Chesapeake Lens: Rain, Rain, Go Away by JP Henry
The Spy Newspapers may periodically employ the assistance of artificial intelligence (AI) to enhance the clarity and accuracy of our content.
Nonpartisan and Education-based News for Chestertown
The Spy Newspapers may periodically employ the assistance of artificial intelligence (AI) to enhance the clarity and accuracy of our content.
A remarkable evening of music and reflection opened appropriately with what amounts to a prayer.
The lyrics to the hymn inspired by Sibelius’ tone poem “Finlandia,” performed by the Mid-Atlantic Symphony Orchestra Thursday night in Easton, came instantly to mind with the first notes of the beloved middle movement of this piece about peace.
“My country’s skies are bluer than the ocean
And sunlight beams on cloverleaf and pine
But other lands have sunlight, too, and clover
And skies are everywhere as blue as mine
O hear my song, thou God of all the nations
A song of peace for their land and for mine.”
In a concert anchored by the performative genius of an Israeli-American cellist, peace inevitably came to mind there as well. But it was principally the music that spoke to appreciative listeners in Saints Peter and Paul High School’s auditorium. “Finlandia” is a 19th-century musical commentary on the Russian Empire’s oppression, continued under the Soviet Union, of neighboring Finland – now a member of NATO in defensive response to war-criminal misdeeds by Vladimir the Terrible.
The eight-minute “Finlandia” was but an appetizer for much more to savor and to mull over on the drive home from this rewarding concert.
Next up was an until-recently undiscovered masterwork by Florence Price, the first African-American woman composer to have her symphony (No. 1 in E Minor) performed by a major U.S. orchestra. Her three-movement “Ethiopia’s Shadow in America” breaks the era of slavery into “The Journey” from homeland captivity to being chained and shipped into a life as two-legged chattel, followed by “Struggle and Resistance,” which captures the loss of liberty and far worse before morphing into a resolve to overcome. Then, finally, it moves to a hopeful “Celebration of Heritage,’ in an emancipation nation clinging to racist hangovers.
Price’s “Ethiopia’s Shadow” was recorded on the New York Youth Symphony album that won the musicians and Michael Repper, now music director of the MSO, 2023’s Grammy for Best Orchestral Performance. The three movements – capture, slavery and emancipation – are marked by what-will-come-next trepidation in the first instance. The second connotes both resignation to hardships – somber notes of lost humanity and a resilience that comes from somewhere within as the higher strings and woodwinds strike a tone of getting ahead rather than getting even. Finally, a lilting passage introduced in a clarinet solo by Wendy Hatton suggests a brighter future in which dancing is one of freedom’s rewards.
Post-intermission, Repper ceded his usual role of introducing the final piece on the program to the soloist who plays most of the notes in Dvorak’s Cello Concerto widely acclaimed as the best ever written. Turns out that Amit Peled, a cello professor at Baltimore’s Peabody Conservatory, whose professorship hardly begins to encapsulate his accomplishments as an artist, loves to tell stories about the pieces he plays. The dramatic effect was so profound that I could not possibly take in the concerto without references Peled made spinning in my head as the wordless magic of his playing or Dvorak’s genius in composing it – probably both – influenced my perception of the music and musicianship.
According to Peled, Dvorak was hopelessly in love with a lass named Josephine who, like himself, was a Czech native. He offered his hand to her. But Josephine’s father insisted that he marry his older daughter instead. Meanwhile, Dvorak had accepted the challenge of writing a cello concerto, which he previously thought all but impossible. After writing a promising first movement, he decided to sail to Europe and his homeland to visit Josephine, who he heard was sick. En route, he wrote a second movement, inspired by the prospect of seeing her again, and then wrote a third upon his visit. But on his return voyage, he learned that Josephine had died. He tore up the third movement and the astonishing one we hear today of which Peled tipped us all with a musical spoiler by playing the note he cues just before a dying response from Josephine – in this case delivered by concertmaster/first violin Kim McCollum.
Aside from his storytelling, Peled’s utter mastery of this complex and athletically challenging concerto was spellbinding. An introspective opening quickly eclipsed by a bold orchestral statement featuring horns and woodwinds establish a grand entrance for the soloist, who shows who’s in charge with higher-register notes than you’d expect from a cello, played with violin dexterity mixed with cello/bass authority. While full orchestral outbursts periodically gave Peled a chance to catch his breath and rest his bow arm, he showed a knack for coming in just on the heels of a supporting instrumental phrase, such as by Dana Newcomb on oboe. You’d think the cello and oboe were one.
In the final movement, Josephine’s death note follows Peled’s lead, punctuated by a gentle pluck of a single string. Sprightly folk melodies of their shared Czech roots ease any maudlin preoccupations with death to instill a celebration instead of life.
The performance is indeed a celebration of life as interpreted through music.
Mid-Atlantic Symphony Orchestra
Spring concert series: Thursday, April 4, Saints Peter and Paul High School, Easton. Also, 3 p.m. Saturday, April 6, Epworth United Methodist Church, Rehoboth Beach, and 3 p.m. Sunday, April 7, Community Church, Ocean Pines.
Steve Parks is a retired New York arts critic now living in Easton.
The Spy Newspapers may periodically employ the assistance of artificial intelligence (AI) to enhance the clarity and accuracy of our content.
American artist Charles Willson Peale (1741-1827) was born in Chester, Maryland. His father died when Charles was thirteen, and he was apprenticed to a saddle maker. He opened his own saddle shop, but it failed. He tried a career fixing clocks. That failed too. At last, he turned to painting, and he became one of America’s premier painters.
Peale’s talent was recognized by artists John Singleton Copley and John Hesselius. With their help and that of Peale’s friend John Beale Bordley, they raised the funds to send Peale to London to study with American artist Benjamin West from 1767 until 1769. The painting “John Beale Bordley” (1770) (80”x58’’) (National Gallery of Art) is one of several portraits Peale painted of the Bordley family. Both men were supporters of the Sons of Liberty. Bordley commissioned this portrait to show America’s strength and desire for equal treatment by the British. It was to be exhibited in London.
John Beale Bordley, the ancestor of the Bordley family whose store at the corner of High and Cross Streets in Chestertown that today houses the Historical Society of Kent County, owned a plantation on Wye Island. The peach tree at his right and the packhorses at the far left of the portrait were symbols of American abundance. The flock of sheep grazing beneath the peach tree demonstrated that America was not dependent on English sheep and British woolens. Bordley was a trained lawyer, judge, and member of the Governor’s Council. He stands with left arm resting on a law book and his right hand raised as if he were debating colonial rights under British law that often were ignored. The torn legal document at this his feet signifies his regard for British law. Completing the scene, a statue of British Liberty holds the scale of justice. At the base of the statue is American jimson weed, also known as Devil’s snare, a poisonous plant, to remind the British that the attack on American liberties could be deadly.
