Art
By MARK ALAN LOVEWELL
It was showtime this week at Martha’s Vineyard Chowder Company, a new restaurant in the old Dreamland building in Oak Bluffs. The space is across the street from the Flying Horses. Diners will remember the spot as formerly the Ocean Club, formerly Balance and at one time Danny Quinn’s, at 9 Oak Bluffs avenue. As of Tuesday night, after much preparation and waiting, it is officially the Martha’s Vineyard Chowder Company.
A Little Bonsai Talk
Bonsai: Its History and Practice will be the presentation, by Island bonsai buff Don Sibley, at this month’s meeting of the Martha’s Vineyard Garden Club, scheduled for Tuesday, July 19, at 1 p.m. at the Old Mill in West Tisbury. A hospitality hour with refreshments will follow the program.
Anyone interested in horticulture, home gardening, flower arranging and preserving the best qualities of the Island environment is welcome.
Transformed into what appears to be a room of curiosities, the Yard’s black-box theatre this week evokes a sense of wonder. A guitar leans against a funky metal chair, a streetlight stands in one corner, a piano is angled in the other and a lamp with no shade illuminates the stage.
But there’s a softness to the lighting that smooths what might be rougher edges of junk and turns it into a collection of life’s treasures.
Every Tuesday a group calling itself Grateful Dread plays at Nectar’s. The group is made up of various Island musicians, many of whom can be seen all year long playing in various other bands. But it may be tough to recognize them amidst the trappings of the Dread. They dress like rasta dudes and play a musical mash-up of reggae and Grateful Dead music. It’s not just a brilliant concept. The effect is pure Redemption Song meets Sugaree.
It’s a 3-D world, and Vineyard artists are hip to that.
At artist Jeanne Staples’s upcoming exhibition at the Granary Gallery you will see Crick Hill at Menemsha, just as lovely as you know her work to be, but in addition to landscapes of Martha’s Vineyard, Staples may surprise you with some installation pieces, including a thrilling third dimension.
Look out for Eat Beets for Health and The Vodou King, a life-size double portrait of Haitian artist Wilfred Dantis. In these pieces, Ms. Staples explores her more modernist interests.
Each week of late there has been a gallery stroll at one of the down-Island towns. Excellent. Plenty of opportunity for an artist date, as Julie Cameron calls it in her book The Artist’s Way. The idea being that if you take the time out of your busy lives to experience art your own creativity will blossom.
The art is for sale, too, so if truly inspired bring the work home with you.