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January 23, 2021

The Chestertown Spy

An Educational News Source for Chestertown Maryland

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Arts Arts Portal Lead Arts Arts Top Story

Keeping Jazz Alive on the Shore with Fred Hughes

January 11, 2021 by Steve Parks Leave a Comment

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Fred Hughes, founder and director of Jazz Alive based in Talbot County, has been a musician all his life growing up in Lancaster, Pa., and spending summers with his dad on and off his boat at Kent Island. He later moved to Washington and, for years, had a gig with a jazz club in National Harbor on the Maryland shore of the Potomac River along the D.C. Beltway.

Fred Hughes

“I remember looking out at the white-haired audience and thinking, these seats will be empty soon if we don’t do something to turn kids onto jazz,” he said in a recent phone interview from his home in Royal Oak.

Now he’s launching his second virtual season of concerts and interviews he calls “Jazz Tales” beginning Wednesday, January 13 with bassist Pepe Gonzalez. The shows are available online free to students with the support of a Talbot Arts Council grant and Mid-Shore jazz lovers who can livestream the program for a fee.

The idea had occurred to Hughes, a jazz pianist, for years. But the impetus to make it a reality was prompted in part by the demise of his regular gig when the National Harbor jazz club folded. Recalling fond memories of summers on the Shore, Hughes found a house on Bellevue Avenue and moved there in 2019, intending to start a jazz mentoring and concert series early the next year.

Pepe Gonzalez

“My idea was to introduce middle and high school kids to professional jazz musicians,” he says. “I’d interview the artists and have them talk about getting into music as a living. And we’d play for the students and then have an evening concert for the community.”

Hughes had experience mentoring young people on tours he did as a solo musician or with his Community Concert Band as well as local academic connections he made through the Avalon Foundation. He had 15 concerts lined up for his inaugural season in 2020. But then came the pandemic. No chance of performing at Easton High or any other school where, for the most part, students weren’t even allowed to attend classes in person. Everything went virtual, as did Hughes’ Jazz Tales.

“I have a studio in my home,” he says. “It’s pretty small, but it can accommodate me and one other musician. So that became our format.”

Hughes takes a few minutes at the beginning of his hour-and-a-quarter show to introduce his guest artist to an online audience. They take a break from talking to play a dozen tunes or more and then resume chatting, sharing anecdotes and advice about a music career.

“The first question I always ask,” Hughes says, “is what was it in growing up that got you into music–and particularly into jazz.”

Hughes credits Jazz Alive board member Donna Ewing with encouraging Easton High students to get on board with his free (for them) program. There are now 35 Talbot County students enrolled, so to speak, along with others from outside the county. In a post-pandemic future, Hughes says he’d like to expand directly to Dorchester North- and South High and perhaps other secondary schools in the Mid-Shore region.

The first concert of the 2021 season features Gonzalez, who as a teen formed Zapata, one of the first integrated bands in D.C. (African-American and Hispanic). The band was successful enough to open for such greats as the late Miles Davis, Herbie Hancock, Sly, and the Family Stone, and the Isley Brothers. Later, sticking more exclusively to the jazz idiom, Gonzalez also performed for three presidents–Bill Clinton and both Bushes and at jazz festivals spanning the globe.

Next up, January 27, is D.C.-based saxophonist Bill Mulligan, who has collaborated with such diverse ensembles as the Baltimore Symphony Orchestra and the Smithsonian Jazz Masterworks Orchestra as well as superstars ranging from the late great Ella Fitzgerald to Tony Bennett and Lady Gaga. He’s followed on February 10 by guitarist Steve Abshire, who has played with various Navy bands for decades, principally the Commodores, the U.S. Naval Academy’s premier jazz ensemble.

The only vocalist and female in the series, Imani Gonzalez, appears on February 24. She has performed and toured with Wynton Marsalis and the Jazz at Lincoln Center Orchestra for eight consecutive years, and her vocals were featured in the Emmy-winning National Geographic film “Jane Goodall: My Life With Chimpanzees.”

March sweeps in on the 10th with trumpeter Dave Ballou, a New England native mentored by, among others, jazz legend Clark Terry. Moving to New York, Ballou played in pit orchestras for many Broadway shows, including the Tony-winning revival of “42nd Street.” Joining the music faculty of Towson University in 2004, he’s become known as the foremost teacher of improvisation in the Baltimore area.

The finale in the series is the only one with Hughes absent from the keyboard. Instead, he’ll squeeze one more musician into his cozy studio, bassist Paul Langosch, who will accompany jazz pianist Bill Butta on March 24. A Baltimore native, Butta has played and recorded over the decades with legends Dizzy Gillespie, Woody Shaw, Sonny Stitt, Roy Haynes, and current jazz genius–both as performer and composer–Terrence Blanchard.

