Arts Portal Lead

The Special Eye of Bobby Richardson

January 20, 2021 by Val Cavalheri Leave a Comment

“Should I start in the 1800s?”

Since I was only writing an article, I explained to Robert “Bobby” Richardson that I would need him to condense it to a more modern time epoch. “You want to know why decoys are valuable? Well then, I’m only going to go back to probably the 1930s and come forward.”

Bobby Richardson who handled many of the famous Ward decoys, Crisfield, MD is seen holding his beloved 1938 Ward Goose

He’s not kidding. The amount of information known by Cambridge native Richardson on the subject of decoys (also known as ‘birds’) is staggering, and your first reaction is that he should write a book. Well, he has, and it’s not just any book. Chesapeake Bay Decoys: The Men Who Made and Used Them, published in 1992, is still considered THE definitive guide for collectors and other enthusiasts. Even buying a used copy commands a hefty price.

Having attended the Waterfowl Festivals throughout the years, I knew decoys (ducks primarily, but also geese and swans) were used as lures to attract ducks. I had even bought a couple to display on my mantle, but I had no idea about the extent of their popularity—or price. Not that this was always the case. Richardson remembers speaking to a curator at an art show a long time ago. “She said, ‘Bobby, are you aware that this is an illegitimate art form? We’re not accepted, but when they understand that decoys are three-dimensional art, then we will be accepted and loved.’ And within the 50 years since, she was absolutely right, it’s an art form that we had missed.”

But what makes it art? According to Richardson, it goes beyond the visual. “Unlike the art on a wall, or a sculpture in a museum, it’s physical; you get to touch it.” Besides that, of course, there is the monetary aspect of their increasing in value.

“I started collecting in 1968,” said Richardson, “which makes me one of the earliest collectors. I remember talking to a guy who had an auction house and how it was unheard of to sell decoys in New York. Now, he told me, 60% of his buyers are from New York City. And that’s where the art world is.”

As Richardson explains it, necessity is what started him in the business. That and a good eye. As a hunter, he said, he would sometimes pick up a lure and think, “that’s a good-looking decoy.” He began accumulating and then selling them at a time when he needed to raise some money. But his expertise almost drove him out of the business he helped create. “I would sell them for $500 or 5,000. But after I sold it, the price would go up, and when I went to replace my inventory, I had to pay more than what I’d sold it for. So, it was a progression that I couldn’t control, because like a beautiful antique, every time it changes hands, it increases the value.”

Despite there being so many birds in the market, Richardson said there are only approximately 5% that can be considered a collectible. And this is where the 1800s come in. Back then, places such as Peterson Decoy or Mason Decoy Factory, or Animal Trap Company were carving, painting, and producing wooden decoys. By the time World War II started, some of these factories that were still in business switched to helping the war effort, manufacturing, for example, gunstocks for the army. After the war, the decoy industry changed, and few decoys were hand made. Instead, machines were churning out lighter-weight plastic decoys.

Suddenly, Richardson said, wooden decoys started to generate interest. “People would pick one up and say, ‘I love it, that’s a green ringed teal.’ Or ‘isn’t that a pretty mallard, or ‘gosh, isn’t that a nice black duck.’ And the rest is history. Everybody started collecting and wanting them like they’d want a good tea table or a good work of art for the wall.”

By the 1970s, decoys were a big business and were viewed as an important form of Americana and folk art. Richardson, who said he’s sold over 10,000 decoys in his career, would agree, recalling how he even received $42,000 for a single sale at an auction. Of course, when coming in contact with as many people as he has throughout his lifetime, Richardson has a vault full of interesting memories of people he’s met. People like Don O’Brien, Nelson Rockefeller’s family lawyer, Walter Chrysler, the founder of Chrysler, and Zalmon Simmons, who founded the Simmons mattress company, to name a few.

He remembers early in his career selling a swan decoy to entrepreneur Kathleen Mulhern owner of the renowned The Garden restaurant in Philadelphia. “She wrote me a check for $25,000, and on my way home, I nearly flipped the car over, looking at that check. I had never had $25,000 in my life.”