Peale returned from London in 1769 and settled in Annapolis. He moved to Philadelphia in 1775 and set up a painting studio. He painted John Hancock, Thomas Jefferson, Alexander Hamilton, and Benjamin Franklin, among others. Peale painted Washington from life as early 1772, when Washington was a British Colonel. A member of the Sons of Liberty since 1764, Peale served in the Pennsylvania Militia holding the rank of captain by1776. He recruited for the army and participated in several battles. During the Revolutionary War, he made miniature portraits of many of the officers. After the war, he painted their portraits when he was able to return to painting full-time.
“Washington, Lafayette, and Tilghman at Yorktown” (1784) (93’’x64’’) (Maryland State House) was commissioned by the Maryland Legislature in 1783. This 1784 portrait is similar to the 1779 of Washington at the victories of Princeton and Trenton. Peale added the Marquis de Lafayette and Lieutenant Colonel Tench Tilghman, born in Maryland. Tilghman served as Washington’s aide de camp from the Battle of Trenton to the Siege at Yorktown. Tilghman holds the rolled document announcing Cornwallis’s surrender at Yorktown. Washington entrusted Tilghman to deliver the news to the Continental Congress in Philadelphia. Tilghman wears his ceremonial sword that now is on display at the Maryland State House. In the distance, soldiers carry the American and Bourbon French flag. Tilghman married and returned to his mercantile business in Baltimore after the war. On Tilghman’s death, Washington wrote to Tilghman’s father, “I can assure you Sir, with much truth, that after I had opportunities of becoming well acquainted with his worth, no man enjoyed a greater share of my esteem, affection and confidence than Colo. Tilghman…”
Peale was commissioned to paint over 60 portraits of Washington, seven from life, and he painted over 1100 portraits, some of them of his family. “The Staircase Group’’ (1795) (90”x40”) (Philadelphia Museum of Fine Art) depicts two of his sons, Raphealle and Titian Ramsey. Employing the artistic device known as trompe-l’œil (French for fool the eye), Peale depicts the two young men climbing a circular staircase, the stairsteps starting at the floor of the Museum. A trompe-l’œil colonial dollar, crumpled on the first painted step, lies ready for someone to pick up.
Peale married three times. His first wife Rachel bore him ten children, and his second wife Elizabeth bore him six, his third wife Hannah helped raise them. Peale’s love of art is evident; he named most of his children after famous artists or famous persons: his sons after famous painters Raphaelle, Rembrandt, Rubens, and Titian; his daughters after famous painters Angelica Kauffmann, Sophonisba Anguissola, Rosalba Carriera, and Sibylla Miriam. His sons Benjamin Franklin and Charles Lennaeus Peale were named for the scientists. Some of Peale’s children were successful painters. Peale’s sons Rembrandt and Rubens founded the Peale Museum in Baltimore in 1813. Peale’s sister-in-law Elizabeth Emerson Callister-Peale taught miniature painting at the Kent County Free School. She and Sarah Callister were hired in 1873 by Washington College in Chestertown to teach painting and drawing. They were the first women to be hired as teachers by an American college or university. Elizabeth designed the Great Seal of Washington College.
Peale shared with both Thomas Jefferson and Benjamin Franklin a deep interest in natural phenomena. A friend sent him an 1801 news clipping about large bones found on a farm near Montgomery, New York. Jefferson tried to secure the find, but he was not successful. Peale acquired the rights to the excavation from land owner John Marsten for $200, new gowns for his wife and daughters, a gun for his son, and an additional $100. Peale arrived with 35 paid workers who carefully excavated the bones from the water-logged pit. He devised a pulley system to remove the water. He took great care to preserve the bones, developing methods that were not used before. In the painting, Peale wears yellow trousers, a white shirt, and a black coat. He stands with members of his family at the right side of the painting. He and his son Rembrandt hold a large drawing of one of the bones. In his diary, Peale told Marston, “…compleating the skeleton was an object of vast magnitude with me…” The exhumed mastodon was reported to be the world’s first fully articulated skeleton.
Peale founded the Pennsylvania Academy of Fine Arts in Philadelphia in 1805. It was one of America’s first museums, housing hundreds of portraits, thousands of artifacts, fossils, life-sized wax statues, and archaeological objects. In “The Artist in His Museum” (1822) (104’’x80”) (Pennsylvania Academy of Fine Arts), Peale proudly displays the long gallery, then on the 2nd floor of Independence Hall. The skeleton of the mastodon is set behind the red velvet drape; several large bones and a turkey fill the foreground space. His palette and brushes are placed on a green cloth on the table. Mounted birds can be seen on row of shelves, an American eagle at the top.
“What more pleasing prospect can be opened to our view than the boundless field of nature? Not only comprehending the inhabitants of earth, sea, and air; but earth, sea, and air themselves—representing an inexhaustible fund for amusing and useful enquiry. (C.W. Peale, lecture, University of Pennsylvania, November 16, 1799)
Beverly Hall Smith was a professor of art history for 40 years. Since retiring with her husband Kurt to Chestertown in 2014, she has taught art history classes at WC-ALL. She is also an artist whose work is sometimes in exhibitions at Chestertown RiverArts and she paints sets for the Garfield Center for the Arts.
The Spy Newspapers may periodically employ the assistance of artificial intelligence (AI) to enhance the clarity and accuracy of our content.
The highly desirable neighborhood of Northbend off St. Michaels Rd. is a blend of old and new. The “old” is the distinguished three story original house, “North Bend”, that was built in the mid-nineteenth century on a large tract of land along Chapel Cove that leads to the Miles River. The “new” are much later houses built upon a mix of waterfront and inland lots. Since the main access road is both the ingress/egress off St. Michaels road, the neighborhood enjoys peace and quiet and the close proximity to the amenities of both Easton and St. Michaels. This house combines traditional gable roof forms with contemporary detailing for a sleek look. The massing is pleasing with the center one and half story wing connected to one story wings that have front gables. The exterior wall color of deep gray blends into the background of mature trees.
This house on its 1.07 acre lot has undergone many upgrades, including a wonderful outdoor room overlooking the gently sloping lawn along the shoreline of Chapel Cove. The design by well-known landscape designer Jan Kirsh incorporates a 1000 sf rear Ipe deck surrounding a heated gunite pool with a “Baja” shelf (a pad that is a transition from deck to water) so you can partially submerge a chair and relax as you work on your tan or get your daily dose of Vitamin D.
From the chaise lounges on the deep Ipe deck, the chairs on the Baja pad in the pool and the Adirondack chairs along the water, you can enjoy the peaceful setting along Chapel Cove.