The instrumental diversity of the 2021 lineup is impressive from both an artistic and educational standpoint. There’s a little something for every student considering what he or she wants to play. Or what you may prefer to hear.

And if that’s not enough, all 15 programs from 2020 are still available to download–free for students. For us grownups, the price for each concert/interview is $35.

“I’ve got to pay the musicians,” Hughes says. “They’re professionals.”

Indeed, they are.

JAZZ ALIVE’S JAZZ TALES SERIES

Free to participating students, $35 for non-students, or $180 for all six 2021 concerts. Also, $35 each for Jazz Tales archive concerts from 2020. All available online at jazz-alive.org

Steve Parks is a retired New York arts writer and editor now living in Easton.

 

Filed Under: Arts Portal Lead, Arts Top Story

Looking at the Masters: Candy Chang by Beverly Hall Smith

January 7, 2021 by Beverly Hall Smith 1 Comment

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The year 2020 is finally over and now we can look forward to 2021 with both hope and uncertainty.  Candy Chang, a contemporary American, says she struggles maintaining perspective. “I feel like it’s easy to get caught up in the day-to-day and forget what really matters to you.” Chang’s installation pieces are not closed inside a museum or gallery; they are outside on the street and reach out to the community. Her works offer the opportunity to participate, to challenge one’s self, to complain or exclaim, and to be heard.

Chang is the daughter of immigrants from Taiwan. They settled in Pittsburgh where she was born. After receiving a BS in Architecture and a BFA in Graphic Design from the University of Michigan, Ann Arbor, Chang received a MS degree in Urban Planning from Columbia University. The combination of art, architecture, and urban planning are the core of Chang’s art.  She has been creating interactive art installations since 2006, and has achieved a significant global profile.  This article will discuss three of Chang’s numerous works.  All her works require thoughtful audience participation.  

Chang lives and works in New Orleans, although she travels the world lecturing, leading workshops, and creating site specific art. “Before I die” (2011) (41’ x 8’) was influenced by the unexpected and sudden death of someone she loved: “I spent a long time full of grief, and then I felt gratitude for the time we had together. I thought about death a lot which brought clarity to my life, the people I want to be with, and the things I want to do. I wondered if other people felt the same way.  Over the past few years I’ve tried ways to share more with my neighbors in public space, using simple tools like stickers, stencils, and chalk. This time I wanted to know what was important to the people around me and I wanted a daily reminder to restore perspective.”

Chang sought and received permission to use the side of an abandoned, crumbling house in the Marigny district of New Orleans.  After applying chalk board paint to the wall, she then stenciling, eighty times, the open ended phrase, “Before I die I want to. …. “ Chang comments, “While I was still stenciling the wall, people were walking  up to ask questions – you know, what is this? And a lot of people asked if they could write on it, and we said, yes, please do.” She left colored chalk at the site. The following morning she found the lines entirely filled in with responses, and squeezed into every available corner.

“Before I die” (detail)

 Chang says, “I never had any plans to make any walls beyond New Orleans.  You know, I made this wall, posted a few photos online and then it just spread like wildfire.  And my inbox blew up with messages from people around the world who wanted to make a wall with their community.”  Chang’s project has been recreated more than 5000 times in 75 countries, including China, Haiti, South Africa, Iraq, and Brazil.  The project is ongoing and has generated a book of the same title as well as a website.  

In 2019, “Before I die” was repeated in a full room, at the Renwick Gallery as a part of its Burning Man Exhibition titled “No Spectators.”  As a viewer of the work, this writer found it very compelling, fascinating, moving, and exciting. The Atlantic magazine called “Before I die” “one of the most creative community projects ever.” Publishers Weekly described the book as “a powerful and valuable reminder that life is for the living, and it’s never too late, or too early, to join the party.” Chang states: “I am passionate about the relationship between public space and mental health.”  

In 2010 Chang Co-founded with James A Reeves the Civic Center in New Orleans. They describe the Civic Center as an “urban design studio that combines architecture, graphic design, and urban planning to make thoughtful public spaces and communication tools for everyday issues of city life.”  Their goal is to “make cities more comfortable for people. And we are not talking about outdoor seating and wider sidewalks – that’s what makes this creative studio so unique.  We believe that public spaces should inspire conversation, make the machinery of the city more accessible, and restore a sense of dignity to the public realm.” They have worked in such disparate cities Nairobi, Vancouver, New Orleans, and Johannesburg.

Chang became a TED Senior Fellow and delivered a TED talk in 2011.  The TED foundation “supports and connects global visionaries who have shown outstanding accomplishment and exceptional potential. The foundation has identified and honored over 470 individuals. 

