Pottery, Soup and Music

This weekend Feathersone Center for the Arts in Oak Bluffs is holding its third annual Potters Bowl with guest curator Washington Ledesma.

The idea behind the event is both basic and beautiful. Visitors to the show are asked to buy a ceramic bowl for $25 and then they get a free bowl of soup plus a roll, drink and dessert. Talk about art literally satisyfing an inner hunger.

This weekend, the A Gallery in Vineyard Haven introduces a pair of contemporary Island painters, Lily Morris and Billy Hoff, in new show featuring their recent work. Ms. Morris’ partly blurred but vibrant paintings depict dreamlike moments of transformation. Mr. Hoff’s landscapes and figurative paintings are inspired by illustrators like N. C. Wyeth and Howard Pyle, and combine large brushstrokes with intensity of color and emotion.

When eating out, diners typically only have to choose the food that goes on their plate, not the plate itself.

Not so at the Potters’ Bowl, the annual Featherstone fundraising event held last Sunday evening. Now in its third summer, the Bowl is based on a simple concept: buy a unique, locally crafted bowl (or two), and get free soup. All proceeds in turn go to support Featherstone’s clay studio.

“People were lined up at a quarter to four,” committee chair Debbie Hale said. “We’re bringing out every bowl.”

When Tanya Augoustinos and Maria Westby opened A Gallery in July, they set out to bring contemporary art to the Vineyard. This goal was evident last Sunday at an opening for Cindy Kane’s show Inheritance, her first on the Island since 2008. Ms. Kane’s work is provocative, yet unobtrusive. She creates visually-pleasing assemblages that subtly carry a political undertone, a quality that separates her from more traditional Vineyard artists.

When most guests sit down to a dinner at Beetlebung Farm in Chilmark, they usually glance at the menu and then set it down again, absentmindedly imprinting it with grease and wine stains. But the more discerning will notice that the seemingly disposable item is actually a work of art — the design is innovative, the words have been selected for sound and form, and the ink has been elegantly fused with the paper.

Artist Billy Hoff isn’t one to dissect his painting process. “I push around paint and see what happens,” he said.

This seems to be an oversimplification of his process, especially considering his painting of Bobby Driscoll, one of the pieces featured in his new show at the A Gallery in Vineyard Haven. Mr. Hoff is sharing the walls with fellow Vineyarder Lily Morris in their joint exhibit entitled Emergence which opened on Sunday.

Two robins perch together on a dogwood branch, chests nearly touching. They appear to be conversing — one’s beak is cocked open, while the other looks on, comprehending, engaged. Situated slightly off center of the painting, the birds are framed by an abundance of delicate pink dogwood flowers, some just budding, others in full bloom.

This weekend the artisans of Martha’s Vineyard celebrate Labor Day by displaying not just the fruits of their labors but also how they labor, too.

Six artists will be featured in a new show at the Louisa Gould Gallery in Vineyard Haven, all of whom graduated from the Pennsylvania Academy of the Fine Arts. The show began on August 30 and continues through Sept. 10. There will be an opening reception on Saturday, Sept. 1, from 5 to 7 p.m.

The artists are Jeanne Staples and Liz Taft (from the Vineyard), Sarah Son-Theroux, Deena Gu-Laties and Debra Hope Colligan from Cape Cod, and Saskia Eubanks of Boston.

The gallery is located at 54 Main street in Vineyard Haven.

Enjoy the crisp August weather outdoors or stay indoors and visit one of the many art galleries on the Island? Thanks to Vineyard Gardens’ Gallery in the Garden events, held each Friday evening in August, the decision became a simple one: do both.