As he sits for an interview in the kitchen of his mother’s Oak Bluffs cottage, Paul Padua seamlessly breaks into and out of character — not just one, but many of the roles he’s played over the years as a member of the Vineyard Playhouse performance group the Fabulists.

Vineyard-born artist Max Decker tends to mold his artistic personality to match his environment. His Island summers inspire classic landscape paintings, but come fall, his return to his home in Brooklyn seems to trigger a more aggressive and figurative form of expression.

“I guess by osmosis, what’s around you is kind of what you start producing,” said the artist. “When I’m in New York, it’s kind of loud. Here [on the Island], I get a little more atmospheric, a little more subdued.”

There are unmistakable signs of Gary Mottau’s artwork nestled throughout the rolling up-Island countryside on Abel’s Hill in Chilmark. They blend with their environment, just as he intended; that is his art, his ability to take a cue from nature and create exquisite sanctuaries from wood, stone and seed.

His artwork extends to other media as well; a collection of his wired drawings, which he describes as “three dimensional line drawings,” are on display at Carol Craven Gallery in Vineyard Haven.

M ost people are familiar with the adage, “If it ain’t broke, don’t fix it.” Stick to what works. Don’t take unnecessary risks.

It’s a bit of advice that Nancy Shaw Cramer has chosen happily to ignore throughout her career.

Making choices and changes, even riskier ones, has been vital to Ms. Shaw Cramer’s success in the Island art world. It was on a bit of a providential whim that the former tapestry weaver decided to move to the Island in the first place, and to transform herself from artist to art proprietor.