twice as much as even a beluga whale — plus the tusks and skull that Eskimos could legally cut up to carve three-dimensionally or scrimshaw for sale. Lacking Nome’s gold-stampede origins (and then deflation: its name supposedly a map draftsman’s misreading of the handwritten query, “?Name”), Kotzebue was instead a vibrantly unassuming Inupiat community memorializing an early nineteenth-century Russian explorer who searched past here for a Northwest Passage to Europe. Nor did it seem an airless regulation-processing center like Bethel, stranded neither on the sea nor in the wilds. As in Tanana or Fort Yukon, on the great Yukon River, I felt tentative, in the minority, and on my
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Martha’s Vineyard Arts & Ideas Early Summer 2 0 1 2
best behavior, far from white-run Fairbanks, so to speak. God knows if there would be a hotel room within a hundred miles if Linda lost her temper with me. It was February 27th, cold enough to sting the lungs, weigh down your arms, and pinch the muscles in your heart. Along Front Street, the wooden frame houses had caribou antler racks on the roofs. The women standing in the doors, as we drove through from the plane, looked haloed by their white-bear or grizzly hoods, often with the claws left on. But Kotzebue had a twenty-nine-bed hospital (four doctors in and out) and another solid supervisor for its three itinerant nurses, who served the many villages ringing Kotzebue Sound or sprinkled up the fabled Noatak and Kobuk. Martha, who took us in, was a tall, severe-faced, San Francisco ash-blonde beauty, now a veteran of six years living here, and good with a rifle or on a snow machine, as well as the healing arts — and at sizing up men. Pilots would risk their lives, stunting in barrel rolls overhead, to impress her. Others brought her luscious sable furs they had trapped, or delicious cuts of wild meat: not that she didn’t also hunt her own. Nonetheless, she’d not picked one of the macho guys to live with, but Fred, a round-faced, gently intellectual Inupiat birdwatcher, who had identified ninety-five species passing through last year. Both on North America’s closest contiguous point to Siberia at Wales and as a student of subsistence tactics and culture — strumming for us some of Greenland’s Inuit songs — Fred had probably also acquired part of his nimble versatility because for ten years during his childhood he had accompanied his mother when she lived at a tuberculosis sanatorium in Seward, in the south of the state. But after college he’d chosen to return and immerse himself in his ancestry, representing his heritage at statewide “walrus conferences,” for instance, where the current population census and harvest statistics were discussed with federal and state biologists and regulations thrashed out both to protect “the resource” and the natives’ need for walrus meat and ivory. Martha was more interested in exploring the Noatak, where she had a cabin, but that was up his alley, too.
Kotzebue was a tough town, each house a fortress against the cold — even Martha’s mud room felt cold enough to die in, if you were locked out of the rooms beyond — and armed for selfdefense at night, when drunks wandered abroad. But the poverty was localized among families without a breadwinner. Not only Prudhoe Bay was sloshy with jobs for anybody fit to work, but the Anaconda and Kennicott copper companies were salivating over deposits recently discovered near Ambler on the Kobuk River, much closer indeed. And tin ore identified at Lost River on the Seward Peninsula offered another prospect of big bucks. Or two “fish-pickers” salmon-netting for six weeks in a twentyfoot boat during the summer in Kotzebue Sound might gross $ 40,000, if they knew how. Robust energy was the currency. Oil and metal geologists needed guys for their field crews who could deal with an unexpected snowslide, or fill the frying pan with Dolly Varden; and even the ancient craft of luring a lynx into a trap paid cash. The harbor was navigable three months a year, when generator and heating fuel and durable goods were barged in. Then in the cold weather before freeze-up, the waves of the wake of your motorboat lost their rooster tails, Martha said. But even now, through the ice, you could hook up to sixty twenty-pound sheefish in a couple of hours, or twenty dog salmon in just one. Or elsewhere, pike, char, whitefish, lingcod (called “mud sharks” here), and tomcod from the ocean that you froze before you ate them to kill the worms inside. Household running water was piped ten miles above ground from a frozen lake to town, heated twice in boilers along the way. The new senior center had been architectured like a spacious igloo, with a lovely skylight impersonating the smoke hole. We walked across a frozen lagoon, admiring the darkening blues of the night in the east, a peach light to the west, and the town’s appealing sparkle behind us. Then back to Martha’s low, red-painted log house to look at her angel-wing begonias, asparagus ferns, and spider plants, plus Fred’s collection of paddle-shaped Eskimo drums fashioned from walrus intestines stretched over a thin driftwood frame. Both of them had lately become embroiled in native politics: Fred quitting as vice-president of the health corporation — though still loyally claiming it was better than working for the State — and Martha moderating in that organization’s disputes with the federal Indian Health Service. But the doctor who lived next door was cutting his schedule in half to train his dog team for a two-hundred-mile run to Nome. Some couldn’t stand the isolation, she said; yet some went native on you. And one of her troubles was that when a patient not hers came back to the area from an operation in Fairbanks or Anchorage without their paperwork catching up to them, they might not be able to tell her what had been repaired or removed, so passive was their relationship to white-man’s medicine. She was the tallest, richest woman in town, with a polar-bear hood and the tails breezily tossing on her marten-skin hat — speeding around on the best snowmobile, with a new boat and truck and the Noatak cabin to get away to — pineapples and chutney on her table,
