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July 7, 2022

Cambridge Spy

The nonprofit e-newspaper for the Cambridge Community

Arts Arts Notes

Two Easton Artists Exhibit in First of Its Kind Show in San Francisco Area

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Women artists across the US have enjoyed increasing chances to collaborate even though they may be separated geographically. The internet has allowed them to communicate with other artists around the world, and the explosion of workshops for the Boomer Generation has been another factor in forging friendships.

Sandra Day O’Connor by Nancy Tankersley

Easton artist Nancy Tankersley met Caroline Orrick, a San Francisco Bay artist, while teaching a workshop in France and through Orrick was invited to participate in this exhibit. Barnett knew Anne Garden, the organizer, from having had a studio in the same building when she did a Sabbatical in the Bay Area. Through Garden, she was invited to participate.

Tankersley and Barnett both have live/work spaces in Talbot County, and both are primarily portrait painters, observers of human gestures and interactions. They each majored in sociology in college and share a keen interest in community and activism.

Tankersley, a contemporary impressionist, branched off into landscapes through her participation in the plein air movement while maintaining her interest in figures. Barnett, a classical realist, branched off from painting portraits primarily of people to painting all members of the family, including their four-legged companions.

Both artists were allowed to express the subject, a portrait of an influential American woman, in any way they wanted, as long as it had a square format. They crafted the portraits in their own signature styles, using the background for personal expression.
Tankersley, imagining that Justice O’Connor might be looking askance at what recent years have done to our judicial system, has painted the scales of justice and the flag upside down.

Barnett, imagining our current Secretary of the Treasury Janet Yellen as a coin face icon, replaced the words “in God We Trust” with “in Janet We Trust”. Her goal was to stress that powerful leaders can rise to the top using collaborative, consensus-building style, warmth and humility. And build bi-partisan support in the process.

Exhibit organizer Anne Garden says: “Barrie’s portrait of Janet Yellen done in one of her signature pastel stylings with a touch of humor in the composition, shows the powerful yet quiet personality of a woman whose guidance of our US treasury has inspired awe in us all. Nancy’s portrait of Sandra Day O’Connor, our first female Supreme Court Justice , shows a woman of intelligence and understanding painted in a loose self-assured style using a bold palette.”

”I am thrilled that I was able to get two very accomplished female artists from the eastern seaboard area of the U.S. to volunteer their talents to this worthwhile show and cause. We thank you for creating these pieces for a show that is meant to educate all of us, and honor the legacies of all these women who have contributed to our progress in America.”

 

Women Make an Impact in the 2022 Chesapeake Film Festival

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Pamela Green

Women of Impact is the dominant theme of the 2022 Chesapeake Film Festival in honor of women who make films and women about whom films are made.  The CFF hybrid festival is LIVE September 30 through October 2 in Easton, MD, and VIRTUAL October 3 through 9 for FREE for audiences around the world.

“Women have been making great films since the advent of the movie camera in the late 1800s. We proudly include their achievements, past and present, in our 2022 Festival,” said CFF Festival Director Cid Collins Walker.

The Untold Story of Alice Guy-Blache, by filmmaker Pamela Green (6:30 p.m. Saturday, October 1 at the Avalon Theatre) tells the story of the first female director.  From 1896 to 1906, Guy- Blaché, was likely the only female filmmaker in the world.

“I was first moved to begin production on this film,” Green said in an interview in Women in Hollywood, “as I was watching AMC and discovered a show called ‘Reel Models’ about pioneering women in cinema, including Alice Guy-Blaché, and I was surprised that I had never heard of her. I asked several people and I realized that they too had never heard of her. I just kept asking, ‘How could such an important figure in the birth of cinema be unknown?’ It became clear I had to tell her story.”

Until The Untold Story, Green specialized in title sequences for films, creating more than 100 title sequences for major Hollywood Studios. Inspired by the Guy- Blaché, story, she continues to focus on telling inspiring stories that bring overlooked figures to the forefront via film, television and audio.

Sandy Cannon-Brown

The Chesapeake Film Festival, now in its 15th year, prioritizes films that focus on the environment and social justice. This year, films that address those issues are the heart of the LIVE Festival and prevalent in the VIRTUAL Festival. Many of them were produced and directed by women.

