Lily Hill, a rare Hines Point offering with expansive views, a deep water mooring and dock, and 130 feet of private finesand beach. Enjoy a swim, tie your sailboat to one of the longest docks on the Lagoon, which opens to Vineyard Haven harbor, or use the deep-water mooring able to accommodate a yacht. From the great room, enjoy the sweeping views of the sunrise across the Lagoon through the elegant, curved windows. The yard is made for romantic moments with a charming gazebo that overlooks the water, and a classic pergola set beneath the sweeping branches of the large maple tree. This classic Vineyard shingle-and-stone home is just over a mile from Tisbury town center and ferry, yet invisible from the road. Lily Hill is a property that, like a work of art, must be seen and experienced to be fully appreciated. Exclusively offered at $7,295,000.
Bricque Garber ▪ Meg Black ▪ Bob Fitzgerald Bob Freeman ▪ EB Lewis ▪ Paul Goodnight
Robin Gottesman ▪ Magi Leland ▪ Steve London
Martha’s Vineyard Arts & Ideas magazine is published by The Martha’s Vineyard Times, a media group that includes the daily newsletter The Minute, Vineyard Visitor and the websites MVTimes.com and VineyardVisitor.com.
You can see the digital version of this magazine at mvartsandideas.com. A&I is available at newsstands, galleries, and bookstores, free of charge. Back issues are available for $10 each.
Ekua Holmes ▪ Jo-Ann Acey ▪ Deb Bohren
Romare Beardon ▪ Joseph Holston
Please inquire at mvartsandideas@mvtimes.com about subscriptions by mail.
Bricque Garber ▪ Meg Black ▪ Bob Fitzgerald
Robin Gottesman
Paul Goodnight
Bob Freeman ▪ EB Lewis ▪ Paul Goodnight
On the Cover
Romare Beardon
Joseph Holston
Robin Gottesman ▪ Magi Leland ▪ Steve London
Ekua Holmes ▪ Jo-Ann Acey ▪ Deb Bohren
Romare Beardon ▪ Joseph Holston
Bricque Garber ▪ Meg Black ▪ Bob Fitzgerald
Bob Freeman ▪ EB Lewis ▪ Paul Goodnight
Robin Gottesman ▪ Magi Leland ▪ Steve London
Romare Beardon ▪ Joseph Holston
Gannon & Benjamin at evening, as photographed by Alison Shaw and used on the cover of her book, Schooner.
A note from the publisher
Ilove this vignette, the one captured in the photo below. It is a snapshot of what is quite possibly my single favorite moment at work since becoming publisher of The MVTimes. And it is a moment that also speaks directly to the central theme of this issue of our magazine: community.
On a warm June day, I’m sitting on a weathered wooden bench in front of the Gannon & Benjamin Marine Railway with Ross Gannon and Nat Benjamin, the founders of this world-renowned boatbuilding community, along with their longtime partner, Brad Abbott. The harbor is right here, lapping the shoreline about 20 feet away.
I’m listening as these good friends are interviewed by one of The MV Times’ newest reporters, Sarah Shaw Dawson. Sarah is our inaugural “Island Writer” — an initiative we’ve launched to train and support the next generation of journalists to tell the story of their own Island. That photographer working with Sarah is her mom, Alison Shaw, the extraordinary art photographer who is always quick to tell you that she started as a news photographer.
and staging area for repairing beautiful old wooden schooners and sloops, is also where some of Shaw’s most memorable images have been taken. You can see a retrospective of Alison’s 50 years of work in this magazine, from the working waterfront to the Cliffs of Aquinnah to the quiet of the Allen Sheep Farm. We’re so honored to be able to share her selection of images with you.
The moment captured in the photo encapsulates the Vineyard’s secret superpower: a community resilient enough to withstand the tests of both time and tide. This issue of Arts & Ideas teems with examples. Our photographer Robyn Twomey shares her stark portrait of Brazilian immigrants who work every day “In the shadows,” introduced by Paula Moura, a contributing reporter who is from Brazil. The
blues guitar licks. Islander Janice Frame celebrates the spiritual heritage of the Black community with her glorious Africa-inspired artwork. The renowned anchorwoman turned minister Liz Walker, a seasonal resident, has both lived and written about the strength and healing to be found in coming together in community.
All of these stories reflect the capacity of Islanders to lean into the interconnectedness that defines us. I hope they might inspire a new generation to pick up the baton and lead us into a future, where we may sustain community by preserving and protecting and honoring what makes this Island so great.
I hope you enjoy every page, and please let us know what you think. And I hope you might see why I love this vignette so much.
The Gannon & Benjamin Marine Railway and The MV Times office are adjacent properties on the Vineyard Haven working waterfront, and in our centerpiece for this issue, Nat Benjamin writes a first-person narrative of the history — and very exciting future — of the shipyard.
The shop, with its weathered shingles
resilience of the Island’s oldest community, the Wampanoag tribe, is manifested in the beautiful work of Knowledge Keeper Julia Marden (“Knowledge weaver”).
In these pages, you'll also meet Delanie Pickering, a relatively recent wash-ashore who found community here, and in turn brings people together through her hard-driving
Best always, Charlie
Charles M. Sennott, publisher
The Martha’s Vineyard Times
By Charles Sennott
By Abby Remer
The Wampanoag
By Charles Silberstein, M.D., With Laura D. Roosevelt
While
By Abby Remer
For half a century, the legendary photographer has continually reinvented her relationship to her muse, Martha’s Vineyard. Here is a sampling of her iconic body of
By Nat Benjamin
A boatbuilder’s deeply personal essay on how a lifetime of craft and community built the Gannon & Benjamin shipyard, and prepared it for its next voyage.
By Paula Moura, photos
by Robyn Twomey
A haunting photographic essay on Brazilian immigrants living in the shadows in our community, shot with a commitment to protect their identities.
PROFILES
10 The power of story-sharing
By Nicole Galland
Liz Walker’s existential midlife shift from groundbreaking news anchorwoman to minister was just the beginning of an odyssey that led to her powerful book, No One Is Alone: A Story of How Community Helps Us Heal.
42 Portraits of power
By Abby Remer
The gorgeous mixed-media artwork of Vineyard resident Janice Frame captures the rich tapestry of African cultures, ethnicities, histories, and traditions.
32 A literary barn-raising
By Kate Feiffer
Islanders Write is more than just a summer gathering. It’s a Vineyard-style writers’ festival. And now, after 10 years, it’s expanding.
39 Lifting Black voices
By Sharisse Scott-Rawlins
The second annual Martha’s Vineyard Black Book Festival amplifies the voices of Black authors in a vibrant gathering. Presenters this year include Justice Ketanji Brown Jackson.
MUSIC
40 From sittin’ in to mainstay
By Abby Remer
Blues musician Delanie Pickering found her people when she began to play with Island bands. “Everyone is drawn to her, and happier for having met her,” says bandmate Jeremy Berlin.
47 Island list of galleries and studios
Julia Marden wrapped in her twined turkey feather mantle.
Knowledge weaver
Wampanoag artist Julia Marden is honored with a bronze statue. BY ABBY REMER
Creativity flows through artist Julia Marden’s veins, and has done so since childhood. Her creations are a direct tie to her Aquinnah Wampanoag heritage.
Marden is perhaps best known for her fine traditional “twined” basketry. She learned to weave baskets while working as an interpreter at the 17th century Wampanoag homesite at the Plimoth Patuxet Museums in the early 1990s. “I immediately took to weaving, and definitely believe it was genetic imprinting,” says Marden.
Twining is one of the oldest methods for fashioning bags, baskets, clothing, and garter leggings. Marden tells me, “Twining is found worldwide, going back as far as 7000 BCE. It was nearly a lost art form in the Americas due to the drastic changes in lifestyle brought about by disease, war, and reservations. We went from thriving to surviving, and didn’t have time for it.”
To decorate her flattwined bags and soft-form baskets, Marden first sketches geometric, floral, or figurative patterns inspired by Northeast Woodland nations on graph paper. Twining involves twisting weft (crosswise) cords around a single or double vertical warp. The weft creates the design, while the warps remain stationary, providing the bag or basket its shape.
Marden often uses traditional shades of orange, yellow, red, brown, and black that evoke the colors of natural dyes, which, like the cordage, would typically have come from local resources. The cordage materials in this region include dogbane, milkweed, false nettle, and the inner bark of basswood.
Twining is a time-consuming process. Bags like Marden’s “Water Protectors” take her approximately six to eight weeks to complete. On one design, seven women march across the bag, one arm raised while the other carries a copper pail. Although the ribbon-dress costumes are 18th century, the design honors contemporary Water Walkers, indigenous women who carry an open water vessel over great distances, relay-style, to raise awareness about endangered bodies of water. The movement is rooted in the traditional belief that women are responsible for caring for water. Historically, bags were ubiquitous, holding foods such as dried beans and corn, nuts, seeds, berries, and dried fish or meat.
