Exhibit Opening Reception: Montage by Lauraye White

Celebrate Montage, a new exhibit featuring multimedia collage, acrylic paintings, sculptural adornments and jewelry by Lauraye White. A reception will be held Thursday, October 20th, 4 to 5:30 pm and is open to the public. The artist encourages people to wear costumes! The exhibit will be on display for the second half of of October in the West Tisbury Library's community room gallery.

Lauraye, whose name rhymes with Mariah, describes her art as a blend of abstract expressionism, surrealism, free-form poetry, stream of consciousness, writing, and collage, presenting realism as nestled snugly within the chaos.

She grew up in West Tisbury, and she says that from a very young age she was creating–designing, drawing, and dancing–twirling like a dervish in the energy of expression, with strong encouragement from her parents and her childhood mentors Janice Frame and Valerie Becker. Lauraye used the creative arts as a channel through which she could navigate life. After attending Vineyard schools, she continued at MassArt in Boston,  concentrating in Studio For Interrelated Media and practicing  small metals sculpture, jewelry making, web design and videography.

An opportunity in 2020 to design and maintain the West Tisbury Library Virtual Art Gallery gave Lauraye a way to make art her profession, connecting her visual talents and hobbies to her day job. She was asked to create a virtual display in order to showcase the monthly rotation of exhibiting artists’ work. Lauraye was the library’s gallery curator in 2020 and 2021.

She currently works as assistant director of the Performing Arts Center at MVRHS, under the direction of Charlie Esposito. She also sells her original handcrafted wares through her company, Wind Weaving Designs.

The art show will be up by Tuesday, October 10. The show is free and open to the public during library hours, which are from 10 a.m. to 6 on Monday through Thursday, 10 to 5 on Friday and Saturday, and Sunday 12 p.m to 4.