A documentary short co-directed by CFF VP Sandy Cannon-Brown and photographer Dave Harp launches the 2022 LIVE Festival.  Search for the Cooper River (6:30 p.m. Friday, September 30 at the Avalon Theatre) follows area youth as they kayak, hike, and hack their way through overgrowth along the neglected Cooper River that runs through Camden, NJ.

Cannon-Brown’s award-winning work as an environmental filmmaker has taken her around the world, but most of her recent work focuses on issues facing the Chesapeake Bay.  Films by Cannon-Brown, Harp, and writer Tom Horton address climate change, erosion, rising seas, shellfish management, and struggling communities including Smith Island and San Domingo, MD. Cannon-Brown and Harp also collaborated on A Voice for the Rivers, about the riverkeepers of ShoreRivers. All these films were featured in the Chesapeake Film Festival, aired on MPT and other PBS stations, and screened at discussed at multiple festivals, including the Environmental Film Festival in the Nation’s Capital.

The second film of the LIVE Festival, Upstream/DownRiver (7:00 p.m., Friday, September 30 at the Avalon Theatre) was produced and directed by Maggie Burnette Stogner, a professor and executive director for the Center for Environmental Filmmaking at American University.  The film recognizes the 50th anniversary of the Clean Water Act with a discouraging assessment of progress. Nearly half of U.S. Streams, rivers and lakes are so polluted that they are no longer safe for fishing, swimming, or aquatic life.

Burnette Stogner produced, directed and wrote numerous documentaries for National Geographic, where she was senior producer of the award-winning series EXPLORER. In 2005, she launched the independent media company Blue Bear Films. She has created numerous documentaries and outreach campaigns that inspire and inform, including In the Executioner’s Shadow, which was screened and discussed at CFF 2018, and Unbreathable – the Fight for Healthy Air, which was awarded Best Environmental Feature in CFF’s VIRTUAL Festival in 2020.

A film from France is one of the most stunning environmental films in the VIRTUAL Festival. Mediterranean: Life Under Siege, co-directed by Fabienne Berthaud and Fred Fougea, reveals the wonders of an astonishingly rich yet very fragile living world. At sea, on land and in the air, it is a fascinating journey through the world of animals and plants that survive in the Mediterranean despite the growing impact of human activity.

Co-director Berthaud is a French writer, actress, screenwriter and director, winner of the Prix Françoise-Sagan. In 2005, she directed her first feature film with Diane Kruger. In 2010, she directed Pieds nus sur les limaces, based on her own novel. In 2019, she directed Un monde Plus Grand, a feature film about Mongolian shamanism.

Before the current war in Ukraine, Russia was conducting bizarre irrigation experiments in Southern Ukraine that devastated farming and fishing. Return Sasyk to the Sea, by Andrea Odeznyska, reveals this eco-disaster.

Regardless of genre, Odeznska’s films have celebrated ordinary women doing something hard and succeeding. In 2018-2019, she won a U.S. Fulbright Scholar grant to research and film Return Sasyk To The Sea. Past grants include NEA The National Endowment for the Arts, NYSCA The New York State Council on the Arts, and the Robert Wise Foundation. In 2016, Odeznska wrote a feature-length narrative comedy, Greenpoint.  She holds an MFA in Directing from AFI, and a BA in Theater from Bennington College, Bennington, VT.

Among the films addressing social issues in the 2022 Chesapeake Film Festival is Resisterhood (VIRTUAL Festival, October 3-9), by Cheryl Jacobs (CJ) Crim. Beginning at the 2017 Women’s March in Washington, DC, the film follows six diverse Americans as they fight for social justice on the streets and in the halls of power.  Over the course of two years, we watch as they work to protect our rights and inspire others to join this peaceful and historic movement. Resisterhood was produced, directed, filmed, and edited by women.

Resisterhood is her first feature film, but Crim has been producing, directing and editing award-winning specials for more than 30 years. She produced for WCPO-TV in Cincinnati and New Jersey Public Television. She directed the first national series dedicated to women’s sports for ESPN. While living in Liverpool, England, she produced throughout Europe. Now in Maryland, her passion is creating films that make a difference. Her many awards include 12 Regional Emmy Awards for outstanding documentary and entertainment programs, including two awards for individual achievement in directing and editing.