But not all exchanges were successful. Richardson recounts one experience at Easton High School, during the Waterfowl Festival, where he and a friend were exhibiting their birds. Henry Kissinger, former Secretary of State, showed up and asked for the price of three decoys. “He was told it would be $300,” said Richardson. “Kissinger replied, ‘So now if I write you this check, are you going to cash it?’ My friend asked ‘why the hell wouldn’t I?’ And Kissinger said, ‘because I’m Henry Kissinger, and you’ll want it as a souvenir.’ ‘I don’t care. I’m going to cash your check,’ he said. Wouldn’t you know it, Kissinger never bought the birds.”

These memories also surprisingly included many of the decoys that have gone through Richardson’s hands “When it’s something you love, you know a lot about it. I get so much fun out of the auction catalogs because I see so many old friends.” And by old friends, he means the birds.

But don’t mistake his love for the collectible as a love for a particular bird. When asked how many decoys he still owns, Richardson, who sold off his collection a few years ago, said he only kept around a dozen. “The sale is basically what I live off of now. The irony of it all is I’m not unhappy that I sold everything because they’re made of wood. And I’m made of flesh and blood, and that’s more important to me.”

So, I wondered, are the ones he kept, the birds he couldn’t bear to part with? “No, no, no, no, no,” he responded. “They’re there because they have no value. If they had any great value, they would be gone. I did this to make a living. I didn’t do it because I was rich, but I love the art form.”

Richardson is now in his early 80s. He and his wife, Nancy, still live in Cambridge, and now that he no longer collects decoy, he’s taken up a new hobby–making folk art crow and owl birds. But he’s also found contentment with creating and painting chess/checker game boards.

It wouldn’t surprise me to hear that a Bobby Richardson original would become a collectible in the future.

Val Cavalheri is a recent transplant to the Eastern Shore, having lived in Northern Virginia for the past 20 years. She’s been a writer, editor and professional photographer for various publications, including the Washington Post.

Keeping Jazz Alive on the Shore with Fred Hughes

January 11, 2021 by Steve Parks Leave a Comment

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.

Looking at the Masters: Candy Chang by Beverly Hall Smith

January 7, 2021 by Beverly Hall Smith 1 Comment

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.

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

January 4, 2021 by The Spy Leave a Comment

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.

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

January 1, 2021 by Steve Parks Leave a Comment

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

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

December 21, 2020 by Dave Wheelan 2 Comments

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.

Looking at the Masters: How St Nicholas Became Santa Claus in America

December 17, 2020 by Beverly Hall Smith 2 Comments

St Nicholas of Myra (270-343 CE) (Greece) and the numerous miracles he performed were the inspiration for St Nicholas Day celebrated on December 3, 2020. He was buried in the Church of St Nicholas in Myra. The great schism (1054) officially separated the Eastern Orthodox and Roman Catholic Churches. The Byzantine Empire was conquered in 1087 by the Seljuk Turks who brought the religion of Islam. A group of Italian Catholic merchants in Myra secretly removed the bones of St Nicholas from the Church and took them to the Italian town of Bari. They bones were interred in the Basilica of San Nichola and remain there still. The first Crusade (1096) departed from Bari, and St Nicholas’s miracles involving the saving of people, particularly seafarers, became popular with the Crusaders. On their return from the Holy Land, the Crusaders spread the cult of St. Nicholas in Europe. By the Fifteenth Century stories had evolved to include St Nicholas the gift giver and patron saint of children. Children all over Europe celebrated St Nicholas Day and left shoes or stockings by the fire; if they were good children, they would receive a gift, if not, they might receive a switch.

“The Vindication of Christmas” (1652)

St Nicholas Day suffered a setback in Germany when Martin Luther (1483-1546) stated that Christmas Day, December 25, was the appropriate time for gift giving to celebrate the Christ Child, Christkind in German. In England, Oliver Cromwell (1647) declared Christmas was a “Popish” tradition and punished those who observed Christmas on December 25. He promoted the idea that Christmas really was derived from the Roman pagan festival of Saturnalia. The people revolted. In 1652, “The Vindication of Christmas, O Sir I bring good cheer to Pilgrims, ”an anonymous print was circulated. A Puritan on the left is about to draw his sword while Old Father Christmas, dressed in a long gown similar to the robes of St Nicholas, calms the Puritan, and a commoner welcomes Old Christmas.