“Confessions” (2012)

In 2012, while artist-in-residence at the Art Production Fund in Las Vegas, Chang set up “Confessions” (2012).  Inspired by the ritual of the Catholic Confessional and Shinto Prayer Shrines, Chang invited guests at a nearby Las Vegas hotel to write their confessions on wooden plaques similar to those used in Shinto Prayer shrines.  The participants represented a transient and temporary community, rather than the established local community.  The confession booths, set up to insure privacy, perhaps remind us of our recent election in an ironic or comic way.

Chang painting confessions for exhibition

Chang collected 1500 confessions and arranged them in an exhibition at the Cosmopolitan P3 Studio gallery in the heart of the Las Vegas Strip.  She selected several and painted them in white on large red boards. “Confessions” as has been recreated in Belarus (2016), Athens (2016), London (2017), Armenia (2017), and San Diego (2019).

“Confessions”  (detail)

“A Monument for the Anxious and Hopeful”(2018/19)

“A Monument for the Anxious and Hopeful” February 2, 2018 to January 7, 2019) (31’ x 12’), is a collaboration between Chang and Reeves.  “We live in a uniquely unsettled moment of technological, political, and social flux. Awash in endless currents of information delivered by glowing screens, each new headline, discovery, and development brings a fresh opportunity for hope or anxiety, depending upon our individual attitudes and philosophies. By definition, anxiety and hope are determined by a moment that has yet to arrive—but how often do we pause to fully consider our relationship with the future? Are we optimists or pessimists? And how do our private sensibilities square with the current collective mood?” 

“A Monument for the Anxious and Hopeful” (detail)

The installation was located in the lobby of the Rubin Museum of Art in New York City and received over 50,000 responses.  It was inspired by Tibetan prayer flags, and as Chang states, “It’s a fitting exercise to do in the Rubin Museum because it adopts Buddhist practices along with psychological techniques. A helpful first step in dealing with our anxieties is to greet them and give them a name. Then we can examine them more objectively and break them down further. Psychologists have shown how productive this can be. It may not make us less afraid, but it can make us braver.”

Chang painting confessions for exhibition

When asked which side received more responses, Chang replied the Hopefuls received more responses, but not by much.

“Light the Barricades, Walls: Defend, Divide, and the Divine” (2019)

Chang and Reeves collaborated on “Light the Barricades, Walls: Divide, and the Divine (2019) commissioned by the Annenberg Space for Photography in Los Angeles.  The installation, located at the Annenberg Community Beach House, consists of three solar powered 27’ by 8’ light boxes created by James Reeves. It was influenced by the I Ching, a Chinese text originally carve on a prison wall 3000 years ago. Made into a book, it deals with the obstacles of resentment, judgment and doubt, which human place on themselves that prevent us from moving forward.  The I Ching tells us that “keeping still when faced with obstruction provides an opportunity to turn inward and resolve our difficulties.”  

“Light the Barricades, Walls ‘’ (detail)

               

Each light box represents one of the impediments, RESENTMENT, JUDGMENT, and DOUBT displayed in large white letters, and a smaller white text running the length of the wall.  The text for RESENYMENT begins:  “It started with a tiny betrayal.  A few words in the kitchen or a broken promise…”  On the other side of the wall, three seats are placed in front of three holes, allowing viewers to sit and contemplate a specific question that is printed around the outer edge of the hole. The light boxes were next to the beach, allowing viewers to interact with the calming effects of sun, sand and surf, or sand and surf at night. An original sound track played during the exhibition adding to the ambiance.  Chang and Reeves’s book, Light the Barricades, records over 3000 handwritten responses from visitors to the exhibition.

“Light the Barricades, Walls” (detail)

Chang and Reeves currently are working with psychologist, sociologists, researchers, and others, to generate new ideas to “better connect the personal and public in meaningful ways.”  On October 29, 2020, Chang was the keynote speaker at the American Art Therapy Association Annual Conference.  In November 17, 2020 she gave a talk at the Diversity & Inclusion Professions Annual Awards luncheon.  She says, “I am passionate about the relationship between public space and mental health.” 

NOTE:  Candy Chang has a large presence online. If you Google Candy Chang include the word artist behind her name, otherwise you will find another Candy Chang, a Beauty Queen winner.

Beverly Hall Smith was a professor of art history for 40 years.  Since retiring with her husband Kurt to Chestertown six years ago, she has taught art history classes at WC-ALL and Chesapeake College’s Institute for Adult Learning.  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.

 

Filed Under: Arts Portal Lead, Arts Top Story

At the Academy: Finding the Next AAM Director with Lee Kappelman

January 4, 2021 by The Spy Leave a Comment

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Lee Kappelman, the well-seasoned executive recruiter who will be working with the Academy Art Museum’s board to find a new museum director, is the first to acknowledge that finding a replacement for the recently departed Ben Simons won’t be easy. But in her candid conversation with the Spy about the challenges of finding his replacement and finding the right person for the right institution, Lee feels that Ben’s success will only make the position more appealing for quality candidates.