For more information about the 2022 Hybrid Chesapeake Film Festival visit chesapeakefilmfestival.com or contact Nancy Tabor, Executive Director at 443-955-9144.

The Garfield Center’s Auditions for Neil Simon’s The Good Doctor Set for July 12, 14 and 16

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The Garfield Center for the Arts has announced audition dates for their upcoming production of the Neil Simon comedy The Good Doctor. Auditions are set for Tuesday and Thursday, July 12th and14th, both starting at 5:30 PM, and Saturday, July 16th, starting at 1:30 PM. Auditions will consist of cold readings from the script. Needed are at least 2 female and 3 male actors, but flexible casting involving a larger cast size is likely. Familiarity with the script is helpful but not necessary,

The original production of Neil Simon’s The Good Doctor opened at the Eugene O’Neill Theatre on Broadway in 1973 and featured a stellar cast including Christopher Plummer, Marsha Mason, Frances Sternhagen, René Auberjonois, and Barnard Hughes. The play was a departure for Simon from his usual living room-style comedy. He set out to celebrate the irony and droll humor of Anton Chekhov’s work by encapsulating the style within short sketches tied together by a narrator suffering from writer’s block. In one sketch, a feisty old woman storms a bank and upbraids the manager for his gout and lack of money. In another, a crafty seducer goes to work on a wedded woman, only to realize that the woman has been in command from the first overture. And let us not forget the classic tale of a man who offers to drown himself for three rubles. The portraits are affectionate, the humor is infectious, and the play is a lot of fun for its actors and audience.

If anyone interested in auditioning has additional questions, please send an email to the Director, Bonnie Hill, at her email address at bonniehill@zimbracloud.com or to GCA Executive Director Steven Arnold at sarnold@garfieldcenter.org.

Delmarva Review: Fried Chicken, 1981 by Louise Robertson

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Author’s Note: “Fried Chicken, 1981” is a portrait of my mother when I was a child. I wanted to say her name the way her mother said her name. I wanted to capture the way she spoke and her mannerisms. I wanted to acknowledge her youthfulness in the context of aging. I wanted to point to the everyday experience of expressing love and care by making dinner. And of course, I wanted to write down how she made fried chicken.

Fried Chicken, 1981

Joanie props her elbows on the table cloth
then picks up a chicken leg-
and-thigh combo, dredges
it through egg and milk, through
breadcrumbs with flecks
of green and black, nestles it
in with the rest of the body. Later, Joanie
hunches over stove and frying pan,
before pushing the tray
into the oven for, oh,
35 minutes, and back to the table
with her elbows
pointer finger,
still unbent by time,
aimed to the ceiling
to mark her words,
and she looks out the window
where we will never build
an addition. This is the process
no one else seems to use
to get their chicken fried
and I know
other people’s recipes
are supposed to be good,
but hers is the greasiest cracked
pepper and salt
love I have ever tasted. 

♦

Louise Robertson serves as the marketing director for Writers’ Block Poetry Night in Columbus, Ohio. She counts among her publications, awards, and honors a jar of homemade pickles she received for running a workshop as well as a 2018 Pushcart Prize nomination (“Open: A Journal of Arts and Letters”) and a 2018 Best of the Net nomination (Flypaper). 

Delmarva Review publishes evocative poetry and prose selected annually from thousands of submissions regionally and nationally. Designed to encourage and present outstanding new writing, it is an independent, nonprofit literary publication. Financial support comes from tax-deductible contributions, sales, and a grant from the Talbot Arts Council with funds from the Maryland State Arts Council. Website: DelmarvaReview.org.

 

 

 

Fabulous Forgeries at Troika Gallery

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Boy Fishing, by Jennifer Heyd Wharton, after Winslow Homer, 1892, watercolor

Back by popular demand, “Fabulous Forgeries” opens July 8, 2022 at Troika Gallery. Judged by Dr. Dan Weiss, President, and CEO of The Metropolitan Museum of Art, NYC, the exhibit features select Troika Artists painting “copies” of their favorite Old Master.
Art lovers who visit Troika will have the opportunity to cast a vote for The People Choice Award. Award categories of Judges Choice, Most Believable, Most Creative and The Peoples Choice will result in a monetary prize. Dr. Weiss will judge the show on Saturday, July 9, 2022.

