New Biography of Island’s Most Renowned Artist: Thomas Hart Benton

Author Justin Wolff to speak about “Thomas Hart Benton: A Life” at the Museum Next Tuesday

Painter Thomas Hart Benton said that Martha’s Vineyard was the only place that he ever found peace. Next Tuesday, the Martha’s Vineyard Museum is hosting University of Maine professor Justin Wolff who will be discussing his new book, “Thomas Hart Benton: A Life.” Benton first arrived on the Island in 1918 with his New York City roommate Thomas Craven, a well-known art historian and critic. Benton and his family continued to spend time at their home in Chilmark until his death in 1975. Benton’s enthusiasm for Martha’s Vineyard was evident in many of his works including Bicyclers, Summer Menemsha Pond and Chilmark Landscape. Craven’s daughter-in-law, Carol Craven, did six substantial shows of Benton’s work over the years at her Carol Craven …

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Mathea Morais

9:32 pm on Saturday, June 2, 2012

Mine too, Alisa! The Museum is located at 59 School Street in Edgartown. Their phone is: 508-627-4441   more ›

Vineyard Confidential

The Maurading Fire-Starting Naked Dwarves of Chilmark: Fact or Fiction?

Clothed or unclothed, there were certainly strange things afoot Up-Island back in the day

Rural legends can get pretty hinky down some of our New England roads. In the mountain hollows of Vermont, villagers were known to freeze their elderly over the winter, thereby saving on dwindling food supplies. These mountain folk stashed the ancient bodies in bales of hay and thawed ‘em out in the early spring. (A Harvard anthropologist once noted, “What rings false about this practice is that the families revived their elders.”) I read about this quaint system of cryogenics in an exciting creep-out book called "Weird New England". There’s other odd lore; stuff about inmates of an insane asylum wandering off into the forest, and over the decades in-breeding and mixing genetic material to create a tribe of, well, green-skinned psychos. …

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Holly Nadler

9:16 am on Wednesday, February 15, 2012

Joel, people are probably nowadays more fully dressed in the Chilmark Store but, back in the 60s and 70s, apparently, there was little incentive to put on one's clothes!   more ›