The deck wraps around the great room gable wing of the house to create a seating area with cushioned chairs next to a table that accommodates ten for dining al fresco under the shade of an umbrella. I could easily imagine sitting on one of the blue chairs atop the Baja pad and enjoying sipping a flute of Prosecco before dinner.
The wrap-around deck continues to the area by the bedrooms that contains a hot tub and outdoor shower. The design of the deck’s railing with the slender supports and thin horizontal cable provides unobstructed views of the lawn and water. The design excellence of the spacious outdoor room set the bar for the house’s interiors so I went back to the front of the house to begin my tour.
The foyer projects from the front wall of the house to begin the dramatic entry sequence from the one story foyer and front seating area of the great room under the loft that floats above the edge of the two-story part of the great room. I especially liked how the support beam for the loft is painted white to accentuate its free span between the gray walls and that the thin loft railing offers clear views to the water.
The ceiling below the loft creates a cozy area for the dining area and the seating that can become beds for additional guests. The contemporary track lighting defines the edge of the ceiling plane that must cast a lovely glow at night. Individual spatial functions are defined by edges of cabinetry or placement of furniture to create a harmonious whole. The row of cabinetry beyond is both a spatial edge, a buffet for entertaining and a shelf for the seating area beyond.
As I walked past the edge of the loft, I savored the exquisite geometry of the two-story part of the great room’s ceiling created by the intersection of the rear gable wall infilled with glass to the underside of the lateral support beam above to the eave line of the one-story part of the house. The spacious seating area with the wrap-around sofa is perfect for relaxing after a day on the water or in the pool and for entertaining. The geometric shapes and neutral tones of the furnishings with accents of pillows and art create a sophisticated look. Sliding doors lead to the deck for easy indoor-outdoor flow.
The galley kitchen’s stainless steel appliances and gray cabinetry blend into the walls to become part of the interior architecture. Gray is an achromatic color so it doesn’t reflect any color which makes it a great background for adding your own personal touches of colorful accents. I admired how the rear wall’s trim around the gable glazing is painted white and outlined by the slim edge of the gable’s gray wall. The subtle lines of the white wood ceiling add texture.
The door on the other side of the great room leads to an entertainer’s dream-a second kitchen/butler pantry that is fully equipped for hosting parties or for a catering kitchen. At the end of the cabinetry is a stack washer/dryer and a door to a powder room. Next to the refrigerator/freezer is a door to the two-car side-loading garage.
Three bedrooms and two baths are located in the one-story wing next to the great room. The primary bedroom’s high ceiling shape follows the underside of the roof rafters until they intersect with flat portion of the underside of the collar beam. Sliding doors lead to the deck area opposite the hot tub and outdoor shower. The bedroom’s color scheme of gray walls, the texture of the wavy lighter gray and white pattern, the creamy white bed linens, the deep orange accents of the bed skirt, headboard and pendant fixture and the colorful artwork on either side of the sliding doors create a restful retreat.
I loved the primary bath with its pale gray tile flooring, kinetic patterned wallpaper, black dual lavatory cabinets with white countertops, white tub that contrasts with its surround of black tile and shower with black tiled walls and glass door. The contemporary bench and tubular lighting fixture are great finishing touches. The primary ensuite also includes a spacious walk-in closet.
The interior design of both of the guest bedrooms are similar with earth toned walls and blue accents of the table and bed pillows. The padded headboards make reading before bedtime easier and the long windows offer views of the landscape or water.
I admired the guest bath’s walls with bold bright blue wallpaper and the long lavatory can accommodate toiletries for two if needed. The lower portion of the plantation shutters can be adjusted for privacy. The tub/shower has walls of white to both break up the blue walls and to reflect the daylight from the window.
My fave room was the loft area that spans the length of the center wing of the house. This space overlooking the great room below has myriad uses from a TV room, office, studio, etc., with its bird’s eye views directly to the pool, lawn and Chapel Cove below. The loft connects to both the unfinished space with windows at the front and rear gable walls over the garage wing and a storage area over the bedroom wing.
Great property in the very desirable neighborhood of Northbend, one-level living with a spacious loft with potential for expansion due to the current public sewer installation in the neighborhood. The dream design team of Landscape Designer Jan Kirsh and Interior Designer Jay Jenkins transformed the exterior and interior rooms. Kirsh created luxurious outdoor spaces of a wrap-around deck that is the size of a small house, a heated gunite pool with Baja pad, a six-person hot tub and private outdoor shower for breathtaking SW views over Chapel Cove.
Jenkins’ sophisticated eye combined pattern, texture and color that created sleek and comfortable interiors and this property’s bonus is that the designer furnishings are negotiable outside the real property transaction.
For more information about this property, contact Janet Larson at Benson & Mangold Real Estate, 410-822-6665 (o), 410-310-1797 (c), or [email protected]. For more pictures and pricing, visit www.shoremove.com , www.bensonandmangold.com “Equal Housing Opportunity”.
Photography by Janelle Stroop, 410-310-6838, [email protected]
Interior Design by Jay Jenkins, Jenkins Baer Associates, www.jenkinsbaer.com, (410) 727-4100
Landscape Design by Jan Kirsh, Jan Kirsh Studio, www.jankirshstudio.com, (410) 745-5252
Jennifer Martella has pursued dual careers in architecture and real estate since she moved to the Eastern Shore in 2004. She has reestablished her architectural practice for residential and commercial projects and is a referral agent for Meredith Fine Properties. Her Italian heritage led her to Piazza Italian Market, where she hosts wine tastings every Friday and Saturday afternoons.
The Spy Newspapers may periodically employ the assistance of artificial intelligence (AI) to enhance the clarity and accuracy of our content.
The Spy Newspapers may periodically employ the assistance of artificial intelligence (AI) to enhance the clarity and accuracy of our content.
Author’s Note: This poem is a rather straight forward account of early spring gardening, the tension between what is “good” and “bad” (slugs, weeds), and the sometimes endlessness of the tasks, resulting in a retreat from that burden only to come inside and find nature has made its way in with the ants which are seemingly impossible creatures to get rid of.
Day Before Easter
I pull the weeds, one
after another and another
as Sisyphus might
Why shouldn’t the weeds live, too?
Such fortitude and strange beauty.
Two eagles circle above. No crows
are pestering them. Tell the rabbits
to beware. Don’t the slugs deserve
to slither among the damp leaves,
leaving their eerie trails?
Sometimes I cut, sometimes I fling.
It’s messy.
No wonder we need sleep.
I moved some tiny ferns down
to the bottom of the yard. I
can only hope they flourish
in the shade of the hawthorn.
A cold rain begins and I
retreat. That’s enough nature.
I watch from the window—rain,
birds, bowing trees and look,
down at the baseboard, churning,
the ants are back, the damn ants.