This entertaining and educational exhibit will run parallel to the Plein Air Easton Festival. It offers the opportunity to take in a unique show while appreciating the historical context and creativity of the masterworks. Photos of the original master paintings will hang next to the “forgery” as a reference.

Concurrent with The Fabulous Forgeries show, Raoul Middleman – A Life Well Painted is also on exhibit in the gallery through August 29, 2022.

Troika Gallery is constantly refreshing the gallery’s exhibition spaces and works by all of the Troika Artists are on view. Bronzes, oils, pastels, ceramics, porcelain, watercolors, pencil drawings, and commissioned portraits are a hallmark of Troika, which features The Finest of Fine Art.

Located at 9 South Harrison Street, Troika Gallery will be open the full week of the Plein Air Festival. Regular hours are Thurs, Fri, Sat and Mon. from 11 am to 6pm, and by appointment. Fabulous Forgeries runs through August 29, 2022. For more information, visit troikagallery.com.

 

Boy Fishing, by Jennifer Heyd Wharton, after Winslow Homer, 1892, watercolor

2022 Artist-in-Residence Jackie Milad

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Jackie Milad, Aqui Es, 2021, mixed-media collage and painting on cut canvas, courtesy of the artist.

The Academy Art Museum is pleased to announce its 2022 Artist-in-Residence Jackie Milad and her concurrent exhibition, Vestige, which runs from August 2 – November 13, 2022. On August 6, she will also teach a free Multi-Media Collage Workshop at AAM.

Jackie Milad: Vestige
August 2 – November 13, 2022
Opening reception: Friday, August 5, 5:30 pm

Baltimore-based artist Jackie Milad’s large-scale pieces, often featuring bright colors and bold lines on paper, canvas, and textiles, explore the complex relationship between the individual and the long arc of history and cultural heritage. The artist asks, “How are we shaped by narratives of belonging?” In the center of this exploration is the contrast between the short-lived human life and her physical impermanence and the grander symbolism elevating our existence: eyes, hearts, pyramids, and sarcophagi in Milad’s whimsical hand. In layer after layer of her exuberant work, Milad uses references to her identity as a Honduran-Egyptian-American woman. Each layer then becomes entry points into Milad’s retelling of human history.

Milad is the Museum’s 2022 Artist-in-Residence. As part of her residency this summer, she will spend time in Easton and create new work. “I grew up in Maryland and it’s part of my history. I look forward to learning about Easton and its history. The residency is a unique experience and opportunity to meet new people and for them to see my work. That exchange or engagement can be really beneficial and lead to some new ideas and new perspectives for my work.”

Jackie Milad is a multi-year recipient of the Individual Artist Grant from the Maryland State Arts Council. In 2019, she was named a Janet & Walter Sondheim Prize Finalist and a Robert W. Deutsch Foundation Ruby Grantee. Her work has been featured in group and solo exhibitions at museums including The Walters Art Museum (Baltimore, MD), The Baltimore Museum of Art (Baltimore, MD), and the Arthur Ross Gallery University of Pennsylvania (Philadelphia, PA), among others. Milad received her BFA from the School of the Museum of Fine Arts at Tufts, and her MFA from Towson University.

Jackie Milad, fuc it, 2021, mixed media canvas collage of older works, courtesy of the artist.

Multi-Media Collage Workshop with 2022 Artist-in-Residence Jackie Milad
Saturday, August 6 from 10 am to 2:30 pm
Tuesday, August 9 evening

In this free workshop, Milad will guide participants through multi-media collage techniques. Sourcing collage materials from new and repurposed paper, objects, textiles, and the participants’ own artwork, artists will embark on an archeology of their own work to create fun, intriguing and layered collage pieces. Milad will guide participants through transferring, layering and mounting techniques and address the conceptual underpinnings of collage work during the first session of the critique on Saturday, August 6 from 10 am to 2:30 pm. Participants will reconvene in the evening on Tuesday, August 9 to revisit the participants’ finished work and celebrate the workshop.

