Featured Artist July 2020: Elizabeth Dolan Durkee
I love Oak Bluffs. When I started taking photographs I came to love it in a whole new way – the dawn light over the water, the historic architectural details, the fog, the colors and the quirks. The natural and man-made beauty of Oak Bluffs makes me happy.
Liz Dolan Durkee
dolandurkee@gmail.com
My grandparents on both sides of my family bought summer homes in Oak Bluffs in the mid-20th century – back when middle class families could afford a summer home. My parents met and married in Oak Bluffs. As my grandmother Dolan used to say, the Island gets in your blood. I knew when I was seven years old that I would live here as an adult. I have scooped ice cream, rented cars, sold clothes and liquor and, at the Island Theatre, popcorn and candy. I was a DJ and news reporter at WMVY radio went it went live in 1983. I love to write and have written book reviews and two series on climate change on the Island for the Vineyard Gazette. For the past twenty-five years I have been the Town of Oak Bluffs conservation agent. I took up photography a few years ago. I’m proud to live in and work for the beautiful, happy, quirky Town of Oak Bluffs.
Featured Artist: June 2020
 | Ksenia Meleshko Phone: (774) 3105626 “I paint flowers, so they will not die”. Frida Kahlo I’ve been into art my entire life and been painting since I was 4 years old. The light, the sun, the nature in general that what makes me alive. I am fascinated by our planet, every day is different, every day is magical, it’s all moving, it’s all energy. The energy that makes us feel content, powerful, brave and alive. I show the nature through my perspective, through my colorful lenses and my brave colors by capturing the light, which fades away withing minutes, but stays on m canvases. Oil is my main medium to express my art, but I also like acrylics and do lots of sketches with pencils. My work is a constant search of the best way to show how incredible our Planet is. I do not limit myself to one concept, my inspiration and ideas change, because the nature is so different, you can’t show it all by using one technique. Each piece I create is extension from my past, from places I’ve seen, being here on the island. I do not classify myself just as an artist, I am a sculptor, craft artist, impressionist, designer. I love the idea that I doesn’t matter who you are, matters only of a viewer stopes for a moment and reflects onto a piece I created, to me it means I’ve succeeded in my work and in my art in general. |
