Vineyard artist Wendy Weldon is holding an open house at her art studio in Chilmark over Thanksgiving weekend. Her work includes paintings, monotypes and drawings both on canvas and paper.

In her latest artist statement she says, “My latest work expresses my return to more abstracted imagery. I have spent many years moving away from the abstract to the more objective.”

Featherstone Center for the Arts has attracted an especially random group of Island artists for its new show, The Art of Personal Altars. This is not the usual show of landscape painters or photographers, sculptors or fabric artists — no such mundane grouping applies here. These personal altars cross all categories of the visual arts. Ann Smith, executive director at Featherstone, hopes this will be a new way for artists to express themselves. “We’ve had an incredible response,” she said.

Chilmark resident Martina Mastromonaco was announced as the grand prize winner of the Favorite New England Beach photo contest hosted by Woods Hole Group. Martina’s photo was of Chilmark Pond, Land Bank Beach.

To celebrate their 25th anniversary Woods Hole Group launched the contest in August and invited the public from around the country to submit photographs of their favorite New England beaches. Submissions were accepted via Facebook, e-mail and even mobile phone uploads.

B rushing Back the Years

The artist Nancy Furino has a healthy attitude toward her work.

“Mainly I paint to please myself, not to think what the public might want,” she says. “If the work sells, all the better.”

This statement coming from a wet-behind-the-ears novice just getting going might sound like a bit of grandstanding, perhaps landing a false note at that. After all, doesn’t everyone focus on the bottom line these days?