Throughout Alison‘s career, one of her favorite things to shoot has been boats. Her family always had sailboats, and Alison raced a Jet 14 on the Chesapeake Bay. A ”summer kid“ on the island, she had a painting studio upstairs at the Old Sculpin Gallery, which used to house Manuel Schwartz Roberts’s boatbuilding shop years before. In 1946, Alison‘s mom, Gretchen Van Tassel, photographed the launch of his last catboat, The Old Sculpin, named in Manuel’s honor. Alison recently discovered that her grandparents’ home in Edgartown had belonged to Roberts, and was purchased from his family in the mid 1950s.
Alison, far right, with her family onboard Truant, on the Chesapeake Bay, about 1957
She loves the culture of boating, whether she‘s on assignment shooting a fishing expedition, or chronicling the traditional building of wooden boats by Gannon & Benjamin Boat Yard in Vineyard Haven. Schooner, her 2010 book with writer Tom Dunlop, chronicles the building of one boat, from concept to launch.
Gannon & Benjamin Boat Yard II 1998
Many of her seascapes include boats, on the Vineyard as well as the Cape. Some of her most popular images are these “boatscapes,” as Sue refers to them.
Lagoon 2009
These days, Alison is shooting a series of boat hulls. She‘s approaching this series just like she always has, with thorough research and lots of scouting. Whether she‘s in Maine visiting family, teaching on Cape Cod, or on one of her daily walks at home, she’s always looking for new boats to photograph. She has two styles within this series – full boats shot from above (she bought a ridiculously huge ladder), or just the bows. All of the images are on a black background, and are framed in a white wooden shadowbox.
Popper, Gannon & Benjamin 11′ YachtTender 2020
In 2021, Alison was honored by Sail MV with the Walter Cronkite award, presented each year since 2010 to honor an individual who has advanced the appreciation of maritime culture on Martha’s Vineyard.
All of these images are available at Alison Shaw Gallery. Stop by – chances are, Alison will be working upstairs, or in the yard dumping sand out of her boots.