ART Annual 2019

The son of a needleworker and a furniture designer, Illya Kagan always knew he wanted art to be a part of his life. His passion carried him from his home in Manhattan to Skidmore College, and after to Nantucket. “I never expected to be able…

Adam Rhude’s warm and realistic paintings invite you to share a quiet moment. You just might want to sit down, sip from a glass of cappuccino, and write a letter to a friend. Evoking a sense of place and simple pleasure is what Rhude says…

If anyone could be referred to as a renaissance woman, it would be appropriate to describe Dianne Panarelli Miller as such. Yet the word “renaissance” literally translates to “rebirth,” and that does not accurately describe Miller, who has steadily and unerringly followed a path of…

Growing up in picturesque Vina del Mar, Chile, Cecilia Capitanio was surrounded by vivid clothing and vibrant gardens, and she expressed her love of color through painting in school.  Her desire to continue to create art was ignited when she won first place in a…

It’s the 1950s, and Jane Eccles, with a degree in art history from Mt. Holyoke College and graduate work at Columbia University, is on a successful trajectory toward her ambition of becoming a curator. But her husband volunteers for the draft, then begins a career…

So fascinated by the drama of the ocean, Jeanne Rosier Smith has been painting it for 10 years. “The ocean changes constantly,” she says. “I see a clash of opposites—motion and stillness, wet and dry, warm and cool—and also a place of light, life and…

The complexities of race in America perplex, anger and sometimes even amuse Osterville painter Joe Diggs. “I want to be known simply as a painter,” Diggs says. “Not a black painter, but just a painter.”  His quote stems from the fact that many artists of…

Jonathan Earle always enjoyed drawing. He studied landscape architecture in college and so enjoyed the art classes he had to take that he considered becoming an artist. He decided against that for considerations of making a living. Yet the idea always nagged at him, and…

When people ask Julija Mostykanova Feeney what she does for a living, she doesn’t tell them she’s an artist. “I tell them I’m a painter,” she says. “Then they usually ask, ‘Inside or outside?’” she says, laughing.  Born in Lithuania in 1980, 10 years before…

Kay Ritter feels very fortunate that she started “living the artist’s dream” soon after graduating as a sculpture major from the Rhode Island School of Design in 1971. She began creating large caricatures of people in fabric mâché using burlap, real clothes and props from…

Landscape artists living and working on Martha’s Vineyard are often thought to be born with a quiet reverence for a dramatic tree line, with paintbrush in hand. Not so for island painter Kenneth Vincent, who says that his foray into landscapes, and into the world…

From the first day she took a class in pastel painting at the library, Lois Castellana was hooked. She was so moved by the intensity of the colors that she was determined to teach herself everything about the medium. She says she had always admired…

The pride a parent possesses for a child is not a rare thing, but the reverse, the pride a child has as it relates to their parents and the gifts handed down to the progeny, is far more scarce. Such is the case with the…

“Consider the subtleness of the sea; how its most dreaded creatures glide under water, unapparent for the most part, and treacherously hidden beneath the loveliest tints of azure… Consider all this; and then turn to this green, gentle, and most docile earth; consider them both,…

Maurine Sutter first traversed the Province Lands dunes in 1998, embarking from the tiny lot opposite Snail Road, trudging up and clearing that first big dune, lugging her cameras along the Dune Shack Trail into the area locally known as the Backshore. That day trip,…

As far back as he can remember, Michael Shaw loved looking at realistic landscape paintings, so engrossed by their beauty.  “Exactly when and how I went from strictly being an observer to thinking about being a creator of art I can’t say,” Shaw says.  …

Twenty years ago, Michele Usibelli’s husband gave her the best Christmas present. It was a gift certificate for an oil painting class just down the street from where they lived in Edmonds, Washington. “He knew that I always had a love of art,” says Usibelli.…