Dave Wheelan

About Dave Wheelan

At the Academy: Andy Warhol’s Accidental Icons with Mehves Lelic

September 30, 2020 by Dave Wheelan Leave a Comment

Long before iPhone and “point and shoot” cameras, artist Andy Warhol was one of the very few who recognized the power of using Polaroid cameras in informal settings to capture American celebrity and culture images from the 1960s until his death in 1987.

Taking along a Polaroid “Big Shot” model which weighed over two pounds, with a lens that extended almost nine inches, Warhol recorded the full range of New York City life. From portraits of Kareem Abdul Jabbar and Jane Fonda, the hip nightlife of the Big Apple, or surreal still lifes of Perdue chicken, the artist built a visual diary of a particular time in America.

Now with some of the best examples of Warhol’s work brought together by the Academy Art Museum in Easton from the permanent collection of Salisbury University Art Galleries, AAM’s curator Mehves Lelic talks to the Spy earlier this week about Warhol’s technique and lasting contribution to American photography in preparation of the exhibition, “Andy Warhol’s Accidental Icons,” which opens in late October this year.

This video is approximately three. minutes in length. For more information about Accidental Icons: Warhol’s Photography please go here.

Andy Warhol’s Accidental Icons
Academy Art Museum
October 23, 2020 – January 17, 2021

Maryland Women: Looking Back with Former Annapolis Mayor Ellen Moyer

September 27, 2020 by Dave Wheelan 1 Comment

Perhaps it should be no surprise that former Annapolis Mayor Ellen Moyer attributes her management style to the Girl Scouts. Well before women were fully accepted in business schools or other corporate management programs, the Girl Scouts of America was one of the few institutions where young women in the 1960s could develop their leadership skills. For Ellen Moyer, fresh out of Penn State, it was an ideal place to hone in her approach to collaboration and outreach.

Those skills proved to be essential as Moyer become civically engaged. Even as a mother of five, she joined her then-husband Roger ‘Pip’ Moyer as an active partner during his years as mayor from 1965 to 1973, which included the turbulent 60s. She eventually ran for public office herself and was elected alderman for the city, and in 2001 became the first woman to be elected mayor, an office she would hold for eight years.

In her interview with the Spy, Ellen talks about those early years and her long-standing commitment to participatory civic engagement. Throughout her tenure, she insisted that citizens play an active role in protecting the Annapolis environment, community policing, and preserving its historical nature. Those early initiatives, unprecedented at the time, are now firmly embedded in the Annapolis ethos, placing it among the country’s most progressive communities.

While the former mayor is concerned that city bureaucracy’s creeping nature is threatening the importance of community engagement, she remains confident that the city that she helped build with withstand the test of time.

This video is approximately thirteen minutes in length. The Spy is grateful to the Baltimore Sun’s archives for the historical images included.

Election 2020: Congressional Candidate Mia Mason on Election Chances, BLM, Talbot Boys, Climate and Trump

September 24, 2020 by Dave Wheelan 1 Comment

While most citizens of the 1st Congressional District in Maryland will be focused on the presidential election come November 3, it is worth reminding our readers that incumbent representative Andy Harris is running for a fifth term as well. Yesterday we interviewed the Congressman, and today, we are sharing our interview with Mia Mason.

Mason is a 20-year military veteran who served in the Navy, Army, and DC National Guard. She was temporarily discharged after her transition from Michael Mason to Mia Mason in 2012. While she was successful in being reinstated, that experience has been critical to her decision to seek public office.

In our interview, Ms. Mason talks about what is at stake in the 2020 election, the most recent controversy of the Black Lives Matter mural in Chestertown ant the Talbot Boys in Easton, climate change, and if Joe Biden will accept the results of the November election.

This video is approximately eighteen minutes in length. For more information about the Mia Mason campaign, please go here.

Election 2020: Andy Harris on COVID, Chestertown BLM Murals, Talbot Boys, Climate Change, and Trump

September 23, 2020 by Dave Wheelan 5 Comments

While most citizens of the 1st Congressional District in Maryland will be focused on the presidential election come November 3, it is worth reminding our readers that incumbent representative Andy Harris is running for a fifth term as well. In today’s edition of the Spy, we are sharing our interview with Rep. Harris, and on Thursday, we will have a similar Zoom conversation with Mia Mason, his Democratic opponent.

In his Spy interview, Congressman Harris talks about his views on COVID-19, the use of Black Lives Matter murals in Chestertown, his desire to keep the Talbot Boys statue in Easton, the cause and effect of climate change with wildfires in the West, and his insistence that President Trump will accept the results of the November election.

This video is approximately seventeen minutes in length. For more information about the Harris for Congress campaign, please go here.