The workshop is free but space is limited and reservations are required. Some materials are provided; however, participants are expected to bring some of their own artwork and/or found materials they would like to include in their collage.

About the Academy Art Museum Artist-in-Residence Program

AAM’s Artist-in-Residence program began in 2017 with New York based artist Emily Lombardo. Each residency consists of a solo exhibition of the artist’s work and an artist-taught workshop. Since then, the Museum has hosted Philadelphia-based artist Amze Emmons in 2019 and Baltimore artist Antonio McAfee in 2020. The Artist-in-Residence Program and exhibitions are generously supported by Mary Ann Schindler.

About the Academy Art Museum

As the premier art museum on the Eastern Shore of Maryland, the Academy Art Museum presents high-quality exhibitions and a full range of art classes for visitors of all ages. Past exhibitions have featured artists such as James Turrell, Robert Rauschenberg, Mark Rothko, Pat Steir and Richard Diebenkorn. The permanent collection focuses on works on paper by American and European artists from four centuries including recent acquisitions by Graciela Iturbide and Zanele Muholi. Arts educational programs range from life drawing lessons to digital art instruction, and include lunchtime and cocktail hour concerts, lectures and special art events, as well as a Fall Craft Show. AAM also provides arts education to public and private school children from the region and is accredited by the American Alliance of Museums.

Location: 106 South Street, Easton, Maryland
Summer Hours: Tuesday-Wednesday 10:00 am to 4:00 pm, Thursday 10:00 am to 7:30 pm (free admission), Friday 10:00 am to 4:00 pm, Saturday 10:00 am to 6:00 pm, and Sunday, 10 am to 4 pm. Closed Mondays and Federal holidays.
Admission: $3, children under 12 free, AAM members free.

The Artists’ Gallery Presents “Shore Delights” by Nancy R. Thomas

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Throughout the month of July, The Artists’ Gallery will feature new paintings by Nancy R. Thomas in “Shore Delights.”  According to the artist, “it was a joy to paint this past year as things opened up and plein air festivals were available to the public again.”  Thomas has participated in as many events as possible along the Eastern Seaboard, stating “she never tires of painting the local scenery, there is just so much beauty to behold, it is a sheer delight.”

Nancy came to the Eastern Shore in 1994 from Alexandria, VA., where she had pursued dual careers of dancing and painting for over two decades.  Her painting classes were taken at The Torpedo Factory, The Corcoran School of Art,  A Project Study Tour of Italy and Northern Virginia Community College, where she earned an Associates Degree in Fine Art in 1990. Thomas is a signature member of the Baltimore Watercolor Society, a past member of The Washington Watercolor Association and a current member of Oil Painters of America.

“Afternoon Delight” 36X24 Oil by Nancy R. Thomas

Upon moving to the Eastern Shore, she juried into the Working Artists Forum, where she held the position of President for three years.  Nancy has co-chaired and juried into the Local Color Show, held each year in conjunction with Plein Air Easton, for 16 years.  She became a partner with The Artists’ Gallery in 2010 and juried into Plein Air Easton in 2018. One of her exhibition pieces was purchased by The Avalon Foundation for a permanent collection featuring agricultural scenes on the Eastern Shore.  Thomas finds the light of the Eastern Shore to be captivating and enjoys painting the waterways, dramatic skies, the farm fields and farmhouses on canvas en plein air. She paints with The Plein Air Painters of the Chesapeake Bay.

The public is invited to visit The Artists’ Gallery for the opening reception of “Shore Delights” on First Friday, July 1st from 5-8 p.m.  Light refreshments will be served along with a chance to meet the artist. The Artists’ Gallery is located at 239 High Street in Chestertown and is open Tuesday-Saturday from 10:00 a.m. to 5:00 p.m. and Sundays from 12:30 p.m. to 4:30 p.m.  For more information about the artist, please visit www.nancyrthomas.com or the gallery website at www.theartistsgalleryctown.com.

