Visit the Vineyard’s newest studio/gallery, and you might think that you’re looking at the work of more than one artist. After years of selling her work at the Artisans Festival in West Tisbury, artist Valentine Estabrook decided to go it alone and open her West Tisbury studio to the public. Although the new Gallery Gallery is a one-woman space, Ms. Estabrook has many styles, from traditional landscapes to abstract work.
The West Tisbury artist is primarily known for her plein air work. She is one of the founding members of Air MV, a local plein air painting group that hosts a show in a different location every year. Ms. Estabrook creates lovely land- and seascapes in oil.
A few years back, Ms. Estabrook started experimenting with abstract work. Her fascination with water inspired the “Water Currents” series. These paintings, done in oil, are actually semiabstract in that they depict water surfaces with the variety of shapes and colors created by shifting currents and reflections. Viewed as pure abstracts, they are fascinating studies in form and color. Once you realize that you’re looking at scenes of water, you understand the soothing spell cast by these paintings.
The paintings in another series were created by applying paint with abaca hemp — a plant-based type of paper from which teabags are often made. Ms. Estabrook attended a class in the technique at Featherstone last year, and she was inspired to take a total departure from her preferred medium and paint a series in acrylics. The result achieved with this technique looks a bit like clouds of various colors, prompting the artist to compare them to fuzzy cosmic dust formations — hence the name of the series, “Space Walks.”
Ms. Estabrook moved to the Vineyard in 2003 with her husband and her younger son. She had retired from a successful career as a television producer and director, whose work for PBS won a Peabody Award and Emmy awards and nominations. From there she went on to establish her own film company in New York City.
Although she originally studied painting at the Chicago Art Institute, the Kansas City Art Institute, and the Art Students League of New York, it wasn’t until Ms. Estabrook relocated to the Vineyard that she got back into the art world. Upon arriving on-Island, she opened an art gallery called Abode, located on Circuit Avenue in Oak Bluffs. From 2003 to 2007 she showed her own work as well as that of other artists, including those producing fine art as well as glasswork, furniture, and other functional items.
Eventually she gave up the gallery to focus full-time on her own work. “The business occupied every minute of the day, seven days a week,” she said. “I didn’t start painting full-time until I closed the shop.”
Originally a still life artist, Ms. Estabrook, inspired by the Vineyard’s unique beauty, turned her attention to landscapes when she took up painting again. She favors plein air painting. “It’s the light,” she said. “Gaining that awareness in plein air art is what it’s all about.”
“Painting onsite informs all of your work. It opens your senses up,” Ms. Estabrook said. “You have to do it so quickly. You’re trying to capture the light as it rests on the landscape. You’re not trying to capture detail.” Ms. Estabrook sketches a scene in pastel while on location — capturing the light and shadow and basic forms — and then works from photographs to complete the painting in her studio.
Some of her favorite spots to paint are Moshup’s Trail and Lambert’s Cove. “There are so many varying vistas, the trails, the dunes and the beaches,” she said.
Her work often features that contrast between land and sea: dunes, beachgrass, flowers, or an inviting sandy trail in the foreground leading into a sea-and-sky vista. In other images, she focuses on one or the other, spotlighting rolling waves, windswept fields, or craggy cliffs. Her style differs somewhat from subject to subject, from rough brushstrokes interpreting the stone faces of cliffs to delicate work in foreground grasses, to smudgy softly focused long-distance views.
The land- and seascapes are lovely and inspiring. The artist showed these plein air paintings at the Artisans Festival from 2008 to 2015. During that time, she says, “The paintings just keep getting bigger and bigger every year.”
For that reason, and also to accommodate her other styles, Ms. Estabrook decided that showing her work in her studio would be more advantageous. The studio building is set a short distance from her house in a lovely rural setting. She is using her temporary wall setup from the Artisans Festival to create more space to hang the work.
Ms. Estabrook and the eight other members of Air MV will have a show at the Old Sculpin Gallery in August.
The Gallery Gallery will be open to visitors Thursdays-Sundays, 2 to 6 pm and by appointment. The opening reception will take place on Sunday, June 26, from 5 to 7 pm. Gallery Gallery is located at 224 Oak Lane, West Tisbury (off Old County Road, one mile down Oak Lane). For more information, visit gallerygallerymv.com.