polypropylene long johns under her jeans, and fifty-year-old bush pilots sometimes piggybacking or tailgating each other up in the sky just to catch her eye. Yet she was a healer, if they got hurt. And Fred’s father was her ballast, telling her skin boatand-walrus stories: how, if you killed one in a herd, others might surround and try to capsize you in revenge by hooking their tusks over the gunwales. Skin boats were more vulnerable to an attack by a polar bear in the water also, but their flexibility made them superior to the wooden kind for navigating among ice floes, bending with or riding over them. Kotzebue’s cabdriver was its bootlegger, and he buzzed the doorbell with a liquor delivery this Sunday eve. His belly protruded parallel to the floor, but he was laughing because of the joke he’d pulled on a local braggart at the greasy spoon. Everybody knew him and he was boasting about all the women he’d fucked, until the cabbie interrupted: “Oh, I hope not her! I caught the clap from her last month!” Then went home, peeled the label off a bottle of aspirin, and sold it to him as leftover pills. Everybody was worried, however, about the fate of an eighteen-year-old Inupiat boy from Point Hope named Amos, who had unscrewed the plates on his cell window and escaped from Kotzebue’s lockup two nights ago, stolen or “stolen” a friend’s loose snow machine, and headed at top speed straight northwest across the sea ice and corrugated shoreline toward the Eskimo hamlet of Kivalina, hours away. Villages like Sheshalek and Tikizat came first, and the pressure ridges of the ice, till, exhausting his gas, he abandoned the snowmobile and borrowed or stole a Honda three-wheeler in Kivalina to continue his hopeless flight northwest along the tumbled coast toward Point Hope, a village of less than five hundred souls, about as far again — where state troopers undoubtedly would be waiting for him. Confinement had terrified Amos, the Quaker missionaries and several nurses who had visited him said, and the last time he’d escaped, during warmer weather, he managed to elude capture for two precious weeks with the help of sympathizers. Now, though, the three-wheeler inevitably stalled in deep drifts short of Ipnot, and he must have been forced — no one knew — to flounder through the soft stuff inland for cover in the willows and hills and dig a “wolf hole” to survive Saturday night. Today, on Sunday, a police helicopter spotted the Honda, but not before the winds obscured any tracks leaving it. Since he didn’t come out of hiding to wave for help, people could assume he preferred dying under the snow to being caged up again. A mental patient once fled from the hospital in his pajamas and slippers, Martha said, running across the sea ice until a helicopter spotted and lassoed him. And a three-year-old boy had been blown away in a blizzard and whiteout from his backyard here in town, and not found for thirty-six hours, only a few yards out on the ice, but still so securely zipped in his snowsuit that his temperature was ninety-five degrees and okay. Purchase at Bunch of Grapes Bookstore: http://site.booksite.com/7205/showdetail/?isbn=9781611455038
Martha’s Vineyard Arts & Ideas Early Summer 20 1 2
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A rti st p ro f i l e
When Day Falls to Dusk, oil and gold leaf on wood panel, 24 x 30"
Water’s Edge, oil and gold leaf on wood panel, 15 x 48"
Jessica Pisano S o mu c h o f wh at I d o as an artist is drawn from
are shaped by the wind and sea to be so interesting.
nature. I am greatly inspired by my local landscape —
You see a lot of those trees along the Vineyard shore line.
trees and seascapes are vital parts of my paintings.
You’ll also see that many of my seascape paintings
The Tree is a symbol of life, growth and energy; and
have a foggy horizon line — a sight that I’ve seen countless
the Sea, a symbol of awakening — it’s the symbolism of
times on early morning ferry rides. I’ve traveled
these natural elements that I aim to portray in my work.
quite a bit and have lived in many different places, but the
There is a calmness that a lot of people say they feel
Vineyard will always be home.
when they look at my work. “Peaceful” and “meditative” is a common response that I get. The Island has shaped who I am as an artist. It’s a
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I’m very interested in the concept of time and how objects weather as they are exposed to the natural elements. My focus is to establish a patina within my
community that fosters and encourages creativity, and I
work that is symbolic to the idea of time. To do this I use
was lucky to grow up with that support. I appreciate
acrylic, oil, silver and gold leaf as well as various subtle
and care for the Island’s environment that’s inspired me
textural materials to achieve a rich aged finish. I paint on
for so many years. You’ll see a lot of windswept trees
baltic birch wood panels, and complete the work with a
within my tree-scape series. I’ve always found trees that
UV protective varnish.
Martha’s Vineyard Arts & Ideas Early Summer 2 0 1 2
Fog at the Breakers, oil and silver leaf on wood panel, 36 x 36"
>> Dragonfly Gallery: www.mvdragonfly.com Artist website: www.jessicapisano.com
Martha’s Vineyard Arts & Ideas Early Summer 20 1 2
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F I CT I O N
“Mia” is an excerpt from Emily’s Cavanagh’s novel, “Mother, Can You Hear Me?” It tells the story of estranged twin sisters, Franci and Lottie. Published courtesy of the author.
