Featuring : Local Artists
In an effort to promote the local community and support our fellow islanders, we are proud to have local artist's work hanging on our walls. You can find a small curated group of art from the following artists displayed in our furniture showroom.
Colin Ruel
Colin Ruel is a self-taught artist from the fishing village of Menemsha. His work is largely inspired by his memories of growing up on the Island. Colin's creative endeavors also span to music, carpentry and stone word, all of which are pivotal aspects of his self education. On the Vineyard,
Colin is surrounded by artists and creative family members. His wife, Nettie Kent, also a native islander, is a jeweler. The couple now lives and works back home on Martha’s Vineyard, where they share a studio.
Lainey Fink Scott
Lainey Fink Scott moved to Martha’s Vineyard with husband, business partner and Island native Ben Scott. She attended Rhode Island School of Design (RISD), where she graduated with a BFA in Graphic Design. While at RISD, Lainey enrolled in a ceramics class. The tactile nature of clay was a refreshing contrast to the many hours spent at the computer. The world of design continues to be both thrilling and satisfying for Lainey. While her experience with ceramics was love at first touch, she didn’t throw for years. Moving to the Vineyard allowed a creative outlet for Lainey to use her hands, and she transformed her basement into a pottery workspace. Lainey balances ceramics with Bluerock Design, a design business founded by Lainey and Ben in 2011 that specializes in timeless branding, graphic design and photography. Lainey’s ceramics business has grown while running Bluerock Design. She creates structurally functional pieces that can be utilized every day. Lainey’s work has been recognized by collectors, and most notably, commissioned by chefs at high-profile restaurants.
Abe Pieciak
Abe Pieciak moved to Martha’s Vineyard to pursue his dream of being a chef. After a few years of working in hot, stressful kitchens, the beauty of the island inspired a change in Abe’s career and he began making art. In 2013, Abe began painting with watercolors and developed his distinct style of filling in his water colored fish prints with fishing lures. Since then he estimates he’s painted over 100 different fish – from Bluefin to Tuna to Brook Trout. When he’s not painting, Abe spends his time combing the beach for discarded objects which he brings back to his studio and repurposes into sculpture. His list of ideas is never-ending and he looks forward to making each one come to life. After all, one man’s trash is another man’s treasure.
Vineyard Wick & Bath
Beth Thigith of Vineyard Wick & Bath has been visiting the Vineyard since childhood. Like many others, she fell in love with all the island has to offer and laid down roots here. She is a creative spirit whose work is inspired by the Vineyard.
Brandon Newton
Brandon Newton, a Fredricksburg, VA native, first arrived to Martha's Vineyard after a few patrons familiar with the Vineyard art community saw Brandon's work. They supported his first visit to the Island. One of Brandon's favorite subjects on the Vineyard is the vast night sky. He describes his work as Expressionistic, drawing inspiration from both light and dark sides of the world. Painting with oil and a palette knife, Newton’s works glow with strong light and expressive sweeps of color, and convey the artist’s emotional connection to the natural world.
Kara Taylor
For Kara Taylor, her native place of Martha's Vineyard continues to be the source for home, gallery, family, and inspiration. After receiving a Bachelor of Fine Arts degree from Maine College of Art, with a concentration in intaglio printmaking and sculpture, Kara discovered her love for painting when she found a lack of creative outlets to utilize her degree. She then travelled the country and the world, finally returning to the Vineyard in 2000. Now, Kara uses painting as a working dialogue between the positive and negative, between something and nothing, between action and reaction, and between the fixed and the fluid. She is the founder of Haystack Gallery at Nip n’ Tuck Farm, which she started in 2000, in her hometown of West Tisbury. She then did business as Kara Taylor Fine Art in Vineyard Haven. Currently, Kara exclusively showcases her art at Kara Taylor Gallery on South Road in Chilmark.
Jeffery Canha
Jeffery Canha, a 5th generation native of Martha’s Vineyard has made his life about fish. From catching, to eating, to selling and now printing fish, Jeffery has found a way to bring his love of the outdoors inside. His style allows that which swims in the water to be forever cherished through art, history, conservation and beauty. Jeffery practices the Japanese art form of Gyotaku (pronounced GHEE-OH-TAH-KOO), a technique that combines the accuracy of scientific illustration with expressive composition of oriental art. In this way, the actual fish is Jeffrey’s canvas. He applies colorful acrylic paint to the fish itself and then presses cloth or handmade paper on to the body in the way Japanese anglers first did in the 1860s to preserve a true record of their catches. Now Jeffery has a lasting way to preserve his passion, as he describes it, “making impressions, one fish at a time.”