Studio B Art Gallery to Host a Plethora of Plein Air Easton Artists and Events

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This July, Studio B Art Gallery is honored to host a special Plein Air Workshop and exhibit featuring Master Jove Wang. The workshop and meet-and-greet exhibit opening will offer a rare opportunity to interact with the master painter right in downtown Easton. The activities are part of a variety of upcoming gallery events, sure to please art enthusiasts this summer.

The Plein Air Workshop with Master Jove Wang will be held in Easton and picturesque locations around Talbot County on July 11-15.  Jove will instruct the immersive, weeklong workshop during the same week that he will be recognized for his work as juror for Plein Air Easton 2022. The Plein Air Easton committee recently announced that Jove will be the judge of Plein Air Easton 2023.

European Fishing Village – Oil by Master Jove Wang

To celebrate the exclusive plein air workshop, Studio B Art Gallery will host an opening reception for the new exhibit “Masterstrokes: Visions of Jove Wang” on Friday, July 15. The showcase honors Jove’s latest works and guests will enjoy an Art Salon reception with the master painter in attendance from 5-8 p.m.

“Jove lives and works in California, but loves making the special trips to Talbot County to teach in our amazing small towns, rural fields, and beautiful waterfronts,” Studio B Art Gallery owner Betty Huang said. “Jove has played an important role in this year’s Plein Air Easton event and we look forward to our guests getting a chance to pick the brain of next year’s festival judge.”

There will be plenty more opportunities to enjoy art during annual Plein Air Easton Festival, held on July 15-24, and Studio B artists are right in the thick of the festivities.

Studio B Art Gallery is proud to represent award-winning artists that will be competing in Plein Air Easton once again. Stop by the gallery to see work by Hiu Lai Chong (past Plein Air Easton Grand Prize and Artists Choice award winner), Daniel Robbins (who won three awards during Plein Air Easton 2021), and Bernard Dellario (award-winning artists and Academy Art Museum instructor). There will be impromptu opportunities to meet with the gallery’s artists throughout the week of Plein Air Easton.

Betty Huang is the President of the Working Artists Forum (WAF). The group sponsors the juried and judged art exhibit “ Local Color” under the auspices of the annual Plein Air Easton Festival. “Local Color” sells original two dimensional art by artists of the Delmarva Peninsula and WAF members who have been juried into the show.  This year, 42 professional artists will be displaying their beautiful work in oil, watercolors, pastels, and graphite from July 20 through July 24 in the Fellowship Hall of Christ Church (111. S. Harrison Street Easton, MD).

Follow Studio B Art Gallery on Facebook and Instagram @StudioBArtGallery to learn about all these upcoming events with live updates and special announcements throughout July. The Master Jove Wang Plein Air Workshop requires advance registration with only a limited number of spaces available. Visit www.studiobartgallery.com to signup and reserve your space. Make your way to www.pleinaireaston.com to discover more about Plein Air Easton and plan your week of amazing art in charming Easton, MD.

Studio B Art Gallery is located at 7 B Goldsborough Street in historic downtown Easton, Maryland. The gallery represents nationally and internationally known painters Hiu Lai Chong, Bernard Dellario, Ken DeWaard, Betty Huang, Qiang Huang, Daniel Robbins, Master Jove Wang, and sculptor Rick Casali. Visit the gallery any time during open hours, browse online at www.studiobartgallery.com, or call 443-988-1818 to arrange a private viewing.

Delmarva Review: Criers by Joe Baumann

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Author’s Note: I spend a great deal of my writing wondering about and exploring masculinity; here, I wanted to look at the idea that “men don’t cry” and really twist that around to ask questions about the value of emoting.  As a queer writer, I’m also always trying to examine what it’s like to feel islanded outside of the world of heteronormativity, and when those two things came together, this story emerged.

Criers

EVERY DAY AT RECESS, SOMEONE MADE LARRY HELVIG CRY. We kept eyedroppers in our pencil cases, extracting them right before the bell rang if it was our turn to suck tears from the corners of his eyes or draw them up off his cheeks. Larry’s tears were magic. A single drop squeezed onto a worksheet made the answers appear, written in perfect black graphite. Spiking our parents’ wineglasses ceased their fighting. A tiny smear rubbed into the palms transformed a klutz into an expert free throw shooter or pitcher. Daubing Larry’s tears on a scrape dissipated the pain like a powerful analgesic. Larry, we all knew, would one day change the world. His tears would cure cancer, eradicate AIDS, probably create world peace. But while we had him, we would use his tears to pass science and get better at playing the oboe. 

