If, and perhaps when, the Spy offers an award to a Mid-Shore nonprofit organization for innovative use of a video to document its relevance and history; it certainly would have gone to the Chesapeake Bay Maritime Museum last year.

The Long Shore, the privately funded mini-documentary of the CBMM’s remarkable role in maritime history, broke entirely new ground in telling an institution’s powerful story in a way that is both spellbinding visually and dramatic in content. The YO Production is still gaining attention at film festivals and online as a new gold standard for peer museums to study and replicate.

And this year, that fictional award would go to the Academy Art Museum’s ten-minute feature that uses the AAM’s well-maintained scrapbook since it first opened to tell the unique story of the museum’s founding.

Produced and directed by AAM volunteer and professional video editor Matt Kresling, the ten minute video is a minor masterpiece in using the simple pages of an institution’s journal to reunite former leaders and staff in telling the remarkable tale of the Academy Art Museum’s humble beginnings to the its present position as one of the best regional arts centers in the Mid-Atlantic.

This video is approximately ten minutes in length. For more information about Academy Art Museum please go here.

How times fly. It seems like it was only the other day when the Oxford Community Center opened its doors after a total renovation. That was ten years ago! And now, the Spy has discovered that one of the best community arts and culture centers in Maryland will be celebrating its 40th anniversary of existence this year and 38 of those years hosting its Oxford Fine Arts Festival. Lordy.

We asked the OCC’s executive director to come by the Spy studio the other day to hear more about its year of celebrations, get a sneak preview of some of the art that will be part of the Fine Arts Festival weekend coming up, and how the Community Center has deservingly earned the hearts of so many on the Mid-Shore as they begin their fifth decade of service.

This video is approximately four minutes in length. For more information about the Oxford Fine Arts Festival please go here. For the Oxford Community Center please go here.

While there are countless examples of community members pitching in to help education programs and teachers on the Mid-Shore, it’s hard to beat the recent story of the Avalon Foundation working with Daniel Weiss, the CEO of the Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York, to offer a personal tour of that world-famous institution for Easton Elementary School art teacher Anna Madachik.

After three years of working with Easton Elementary School on both afterschool art classes and programming related to the Avalon’s annual Plein Air Easton festival, the Foundation’s Jessica Bellis, and Anna were brainstorming about what else could be done with this collaboration when the idea came up of connecting Anna with another one of the Avalon’s special friends, Daniel Weiss. And Dan just happens to call Oxford, Maryland home during his weekend breaks from running one of the largest museums in the world.

Dan had recently helped the Avalon by becoming the competition judge for Plein Aire in 2021. And He didn’t hesitate to set aside time for Anna and a crew from the Avalon’s community television station to visit the Met after closing hours and discuss and videotape her conservation on seven of Anna’s handpicked art objects that she could later share with her students for many years to come.

The Spy down with Anna last weekend to talk about this remarkable adventure, the generosity of Dan Weiss, and the impact this unique kind of art education has on young children.

This video is approximately three minutes in length. For more information about the Avalon Foundation please go here. For information about the Metropolitan Museum of Art please go here.