That is just one of several points that the AAM headhunter discusses, including the pandemic impact on museums, the essential need for diversity, and why institutions sometimes fail in their search for the  right leader.

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

Filed Under: Arts Portal Lead, Arts Top Story

Spy Music Review: Mid-Atlantic Symphony Orchestra’s End of Year Concert

January 1, 2021 by Steve Parks Leave a Comment

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In the final hours–thankfully–of 2020, the Mid-Atlantic Symphony Orchestra served up an evening of classical as well as pops comfort food. After the year from hell, we could all use a little comfort–perhaps appropriately in a house of worship.

My wife and I caught it on livestream. And so can you through Jan. 7.

As he has for concerts the MSO performed since last March when all our lives suddenly were confined by varying degrees of isolation, Maestro Julien Benichou has skillfully wrought programs that can be performed live with as much safety as one could ask. A small ensemble, 16 musicians for this concert, play only strings while spread out and wearing masks. The Easton-based orchestra performs before a limited and socially distanced live audience and a much wider one on YouTube.

The New Year’s Eve program opened with a trio of pieces by Johann Strauss II, beginning with a short but sweet polka comprised of pizzicato string-plucking followed by a formal waltz, Wiener Blut, translating as Viennese Blood. Your mind’s eye could visualize ball gowns and tails swirling on a grand dance floor. The Strauss troika concluded with the overture from the operetta Die Fledermaus, which introduced us to the luscious voice of mezzo-soprano Lisa Chavez.

Mezzo-soprano Lisa Chavez

Tchaikovsky’s String Serenade, perfect for a string-only orchestra, served up perhaps the evening’s most familiar comfort menu item with its festive waltz melody that even classical neophytes would recognize. Leaping from the 1880s to 1945, Chavez returned to the stage for one of the evening’s emotional highlights, singing “La Vie en Rose” like she owns it, though it will always belong to Edith Piaf. The legendary Piaf’s reedy rendition evokes tears of joy in memory of falling in love and seeing the world “in pink,” as if through rose-colored glasses. Chavez brings a far richer tone to the song while losing none of its poignancy.

Benichou next chose to rouse us with a salute to Winter from Vivaldi’s “Four Seasons.” The current season marches in furiously on the resolute bowstring of concertmaster Regi Papa, which in the next movement settles into a windswept reflection gently accompanied by the viola, cello, and bass.

Abruptly changing pace again, this time turning to Broadway, Chavez delivers the ultimately tragic “Somewhere” from “West Side Story” before Benichou returns to the Viennese waltz with Strauss’ buoyant Wine, Women, and Song.

The maestro was sure to make room in the program for “Carmen,” the opera for which Chavez is best known, having performed the Bizet masterpiece for various companies, including the New York City Opera. In Habanera, she displayed her acting chops while trilling through the saucy refrain, “Love is a rebellious bird that nobody can tame” (sung in French, of course). Together with the rollicking Gypsy Song, also from “Carmen,” Chavez exercised her vocal dexterity in both buttery lower registers and soaring soprano coloratura.

But she was hardly done. Returning to opera, Chavez sang from the impish Isabella role in Rossini’s “L’Italiana in Algeri,” navigating the highs and lows again with ease.

Next to that, “I Could Have Danced All Night” from “My Fair Lady” must be a delightful child’s play to her. Chavez’s final assignment from Benichou was to deliver the traditional Auld Lang Syne singalong as a “sing alone” for the masked live audience. (But you can singalong at home.)

The orchestra did, however, close with a live clap-along string finale.

On that note, it occurred to me that there is hope for a far better new year. Maybe it takes a new millennium 21 years to come of age. Happy 2021.

Steve Parks is a retired New York arts critic now living in Easton.

A TOAST TO THE NEW YEAR

Mid-Atlantic Symphony Orchestra’s New Year’s Eve concert from Easton Church of God featuring mezzo-soprano Lisa Chavez as soloist is available to be viewed through Jan. 7. Tickets are $25. https://midatlanticsymphony.org/ 410-289-3440

Filed Under: Arts Portal Lead, Arts Top Story

Art on Lockdown: Dorchester Center for the Arts’ Barbara Seese

December 21, 2020 by Dave Wheelan 2 Comments

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While it is true that every art organization in Maryland has experienced real financial and emotional hardship due to the COVID lockdown of 2020, there should be a special sympathy for the Dorchester Center for the Arts. Sadly, all of their plans to celebrate their 50th year of existence went down the coronavirus drain this year.

