For the Jim Thomas Spirituals Choir, the history is as much a part of the experience as the music. Tracing the evolution of American music through the Underground Railroad and the Middle Passage, Jim Thomas and his chorus sing a story of our cultural past.

“Listen Local” might be the theme of the evening on Monday, July 18. That’s when Jemima James hosts her third annual Variety Show at Featherstone Center for the Arts, beginning at 6:30 p.m. The show is part of Featherstone’s Musical Mondays concert series.

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.

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.

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.