Making Larry cry wasn’t difficult. Some people, especially the girls, tickled him, the ribs on his left side were particularly tender. Others smuggled Tabasco sauce in their lunch boxes and dabbed it on his sensitive tongue. Naomi Marcus had a knack for singing sad songs, and these made Larry bawl profusely; some of us subcontracted her to serenade him, for which we promised her a portion of the take. Others, like Willy Ziegfeld, used pain, pressing into the tender spot of Larry’s shoulder or giving him rabbit punches to the sternum. 

The great tragedy was that the only person his tears couldn’t help was Larry himself. For him, they were just saline and salt. They could give the rest of us exactly what we wanted but left him only hiccupping and red eyed. Larry was small, pale—rumor was he suffered scoliosis—and we all knew he was madly in love with Peter Frost, a tenth grader with bronze calves who played soccer and swam for a club team. We once sent Peter’s younger sister home with a vial of Larry’s tears, a massive dose that she slipped into one of Peter’s protein shakes. They made him run faster but did nothing to make him notice Larry. 

But we noticed Larry. We noticed that he smelled like stargazers and sweet alyssum, which his mother grew in a tiny greenhouse in their backyard. We noticed how hollowed out he looked after weekends with his father, who had left his mom for his secretary. We noticed everything but that which we should have, and when he didn’t show up for school on the last day of eighth grade, it took awhile for us to realize something was deeply wrong. When we learned what Larry had done to his eyes, we cried. But we sobbed not for what the world had lost or for Larry’s hungering pain but for what had slipped away, all our hopes and dreams leaking out of our eyes in tiny, hollow twinkles. We tried using our own tears, but all they did was sting, soaking our mouths in our own bitter taste. 

⧫

Joe Baumann’s fiction and essays have appeared in Phantom Drift, Passages North, Emerson Review, Another Chicago Magazine, Iron Horse Literary Review, Electric Literature, Electric Spec, On Spec, Barrelhouse, Zone 3, and many others.  He is the author of Ivory Children, published in 2013 by Red Bird Chapbooks.  He possesses a PhD in English from the University of Louisiana-Lafayette.  He was a 2019 Lambda Literary Fellow in Fiction.  His debut short story collection, Sing With Me at the Edge of Paradise, was the inaugural winner of the Iron Horse/Texas Tech University Press First Book Award, and his second story collection, The Plagues, will be released by Cornerstone Press in 2023.  His debut novel, I Know You’re Out There Somewhere, is forthcoming from Deep Hearts YA.  Website: joebaumann.wordpress.com.

Delmarva Review publishes evocative new fiction, nonfiction, and poetry selected annually from thousands of submissions locally and nationally. Designed to encourage outstanding writing, it is an independent, nonprofit literary publication. Financial support comes from tax-deductible contributions, sales, and a grant from the Talbot Arts Council with funds from the Maryland State Arts Council. Website: DelmarvaReview.org.

Spy Diary: The Arts at Home and Away by Steve Parks

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Royalty has come to the Nation’s Capital just in time for Independence Day. King Tut makes his first visit to the United States in 25 years with what is described as a “cinematic immersive” Smithsonian exhibition. But what’s a quarter-century in the short life and 3,300-year afterlife of the legendary child pharaoh? Beyond King Tut: An Immersive Experience celebrates the centennial anniversary of the discovery of Tutankhamun’s tomb in Egypt’s fabled Valley of the Kings. 