♦
Mercedes Lawry’s most recent book is Vestiges, from Kelsay Books. She has published three chapbooks and poems in other journals, including Nimrod and Alaska Quarterly Review. Her book Small Measures is forthcoming from ELJ Editions, Ltd., in 2024. Her work has been nominated seven times for a Pushcart Prize. She has also published short stories and poems for children. Lawry lives in Seattle, Washington.
As a literary journal, the Delmarva Review reaches audiences regionally, nationally, and beyond, to give writers a desirable home in print, with a digital edition, to present their most compelling new prose and poetry. It’s a time when many commercial publications have closed their doors or are reducing literary content. For each annual edition, editors have culled through thousands of submissions to select the best of new poetry, fiction, and nonfiction. There is never a publishing or reading fee. The review is available from major online booksellers and regional specialty bookstores. As a 501(c)(3) nonprofit, support comes from tax-deductible contributions and a grant from Talbot Arts with funds from the Maryland State Arts Council. Website: www.DelmarvaReview.org
The Spy Newspapers may periodically employ the assistance of artificial intelligence (AI) to enhance the clarity and accuracy of our content.
The Christian observance of the Last Supper is on Maundy Thursday this year, on March 28. Jesus and his disciples celebrated Jewish Pesach (Passover), the eve of the Israelite exodus from Egypt. The tradition was soon established by the early Christians who, before they had buildings for worship, observed the Last Supper weekly in their homes.
One of the earliest representations of the Last Supper was found in the Catacomb of Priscilla in a square chamber known as the Greek Chapel. “Breaking of the bread” (2nd century CE) (fresco) was painted on an of arch over an altar-tomb where the sacrament was performed. The images of the fresco are faint. However, experts have described the scene of seven people reclining on banqueting couches in the manner of the Romans. The Roman Catholic church holds that six men and one woman are present. The figure at the left, slightly separated from the group, is breaking bread. A two-handled cup is set on the table in front of him, along with two large platters containing two fish and five loaves. At either side of the table are baskets filled with loaves of bread.
Early Christians believed in burial of the dead, as opposed to the Roman practice of cremation. The catacombs, along roads outside the city of Rome, contain examples of Early Christian art. The people were poor, and they could not afford artists of high quality. Therefore, the images were primitive. The frescoes were underground, lit only by candle or torch. The atmosphere was unpleasant because of the odor of new burials.
“Last Supper” (6th Century) (mosaic) (Basilica of St Apollinaire Nuovo, Ravenna, Italy) illustrates the continued development of Christian art. By the 6th Century, Christianity had become the dominant religion of Italy. Ravenna was the second major capital of the Christian world after Constantinople, in what was then Greece. St Apollinare Nuovo was reconstructed by the Byzantine emperor Justinian I. “Last Supper” is one of 13 mosaics telling the story of the of the passion through the resurrection. Christ was depicted wearing a robe of royal purple, a dye that was very rare and costly. Royal purple was forbidden to all but royalty. Christ also wears a gold trinity halo with three large green emeralds. The twelve disciples recline in Roman style around the table. The anatomical depiction was slightly improved over the earlier fresco, but three-dimensional space was several hundred years in the future. Peter, with the white hair and beard, has been established as being beside Christ. The twelfth figure, barely visible beside Peter, is Judas. Two fish on a plate and seven triangular loaves of bread are set on the white tablecloth. The scene, as in almost all Byzantine mosaics, is placed in front of a solid gold wall. The table is placed on a green lawn.
In 15th Century Italy, Renaissance artists developed a complete knowledge of anatomy and perspective to create realistic images. “Last Supper” (1486) (fresco) (Refectory wall of San Marco, Florence) (160”x320”) was painted by the Florentine master Dominico Ghirlandaio (1448-1494). Applying linear perspective, first realized c.1415 by Florentine painter and architect Filippo Brunelleschi, Ghirlandaio painted the twelve disciples and Christ seated, uncrowded, and together, at a long table. The table is set with wine glasses, loaves of bread, plates, and other food items. The disciples’ feet are visible under the edge of the elaborate woven tablecloth. The tradition of placing Judas at the opposite side of the table had been established. Rather than sharing the bread and wine, Jesus has just announced that one of the disciples would betray Him. The disciples, realistically represented as individuals, react to the pronouncement. At Christ’s right side, Peter holds his dinner knife in his fist, and the youngest disciple John is asleep.
Ghirlandaio sets the scene in a room of an Italian Renaissance villa, under an arched roof with a view to the outdoor garden. Four trees are orange trees, the oranges recognized as the Medici family emblem. The six cypress trees were, and remain, a symbol of Tuscany. Tall and stately, the cypress trees can live for as many as 2000 years, and are the symbol of immortality. Their pleasant sent was thought to ward off evil and aid in the passage to the after-life. Another symbol of immortality is the peacock. One is perched in the window at the right. The peacock’s body did not seem to decay, and was considered a symbol of immortality. Peacocks were represented in Early Christian catacombs. Ghirlandaio painted several versions of the Last Supper, but only this one has a cat. It sits on the floor behind Judas and looks out at the viewer. Placed behind Judas, the cat was thought to represent Satan.
“Some Living American Women Artists” (1972) (collage) (28.25’’x42”) (MoMA) is by Mary Beth Edelson (1922-2021), an active participant in the women’s movement. Using Leonardo’s iconic “Last Supper” as a guide, she placed twelve photographs of contemporary women artists in the place of the disciples. She placed Georgia O’Keeffe in the position of Christ, but she did not designate any of the women as Judas. The twelve, starting from the left, are Lynda Benglis, Helen Frankenthaler, June Wayne, Alma Thomas, Lee Krasner, and Nancy Graves. Continuing beyond O’Keeffe are Elaine de Kooning, Louise Nevelson, M.C. Richards, Louise Bourgeois, Lila Katzen. and Yoko Ono. Photographs of 69 more contemporary women artists are placed in the border.
Women artists are still working to achieve equality with men in the art market. This work by Edelson’s was a criticism of the politics of the art world, but it also was a great tribute to her contemporary women artists. The original piece was then produced as a poster, and it can be found in the collections of many museums. It has become iconic in its own right.
Beverly Hall Smith was a professor of art history for 40 years. Since retiring with her husband Kurt to Chestertown in 2014, she has taught art history classes at WC-ALL. She is also an artist whose work is sometimes in exhibitions at Chestertown RiverArts and she paints sets for the Garfield Center for the Arts.
The Spy Newspapers may periodically employ the assistance of artificial intelligence (AI) to enhance the clarity and accuracy of our content.
