Alison Shaw

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“If I didn’t evolve as an artist, I’d get bored, and the creative spark would disappear,” says Alison Shaw, contemplating 50 years of Vineyard inspiration. In a career marked by continual artistic reinvention, Shaw’s constancy lies in her ability to create stunning photographs that are fueled by the Island’s exquisite beauty. The more things change, the more they stay true to Shaw’s ever-evolving artistic vision.

Some photographers master a single style, and then stick with it. Not Shaw. “Some people can have the same thing for breakfast for 30 consecutive days. I would lose my mind. I need change in my life. Throughout my career, it hasn’t ever been one style, or color versus black-and-white.”

Her photographs can take your breath away, as we see, for instance, in “‘Vineyard Wind’ Pier 2022.” Lit from behind, the silhouettes of the pilings stand like sentries, directing our gaze back over the ever-paling blue toward the horizon line, accented by a streak of hot pink sky and a slender jetty. She has captured a singular moment in time: the Vineyard Wind project under construction. “You can’t get that picture again. I went there two or three times early in the morning, knowing it would change and be gone forever. I like finding things at junctures you can’t repeat.” 

Shaw’s initial serious artistic pursuit was painting; the Vineyard was her muse even then. As a child, she took classes and private art lessons, and as a teenager during Island summers, she had a studio at the Old Sculpin Gallery, often painting Edgartown Harbor and Menemsha. Photography was also integral to Shaw’s life from an early age. Her mother, Gretchen Van Tassel, had been a professional photographer before stepping back from her career to raise the family. When Shaw was about 10, Van Tassel taught her daughter the fundamentals of photography and darkroom techniques.

Shaw used a Brownie until her father bought her a Leica when she was 13. Turning her lens on the Vineyard, just as she had her paintbrush, she photographed beaches, seagulls, and the like. At Smith College, she majored in art history, and in addition to photography, studied architectural drafting and calligraphy, among other disciplines. “There was a long period of overlap between the various art forms,” Shaw explains.

This education informed Shaw’s photographic eye. “My training in painting was very classical, and there were rules. By the time I got to photography, my approach was intuitive. It’s about being sure things are visually aligned the way I want them to be.”

Shaw’s first professional work consisted of her stunning black-and-white weekly news and features assignments for the Vineyard Gazette, which she did in addition to her full-time job in production. “I always exaggerated the blacks and whites for the contrasts,” Shaw says, such as the delightful image of the lamb in “Flat Point Farm 1996,” which came from a photo essay about lambing on Martha’s Vineyard. The indistinct black background sets off the lamb’s snowy-white face, enhancing the creature’s innocence. Shaw came to the Island right after graduation. “I took my art history major very seriously, and had applied for an internship at the Corcoran Gallery of Art in Washington, D.C. Happily, I was rejected. I was at loose ends, and did what I’d done most other summers of my life, which was basically, ‘Well, I guess I’ll go to Martha’s Vineyard and get a summer job.’ And it was really for the summer. I had no intention of staying any longer than that.”

Fate had other plans in store for Shaw, changing the trajectory of her life. She landed a job at the Gazette as an inserter, placing the inside sections into the front portion of the paper. Over time, she rose through the ranks, soon operating the machine that stamped addresses on the paper, then moving on to paste up ads, and later pasting up the newspaper. She became the production manager and, ultimately, the director of graphics and design. 

Shaw happened to arrive at the Gazette two to three months after it had acquired its offset presses. “I immediately benefited in terms of timing from the ease of their producing photography well. It sort of landed in my lap.”

The Gazette began publishing her work that very first summer. “If I got a good picture, whether it was an important news event, sunset, or a slice of life that they liked, the Gazette might put it on the front or editorial page.” With her distinct style and broad exposure, Shaw gained recognition for her work, and began to exhibit independently in the late 1980s, selling fine art prints.

When the Gazette purchased the four-color Martha’s Vineyard Magazine in 1990, Shaw was made the art director, which inspired her to evolve from black-and-white. At the same time, Fuji introduced a new film, Velvia, which produced vibrant colors. “It was like you worked in charcoals for 15 years, and somebody suddenly handed you a box of pastels. I had been seeing the world in black-and-white, and then I saw it in color. You’re at the same location, the same place, but suddenly I had a whole new Island. It generated a total burst of new work.”

Shaw continues, “The color was comparable to my black-and-white photographs, which I made more ‘contrasty’ than reality. With this new film, the choice of lighting and subject matter made my color more intense than reality. It allowed me to push beyond the norm, so for me, photography became more of an artistic endeavor than a documentary one.”

Bright colors burst from the image, filling the space in “Farmers Market 1992.” Our eyes rush from one gorgeous bloom to another, drinking in nature’s beauty. During this period, Shaw says, “I took off where everything was strong color — sunrises and sunsets, red boats, and the Farmers Market. That was the Vineyard being muse, but with a total shift from black-and-white. It gave me a whole new jump-start.” 

Shaw got another shot in the arm in 1995, when she began shooting her first boatbuilding series. The project entailed photographing the construction of a 24-foot wooden daysailer by Gannon & Benjamin Marine Railway, one of the few boatyards in the U.S. dedicated to the design, construction, and repair of traditional boats: “I always had [a] personal passion for boats and sailing, so it was such a natural fit.”

