This sunny Saturday in West Tisbury, Allen Whiting is out at his easel, working at his latest landscape and simultaneously working at his answers to questions about his art.

His approach to both tasks is similar: He goes at it enthusiastically for awhile, then pauses to reconsider things, then goes back and adds another layer.

Ask, for example, why an artist who seldom shows outside his own gallery has decided to put on a retrospective of his work at Featherstone Center for the Arts, and he gives a succession of answers.

First up, he is glib.

Most painters cannot tell you at precisely what moment, or how, they knew they wanted to become an artist. Usually they attempt to articulate some ineffable urge that has been with them for as long as they can remember, or perhaps an epiphany triggered by their first contact with an inspiring masterpiece or art teacher. Chris Pendergast, in marked contrast, sat down at the age of 20 to think about his life, and having mused upon everything that mattered to him, decided that “painting is what I should do” — even though he’d never painted.

Silly Shakespeare Is Brain Candy

Where can you watch trained professionals and not-even-potty-trained extras take the stage together? The Fabulists’ theatre for kids, that’s where.

Landscape Artistry