This historic photo from the 1950’s shows today’s feature, “Pot Pie Farm”, at its point of land along Cummings Creek and Harris Creek, Wittman’ small commercial area, the wharf and a few farms. The Owners of Pot Pie Farm have compiled a treasure trove of historical information about their property, including the names of the 12 families who have called this unique property home since the 1790’s.
Like many villages in the late 19th through the early 20th century, Wittman once thrived in the heydays of the ferries, steamboats and railroads that brought new residents and prosperity to outlying areas of the Eastern Shore Counties. Wittman grew to support a one-room schoolhouse, general store, hardware store, post office and Methodist church. Pot Pie Rd is the main access to the neighborhood and its culinary name is thought to have derived from the numerous pot pies baked for Methodist preachers who stopped in Wittman’s church for pot pies before saddling their horses to travel to the next stop on their circuit. Frederick Douglass also mentions this area in his autobiographies.
Pot Pie Farm was sited to take maximum advantage of its panoramic views of both Cummings and Harris Creeks with a solar orientation that offers stunning sunrises and sunsets. The site’s perimeter is protected by a living shoreline for which the Owners were awarded a Wetland Wise Award. The main house, circa 1915, underwent a thorough renovation with a dream team that included architect Christine Dayton, landscape architect Jim Van Sweden and artisan craftsmen Ebby DuPont and Jay Brown. The front part of the house was expanded to contain a one-story primary suite with a study, bedroom and bath, a front porch and larger kitchen with bedrooms above
The original house was a Sears and Roebuck design and the rear of the house was enhanced during its renovation by seamless additions of the full screened porch and an open porch above that span the full length of the main house. At the side of the house facing the salt water pool, another screened porch and an outdoor shower were added. These delightful outdoor rooms provide both cooling breezes and peaceful views of this tranquil setting. The deep rear lawn gently slopes down to the living shoreline and pier.
The main floor’s spacious screened porch has areas for sitting and dining accessed by the center hall’s original exterior door and sidelights and French doors from the living room and breakfast room for easy indoor-outdoor flow. I appreciated how the framing of the screened panels were carefully designed for maximum views when one is seated. On the day I visited, the sun penetrated deep into the porch and the shadow it created became a “rug” over the floor.
The second floor open porch becomes a warm weather sitting room for the second floor bedrooms and offers breathtaking panoramic “bird’s eye” views of the landscape and water below.
The wide front door, full sidelights and transom opens into a large foyer with a vista to the kitchen and another vista down the center hall to the screened porch. The stairs were relocated for better flow and the artisan woodworkers added moldings to the side wall of the stairs for an elegant craftsman touch. I admired the serene color palette of the walls, the beautiful repurposed old factory timbers that have a new life as pine flooring, the colorful stair runners and matching hall rug.
The wide center hall separates the spacious living and dining rooms with French doors to the rear screened porch. The living room has shorter side interior walls to define its area and the dining room has a wall opening on axis to the French doors at the smaller screened porch.
The living room’s length creates a cozy seating area around the fireplace and another seating area overlooking the side yard and the screened porch. The lower pane of the craftsman style 6/1 windows offer clear views of the landscape and water. The beautiful artwork over the fireplace with its perspective of a meandering stream was the first of many pieces the Owners’ collection that I greatly admired. The neutral color scheme, the warm wood pieces and sunlight pouring into the room invited me to linger but I knew there were more treasures to discover.
Off the living room is this cozy sitting area with windows overlooking the front porch. I could easily imagine stretching out on one of the sofas with my cat in my lap and enjoying a quiet afternoon of reading a good book. The neutral wall color and upholstery color makes this small room seem much bigger than it is.
The dining room has abundant light and lovely vistas from pairs of French doors to the adjacent covered porch/warm weather breakfast room and the rear screened porch. The dining table was created by English woodworkers and I admired the juxtaposition of the rustic table legs with the elegant curvature of the Queen Anne chairs with plaid upholstered cushions. At the rear wall, a bust of Mark Twain and a sculpture of Don Quixote on the other side of the French doors serenely overlook the diners. I was reminded of Twain’s quote “when one has tasted watermelon he knows what the angels eat.”
Having glimpsed a view of the kitchen from the foyer, I now left the dining room to savor and fully explore the magnificent open plan kitchen-breakfast area. I loved the room’s galley layout with a large island whose bowed countertop creates space for bar stools, the pale green cabinetry and the accent of the contemporary pendant strip lighting fixture. At the front of the room is a row of cabinetry incorporating a window seat at with a direct line of sight through the rear sliding doors to the lawn and water. One Owner is a serious cook and their property has long operated under organic practices to produce thriving berry and vegetable gardens for farm to table meals.
The cozy breakfast area has a pitched ceiling finished in stained wood planks and an exposed collar beam with abundant daylighting from the four-unit side windows overlooking the pool area and the wide sliding doors to another screened porch. The large diameter of the table accommodates six chairs for easy conversation over breakfast or informal meals.
The one-story primary suite is next to the living room and this library and the walk-in closet across a short hall provide sound attenuation for the suite. The door and transom to the living room must have been an original exterior door and is now a graceful entry to the suite. The artisan woodworkers’ detail of projecting the center millwork slightly in front of the flanking millwork adds great interest. I could easily imagine writing my Spy article or sketching ideas for my architectural clients in this lovely space. As a bibliophile, I was so envious when one of the Owners told me their house has 150 linear feet of built-in bookshelves, not counting other attached shelves or portable book case shelving!
The spacious primary bedroom is located at the corner of the suite with sunlight streaming in from the triple unit French doors, another window and a box bay projection of double unit window over a window seat. The warm wall color, dark wood pencil post bed frame, white coverlet and muted colorful rug create a restful retreat.
The primary bath is detailed with a painted wall above a tiled wainscot in a subway pattern with a flourish of the base tile’s flared edge. Porcelain pedestal dual sinks with round mirrors and sconces between one window are opposite the front glass wall of the tiled shower. The white plantation shutters over the two windows can be adjusted for privacy as needed.
The second floor contains three bedrooms, two baths, and an office with the bedrooms located at the corners of the house. This bedroom located at one corner of the floor plan has its own French door to the covered porch, as well was a double unit window at the porch wall and two single windows at the side wall. The light olive walls, brass bedframe, dusty rose and peach bed linens, colorful striped rug, deep red Oriental chest and the side chairs would please any guest. How delightful to have a morning coffee on the porch before heading downstairs to breakfast!
The third floor “Bunk Room” is prized by the Owners grandchildren when they visit. The room spans across the full length of the house with two windows at each gable side wall of the house. The knee walls and sloped upper walls that meet the flat portion of the ceiling creates cozy interior architecture for a private retreat for play and slumber parties.
