Janet Fanto is an artist who is a collector of wonderful things as well as a former antique dealer.

The antique dealer part is important because that business gave her access to many pieces of her collection – pieces that were given new lives in her mixed media art in addition to pieces used to create her fascinating home.

Fanto first came to the Eastern Shore after a show in D.C. to visit with a friend.  What she remembers about that night is, “The ducks were noisy!” And that was her introduction to the mid-shore.

Between 1995 and 2008, Fanto had an antique shop in Easton as well as selling on the road.  With the economic downturn, she closed up shop but continued selling her antiques on the road in places like Texas, Chicago, Nashville, Miami, and Jacksonville.  Then gas prices went up, and prices for antiques went down, so she left the road and settled into her Cambridge home, bringing much of her collection with her.

Fanto’s art journey is engrossing!  Prior to attending the California College of Arts and Crafts (CCAC), majoring in ceramics, where she didn’t finish her degree, she spent a year in Vienna, Austria. Next, she wound up in Mexico for six years because she wanted to do independent study, still under the auspices of CCAC.  During her time there, she exhibited her detailed pencil drawings in Mexico City.  Then there was a stint at a Manhattan, New York, gallery doing drawing restorations, after which she was off again, this time to London and then back to Vienna to study painting at the Academy for Art.  At the time, the Academy was free for anyone.  She stayed in Austria for about 6 years.

At the Academy for Art, Fanto studied oil painting, taking all her classes in German, “The only class I needed help with was physics.”  The degree she obtained from the Academy is equivalent to a Master of Arts in U.S. schools.

Drawn back to Manhattan by her cousin, a major influence in her life, Fanto was introduced to antiquing.  Here she learned the art of selling on the road with no shop as home base, which later stood her in good stead as noted above..

Now in Cambridge, Fanto had her own studio above Joy Staniforth’s Joie de Vivre gallery for a while. “When I went to my studio, I could sit and work for hours at a time.  This period was conducive to my discovering my inclination toward mixed media.”

The day we spoke, Fanto was wearing one of her own creations,  a necklace with a pipe tobacco tamp, a wax seal that dated between 1800 and 1820 with two beehives on it, and a dog whistle.  “I take things where I find them, “she says, “including in the woods. “

Fanto’s home is like walking into a museum.  The walls are crowded floor to ceiling, in an array fit for any decorator magazine, with the art of all media.  Because of her own proclivity for detailed pencil drawings, her collection includes Paul Antragne, a French artist who lived in Mexico, as well as framed originals of her own very detailed pencil work.  Her taste is eclectic, running from outsider art to traditional art.

After the walls come the stationery mixed media pieces that line her many bookshelves, cabinets, and corners. As eclectic as her necklace, these assemblages pull together feathers, sometimes nestled into crystal holders, seashells and seaweed, small skulls, diminutive antique figurines, and rocks from crystal to turquoise.  There are interesting twisted branches set in Mexican pueblo-type pottery and underwater scenes under glass domes.  Four-foot dried seedpods sit in a wicker basket complemented by an old stool with decorative metal twists.  Scattered everywhere are more seashells, barnacles, and rocks of every sort, complimented by even more statues, and all of this lives with other antiques that she has kept to live with.

The only time Fanto shows her work is during The Dorchester Art Center’s members show and annual show “to thank members for their support and to showcase their best original work,” usually in June. In 2023, artists could enter up to four pieces of their work.

At the 2023 Members show, among several other mixed media pieces, Fanto showed a work made from the frame of an old clock with the guts removed.  An antique, the back shows what Fanto identifies as oriental markings.  The inside gathers together her repeating motifs of stone and shell, feather, and figurine.  Back home again, the piece sits next to a work that looks like a miniature Roman temple, topped with crystals.

All of the above is showcased in just the living area, with much, much more to be found in the rest of the rooms on the first floor.

Surrounded by 25-year-old trees and plantings, Fanto’s house, including the interior, is a work of art itself. She has used a life’s passion to create a serene, vibrant, and welcoming home that displays at every glance her artist’s eye.