Other boatbuilding projects followed, including the construction from concept to launch of Rebecca, a classic 60-foot wooden schooner, the largest sailing vessel built on the Vineyard in 141 years. In “Schooner, Gannon & Benjamin Boat Yard 2001,” Rebecca sits majestically within the warm glow of the shed, set off by the dark blue sky and the black silhouette of the building: an arresting image that pays homage to both the remarkable boat and the craftsmanship required to construct it.

In 2000, Shaw left the Gazette to dedicate her energy to Alison Shaw Photography. She and her wife, Sue Dawson, an award-winning graphic designer, wanted to focus on the business together. Looking around for inspiration for her next show at the Granary Gallery, where she has exhibited for nearly 40 years, Shaw lit upon the idea of an Artists’ Studios series. 

Here she focused on the tools in the studios of Island painters. Where others might have seen mess, Shaw shows us great beauty. Close-ups of caked palette knives, well-used brushes, and crusted painter’s palettes are visual “portraits” of the artists who used them. 

Several elements contributed to this new endeavor. Shaw’s youthful affinity for painting came full circle, plus the Vineyard boasted quite a few iconic painters, including Stan Murphy, Tom Maley, and Allen Whiting. Shaw was also seeking new subject matter to complement the textured watercolor paper her printer was using at the time. “The paper of the earliest digital printing inspired me to pursue photographing images in artists’ studios. It also offered an opportunity to play with a little bit of abstraction, with blobs of paint and intense colors alone. It strips away the scene in a studio.” Shaw brought her artistry to these artist studio shoots. In “Easel and Brushes, Allen Whiting Studio 2000,” she carefully arranged the brushes just so, accentuating the vertical paint streaks and creating an uneven, and thus interesting, march across the horizontal image. “In Allen’s studio, I was like a kid in a candy store,” she says, relishing the memory of her first shoot.

Shaw began her Seascape series in 2002. Here, she shifts our vision from inside to outside, from up close to afar. Instead of photographing paintbrushes, she began using her camera as a paintbrush to immediately convey the sensation of what she was seeing, rather than the literal facts of the scene. “I think looking for feeling rather than depicting exactly how it looks had something to do with a shift at age 50.”

The seascapes were born from the experience of staying in a Provincetown dune shack, which had no running water, electricity, or bathroom, a half-hour hike up and over the dunes to reach the nearest road. Communing daily with just the ocean, sand, and sky, Shaw experimented with different ways of shooting, including moving her camera while the shutter was open.

“The dune shack experience was about distilling my life and my photography down to its essence.” This included Shaw’s format: a square, the simplest shape an artist can use. “I split it into two halves, with the horizon line dead center, thus forming perfect symmetry.” Her sweep of her camera transforms the beach scene “Race Point II 2005” into a striking abstraction. 

She returned to the Vineyard re-energized. “It was about connecting more deeply with the ocean, where the land and the beach meet, and the sea meets the sky. We live on an Island. We’re surrounded by the water, and that view is always there — a sunrise or sunset.”

Shaw shifted again, starting in 2016 with her Shoreline series, which sprang from realizing that she repeatedly returned to shoot at the same Vineyard beaches. “It was a way for me to explore new ones where the access wasn’t as easy. In retrospect, seeing the Island in new ways is not limited to the subjects I choose to photograph, but how I chose to shoot it.” In “Stonewall Beach 2017,” the detail in the foreground stones contrasts with the softness of the lapping water, which she captured with a slow shutter speed. And beyond, the veil of fog obscures the distant view down the beach.

For the past six years, Shaw has been creating portraits of boat hulls. The razor-sharp images of the vessels, with their saturated colors, ooze character through their small imperfections and signs of wear. “I like connecting the photography to a story, whether it’s to the people who own the boats or built them. It’s more than just the object I’m photographing.” Although the owner is not present in “Lowell Surf Dory 2022,” hints of human life appear, like an orange life preserver and a water jug. 

Most recently, Shaw has become interested in creating photographs with a muted palette and increased negative space — the area around the central image. She creates this sense of spaciousness in “Payback, Edgartown Harbor 2023.” “There were two days right around Christmas in 2023, where we had this calm and very light-on-its-feet wispy fog, coming and going,” Shaw recalls. The boat’s spectacular blue “pops” against the monotone background, instantly grabbing all our attention, with the fog masking any distracting details. “I don’t want the blue sky and puffy white clouds, and have no interest in sunsets and sunrises anymore. I’m looking for the opposite of that.”

Asked how the Island is currently acting as her muse, Shaw speaks about two new boat projects on the horizon. She is shooting Summer Dawn, a lobster boat from Menemsha, as it is being restored at Gannon & Benjamin. Likewise, she is excited about the potential to do the same with Little Lady, the oldest operating (and sole remaining) one-person wooden fishing vessel in New England, built in 1929. “They are getting my eye and brain working again.” 

And Shaw adds, “I’m open to whatever else comes over the transom of my brain or actual physical form … I just can’t tell you yet what it is.”

The Alison Shaw Gallery is at 88 Dukes County Ave. in Oak Bluffs. For more information, visit allisonshaw.com.