Finding Martha's Vineyard

by Jill Nelson

  Crucial to the cultural history of the Vineyard is the playwright, director, and actress Elizabeth Pope White, daughter of Lily Shearer Pope and granddaughter of Charles and Henrietta Shearer. In 1944 White created the Shearer Summer Theatre in Oak Bluffs, and produced plays for over twenty years. Productions included The Women, Angel Street, Anna Lucasta, and Cooling Waters, a play written by White. In 1951, White bought Twin Cottage, because she saw it as the perfect outdoor setting in which to perform the plays of William Shakespeare. Her production of Othello, starring a young Yaphet Kotto, with an all-black cast and set to jazz, was presented the summer of I960. That production, later filmed on Martha’s Vineyard, is in the collection of the Donnell Library in New York.

  Rehearsal for Cooling Waters, written by Liz White, 1948. Children: Olive Bowles, Lee and Gail Jackson. Rehearsal at Twin Cottage of the Shearer Summer Theatre, 1950.

  As I have grown into being a writer myself, I have come to understand intellectually what I already knew emotionally and psychically: that Martha’s Vineyard is a place that encourages, supports, and nurtures artists of all mediums, on many levels. It is a place for those just starting out to begin, confident that they will be received supportively by those around them, people who wish them success. The island also provides a space in which established artists can practice their craft, inspired by the island in ways direct and indirect. It is a place where recognized artists can be just regular people who go to the post office and beach, rock on porches, play cards, talk stuff with friends, and create art when the inspiration hits them or a deadline looms. Where artists and academics can also share their talents in many ways: by teaching painting, or holding workshops for writers, or organizing lecture series open to the public, or holding an art show in their yard, canvases mounted on their fence, sculptures carefully situated on the grass.

  Here, visual artists work in studios built in their homes or in whatever space is available. Some pack up a chair, easel, paints, charcoal, or pencils and park themselves on the side of a winding road up-island, on a beach, in front of the Tabernacle or gazebo, on a boat, beside a field where horses, cows, or bulls graze or in the midst of which an ancient tree stands, and draw, paint, photograph. Perhaps they simply sit, enjoying whatever type of day the island is offering, and wait, sometimes patiently, for their muse to arrive.

  All around the island writers under contract and those who have never been published keep the schedules that work best for them—writing before dawn or after sunrise, in the middle of the day when family and friends are at the beach, or late at night. This beautiful island accommodates and inspires us all in the ways that we need.

  Whoever they are, however they work or don’t, whatever their end product, for artists Martha’s Vineyard is a sacred space. We are not so far removed from slavery, Jim Crow, and legal segregation; not so distant from the continuing economic, political, and social challenges that black people, across class, continue to face. We understand what a unique state of grace it is to be able to declare ourselves artists. To dare to give ourselves the time and to cloak ourselves in the arrogance that allows us to pursue and perhaps make a living in the difficult, magical world of the artist. Those who, for the most part alone but sometimes in collaboration, are cradled by this small island, undertake the often daunting but always exhilarating challenge of creating something out of nothing.

  Zita Cousens

  The ageless Zita Cousens celebrated the twenty-fifth year of Cousen Rose Gallery on Circuit Avenue, the main street in the town of Oak Bluffs, in the summer of 2004. A graduate of Simmons College, Cousens majored in psychology and education and took courses in art and art history. A counselor at the Boston Latin School, she goes back and forth from the island to Newton, Massachusetts, but considers Martha’s Vineyard her primary residence. There is always something going on in her cheerful, airy, welcoming gallery in a small cottage adorned outside with gingerbread decoration. Exhibitions of paintings, photographs, and wearable art, as well as author readings, take place from May to mid-September. There is a new exhibit and an opening reception each week.

  Zita: I first came to Oak Bluffs as a baby in my mother’s arms. She brought me to visit my great-aunt, who lived here year-round. I grew up outside of Boston, in a town called Billerica. I came every summer growing up.