Tammy Vitale has spent many years of her life regularly visiting the Eastern Shore and moved to Cambridge in 2023. An artist herself, she has fallen in love with all the facets of art available in Cambridge/Dorchester County and wants the rest of the world to get to know and love the arts and artists of this area as much as she does.  

There’s no need to sit at home and be bored on these long winter nights.  There’s always something going on that’s fun and free in Cambridge where you can hear music, meet new friends, and learn new things!

The Cambridge Library kicked off its new Open Mic/Spoken Work events February 2.  Caroline Rodriguez, who works in the information department at the library, is shepherding this event as it was her idea.  “I wanted to offer a space that is free in an open and safe environment,” she said.

The library has not offered anything like this before, and Rodriguez is open to suggestions as to how it might best go forward.  In addition to spoken word, she invites readings of prose and poetry, a reading of your favorite poem(s) by someone else and even acoustic singer/songwriters.  The event is for ages 13 and up.

Like most open mic events, this one offers a sign-up sheet as you come in the door.  Time allotted is based on how many folks show up.  Fewer people mean more time, and while this first one originally allowed 3 minutes per presenter, Rodriguez was very open to the suggestion that future events give at least 5 minutes of reading/performance time per person.

Rodriguez got interested in slam poetry in high school, and believes “it is a confidence builder in a written-word performative way. Young people may not be aware of or think of their writing as poetry, but many types of music are poetry,” so she hopes to broaden the traditional definition of the way the culture thinks of poetry.  “Poetry and written word are for everyone.  The ability to write is very powerful and gives voice to the human spirit,” she says.

John McDonald read first from his novel-in-process.  He writes science fiction, fantasy and horror – both novel length and novellas.  He heard about the reading at Open Mic at the Overflow Café, a regular spot for “mostly music, I’m the only one who reads.”

Situated on the corner of Muir and Academy Streets in Cambridge, the Overflow Café offers open mic in a building beside the café set up for gatherings.  On first and third Friday evenings, that space is alive with local musicians (and at least one writer).  If you’ve never visited the Cafe, then you are missing a truly great cup of coffee for under $2.00, as well as home made soups.  The Café is a great spot to sip your coffee, read, write, or visit with the locals who are regulars and always ready for friendly conversation.

McDonald, who shares his work on an app called “Wattpad,” using the name “Arkham71,” also illustrates his work using computer generated sketches, but did not bring any with him.  His reading was an intriguing start to a science fiction novel set on a human-colonized planet, titled, “Her Brother’s Keeper.”

Bill Epps, who works at the library, and whose poem on Harriet Tubman is enlarged to poster size and hung by the circulation desk, read two of his poems.   He is still working on both and didn’t want to share the draft forms, but the titles are “Nature Attraction” about our connections with nature, and “Wilding Out” about juvenile delinquency.

Rodriguez read two poems from Nikita Gill’s “Where Hope Comes From:  Poems of Resilience and Light,” and one from Courtney Peppernell’s “Watering the Soul.”

The next Poetry Slam has not yet been scheduled.  Rodriguez says they thought about making it quarterly but input from the audience that more often and perhaps on a weekend, allowing greater participation, was noted.

Another free open mic is the regular Tuesday open mic at The Dorchester Center for the Arts (DCA), the center for arts programming for all of Dorchester County.  A traditional first sign-in first up list organizes the night which is overseen by a different host each week.  This is an event regularly attended by many around Cambridge and is a great way to meet others who share your love of music.  Music genres move from blues to bluegrass and there are quite a few singer/songwriters to enjoy.  There is even a ukelele group that performs from time to time.  That group, which practices at DCA on Thursdays, is open to all, and happily a practice ukelele if you wish to pursue the skill – again, free of charge.