The property also includes a Barn/Guest House, newly constructed in 2016 and a cozy one bedroom Caretaker Cottage, built in 1920. Surrounding the various buildings are many specimen trees, lovingly tended garden beds and vistas of wide open fields in every direction. Realtors can be accused of “puffing” (exaggeration) but to me this is a one of a kind property that awaits its next lucky steward to preserve it.
I shall miss my neighbors for many reasons as over the past 20 years I have lived in Wittman, they have been very generous to share their special place by hosting neighborhood get togethers and political fund raisers-Grazie Mille from all of us!
For more information about this property, contact Kelly Showell with Benson Mangold Real Estate at 410-822-1415 (o), 410-829-5468 (c) or [email protected]. For more pictures and pricing, visit https://kellyshowell.bensonandmangold.com/, “Equal Housing Opportunity.”
Photography by Janelle Stroop, Thru the Lens, 410-310-6838, [email protected].
Architecture by Christine M. Dayton, P.A., www.cdaytonarchitect.com, (410) 822-3130
Landscape Architecture: James Van Sweden
Interiors Consultant: Marilyn Hannigan
Wood Artisans: Ebby Du Pont and Jay Brown
Historic information from the Owners and from the book “From Pot Pie to Hell & Damnation”, by Laurence G. Claggett, published by the Chesapeake Bay Maritime Museum.
Jennifer Martella has pursued dual careers in architecture and real estate since she moved to the Eastern Shore in 2004. She has reestablished her architectural practice for residential and commercial projects and is a agent for Meredith Fine Properties. Her Italian heritage led her to Piazza Italian Market, where she hosts wine tastings every Friday and Saturday afternoons.
The Spy Newspapers may periodically employ the assistance of artificial intelligence (AI) to enhance the clarity and accuracy of our content.
Author’s Note: “Lots of works of art, traditionally, have expected their consumers to play a particular role in their appreciation. I was interested in looking at the reactions to paintings of some more marginalized and unexpected readers and having a little fun with some of the more liminal states that this might involve. Various kinds of appreciation have always overlapped but I like the idea of looking into the gaps between these.”
Art
I WAS BECOMING THE KIND OF MAN who is always between things. Other people saw me like that I knew, and I was beginning to see it myself. I was between jobs, lovers, places to live. Even when I had a job, a girlfriend, an address, these situations were so obviously stopgaps that I still felt temporary and was regarded as such. I was on the way to somewhere else that felt like anywhere else. I was running out of things I wanted and accumulating things I wanted to avoid.
I had always thought that time was my friend. No matter how dull the day it could come only once, and it ticked away unfailingly second by second. Now even that was changing. I had thought of going home for a while, to my parents’ house, but my mother already had an unwelcome guest in the form of a tumor in her stomach, not to mention my borderline crazy father. Crazier than ever now with anxiety and guilt, anguish, and fright. Time was preparing a Chamber of Horrors for me there, and I was not keen to meet that evil halfway.
Some people, and this is a while ago, had thought I was an artist or was going to be one. I may have been of this opinion myself. It was not the case. Art had been a faith for me once and then a plan; now it seemed merely a theme. I had been a novice painter, an art student, an art history student, and now I worked in a museum with an art gallery, an administrative post, not my first of this nature. I had thought this kind of thing would be congenial, undemanding, like-minded company, and it was not badly paid. I was almost a civil servant. Trouble was, no one would talk to me. I was too undoubtedly transient. My presence was almost subliminal. My colleagues, if we have to call them that, often couldn’t see me; they were so sure I would not be there the next time they turned around. And to make it worse, I had tried to talk to them about art. That was the last thing that any of them had wanted to discuss, like it was a shameful secret. They as good as lived in an art gallery. They found me absurd. Now I knew they referred to me as The Aesthete when I wasn’t there, which I planned to be very soon.
So, I had a number of insoluble problems that I simply had to endure. I could take a holiday from them, though, go somewhere pleasant where there was no point in thinking about them for an interlude. I am, of course, talking about the pub. Friday after work, time for a drink. I was feeling unusually tired, but I generally perk up after a pint or two. I didn’t even avoid the place where they all went. I wasn’t shy, I didn’t mind being snubbed, I wasn’t embarrassed by it. When I walked in and saw just how empty the place was, however,—I had now been snubbed to the extent that everyone had gone somewhere else and not told me—I turned round to walk out again, until I saw the open door like the frame around a winter’s night, a wholly black picture. I imagined stepping down into a pool brimming with oil, a substance so opaque as to suggest that there was nothing there at all, and I thought that was what my mother was looking at, the door she would inevitably have to walk through, and I stepped up to the bar.
I put my elbow on it and was soon taking my first taste. I think I understood why they wouldn’t talk to me about art, but I still hated them for it. I had known a woman once who had been brought up in Florence, and she resented living in what she thought of as a museum of Renaissance architecture instead of a city. I told her, We have art so that we will not die of the truth. That was the sort of thing that I said in those days. She didn’t look as impressed as I’d hoped she would. She didn’t look as though the truth would kill her either. Venice would be worse. I had never met anyone who lived in Venice. Did anyone? That Philistinism though, not so easy to forgive. I took a longer drink. A lot of it was brainless indifference, but chiefly it was boredom. The gallery’s collection of local artists and a few muddy minor works dubiously attributed to more significant painters did not speak to them, as those people did not speak to me. Each in his several worlds.
I was wondering how long I might stay, whether I should push off in search of some company, when I saw Colak sitting on his own and staring at an empty glass. This could have been a reason to leave as much as one to sit down with this known curmudgeon. Colak was one of our attendants—what I insisted on calling the guards, mischievously—the most senior of them, at least in the sense of being the oldest. He had a difficult accent, an even more difficult attitude, and definitely insufficient funds to drink all Friday night as he had started so early. He hadn’t seen me, or if he had, he offered no encouragement to come over. I could have looked the other way.
I had shaken his hand once before and remembered being surprised at just how cold his grasp was. The other impression I got from him was that he was a drinker. His face looked purple in the gallery’s harsh light, with a shiny cracked glaze. In the pub he was greener. Several gold teeth. Some of my colleagues considered him altogether mad. He had a way when he was talking with you that was unique to himself, twisting his head around and looking high above you as though he had suddenly noticed something that could be seen through a hole in the ceiling. He would also make remarks, apparently unmotivated conversational stabs, the point of which was, to say the least, oblique. I didn’t mind this. I could see he was unusual, but I didn’t think Colak was mad. Not dangerously so, anyway. He smelled of dust, and he whistled too much. It occurred to me that if I went and sat down next to him on his bench and let my shoulders slump like his, we would be something out of Degas, though neither of us had the hats for it.
I bought him one of what I was having and put it down beside his empty glass. He raised an eyebrow and winked at me. He said nothing, but he took a delicate sip. The sign of a man who knows how to make a drink last.