The Examination and Tryall of Old Father Christmas (1658)

Josiah King’s pamphlet “The Examination and Tryall of Old Father Christmas” (1658) depicts a white haired and bearded Father Christmas, this time in Bishop’s robe and mitre, similar to the early images of St Christopher. He wears a long fur stole, and although he is in prison, he sits in a chair with a nailed leather back and curved arm. Accused by the Commonwealth of idleness, drunkenness, profligacy and other debaucheries, Father Christmas was not restored to his proper role until 1600, when Charles II came to the throne

Festival of St Nicholas on December 6, 1810

From their arrival n America, Puritan colonists banned Christmas in the Massachusetts Bay Colony until 1681. It was Dutch immigrants in New Amsterdam that brought the stories and legends to New York. On St Nicholas Day in Holland, seafaring men went to the harbor to take part in church services for St Nicholas. On their way home they would pick up small gifts, such as oranges imported from Spain, to put in the stockings or shoes of children. Coincidentally, St Nicholas often was shown with three golden balls representing the gift he gave to the father of three daughters for their dowry. The oranges represent the golden balls. Alexander Anderson’s engraving for the New York Historical Society’s annual meeting in 1810 officially recognizes the first “Festival of St Nicholas on December 6, 1810”. St Nicholas is depicted in traditional bishop’s robes and on the hearth a Dutch teakettle, waffles, cat, and stockings. On the mantle, the good little girl holds several gifts in her arms, and her stocking overflows. The bad little boy holds a switch and his stocking is full of switches as well.

“Old Santa Claus with much delight” (1821)

A small paperback book titled The Children’s Friend: A New-Year’s Present, to the Little Ones from Five to Twelve was published in 1821 by William Gilley in New York. The book included eight illustrations of the poem “Old Santa Claus with much delight,” that tells of Santa Claus’s visit on Christmas Eve, December 24, not December 6. Riding in a sleigh pulled by a reindeer, Santa wears the red robe associated with a bishop. In other illustrations for the poem he is depicted as tall and thin, quietly putting toys in stockings hung on the children’s bed post.

Another contributor the image of Santa Claus was Washington Irving (1783-1859). Famous for his novels “The Legend of Sleepy Hollow” and “Rip Van Winkle,” he wrote under the assumed name of Diedrich Knickerbocker, a satire titled A History of New York from the Beginning of the World to the End of the Dutch Dynasty (1809). In the story Irving described Sinter Klaas as a rascal in a blue three cornered hat, a red waistcoat, and yellow stockings. The figure of Santa Claus was by this time a jolly heavy man who smoked a traditional Dutch long white clay pipe. He rode over the roof tops in a horse drawn wag and dropped the children’s gifts down the chimney.

A poem called “A Visit from Saint Nicholas”, known familiarly as “The Night before Christmas,” was published anonymously in the Troy Sentinel, on December 24, 1823. The author, disputably, Clement Moore, was a Biblical scholar, a professor and a poet, who taught at the Theological Seminary of the Episcopal Church in New York City, did not admit to authorship of the poem for twenty-two years. The poem contributed a number of new details about Santa Claus. He was dressed all in fur, with a broad face and a little round belly, and he filled the stockings hung by the fire. Moore’s unique contribution to the Santa Claus image was the names and number of eight reindeer: Dasher, Dancer, Prancer, Vixen, Comet, Cupid, Donner and Blitzen. Moore presented a peaceful vision of the arrival of Santa Claus in contrast to the more traditional public festivities of drinking, eating, carousing and general rowdiness as the revelers ran riot in the town. Santa Claus became a family centered figure, and as Moore put it, “A wink of his eye and a twist of his head soon gave me to know I had nothing to dread.”

“The Workshop of Santa Claus” (1873)

Louisa May Alcott, of Little Women fame, wrote in 1856 a poem titled “Christmas Elves,” which would have made another addition to the story of Santa Claus if her publisher had decided to use it. However, in 1857, Harpers’ Weekly published a poem titled “The Wonders of Santa Claus” that included these verses: “He keeps a great many elves at work, All working with all their might, to make a million of pretty things, Cakes, sugarplums and toys, To fill the stockings, hung up you know, By the little girls and boys.” Godey’s Lady’s Book, (Christmas 1873) contained the image “The Workshop of Santa Claus.” Numerous elves sew, hammer and otherwise busily make toys. The caption reads: “Here we have an idea of the preparations that are made to supply the young folks with toys at Christmas time.” The same issue also contained an article by a socially conscious writer who informed the reader that contemporary toymakers were not elves, but real people, mostly struggling foreigners. “Whole villages engage in the work, and the contractors every week in the year go round to gather together the six day’s work and pay for it.”

