‘Embrace MV’ exhibit at Featherstone

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Embracing our Island is at the core of Featherstone Center for the Arts’ new exhibition, “Embrace MV,” on view through June 22. Ninety-eight artists have filled the Francine Kelly Gallery with their arresting odes to the Vineyard and the Island community. However, Featherstone and the artists are not just expressing their love visually, but also through monetary donations, as a portion of each sale is allocated to support an Island nonprofit of the artist’s choice.

“As we were thinking about Pride Month, Juneteenth, and the way the community is being brought together in many ways in June, we thought, Why not give the artists an opportunity to shout out the nonprofit of their choice, so visitors can maybe learn about one they don’t know?” Martha’s Vineyard Shellfish Group, Vineyard House, Red Stocking, Northeast Native Network of Kinship and Healing, Hospice of Martha’s Vineyard, West Tisbury library, and Animal Shelter of Martha’s Vineyard are just a few of the 38 organizations represented.

To encourage participation, “Embrace MV” is an open-themed showcase of recent work that has not been previously exhibited at Featherstone. “We want it to be a fresh perspective on artists’ views on the Island, and we hope it brings together the community,” says executive director Ann Smith. “It is a way for the artists to embrace this Island so that their work and dollars support these wonderful nonprofits that are uplifting our Island and helping to make the Vineyard so very special.”

The artists’ visions come in all shapes, sizes, media, and subject matter, from landscapes to figurative or abstract pieces, and those that call out for social justice. “The Island is what we all embrace. We all want to be a part of it because it’s so magical and inspirational,” Smith reflects.

Not surprisingly, images of nature abound. Heidi House attaches a row of sprightly purple flowers to a rough-hewn wood plank in “Unity,” a title that speaks to both what we see and what we wish for. Deb Edmunds fashions a miniature, slightly curved wooden bench from Island vines. With what appears to be an embracing space for just two, her title “Look Beyond” infuses the rustic model with an aspirational air.

The plethora of small white blossoms and vibrant red foliage in Liz Dolan Durkee’s large photograph, “Salt Marshes Have Superpowers,” beckon us to enter the lush vista with its endless shades of green. Warren Gaines’ acrylic “Star-Filled Evening Skies” sparkles with a special light that makes the painting dance on the edge of fantasy. Dorothy McLaughlin Petell’s mixed-media “Snowing at South Beach” possesses an equally compelling, otherworldly quality that evokes the winter season. And Lina Racaniello’s gem of an art print, “Mushroom Dreamscape,” conjures up a bit of an “Alice in Wonderland” moment by placing us just beneath the two red-capped fungi.

Humor is present in several other works, including Howard Harrison’s “You Have to Be Able to Read.” His photograph of a bike leaning against a fence is laugh-out-loud funny when you see the sign posted right beside it declaring “NO BIKES ALLOWED ON FENCE.” Kate Feiffer’s “Everybody Has an Opinion” is all about communication, too. Her pen, ink, and watercolor drawing teems with amusing folks in all shapes and sizes buzzing away amid countless confetti-like squiggles, as if some giant lawn party is taking place. In Erin Cummings’ oil painting, “What are Ewe Lookin’ At?” a trio of pink- and peach-shaded sheep with piercing dark eyes stands in a lush green pasture, staring straight at us. It takes a moment to “get” David Ferguson’s mixed pen and watercolor “Eye Land,” until you realize that the circle with images of iconic Vineyard homes and lighthouses, encircled by a stone wall, is a single, large eyeball. Susan Garrett’s substantial black-and-white photograph “Jumping for Joy” brings a smile. Shot from behind, we see a long line of men and women on the “Jaws” Bridge, all looking at one another, with just a single jumper off to the far left, caught mid-leap in what looks like an ecstatic moment of heartfelt abandonment.

Some artists plunge us underwater. David Joseph constructs his amusing “Toolfish No. 1” using exactly that — metal tools, including wrenches of various sizes to form its striped body, a bolt for an eye, and a pair of open pliers that create a guppy-like mouth. Daisy Lifton animates her sinuous, collaged multi-armed creature in “Octopus Arrives” with small, minnow-like fish that flit about. What appear to be bright apex predators and other large marine life swoosh across the watery blue surface of Ann Meleney’s mixed-media “Ocean Reflections,” as if gazing down from far above at a migration pattern. Hair swirling about, a beautiful woman throws her head back with a glorious smile above the printed word “Inkwell,” basking in the sun and sea air in Ocean Eversley’s mixed-media “Summer Bliss.”

Marcia De Castro Borges uses the term “Community” to title her photograph of a lawn sign sporting the words “We Support Immigrants,” reminding us that it is not just the Vineyard’s physical beauty that makes this place home, but its people. Marston Clough writes in the statement next to his evocative drawn profile, “Fellow Man,” “I was lucky enough to have been born and raised on the Vineyard, and was cared for by family and friends. I chose to do a portrait of a person unknown to me because, as a senior citizen and Island resident again, I feel a strong sense of community. Despite various tensions inevitable to humans, I still feel lucky to live here.”

It’s a sentiment all the artists hold, and one we feel as we experience Featherstone’s June community show.

“Embrace MV” is on view daily from noon to 4 pm at Featherstone Center for the Arts, through June 22.