Marden excels working in other art forms, such as fashioning burden straps, sashes, and leg garter sets, as well as painting cradleboards, pipe and flute bags, fan handles, and pouches.
Her Horseshoe Crab shell bag, for personal or ceremonial use, is an intriguing Aquinnah Wampanoag work. She and her family processed the crabs themselves. Marden adorned it with a finger-
“The Wampanoag Story” wampum belt set (The Ancient Ones, The Home Site, War Plague Slavery, Powwow Time).
woven strap, copper cones, and dyed deer-hair tassels. “I was fortunate enough to see an antique horseshoe crab bag when I was young,” she says, “and I knew immediately that I would someday make one. I went off my memory from childhood.”
Marden also crafts striking wampum belts, which record events, seal treaties, and convey status. “That’s where I think the
storyteller comes in for me,” she says. Although Marden now lives in Vermont, her parents were from the Island, and with plenty of family here, she recalls spending countless hours on Vineyard shores: “The Vineyard was my second home. I spent my childhood gathering the shells up off the beach. Creating wampum belts was on my bucket list.”
Over the years, Marden has beaded quite a few of them. One three-piece set is striking, with its five-foot length and meaningful imagery. The first belt, “The Doctrine of Discovery,” illustrates how Europeans instituted papal bulls to justify Christian explorers’ claims on land and waterways, leading to the dispossession and forced assimilation of indigenous peoples. The second belt is “The Indian Removal Act,” which authorized President Andrew Jackson to forcibly remove 46,000 Cherokee, Creek, Chickasaw, Seminole, and Choctaw from 25 million acres of their ancestral lands, which were then granted to white settlers. During the march to reservations in Oklahoma, about 4,000 indigenous people died from disease, starvation, and extreme weather.
About the third belt, “K*ll the Indian/Save the Man,” Marden explains, “‘Kill the Indian/Save the Man’ is a U.S. policy started in 1918 with the Indian Civilization Act. Government officials removed indigenous children from their homes and placed them in residential schools.” These institutions were established to purportedly civilize the Indians, to make them “good, useful, and law-abiding” members of society by crushing all indigenous aspects in the children. At some, such as the Kamloops Residential School in Canada, mass unmarked graves have been found.
about these at 35; hers is the first Aquinnah Wampanoag one made in 400 years. “Someone of high status would wear the mantle,” says Marden. “They are the height of our twine work.” Approximately four feet long and six feet wide, this took Marden about a year to construct, working on two rows a day, each row taking some two hours. Sorting the feathers for size and shape alone took about two months. The impressive work made its debut at the Aquinnah Cultural Center in 2023. It has traveled to other sites, and will eventually be displayed at the Museum of Fine Arts in Boston.
"I’m a traditional artist, a bit of a storyteller, and a teacher of Wampanoag culture. It’s a responsibility to pass these things on. But it doesn’t feel like a responsibility. It’s an honor, and extremely important to inspire and keep these things alive.”
–JULIA MARDEN
“The policy was to kill our culture, language, religious beliefs — everything that made us who we are. This belt was not easy to create. It was very emotional bringing this story to life, but too important not to document.”
Perhaps Marden’s most intensive undertaking has been her stunning, full-size twined “Turkey Feather Mantle.” She learned
Marden has already made her mark at the Museum of Fine Arts. In 2024, she was selected as the subject of one of Alan Michelson’s shimmering life-size sculptures for “The Knowledge Keepers” project — the museum’s new annual commission series, in which artists are invited to create works for the Huntington Avenue entrance. “What a huge honor to represent my nation as a knowledge keeper,” says Marden. “It’s hard to put in words.” After seeing the sculpture of herself, she shares, “I was having a hard time digesting that was me up there in platinum-gilded bronze.”
Along the same lines, Marden also received a Jennifer Easton Spirit Award. This prestigious annual award, named after the founding donor of the First Peoples Fund, is given to between four and six indigenous artists who are knowledge keepers. “This is an equally huge honor,” Marden says. “It’s been an incredible year for me.”
Marden says of herself, “I’m a traditional artist, a bit of a storyteller, and a teacher of Wampanoag culture. It’s a responsibility to pass these things on. But it doesn’t feel like a responsibility. It’s an honor, and extremely important to inspire and keep these things alive. I honestly don’t know what I’d do with myself if I weren’t doing this. I would feel very unfulfilled. I was born to be an artist.”
For more information about Julia Marden, visit blog.teacollection. com/julia-marden.
Aquinnah horseshoe crab bag.
Water protectors twined bag.
PHOTOS COURTESY JULIA MARDEN
The power of story-sharing
Liz Walker’s odyssey from news anchor to pastor is told in a new memoir. BY NICOLE GALLAND
Liz Walker has been many things to many people, and most of them are groundbreaking. Throughout her life, she’s witnessed and weathered troubled times, but her work — from newswoman to minister — has always demonstrated the power of truth-telling. Her incredibly moving new book, No One Is Alone: A Story of How Community Helps Us Heal, is a crystallization of what she has learned, and taught, over decades of an immensely diverse professional life.
Walker was born and raised in Little Rock, Ark. She developed an interest in journalism while a student at Little Rock Central High. After getting a B.A. in communications from Olivet College in Michigan, she worked at KATV in her hometown before leaving for on-air opportunities in Denver and San Francisco.
Beginning at WBZ-TV in 1980, a year later, she became the first Black evening television news anchor in Boston. WBZ is the oldest commercial TV station in New England, and notable for its local firsts: Boston’s first daily newscast, first live broadcasts of
Liz Walker and "Little Sister" Elizabeth in Sudan.
COURTESY OF BIG SISTER BOSTON
MLB games, first female reporter, first Black reporter, first airing of a “minority affairs” program … and then, of course, the first full-time Black evening news anchor.
Having won the admiration of millions in front of the camera, Walker made a splash for a different reason in 1986: defying the taboos and stereotypes of the era, she chose to have her first son, Nik, out of wedlock. The station supported her. “It was a win-win,” she recalls, “because, you know, it was publicity, and publicity’s never bad! Some people found it controversial, but they didn’t represent the prevailing thought.”
In 1986, the year of Nik’s birth, Walker brought him to Martha’s Vineyard, where she has summered each year since.
Accolades from her WBZ years include winning two Emmys. Of greater import to her own life, however, was her coverage of the Sudanese war, which won her the 2002 Edward R. Murrow Award.
“I wanted them to send me there, to this war that had been going on for decades, but local stations don’t cover that kind of thing. So I went on my own. I took my own camera, learned how to do a little videotaping, and shot while I was there. And I brought it back and got it on the air, because it was a pretty amazing story.”
The story was so amazing that it changed her life. She had gone over with a group of Bostonians, led by Ray and Gloria Hammond (both medical doctors as well as ministers), who had been invited by a human rights group in Geneva to investigate allegations of wartime slavery in Sudan.
To her viewers, this may have been a hard pivot to make sense of. But Walker is actually the third generation of her family to be ordained. Her father was a Congregational minister, which was very unusual in the South. “We were probably the only congregation in Arkansas,” she muses. Her stepmother’s father was a Methodist preacher; her mother’s father was a Baptist preacher in Mississippi. Despite her official position at Roxbury Presbyterian Church, Walker doesn’t identify with any particular denomination —- she considers her calling to be spiritual more than doctrinal. “I don’t think heaven is going to be divided up into denominations,” she says. Her tone is firm, but there’s a smile in her voice.
Once she was ordained and had begun her ministry in Roxbury, a local tragedy gave her the impetus to found the Can We Talk Program for Community Healing.
“There were several different groups involved,” she recalls. “I think the first trip had 12 in the entourage, from religious leaders to human rights activists to humanitarians, so it was multi-layered.” And although documenting the group’s activities was her reason for going, “the situation there is so horrendous that you can’t go and not be touched.” She was incredibly moved by the experience of “going somewhere where people were really suffering, and being a part of a small group trying to make a difference. Some of the spiritual leaders saw the trip to Sudan as my answering a call.”
She agreed with them. Despite the enormity of such a swerve in midlife, she enrolled in Harvard Divinity School, graduating in 2005. She left her history-making job at WBZ in December 2008, after nearly three decades of working there.
A few years later, she became the transitional leader, and then the pastor, of Roxbury Presbyterian Church.