Emily Cavanaugh — Mia The Beginning
I
once heard that memory doesn’t develop in a child until three. But I remember this: sleeping in the crib with Franci, our faces turned to face each other. Sun shone in through the white curtains with the tiny yellow flowers that Mother had embroidered. The light sluiced across Franci’s face, bathing her pink skin in yellow. I watched Franci sleep as if watching my own reflection in a mirror. Franci’s thumb was tucked tightly between my lips, and I was vaguely aware of the warm wet feeling of my own thumb in Franci’s mouth. A light wind ruffled the curtains. We slept, we breathed, our arms woven to share thumbs. Whenever someone asks me what it’s like to be a twin, this is the memory that comes back to me. The light refracting through the slats of the crib, the quiet swell of Franci’s body as it rose and fell in the same rhythm as my own, the milky scent of breath, our bodies wound securely together, two halves forming a whole. I always wished I could pluck the image from my mind like a slide and hold it up to the light. “This is what it’s like,” I would say. “This is what it’s like.”
* * *
We were born twelve weeks early, our squirming two-pound bodies already grown tired of sharing such a small space. I started it, I’m sure, always eager, always needing to be first, not even born and already tired of sharing. I can picture myself, flexing my limbs, all two pounds and four ounces, arching my back in the warm cramped space of our mother’s womb, and deciding, Enough. I can see myself beginning the long descent into the world, like an animal burrowing through a tunnel, trying to find the light at the end. And then I can picture Franci. Two pounds one ounce, and perfectly content to spend another three months curled up beside me. Someone should have told me that there was no hurry. Things would be no different outside of that safe warm space that we shared. We would share tight spaces all our lives. We weren’t ready. Oh, our bodies had formed. We had fingers and toes and hearts and lungs and kidneys. We had brains. But Franci wasn’t ready. And maybe I wasn’t ready either. Later, I would wonder if things would have been different if we had been allowed those extra three months, those three months that should have been ours. I began the slow and awful labor, and then Franci had no choice but to follow, out into the cold and gaping world, the
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Martha’s Vineyard Arts & Ideas Early Summer 2 0 1 2
white light of life already blinding. Oh, I was so certain that I was ready until I met that piercing white light, a harbinger of the White light that would follow me for so much of my life. I was born six minutes before Franci, and I waited patiently for her to arrive. In our separate incubators, we drank oxygen, and plastic tubes were secured to our translucent skin with tape. I must have been so pleased to have my own bed, inches of empty space surrounding me, no elbows crammed into my face, no feet squashing my stomach. In those crucial minutes, I was surviving on my own, and I held on to that knowledge so many times later in life. But Franci’s heart was beating too fast, her breath coming in short and jagged gasps. Put me back, her body screamed. I’m not ready. Did I feel guilty then, for what I had started? I wonder if she ever forgave me for it. It was one of the first stories I remember hearing from Mother. The rest of the story goes like this: Franci was dying. Or, not dying yet, but not coming into life, either. Her heart rate was too high, and she was having trouble breathing. I, meanwhile, was already thriving. In the two days after my birth, I put on an extra two ounces. Hearty Lottie, they all thought, ironically as we would discover later. But they didn’t know that then. And they didn’t know how to save Franci. Then some bright nurse suggested putting her in the same incubator as me. They placed her at my side and immediately she calmed down. Her heart rate began to beat at a normal rate, and she started to breathe more regularly. And though I imagine I relished the unfamiliar feeling of all that space to myself, I also imagine that I felt more comfortable once Franci was beside me again. In our new shared bed, I coiled my body around Franci’s, encircling her in a cocooning embrace. There’s a picture of it in one of the musty yellow photo albums. Two tiny black-haired babies in only diapers, tubes stuck to our splayed legs and the one on the left curved around the one on the right, shielding the other baby from…what? From life? Not even two days old and I’d saved her life. It was not until I was older that I wondered: Why would you repeat such a tale to children, a tale of failure and inability that was present at negative years? A tale so filled with powerlessness and dependency that it seemed innate. But Mother told the tale because she thought it explained our twinship, how close we were even then. How different the rest of our lives turned out to be. In the end, Franci would be the one to save my life over and over again. And then one day, she couldn’t.
>> Unofficial website: www.mvpcs.org/Home/teachers/junior_high-school/emily-cavanagh
The Nature of Nurture Polly Hill and Selective Seedlings
By Marnie Stanton The big-leaf Magnolia, Magnolia macrophylla, ‘Julian Hill.’
S
ome might say that Polly Hill was Mother Nature personified. Her ability to nurture seedlings in latitudes that questioned and stretched their ability to thrive, was matched only by her acceptance of the many plant failures that so readily accompanied her successes. She traveled extensively collecting seeds that she thought might do well on Martha’s Vineyard. Some of the various geneses that she introduced did flourish and still thrive on the island while others couldn’t adapt to the environmental variables and perished along the way. She had a Darwinian philosophy of plant survival of the fittest, and was fascinated to see if each new species could, left to its own resources, embrace its new non-native environment. She loved sharing her gardens with visitors and did all she could to help the newly formed arboretum. Her passion, philosophy, and keen scientific research, was passed on to her staff, who benefited greatly from her guidance, and in turn shared their collective knowledge with the many rotating interns who worked summers and nine month stints in this unique horticulture world. Her tireless efforts and fearless acceptance of failure have left lasting impressions on all who have been exposed either directly or indirectly to her. Exposure to Polly’s legacy of curiosity, tenacity, stewardship and acceptance, lives on in the plants and people who have been touched by the powerful heart and hand of this remarkable woman.