Art shows, films, concerts, theater, and lectures were all canceled after almost two years of planning, including sharing the oral history of original members from when the DCA opened its doors in 1970.

In our interview with Barbara Seece, the executive director of the DCA, she talks about this sad let down among other challenges that came with the Governor’s order in March. But she also highlights some of the good that came from her team as they quickly pivoted in their programming, including such out of the box ideas as working with Spanish-speaking art teachers from Miami via Zoom to continue to reach out to diverse communities in Dorchester County.Barb also talks about her roots on the Mid-Shore and how she came home after decades of living and working in Los Angeles.

This video is approximately seven minutes in length. For more information about the Dorchester Center for the Arts, please go here.

Filed Under: Arts Portal Lead, Arts Top Story

At the Academy: The AAM Members Show 2020

December 15, 2020 by The Spy Leave a Comment

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While the Academy Art Museum has distinguished itself over many years with its art exhibitions’ quality and depth, there will always be a particular fondness and community gratitude for its annual Members Show.

Representing well over one hundred artists, the yearly event is a fitting acknowledgment of our region’s gifted painters, and it also reminds us of the unique role that art plays on the Mid-Shore. It summarizes in one place the diversity and abundance of the exceptionally talented artists that live among us. This substantial number of creatives enrich our region well beyond what is found on their canvases, and the Academy’s tradition of putting a spotlight on their works only reminds us how fortunate we are.

Last week, the Spy talked to Mehves Lelic, the Academy’s curator, about the show and the remarkable talent it represents.

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

 

Filed Under: Arts Portal Lead, Arts Top Story

Looking at the Masters: The Story of Saint Nicholas

December 3, 2020 by Beverly Hall Smith Leave a Comment

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Who was St Nicholas?  St Nicholas’s feast day is celebrated on December 5 in the Eastern Orthodox Church and December 6 in the Roman Catholic Church in the west. He was born in the Greek city of Patara on March 15, 270 CE and died on December 6, 343 CE. Patara was a vibrant coastal city on the southwest coast of Lycia, the Mediterranean coast of modern day Turkey. His parents were wealthy, devout Christians.  According to legend he was an exceptional child who preferred to memorize scripture and go to church. The priesthood was a logical vocation.  The factual details of his life are minimal, but over time legends of his kindness and charity, his ability to intervene in serious situations saving lives, and his many miracles increased his growing popularity. He became known as Nicholas the Wonderworker and the patron saint of sailors, merchants, archers, repentant thieves, prostitutes, brewers, pawnbrokers, unmarried people, students, coopers, fisherman, pharmacists, and especially children. Clearly stories about his life and after-death miracles grew substantially.

St Nicholas (16th century Greek Icon)

 Nicholas was made the Bishop of Myra in a unique way. When the Bishop of Myra died, the priests could not decide how to choose a new Bishop.  In a dream, the most respected of the priests was told that the first priest to enter the church the next morning was to be made Bishop. He went to the church and stayed up all night to be there in the morning. Nicholas, who had been away, arrived early in the day and went first to the church to pray. As the first priest to enter the church, he was proclaimed Bishop of Myra. Nicholas was canonized a saint in 1466. His depiction is generally determined by whether the artist is Eastern Orthodox or Roman Catholic. St Nicholas is depicted with a halo, holding the Bible and with giving a blessing with his right hand.  As a Bishop he is can be depicted wearing a cassock with mitre and Crozier.  

Nicholas giving a sack of gold (14th century Italian fresco)

Nicholas’s acts of charity began after his wealthy parent’s death, and he felt the need to dispose of his inheritance. His first act of charity was to help a neighbor who unfortunately had lost most of his money and could not afford dowries for his three daughters. In the dark of night, Nicholas went to the house and dropped a sack of gold through the window. The father was able to provide a dowry for his eldest daughter. Nicholas repeated the nighttime visit with a second sack of gold. The father and daughters told everyone about the mysterious gifts, and the father was determined to find out who the benefactor was. When the sack of gold arrived for the third daughter, her waited and watched.  Seeing Nicholas, he followed him and praised him for his generosity and kindness in providing for his daughters and saving them from prostitution.  Nicholas pledged him to silence and assured him the gift was from God.

Nicholas saving sailors from the storm at sea (Byzantine fresco)

On a voyage by Nicholas to the Holy Lands a great storm came up arose. The Golden Legend by Jacobus Voragine ( 1228-1298) records that the sailors called out to Nicholas,  “Servant of God, if what we have heard of thee is true, let us make trial of it at this moment.” Nicholas replied “You called me, here I am.” Nicholas assisted with the sails, ropes, and tackle and the storm ceased.  He told them to thank God, not him.