Open Dance is a new idea and also a free weekly event on Thursday evenings beginning at 6pm at DCA, started by lover-of-all-kinds-of-dance, Cambridge resident, Binny Olsen.  She brought the idea of modeling a dance evening on the music open night events – different hosts, a section where the host teaches, and then everyone on the floor to a variety of music – to DCA, which provides their upstairs space.  Attendees arrive ready to have fun and no partner is required – if an enjoyable evening of moving to a groove is your thing, don’t miss this.  Beer and wine and snacks are available for purchase.

Finally another new “open” event is the Open Art Studio at DCA, “Winter Wednesdays,” an open art studio.

Participants can create their own art in a comfortable  environment with guidance from an Artist and live music.  Subject and media for the art are up to the individual, and chalk and acrylic paint and canvas for art are provided free of charge!  All ages are welcome but youth under 16 must be accompanied by a parent or guardian.  Repeating to make sure you get it:  all supplies are offered free of charge!  The current schedule is February 14, 21 and 28 from 6 to 8 pm.

Mark your calendars!  Come experience all the ways the Arts Are Alive in Cambridge, MD!

Tammy Vitale. an artist herself, has fallen in love with all the facets of art available in Cambridge/Dorchester County, and wants the rest of the world to get to know and love the arts and artists of this area as much as she does. Dorchester artists of all kinds and art venues are invited to contact her [email protected], subject line “Arts.”  See more events posted on https://www.facebook.com/ArtsAliveCambridgeMd/

 

Born to a military family in Italy, Ceshini Simmons arrived in Cambridge with her mother and siblings at the age of 13 by way of Pennsylvania, South Carolina, then Federalsburg, and Hurlock here in Maryland.  

Her interest in music began around the age of 12 when she started writing songs. There was an organ in her church, The Greater Works Church in Cambridge, for which there was not enough space. Her mother had enough space, and the organ wound up in Simmons’ home, where Simmons started to teach herself to play to accompany her songs. She can’t remember where she found it, but she had a piece of cardboard that lined up with the piano keys, wrote the notes on the keys, and learned to read music a little, but mostly plays by ear. Simmons says, “My mother can attest that this was very painful – I was playing the organ piano style, and she was forever saying, ‘Turn it down!’”

As she began pursuing her art, Simmons’ main influences were church hymns that had always been part of her life. Her everyday access to these was through a hymnal her mother brought with the family from Pennsylvania, and her inclination was toward the traditional, like “Rock of Ages,” “I’ll Fly Away,” and “Every Bridge.” In addition, Simmons reads a lot, and the film, “Bright Star,” about the poet John Keats, has also influenced her poetic inclination when writing. More recently, she has been enjoying “The Sun and Her Flowers” by poet Rupi Kaur, and we share a recent discovery of poet Trev Cimenski on Instagram. 

Simmons is very self-directed. To find open mics, she turned to Google, where she discovered places in Chestertown, Rock Hall, and closer to home in Cambridge at the Dorchester Center for the Arts. Her first time out was this year, 2023, at the Garfield Center for the Arts at the Prince Theater. She remembers the exact date, May 31, because it was also her birthday. She says that she took the fact it was on her birthday “as my sign to do that open mic.”

Open mic participants, says Simmons, are “very friendly, kind, open and accepting. There is no harsh judgment; rather, you and your songs are received as you are. It’s so much fun!” She has played as far away as Big Bear Café in N.W. Washington D.C., but says the Dorchester Center for the Arts is one of her favorite places because it is so close to home – “I don’t have to drive an hour and a half each way.” They have been very supportive of her and brought her in for a one-hour performance on December 9 for the town’s Second Saturday art walk, where she was well received by a good-sized audience for the evening.

Simmons’ process usually comes from the thought, “I’m just going to sit down and practice the piano.” But sometimes, that moves directly into songwriting. For instance, in the song in the video “Laid Hope Down,” Simmons says, “I hit a note, and thought, hmm, and then started right into the first verse:

“My heart’s been broken
in a thousand tiny pieces
Lost in the rubble of rights and wrongs
Waiting for answers that I know will never come
Searching for the hope that I let go of.”

At the time, she was going through a rough spot in her life, and she found herself “bawling my eyes out” as she wrote the words, singing them to herself.  