Helesia Fruit
Polly Hill’s most famous tree comes from these primitive cone-like structure.
Card file containing information on seed success and failure. Black is dead. Tan is live.
>> Contributor website: marniestantonart.blogspot.com Arboretum website: www.pollyhillarboretum.org
Martha’s Vineyard Arts & Ideas Early Summer 20 1 2
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p o e try
Sarah Gambito
My dream was that the roller coaster was part of a movie that was being written as it was being built and ridden. You would sit in these little boats. The ride was that a god — a new one with a many consonants sounding — would blow you up over the world, which was the movie. You thought you were keeping me awake, that you were a nuisance. But I was thinking how beautiful to it was to be gusted in these different ways. I had the motion of the ride which charmed me greatly without the scenes of difficulty. The surprised party guests. The moment of revelation. I was weak and trying on maria clara dresses. Grandmother and Auntie Ruth worked there. They were straight-backed and spoke perfect English. They argued with actresses about what dress to sell me. Nothing fit and I felt no emotion. In fact, I didn’t even want to buy a dress. I just wanted a scarf. A pretty inlaid scarf that said. I am Filipina. I am from the Philippines.
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Martha’s Vineyard Arts & Ideas Early Summer 2 0 1 2
>> Author website: www.sarahgambito.com/about/
Girl when the nor’easter tore though our beach town. i was unaware that we were a town to have a beach in. it’s worse for us living near water. that at once self-referential. living together. we could be wiped away. a wind to lay down its snub nose next to the sands of our cantina. the plastic bandings of our fold-out chairs. once i wrote transcribed an interview with my grandmother. she talked about cholera. about picking up individual grains of rice because everything made a difference in those days. i wrote it phonetically. i wrote. i saw dat man. my teacher told me that i was being disrespectful. it was insulting her by not making it appear that she could speak without an accent. so i rewrote the interview. i saw that man. as if it didn’t happen like that.
Martha’s Vineyard Arts & Ideas Early Summer 20 1 2
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A rti st p ortrait
Susan Savory — Two x Two x Dragonfly
what remains
Top Left, Clockwise
Don McKillop, Susan Savory, Don McKillop, Susan Savory
dragged from sleep’s fat overcoat Top Left, Clockwise Susan Davy, Susan Savory, Susan Savory, Sam Low
The r e i s a n e n d l e s s a n d e v e r - e x pa n d i n g collection of remarkable work available for
public view on flickr, Yahoo’s photo-sharing website. The photographs of thousands of creative people rest just below the digital surface, waiting for a key-stroke to bring them to light. I am inspired and challenged by the work I’ve discovered there. For nearly three years I’ve been building a series of composite photographs, using the square tags — each a random segment of an image — that flickr assigns to every photo. Some of these pieces were created as a response to poetry…some poems have been born in response to the photographs. The resulting work has been shared on-line through flickr, social networking sites, and a blog, but has, to this point, existed solely in digital format. A new dimension was added to the project in 2012 when I joined forces with Martha’s Vineyard artists Don McKillop, Susan Davy and Sam Low and Cape Cod artist Richard Koury. Using the flickr tags for our own images I have built a new collection of composites and accompanying poems. The work will be available exclusively through Dragonfly Fine Arts Gallery in Oak Bluffs.
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Martha’s Vineyard Arts & Ideas Early Summer 2 0 1 2
>> Dragonfly Fine Arts Gallery: www.mvdragonfly.com
nesting boxes it all goes into boxes (what’s left after yard sale and ebay) then the boxes stack and wedge into the echo chamber cargo hold of the smallest truck that u-haul has to offer the door rolls down thunks latches chairs and lamps and pots and pans whisper to each other back there in the dark ...again like a turtle or a hermit crab all folded into ourselves and hopeful as the sun comes up we go driveway highway ferry we arrive mid-day unload unpack unfurl into this new house by dark books on shelves paintings hung
nesting boxes
Top Left, Clockwise Susan
Savory, Sam Low, Sam Low, Sam Low
truck goes back tomorrow the boxes folded flat beneath the bed
Martha’s Vineyard Arts & Ideas Early Summer 20 1 2
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A rti st p ortrait
All images created with Painter12 software and Wacom Intuos tablet
March 24
March 2 2
March 2 3
March 2 5
March 2 6
March 27