The Mitchell: The Little Gallery That Can — Even During a Pandemic

September 14, 2020 by Dave Wheelan Leave a Comment

One of the saddest aspects of the COVID-19 crisis beyond the tremendous human toll it has taken has been the evaporation of cultural opportunities. With live performances canceled for entire seasons, and art museums closing their doors, it can seem like very dark days for those who love the arts.

That is the case of the St. John’s College community. By early March, its Mitchell Gallery, perhaps one of the most innovative art spaces in the Chesapeake Region, has closed its doors to both faculty and staff, as well as the general public. And while there was some hope that it could reopen this September, St. John’s, along with many other colleges, finally decided that the Fall semester would need to be done by remote learning.

Learning about art remotely, let alone seeing it, would be a challenge for any art institution, large or small, but that hasn’t stopped Lucinda Dukes Edinberg, the Mitchell’s full-time art educator, with the gallery’s exhibition schedule.

With years in the planning, Edinberg and the Mitchell are still moving forward this month to showcase the work of Jacob Lawrence. Entitled “Jacob Lawrence: Three Series of Prints: Genesis | Toussaint L’Ouverture | Hiroshima.”

In her Spy interview from a few weeks ago, Lucinda highlights how the Mitchell has had to adapt to the less than perfect virtual world to underscore Lawrence’s remarkable contributions to American Art. But she also talks about the creative ways the gallery has used the internet to reach larger audiences.

This video is approximately for four minutes in length. Photo credits to Jacob Lawrence and and Landau Traveling Exhibitions. For more information about the Mitchell at St. John’s College or the schedule for the Jacob Lawrence exhibition, please go here.

Chesapeake Education: Dr. Powell Comes to Washington College

September 11, 2020 by Dave Wheelan Leave a Comment

Well before a pandemic hit America’s shores earlier this year, the job of a college president was listed as one of the most difficult in American education. Faced with rising costs and a lower applicant pool, these leaders were scrambling to recalibrate the role of a traditional liberal arts education for the 21st Century.

All of those long term strategic plans however were abruptly put on hold as the coronavirus quickly emptied college campuses. Millions of students were sent home while tenured professors had to pivot to online learning as the only viable, if not particularly satisfying, solution to keep students on track in earning their degrees.

While at the beginning of the COVID crisis, there was optimism that on-campus learning could resume in the Fall, the reality is that most schools have had to cancel those plans in the face of growing infection rates.

That was the painful decision Washington College made in August when the 239-year-old institution was in the midst of a presidential transition. The then-president Kurt Landgraf and the College’s board had agreed not to renew his contract in late spring. And, as with most institutions of WC’s caliber, it would typically require over a year to properly conduct a search for a new president. The question for the college leadership was whom they could bring on board during the interim when some of the most important decisions related to Washington College’s future would be made as it found its way back from the pandemic’s devastating impact on the school, its budget, and mission.

A few weeks ago, to the relief of many, they found that special person, Dr. Wayne Powell.

Recently retired after fourteen years as president of Lenoir Rhyne University in Hickory, North Carolina, the former math professor, and academic dean has been given substantial credit in transforming a small Lutheran college into a Western Carolina university powerhouse. That included a 120% rise in its endowment value and an increase in its student body by 80%.

In the Spy’s Zoom interview with Dr. Powell a few days ago, he was the first to admit that no one can predict at this time the full impact of the pandemic on schools like Washington College. Nonetheless, like many crises, he also sees the opportunities that coincide with a challenge of this magnitude. President Powell also talks about the real value of the liberal arts education, how the field of mathematics has helped him in his management approach, and how he rejects his new job as a caretaker role.

This video is approximately eight minutes in length. For more information about Washington College please go here. Photo courtesy of the Hickory Record.

Chesapeake Arts: The Art and Responsibility of Being Hopeful with Charlie Hewitt

September 9, 2020 by Dave Wheelan Leave a Comment

Slowly but surely, pedestrians and drivers in Talbot County are taking note of large signs and banners with the simple word of “Hopeful” displayed in color. That is the only message they receive as they walk or drive by. The term has no exclamation point or question mark, no website to check out, nor any other instructions. It is up to the observer to make of it as they will.

That, of course, was the intention of Maine artist Charlie Hewitt. Commissioned as a public art project of the Dock Street Foundation, his four large sign marques, and some thirty banners, are now scattered from the Oxford Ferry to the Farmers’ Market in Easton with that simple message.

Talbot County now has joined a dozen other communities where signs of Hopeful are now on display. Starting with Portland, Maine, and continuing with a New York City installation in a few weeks, this public art project has an extraordinary impact on its citizens, particularly during these dark days of COVID-19.