  As a child I biked all over the place. I zoomed up School Street, hung out, went to the beach a lot. Had my fried clams at Nick’s Lighthouse, where Balance is now; only people who came way back when would remember Nick’s. As a teenager and in college I did the whole party scene. But I didn’t dream of or plan on having a business here. That didn’t happen until I walked down Circuit Avenue in February 1980 and saw a For Rent sign. I was walking up the street with Stephen Rose, the artist. I literally, like a child, peered in the window, and I’m a visual person, so I really saw the space. I immediately saw beiges, reds, and envisioned how I would decorate the space. I memorized the phone number, went to the phone booth at the end of the street, called a man in Mamaroneck, New York, and asked him, What was the rent for the season? How long did the season run? When could I get in to see the space? Could I decorate? He said yes to all those things, told me what the rent was, and I asked him if he could hold it for a couple of days until I got off-island and got a business plan together. That is exactly how it happened. It all just came together. Then I had to figure out what the business would be.

  At the time I was designing bags that were different, very unique fabrics, one-of-a-kind bags. I started out selling only Stephen Rose’s work and my bags, that’s where the name Cousen Rose came in. In the beginning I was clueless. This was, I’m taking my income tax money, we’ll do the work, we’ll send invitations to our friends. We painted, we decorated, and we opened at one o’clock on May 19, 1980.

  By August of that summer we exhibited Delilah Pierce and Lois Mailou Jones. It was a phenomenal summer, you couldn’t have a better start. The following summer we had Paul Goodnight and Tom Feelings; it was so exciting.

  The natural evolution of any business is that you grow and expand and do new things. A gallery is a little different than a regular retail store, in that most galleries traditionally present either sculpture, painting, or photography, and that’s it. I wanted to be a little bit more creative and expand just a bit without becoming a gift shop or a trinket shop—and there is a market for all of those things, I don’t put a value judgment on them—my choice was to do a gallery. I’ve gone outside the box a little bit and have author readings and show furniture and jewelry designers. A book is a form of art; creating a one-of-a-kind piece of furniture is art; and the jewelers I have are not mass producing, they do these one-of-a-kind pieces.

  For example, Myrna Morris’s shirts. I started with the original Inkwell shirt fifteen years ago. Then we expanded to her art. I’ve had people come for a shirt and then they’ll see Myrna’s Corner and say, “Oh, you’ve got paintings, too?” There’s definitely a crossover.

  I exhibit the people who have been loyal to the gallery; a good portion of them will be invited back, because people collect them. The second thing is the quality of the work. People may not like abstract art, but that’s why we show a variety of work. It’s the content. It’s not whether I’m interested in it, it’s if the variety of people who walk through the door will be interested. I have to put my personal taste aside, and think of all the different types of people who come through. I contact artists, they contact me, and I travel looking for new work after the gallery closes in the fall.

  There are definitely ups and downs, in any year, in any given season. If you own a business there are always peaks and valleys, always. The scary part is riding out the storm. You have an hour or a day or a moment when you think, nobody is going to come to my shoe store or my restaurant or my gallery, but it’s fleeting and it goes. It’s the part of our psyche that pushes us to challenge ourselves to be better. To make sure we’re doing it right, to make sure we’re reaching that bar of excellence.


  What I’ve done with other young entrepreneurs, on- and off-island, is to say, Hang in there. Don’t panic. You have to maintain a certain demeanor; you can’t be panicked in front of your clients. No matter what’s going on in your business end of things, you’ve got to maintain a fresh air about yourself for your customers. Nobody wants to hear a sob story. Thank God I have girlfriends. My girlfriends have saved me.