Heather Goff — Daily Doodle D o yo u k n ow whe n yo u ’ r e t r av e l i n g with your
children, you stop every few moments to count heads and make sure everyone is still accounted for? I realized the end of January that I had completely misplaced one of my passions. Sometime in the past two decades, I stopped paying attention to my love of drawing. I decided the beginning of February to start doing one sketch a day, at the end of the day, after my work and chores are done. The ritual of drawing every evening has become a balm, a meditation, a way for me to process the day and massage april 7
something deep inside myself. >> Artist website: heathergoff.me
april 6
april 2 9
april 1 2
april 1 3
Aromatherapy/Botanicals
Glass
Andrea Rogers
Nan Bacon Design / Vineyard Vases
Simply Soaps · WT
VH · 774-521-7229 www.dantzigglass.com
Jamie Rogers – Forging Ahead OB · 774-563-8042 forgingaheadmetalworks@gmail.com
Book Arts
Jamie Rogers – Stones of the Earth OB · 774-563-8042 forgingaheadmetalworks@gmail.com
Home Furnishings & Accents Kyle B. Carson – Wiggly Wood
Daniel Waters, Printmaker Indian Hill Press WT · 508-693-1551 www.indianhillpress.com
Debra Gaines
BOTANICALS
Blacksmithing
VH · 508-693-1037 lauraartru@gmail.com
OB · 508-813-7156 kyn@comcast.net
Richard R. Dumas WT · 774-521-9988
Ceramics
John Duryea
Helayne R. Cohen
Larry Hepler Furniture Maker
William O’Callaghan – Madpotter VH · 774-563-8650 madpottermvi@gmail.com
Chil. · 508-645-2578 www.lhepler.vineyard.net
Jo Maxwell – Vintage Elements
Lisa Strachan – Fine Porcelain WT · 508-696-8770 www.strachanporcelain.com
WT · 508-696-9869 jo@vintageelements.net
Michael Ferguson – M. T. Designs Edg. · 508-627-8785 mtdesignsmary@aol.com
Candy Shweder Up Island Pottery Chil. · 508-560-0324 www.upislandpottery.com
Tom Barrett The Hirsel Edg. · 508-627-6219 chappylady@aol.com
Johanna Erickson
Brenda Evans – Totelly Vineyard Edg. · 508-627-6628 www.totellyvineyard.com
Sylvie Farrington – Sylvie Bags WT. · 774-563-8882 www.sylviebags.com
VH · 508-693-3184 www.markzeender.com
Jewelry – Metalsmithiing Ashley Medowski
Saltwater Gallery VH · 508-696-8822
Cecilia Minnehan
2D & 3D Mixed Media Rachel Paxton Chil. · 508-645-9393 www.rachelpaxton.com
Beldan K. Radcliffe
Cecilia Designs VH · 508-693-7413 www.ceciliadesigns.carbonmade.com
VH · 508-274-8706 www.beldankradcliffe.com
Ashley Gilbert – Leeleedesigns Edg. · 203-727-4823 a.kgilbert@yahoo.com
PO Box 2767, VH · 508-693-1158 www.kennethpillsworth.com
Jamie Rogers
Photography
Stones of the Earth OB · 774-563-8042 forgingaheadmetalworks@gmail.com
LA Brown Photography OB · 508-627-1977 redlab@labphoto.com
Lucinda Sheldon
Debra M. Gaines Fine Art Edg. · 508-627-9989 www.debragaines.com
Lucinda’s Enamels PO Box 2315, OB · 508-696-7863 www.lucindasheldon.com
Nancy Noble Gardner Photography
Painting – Acrylic, Oil, Watercolor Valentine Estabrook
Jewelry – Beadwork
James Streicher Evans
OB · 5o8-693-5481 www.floppypoppy.com
WT · 914-830-9288 vineyard.artist@gmail.com VH · 774-563-9771 vanstrike@gmail.com
OB · 508-939-4056 www.lahartjewelry.com
VH · 508-696-5353
Ann M. Howes, AWS / NWS
WT · 508-693-6039 hartmangma@earthlink.net
Cynthia V. C. McGrath
Howes Watercolors WT · 508-693-2687 how5161@aol.com
Under The Surface Edg. · 508-962-7748 www.benmccormick.com
Lanny McDowell Avian Art WT · 508-696-8826 www.ottgallerymv.com VH · 508-693-0079 www.janetwoodcock.com
Novelty Ingrid Goff-Maidoff Chil. · 508-645-3476 www.tendingjoy.com
Brian Kirkpatrick
Jannette Vanderhoop
OB · 860-235-6577 www.bkfolkart.com
Lanny McDowell – Avian Art
Vineyard Sky Bead Design VH · 508-696-8700 www.vineyardsky.com
Benjamin McCormick
Janet Woodcock Photography
John Holladay
Andrea Hartman
Sarah K. Young
Whitney Fiber Arts WT · 774-563-8659 whitknits@earthlink.net
Mark Zeender
Demolition Revival Furniture WT · 508-696-8475 www.demolitionrevival.com
OB · 508-560-5614 www.stefaniewolf.com
Whitney Moody
MT Designs, Edg. · 508-627-8785 mtdesignsmary@aol.com
Laura Silber
Stefanie Wolf Designs
Edg. · 508-627-7947 www.skoradesign.com
VH · 508-627-0833 www.danvanlandingham.com
VH · 508-696-7585 dianajewel@aol.com
Original Cyn VH · www.originalcynjewelry.com
Susan Handy – Skora Designs
Mary Thomson
OB · 508-693-8989 www.vineyardartisans.com
Lorri Hart – LA Hart Jewelry
VH · 617-429-0614 www.gladragsrugs.com
LA Brown Photography
Dan VanLandingham Fine Arts
Diana Stewart, Goldsmith
Andrea Rogers
Fiber Arts and Leather Crafts
Lanny McDowell
Kenneth Pillsworth
Edg. · 508-847-9999 info@krugandryan.com
Birdsong Ceramics Edg. · 508-627-3846 www.americanpotters.com
PAINTING
Jeri Dantzig
John Holladay
Beth Ann Serusa
Jewelry – Mixed Media / Wampum Laura Artru Designs
PHOTOGRAPHY
OB · 508-693-1857 www.nanbacondesign.com
Andrea Rogers
OB · 508-693-8989 www.vineyardartisans.com
www.vineyardartisans.com
JEWELRY
Find them at the Artisans Festivals.