But as Charlie noted in our Spy interview with him from last weekend, there is more there than meets the eye. While being “hopeful” as a human condition is positively encouraged, it also means taking responsibility.

In the case of Talbot County, that means expressing that sense of hope by donating to Mid-Shore Community Foundation’s Emergency COVID-19 fund that supports local nonprofits operating in the realm of hunger, homelessness, and healthcare.

This video is approximately three minutes in length. To make donation to the Hopeful project please go here.

Chesapeake Bay Photographer Dave Harp Takes a Victory Lap at CBMM

September 2, 2020 by Dave Wheelan Leave a Comment

To the countless enjoyment of hundreds of thousands living on or near the Chesapeake Bay, the region is now blessed to have some of the country’s finest photographers document for the whole world to see this vast watershed’s rare beauty.

That wasn’t always the case. Three decades ago, when the Baltimore Sun’s award-winning photographer Dave Harp left his job in the 1980s to devote his working life to capturing the Bay on film, he didn’t have much company. While the region had been fortunate in the first half of the 20th century, with the likes of A. Aubrey Bodine and Constance Stuart Larrabee, by the time Harp came on the scene, the subject matter had returned to a kind of no man’s land.

Since those days, Harp has continued his love affair with the Bay, albeit now with the digital photography and aerial photography, but his themes of land meeting water have remained. And now with over one hundred thousand photographs behind him, the Chesapeake Bay Maritime Museum has decided to honor this remarkable legacy of work with a major retrospective on Harp’s images. Starting at the end of this month until 2021, the Museum has pulled together fifty of those photos for all to enjoy.

A few weeks ago, the Spy talked to Dave about his work, his approach to photography, and his concerns about the Chesapeake Bay’s future in the 21st Century.

This video is approximately five minutes in length. For more information about “Where Land and Water Meet: The Chesapeake Bay Photography of David W. Harp” please go here.

COVID-19 and Philanthropy: A Chat with Qlarant Foundation’s Dr. Molly Burgoyne-Brian

September 1, 2020 by Dave Wheelan Leave a Comment

Like many private foundations, by the middle of March of this year, the Qlarant Foundation board was about to finish up reviewing, vetting, and eventually making funding decisions when Maryland’s coronavirus-related “Stay-at-Home” order was issued. Its immediate impact on schools, local businesses, and arts organizations was and continues to be devastating, but the hardest hit were the health and human services organizations that Qlarant was dedicated to supporting as their primary mission.

As a result, Qlarant, like many private foundations, had to pivot.

In short order, the Qlarant team had to assess each applicant again, contact those organization’s leaders, and get a reality check on the most current and pressing need each grantee had in light of one of the most significant public health crises in modern memory.

On the front line for much of this was Qlarant Foundation’s board chair, Molly Burgoyne-Brian. With the unique qualification of being a board-certified rheumatologist who had worked in local health care for decades, Burgoyne-Brian quickly recognized the special challenges facing healthcare providers and also the Foundation’s need to reevaluate its priorities.

In her Spy interview from last week, Dr. Burgoyne-Brian talks about the Qlarant Foundation’s response to COVID-19, which came to over $400,000 this year, and highlights some of how this year’s grantees are adjusting to the “new normal.”

This video is approximately five minutes in length. For more information about the Qlarant Foundation go here. Qlarant is a fiscal sponsor of the Annapolis Spy, Chestertown Spy and Talbot Spy.

Going Purple to Fight Drug Addiction during COVID-19 with Joe Gamble

August 31, 2020 by Dave Wheelan Leave a Comment

For Joe Gamble, the Sheriff of Talbot County, and one of the founders of the Go Purple public awareness campaign on the Eastern Shore, which has now grown into a statewide initiative, 2020 will be the year where he and his team will be facing not one but two pandemics.

With the emergence of the coronavirus crisis beginning in March, Gamble also immediately saw the double threat of a drug pandemic that remained a public health catastrophe and an uncontained international virus. For a law enforcement professional who saw education as the primary tool to prevent fentanyl overdoses, and was making incremental progress with his team to reduce the occurrence of death and the other painful consequences of addiction, the addition of COVID-19 was a bitter reality.

Not only has COVID taken away much-needed attention to a drug pandemic that still exists, but coronavirus has also contributed to the drug problem as individuals facing unemployment, but financial stress, lack of childcare, and basic structure to their lives also seek out these dangerous drugs to fill the gap.

The Spy spoke to Sheriff Gamble last week about these competing challenges as Talbot Goes Purple starts its fourth year of school programs, film screenings, and public rallies to keep the attention on the opioid crisis while also finding new ways to raise awareness with families that this is not the time to let down their guard.

This video is approximately five minutes in length. For more information about Talbot for Purple events and mission please go here.

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