Featherstone’s Launch Party

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Leslie Baker's poster will be on sale for $25, with proceeds going to Featherstone Center for the Arts. — Photo by Ralph Stewart

Countdown: Tomorrow night, Friday, Aug. 26, Featherstone Center for the Arts Friday holds its Launch Party to accompany Saturday’s Martha’s Vineyard Wind Festival event. Scores of artists from on- and off-Island have been invited to apply their creative imaginations to making unique and artful kites, which will be judged in separate categories, both functional and non-functional. Some will be available for purchase.

Kites of all description will be hung and displayed at Featherstone. One imagines walking through a gallery of whimsical confetti-like shapes and colors overhead.

The M.V. Wind Festival, which will take place in Ocean Park in Oak Bluffs on Saturday, Aug. 27, was founded by two remarkable women: the dynamic and community conscious Holly Alaimo; and event planner Joan Hewson, who organizes Boston’s annual Head of the Charles event. The women met when both worked on Habitat for Humanity’s Designer House fundraiser, and came up with this idea to benefit Featherstone.

“We’re being very relaxed about this,” Ms. Alaimo says. “The kites will be judged on Saturday. But it’s all about enjoying a peaceful, beautiful day in Ocean Park.” She adds, “The event reflects the spirit of the Island summer.”

Island artist Leslie Baker’s watercolor poster seen around the Island depicts a group of friends kite-flying on the beach. The poster sells for $25, and there will be a raffle for the original painting. The painting will be on display at Featherstone, and a raffle will take place this weekend. All proceeds from the sale of the poster benefit Featherstone Center for the Arts.

Ms. Baker, a West Tisbury resident, is an award-winning member of the Copley Society in Boston where this past September, she was given a solo show, “Saved Views, of Vineyard Landscapes last September.”

This will be an annual event, Ms. Alaimo says, adding, “We’re totally committed to this.”

Launch Party at Featherstone Center for the Arts on Friday, Sept 26, 6 to 8 pm.For more information about the poster and the Martha’s Vineyard Wind Festival contact Holly Alaimo at 508-693-5444 or hollyalaimo@gmail.com.