Galleries : Benefit Show At Field
By Brooks Robards
Published: August 28, 2008
It was Field Gallery director, Jennifer Pillsworth, who proposed a benefit show for the Martha's Vineyard Cancer Support Group. "If I hadn't had a friend with cancer, I wouldn't have known about the Cancer Support Group, and it's good to create awareness of it and all that it does," she said.
Organized by owners, Chris and Sheila Morse, and the staff members of their three galleries, the show featured 23 of the artists who exhibit at the Field, Granary and North Water galleries, providing their art for the benefit show at the Field Gallery.
"We have such a great Island community, and it's nice to celebrate that," says Ms. Pillsworth, explaining that 25 percent of the show's proceeds will go to the Martha's Vineyard Cancer Support Group.
The Martha's Vineyard Cancer Support Group was started in 1986 to help cancer patients, survivors, their friends and families who attend weekly meetings to share their experiences with cancer.
Since its incorporation as a non-profit organization in 1996, it has been able to provide financial support for cancer-related travel and other expenses not covered by health insurance. It also holds educational seminars on resources and treatments available to Vineyard cancer patients.
In addition to supporting a good cause, the Field Gallery benefit show displays 32 works offering an excellent overview of the artwork carried by the Morses' three galleries. It is a well-balanced, handsomely hung exhibit.
The art ranges from "Kenney Farm, Late Summer," a painting by artist Kenneth Vincent, to "He Loves Me," a bronze statuette by the late sculptor Tom Maley, to two photographs by Janet Woodcock.
Artist and gallery manager David Wallis shows "Changing Light, Quansoo," a handsomely executed watercolor on canvas - an unusual ground for that medium. Mr. Wallis used a subtle palette of muted sand color and lavender depicting tidal waters and surf. Mood and effect are created with a long gray bank of wispy clouds hovering along the painting's wide horizon.
Photos by Ralph Stewart
Below Mr. Wallis's watercolor is "Falling Tide," a landscape by his colleague, Scott Terry. In his oil on panel painting, Mr. Terry rendered the hills and dunes to almost black. Even the beach sand, with its black seaweed along the tidal wrack, conveys a somber mood. A faint pink afterglow radiates from the horizon line below a pale yellow-ochre sky.
Artist Rob Franco's oil on canvas painting of an olive-drab, red-hull dinghy hangs near artist Peggy Turner Zablotny's floral work, "Somewhere Everywhere...Always There," and the strong colors in each piece compliment each other.
Nearby is Andrew Sovjani's "Unique Reaction Print of a Sun Flower," a painted photograph - a process the artist developed. Its muted creams and grays provide contrast to Ms. Zablotny's intense crimson floral petals and Mr. Franco's boat.
Painter Ron Gee includes "Calm Sea, Stormy Sky," an unusual, egg-shaped oil-on-linen work made of two canvas pieces that become concave along their center joint. Three-dimensionality reinforces the sense of perspective in a composition of buff sand, bluffs and gentle green surf under a mauve gray sky and clouds.
On the adjacent wall, "Windy Day" by George Anderson depicts a sailboat in bright acrylic paints and is set off by its white frame. Artist Barbara Wylan's mastery of watercolor in "Pamet Blues and Golds" makes the sage green trees and salt pond grasses, set between amber grasses and a soft white sky, look as if it was done with the softness of pastels.
The show also includes "Construction" by Mr. and Ms. Timothy Maley; "Annie Oakley with Buffalo Bill," a hooked rug by Jack Moment; metal sculpture by sculptor Jay Lagemann; and sculptured ceramic art by artist Susan Elena Esquivel.
The benefit is the last show of the season for the Field Gallery and coincides with a showcase of Tim Coy's lighthouse photos.
The Field Gallery benefit show for Martha's Vineyard Cancer Support Group runs through Sept. 6. The West Tisbury gallery is open daily 10 am-5 pm and 11 am-4 pm Sundays from May to December. 508-693-5595.