Roxbury was known as a rough neighborhood. Twenty-sevenyear-old Cory Johnson — a member of Walker’s church, father of two daughters, an honors graduate of Boston Latin Academy — had been shot and killed by an unknown assailant for no apparent reason, while he was outside talking with some friends at night. The shooter was never found. In the years following the senseless tragedy, the church came together to create the Cory Johnson Program for Post Traumatic Healing. Can We Talk was the biggest outreach arm of this: a regular evening gathering offering a safe space for people to talk about their trauma and healing; the evening includes interludes of music and dance.
Can We Talk’s premise is that there is a healing power to be found in people coming together in community, to share stories of grief and trauma with one another, rather than suffering in silence. Most of humanity has experienced some form of tragic loss.
Including Liz Walker herself.
Walker’s mother died while giving birth to her — something her father never told her or her brother. The siblings grew up not knowing there was another mother besides their stepmother.
“I don’t think it was done to be abusive,” she says, “It’s just how he handled his own pain. But then he died when I was a teenager, and we had to find our own way — we were shocked.
“Our stepmother was a wonderful woman, she took care of us, but I wasn’t like her, there was nothing that connected us. In studying trauma, I’ve learned that death is the most traumatizing event in a child’s life when there’s no attending to it, or support for them.
Liz Walker, anchorwoman.
Liz Walker, minister.
But back in those days, in the South, trauma wasn’t even a word. Adversity was something you were supposed to get over and move through.” For Walker’s family, even though the community was solidly empathetic, there was a lack of understanding about trauma.“My world went the other way for a while, and I had behavioral problems. My brother, who died last year, never got over those issues.” She says she is currently “figuring out how I think about all this for myself,” and is contemplating writing a memoir about her family.
So, Can We Talk had personal meaning for her. The response to the program was overwhelmingly positive, and other communities of faith, hearing about it, invited Walker and her cohort to bring the model to their churches. The Can We Talk movement now includes 20 different congregations. Most are in New England, particularly Brockton and South Boston. But there are three in Providence, and a growing number farther afield: Harlem; Washington, DC; Sarasota, Fla.; Chattanooga, Tenn.; and Gary, Ind. “That kind of caught us off-guard,” says Walker, “so we’re trying to build capacity, so we can respond to the interest.”
And then came an unexpected invitation from Palestine. Destiny Magnett, an outreach manager for Churches for Middle East Peace, knew Walker from
Harvard Divinity School. Magnett was overseeing a conference for Christian Palestinian women in Bethlehem, and invited Can We Talk to be a part of it. Of course they went.
“There’s no way to go to that part of the world without being in the fray, but we think we did what we set out to do, which is to ‘see about some people.’ We are keeping in contact with the people that we met at Bethlehem Bible College, who
“Taking care of mind, body, and spirit in community heals all over the world. Can We Talk has changed my life.”
–LIZ WALKER
invited us. Injustice anywhere is injustice everywhere, and the same applies to pain. We’d like to go to Israel, but we go where we’re invited. We’re a small grassroots organization, nothing else now, we have no strategic plan to cover the world.”
And yet Walker is covering the world, in a sense. She has taken the experiences and lessons learned from Can We Talk, and is sharing them in No One Left Alone: A Story Of How Community Helps Us Heal.
No One Left Alone educates and encourages other groups to imagine what
story-sharing gatherings might look like, and how to shape them to any given community’s needs. “I think it was Toni Morrison who said too many black writers write to explain black life to white people, and so I wrote this book to explain to me what I’d been through, to explain to my community what they were going through. I wanted to share with them, to make sure they understood what I was learning about trauma, to help them understand. It has helped me. In learning about trauma, I helped myself.”
The work, truly, is universal.
“People think this [violence, and its attendant trauma] is a problem only in urban America,” she says, “But that’s just the story — not the problem. I think this country is in a state of collective trauma right now, full of loss and grief, and it’s beyond politics. It’s about change, extreme change, that just keeps coming at us. We describe trauma as what comes to you, personally. It’s not some clinical definition. Everyone should be paying attention, because it’s closer than we think.”
How wonderful to know there is a framework for community response.
No One Left Alone is available wherever books are sold. Autographed copies, while they last, will be in stock at the Bunch of Grapes Bookstore. For more information, see lizwalkerbooks.com.
Davis House
Gallery
985 State Road - West Tisbury 508-693-4691 · www.allenwhiting.com
Gallery Open July 5 - August 31
Saturdays & Sundays from 1-6 pm AND by Appointment
Coping with fear in a fast-changing world
How to be resilient in troubled times.
BY CHARLES SILBERSTEIN, M.D., WITH LAURA D.
ROOSEVELT
As a psychiatrist, one of my jobs is to help people reduce their pain. In my practice and with family and friends, I am currently seeing people who are experiencing a specific kind of pain: pain caused by fear. I take some understanding from what President Franklin Roosevelt said in his first inaugural address in 1933: “We have nothing to fear but fear itself.” Fear can be paralyzing, undermine action, and make a situation worse for both individuals and the nation as a whole.
We are living through what appears to be a massive shift in how our government operates. The current administration’s policies have left many people politically unsettled and worried about America’s democracy, as well as their own jobs, finances, and futures. President Trump’s budget director, Russell Vought, said something that sent chills up my spine as a psychiatrist: “We want the bureaucrats to be traumatically affected … We want to put them in trauma.”
To hear a government official speak of intentionally traumatizing people is deeply disturbing. I spend my days helping people recover from trauma. The worst trauma is that induced by other humans, particularly humans whom we have come to believe are trustworthy. And on some level, most of us have come to believe that we can trust the government to act, at least in some important ways, on our behalf.
When we are traumatized, we respond in three general ways. First, we replay the trauma over and over in our minds. Second, we turn ourselves off: We become numb, dissociate, stop trusting in the future and other people. Third, we go into fight-or-flight mode. We become vigilant about the risk of crisis around each corner, and memories of the trauma evoke a physical response, often disturbing sleep. In my practice, certainly, but also in my community, I hear about one person after another experiencing a variety of these symptoms.
For those who have a history of trauma, especially early life trauma, there is a particular vulnerability to these symptoms. Fifteen to 20 percent of the population has a genetic predisposition to experience the world more intensely than others. For this population, beauty, empathy, and love are felt more deeply. So is trauma. If you are one of these people, the world’s frightening events are particularly challenging.
Regardless of whether or not there is a history of early trauma or the tendency toward high sensitivity, for most of my patients, friends, and colleagues, the events of the past few months, particularly in light of the late-May ICE raids here on the Vineyard, have engendered fear and its companion emotions: sadness and anger. I, too, have been juggling these feelings.
In an effort to help my patients, my community, and myself, I’ve spoken with people from across political and socioeconomic spectra
(both in and outside my practice) about how they’re coping with feelings of anxiety, helplessness, and loss of control.
At Martha’s Vineyard Community Services mental health center, where I’m the medical director, patients from the immigrant community — an estimated 20 percent of our year-round population — are now particularly prone to not only fear, but also anger and sadness. Many of those I’ve spoken with are American citizens, and still feel relatively safe. But almost all have family and friends who are undocumented, and legitimately terrified at the prospect of losing their families, communities, and the country many have called home for years. ICE raids on the Vineyard prompted many immigrants, regardless of their legal status, to stay home from work and school; many don’t show up for doctor’s appointments, and generally keep off the roads. I was told about children so frightened that they stayed up most of the night crying.
At Martha’s Vineyard Community Services, we assure all of our clients that protecting their confidentiality is paramount, and we do our best to alleviate the fear they have of enrolling in programs or accessing medical services. We are bound by the Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act (HIPAA) in our clinical services, which means that we cannot disclose that any person has accessed services without their written consent. Documenting the legal status of immigrants is not part of any medical record. No nonpatient is allowed to go beyond the waiting room at the Island Counseling Center without explicit permission or a judicially approved search warrant.
One immigrant who arrived from Brazil in 2001, just after 9/11, told me how frightening that time was. He says ICE set up roadblocks, and that if an undocumented immigrant were stopped, they were likely to be sent to a detention center some miles away. From there, they were either deported or given court dates. Just seeing a police car or even an animal-control vehicle could send him and his fellow immigrants into a state of panic.
After 14 years in limbo, he is now a citizen. He advises his fellow immigrants, “Go back to doing the hard work that our community is known for. Keep doing your part to make the world a better place.”
may give participants a temporary sense of empowerment, it’s still hard to escape what for many Americans are debilitating, nonstop news cycles. One friend put it this way: “When I think about it, I am in a state of high alarm. So I hide away from the news. It’s overwhelming and heartbreaking. The immigrants, some LGBTQ people I know, are so frightened. It seems that people have been given permission to let out their meanest instincts.” She now gets most of her news from late-night TV monologues, whose humor leaves her feeling less overwhelmed.