For a full list of artisans, and to see their work, visit
Labor Day Festival: Sept. 3 & 4 Columbus Day Festival: Oct. 9 Thanksgiving Festival: Nov. 25 & 26 Holiday Festival: Dec. 10
Diana Stewart
GLASS
CERAMICS
Jeri Dantzig
Lisa Strachan
Representing over 100 Island Artists & Artisans
Rain or shine with Great Food and Free Parking
Vineyard Artisans Guide
WT · 508-627-0675 www.ottgallerymv.com
Island Naturals WT · 508-560-1103 jnettyv@yahoo.com
SUNDAYS: June June 10 – September 30 2THURSDAYS: August 3025 SundayS: 12-October ThurSdayS:July July5 –7-August Grange Hall,Hall, StateState Rd., WT 10am — 2pm day Grange Rd., •WT · 10 am – 2each pm each day Rain orRain shine with with Great Food Parking or shine Great Foodand andFree Free Parking
Richard & Carol Tripp The Weavers’ Croft VH · 508-696-4989 trippatwindyhill@yahoo.com
the
Vineyard artisans
Labor Day Festival: Sept. 13 &&24 Oct.97 Columbus Day Festival: Oct.
Thanksgiving Festival: Nov. nov. 25 23&&26 24 8 Holiday Festival: Dec. dec. 10
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Representing over 100 Island Artists & Artisans
www.vineyardartisans.com
To see the full list of artisans, and their work
Brian Kirkpatrick
Lucinda Sheldon
Nan Bacon
Candy Shweder
Martha’s Vineyard Arts & Ideas, June 2011 1
West Chop Light Anne Grandin
Gallery Shows Classes for Children and Adults Summer Art Camp Summer Festival of Poetry
po box 1410 west tisbury, ma 02575
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Martha’s Vineyard Arts & Ideas Early Summer 2 0 1 2
30 Featherstone Lane Oak Bluffs, MA 02557 508.693.1850 www.featherstoneart.org
Individual Artist Guide Connect with the artists mentioned in Martha’s Vineyard Arts & Ideas. This Issue
Previous Issue
Painting
Jeanne Campbell Artist website: www.jeannefineart.com Gallery website: www.louisagould.com
Painting p. 12
LLoyd Kelly Artist website: www.lloydkelly.com Gallery website: www.christina.com
Antoinnette Noble p. 20 Artist website: www.antoinettenoble.com Gallery website: www.shawcramergallery.com
Leslie Baker Artist website: www.lbaker.com Gallery website: www.shawcramergallery.com Traeger Di Pietro Artist website: www.traegerdipietro.com
p. 27
Kenneth Vincent Gallery website: www.granarygallery.com
p. 38
Marie-Louise Rouff Artist website: www.mlrouff.com Gallery website: www.shawcramergallery.com
Jessica Pisano Artist website: www.jessicapisano.com Gallery website: www.mvdragonfly.com
p. 48
Liz Taft Artist website: www.liztaft.com
Ketz Artist website: www.ketzweiler.com Gallery website: www.piknikmv.com
p. 30
Dan Vanlandingham Artist website: www.danvanlandingham.com Gallery website: www.mvdragonfly.com www.piknikmv.com
Don McKillop Gallery website: www.mvdragonfly.com
p. 54
Rose Abrahamson Artist website: www.roseabrahamson.com Gallery website: www.shawcramer.com
Photography pp. 3, 54
Max Decker Artist website: www.maxdecker.com Gallery website: www.piknikmv.com
p. 54
Anne D. Grandin Artist Website: www.grandinart.com
Susan Davy Gallery website: www.mvdragonfly.com
Susan Savory pp. 3, 54 Artist website: susansavory.wordpress.com/ moleskine-exchange
Illustration p. 56
Heather Goff Artist website: www.heathergoff.me
Poetry
Sarah Gambito Author website: www.sarahgambito.com/about
p. 52
Rez Williams Artist website: www.rezwilliams.com
Neal Rantoule Artist website www.nealrantoul.com
Poetry Fanny Howe Author website: poetryfoundation.org/bio/ fanny-howe Justen Ahren Facebook: find Justen-Ahren
Julie Carr Author website: www.poets.org/poet.php/ prmPID/1612 Donald Nitchie Facebook: find Donald Nitchie
Fabric Arts
Kara Taylor Artist website: www.karataylorart.com Allen Whiting Artist website: www.allenwhiting.com Facebook: find Allen-Whiting
Tova Katzman facebook: find Tova-Katzman
Michael Burkard Author website: burkard-michael.html
Cindy Kane Artist website: www.cindykane.com
p. 18
Sam Hiser Artist website: www.hiserfotograf.com
G.E. Patterson Author website: poets.org: search patterson
Caroline Hurley Artist website: www.carolinezhurley.com Gallery website: www.piknikmv.com
Jorie Graham Author website: www.joriegraham.com
Sally Cohn Artist website: www.sallycohnphotography.com Gary Mirando Artist website www.garymirandophotol.com
Doug Kent Artist website: www.dougkentpaintings.com
Marston Clough Artist website: www.marstonclough.com