Miracle of the Grain (Lorenzetti, A. 1332-34, Italian)

 A famine broke out in Myra in the years 311 to 312 CE, and the people were close to starving.  Nicholas was made aware of an Imperial ship in the harbor loaded with grain, Nicholas talked with the ship’s captain.  The ship’s cargo of grain had been weighed in the city of Alexandria was headed to the Emperor in Constantinople.  The weight of grain was assured and it must reach Constantinople.  Nicholas convinced the captain that some of the grain could be offloaded in Myra and the captain and crew would not be punished.  Persuaded, the captain gave Myra enough grain to feed the population for two years and enough to sow for the next year’s harvest.  When the ship arrived in Constantinople, the weight of grain was equal to the original weight; nothing was missing.

Nicholas of Myra saves the lives of condemned prisoners (Byzantine)

While visiting other parts of his diocese, Nicholas he was called back urgently to Myra because its ruler, Eustathius, had wrongly condemned three innocent men to death, and their execution was imminent. Hurrying back, Nicholas arrived as the executioner held his sword over the head of one of the prisoners.  Nicholas either commanded the executioner to  put down his sword, or as shown in the painting,  he grabbed the sword with his bare hands.  The unjustly accused men were released and proved innocent.  One version says that Eustathius later confessed his sin to Nicholas,  and after a completing a penance was absolved.

Nicholas Resurrects Three Children (Nicholas Book of Devotions, 1577 French)

Nicholas became especially venerated for his help to children.  In one rather peculiar, but frequently reported story, Nicholas was again faced with a looming famine.  On passing by an inn, Nicholas was offered a meal of pork by the inn keeper.  Observing the pork in the pickling barrel, Nicholas realized the meat was not pork, but children.  The inn keeper had cut them into small pieces and was pickling them to sell as pork. Nicholas immediately restored the children’s bodies and brought them back to life. 

In a true story, Nicholas was imprisoned for five years during the reign of Diocletian (r 284-316 CE) who was trying to rid the Roman Empire of Christians.  Nicholas was released when Constantine became Holy Roman Emperor, adding Holy to the title as he made the Empire Christian.  A disputed legend puts Nicholas at the First Council of Nicaea (325 CE). It was called by Constantine to settle the Arian heresy that Christ was not God in flesh brought by Bishop Arius.  Nicholas purportedly slapped Arius and as a result put into chains, stripped of his robes, and imprisoned.  He prayed all night, and the next morning when they came to his cell, he was dressed in his Bishops robes, unchained, and sitting quietly reading.  Constantine freed him and restored his Bishopric. The result of the First Council of Nicaea was to repute the Arian heresy, and the Nicene Creed was written.  Nicholas was credited by some accounts as having signed the document.

Saint Nicholas Day is celebrated today mostly in European countries.  On December 6, children put a pair of shoes by the hearth, and St. Nicholas comes during the night and secretly places small gifts in them.  His legend lives on today. St Nicholas has become known to Americans as Santa Claus.  How this transformation happened will be the subject of a SPY article on December 17.

Beverly Hall Smith was a professor of art history for 40 years.  Since retiring with her husband Kurt to Chestertown six years ago, she has taught art history classes at WC-ALL and Chesapeake College’s Institute for Adult Learning.  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.

 

Filed Under: Arts Portal Lead, Arts Top Story

Spy Eye: Getting Ready for Seasonal Art Walk December 5

December 1, 2020 by Spy Desk Leave a Comment

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This Saturday, December 5 from noon to 5 p.m., the Chestertown Arts and Entertainment District will host a Seasonal Art Walk, with special exhibits and sales in galleries, studios and other art venues throughout the A&E District. Art lovers and shoppers can wander from venue to venue experiencing the magic and power of the arts, with masks and social distancing required at all stops along the way.

Participating galleries include the Blueberry Pie and Art Society, Create, Diane Rappisi Fine Art, Hegland Glass, Les Poissons Gallery, Tish Fine Art, Robert Ortiz Studios with guest artists Vanna Ramirez, Fredy Granillo and Yuh Okano, River Arts, The Artists Gallery, and Linda Roy Walls Photographs and Memories. Special guest artists Mary Pritchard, Mike Pugh, and Sam Moore will also be participating at “pop up” locations. 

Maps for the Art Walk can be downloaded HERE.  It will be available in downtown shops and all the participating galleries. Downtown restaurants and cafes will offer special holiday menu items for Art Walk participants who want to rest and refuel along the way.  