“Santa Claus at the Union Camp” (1863)

The artist who most influenced the evolving image of Santa Claus was Thomas Nast, an immigrant from Bavaria and a famous political cartoonist. Nast, inspired by his German background and “The Night before Christmas,” created what was to become the iconic image of Santa Claus. However his first depiction of Santa Claus, published by Harper’s Weekly (1863), drawn and printed during the American Civil War, was not what one would expect. “Santa Claus at the Union Camp” depicts a white bearded Santa dressed in a jacket with white stars and pants with white stripes. Although a black and white image, the intended reading of the red, white and blue of the American flag is obvious. This patriotic Santa passes out gifts to Union troops. A strong Union supporter, Nast included a small boy holding a puppet with a noose around its neck that looks very much like Jefferson Davis.

“Merry Old Santa Claus” (1881)

Thomas Nast continued to draw images of Santa Claus for Harper’s Weekly for the next thirty years, completing thirty-three Santa’s. The iconic image is “Merry Old Santa Claus” (1881). His red suit, arm-load of toys, pack on his back, white beard, smiling jolly face, and a long stemmed pipe, this Santa composed the model for all Santa’s to follow. One more part of the story came from Thomas Nast. He began noting “Santa Claussville, N.P.” in the corner of his works, to identify the North Pole as Santa’s home.

After the end of the Nineteenth Century, Santa Claus’s image was secure. Writers such as Frank Baum, commercial companies such as Montgomery Ward and Coca Cola, and song writers and singers such as John Marks and Gene Autrey continue to add delightful bits of information about Santa Claus. St Nicholas from Myra, Kris Kringle or Kristkind from Germany, Old Father Christmas from England, and Sinterklaas from Holland, all participated in bringing Santa Claus to America.

At the Academy: The AAM Members Show 2020

December 15, 2020 by The Spy Leave a Comment

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.

Art on Lockdown: Yuh Okano

December 14, 2020 by James Dissette 4 Comments

When I first saw Yuh Okano’s silk scarves during an outdoor Chestertown artist market, I was impressed by the unique spectrum of colors in her work. I wanted to know more about her creative process and ascendance as an artist whose work has been collected by the Museum of Modern Art and many international exhibitions.

Turns out, after befriending fellow artist Faith Wilson while attending many of the same art shows, Okano decided last February to make Chestertown her home after 20 years in New York City.

Okano’s residence on High Street is more like a workshop and gallery. The first floor is a fabric dying room and workspace where yards of silk is stretched hammock-like. These are her blank “canvases” that will be painted and dyed with her visions of the natural world.

The second floor is a gallery for her favorite works from the past and new creations for sale. Okano explains that the fascinating small shadow boxes on the wall are fabric concepts from which larger projects may evolve but often stand alone as art in miniature.

Okano says that her childhood in Japan was influenced by her family of artists, including an uncle who was a renowned famous graphic designer. In the early 1980s, her artistic pathway brought her to the US and Rhode Island School of Design.

“To this day, my network of friends from RISDY, and artists I’ve met along the way, have formed a valuable network. We help each other,” she says.

Drawing heavily from the natural world, Okano exhibits a rich and joyful chromatic scale offset by creations that lean more toward muted olive and cinnamon earth tones.

From bold to subtle, all on silk or fine wool, her commercial work offers ornate necklaces, flower pins, shawls, and handbags of Devore fabric.

If you visit her gallery, you must see her Shibori Dumpling Bag,

Okano’s fabric art appears in museums and galleries worldwide from Japan and MoMa to Finland and Denmark, and she has taught fabric arts in equally diverse countries.

Scan her website for a full introduction. These few minutes do not do justice to the range of this artist’s work.

This video is approximately 7 minutes in length. To see her prolific range of art, visit her website here.