The words seemed so personal – it was like sharing a piece of me and kind of scary. I wondered if it would mean anything to anyone else and then realized it is transparency by the artist that draws people in. To me, the song is such a prayer, and I knew I wanted to share it. It is my most favorite of all my songs because I find it so hopeful.

She honors her work and is very organized, keeping all of her songs in plastic sleeves in a binder, including notes on the song itself, such as the key it’s played in, how long it takes to play, and some notes for banter about the song.

Simmons defines herself as an introvert, someone who is happy to chat with people she doesn’t know but, in the past, wasn’t one to start a conversation. She is more comfortable in her room, writing for herself, but she realized that even though going out in public would take her well out of her comfort zone, she needed to do that for her art. 

“My people skills have grown, and the way I view the world has grown – there are so many people who can relate to me, and I to them – we are alike in more ways than not. The world is so much larger to me now, and I realize how much we all need each other.”

Asked about what she would recommend to other singer-songwriters just starting out, Simmons lists giving herself permission to be creative as the first step.  

“A lot of us artists don’t allow ourselves to really create. We box ourselves in by fear of rejection, by fear of really being seen, by fear of failure. I say, let go and give yourself permission to create. And permission to fail because all failure is a stepping stone to what is next in your creative journey.”  

Simmons notes that not everyone will like what you do, but someone needs what you have to offer, so you have to go out and give them an opportunity to find you.

The next open mic at The Dorchester Center for the Arts is Tuesday, December 19, at 6 pm.

Tammy Vitale, an artist herself, has fallen in love with all the facets of art available in Cambridge and wants the rest of the world to get to know and love the arts and artists of this area as much as she does. If you are from Cambridge/Dorchester and want to showcase your art (broadly defined), contact [email protected], subject line: art.

 

Theresa Knight McFadden’s life as an artist is a great guide for making art while making a living, something many artists aspire to.  She is also an example of how getting to that doesn’t have to take a straight path.

Knight McFadden notes that from the time she was tiny, she was pulled to make things.  The Catholic schools she attended growing up did not offer much in the way of arts training and by high school “I had lost my confidence in my ability to make art,” so she turned to her second favorite subject, English.  When she found no art being offered at George Mason University in Virginia, she decided to focus on writing.

For ten years, freelance writing, and eventually writing for National Geographic World (the children’s magazine of National Geographic) let her follow her creativity after marriage during college and one child by the time she graduated. Yet she still yearned to make art.

To that end, she enrolled in art classes at Northern Virginia Community College (NOVA), the local community college and realized, “This is what I really want.”   After she had earned her associate in arts degree, her teacher, Michael Platt, asked her when she was going to graduate school in art. Until that point, Knight McFadden had assumed that one needed an undergraduate degree in art to continue to an arts degree at the graduate level, but Platt told her to assemble a portfolio and that he would write a letter of support for her, and that was how she found herself accepted to the University of Maryland’s MFA program. 

At UMd, McFadden Knight found that “going to graduate school in art was like being in a fantasy world because everyone around you had arts as their number one interest and priority which was very freeing for me. Their program encouraged you to follow your own path and discover your own artistic voice.” 

After earning her MFA degree, she returned to NOVA to teach, and continued her artistic pursuits alongside her teaching duties.  

Knight McFadden painted large pieces, and entered one such piece, “A New Way to Fly”, measuring about 83” tall x 59” wide, and shaped like a “T” in the NOVA faculty arts show.  Prior to the faculty show, the piece had been shown in Richmond VA and had been praised by the Washington Post as “bold and sassy.” 

The piece shows a nude woman floating in air down into a town, her figure Rubenesque, voluptuous, arms gone like a Greek statue.  “She was not portrayed as beautiful, and was meant as a tribute to female empowerment.”  The piece was hung in the foyer in such a way that it faced the heavily traveled Route 7 corridor to the campus in Loudoun County, VA.  Some people found the painting controversial from the start and gathered petition signatures for its removal.  

