The Mid-Atlantic Symphony Orchestra opened its 2023-24 season with something old and something entirely new, led by its Grammy-winning music director, Michael Repper.

The first selection of Thursday night’s program signals that the new season will feature, along with classical masterpieces by long-dead composers, music by our contemporaries, and works by women and men of color, living or dead. First up was Jessie Montgomery, an African-American woman born in New York City in 1981, which makes her at least 23 years shy of Medicare eligibility. Her “New York Strum” debuted in 2006 as a string quartet piece and, over the next six years, evolved into a full orchestral “voice,” as Montgomery calls it, giving “Strum” a more expansive sound.

Montgomery was among the black female composers whose works comprised the recording that won the New York Youth Orchestra and Repper their 2022 Grammy. In introducing the piece, Repper stated what would become apparent – why it was called “Strum.” The first notes and a great many that followed were plucked on strings, starting with first cellist Katie McCarthy as violin and viola pizzicato joined in to create a percussive throughline. A thoroughly modern piece emerged, without atonal digressions, to mimic a NYC vibe, much as Gershwin did for another city in “American in Paris” nearly a century ago (1928). Bouncy changes of pace introduced with gliding bows led to a rapid-fire coda featuring a sonorous bass undertone by Chris Chlumsky and T. Alan Stewart.

Moving back a couple of centuries, Tchaikovsky created some of the most recognizable and romantic melodies in all of classical music. Some of his most beloved pieces were ballets – “Swan Lake” and “The Nutcracker.” But most of his work was written for full symphony orchestration. “Serenade for Strings,” second on the opening night program, is a Tchaikovsky rarity – strings-only. While it is not a greatest-hits medley for strings, its melodies are so accessible and memorable – ranging from melancholy to a folk romp – they may leave you humming them at intermission, even if you’re unfamiliar with the entire “Serenade.”

The highly romantic sonata opening features dramatic flourishes typical of Tchaikovsky that blend seamlessly into the busy second movement with violins in charge of the balletic cadence challenged by cello and bass counterpoint. The third movement sets a lighter dance mood with a flowing waltz refrain heard in other contexts, such as cinematic soundtracks. The finale begins with what could be a requiem before settling into a pastoral disposition that morphs into a reawakening embroidered with spirited repeats of earlier themes.The finale, post-intermission, takes us back still one more century to Beethoven’s Symphony No. 4. For all its ingenuity, his Fourth is dwarfed in significance and widespread recognition by the bookends of his Third (“Eroica”), which revolutionized classical music of the 18th Century, and his Fifth, featuring the most famous phrase in musical history (“da-da-da DUM”). The Fourth wanders at times, seemingly aimlessly, to an uplifting allegro. In context, the celebratory finish seems ironic in that Beethoven is said to have endured serial rejections by women he desired and was worried, to the point of suicidal thoughts, about the onset of deafness. Without the light-hearted Fourth, maybe there would be no Fifth. 

The ominous opening, with soft strings and echoing brass and reeds, breaks into a gallop and the declarative bombast we expect of a Beethoven symphony, executed here with conviction. The lighter second movement gives us and the musicians a breather with melodic changes in tempo and temperament. The third movement introduces one of the more relatable passages dominated by the higher strings led by concertmaster Kimberly McCollum and first violist Yuri Tomenko. The finale is a high-energy race to a happy ending that brought the appreciative opening night audience to its feet.

Which brings me back to the actual first notes of the concert, which are not listed on the program: “The Star-Spangled Banner,” played, of course, with lyrics unsung, had me keeping pace up to the moment where at any sporting event, I shout out “O” at the “O say can you see” line. Professional decorum persuaded me to reduce my shout to a whisper. But in acknowledgment of my urge and perhaps that of others, Repper pointed out that the national anthem had just been played (and sung) at Camden Yards in Baltimore about an hour earlier as the Orioles went on to clinch the American League East division title on their way, hopefully, to the first World Series ever at Oriole Park since its debut in 1992. Go O’s! And the MSO, too.

Mid-Atlantic Symphony Orchestra Season Opener

Thursday night at Church of God in Easton. Also, 7:30 p.m. Saturday, Sept. 30, Cape Henlopen High School, Lewes, Delaware, and 3 p.m. Sunday, Oct. 1, Community Church, Ocean Pines

midatlanticsymphony.org

Steve Parks is a retired New York arts critic (and Oriole fan) now living in Easton. 

    

 

Barely a month ago, James William Buffett departed the beach party for good. But “Margaritaville” parties again just a short drive from Maryland’s beach capital, Ocean City. “Parrotbeach: A Tribute to Jimmy Buffett” throws a one-night-only dinner party and concert on Saturday evening, Oct. 14, at the Wicomico Youth & Civic Center in Salisbury. The Parrotbeach tribute band, with Remy St. Martin as Buffett fandom’s leading man, plays his greatest hits, from “Cheeseburger in Paradise” and “Changes in Latitudes, Changes in Attitudes” to “Come Monday,” culminating, of course, with “Margaritaville.” Dinner starts an hour before the 7:30 show with a salad menu, key lime slaw, margarita chicken, Caribbean pork loin, Jamaican rice, and mac-cheese. Adult beverages – featuring margarita concoctions for sure – are available on your tab. Tickets are on sale until 4 p.m. Oct. 10.
wicomicociviccenter.org

Meanwhile, two more tribute events are coming up at the Avalon Theatre in Easton. “Forever Tina” features Suzette Dorsey in the title role of a theatrical show with 12 cast-and-crew members that has toured three continents to keep the music of Tina Turner alive. “Forever Tina” comes to the Avalon for one performance on Oct. 6. 

