Martha's Vineyard Margaret Knight

Derby Love Story, Smiths Leave Headquarters to Fish Together

Margaret Knight | Thursday, October 18 2007 - 8:00pm

When Martha Smith and her then-boyfriend Charlie began dating 15 years ago, they spent a lot of time at the annual Martha’s Vineyard Striped Bass and Bluefish Derby headquarters at the foot of Main street in Edgartown.

She ran the derby headquarters, two hours in the morning and two hours at night, and coordinated the volunteers. He would watch, stepping in occasionally to help. “I hung out at the derby headquarters to be with her,” Mr. Smith said. “I think I was there just about every night.”

Couples

Striped Bass and Bluefish Derby

Chappy

Margaret Knight

MARGARET KNIGHT

508-627-8894

([email protected])

Despite the fact that March is such an unlikeable month, it’s hard not to feel warmly toward one that has been as mild as this so far. As I drove up from the ferry early Tuesday evening, with the sun still up and an unseasonable fog settling in, I wondered why the roadsides looked oddly drab. Then I remembered that, despite the weather, it’s only mid-March, and that’s the way things are supposed to look in March.

dancers, carol loud, genevieve abbott, gail tipton, kathy joyce costanza, wendy brophy, suzanna

Pas de Deux on Pickled Wood

Margaret Knight

Their ages range from 25 to 77, their backgrounds in dance range from ballet to belly dance. But among this group of women, age is rarely a subject for discussion. The women have been meeting since 2008 to practice improvisational dance in Sally Cohn’s beautiful studio in the woods down Pennywise Path in Edgartown. And as for training — it’s left at the door in favor of exploring improvisational movement in the context of the group.

Jude Villa Melinda Loberg Jean Lewellyn Alice

Friendship on the Water, Rowers Find Joy and Exercise in Pre-Dawn Ritual

Margaret Knight

At dawn on the last Friday of the year there were just a few ripples in the waters off Owen Park in Vineyard Haven. The temperature hovered in the low 40s as the morning sun first peeked out from behind the treetops on the banks of the Lagoon.

Just then six women rowing a thirty-two-foot Cornish pilot gig appeared from behind the harbor jetty. They had just finished their morning workout, rowing the gig Grace between East and West Chops, and were headed for shore.

Creating Patron Saints to Inner Selves

Margaret Knight

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.

Composting a Back-to-the-Land Past

Margaret Knight

In the early 1970s, when the tide of summer residents would go out in September, there were always young people who didn’t want to leave the Vineyard — and they didn’t have to, because there was no particular place they planned to go. Land was still relatively affordable, or their families had land, and they built themselves homes back in the woods, had kids, a few animals and a garden, and patched together a living with the usual Vineyard hodgepodge of work or self-employment.

Audubon Recognizes Vineyard’s Corey Smith as Young Naturalist

Margaret Knight

Fourteen-year-old Corey Smith of Edgartown was honored recently along with 13 other youths by the Massachusetts Audubon Society for his interest and enthusiasm as a young naturalist. He was among those named as a recipient for the James K. Whittemore Young Naturalist Award.

Last summer, Mr. Smith attended the Felix Neck Wildlife Sanctuary’s summer camp and so distinguished himself that he was an easy pick by sanctuary staff for the award.