Looking at the Masters: The Art of Hanukkah Lamps

December 10, 2020 by Beverly Hall Smith Leave a Comment

The Jewish celebration of Hanukkah begins at sundown on December 10, and ends at sundown on December 18, 2020. Also known as the Festival of Lights. The festival commemorates the re-conquest of the land of Israel and the re-dedication of Solomon’s Temple. The land of Israel, including the city of Jerusalem, was conquered by Antiochus III (ruled 222-186 BCE), King of Syria, who at first dealt kindly with the Jews. When he was defeated by the Romans and made to pay them heavy taxes, he extracted the tax in gold from the treasury in the Holy Temple of Jerusalem. The treasury held the half shekel each adult male Jew gave annually for the upkeep of the Temple, and an amount for orphans to be paid when they came of age and went out on their own.

At Antiochus’s death his son Seleucus IV further oppressed the Jews. He was followed by his brother Antiochus IV, called the Madman. Defeated in a war with Rome, Antiochus IV returned to Jerusalem and ordered his army to attack the Jews. Thousands died. Jewish worship was forbidden, the scrolls of Law were burned, rituals were forbidden, and Jews were made to eat pork. Thousands of Jews fled and hid in the hills of Judea. From 167 BCE to 160 BCE, Judah Maccabee and his brothers led battles to reclaimed the land. They cleared the Temple of the Syrian and Greek idols and built a new altar. The re-dedication of the Temple was held on the twenty-fifth of the month of Kislev (November-December) in 139 BCE.

Golden Menorah from Arch of Titus, Rome (81 CE)

The original Gold Menorah was stolen when Antiochus IV savaged the Temple; a new one of crude metal menorah was made for the re-dedication. A Menorah has six cups of equal height to hold the consecrated oil, representing among other things, the tree of life and the six days of creation, and a seventh taller cup in the center representing the light of God. However, there was only a small amount of purified olive oil was found, and it was only enough for one night.

The Hanukkah miracle occurred as the one day’s worth of oil burned for eight days, the time necessary to prepare new oil. A new celebration of Hanukkah was declared, and a new lamp was created. Hanukkah lamps had eight oil cups and with a ninth, the Shamash, with oil to light the others. The new lamp celebrated the miracle of eight days of light and the rededication of the Temple.

Hanukkah Lamp (1680)( Frankfort, Germany) (10’’ x 12’’ x3’’)

Lighting the Hanukkah lamp is the most significant part of the celebration. The honor of lighting the lamp goes to a woman. The Talmud and other scholars state that women contributed to the victory of Hanukkah and compare their part in the victory to that of Judith (Book of Judith, Apocryphal Gospels which are excluded from Hebrew and Protestant books) and her victory over the Assyrians. Centered on the lamp is the image of Judith and Holofernes. Judith, a beautiful widow of Bethulia in the sixth century BCE, was determined to save her city from the Assyrians. Nebuchadnezzar, King of Assyria had sent his general Holofernes to conquer the town. He laid siege to the town and their victory was assured as the people of Bethulia would soon starve.. Judith dressed in her finest and with her maidservant went to the camp to see Holofernes. She promised to aid him with the conquest and an easy victory if he promised to spare her people. Holofernes was charmed. In three days, at the dark of the moon, she would lead him to a secret entrance into the city. Until then she agreed to stay in the camp and only asked to go outside in the evening to pray.

On the evening before the attack, she contrived to get Holofernes very drunk, and using his sword she cut off his head. Stuffing it into a bag, she and her maid went out to pray as usual. When the soldiers came to wake Holofernes, they found him dead. Without a leader the army foundered, and the city was saved.

The Talmud states that Jews could not rely on miracles, but should ask God to give them the strength to do the impossible. One story about Judith quotes her: “Give into my widow’s hand the strength that I plot.” Another version of the story relates that she took food into the camp so as not to break Jewish dietary laws. This act presents another aspect of Judith’s link with Hanukkah. Today potato Latkes are a traditional food for Hanukkah: however, they originally were made with cheese. Potatoes were not found in Israel until well after they were brought to Europe from South America and America by Christopher Columbus. In Europe and Israel eating cheese latkes was the tradition. Judith’s food included cheese made from goats and sheep and was extremely salty. She fed Holofernes cheese on his last night; to quench his thirst he drank heavily, and passed out. Cheese latkes became forbidden in the Fourteenth Century when Jews began to fry food in chicken fat (schmaltz), which violated kosher dietary laws not to eat dairy with meat, thus the potato latke. Cheese is still a part of Hanukkah meals as kugel or rugelach. Both cheese and oil remain a part of Hanukkah to remind the Jews of the miracle associated with Judith. Ashkenazi Jews are known for the potato latke. On Hanukkah, the Sephardic tradition features fried jelly doughnuts (Sufganiyot).