The Provost, Neil Reynolds, upon receiving the petition, suggested that Knight McFadden offer to give a talk on the painting.  While she declined, feeling no need to defend herself by giving an individual talk, she did agree to join the other faulty artists in presenting talks about their work as a group.  

In a November 12, 1994 issue, Post writers, Rajiv Ch and rasekarn covered the controversy:

Since it was put up a week ago, the painting has been the foremost topic of conversation on the 4,000-student campus near Sterling. Some classes have spent entire 60-minute periods debating the work’s merits. And more than 60 students crowded into the foyer for a discussion with McFadden and top college officials Thursday afternoon.

Provost Neil Reynolds said he told students at the meeting that removing the painting would be a blow to freedom of expression. “Is it illegal? Is it obscene? Is it vulgar? No, it isn’t,” Reynolds said yesterday. “Do some people not like it? Yes. But that’s no reason for us to take it down.”

Beverly Blois, chairman of the college’s humanities division said, “It’s been the liveliest and most spirited discussion of anything related to academics we’ve had in a long time.” And the painting remains to this day at the Loudoun campus, bought from Knight McFadden and donated to the campus’s permanent collection by Blois.

Knight McFadden eventually took on teaching ceramics at the Annandale campus of NOVA and remained there for 23 years.  While her degree was in painting, she notes, “the best way to learn an art is to teach it.”  She retains the title Professor Emeritus for her work there.

Her love of the figurative remains in her ceramic work.  Her process begins with sketches, “letting my mind wander, getting to that ‘twilight’ space you sometimes get going to sleep or upon waking, where images reveal themselves.  Sometimes I know where I’m going and sometimes I don’t.  Then I rely on my intuition and following the impulse.”

Knight McFadden and her family came to Cambridge as the second deepest port (the first is Baltimore) on the Chesapeake Bay, perfect for sailing.  She notes the town was somewhat blighted when they first came in the 2000s but “it is getting better.  What struck us was the wonderful people – we have more friends in Cambridge than anywhere else.”

She joined Main Street Gallery (MSG), the local arts co-op in 2011. “We have fun here. I’ve always liked the art better here, too, funkier and less traditional than much Eastern Shore art.  As an artist and member of Main Street Gallery, I am very interested in the health of our downtown arts scene. “ To that end, Knight McFadden recently volunteered for and was appointed to the renewed Arts and Entertainment Committee of Cambridge, and says, “I hope I can lend whatever insight and expertise I have To the Arts and Entertainment Committee to help build a bigger and even better arts’ scene in Cambridge.”

Tammy Vitale has spent many years of her life regularly visiting the Eastern Shore, and moved to Cambridge in early 2023. An artist herself, she has fallen in love with all the facets of art available in Cambridge/Dorchester County, and wants the rest of the world to get to know and love the arts and artists of this area as much as she does. Cambridge practioners of the arts are invited to contact her [email protected], subject line “Arts.”

 

Joy Staniforth is a “Guardian Angel” of the arts in Cambridge. Not only does she have decades of growing the arts around Cambridge, she also continues to add to the arts through her ukulele group and through the offerings of her eclectic art interests.

Staniforth came to Cambridge as executive director at the Pauline F. and W. David Robbins Family YMCA in Cambridge. When she retired from there, she looked forward to spending more time with her husband, but she used to be very active and on the go, she says, “I got bored. 

“Wanting to keep some flexibility with her time commitments, she decided to open an art gallery, Joie de Vivre, in Cambridge in 2000. Her thought was that, even though Cambridge had few takers for empty storefronts, the arts could and would bring a new vibrancy to the town. When Adelaide (Addie) Eckardt, a state representative for Cambridge, approached her around 2002 to take on the considerable task of submitting Cambridge for an Art and Entertainment designation, Staniforth was happy to take it on, and, with the help of Heather Rosato, in 2003, Cambridge won its designation. 

According to their website, “The goal of the A&E Districts program is to develop, promote, and support diverse artistic and cultural centers in communities across Maryland that preserve a sense of place, provide unique local experiences, attract tourism, and spur economic revitalization and neighborhood pride.”