We are flooded with confusing and frightening information. Martha Beck, the sociologist and anxiety expert, writes in her newsletter that “weird events unfold by the hour.” She compares the state of being overwhelmed by the news, which can leave us stunned and incapacitated, to watching “the weasel dance.” Apparently, weasels mesmerize rabbits by doing a bizarre and clownlike dance, eventually dancing right up to the stupefied rabbits, which they then kill and eat. Beck’s advice for coping: “Follow the news, but don’t stare at the dance.”
Another popular coping strategy is focusing on issues close to home. A healthcare administrator told me that he shuts out his sense of helplessness by concentrating on the ways he can be productive: “I focus on the things that I can control, because all of these things in the world that I’m anxious about are completely out of my control. I run toward embracing and conquering the things at work that I’ve been avoiding. It’s enormously satisfying to take control where I can have an impact.”
We cannot become incapacitated by fear and sorrow; we must all find ways to stay strong and continue moving forward.
An 88-year-old math professor who considers himself a staunch conservative told me, “When you get older, you don’t worry about the things you used to. There are baroque concerns and real worries. A real worry is that there’s a leak in my roof. A baroque concern is, ‘The Chinese have nuclear weapons.’ With baroque worries, you’re not in control of what will happen. And you can’t predict what will happen. So I focus on the things that are real concerns in my life.”
I shared this with an undocumented mother and successful businesswoman whose two teenage sons were born in this country. “Exactly,” she said. She was initially consumed with fear when ICE came to the Island. But then she had come to a place of acceptance. “There was danger in getting here, big risks in starting my business, and worries about my children are endless. But I can’t let myself go down with fear. If I have to go back to Brazil, so be it. My life will still be great.”
Nonetheless, other immigrants I know are suffering from insomnia, depression, and high levels of anxiety.
For some nonimmigrants, a healthy response to fear or anger has been participating in local expressions of nationwide activism, such as attending the many protests at Five Corners. But while this
Many find it helpful to take some kind of action to address the issues that concern them. I spoke with an activist who worked in the Clinton and Obama administrations. While she describes herself as “heartsick over the very real, immediate, and frightening destruction of our government,” she finds that she feels better if she takes at least one action a day to push back against what she describes as “a coup bolstered by lies.” She signs petitions, gives money, makes phone calls, writes letters, supports efforts like a series of spending boycotts, and participates in peaceful protests. She is aware of the risk of becoming a target, but says, “If I don’t take risks, I can’t expect others to take risks. And I want judges, politicians, lawyers, and everyone else to take the risk of taking a stand. I won’t give in to passivity and depression.”
And fear today is not limited to people at one end of the political spectrum. While Massachusetts generally votes Democratic, many
Vineyarders, including some of my patients, voted for President Trump. Several people whose politics lean Republican have told me about being shunned by friends because of their political views. They feel terrible about it, and it’s made them afraid of sharing their views with anyone.
In this time of political polarization, I find that listening with an open mind and open heart to people with different political views can remind us of what we have in common. It often helps me to better understand their political perspectives, and I hope it helps them better understand mine. As Pope Leo XIV said after his election, “God … loves all of us, without any limits or conditions.” Whether or not you believe in God, the core idea of our shared humanity is the same.
Increasingly, people tell me they’re turning to God or some other vast and unknowable force, and trying to accept that there are things we can change and things we can’t. For some people, that means going to church, synagogue, or 12-step meetings, or joining in collective action.
“Faith sustains me,” a colleague on Nantucket told me. “Faith that everything that is occurring is part of a natural cycle of the ebbing and flowing of the human condition. Look at the natural world. It’s all about violence and survival. When we mammals are in a state of terror, we are relieved when we take action and demand control. As a species, we are incredibly resilient. We went through two world wars, and we learned from them. It plays out in the world over and over again. My goal is to stay awake and
learn what I need to learn; to connect to my values of empathy and universal compassion.”
From my perspective as a psychiatrist, there is nothing good about being in a state of high alarm unless you’re confronted by an immediate, life-threatening danger. You are vulnerable to going into fight-or-flight mode. Once you’re in that state, the parts of your brain that are engaged in reason, learning, selfcare, planning, and pleasure fade into the background, becoming practically inactive.
On the 250th anniversary of the battles of Lexington and Concord that started the long, painful fight for American independence, many of us are grieving what we see as an attack on our hard-won democracy, and fearing the loss of truths we hold to be self-evident. We sense that the country we love is changing right before our eyes, and that the values we share as Americans are eroding. But we cannot become incapacitated by the fear and sorrow that arise from these events; we must all find ways to stay strong and continue moving forward.
Dr. Charles Silberstein is a psychiatrist, and the medical director of the Island Counseling Center and the future William and Rose Styron Center for Wellness and Recovery at Martha’s Vineyard Community Services. He is also a member of the medical staff at Martha’s Vineyard Hospital.
Laura Roosevelt is a poet, journalist, and editor who writes regularly for Bluedot Living and other local publications.
MANAGING FEAR: Seven strategies for stressful times
No matter how sad, fearful, or even hopeless you may feel now or during any period of rapid, unexpected change, there are ways to move forward with a sense of empowerment:
• Take a deep breath, and then take on life’s tasks where you can have an impact. As the Rev. Cathlin Baker, minister of the First Congregational Church of West Tisbury, has advised congregants, “Do the good that is yours to do.”
• It sounds simplistic, but spend time with kids and pets: For so many people there’s just no better, easier way to relieve stress and start smiling again.
• Connect with friends: You may want to talk about the current situation, or decide that it’s off-limits; they’re both sensible responses, as is accepting that you are unable to impact, or even deal with, any crisis alone.
• Limit or eliminate social media (even if it’s sympathetic to your point of view). Consider limiting exposure to what you see as bad — and stressful — news to 15 minutes daily. And whether you’re limiting your news exposure or constantly checking the headlines, try to get your news from as many unbiased, noninflammatory sources as possible. Keep in mind that not all news, good or bad, comes from Washington: Spend time on the arts and entertainment, science, sports, and wellness sections of your print or digital news sources.
• Remember that throughout human history, governments and political movements come and go. As Ecclesiastes has been telling us for more than 2,000 years, “There is nothing new under the sun.” Nothing is permanent. Work on accepting that the future is always uncertain, and can
bring good news as well as bad, and most likely, a mixture of both.
• Try to be curious about the perspectives of others, even if their opinions are very different from yours. But monitor your level of alarm, and if it’s getting too high, try to change your internal channel. If political discussions get too difficult, try to change the subject or step out for a (figurative) cigarette.
• Again, it sounds simplistic, but singing and dancing and taking advantage of other sources of delight, awe, and beauty that are available to you — stargazing; ocean, desert, or mountain walks; evening strolls in your city’s most beautiful neighborhoods — can be both powerful and soothing.
As hard as it may be in these challenging times, whenever you can, practice joy and refuse, as best you can, the script of fear.
BENEATH THE SURFACE
Original props, untold stories, and an unforget table legacy. Jaw s at 50 now showing at the Martha’s Vineyard Museum
Ray Ewing
Alison Shaw
Fifty years of Martha’s Vineyard as muse.
BY ABBY REMER
“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
"Race Point II"
PHOTOS BY ALISON SHAW UNLESS NOTED
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.”
“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.”
Shaw’s first professional work consisted of her stunning blackand-white weekly news and features assignments for the Vineyard Gazette, which she did in addition to her full-time job in production.
“‘Vineyard Wind’ Pier 2022”
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 or three months
Shaw in her studio.
DENA PORTER
"Lowell Dory"
"Flat Point Farm"
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-andwhite 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
"Easel and Brushes"
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
"Stonewall Beach"
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.
["Lowell Dory," page 20] Shaw photographed the dory looking down from the second story of the Vose Family Boathouse in Edgartown Harbor. ["Flat Point Farm," page 20] Shaw used a wide aperture to make the highlight in the background out of focus, and thus less distracting. ["Stonewall Beach," page 22] Shaw: "If you photograph a distant, foggy scene, everything is foggy. But if you photograph from up close with a wide-angle lens, the foreground is sharp because there's no fog between you and the subject."
With the workshop in the background,
Ross Gannon, left, and Nat Benjamin look to the next generation to take the helm at their boatyard.
In August 1972, after five years working both sides of the Atlantic doing offshore deliveries under sail and charter work in the Mediterranean and Caribbean, Pam and I and our 2-year-old toddler, Jessica, sailed into Vineyard Haven Harbor. We were in our midtwenties, pregnant, and broke. Anchored in the outer harbor, we watched the white topsail schooner, Shenandoah, swing to a clean, sweet wind in the lee of low, verdant hills. Rowing ashore, the breeze met us with hints of Rosa rugosa, bayberry, beach plum, and pitch pine. We beached our skiff and wandered along a sandy lane, Jessica between us, holding our hands. I wondered if there might be an opportunity for an aspiring boatbuilder on this beguiling island, and Pam was interested in a less watery nest. “Maybe we should stay awhile,” she said.