Hanukkah lamp (1680) (detail)

Lions and eagles frequently are depicted on Hanukkah lamps. Two rampant lions appear on either side of this bench lamp The Lion of Judah is the symbol of the Israelite tribe of Judah. In Genesis 49:8-10, Jacob blesses his son Judah: “Judah your bothers will praise you; your hand will be on the neck of your enemies. You are a lion’s cub, Oh Judah. The scepter will not depart from Judah, nor the ruler’s staff from between his feet.” Three eagles refer to God sending eagles to fight against the Egyptians as the Jews crossed the red Sea. On Mt Sinai, God said to Moses (Exodus 19:4): “You yourself have seen what I did to Egypt, and how I carried you on eagles’ wings and brought you to yourself.” The Talmud states that eagles fly the highest of all birds and carry their young on their backs rather than in their claws as other birds do. In this way if an eagle is attacked, the children are protected, and the eagle will sacrifice itself for its children.

Hanukkah lamp (17th century) (14’’x16’’)

Early Hanukkah lamps use oil and not candles as we see today. A second Hanukkah bench lamp depicts Judith and her maidservant in Holofernes’s tent. The beheaded general is depicted on the bed his arm lying over a chest. Judith holds Holofernes sword in her left hand and his head in her right hand. The maid servant opens the bag to receive the head. The city of Bethulia appears to sit upon Judith’s head, perhaps an attempt by the artist to place it in the background outside of the tent. Behind the maid servant are waving palm branches. A Hanukkah lamp with burning oil is centered in the composition. To the left Moses holds his staff in his left hand with the waters of the Red Sea swirling at his feet. In his right hand he supports the two tablets of the Ten Commandments. On the right Moses’ brother Aaron is depicted in the garb of a priest of the Temple: a mitre or turban on his head, a breastplate of judgment set with five stones, and a robe with pomegranates and golden bells on the hem as tassels. In his left hand he holds the ninth oil cup, the Shamah, and in his right a sword. “Thou shalt make holy garments for Aaron they brother for glory and for beauty.” (Exodus 28:2)

Hanukkah lamp (1706-32)(Johan Adam Boller)

In the early Eighteenth Century, Johan Adam Boller (1706-32), a member of a famous silversmith atelier in Frankfort, created a Hanukkah lamp that resembled the shape of a menorah rather than the bench type Hanukkah lamp mostly seen in houses. The eight stems are decorated with alternating flowers, knobs and bells. The description of the Golden Menorah God gave to Moses states that seven stems should have intermittent almond blossoms with rings of other leaves and petals. Judith is placed at the top, and at the lower point of the shaft a rampant lion holds a shield with deer and a bird engraved on it. Four roundels at the base with scenes of Rebecca meeting Abraham at the well, and three scenes from the life of Jacob, her son represent new images. Also new are cloisonné enamels and the use of color in the roundels and in some of the flowers. Hanukkah lamps were often wedding presents, and symbols of the family were frequently included.

Dreidel

A game using a dreidel is another part of the Hanukkah celebration. A dreidel is essentially a top that each person spins to win gelt, a small Jewish coin first minted in the Middle Ages. Like the yearly donation of shekels to Holy Temple, gelt was given to teachers as a thank-you gift for sharing their knowledge. Today gelt is more familiar seen as gold foil covered chocolate coins adorned with symbols of Judaism. On the four sides of a dreidel are the Hebrew letters nun, gimel, hay and shin which explain something about the game. In Yiddish nun stands for nothing, gimel for all, hay for half, and shin for put in. When put together into a Hebrew phrase they stand for “a great miracle happened there” which brings us full circle, referencing the miracle of the eight days of light.

To my Jewish friends, particularly Dena, Happy Hanukkah.

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