Highlights and favorites of a NISDA summer
By Laura Raskin
Independent Arts Writer

From left: Vicki Koron, Kaye Stahlecker and J. Koron.

The Nantucket Island School of Design and the Arts, an interdisciplinary year-round arts school for all ages and levels, is gearing up for its summer season. Located on Wauwinet Road, NISDA’s studios overlook conservation land on Polpis Harbor. The school draws visiting artists and students from across the country, but also from the local community. Kathy Kelm, NISDA’s co-founder and executive director, stressed the school’s global and environmental approach to the arts.

The following is a list of this summer’s highlights and favorites from NISDA staff.

Photos by Laura Raskin/The Independent

For more information about classes (which can be taken for credit) and the artist-in-residence program at NISDA’s Washington Street Harbor Cottages, call 228-9248, or go online at www.nisda.org.

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Judy Caldwell, a local artist and NISDA faculty member, focus on mixed media collage: Caldwell’s favorite event of the summer is the Sand Castle and Sculpture Contest sponsored by NISDA and the Nantucket Island Chamber of Commerce, on Aug. 20, from noon to 5 p.m. at Jetties Beach. This event draws families and is one that brings out the artist in everyone in a non-intimidating forum. Register at the Chamber, 48 Main St.

Betsy Sibley, NISDA Gallery director, arts educator, textiles photographer: Sibley runs the Silo Gallery at NISDA’s campus and the smaller Harbor Gallery on Washington Street. Sibley’s job is to turn the flexible galleries into a space that enhances each artist’s work, she said. This summer she is particularly excited about the Tabletop and Miniature Gardens invitational show from July 31 through Aug. 14, at both galleries.

The gardens will be traditional and non-traditional, from Zen to mazes, said Sibley. The Art Challenge II Invitational Show, from Aug. 14 through Oct. 30 at the Silo Gallery, will ask NISDA faculty, national and island artists to produce art with very specific parameters. Last year, each artist was given a CD in a jewel case — the cases ended up in everything from ceramics to mobiles, said Sibley. “The incredible variety is exactly what I’m aiming for,” she said. Boston artist Fay Chandler will have a Silo Gallery show from June 26 through July 16 of paintings, sculpture, ceramics, photography and environmental work. Chandler runs an organization in Boston that places art in atypical places – AIDS clinics, battered women’s shelters and soup kitchens.

Cory Shepherd, former NISDA ceramics intern, now ceramics teacher: Shepherd recently received a BFA from the Fine Arts Institute of Chicago and is headed to Massachusetts College of Art in the fall. “We’ll be taking a multi-cultural approach to clay,” said Shepherd, “studying the uses and aesthetics of clay from around the world.” Wheel throwing and hand building techniques will be taught. Shepherd will also be teaching Natural Creations: From Bonsai to Infinity, The Art of Games and Calligraphy.

Klaus Steinkuhl, from Berlin, does graphic design for NISDA, dark room assistant: Steinkuhl recently overhauled NISDA’s Web site, making it more user friendly. This summer’s complete catalogue is now online, as well as photographs of the artists-in-residence cottages. Steinkuhl will be working on an all-encompassing design package for the school, for everything from invitations to pamphlets. “It’s such a unique vision,” he said of the school. Steinkuhl is hoping to create a NISDA “brand” that is instantly recognizable and makes art pieces out of promotional material.

Mark O’Neill, NISDA Administrative Associate, Harbor Cottages Artist Colony Coordinator: O’Neill, a former artist-in-residence, began his first novel, “Flatland,” about a bicycle trip across the U.S., while in a Harbor Cottage during a cold winter of 2002. He now oversees the artist-in-residence program. There is still space available this summer in the cottages for students taking classes at NISDA or those wanting a “creative” vacation, said O’Neill.

Artists in all mediums come to NISDA and stay in these cottages. “People need a place to get away and work,” said Kelm, NISDA’s co-founder and executive director. “We provide the place, they’ve created the time.” Visiting artists find NISDA’s cottages ideal for their simplicity and cleanliness, said Kelm. NISDA’s facilities are at their disposal, as well as the island’s mix of town and country amenities, she said.

The Independent caught up with three artists-in-residence during a recent visit to the Wauwinet campus:

Vicki Koron, from New London, N.H. is staying at NISDA for two weeks with her son, also an artist.

“I’m at the point in my life where I need to paint independently,” said the oil painter. “After a long winter in New Hampshire in my studio, it’s just a treat to find new places,” she said. “You get to a point – you don’t want to do classes, you don’t want to become stale.”

One week on the island, where Koron has not spent much time, was not enough. Although she’s leaving after two, she could envision spending a month here. “I haven’t even painted the beach,” she said. Koron has been focusing on small oil studies of the landscape. Family friends who know Nantucket, as well as strangers on the street, have pointed her to the best spots. Some of her finished paintings in the NISDA studio include views from Bartlett Farm, the cranberry bogs, Polpis access and the Life-Saving Museum.

Koron taught watercolor classes for 10 years, but now just focuses on her own painting. She sells enough – about 15 paintings a year – to sustain supplies for herself and do residencies like this one, she said. She has painted in France, Italy and Alaska.

Kaye Stahlecker, from outside Philadelphia, works in acrylics. Her goal at NISDA was to begin to combine landscape with figures – the finished works on the wall of the studio are abstract, round figures. Nantucket’s landscape seems to have offered texture and color to her work, more than a literal translation. Stahlecker has been borrowing books from NISDA’s extensive library and has been focusing on Michelangelo’s robust female figures as well as Richard Diebenkorn, an American abstract painter from the mid-20th century.

“What I’m loving about Nantucket is there’s so little influence from the outside world,” said Stahlecker, about the island’s lack of large retail chain stores and its slower pace. “I don’t think there are too many places left that are so preserved.”

Stahlecker keeps studio hours in a building near her home, where her mentor and teacher is Timothy Hawkesworth. From Ireland, Hawksworth’s work can be seen at the Brooklyn Museum of Art and the Museum of Fine Arts in Boston. Stahlecker taught high school art, but left that to paint. “I turned a certain age and now I’m trying to see what I can do,” she said. She recently spent six months working in a gallery in Santa Fe, N.M., and painting there. “I’m single, so it’s easier to move around,” she said.

She has been working outside on the island, and then taking her work back to the NISDA studio to finish.

J. Koron, 33, also lives outside of Philadelphia and is Vicki’s son. He came to painting only five years ago, but his mother said she’s pleased to see he’s almost caught up with her.

“I was at the Frick [Collection] in New York City and I saw my first Rembrandt. I was 28. I didn’t know what I wanted to do. But I saw it and I said, ‘I want to do that,’” said Koron. He went on to receive a scholarship to the Philadelphia Academy of Fine Arts (which his mother also attended), after completing apprenticeships with established artists.

Because he and his mother are painting all day – they were up at 6 a.m. on this particular morning to take photographs at ’Sconset – they are exhausted at night.

“It’s so nice to work with someone you’re so familiar with, who knows your faults and weaknesses. Six years ago I would have been like, ‘Are you crazy?’” he said, of going on a trip with his mother. Koron is headed to Italy next, for a six-week stay at an art academy where he received a scholarship.