Within a few days, we met a sympathetic counterculture of like-minded souls. We were all drawn to the Island, searching for a meaningful life in a nation convulsed by the bitter end of the Vietnam War, simmering racial conflicts, a nascent environmental movement, and all unfolding under the corrupt shadow of the Nixon administration. In September, I took a job at the Martha's Vineyard Shipyard, and Pam at the raw milk dairy at the Nip ’n’ Tuck Farm. We had found our place.
Ross shared my passion for classic wooden sailboats. He owned Urchin, a 1930s Casey cutter that needed lots of attention, and I had recently acquired the 1910 Lawley gaff sloop Venture, also in need of a rebuild. Working together to keep our vessels afloat, in a harbor that lacked a facility for do-it-yourself boat owners, cemented our bond and mutual appreciation for fine craftsmanship and elegant design. We often walked the waterfront and talked about shipyards we had seen in Europe, Africa, and the West Indies, and dreamed of having one of our own. Sharing our vision with well-heeled community leaders who were known to finance local businesses invariably elicited the same response:
Seaworthy
Gannon and Benjamin enjoy a moment during the early days of their workshop.
Occasionally (and Pam might say a bit too often), I would end the day with a cold beer, or two, at the Ritz Cafe on Circuit Ave. in Oak Bluffs. Back then, the Ritz was a smoke-filled dive with a half-dozen stools at the bar and a few Formica tables where, for three bucks, you could get a large pitcher of draft beer.
A lifetime of craft and community built Gannon & Benjamin.
BY NAT BENJAMIN
It was here I met Ross Gannon, a solid, mellow guy my age with a bushy beard, long brown hair tied back in a ponytail, and steady Irish blue eyes. He was wearing well-worn Carhartt overalls with a folding ruler poking out the back pocket, and his gnarled, crooked fingers looked permanently set to grip the handle of a sledgehammer. Ross moved houses, boats, and other heavy objects with ancient Egyptian technology — rollers, levers, block and tackle, and mauls — and he had a reputation for pushing through a day’s work like a plow through hard ground.
“Listen guys, it’s the 1970s, and you want to start a company that caters exclusively to wooden boats? You must be nuts.”
During the winter of 1978, Peter Strock, my dentist, asked me to work on his Vineyard 15, Ariel, a locally built sloop known for its successful racing history. I was to recaulk the deck and install some sister frames, and I hoped the job might barter off my dental bill. As often happens between boatbuilder and boat owner, we became fast friends. Ariel was crammed into a small shed behind a larger, decrepit, vacant building on the Vineyard Haven waterfront owned by Peter’s family through Strock Real Estate Enterprises, on the Vineyard Haven waterfront. The sandy beach extended seaward in a gentle slope, the perfect location for a marine railway. While work progressed on Ariel, the fortunes of Strock Enterprises tumbled, and soon the property was listed for sale.
Ross and I told Peter our plans — told him that he owned the only piece of waterfront suitable for our slipway, and that we wanted to buy or rent it. He loved the idea, and would have loved for us to have it. “But, so sorry,” he said. “I just signed a purchase and sale agreement with the McDonald’s hamburger franchise. Wish I had known …”
Our disappointment paled before the apoplectic reaction of the citizens of Martha’s Vineyard to a proposal by McDonald’s to develop the property at 30 Beach Road, where there was a
health food store. The national media, parked outside the Tisbury Town Hall, televised the daily machinations of the planning and zoning boards and the board of health. Accusations were hurled with abandon: “Outrageous, inconceivable, unforgivable, unconscionable …" But McDonald’s was not backing down. It seemed inevitable that Golden Arches would soon be greeting the incoming flood of summer tourists.
In the 1960s and ’70s, a young and starry-eyed counterculture settled year-round on Martha's Vineyard. And when we year-rounders joined forces with an enlightened group of left-wing summer residents, the groundswell of opposition grew to a tidal wave. The legendary author, conservationist, and editor of the Vineyard Gazette, Henry Beetle Hough, gave voice to the opposition in the New York Times, saying McDonald's was “a symbol of the asphalt and chrome culture that we do not have here, and its coming means that we will have succumbed at last to the megalopolis which we have dreaded. It’s the most real and symbolic threat we face.”
It didn't take long for a barrage of letters to appear in the Sunday New York Times, lambasting McDonald's and signed by island luminaries such as Mia Farrow, Carly Simon, and James Taylor, and renowned writers such as Art Buchwald, William Styron, and John Hersey. That's when the tables began to turn. Even a global hamburger monarchy could not endure such bad press. After months of warfare, in January 1979 the
Gannon & Benjamin Marine Railway at night.
An inside look at a boat under construction at the Vineyard Haven shop.
At Gannon & Benjamin Marine Railway.
Boatbuilding is a process — a balance of science and art, and a collaboration of ancient, noble skills that inspire the builder to work above his level, to push the boundaries to create the most beautiful, strong, and able objects known to man. It is a process that brings each individual a sense of freedom and confidence, pride and humility. At the end of the day, it is all about resiliency, preserving what we value. And, above all, it’s about community.
board of health ruled against the franchise, and McDonald’s folded its sails and retreated.
A few months later, the DeSorcy family, whose land abutted the Strock property, purchased the piece to add to their waterfront holdings. The next year, to everyone’s surprise, Donald DeSorcy leased the prime slice of beachfront to Ross and me (sometimes referred to as the “hippie boatbuilders”). We borrowed $10,000 from relatives, scrounged used timbers, found old railroad tracks, ancient machinery, and discarded tools — and enlisted help from anyone passing by. Within a few months, we had cobbled together a shipyard. The Gannon and Benjamin Marine Railway was in business.
Over the years, a steady stream of new designs and restorations rolled down the rails as we gained credibility and skills. By October 1989, we had launched 13 boats ranging from rowing skiffs to a 44-foot schooner, and we had repaired many old-timers, among them the magnificent 72-foot yawl Zorra, which we had bought at a sealed-bid auction in Virginia after a fire had destroyed part of her interior and deck. That fall, in our beachfront shop, we were putting the finishing touches on a new 33-foot ketch for a client on Cape Cod, the railway and side tracks were occupied with three vessels under repair, and yacht tenders and other small craft filled any remaining space. We were set for another busy and profitable winter.
broken spirits. Like the tide pulls footprints off the sand, our place of work and creative passion was gone.
Then the unthinkable happened. Late at night on Oct. 17, 1989, a fire broke out in the shop. By the time the fire department arrived, it was a raging inferno. With help from friends, Ross and I managed to launch a small cutter on the lower cradle, but the other three vessels, small boats, and buildings were consumed. The new ketch was reduced to a puddle of molten lead in the sand. The gray dawn broke on a landscape of smoldering, charred timbers, dashed hopes, and
But there were higher powers at play. By 10 on that auspicious morning, dozens of Vineyarders could be seen sifting through the rubble in search of tools and equipment that might be salvaged. While Ross and I ruminated over what had happened, and wondered if there was a future for the boatyard, more Islanders — some we'd never met — came to our rescue. Before the end of the day, a relief fund had been opened at the local bank, the manager of the Black Dog Restaurant offered to hold a benefit dinner, and a few days later, James Taylor and his siblings organized a Halloween concert to raise money for a new shop. The message was clear: "Get back to work." The traditions of our maritime heritage, the solid work ethic, skills, and artistry that the boatyard represented were vanishing from waterfronts up and down the coast. The Vineyard would not let this one go. And the outpouring of affection forever bonded us to the land and the people of our Island. On January 1, 1990, we moved into a new shop where we would continue our craft, with a contract for a new boat and a promising future.
The inferno at Gannon & Benjamin, 1989.
Nat Benjamin at work. Ross Gannon at work.
Looking back 45 years, Ross and I, and our more recent partner, Brad Abbott, who joined us in 2008, have built more than 85 new vessels, and completed dozens of restorations. In 2023 I drew my 100th design, and we have a host of clients we call close friends. Along with a dozen or more talented workers, and a new generation of management, we continue the tradition of designing, building, and restoring classic wooden boats. Boatbuilding is a process — a balance of science and art, and a collaboration of ancient, noble skills that inspire the builder to work above his level, to push the boundaries to create the most beautiful, strong, and able objects known to man. It is a process that brings each individual a sense of freedom and confidence, pride and humility. At the end of the day, it is all about resiliency, preserving what we value. And, above all, it’s about community. For all of us at the Gannon & Benjamin Boatyard, that sense of community is the signature of the Island that came to our rescue years ago. We're a family where men, women, and kids of all ages may chase their dreams, find their space, and carry it on.
