AAN SHOW & TELL
BY MARLI GUZZETTA INDEPENDENT ARTS EDITOR
Four years into its new home on Gardner Perry Lane, the Artists' Association of Nantucket's workshop has become many things to many people. For Maura Wendelken, it is a tool for keeping her skills limber and her commitment reaffirmed before applying to art school. For Nantucket Bank President Bill Hournihan, Jr., it is a technological upgrade for a longtime hobby. For mother of three, Tess Michetti, it is an outlet for her own individual expression. For 7 year old Oscar Michetti, it is an endless supply of clay.

Clockwise from top: AAN Workshop students Maura Wendelken, Oscar and Tess Michetti and Bill Hourihan.

But in addition to providing for students' individual interests, the AAN workshops also create a sense of community, and an opportunity to plug into a collective artistic energy.

"We've been in our new location four years and things are finally starting to gel," said Liz O'Brien, who has been the AAN's Arts Program Director for six years. "While this building was being renovated, we didn't have classes for two years. Since we moved back here in 2004, we've been rebuilding the sense that this is a gathering place for a community of artists, or even for artist wannabes and beginners. We're at the point now where we have the resources and we're comfortable, and there's a lot of productivity. It feels much more like that to me now than it did four years ago. It's an art center. There's a lot of energy. And when it's bustling here, you can just feel it."

This week, the spring student/faculty art show will exhibit AAN student works from the fall, winter and spring classes, which ranged in cost from $55 to $275, with the median class cost being roughly $180, and scholarships offered to young students through the Nantucket Golf Club. For the first time, this exhibit will include digital photography and pottery works.

This year, the AAN added a ceramics studio, fitted with six wheels and a kiln, and a computer lab, outfitted with six beautiful iMac computers, courtesy of a grant from the Bernadine Nieburg estate. Ted Tillotson, the late husband of former-AAN president Donna Tillotson, facilitated the donation of the computers, which are all outfitted with Adobe Photoshop, courtesy of Adobe Systems and Chuck Geschke. Dan Sutherland, who originally proposed the computer lab, also selected the lab's hardware and software and installed it all. He now teaches Photoshop classes. "When I brought it up, it was a little controversial at first," Sutherland said. "But it evolved, and then it became a question of finances. At one of the meetings when this was going to be discussed, Penny [Scheerer, Board President] said, 'Oh, I just got an envelope from one of the lawyers.' And she opened it up, and there was a $25,000 check in there, so $15,000 of that was earmarked to set us up with the computers and equipment."

Sutherland's class includes techniques like calibrating monitors and managing colors. He said they're still finding ways to maximize the technology, finding more teachers to lead classes like Adobe instruction and Web design. "It's a big addition," he said.

The curriculum is in an everexpanding process of adding classes, like the forthcoming classes on marketing for artists and possibly Adobe InDesign.

But for every new class, there are even more new students. In this sense, the AAN and the artists on the island are discovering their full potential with and because of one another.

MAURAWENDELKEN Artists' Association of Nantucket student Maura Wendelken is a recent high school graduate who has been attending AAN classes since her sophomore year at Nantucket High School. She deferred her plans to attend art school in order to realize a different, more significant creation.

Her daughter, Cecilia, was born six months ago. Wendelken has decided to spend the early days of her daughter's life on island and work part-time.

In order to keep the soil of her artistic skills watered and fertile, Wendelken has been attending a host of classes, exploring, assessing and improving her skills as a sculptor, photographer and, this semester, a painter in Sherre Wilson Rae's painting class.

"I kind of dabble in everything," said Wendelken, who carries a red metal tool box filled with arts supplies and dreams of applying next fall to Mass Art, where she is also currently taking an online class in photography.

She's taken classes through the AAN regularly since her sophomore year in high school, and is now preparing her work for a portfolio review day with Mass Art in November.

"I think it's important when you're applying to schools to have a wellrounded portfolio, stressing drawing and painting, because it's important to have the classic side."

"I'm in a class with her, and she's very enthusiastic and upbeat," said O'Brien, who was also in Rae's painting class. "Because our program has grown over the last few years, it's nice to see somebody like her taking advantage of everything we have to offer and use it to work toward her goals."

Wendelken is unabashed in sharing her gratitude for and enthusiasm about the AAN workshop. "I love it," she said. "It's a beautiful facility. When you take these classes there are so many types of people, and I've never felt stressed with anything I've done here. I can work and create and not feel stressed at all."

BILL HOURIHAN, JR. Nantucket Bank President and CEO Bill Hourihan had been taking photos on and off throughout his life. Even though he has a welldefined career, his artistic hobby found a way to sneak into everything he did. The Nantucket Bank Web site, for example, includes some of his lanscape photos, as well as photos by AAN member and Nantucket Bank Senior Vice President Quint Waters.

Waters encouraged Hourihan to attend the AAN's Photoshop workshop.

Hourihan purchased his first camera in 1975 and took a black and white photography class at the Kenneth Taylor Galleries in 1976, but then put it aside until going digital a few years ago.

Now that Hourihan has made the shift to digital photography, he said, he is never going back to film. "It's a lot cleaner," he said.

He now plans to take another of Sutherland's Photoshop class.

Next week, Hourihan is showing his work for the first time at the show next week.

"It's a fun chance to see who has done what," he said

TESS AND OSCAR MICHETTI As the mother of three young children, Tess Michetti spends most of her days tending to the needs and interests of others. But this semester, in need of a creative outlet, Michetti took her first ceramics class and discovered she had a latent talent.

"She was a complete beginner and she did really beautiful work," O'Brien said.

Michetti studied pottery with Lori Garrabrant. "I came here for a purpose," Michetti said. "I have creative energy that I have to let out. But I can't do much around the house because we have a small space and three children. … It's not that I've been held back, but now that we're done having babies, I can explore the things I've wanted to do."

Pieces she's created in class now adorn the Michetti home. "It's so much fun to bring something home, something you can use. Putting the little plant in the pot I made, it felt good." She has a sense of satisfaction being able to share her works with her family members. "I made a bowl for my mom, and it was nice being able to do something so personal and give it to her."

Michetti originally learned about the AAN classes when her son, Oscar, brought a flier home from school advertising the classes. Tess and Oscar began talking classes at the same time.

A first grader at Nantucket Elementary School, Oscar also attended AAN classes this session, expanding his artistic interests in Joe Zito's mixed media class. Though some kids would kick and scream their way to another class outside of school, Oscar said he really appreciated getting to work with media and tools that he might not get to handle. "It was fun to work with clay and build stuff, like a wooden raft with a sail," said Oscar, who brings a nautical theme to a lot of his work.

"We have pictures of him when he was 3, drawing a whale on a chalkboard. And this was the first thing he ever drew," Michetti remembered.

Oscar was always a "sketcher," Michetti said, but the AAN classes have allowed him to expand his artistic palette. "He was only using pencil and paper, and I couldn't get him to use anything else, so this is good for him to see what else is out there," said Michetti, who added that the classes have also given him more focus.

In addition to the artistic instruction, Michetti got a new community of artists and friends. "I've met people I wouldn't have met otherwise," she said. "It was fun." But the biggest benefit she said was exploring a latent talent. "To bring something home that

I made, it made me proud." I