Pathways Gatherings for the Arts Continues for Winter 2018
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While most people know the Chilmark Tavern for a wonderful summer dining experience, during the off-season the Tavern is transformed into an arts center that attracts the best of the island’s creative artists from poets, to singers, dancers, artists, knitters, piano players and performers.
As the winter months pass by in typical North Easterly fits of temper, blizzards, ice and blues, inside the cozy Tavern islanders gather weekly to share their works-in-progress or present work finished and ready for public viewing.
On Thursday evening April 12th 2018, the Chilmark Tavern hosted an evening of prose from three notable island authors. Keren Tonneson introduced the evening with a background to the Pathways organization and the dream that founder and benefactor Marianne Goldberg had for the Vineyard Arts community.
Holly Nadler opened the show and read from her ghostly ghosts stories Part I, and delighted the audience to a pre-peek of her next publication. Holly is the island’s leading expert on ghosts and has a wide range of publications and knowledge on local ghost stories. She never fails to delight even the grumpiest of skeptics.
Artist and writer, Julia Kidd gave a humorous and captivating reading of her series of three short stories entitled “Cars”, in which Julia recounts three vehicles from her life, that each evoked a memory of her past. The witty stories told of the events surrounding each memorable relationship she had with and within the owners and their cars.
Julia finished with one funny prose-perfect piece that addressed the generational void between un-techie mother and child-of-the-computer-age son, and how a simple request for more storage on her phone, led to an image download from phone to computer that ended in monumental embarrassment for both mother, teenage son and his best friend!
Julia is perhaps better known on Martha's Vineyard for her art installation back in 2012, where 11 large scale signs appeared overnight on the Island proclaiming a positive message for all to see. Each board bore a sentance of encouragement and were strategically placed around the island to offer comfort and provoke conversation.
The hillarious Jenny Allen rounded out the three women show. Jenny is well known on Martha's Vineyard adn in New York as a writer and monologist, appearing on The Moth several times and on the comedy stage. Her essays and articles have appeared for years in many magazines, including The New Yorker, The New York Times, New York, Vogue, Esquire, More, Huffington Post and Good Housekeeping. Jenny impressed with her consistent style and range of stories from several of her published works.
The night came to a close with an invitation to read and a few people from the audience brought work to share. Peter Simon wrote his name on a clip board that was being passed around thinking he was signing an attendance sheet, so he was surprised when his name was called to read! He gallantly stepped up and read the introduction to his coffee table photography book about the Vineyard "To Everything There's A Season". It was a heartfelt dedication to his late father Richard Simon founder of Simon and Schuster, who died when he was a young boy.
Local author Lara O'Brien introduced three poems she had brought with a heartfelt tale of a High School senior's struggle with English and self expression. When she read the student's poems of deep complexity and maturity, she underlined the importance of observing teens that struggle, and encouraging them to find a way to express themselves using the power of the written word, in verse, or music, or prose as an outlet.
The Pathways event is free for everyone and donations are encouraged to help fund the refreshments served and general overheads.
For the next Pathways Gathering Space for the Arts event check out their website here.
Heres an except from the MV Times about a Pathways event earlier this winter