March 2021 from the DeSorcy family. We are working with a new nonprofit, Vineyard Lands for Our Community (VLC) to acquire abutting parcels for marine uses, such as traditional boatbuilding, a shore base for the Shenandoah’s Martha’s Vineyard Ocean Academy, apprenticeship programs, office space and classroom for SailMV, artisan studios, and public access to the harbor. Ernie Boch Jr. has graciously allowed his property, Boch Park, to be part of the campus for more community activities on the waterfront. The MV Times, owned by VLC Chairman Steve Bernier, will continue its presence on Beach Road, and carry out the vision of MV Times Publisher Charlie Sennott to inspire and train a new generation of writers to tell the story of our Island. This vision of a waterfront community, called HarborWorks, is big and bold, and its time has come.
Now plans are underway to protect the authenticity and vitality of the Vineyard Haven working waterfront for generations to come. With a group of concerned investors, under the title Tisbury Working Waterfront, we purchased the boatyard property in
What so many individuals have worked so hard to accomplish over centuries, we are committed to secure in perpetuity. Ross and I are passing the torch to a new generation of capable men and women who are committed to continue the living history, the work ethic, the passion, the joy, and the struggles. And we’ll be there to offer a hand or a word of advice, at least until they throw us off the dock.
Boatbuilders
Ross Gannon, left, & Nat Benjamin, right, on the water.
From left, Antonio Salguero, Brad Abbott, Lyle Zell, and Christian Cabral, the next generation of boatbuilders at Gannon & Benjamin Marine Railway.
More than just a summer gathering
Islanders Write creates Island writers.
BY KATE FEIFFER
The first Islanders Write, a writer’s festival put on by this magazine and The MV Times, took place at the Grange Hall in August 2014, and aside from moving venues — it’s now at Featherstone Center for the Arts — there haven’t been a lot of changes to the event.
Back in 2014, we brought writers and publishing professionals with a connection to the Vineyard together for panel discussions and workshops focused on the art, craft, and business of writing. This August, we will be doing the same. In fact, some of the people who joined us in 2014 will be back with us in 2025 — Geraldine Brooks, Nicole Galland, Meryl Gordon, Richard Michelson, and myself among them. (It’s heartbreaking to look back and see that four members of that inaugural class of Islanders Write are no longer with us: Tony Horwitz, David McCullough, Ward Just, and Florence Friedman Minor, you are very missed.)
While the August event hasn’t changed much from its original form, this past year
Islanders Write evolved. March 2024 saw the first midwinter Islanders Write event and the announcement of a new initiative.
The Island’s late-winter nights stretch out like octopus legs, and we take to intramural sparring. By March, the cheery “See you next season” signs start to feel like an affront, and “next season” seems like it’s racing toward us, only one day it’s moving slow as Tortoise, and the following day it's speeding along like Hare. That is why we thought we’d try
to liven things up by offering a weekend of free writing workshops.
Day One included eight workshops on topics such as writing dialogue with John Hough, Jr., and self-publishing with Elisa M. Speranza. Day Two’s workshops were specifically for school-age students, and included a bilingual workshop in Portuguese and English with Márcia De Castro Borges; poetry with Vineyard poet laureate Claudia Taylor; journaling with James W. Jennings; and workshops for the much younger set on topics like story ingredients, with Liz Shick.
We were delighted to see that the workshops on the first day filled up quickly. Less delighted that the workshops on the second day didn’t, but if success is measured in enthusiasm rather than numbers, Day Two was also a success.
We also partnered with Edgartown Books to host an Island Authors Book Fair, with readings and author signings. During this well-attended event, MV Times publisher Charles Sennott announced the newest Islanders Write Initiative: the apprenticeship program “Island Writers.”
Sennott is the founder of GroundTruth, which seven years ago launched Report for America, a call to service for
Continued on page 48
In the shadows In the shadows
The unsung workers who sustain the Island.
TEXT BY PAULA MOURA • PHOTOS BY ROBYN TWOMEY
On Martha’s Vineyard, immigrant hands build homes, lift 50-pound Sheetrock to make ceilings, paint endless square feet of walls, fix plumbing and HVAC equipment. Immigrant hands clean mirrors, glass doors, tables, floors, and bathrooms, and hold the vacuums that sweep carpets. Those hands also prune trees and bushes, spread mulch,
and plant the flowers that beautify the Island’s home and mansion gardens. They cook food, serve drinks, and wash dishes. Work tirelessly brushing hair, doing nails, and painting them.
The men and women who perform physically demanding work on the Island are mainly immigrants, mostly from Brazil. Their families frequently live in crowded spaces — some can’t even find space on the Island, and come and go daily by ferry
early in the morning — and, to support their work, require another set of hands to come to help: the hands of a family member who takes care of a newborn baby and the hands that educate and take care of their children while parents are gone working.
Usually, it’s easy for journalists to interview and photograph people without revealing their identities. But not this
Continued on page 37
EDUCATION
CONSTRUCTION
NAIL SALON
HOUSE CLEANING
Martha’s Vineyard Arts &
RESTAURANT INDUSTRY
Continued from page 33
time. Since the May 27 ICE raid on the Island, fear has spread across the Brazilian community, and these workers have been in the shadows — some have missed several days of work, halting construction and landscape projects, with an economic impact still uncertain. The effect on people’s mental health is yet to be seen.
Despite fear of deportation or being targeted, some people had the courage to allow photographer Robyn Twomey and me into their daily life — some even put their job on the line. But they did so to highlight the importance of their work by bringing it out of the shadows. One landscape worker told us, “We need the work,
but they need us, too. Who is going to do this hard work if not the immigrants?”
Those Brazilian immigrant workers, fueling the latest Island construction boom and supporting the summer rental business, have faces and stories. And they represent not only themselves but thousands of people — an estimated 20 percent of the year-round Island population, or about 4,000 people.
For many of them, the current immigration policy is hard, but not the biggest challenge they have faced. We met resilient people who have experienced growing up separated from their parents, who sought a better life in the U.S., lost a mother who drowned in her attempt to get in the U.S., people who lived in remote, violent areas
where the powerful take justice into their own hands and bullets replace the rule of law. Others, if not all, are attracted to the economic opportunity, to have their work hours worth so much that they can buy a home, a car, or a cellphone.
The majority of them face long hours of work to the point that their bodies are exhibits of exhaustion; chronic pain is common. According to researchers and counselors, depression and anxiety are too. Many dream of reaching their financial goals and returning to their homeland, where they can build a house or start a small business, and, above all, be close to their family. Meanwhile, others have made their families on Martha’s Vineyard, and now call it home.
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Lifting Black voices
The Martha’s Vineyard Black Book Festival returns with power.
On Saturday, August 9, 2025, the Martha’s Vineyard Black Book Festival (MVBBF) returns to the Island Inn in Oak Bluffs — bringing with it not just books, but a movement. From 1 to 7 pm, the second annual celebration of Black literary excellence will gather authors, readers, and visionaries under one shared banner: “Lifting Black Voices of Wisdom, Inspiration, and Perseverance.”
This isn’t just a festival. It’s a legacy in the making.
Founded by Traci Wilkes Smith, a senior vice president at CSE talent agency, the festival began as a dream to amplify the voices of Black authors and cultivate a literary space as vibrant and storied as the Island that hosts it. The inaugural 2024 event debuted with resounding support, featuring acclaimed writers like Fawn Weaver and Areva Martin. Now in its second year, the festival builds on that momentum with even greater purpose.
Set against the historic backdrop of Martha’s Vineyard — long cherished as a haven for Black intellectuals and artists, summer tradition, and multigenerational storytelling — MVBBF continues to rise as a new cornerstone of the Island’s seasonal landscape.
This year’s theme, “Lifting Black Voices
BY SHARISSE SCOTT-RAWLINS
of Wisdom, Inspiration, and Perseverance,” resonates deeply in an era when storytelling is more than artistic expression — it’s advocacy, healing, and truth-telling. Through fiction, nonfiction, memoir, children’s books, and young adult literature, the festival champions stories that reflect the breadth of the Black experience and the brilliance within it.
Festival attendees can look forward to a vibrant lineup of programming that reflects the richness of Black literary voices. Throughout the day, engaging author panels and intimate chats will
Guests will also have the opportunity to get books signed and browse onsite offerings from the beloved Bunch of Grapes Bookstore, with each purchase including a commemorative MVBBF tote bag. To round out the experience, complimentary appetizers and refreshments will be served, fostering a warm, welcoming atmosphere perfect for connection, reflection, and community conversation.
