Chestertown RiverArts takes caring for our planet and our natural resources seriously. In collaboration with other like-minded organizations, RiverArts hopes to increase our community’s understanding of the issues, to create inspirational experiences, and to promote the design of personal and collective stewardship actions.
Earth Stewardship Days Schedule of Events
The Art of Stewardship Exhibition will kick off the celebration of stewardship on November 6-7 at the RiverArts Gallery, 315 High Street, Suite 106. Seventy-four artworks were juried into this wide-ranging collection depicting each artist’s expression of Stewardship. Marcy Ramsey, an acclaimed painter and president of the Chester River Association, was the curator and juror of the show.
On Thursday, November 6, RiverArts will host the artists at a Preview Reception and Awards Ceremony. Greg Mort, an internationally renowned artist whose Stewardship series of paintings have been exhibited to much acclaim and Rebecca Hoffberger, founder and director of the American Visionary Art Museum, exhibition judges, will be on hand to present awards, which include a two-person show for two Best in Show prize-winners, thanks to the generosity of Carla Massoni, and 2nd and 3rd place winners. Greg and Rebecca will also speak about the intersection of art and activism in the movement to raise awareness about the importance of caring for the Earth. A cash bar and hors d’oeuvres will be served. A silent auction to benefit the Chester River Association is also planned. Tickets are $10 in advance and $15 at the door. To make reservations you may call 410-778-6300, email [email protected] or go to www.chestertownriverarts.org. To learn more about The Art of Stewardship Project go to www.gregmort.com or www.facebook.com/theartofstewardship.
The exhibition is a central part of a four-day event focusing on the critical role of the artist as steward of our planet and our natural resources. The show will be open to the public on First Friday, November 7, 5-8pm and run through Saturday, November 29. Gallery hours are Monday-Friday, 11-4 and Saturday 10-4.
Also open on First Friday is an exhibit of African American Watermen painted by Marc Castelli. The history of people working on the Chesapeake Bay includes many examples of Black watermen taking to the water during oyster, clamming, crabbing and fishing seasons. Chesapeake Bay work also involved African Americans working as laborers, longshoremen and seafood, vegetable and fruit packers. Working as oyster tongers, and serving as dredge crews on skipjacks, deadrises and other Bay boats was productive work and in some cases, African Americans piloted schooners and bugeyes up and down the Bay hauling seafood, farm supplies and produce to distant markets.
Over the past decade, Dr. Mel Rapelyea has been collecting the Marc Castelli paintings of these Black watermen as Castelli included this subject in his vast documentation of workers on the Chesapeake Bay waters. Dr. Rapelyea’s collection will be on exhibit at the Charles Sumner Post #25, Grand Army of the Republic, 206 South Queen Street for two weekends, October 31-November 2 and November 7-9. The exhibit is sponsored by Dr. Rapelyea, Marc Castelli, and the Chesapeake Bay Maritime Museum.
On Saturday, November 8, there will be a Sandbox Event: John Ruppert’s Phragmites Thatching Sculpture. Join John Ruppert to create a phragmites sculpture from a lovely, natural material that is in reality an invasive species in our area. Learn about the ecological impact of phragmites while also reflecting on how something deemed beneficial in part of the world has become detrimental in another. The venue for the event, scheduled to begin at 10 am, will take place in the open field between the Hynson Pavilion and the Armory.
On Saturday evening at 7pm see the film, No Impact Man at the Garfield Center for the Arts. This film takes a seriously engaging look at one man’s decision to put his money where his mouth is and go off the grid for one year – while still living in New York City – to see if it is possible to make no net impact on the environment. What would it be like to try to live a no-impact lifestyle? Is it even possible? The author, Colin Beavan, hopes to explain to the rest of us how we can realistically live a more “eco-effective,” and, by turns, a more content life in an age of inconvenient truths. Tickets are $5.
River Soundings: A Journey in Harp and Poetry with Meredith Davies Hadaway will take place Sunday, November 9, 11am to 1pm on the Chester River Packet, a 65-foot, 1920’s style tour boat that will cruise the Chester River while those on board enjoy a brunch and the music and poetry of Meredith Davies Hadaway.
Poet, teacher, and musician, Hadaway is the author of The River is a Reason, Fishing Secrets of the Dead, and, forthcoming, At the Narrows (Word Poetry, 2015). She serves on the Board of Directors for the Chester River Association and was the 2013-14 Rose O’Neill Writer-in-Residence at Washington College.
The Packet may be boarded at the end of High Street. Tickets for the brunch and talk are $35. Make reservations by going to www.ChestertownRiverArts.org/events/earth-stewardship-days/. The excursion is being sponsored by Occasions Catering, RiverArts, Massoni Gallery and the Chester River Association. Proceeds will benefit the Chester River Association.
To fill out the day enjoy Translations from Bark Beetle: A Reading by Jody Gladding at 2pm at The Book Plate, 112 S. Cross Street. The reading is sponsored by the Kent County Arts Council, Echo Hill Outdoor School and The Chestertown Spy.
Jody Gladding is an acclaimed poet and translator who has published three full-length collections of poetry and two letterpress edition chapbooks. Her work has appeared widely in magazines, including Orion, Ecopoetics, Poetry Magazine, and Northern Woodlands. In her inspired new collection, Translations from Bark Beetle Gladding examines how language arises from landscape, evoking both the fragility and the resilience of the more-than-human world in words, images, rubbings, installations, and inscribed objects. Her awards and honors include MacDowell and Stegner Fellowships, a Whiting Writers’ Award and Yale Younger Poets Prize, Gladding currently teaches in the MFA Program at Vermont College of Fine Arts.
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