Troika collaborated with ShoreRivers, which calls itself the “clean water voice of Maryland’s Eastern Shore,” in recruiting artists to create tidewater scenes celebrating the region’s waterways while benefiting one of its chief advocates as well as the artists and hosting gallery. Ten percent of the sale of art goes to ShoreRivers’ efforts to promote legislative protection, to do the hard work of clean up and to educate young and old alike about the importance of conserving and preserving water resources. Among the 52 artworks up for sale, Laura Era’s “Blackwater Reflections” oil painting fetched $2,900. Those still available include Sara Linda Poly’s “Tidelands,” prominently visible from Troika’s front window, depicting a marshy waterscape with a heron opposite a tree in the foreground. Standing next to the painting is David Turner’s “Great Blue Heron” bronze sculpture. William Storek has several paintings in the show, chief among them “The Pride of Baltimore II” of the clipper ship under sail. Its asking price: $22,500.
While ShoreRivers was defending our tidal waters, Howard McCoy was cultivating a new sculptural medium by de-vining parts of the forest at Adkins Arboretum. In cutting down vines that slowly strangle trees, McCoy found he could arrange them into shapes not unlike lines on a page for a sculptural study. The result is a dozen natural “sculptures” created in collaboration with his wife Mary under the umbrella title of “Re-Vision,” dotting a mile-long wooded trail that starts just outside the visitor’s center with Mary’s poetic narration, including this verse from “Entrust”: “Let the leaf-fed earth hold your footsteps/Feel the forest’s strong and spongy soil/under each of your longing soles.”
The first sculpture, called “Rebirth,” is glimpsed from a bridge over a stream emptying into the Tuckahoe River (Tuckahoe State Park is Adkins’ next-door neighbor). “Rebirth” might have been called “Rehatched” instead, as it resembles an egg-shaped cocoon. Further down the trail, a series of skinny vines dubbed “Picker Rings” are molded into thicket-brown wreaths. A vine twisted into the letter Q (for question?), suggests a bit of wry humor about this woodland puzzle. You can meet Kit-Keung Kan at a reception June 4 and get a guided tour of the “Re-Vision” trail by co-creators Howard and Mary McCoy.
While Troika’s “ShoreRivers” show ends June 2, many of the paintings will remain on view. Meanwhile, an exhibit honoring Raoul Middleman, represented by Troika for decades, opens on June 3. Middleman, longtime member of the Maryland Institute College of Art painting faculty, was regarded as one of Baltimore’s most important contemporary artists at his death last fall. The Raoul Middleman Studio Museum in his actual working space opened last month with a “Life in the Studio” exhibition.
Adkins Arboretum, 12610 Eveland Rd., Ridgely; visitor’s center open 10 a.m.-4 p.m. Tuesdays-Saturdays, noon-4 p.m. Sundays, grounds open sunrise to sunset; adkinsarboretum.org. Troika Gallery, 9 S. Washington St., Easton, open Mondays and Thursdays-Saturdays, 11 a.m.-6 p.m., or by appointment. Raoul Middleman Studio Museum, 934 N. Calvert St., Baltimore. Hours: 1-4 p.m. Saturdays or by appointment, raoulmiddleman.org, or 443-990-1290.
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The Mid-Atlantic Symphony Orchestra – or at least a portion of it – extends its season with a pair of jazz pops concerts Thursday evening in Easton and next Friday in Rehoboth Beach. Award-winning conductor, composer and pianist Adam Glaser leads an ensemble of MSO musicians in a program of jazz classics as well as contemporary and crossover tunes. “Audience reaction to our regular season concerts was so overwhelmingly positive,” says MSO board president Jeffrey Parker, “that we decided to showcase some of our talented musicians. . . . It’s clear that, after two years of pandemic restrictions, music lovers are eager to return to live performances.”
Along with Glaser, director of orchestras at Hofstra University and Juilliard’s pre-college division, the pops ensemble features MSO musicians Dave Rybczynzski and Yevgeny Dokshansky on woodwinds; Dave Ballou, trumpet; Nicholas Mazziott, trombone; Christopher Chlumsky, bass and Dane Krich, drums.
Concerts are at 7 p.m. June 2, Avalon Theatre, Easton and June 3, Epworth United Methodist Church, Rehoboth Beach, followed by a post-performance fundraiser at Iron Hill Brewery & Restaurant ($125 including the $35 concert admission, proof of COVID vaccination required; midatlanticsymphony.org or 888-846-8600).
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A Broadway touring favorite and one from Off-Broadway will play back-to-back at Baltimore’s Hippodrome Theatre. “Golden Girls Live,” a drag parody of the TV sitcom oldie that starred the late Betty White (as Rose), Bea Arthur (Dorothy), Rue McClanahan (Blanche) and Estelle Getty (Sophia), runs for three nights and one matinee June 9-11 at 7:30 and June 12 at 2 p.m. It’s followed by the musical “Hairspray,” inspired by the film of the same title by Baltimore’s legendary director John Waters, who once called the Broadway hit “the most subversive” credit of his career.
“People who don’t know my other work but saw the Broadway show will see a midnight John Waters movie on cable, like ‘Pink Flamingos,’ and say, ‘Oh, that must be cute!’ ” With its uplifting message of inclusion and an ode to the old “Buddy Deane Show” on Baltimore weekday TV, “Hairspray” plays at 8 p.m. June 14-18, and June 19 at 1 and 6:30 p.m. (“Golden Girls: $37.45-$91.25. “Hairspray”: $48-$207, baltimore.broadway.com/shows, 800-343-3103, Hippodrome Theatre, 12 N. Eutaw St.)
Steve Parks is a retired New York critic and arts writer now living in Easton.
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