The MVBBF is more than a gathering — it’s a sanctuary for thought, creativity, and community.
feature prominent Black authors across a variety of genres. Notable participants in the 2025 lineup include Justice Ketanji Brown Jackson, the first Black woman confirmed to the U.S. Supreme Court, who will discuss her powerful memoir, Lovely One; Dr. Uché Blackstock, physician and author of Legacy, exploring urgent issues in health equity; Alencia Johnson, activist and media strategist, presenting her book Flip the Tables; former U.S. Secretary of Education John B. King Jr., author of Teacher by Teacher; and political organizer John Conyers III, sharing insights from his memoir, My Father’s House.
The MVBBF is more than a gathering — it’s a sanctuary for thought, creativity, and community. It’s where generations meet through literature, where representation becomes reality, and where resilience is honored through every spoken word and signed book.
Tickets are now available via Eventbrite, with pricing tiers ranging from early-bird specials to donation-based entry, ensuring access for all who wish to experience the power of Black literature. In a world hungry for both truth and hope, the Martha’s Vineyard Black Book Festival feeds both. It doesn’t just lift voices — it elevates a collective legacy.
Visit mvbbf.com or Eventbrite for more details and registration.
40 Martha’s Vineyard Arts & Ideas 2025
Delanie Pickering playing at the Lucerne Blues Festival in Switzerland.
The blues blaze from Delanie Pickering’s soul. She is a consummate performer, as anyone who has seen her can attest.
Born in Concord, N.H., Pickering’s parents supported her and her siblings’ interest in the arts. The blues instantly became part of Pickering’s heart when she heard her father’s vinyl albums at just 16. “My dad had a box of records in the basement with some blues. It just knocked me out, and I became obsessed with it. It all started with Stevie Ray Vaughan’s ‘Texas Flood,’ James Cotton, a couple of different Eric Clapton albums, and there was George Thorogood and the Delaware Destroyers’ debut, which was really rude and full of attitude. I was playing the guitar all the time in the living room, any chance I could.”
Pickering found that music lessons weren’t for her — she is self-taught: “I was learning songs and figuring them out. You learn a lot, too, seeing other musicians. Everybody has a different style, different tricks, and different ways of playing solos or rhythm, which I like. Like Clarence ‘Gatemouth’ Brown, you can hear his sense of humor. Anson Funderburgh is classic Texas, and some guys are classic Chicago.”
Despite her tender age, Pickering saw other musicians at bars just a year or so after she began to play. “I started playing solo gigs by about 17 in my town and surrounding ones in New Hampshire. It was fun. They paid you, and you got to be in bars around adults. My folks would bring me to gigs before I had my license, and that was cool — one-on-one time with
them. You meet such different people at those places at night than you would as a regular teenager.”
After high school, Pickering lived with her parents and worked as a musician for a while. “Then I got bored with it. I’d saved a bunch of money from doing gigs after high school, so I bought a van and stopped doing music.” She traveled along the East Coast, enjoying herself. Eventually, familiar with the Vineyard from family vacations on the Cape as a child, Pickering decided to try life out here. “I thought living on an island sounded pretty fun, and this was the closest island. I came on a whim in my van.”
Pickering eventually got a summer job, working for UPS during the day and at night stocking shelves at Stop & Shop. Then a position at Mocha Mott’s fell into her lap. Although she would go to hear plenty of music, Pickering wasn’t
performing at the time: “I was seeing Johnny Hoy and the Bluefish, and all the other Island musicians on other nights. About seven or eight years ago, one musician said, ‘Wow, you’re really here for the music, you should sit in sometime,’ and talked me into sitting in with the band as part of a long night out. I just kept doing it. Everyone was very welcoming to a new outsider. Everybody’s talented and nice. It was the summertime, and the bars were full; everybody was merry.”
Playing with other musicians was new for Pickering: “I hadn’t been in bands before, because none of the other young people I knew were into doing music. But now it was natural. A gift that was given to me. I loved it.”
From sittin’ in to mainstay
Delanie Pickering grins when she plays the blues. BY ABBY REMER
Pickering performed with Rose Guerin and her band every Saturday night at the Ritz, and also with the Black-Eyed Susans. She also frequently sat in with Johnny Hoy and the Bluefish, which she describes as a “fly-by-the-seat-ofyour-pants” experience: “They’ll play for maybe an hour and then say to me, ‘You got a guitar in your car? Go get your guitar.’ It was a great opportunity to learn how to play in a band.” When Johnny Hoy’s guitarist moved on from the band, she received the call, and she has been with them ever since.
Her bandmates sing her praise. Hoy learned from Pickering’s Little League coach that she had been a catcher on her team, and hit .700
Continued on page 48
Delanie Pickering performing with Johnny Hoy and the Bluefish in Norwood. From left, Hoy, Pickering, Jeremy Berlin, and Cameron Igo on drums.
Janice Frame, a renowned artist and longtime Island resident, conveys the strength and radiance of African people in her new works at the Eisenhauer Gallery this summer. Her new series of portraits carries a critical message about the importance of community.
Standing before Frame’s arresting mixed-media works is a visceral experience. Their stunning colors, textures, and images lift the spirit. Each one sings with an intensity that resonates deep within us.
Her piece “Shared Visions, Beyond Today” is a poignant example in which a couple stands, hands clasped, backs to us, looking out over the vast African landscape, reminiscent of a veld, rendered in translucent and opaque watercolor. Frame explains, “Couples have to hold on to each other today to move forward. They depend on each other in this climate. Black men need Black women, and Black women need Black men.” Frame says about her series, “My goal is for Black viewers to see themselves represented authentically and with dignity. Until we understand who we are, we’re lost. For non-Black audiences, it’s an invitation to view Africans as complex, nuanced individuals. My art is a reflection of humanity and aims to evoke a sense of shared experience.”
She notes that her art is deeply rooted in the rich diversity of Africa and its people. “[African people] reflect the continent’s rich tapestry of cultures, ethnicities, histories, and traditions.”
Frame continues, “From my perspective, African people are united by a shared identity rooted in the continent’s historical and cultural significance. At the same time, Africa’s indigenous tribes represent a rich mosaic of distinct languages, traditions, and social structures that make the continent truly unique.
“I believe that tribal Africa and its people embody a profound and timeless beauty — one deeply rooted in ancestral wisdom, reverence, and respect,” says Frame. “My work draws inspiration from this beauty. While Africa spans vast physical and cultural landscapes, it is the deep richness
within its tribal communities that fuels my artistic expression and reveals the soul and enduring strength of Africa.”
The new series features large, commanding portraits of African women and men who gaze directly into our souls. This is evident in the stunning “Manhood,” a portrait of a young African man wearing an arresting collar and enormous, dangling earrings that set off his sculpted face.
Portraits of power
The striking mixed media artworks of Janice Frame.
BY ABBY REMER
Frame says that her creative process begins by searching the internet for figures that catch her eye and resonate on a personal level. “This connection is vital, as it forms the foundation of the story I want to tell. The images are just so beautiful; tears fall,” she explains. “This is my lineage, my history, and I’m so aware of that. It defines me.”
One of Frame’s earlier works in the show, “Facing Myself, Facing My Beauty,” exemplifies this sentiment. Two regal heads gaze up and outward. The golden hues and flowing hair meet in a transparent orb, lending a celestial air: “I am trying to awaken African Americans here who don’t understand our dignity, royalty, and power, that they need to face who they are,” Frame says. After selecting an image, such as the one in “Etched in Tradition,” Frame delves into research on ancestors, spirit guides, tribal dress, adornments, traditional tales, and other aspects to inspire her artistic interpretation: “My works are not documents. I take creative license to create my own world.” She then prints the image, which serves as the jumping-off point, laying it down on a background of patterned rice paper and enriching the composition with additional cut paper, paint, and small elements such as cowrie shells and beads, which add a three-dimensional quality to the work. The resulting artifacts, face painting, and motifs symbolize tribal identity and status, as well as broader themes like fertility, power,
Janice Frame with her "Harmony in Hues" piece.
DENA PORTER
"Etched in Tradition"
“The beauty of African people is both diverse and profound … [They] reflect the continent’s rich tapestry of cultures, ethnicities, histories, and traditions.” –JANICE FRAME
and unity. Finally, Frame seals the entire mixed-media piece with resin, creating a transparent layer that imparts a shiny, jewel-like quality.
The result is a glorious celebration of and tribute to the African individuals portrayed. “The inhabitants of the continent display a wide range of skin tones, hair types, and facial features, all contributing to a unique and captivating beauty,” she says. “From the varied shades of brown to the rich textures of natural hairstyles, African people embody a stunning physical diversity.”