  I don’t know why there are so few black businesses on the island. I don’t think it has anything to do with race. I’ve been here for twenty-five years and I’ve seen all kinds of businesses come and go. It’s very difficult to run a business as an entrepreneur, period, whether it’s seasonal or year-round. But it’s much more challenging to run a seasonal business, because you’re under the pressure to perform in four months what other people have the opportunity to do in twelve. It takes awhile to become established, so you have to have a stick-to-itiveness, and an enormous amount of follow-through. And there are just human qualities that have really nothing to do with business, per se, the values that I think you have to have as an entrepreneur, in order to survive. If I’m the business owner, I’m at the top, I’m it. So everything falls on me, and I have to make it happen. I have help, I have a lot of support—three or four employees in the summer—but the bottom line is that I have to make it happen.

  I have time to enjoy the Vineyard, but it’s a challenge, because every year my schedule is different; I work around the people who work for me. I have lots of friends and family who come and visit, and I can’t be spontaneous. If something’s happening right now, that’s wonderful, but I’m not going to be there. I miss out on a lot of cocktail parties, beach parties, picnics, brunches, lunches, and all that stuff. I accepted that a long time ago; I don’t bemoan it. I plan things that I enjoy during the time I have off, and the friends that I have that are true friends understand that and rise to the occasion. We get together and do things when I’m available.

  I’m sure the people who are here year-round have mixed feelings about their lives here. In the middle of the year, when it’s peaceful and calm, they’re able to get around and do things, and then all of a sudden the tourists are back. It’s a mixed blessing, because if you don’t have tourists, you’re not going to have a thriving community.

  I’m from New England, and grew up in a community very much like Oak Bluffs in terms of it being the country. There’s a quaintness that I think Oak Bluffs and the island offer, whether it’s Illumination Night or the oompah band that plays on Sunday evenings in the gazebo in Ocean Park, the tradition continues. You may not like the band, but it’s nice to be able to come back and know that it’s here. The fireworks in August, the Tabernacle—I remember once hearing Roberta Flack there—just the traditions this place offers are a positive. Families reuniting, whether it’s on the Inkwell or on a porch or under a tree somewhere, it’s those types of things that are good about this place. It brings people together in a positive way. It’s almost idyllic.

  Stephen Carter, fifty, has taught at Yale Law School since 1982, where he is the William Nelson Cromwell Professor of Law. Carter has been a regular summer visitor since 1987 with his wife, Enola Aird, also an attorney. On the Vineyard, Stephen spends time with his two children, Leah, nineteen, and Andrew, sixteen, and assorted family members and friends. He is the author of numerous books of nonfiction and the novel The Emperor of Ocean Park, some of which is set on Martha’s Vineyard.

  Stephen: I write every day, wherever I am, so if I’m here, I write. The Culture of Disbelief was largely written here in the summer of I992. The house we were staying in didn’t have anything like a study, so I wrote at the kitchen table. When everyone was at the beach, I’d be writing, and I guess I never got out of the habit. It can be a little bit stifling to a family vacation, but to me writing is a joy and also a compulsion.

  I like writing on the Vineyard, and I especially like writing when I can have a view of the water. The room where I write in this house is on the third floor and looks out over the water. Some people were in the house the other day and they asked, How can you write up here, this view would be too distracting. I don’t find it distracting, I find it exhilarating. It’s nice that every time I look up from the page, in any direction, I’m looking at water. I love that. I find it very peaceful to write on the Vineyard.

  At home I write on a schedule. On the Vineyard I tend to squeeze my writing around family activities. Yesterday morning the kids and I went out jet skiing, and then they went parasailing, and I don’t think I got down to any writing until the afternoon. This morning I was out somewhere with the kids and I wrote some in the afternoon. To go out and play, go to the beach, go for a hike for three or four hours, have lunch, and then write for three or four hours is very nice. Most days I’m here writing in the morning and go out in the afternoon.

  Stephen Carter

  At home, I write at night, late at night, nine to two. Here, I don’t stay up as late. I’m rarely up past eleven, so I write during the day, a few hours here and there. I never write all day when I’m here, as I might occasionally do at home when I’m trying to finish something.