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Filed Under: Arts Portal Lead, Arts Top Story

Looking at the Masters: Of Turkeys and Thanksgiving

November 26, 2020 by Beverly Hall Smith Leave a Comment

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The truth about Ben Franklin and the turkey:  No he did not recommend it for the National seal.  According to notes, he proposed “Moses standing on the shore, and extending his hand over the sea thereby causing the same to overwhelm pharaoh who is sitting in an open chariot.”  The motto he suggested should read “Rebellion to Tyrants is Obedience to God.” In a private letter to his daughter, he praised the turkey as “a much more respectable bird and a true original native of America,” while he denigrated selection of the eagle because he thought the design looked more like a turkey.  Ben was probably not aware of the Seventeenth Century Dutch painters’ still lives with turkeys. Such paintings were few and far between, and often the turkey’s head and wing feather were decorations on turkey tureens.

Monet “Turkeys” (1877)

Claude Monet painting “Turkeys” (1877) was commissioned by Ernest Hoschede, art collector and critic, and one of Monet’s best patrons.  “Turkeys” was one of four paintings that depicted the four seasons at Hoschede’s estate of Rottenburg in Montgeron.  They were to hang in the drawing room. The estate house can be seen in the background.  In typical Impressionist style, Monet uses little white paint to color the turkeys feathers.  Instead he uses colors of the rainbow; purple, indigo, green, yellow, orange and red the colors of sunlight when it shines through a prism. Brisk brush strokes were employed to show movement.  The green lawn complements the red wattles of the turkeys. Monet did not often paint animals, but he certainly made these turkeys appealing.

Pissarro  “Turkey Girl” (1884)

Camille Pissarro was called the grandfather of Impressionism.  He was much older than Monet and Degas, and others, and he took all of them under his wing with open friendship, advice, encouragement, and sometimes financial aid.  In the 1880’s he reverted to an earlier theme which Degas described as “peasants working to make a living.” “Turkey Girls” (1884) is one of several that depict girls working with sheep or goats or harvesting. Pissarro depicts a flock of black and brown turkeys which the girl is keeping in line with a stick.  Apparently this flock of turkeys is more interested in eating than roaming.  

Tanner, “The Thankful Poor”

Jennie Augusta Brownscombe was born in Honesdale, Pennsylvania.  Her mother Elvira Kennedy was a descendant of a Mayflower passenger.  Jennie became an active Daughter of the American Revolution and the Mayflower Descendants.  After studying painting in America and Paris, she became a painter, teacher, lecturer, and commercial artist for New Woman magazine.  “Thanksgiving at Plymouth” (1925) is the result of the Colonial Revival Movement that began in the 1880’s as industrialization, urbanization, and immigration increased.  Americans became increasingly conscious of their history.  Although most often seen in architecture and decorative arts, Browncombe and other artists became interested in Colonial history as a source for their subjects. This painting is her second version of this subject, the first titled “The First Thanksgiving” (1914).  After diligently researching the subject found in available resources, she produced one of the most popular paintings on the subject.  Unfortunately her sources were not very accurate, but fit well the American imagination.  The picture also depicts a young mother and her children in the forefront.  Women artists, previously thought inferior, worked to overcome this idea. Brownscombe sold reproduction rights for her paintings, and they were seen on calendars, greeting card, reproductions.

Tanner, “The Thankful Poor”

Henry Ossawa Tanner was born in Pennsylvania.  His father, a former slave, was an African Methodist Episcopal bishop.  His mother was a runaway slave who came to Pennsylvania via the Underground Railroad.  The family was well respected and Tanner was educated.  He studied in Paris, and as a result of French racial tolerance, he was able to do well, ultimately achieving an international reputation.  He painted mostly religious and genre subjects.  Two of his genre paintings showing the hardships of African American life, “The Thankful Poor” (1894) and “The Banjo Lesson” (1893), were not popular at the time, but they are now among his most famous works. In 2020, with the pandemic causing major disruptions in the world, specifically with the long food lines for so many, it seemed appropriate to include this painting. It is a thoughtful and simple reminder of what is important at Thanksgiving.

Lee  “Thanksgiving “    (1935)    28×40’’

Doris Emerick Lee was born in Aledo, Illinois. After studying art in Illinois, Kansas, and San Francisco, she painted murals for the United States Treasury, created art works for Life Magazine, she settled in Woodstock, New York where she established an art colony.  She remained in Woodstock for the rest of her life.  “Thanksgiving’’ (1935) (24’’x40’’) became a subject of articles in newspapers across the nation after it was exhibited at the Chicago Art Institute and won the prestigious Logan Purchase  Prize. The United States was in the midst of the Great Depression; the theme and style of the painting had immediate appeal nationwide.   “Thanksgiving” is depicted in Lee’s specific genre style.  Everyone could enjoy the delightful hustle and bustle of cooking the turkey, rolling out the pie dough, setting the table, and preparing the carrots and cauliflower.  The family dog licks up bits of food fallen from the oven, while a little girl, bloomers exposed, drops a treat for the cat. A new arrival is removing her hat, a young boy smiles in anticipation, and twins in a high chair cheer for joy.  A critic described this as “fresh, with the charm of innocence.” Lee’s nostalgic image depicts love of family, and despite the quaint style, it represents America at its best.

