Martha’s Vineyard is a hub for artistic expression, and here at The MV Times Calendar section, we are fortunate to look into the lives and minds of these local creators every week. As painters, musicians, and photographers continue to add to the Island’s vibrant artistic scene, we often wonder how they do it. So this week, we asked:
Where do you find your winter inspiration? Indoors? Outdoors? Off-Island? How does working in the winter differ from summer?
Wintertime is my most productive creative time, as I have to produce new work for the Small Wonders Holiday Show and the upcoming summer season. Throughout the year I am always thinking about art, and intake various ideas, photos, etc. I have a work table with many of these ideas that I set to work on in the winter. Inspiration comes from the outdoors and natural beauty, reading books, even the news, and from people I meet during overseas travels and here at home on the Vineyard. I’ve even been inspired driving over the Brooklyn Bridge. Shape, form, and color are everywhere if we can take the time to look, listen, and feel. Winter provides that extra breath of space for the creative process.
—Louisa Gold, artist
In winter I get my artistic ingredients outside — from blinding sun on snow paparazzi flashes and from the click of icy branches struggling against invisible handcuffs. In winter, all life goes underground, into roots and caves and coves, leaving us, above ground, with a graveyard of memories. I feel inspired by its desolation, longing, conviction, and mostly by its faith.
—Sally Taylor, artist
There continue to be so many variables to this process of winter creation. I like that they are different each year. The silence in the cold connects me to active thought, but it’s in active meditation that I stumble into some of my best work. The long nights as I stare at the dancing fires in the wood stove, from the warmth I feel the wish for what may be. The long gray day walks on Lucy Vincent Beach, through the snow with the white wolf, I feel the wind and bear witness to the ocean playing with the clay and sands forever changing. Then I find a song, conjure its manifest within me. All the work is quite messy. It’s a pint of bourbon, a joint, a cigarette, and hours sitting in a chair in my studio to get to the root of what it is I’m after. It’s green callused fingertips from the strings of my guitar. It’s a raspy, smoky voice that calibrates my words into song. It’s 2, 3, or 4 o’clock in the morning when most are asleep; I fill the silence.
—Neil Howl, musician
My idea of winter inspiration is the weather — the more severe the better. The winter of 2015 was as close to perfect as I can remember. It snowed on seven consecutive weekends, and as a bonus, the harbors froze over. My indoor winter inspiration comes from working with our mentorship students (24 this year). We aim to inspire creativity in them, but it often goes both ways.
—Alison Shaw, photographer
I continue to be inspired by the Island, even in the winter. In addition to working on several new pieces this winter, I am continuing the development of “Derivative Giclée Prints,” which I first introduced this summer at my show “Vineyard in Black and White” at the Martha’s Vineyard Playhouse. I’ve often longed to alter a painting after I’ve finished it. Because of digital software, this is now possible in ways beyond simply replicating copies of the original. Each derivative is an original in that it differs from its derived source. An example of a recent derivative giclée is “After the Storm.”
—Harry Seymour, artist
I work indoors during the winter. I paint from the sketches I have made during the summer. Maybe during the drab winter months I think of the light I have experienced during summer months, which I miss. It is a time to dream and reflect. I am presently doing a series on African light/sunrises/sunsets. I was there a year ago, and am working on a solo show for the Copley Society in Boston.
—Anne Grandin, artist