This year’s Vineyard Conservation Society’s “Art of Conservation” exhibition at the Feldman Family Artspace at the M.V. Film Center continues to shine a light on our Island’s talented and thoughtful youth.
VCS launched the “Art of Conservation” contest in 2014 to encourage MVRHS students to deepen their connections with nature and the habitats that sustain it — and to exhibit their creativity. This year’s theme was “threshold,” and students were encouraged to interpret it however they wished. The staff took them on field trips to Caroline Tuthill Preserve as an initial source of inspiration. Some went out on their own as well. Outside judges from the art community selected winners among the 42 submissions.
Lucas Thors, programming and communications coordinator, noted about this year’s theme, “There are many concrete examples of thresholds in nature, whether it’s a coastline or the periphery of your yard. But there are also abstract interpretations, so I thought this gave students a variety of different angles to approach from.”
The process involves VCS pitching the contest to teachers at the school. Thors explains, “Some will integrate it into their curriculum, some will offer extra credit, and others will simply present the contest to their classes and encourage submissions. High school drawing and painting teacher Tiffiney Shoquist and photography teacher Chris Baer really make this contest happen.”
The students explored the concept of threshold in various ways. Photography was the favored medium, with 34 submissions in that category; portraying the meeting of land and water attracted quite a few.
Caught in a single instant, Keiry Fonseca brings us eye-level with the cascading waves in “A Coastal Embrace.” Our eye moves back through the composition, from the soft sand at our feet to the rollicking white foam with the ocean blue behind, all topped with a crystal-clear aqua sky. Fonseca writes about the photograph, “A brief threshold where crashing waves meet rough sand dissolves into a quiet, passing embrace.”
The water in Rebecca Duarte’s photograph, “Rocky Ocean,” glimmers in a small pool between the rust-colored rocks, providing, as she says, “a new home for surrounding species at Caroline Tuthill. Sun beaming on the glistening water that reflects its beauty and warmth while it crashes against the sharp edges of the rocks nearby, creating this perfect harmony in nature.”
For Davi de Souza, the threshold might be the line between what is visible and a concept, as embodied in the work’s title, “Follow Your Dreams,” in which we come upon a well-worn rowboat. The orange, tan, and brown tones create a unifying composition. De Souza starts the description with a poem:
Follow the light
Follow the Reflection
Follow the dream
De Souza adds, “The photo seems interesting because it looks to me like someone getting ready to start a new dream and follow their journey.”
Mayu Paniora-Vento’s photograph, “Waves Between Us,” depicts a group of close friends, knee-high in the water just off the shore at Lambert’s Cove Beach, with the sunset on the horizon dividing them from the sky above. The youth are on the threshold of adulthood. Paniora-Vento says, “The moment captured more than a photo; it captured friendship and freedom.”
Charlie Sebastian takes us inland for his threshold in “Weathered Wood.” Sebastian writes about the close-up portrait of the tall, bare, textured trunk, “The tree is half dead but also half alive. Is it too far gone? What is the story behind the scarred, withered bark that is stripped on one side?”
Jasper Grow speaks of a metaphorical threshold in an unusual monochromatic image of a white tick against a dark background in the stark photograph, “The Leeches Limen.” A limen is a threshold — the point or boundary at which a stimulus is just strong enough to be perceived, or the physical or figurative boundary separating two distinct conditions. Grow writes, “The human’s low threshold for tolerance is an immovable force; here, the Vineyard’s most infamous parasite becomes a specimen under the light of the scanner, flattened, held down, and humbled by generic tape.”
Tahirah Waite’s threshold relates to the feeling of living on the Island in the drawing “Island Life,” depicting a large group of Polar Bears joyously gathered, arms aloft, in the turquoise ocean off the gray sandy beach. Waite says, “My work ties around the themes of living close to water and what being a part of community means to me. I have always admired parts of Martha’s Vineyard, like the Gay Head Lighthouse, Aquinnah Cliffs, and in Oak Bluffs, Inkwell Beach, where the Polar Bears go out into the water and circle around each other, representing years of tradition and Black culture.”
Floreana G. contrasts two drastically different environments in an untitled drawing: “My artwork connects to the theme ‘thresholds’ because it shows the line between two different worlds, nature and the city. The girl in the middle represents standing at the point of change, caught between growth and life on one side, and pollution and destruction on the other.”
Thors says, “I think this year’s theme was a bit more challenging than some prior years; it required students to think outside the box and not be too literal in their artistic interpretation. But I think many students really rose to the challenge, and I hope viewers see how much deep thought goes into conceptualizing each piece, before the artists even pick up their brushes or cameras.”
The Vineyard Conservation Society’s “Art of Conservation” is on view at the M.V. Film Center through June 14. For more information, visit bit.ly/VCS_Conservation2026.