We sat there in silence until the landlord, I assume, turned off the music and a violinist began tuning up. He was obviously going to cruise the tables looking for tips. I knew that this happened sometimes. Colak and I exchanged weary glances. Actually, he was pretty good. He played Stardust then something else, then Girls Just Want To Have Fun. There were no girls in this pub so far as I could see because the violinist was right—they do just want to have fun. He wasn’t having a lot of luck with the tips, so he started on something a bit more gypsy, probably for his own satisfaction, and then something related to that but more sophisticated. I said, without really considering who I was talking to,
“I think that’s—”
“Bartók,” Colak completed my guess.
Then he told me, which I already knew, that Bartók had often incorporated gypsy airs into his own compositions. I bought him another drink on the strength of this. He performed a gesture, a dip of the head, a lift of the shoulder, which concisely conveyed the fact that he was grateful for this drink but also that he was not in a position to buy me one back. I didn’t care. I didn’t mind paying for a little Bartók chat. Besides, what else could I do, buy one for myself and let him watch me drink it?
Colak said he was Ruthenian. He just came out with that. I have to say that he kept a straight face through all of what follows, and I remain largely unaware of the extent of his capacity for holding his drink and of his inclination to pull my leg. I had heard of Ruthenia. I thought maybe Andy Warhol’s family had emigrated from there, but I wasn’t sure about that. I thought it must have been one of those Balkan countries or ethnographic areas that had disappeared with the collapse of the Austro-Hungarian empire, melting like ice cubes at the bottom of a glass. Disappeared, but obviously still there. Like all of those places, even the Soviet Union now, they sound like ideas for countries rather than homes where you could actually have lived out your life. Anyway, I gave Colak the benefit of the doubt, and that was enough to start him talking, telling a story that he had apparently never told anyone before.
In Ruthenia, before the war, he had been doing this same job, working as an attendant in the capital’s national art gallery. This was also part of the palace, the home of the royal family, and as such, only technically open to the public during the infrequent national holidays. Colak described it as a dignified late eighteenth-century building containing an indifferent collection of poorly curated work. Mostly bad pictures with a few minor masterpieces accidentally acquired by the scattershot collecting strategies of those royal family members who took the occasional unpredictable interest in such things. Nothing properly cleaned. Some of the better pictures may, in fact, have been copies, the originals sold off to pay the debts of dissipation.
I had thought for a moment that I was going to find myself sitting next to a claimant to the Ruthenian throne, but it was nothing as hackneyed as that. He had been in his position for a matter of months, long enough to get an idea of the collection and the ramshackle way in which it was cared for, when the Ruthenian revolution broke out. Colak forgave me for not having heard of the Ruthenian revolution because, as he said, it was almost immediately quashed, not through the intervention of Austrian cavalry but by the outbreak of the war. It was on page one for a day then Franz Ferdinand was shot. Was it even a revolution or merely a night of misrule? It was certainly at least the latter. The palace was invaded by rioters and, to some degree, looted. Oil paintings, frames firmly bolted to stone walls, were not obvious targets for casual theft, but the gallery was the scene of considerable revelry. The insurgents, perhaps, did not so much want to steal from the gallery, or to vandalize it, but to take charge of it. At any rate, things got out of hand when the brandy started to flow, as things will.
Colak found telling his story thirsty work, and I made several trips to the bar while he was doing it. I even inquired for Ruthenian brandy, that’s how implausible things were getting, and came back with the dregs of some evil green liquor that had been at the back of a shelf for a very long time. Undrinkable, but we drank it.
So, Colak and a couple of his fellow custodians, who had become fond of the collection and cared about it, ventured in holding their breath a day or maybe two days after the palace had been attacked. A number of the rebels were still in occupation, but they were not hostile, not unfriendly, mostly badly hungover. Colak and his friends had not turned up in uniform.
Now the next part is the start of what is really difficult to believe. I wasn’t sure what Colak was trying to tell me at first; he had not been so easy to understand even at the start of the evening. I thought perhaps there was something idiomatic or metaphorical I wasn’t really getting. He said that the rebels had fallen into the paintings.
The first man they spoke to was sitting in a painting as though the bottom of the frame had been a narrow bench, or he was a naughty boy sitting on a step. They thought, initially, that he had torn through the canvas, perhaps even broken through the wall, and was sitting in the cavity that he had made. But this was not so, not possible. I am remembering this from quite some time ago, and I am by no means sure that I can faithfully reproduce what Colak actually told me. This man was sitting in the picture, and it seemed to have closed around him. Closed around him like a healed wound, Colak said, whatever that might mean. The picture was a tall portrait of a man in casual hunting dress, but bewigged, holding a rifle and with a few liver-spotted hounds moving around his feet, the dogs the most lovingly painted features. A familiar period formula. The rebel had his elbows on his knees, his face in his hands, and was weeping torrentially. All they could get him to say was, “Hush the dogs, for God’s sake hush the dogs,” over and over. Needless to say, they could hear no dogs.
Colak was then called away by another man. This fellow was sitting on the floor still drinking from what appeared to be his personal supply of wine bottles, but one of his arms had disappeared, almost up to the shoulder in the flooded water meadow of a Rubenesque landscape as though he had put his arm into the water in the hope of fishing something out of it. The river was now flowing around his missing, or invisible, arm. Black and white cows were drinking in their desultory manner in the shallows caused by the flood. Painted walkers had moved away from the riverbank to avoid this inundation. The poor man’s shoulder and much of his chest were soaked, and there was a pool of water in which he was more or less sitting that did not bear investigation.
We had got to a point in Colak’s relation when it was clear to him that, in a manner of speaking, I was believing him, or at least that I seemed to be, so I was able to confer with him about what had happened, what fantastic thing. We agreed that the surface of the paintings had somehow become permeable, alive even. A barrier had been dissolved, the paintings had opened, and this had perhaps been made possible by the qualities of revolution, the onset of that terrible war, the assassination of a prince, the failure of an empire. And then this moment had passed, whatever had brought it about during that ill-considered bacchanal. The world had become molten, but then it had cooled and hardened again, as hard as glass. The window had closed. I had never previously been taken with the idea that fine art had much revolutionary potential. Now, here was a revolution characterized not by rivers of blood, parched ocean beds, and falling stars, a species of Apocalypse, but by tasteless practical jokes. We had another drink.
When I got back to him, Colak was saying that there were still a lot of people in the gallery. Some of these had passed out, but others were walking around and admiring the paintings, pointing out interesting or puzzling features to one another, some holding their own hands behind their backs as though very relaxed in imitation of the connoisseur or waiting to be handcuffed. Colak gave me a tour now of this grotesque exhibition. I think he may have been getting carried away, and he did appear to be enjoying himself. I wanted more, definitely. Young as I was, I had been longing for consolation, for something to persuade me that things were not exactly as they looked. I had been feeling that my best years were behind me already. Time drops on us all like a shadow. That’s a quotation. Like everything else. But now there were new things in the world.