Staniforth notes, “I thought: five years and we’ll be really rolling.” While it did not happen in five years, in the 20 or so years following, Cambridge’s main street has indeed grown, especially in the arts and entertainment area. To name only a few businesses, in only a small, three-block area of the A&E district, one can find art at The Dorchester Center for the Arts, the Main Street (Co-op) Gallery, and 3Ten Creative Design & Gift Gallery.

There is RAR Brewing and their newest eatery, The Dive Club – an immersion experience of “nautical escapism and delectable food and drink: shareable plates and classic tiki cocktails,” Vintage 414, a wine/beer/specialty foods retail space and bar, and Black Water Bakery, past years’ winner of Best Bakery on the Eastern Shore and a gathering place for breakfast and lunch. Thomas’s Fine Jewelry offers sterling silver and gold handcrafted and inspired by Shore life [Thomas’s has restored, repaired, and reset at least 4 of this writer’s own rings and bracelets], Choptank Tattoo who did a beautiful script on this writer’s arm to commemorate her late husband, and The Harriet Tubman Museum and Educational Center.

The closing of Joie de Vivre in 2015 was not the end of Staniforth’s engagement with the arts community in Cambridge.

Not one to sit too still for too long, Staniforth took up the ukulele. Her training is in classical mandolin, and she played with the Baltimore Mandolin Orchestra for many years. When traveling to Baltimore every week, requiring an overnight stay, and making it back to Cambridge in time to open her Gallery the next day became too arduous, Staniforth continued to practice by herself. Then a friend, Tom Keating, made her a ukulele from a cigar box, and Stanforth went to Mike Elzey’s music studio to learn how to play, where she was told if she really wanted to learn how to play, she needed a real ukulele. Staniforth bought a real ukelele and began taking lessons from Glen Wong, Honolulu native, ukelele master and local Cambridge teacher.

Missing the company of other musicians, Staniforth started the Cambridge Ukulele Group, which meets every Thursday at Dorchester Center for the Arts from 4 to 6 pm. “The purpose of the group is to have fun,” says Staniforth. “Everyone is welcome, no experience is necessary. Learn five chords and you know all you need to participate, and we have extra ukes to lend out for a few weeks of getting acquainted with the instrument.” An extra added attraction is that Wong comes to help newcomers and experienced players alike.

Staniforth notes that playing the ukulele is very different from the mandolin. “The strings are different, the ukulele tends toward pop music while the mandolin is classical, and you play reading ‘tabs’ as opposed to musical notation.” Her current musical quest is to teach herself to play the ukulele in a classical fashion. She is a fan of YouTube for teaching herself anything that catches her fancy and she says “I gather my IPAD and phone and watch YouTube and take pictures of the tabs to help myself understand and make the transition .” 

This is not as far-fetched as it may sound to some. For instance, “On Tuesday 18th August 2009, with every seat and all standing room occupied, the Ukulele Orchestra of Great Britain played to a sold-out Royal Albert Hall in London, with over 6000 audience members, and well over 1000 of them bringing ukuleles to join in with Beethoven’s “Ode to Joy”. “

And Staniforth’s interests don’t stop there. She creates beautiful quilling pieces, looping and rolling pieces of narrow paper into decorative designs and tumbles rocks she finds or that are given to her into shiny stones that she wraps with metal and makes into focal pieces to use with her viking knit necklaces. This is a chain-making technique using a rod and fine wire – not actually knitting but it looks like it when finished. The name comes from chains found in Viking digs in Scandinavia that were made from coins melted into fine wire. Today’s “knitters” use craft wire.

You can find Staniforth’s work in the retail shop in the front of the Dorchester Center for the Arts, 321 High Street in Cambridge, Md.

Tammy Vitale has spent many years of her life regularly visiting the Eastern Shore and moved to Cambridge in early 2023. An artist herself, she has fallen in love with all the facets of art available in Cambridge/Dorchester County and wants the rest of the world to get to know and love the arts and artists of this area as much as she does.