Despite our world situation in 2020, hopefully these paintings will bring the reader some peace and joy. A Happy Thanksgiving to readers. Stay well and stay calm.  

Beverly Hall Smith was a professor of art history for 40 years.  Since retiring with her husband Kurt to Chestertown six years ago, she has taught art history classes at WC-ALL and Chesapeake College’s Institute for Adult Learning.  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.

Filed Under: Arts Portal Lead, Arts Top Story

Review: MSO Takes on Bartok’s Divertimento and Vivaldi’s Lute Concerto by Steve Parks

November 8, 2020 by Steve Parks Leave a Comment

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It’s unusual to make a full-disclosure admission at the start of a review. But special circumstances appear to call for it on this occasion. I did not attend the Mid-Atlantic Symphony Orchestra’s concert live last Thursday night at the Easton Church of God because of a conflicting assignment: covering Susan Werner’s concert at the grand opening of the Avalon Foundation’s new Stoltz Pavilion tent. I spent Friday writing that story as well as another Talbot Spy assignment. Therefore, I didn’t see the livestream of the MSO concert until Saturday morning. One more disclosure: My attention was diverted during the second of three movements of Bartok’s Divertimento by a news flash many Americans had been awaiting. Something about a president-elect.

My attention momentarily diverted from the Divertimento, I recorded the news bulletin, resumed viewing the concert and, with a discipline I strained to maintain, retreated to my home office to write this review.

If that turns out to be the most dramatic part of my review, don’t blame the maestro or the musicians. Once again, the Eastern Shore’s only professional symphony orchestra has soldiered on to bring live classical music to a shrinking in-person, pandemic-wary audience, which may, in the end, broaden the MSO’s outreach through live-concert streaming. There are necessary restraints, however. Because wind and brass instruments require far greater distance than strings for both audience and musicians’ safety, the Mid-Atlantic, led by music director Julien Benichou, is performing as a string orchestra with selections enlisting those instruments alone. Benichou has proven adept at presenting pieces that are rare on the symphonic stage, in this case, including Anton Arensky’s homage to Tchaikovsky with his variations on a theme by his musical hero. Better known as a teacher, Arensky counted among his students Sergei Rachmaninoff and Alexander Scriabin. He might have enjoyed greater success as a composer had he not died at age 45 of tuberculosis.

As performed Thursday night, Arensky’s variations opened with a solidly romantic theme played by all the orchestra strings. Later themes were alternately quicker paced with staccato punctuations and more contemplative with an almost sleepy finish that became obvious only when the maestro motioned for his musicians to take a bow. Overall, Arensky’s homage captured some of Tchaikovsky’s romanticism without his dramatic flourishes.

A pair of Vivaldi concertos–one written for lute and another for two mandolins–are now widely performed on guitar, which had not been invented in the 17th and early 18th centuries. The twinned pieces were impeccably interpreted, first by Thomas Viloteau on French guitar, and then paired with his wife Alexandra on classical guitar, replacing two mandolin players. Thomas Viloteau’s solo on the contemplative opening of Vivaldi’s Lute Concerto’s second movement, with light string accompaniment, soothingly carries the familiar melody that inspired such rock-star composers as Mozart and continues to inspire modern rock and pop stars. Joined by Alexandra on the concerto re-arranged for two guitars, she and Thomas harmonize as a couple in the celebratory opening that brings to mind a wedding-party masterpiece processional.

The Bartok Divertimento skips a century from Vivaldi’s time to the advent of modern dissonance in the classical realm. There are ominous overtones to this last piece he wrote in Europe, 1939-40, as political circumstances motivated Bartok to depart for the United States. The foreboding opening suggests danger ahead with complications lurking at every musical turn. Concertmaster Kurt Nikkanen led his fellow violinists and the rest of the orchestra in a quickening string heartbeat and a staccato uptick in plucking to an abrupt finish.

Not as exhilarating as the news that had just flashed. But that was likely due to my bad timing. You can choose your own in livestream land, now through Thursday, Nov. 12.

Steve Parks is a retired New York arts critic now living in Easton.

MID-ATLANTIC SYMPHONY ORCHESTRA

String orchestra concert of Arensky, Vivaldi and Bartok featuring guitar soloists Alexandra and Thomas Viloteau; Thursday, Nov. 5 at Easton Church of God, simulcast through Nov. 12, suggested donation of $15, midatlanticsymphony.org

Filed Under: Arts Portal Lead, Arts Top Story

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