It’s easy to see this in “Women’s Stories,” an ode to Frame’s group of strong female friends. Here, three gorgeously attired and adorned women look directly at us with an unwavering gaze. A plethora of designs slip and slide along the surface of the work, revealing Frame’s mastery of collage and her ability to unify a composition bursting with lifeforce.
Frame’s art goes beyond visual beauty. There is an innate spiritual power to the pieces that connects each portrait to something larger. “Africa is imbued with spirituality, reflected in various traditional beliefs and rituals. This spiritual connection serves as a personal muse, inspiring me to explore the interconnectedness of all beings, inviting viewers to contemplate the deeper meanings behind my work,” she says.
Asked about her childhood, Frame cites her mother’s artistic flair and strong support of her talent. “My mother was one of Ebony Magazine’s 10 best-dressed women in the country. She went to the wildest boutiques, searching for what was creative and interesting. She had that knack for putting
things together, and I think that’s why she understood who I was. That was the gift she saw me.” Frame’s earliest interest was dance, and she studied with the famed New York City Ballet ballerina Suzanne Farrell in third grade. “I loved it. It was my only way of self-expression,” Frame recalls.
All that changed when Frame’s ninthgrade art teacher recognized her gift. “He saw that I loved it. When I did art, the whole day, the time, everything went away. Mom saw that, and said, ‘This is what you do, and this is who you are.’”
Frame went on to Fisk University, earning a Bachelor of Fine Arts degree with a specialization in fiber, textiles, and art education. She describes her work at the time as “pretty pictures.” Then she met Leo Frame, a fellow student who was very involved in Black culture during the late 1960s, whom she would later marry. “Leo challenged me, asking, ‘Who are you? You have to get out of these flowers and landscapes. You have to speak through your culture.’ But I didn’t understand that at the time.”
Frame’s transformative journey to creating art that was authentically hers began when she saw Angela Fisher and Carol Beckwith’s photography book, Africa Adorned, which accompanied an exhibition of the same name. “I said, ‘This is me. This is where I come from,’” she recalls. “We don’t need to be Westernized. Why don’t we see the beauty in who we are?
The photos of the African diaspora evoked emotional responses within me [and] awakened a true passion, making me feel alive and fulfilled.”
Frame’s initial response was to create arresting 24- by 6-inch African figures, or dolls, which she dressed regally in traditional African garments, the same textiles that now populate her mixed-media collages. For Frame, each figure’s majesty and beauty evokes a sense of heritage. “Those dolls, they joined me in an expression,” she says.
After the dolls, Frame delved into watercolors, oil painting, and
"Shared Visions, Beyond Today"
"Women's Stories"
"There Will Be an Answer, Let it Be"
"Facing Myself, Facing My Beauty"
collage. There were portraits and landscapes influenced by the Vineyard.
Elizabeth Eisenhauer, who represents Frame at her gallery, says, “In her new body of work, Janice expands her visual language, introducing multiple figures into expansive, often symbolic landscapes. Among her signature strong, clear-eyed women, we now glimpse men and women draped in tribal garments, cradling baskets, alongside spirited children and vivid bursts of birdlife. These additions pulse with narrative tension and quiet harmony, drawing us deeper into a world where memory and identity intertwine.”
Frame long shared her passion for art with countless children as a devoted teacher for more than 35 years, including in the Vineyard schools, after she and Leo moved to the Island year-round in 1985.
Frame helped students draw from personal experiences to discover their artistic voice. Retired from teaching since 2013, she has pursued her ever-evolving art full-time. Reflecting on what’s next, she says, “Sometimes I don’t know where to go with the portraits, but they’re not done yet. What should I do now? I’ve shown the beauty, but how can I make it part of people’s lives, and the understanding of it all?” Having taken in her remarkable artwork over the years, I eagerly await Frame’s next chapter.
For more information, visit eisenhauergallery.com/collections/janice-frame. Janice Frame’s work can be seen at Eisenhauer Gallery, 38 North Water St., in Edgartown. The reception for her show will take place on August 3 from 6 to 8 pm.
The Davis House Gallery 985 State Road, 508-693-4691 allenwhiting.com
The Granary Gallery
636 Old County Road, 508-693-0455 granarygallery.com
Turpentine Gallery
554 State Road, 508-693-5963 turpentinegallery.art
Vineyard Glassworks
683 State Road, 508-693-6026 mvglassworks.com.
More than just a summer gathering
Continued from page 32
young local journalists to serve their own communities. The nonprofit program has placed hundreds of full-time local reporters in newsrooms across the country. Now Sennott is bringing the broad parameters of that model home to the Island.
“We’re using the nonprofit status of Islanders Write to support an apprenticeship program, inviting earlycareer Islanders to work with us at The MV Times,” he says. “We’ve already hired our first staff reporter through the program: the Island’s own Sarah Shaw Dawson, who started full-time in June, with full benefits. Sarah is an amazing talent, and we hope to hire more ‘Island Writers,’ to support a new generation of Islanders to tell the story of their own community. There is so much talent on the Island, and we’re actively seeking opportunities to keep some of that talent right here, serving the local community with trusted and locally grown journalism.” Dawson’s position will be funded by the generous support of East Chop residents John and Michelle Battelle. Dawson, 28, grew up on the Vineyard; her mothers are graphic designer Sue Dawson and photographer Allison Shaw,
who is profiled in this magazine. Sarah has already demonstrated her reporting mettle: She’s covered stories related to the affordable housing crisis and education, and wrote an in-depth piece about the new accessory dwelling unit bylaw.
“I talked to building inspectors. I talked to people who have been involved with housing for years. I looked at the meeting minutes from all the housing groups on the Island,
March 2024 saw the first midwinter Islanders Write event and the announcement of a new initiative.
and every town, and pored over documents,” says Dawson. As a new reporter finding her footing, she gives credit to the team at The MV Times for guiding her — particularly News Director Sam Houghton, who, she says, “has seriously transformed the way I see writing, and the way that I observe events.” She adds, “Reporting is really about tuning into the truth of community,
From sittin’ in to mainstay
Continued from page 41
for five straight years. “I think that amazing hand-eye coordination has come in handy for her music career,” he says, “but she could be a success as anything she undertakes.”
“The great thing about Delanie is that while everyone remarks upon her youth and freshness, it’s the ageless soul that people feel,” says longtime Bluefish piano player Jeremy Berlin. “Everyone is drawn to her, and happier for having met her. It’s the no-holds-barred honesty that comes out in her personality and in her music.”
When Pickering isn’t playing with the Bluefish, she performs with others,
including the Outskirts, on First Fridays and at various venues, ensuring her nights are always busy. “Whenever someone needs a guitar, upright blues bass, or drummer, I like to say yes,” she notes.
Pickering is self-effacing enough that many of her Vineyard fans have likely never heard of the Delaney Pickering Band, which periodically tours Europe. She started it last year with three French musicians whom she met while playing at a festival.
She’ll also be appearing at festivals in Iowa and Texas: “I’m trying to say yes to some things without ruining the nice life I have here.”
and tuning into the issues that are going on, and tuning into what people are interested in hearing about.”
This summer’s Islanders Write will kick off with a panel discussion about politics and the press, censorship, and coverage, on Sunday evening, August 17, moderated by Sennott, and with NPR’s Mara Liasson, the Washington Post’s E.J. Dionne, and law school professor and MacArthur Fellow Patricia J. Williams.
Throughout the day on Monday, August 18, there will be panel discussions and writing workshops on a variety of topics. Speakers at this summer’s Islanders Write will also include (the schedule hasn’t been locked yet, so there will likely be additional speakers) Elizabeth Benedict, Emma Brodie, Geraldine Brooks, Márcia De Castro Borges, Nicole Galland, Meryl Gordon, Judith Hannan, Jessica B. Harris, Jemima James, James W. Jennings, Paul Karasik, Martha Hall Kelly, E. Lockhart, Willy Mason, Richard Michelson, Torrey Oberfest, Richard North Patterson, Misan Sagay, Sherry Sidoti, Polly Simpkins, Nancy Star, Rosemary Stimola, Dawn Tripp, and Gretchen Young.
Islanders Write is free to attend, and takes place at Featherstone Center for the Arts. For more detailed information, check out islanderswrite.com.
While she is out virtually every night, Pickering’s days are busy too, including working construction jobs. “I used to shingle, but that makes your arms go numb, which isn’t good for playing guitar,” she explains. Now she does all kinds of work — roofs, windows, cabinets, tiles, learning as she goes. “I work hard, stay busy all day, and play gigs at night.”
Pickering continues, “One of the beautiful things about the Vineyard is, if you didn’t need to sleep, you could work 24 hours a day. It’s a good way to live. I feel lucky to be here.” Of course, she adds, “I think I could have fun in any circumstances.”
For more information about Delanie Pickering, visit facebook.com/delanie.