Instead of the don’t-touch artifacts in standard museum displays of mummy paraphernalia, this National Geographic show deploys replicas and high-definition projections to take you inside Tut’s tomb. Beyond that, as the title suggests, you’ll catch glimpses of the ancient world outside – from the Great Sphinx to a sunrise ascent over the Pyramids of Giza and a two-millennium time trip to the 1922 unearthing of Tut’s resting place constructed and accessorized with his quest for immortality in mind. Timed admission tickets: nationalgeographic.org/tickets/events

Re-emerge into the here-and-now literally outside on the National Mall, and depending on the time of your visit, you can stroll through the Smithsonian Folk Life Festival on your way to the Constitution Avenue side of the Mall to take in the Independence Day Parade featuring floats, marching bands, and giant balloons. Other highlights of the D.C. Fourth include a 3 p.m. Musical Celebration at the National Cathedral and, of course, fireworks starting at 9:09 p.m. bursting across the skies over the Mall. (For the best view, fireworks cruises on the Potomac depart from Washington Harbour at 7:30.) The Capitol Fourth Concert on the West Lawn of the Capitol itself is best seen on PBS since post-Jan. 6, 2021 security makes in-person attendance problematic.

Among July 4th observances on this side of the Bay, Ocean City offers free beach entertainment all through the holiday weekend with family-friendly movies, including Sing 2 on July 1st, and games at the 27th Street beachfront or near the Carousel Hotel and fireworks on the night of July 4th. Just up the coast in Delaware, Rehoboth Beach celebrates one day early with fireworks at 9:30 on Sunday, July 3rd, preceded by a concert on the beachfront bandstand. There’s even a small chance of a President and First Lady holiday sighting. 

***

Get ready for the next big art event in Easton by checking out galleries all over the Midshore. Although most painters who enter the Plein Air Festival starting July 15th select vistas in Talbot County, a few go further afield to neighboring counties. Here’s a gallery sampler for the month.

In Cambridge, you might be intrigued by the Hookers, Strippers & Dyers exhibit – but it’s not what you think. Artists Betty Burbage and Elissa Crouch practice the traditional folk art of rug hooking, which also involves dying and stripping fabric into colorful strands woven into whatever patterns the artists imagine. The show runs only through July 3rd at Main Street Gallery www.mainstgallery.net. Despite its name, the gallery’s location is 518 Poplar St.

Nearby on High Street, the Dorchester Center for the Arts dorchesterarts.org brings Outside In with its July exhibit of works by self-trained “outsider” artists. Among them are Mose and Annie Tolliver and Howard Finster – whose imaginative creations have appeared in Baltimore’s Visionary Art Museum and Smithsonian’s American Art Museum in D.C. Ed Krell of Hooper’s Island, who specializes in large-scale chalk artworks, demonstrates his technique in a free Second Saturday reception, 5-7 p.m. July 9th, with music by Marianne and the Misfits, also from Hooper’s Island.  

An untitled piece by Ed Krell

In Chestertown, MassoniArt, massoniart.com which has expanded to a street-level gallery on Cross Street near the original second-story High Street space, splits its Summer Gallery Artists Exhibition on July 1st between the two locations. A few doors down on High, the Artists’ Gallery theartistsgalleryctown.com opens Shore Delights by Nancy Thomas with a First Friday reception on July 1st, introducing a month-long tag-sale show. 

Get in the plein-air mood at Adkins Arboretum adkinsarboretum.org near Ridgely with botanist Anna Harding’s vibrant color-pencil Wake Up . . . We Need Everybody drawings opening July 5th at the visitor’s center gallery. Then take a forested stroll through the site-specific Re-Vision installation by Howard and Mary McCoy.  

Circling back to Easton’s arts district along Harrison Street, Trippe Gallery thetrippegallery.com hosts a First Friday reception for artist David Csont, 5-8 p.m. July 1st. Next, the gallery celebrates the Plein Air Festival’s opening day with a Variations exhibit of paintings by 15 artists inspired by the same photograph taken by gallery co-founder Nanny Trippe. Among them is Nancy Tankersley, a Plein Air Easton founder.  Also on Harrison, Troika Gallery troikagallery.com continues its summerlong Raoul Middleman, A Life Well Painted show and sale of works by the late Baltimore painter and one-time Plein Air Festival celebrity artist.  

Meanwhile, around the corner on Goldsborough Street, Studio B Art Gallery studiobgallery.com hosts a Plein Air workshop starting July 11th at various Talbot County outdoor sites led by painter Jove Wang. A free reception toasts the opening of Masterstrokes: Visions of Jove Wang exhibit, 5-8 p.m. July 15th at the gallery.   

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