Sam Low Artist website: www.samlow.com
Elizabeth Cecil Artist website: www.elizabethcecil.com
Pam Flam Artist website: www.pamflam.com Paulette Hayes Artist website: vineyardvoice.org/paulette-hayes
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Stephen DiRado Your Gateway Artist website: www.stephendirado.com Facebook: find Stephen DiRado
To Arts and Culture Ray Ewing Artiston website: www.rayewing.com Martha’s Vineyard
Martha’s Vineyard Chamber of Commerce PO Box 1698, Vineyard Haven, MA 800.505.4815 www.mvy.com
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& Ideas Early Summer 20 1 2
helps sustain our local economy and
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Island Gallery Guide Visit and support our local galleries. They sustain artists and art markets. Alison Shaw Gallery
88 Dukes County Ave. Oak Bluffs, MA, 02557 508 696 7429 www.alisonshaw.com Andrew Moore
11 Martha’s Park Road PO Box 1533 Oak Bluffs, MA, 02557 508 693 8548 www.agmoore.com Beadniks
14 Church Street Vineyard Haven, MA, 02568 508 693 7650 www.beadniks.com/marthasvineyard Twitter: @BeadniksMV Carlin Gallery
3 South Water Street Edgartown, MA, 02539 508 627 3073 Cecilia Designs
11 Beach Road Ext Vineyard Haven, MA, 02568 508 693 7413 on facebook find: Cecilia-Designs Chilmark Pottery
145 Field View Lane West Tisbury, MA, 02575 508 693 6476 Christina Gallery
32 North Water Street PO Box 40 Edgartown, MA, 02539 508 627 8794 www.christina.com Claudia Jewelers
51 Main Street Edgartown, MA, 02539 508 693 5456 www.claudiamv.com Cousen Rose Gallery
71 Circuit Ave Oak Bluffs, MA, 02557 508 693 6656 www.cousenrose.com Craftworks
42 Circuit Avenue Oak Bluffs, MA, 02557 508 693 7463 www.craftworksgallery.com Davis House / Allen Whiting
985 State Road West Tisbury, MA, 02575 508 693 4691 www.allenwhiting.com
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Martha’s Vineyard Arts & Ideas Early Summer 2 0 1 2
Doug Kent Paintings
490 Indian Hill Road West Tisbury, MA, 02575 508 696 9606 www.dougkentpaintings.com Dragonfly Gallery
91 Dukes County Ave Oak Bluffs, MA, 02557 508 693 8877 www.mvdragonfly.com Edgartown Art Gallery
19 Summer Street Edgartown, MA, 02539 508 627 6227 Eisenhauer Gallery
38 N. Water St PO Box 1930 Edgartown, MA, 02539 508 627 7003 www.eisenhauergallery.com Facebook find: Eisenhauer-Gallery Featherstone Center for the Arts
30 Featherstone Lane Oak Bluffs, MA, 02557 508 693 1850 www.featherstoneart.org Facebook find: Featherstone-Center-forthe Arts Twitter: @FeatherstoneART Field Gallery
1050 State Road PO Box 790 West Tisbury, MA, 02575 508 693 5595 www.fieldgallery.com Facebook find: The-Field-Gallery Four Generations Art Gallery
5 Village Court Vineyard Haven, MA, 02568 508 693 5501 www.fourgenerationsart.com
Kevin Butler
Dock Street Edgartown, MA, 02539 508 627 3977 www.kevinbutlergallery.com Line Art Gallery
PO Box 3035 West Tisbury, MA, 02575 508 693 4869 www.lineartgallery.com Louisa Gould Gallery
54 Main Street Vineyard Haven, MA, 02568 508 693 7373 www.louisagould.com Facebook find: Louisa-Gould Twitter: @GouldGallery Martha’s Vineyard Glassworks
683 State Road West Tisbury, MA, 02575 508 693 6026 www.mvglassworks.com Facebook find: Marthas-Vineyard-Glassworks North Water Gallery
27 North Water Street Edgartown, MA, 02539 508 627 6002 www.northwatergallery.com Facebook find: North-Water-Gallery Old Sculpin Gallery
58 Dock Street Edgartown, MA, 02539 608 627 4881 www.oldsculpingallery.org Ott Gallery
1000 State Rd. PO Box 35 West Tisbury, MA, 02575 608 696 8826 www.ottgallerymv.com
Hermine Merel Smith Fine Art
548 Edgartown Road West Tisbury, MA, 02575 508 693 7719 Island Art Gallery
Kennedy Studios Custom Framing 66 Main Street – PO Box 4657 Vineyard Haven, MA, 02568 508 693 3948 www.kennedystudiosmv.com Email: kennedystudiosmv@verizon.net Kara Taylor Fine Art
19 Main Street Vineyard Haven, MA, 02568 508 693 7799 www.karataylorart.com Facebook find: kara-taylor-fine-art
Sumner Z. Silverman, PhD. Licensed Psychologist Issues of Creativity, Productivity & Quality of Life
508.693.7481
40 Years Experience
Penumbra Photographs
33 North Summer Street Edgartown, MA, 02568 508 627 9002 PIK NIK
99 Dukes County Ave Oak Bluffs, MA, 02557 508 693 1366 www.piknikmv.com Saltwater Gallery
