The very title of Peter Ralston’s “Betsy Wyeth’s World is an Island in Maine” immediately compelled me to reflect on Stephen King’s “The Reach”. I couldn’t help but draw parallels between King’s protagonist, Stella, and the very real character of Betsy. Deeming an island someone’s “world” is no small thing; it holds implications of isolation, obsession, and greater disconnect with the mainland, both in physicality and ideological concept. Yet unlike Stella, who clings to her island home with fear and contempt for mainland, Betsy has found a home in island life by choice; in fact, the illustrious life she has led in both urban and rural mainland spaces has served to texture her relationship with the island and enrich her appreciation for it. This is well communicated in Ralston’s work, in which he describes Betsy’s two worlds (that of the islands and mainland) as sources of “creative tension” that define her work as a perpetual work in progress, unlike Andrew’s paintings, which eventually reach completion (Ralston 2). This raises the question of how Betsy’s “islomania” (a word coined by my great grandfather to describe the enchantment many people, tourists and locals alike, experience when setting foot on an island) has been shaped by her position as a “person from away” (another Maine-ism). Unlike Stella, and many Maine island residents, Betsy now chooses island life within the context of enormous wealth and personal as well as professional success. She has the privilege of making Allen and Benner Islands her “projects” because she can. Yet it’s unfair to say that Maine’s island-borne folk don’t have projects of their own. My question, then, is can island life truly compose a life’s work? And if so, how does the composition of that work change depending on personal standpoints of geography, wealth, and concept of home?