  My style of writing a novel is to write a lot of scenes that appeal to me and then to stitch them together, as opposed to writing a plot and then fill that with scenes. One of the first scenes I wrote for (The Emperor of Ocean Park) before I knew what the story was, was a scene that didn’t even make it into the novel, of someone being chased through downtown Oak Bluffs at night in a car and ending up on Ocean Park. It’s an example of what I do: I’m inspired to write scenes by things I’ve recently done. The novel I’m finishing now has a scene in it on the highway between Indianapolis and Cincinnati, about a two-hour drive, only because I did that drive and while I was driving I began to envision a scene. There’s no other reason than that. It’s not that I said, I need a scene in Indianapolis or I need a scene in Cincinnati, it’s, This stretch of highway would be a great place for a scene.

  I like to hang out with my family. I have another full-time job; I teach law, I go to legal conferences, I write my legal scholarship. I spend time with my family, go to the beach, picnic, go to dinner. A lot of walking, a lot of just driving around. This morning I spent time just walking on the Inkwell, just thinking. To be sure, I was thinking about my novel, but still the Vineyard is a much better place than where I live for just walking around thinking. We spend a lot of time at the beach. For years we spent a lot of time up-island, in Menemsha, Gay Head, just going to the beach, going up to eat. We don’t do so much of that anymore; we’ve done that. We tend to come to the Vineyard just to sit on our porch and rock.

  I came here in the 1960s a few times, stayed on Nashawena Park in Oak Bluffs with my family. There were a cluster of families who visited together, Skiz Watson and his family and others. We didn’t come every summer; we came several times, usually for six weeks. After I stopped coming as a kid, I didn’t come back until 1987. We rented a house out on the lagoon for a week or two. Enola loved it at once, and I realized for myself that I’d loved it all along.

  One of the really hard things about raising African-American children, especially if you’re middle class, is having them grow up around enough African-American families. Especially families where there are similar values and there are kids they can talk to comfortably. So many of the organizations that exist in the African-American community exist to try to do that work, that binding work. Our kids are in Jack and Jill. There’s no other reason to join Jack and Jill but to do that, and that’s very important. But going to a Jack and Jill meeting once a month and then to the regional conference once a year is not the same as spending weeks and weeks in a resort where you’ll meet some of the same people and also some new people every day.

  There’s no way to explain what gives the pleasure, and I think the relief, of living life this way. You hear black people on the Vineyard say about Oak Bluffs, oh it’s changing, it’s gotten so white. It’s so funny, because of course they sound like whit
e people in the old days, and yet it’s clear what they’re talking about. For black people who have come here for many years, not because it’s trendy but because they’re seeking a different kind of community, there’s an aspect of the Vineyard that is a shrine. People come and they have an understanding that they’re part of something special. There are a lot of other people who come, be they black or white, and it’s just a place to vacation. That’s the real change. It’s not black versus white, it’s that it’s a popular destination and so you’ve got the people for whom it’s still a shrine and the people for whom it’s just a place to go. They’re the people who are driving all crazily and being rude in restaurants and so on and making people feel the island is changing. Honestly, with all due respect to my friends who are property owners and have watched their values go up and up, I’m hoping that it will lose some of that cache over the next few years.

  With all the change and all the bustle, the biggest thing we feel when we come here is respite and refreshment. We always say we wish we could find a way to take that feeling of refreshment home with us. That’s why we’ve got to come back.

  After many summers spent on Martha’s Vineyard, in 1997 artist and teacher Myrna Morris moved with her husband, Roger, a psychotherapist with the New Jersey school system, to the island when he retired. Married for forty years, they are the parents of a son and new grandparents of a granddaughter. Myrna, a painter and sculptor, is the creator of the wildly popular “Inkwell” T-shirt and an expanding line of wearable, usable, affordable art.

  Myrna: My husband has been coming to the Vineyard since he was sixteen years old and we have kind of followed the tradition. Every time we came, everyone said, Why don’t you buy a house?