Both Taylor and Lori Stone cherish their mutual passion for art. —Dena Porter 
One of Taylor Stone’s sketchbooks that are filled with her colorful artwork. —Dena Porter 
Taylor has written and illustrated books about Vineyard wildflowers that were inspired by her mother’s artwork. —Dena Porter 
Artist Lori Stone simply loves the dolls she created over the years. —Dena Porter 
Lori Stone’s dolls are beautifully intricate. —Dena Porter 
Lori Stone arranged dolls that she created years ago. —Dena Porter 
Lori Taylor is so grateful to see her daughter’s love of art. —Dena Porter 
Taylor has written and illustrated books about Vineyard wildflowers that were inspired by her mother’s artwork. —Dena Porter 
Both Taylor and Lori Stone cherish their mutual passion for art. —Dena Porter 
As part of her art process, Taylor Stone created drawings that are based on the floral artwork that her mother Lori quilted years ago. —Dena Porter
Although Taylor Stone’s art and that of her mother, Lori Stone, are in different media, they share a passionate love of nature. Taylor is perhaps best known for her bright, whimsical, three-dimensional cut-paper framed illustrations inspired by nature and fueled by her imagination. Fairies and trolls amusingly inhabit her colorful woodland scenes. A similar sense of magic animates Lori’s distinctively quirky dolls from the early 2000s that seem to have leaped off the pages of fairy tales.
Although Lori doesn’t make art today, both mother and daughter also share a passion for flowers. In fact, recently, one of Lori’s handsome, 25-year-old unfinished wall hangings, brimming with vignettes of different garden blooms, has been a muse to Taylor. Lori stitched the Biblical words, “Let the land burst forth with every sort of seed-bearing plant. And so it was,” in the center of the piece. The phrase, from Genesis 1: 11-12, describes the third day of creation, when God commanded the land to produce vegetation, seed-bearing plants, and fruit trees, ensuring plants reproduce after their own kind.
Taylor says, “While my mom doesn’t make fiber art these days, she’s still very much alive, and loves spending time in her garden at home.” In fact, the winterberries, daffodils, roses, bleeding heart, and tulips depicted in the wall hanging flourish in her mother’s garden.
“I’d been dreaming of doing a show for the past year that highlights both of our art,” Taylor comments. When an opportunity arose to mount a show at the Miner Family Gallery, opening on the Friday of Mother’s Day weekend, she jumped at the chance. She adds, “It’s interesting because last year on Mother’s Day weekend, I asked my mother to show me all of her artwork. Her art and mine are similar at heart, in their feeling and energy, even though they’re in very different media.” Speaking of their draw to nature, Taylor says, “We definitely moved to the Island in 2001 because nature was important to us, so it’s no surprise we’ve been inspired by flowers here.”
Taylor has been studying the wall hanging for inspiration. She says, “It occurred to me, Why don’t I treat my mom’s piece as my master study? She wasn’t just an artist. She was a talented artist, and really good at what she did. I think this is a great opportunity for me to see things from her perspective. To ask, ‘Why’d she make this choice? Why did she pick these flowers? I wonder how she came up with this composition.’”
Taylor’s process begins with lightly sketching the hand-stitched names of the flowers and their general shapes in her mother’s composition on tracing paper. After researching the blooms, Taylor adds details to her sketch: “Since the wall hanging is unfinished, part of me can guess what she may have wanted to add with the stitching, or think about how I can play with the image on my own.” The final step is to translate the composition into cut-paper collages, which, like her other art, are layered to create depth in the final framed image.
Taylor will also be exhibiting a book she created with her mother. “Another crazy kismet moment is that 2026 also marks 10 years since ‘Vineyard Magic: A Collection of Wildflowers [And Other Sightings] on Martha’s Vineyard.’” The hand-stitched book, bound on the edge with flower-infused paper made by Island paper artist Sandy Bernat, features striking color silhouettes of blooms native to the Vineyard, and an accompanying poem that the mother and daughter collaborated on. “She’s always been my editor,” Taylor notes. “She knows about publishing and printing, and I knew she was a great writer. We started from the beginning, thinking about what we wanted to make sure we covered in the poems, and how the colors should flow through the book like a rainbow. It was a lot of sitting out in the backyard on sunny days, writing poetry about fairies.”
Taylor intends to include visitors in the show: “I hate going to an art show where you’re intimidated about walking around, where you feel like you can’t touch anything, and it’s too serious. I always like incorporating an interactive element that lets people create or add something. I plan to have precut pieces of paper, and encourage everyone to draw a flower and leave it there, so that by the time we close, we’ll have another display of flowers.”
Asked what she hopes visitors will come away with from the mother-daughter show, Taylor says, “I want to encourage people to talk to their moms, slow down, and smell the flowers.”
“A Season of Flowers” at the Miner Family Gallery, located at 34 Beach St. Extension in Vineyard Haven, runs from Friday, May 8, to June 3. Opening reception is on Friday, May 8, 5 to 8 pm.