Epoxy
Martha's Vineyard
Cape Cod and Islands, Massachusetts, USA
Also known as The Vineyard, MV, Dukes County
For roughly two hundred years almost everyone on Martha's Vineyard could sign, because so many islanders were born deaf.
The trait came down from Jonathan Lambert, who arrived from Kent in 1694 with a hearing wife and seven children, two of them deaf. Migration to the island had all but stopped by 1710, and it stayed in the population for the next two centuries.
By 1854 about one islander in 155 was deaf, against one in 5,730 on the mainland. In Chilmark it was one in 25. Hearing and deaf children learned to sign together, and people signed at church, in the fields, and between fishing boats.
Nora Groce's account of it is called Everyone Here Spoke Sign Language. Katie West, the last person born into the signing tradition, died in 1952, and islanders have been teaching sign on the Vineyard again since the early 2000s.
Details
- Feature
- Coastline
- Build
- Epoxy
- Material
- Solid Walnut
- Colour
- Ocean Blue
- Size
- 10-1/2" x 16"
- Completed
- February 2025
How this one was made
Blue runs off all four sides here, so the whole perimeter was dammed and the board flooded. That is why the sealing does the heavy lifting: pigment sits on every square inch of the surface, not just down in the engraved water, and anywhere the seal fails takes the colour permanently. The Elizabeth Islands and the scatter above them break the coastline into dozens of small shapes with narrow channels between, and a deep narrow channel under a flood has nowhere to vent air. The compass is unengraved wood, so it went under the pour with everything else and came back at the sanding stage.
Waypoints close by
Beach PondConnecticut, USA
Groton Long PointNew London County, Connecticut, USA
Bailey IslandMaine, USA
Candlewood LakeDanbury, Connecticut, USAAlso from our workshop
Cascade
From 
Sanctuary
From 
Peak
From 
Silver Fox
From Where this is
41.39231, -70.7349