367 Lamberts Cover Road Vineyard Haven, MA, 02568 508 696 8822 Sea Worthy Gallery
34 Beach Road Vineyard Haven, MA, 02568 508 693 0153 www.seaworthygallerymv.com Shaw Cramer Gallery
56 Main Street Vineyard Haven, MA, 02568 508 696 7323 www.shawcramergallery.com
Stark Jewelers
53 Main Street Vineyard Haven, MA, 02568 888 227 8275 www.cbstark.com Facebook find: CB-Stark-Jewelers The Brigish Collection
34 South Pond Road Vineyard Haven, MA, 02568 508 696 3109 www.brigish.com Facebook find: Alan-Brigish Twitter: @Brigish The Granary Gallery
Vineyard Artisans Festivals
1059 State Rd PO Box 774 Oak Bluffs, MA, 02557 508 693 8989 www.vineyardartisans.com Facebook find: The-Vineyard-ArtisanFestivals Twitter: @MVArtisans Willoughby Fine Art Gallery
12 North Water St Edgartown, MA, 02539 508 627 3369 www.willoughbyfineartgallery.com
636 Old County Road West Tisbury, MA, 02575 508 693 0455 www.granarygallery.com Facebook find: The-Granary-Gallery Two Boats Gallery
11 Perkins Ave Oak Bluffs, MA, 02557 508 693 4368 www.twoboatsgallery.com
LA Brown Photography
Discovering a simple Truth that leaves a Lasting TM Impression.
www.labphoto.com 508 627 1977 redlab@labphoto.com twitter@redlab
Martha’s Vineyard Arts & Ideas Early Summer 20 1 2
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Martha’s Vineyard
Whole Health Alliance A network of health care providers & community members promoting health & wellbeing through mind, body & spirit since 1995. We actively envision and engage in the development of an integrated, holistic health and wellness system for all Islanders.
Please join the conversation at: mvwholehealth.org
the
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2012 Season SUMMER FESTIVALS SUNDAYS: June 10-September 30 THURSDAYS: July 5-August 30 Grange Hall, State Rd., WT · 10 am – 2 pm each day Rain or shine with Great Food and Free Parking Labor Day Festival: Sept. 1 & 2 Columbus Day Festival: Oct. 7 Thanksgiving Festival: Nov. 23 & 24 Holiday Festival: Dec. 8
Representing over 120 Island Artists & Artisans
Moment to Moment Mind Body Awareness
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Martha’s Vineyard Arts & Ideas Early Summer 2 0 1 2
ppar A & t Ar K I N K I P
el
NOW ALSO IN EDGARTOWN, 11 WINTER STREET
Burning Day, 2012 – 30” x 50" 0il on canvas
Davis House Gallery Our 31st Summer Season! 985 State Road ~ West Tisbury View original oil paintings of Martha’s Vineyard and Bequia in the historic home of the artist. Open Weekends, 1-6pm, or by appointment LEFT TOM STEPHENS BELOW KETZ WEILER
508 693 4691
www.allenwhiting.com
Anne D. Grandin
SUMMER SHOWS July 1 – 18 Reception July 1, 4 – 6pm Copley Society Artists from Boston at Featherstone Center for the Arts Barnes Road, Oak Bluffs OAK BLUFFS 99 DukeS County ave., 508.693.1366 EDGARTOWN – 11 Winter Street 508.627.1066 MICHAEL HUNTER ProPrietor /Curator
PIKNIK mv.com
August 18 – 25 The Old Sculpin Gallery Dock Street, Edgartown, MA September 9 and 10 Featherstone Center for the Arts Open studio tour
By appointment 508-693-0416 www.grandinart.com | anne@grandinart.com Martha’s Vineyard Arts & Ideas Early Summer 20 1 2
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Back Cover
allenwhiting.com 508.693.9537
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christina gallery
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field gallery
Inside Front Cover
page 1
page 58
christina.com 508.627.8794
mvdragonfly.com 508.693.8877
featherstoneart.org 508.693.1850
fieldgallery.com 508.693.5595
granary gallery
jeri dantzig
lisa brown photography
louisa gould gallery
page 7
page 58
page 61
page 61
granarygallery.com 508.693.0455
dantzigglass.com 508.696.0874
laphoto.com 508.693.9728
louisagould.com 508.693.7373
the martha’s vineyard film festival
north water gallery
piknik art & apparel
shaw cramer gallery
page 9
tmvff.org 508.645.9599
northwatergallery.com 508.627.6002
piknikmv.com 508.693.1366
shawcramergallery.com 508.696.7323
sumner z. silverman phd
the vineyard artisans festivals
whole health alliance
yoga barn
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mvwholehealth.org 508.693.4691
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Inside Back Cover
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Early Summer 2012  Number 3
Martha’s Vineyard Arts & Ideas mvartsandideas.com