A bench had been shifted so that its end was flush against another full-length portrait, this time of a young woman in a beautiful turquoise silk dress painted in the precioso style. A man was lying on this bench with his head and shoulders pressed into the canvas. You would have thought he had been beheaded, bloodlessly. Otherwise, you would have thought he had been attempting to look up the dress of this girl, possibly, in fact, a courtesan, one of the old Duke’s favorites, and the painting had healed around him once more, trapping him in this ludicrous and indecorous pose. Was he dead? Suffocated? Colak couldn’t say. He did say that the courtesan, her color heightened, wore a certain smile she had never worn before and, as a result, was now the subject of a far superior painting. Formerly the young woman, with an ostrich feather dyed blue in her preposterously ungainly hat, which looked like it might blow away at any moment, and inexpertly clutching an early form of guitar, had simply looked very, very bored.
Colak told me it was not possible to verify subtle changes to the paintings, for the gallery’s catalog, such as it was, contained written descriptions of a perfunctory nature and only the world’s major museums sold picture postcards in those days.
He gave me more examples, but his coherence and the intelligibility of his accent, not to mention my powers of recollection, had been seriously undermined by now. He said there was a clumsy copy of Goya’s firing squad, which seemed to have more dead bodies than had been the case. He tried to count them and couldn’t. He spoke about counting at one point during the evening, and it must have been here. He said that he still knew about numbers, at least knew the names of numbers, but he could not put them in order nor even imagine what order was. Knowing the names of the numbers was like knowing the names of animals or flowers.
I wanted to ask my new friend if he was being entirely straight with me. After all, on the day of the revolution, if you had been a young man in his position, wouldn’t you? You would have gone in there, wouldn’t you, to protect what you had come to love, maybe to protect it by taking it home. I felt that I knew him well enough now, certainly I had bought him enough booze, to put this to him.
His accent thickened further, and he began to move his hands around the many glasses and bottles on our table, straightening things and setting the fallen back on their feet. Before this, he had been economical with his movements. And he began to talk about a little painting by Kandinsky, or in his manner, quite early, very beautiful, more phantasmagorical than geometrical, an oil of delicate color, pastel orange and a summer-sky blue, figures of great elegance, fluid intestinal swirls impossible to describe, altogether out of keeping with the staple portraits, landscapes, still lifes, and genre paintings of the collection as a whole. It was a fascinating riddle. You couldn’t look away from it, but that was all you could do. It accused your imagination. Intimidated it.
I knew then, in a way that I cannot say that I know now, that Colak, at some unspecified moment, had dared to put his head into that painting and that this explained everything about him that was not right.
He maundered on about fruit stolen from a still life. A leather bag of coins, its unknown and unspendable currency scattered across the gallery floor. A loaf of bread and a lemon unaccountably just there and which no one would touch. A dead hare. I thought he was avoiding my questions. I was asking about what had happened to the men. How were they relieved? Could they be? They could escape from these nightmares only if they woke up, but that was impossible as they were not asleep. They would open their eyes wide and try to blink themselves into wakefulness, or they would try to fall asleep in the hope of waking later once more in the sane world that they had formerly known. They might have died and remained attached to the paintings as three-dimensional memento mori sculptures. A skeleton looking up the skirt of a courtesan. Not bad.
He told me of a man, all the invaders seem to have been men, who had lain down next to a naked Venus and turned into her body as though it were a great pink pillow. He seemed all right. Asleep. Perhaps she had looked after him.
I asked him directly what had happened to the gallery and to its pictures, and he told me that the next day he had slipped over the border into the modern world, having saved what he could. I knew of the rumor that he had given something to the gallery in which we both now worked and that that had secured his permanent employment and other emoluments, despite his evident uselessness.
I had to pay a quick visit. It wasn’t that quick in the end, and I did disgrace myself to some degree. Anyway, when I came back, Colak was gone, and even the table had been cleared, and a young couple was sitting there holding hands. I had not imagined this whole thing. When I stepped outside, the cold hit me in the face like a bag of hammers.
I did see him again, in his usual place, not the next working day but in the week that followed. We never spoke about Ruthenia and all that business. He liked to sit where he could look at a neat little Gainsborough. A group of male musicians playing flutes. Full-length portrayals but small, as though the men were puppets. Maybe this picture had been Colak’s gift. The landscape behind the three men was a mere theatrical backdrop, not at all the real countryside.
I amuse myself sometimes by pretending that painted figures might have escaped from the Ruthenian canvases and entered our world as angels and Greek gods used to do. They took a chance on giving up the privilege of immortality in dubious exchange for freedom and had been trying to find a place for themselves, to fit in, ever since. When Colak said he was from Ruthenia… And maybe the rebels, some of them, had entered the painted world entirely, not content to be half in and half out. They would be wandering there still like the isolated little figures in De Chirico’s deserted worlds, the only captives in a prison the size of a city. Troubling pictures, fantasies of underpopulation, the beginning, or, more likely, the end of things, private and solitary, as lonely as dreams.
It soon came time for me to move on again and I left these questions behind me, as you do.
♦
Robert Stone’s stories have been published in British, American, Asian, and Canadian magazines, including: 3:AM, Stand, Panurge, Eclectica, Confingo, Punt Volat, HCE, Wraparound South, Lunate, Decadent Review, the Nightjar chapbook series and elsewhere. His “micro-stories” have appeared in 5×5, Third Wednesday, Star 82, Ocotillo Review, deathcap. A story is included in Salt’s Best British Stories, 2020. He is a British author born in Wolverhampton, U.K. He has two children and lives with his partner in Ipswich.
As a literary journal, the Delmarva Review reaches audiences regionally, nationally, and beyond, to give writers a desirable home in print, with a digital edition, to present their most compelling new prose and poetry. It’s a time when many commercial publications have closed their doors or are reducing literary content. For each annual edition, editors have culled through thousands of submissions to select the best of new poetry, fiction, and nonfiction. There is never a publishing or reading fee. The review is available from the major online booksellers and regional specialty bookstores. As a 501(c)(3) nonprofit, support comes from tax-deductible contributions and a grant from Talbot Arts with funds from the Maryland State Arts Council. Website: www.DelmarvaReview.org
The Spy Newspapers may periodically employ the assistance of artificial intelligence (AI) to enhance the clarity and accuracy of our content.
Is there a more welcome sign of spring on the Chesapeake Bay than the return of our beloved ospreys from their winter habitats? “Back Home” by Trudy Anderson.
The Spy Newspapers may periodically employ the assistance of artificial intelligence (AI) to enhance the clarity and accuracy of our content.