A week later, on Oct. 13, The Weight Band takes the same stage for the evening. Led by Jim Weider, a longtime member of The Band and the late Levon Helm’s spinoff band, The Weight takes its name from one of The Band’s greatest hits, written by Robbie Robertson, who died in August. Also on the show’s playlist is “The Night They Drove Old Dixie Down,” “Up on Cripple Creek,” and a new song by The Weight Band.
avalonfoundation.org

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The national tour of the Broadway revival of “Funny Girl,” starring Katerina McCrimmon of the New York City Center’s Encore production of “Light in the Piazza” in the title role of Fanny Brice with Melissa Manchester as her mom and Stephen Mark Lukas as Fanny’s gambler boyfriend and later her jailbird husband. The musical runs for eight performances Oct. 24-29 at Baltimore’s Hippodrome Theatre at the France-Merrick Performing Arts Center downtown.
france-merrickpac.com

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Whether or not you’re worried about the writers and actors strike putting new releases of movies in deep freeze, or even if you haven’t been to a movie theater since the COVID shutdown, the Chesapeake Film Festival has you covered every which way. Starting with a preview reception at the Academy Art Museum on Saturday, Sept. 30, the live festival presents 31 films – documentaries and features along with topical shorts – on opening night and Sunday, Oct. 1, at the Avalon Theatre and the Ebenezer Theatre in Easton. Among the live film presentations are the Maryland premiere of “Karen Carpenter: Starving for Perfection” and “The Life and Legend of Jane Goodall,” who devoted her life’s work to studying chimpanzees.

The virtual festival continues Oct. 2-8 with 37 films you can stream at home. Among them are “Delmarva and the Ground for Change,” about family-owned farms and the effect of climate change on local agriculture.  A documentary short on a similar theme, “Dear President Biden,” asks the question, “How’s he doing?” regarding his promise as a candidate to do everything he can to address the “existential threat” of climate change on water, land, and air.
chesapeakefilmfestival.com  

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The Phillips Collection, which opened on Washington, D.C.’s DuPont Circle in 1921 – eight years before Manhattan’s Modern Museum of Art – bills itself with apparent justification as “America’s First Museum of Modern Art.” 

A century later, the Phillips, now at 1600 21st St. NW, opens a special exhibition examining the emergence of modern African and African-American artists in the post-World War II era. “African Modernism in America, 1947-67” runs Oct. 7-Jan. 7, 2024, featuring works by 50 artists from Africa and the United States – among them Jacob Lawrence, David Driskell, and Ibrahim El-Salahi. The exhibition draws on transcontinental connections between artists and curators to challenge racial assumptions about African artworks. Along with pieces from the postwar period, the show also includes “The Politics of Selection,” a 2022 commissioned work by Ndidi Dike addressing the absence of women artists in recognizing African modernity.
phillipscollection.org

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The 26th annual craft show of the Academy Art Museum, one of its most popular events, brings 70 artists from all over the United States to Easton for a preview event Oct. 27 and a two-day show and sale – from jewelry to woodworks, fabrics to glass-blowing – Oct. 28 and 29.
academyartmuseum.org

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

 

In 1985, a dedicated group of chamber music lovers on Maryland’s Eastern Shore was approached by the late Ralph Bloom to establish what was initially called the Eastern Shore Chamber Music Festival. Assisted that year by clarinetist J. Lawrie Bloom and later by cellist Marcie Rosen, Artistic Directors, Donald Buxton of Royal Oak became the organization’s founding Executive Director. The festival continued to blossom over the next 38 years under their leadership. In August, Buxton retired from Chesapeake Music, the Festival’s parent organization, leaving a musical legacy he hadn’t dreamed could happen.

Buxton, a Juilliard graduate, first helped found the Talbot Chamber Orchestra, which did concerts at the Talbot County Historical Society Auditorium. He served as Associate Conductor of the orchestra and he and his wife Merideth played with the orchestra. Over the years, he was also conductor of the Dover Symphony and along with others founded the Mid-Atlantic Symphony Orchestra and served as its conductor.

“The personal journey to make the arts important in Talbot County was a journey of love and necessity. When Meredith and I moved here in 1982, there was not a lot happening in the arts. I felt there needed to be a robust arts community in Easton and the surrounding area. Building that legacy has been one of the greatest joys of my life,” stated Buxton.

Over the years, the Eastern Shore Chamber Music Festival grew into a two-week event in early June, including concerts, recitals, and open rehearsals in venues ranging from concert halls to churches, museums, and waterfront estates across the Mid-Shore. The organization was one of the first organizations to do concerts in the renovated Avalon space and Buxton helped Ellen General become the Avalon’s first executive director while also serving on its board.

In 2002, the organization expanded its operation to include the Chesapeake Chamber Music Competition, a competition for young emerging chamber music ensembles. In 2004, the first biennial Competition became international in scope, drawing from international conservatories. Concerts between the annual Festivals joined the programming mix in 2004. In 2006, the organization was approached by musician Merideth Buxton, Don’s wife, who made a presentation about an outreach program that became the First Strings Program. The program helped elementary school students in third or fourth grade to improve listening, gain self-confidence in performing, use teamwork to exhibit cooperation and self-control, and have fun while learning the skills needed to play the violin. In 2006, Chesapeake Music’s YouthReach program was developed as a response to an ongoing nationwide decline of funding and lack of prioritization for music education, bringing musicians into the schools for live and virtual work with students.

In July 2008, Eastern Shore Chamber Music Festival became Chesapeake Chamber Music, Inc., to better reflect the organization’s geographic location and scope near the Chesapeake Bay. In 2009, Chesapeake Chamber Music offered a single concert featuring the renowned jazz pianist Monty Alexander, creating the Monty Alexander Jazz Festival over Labor Day weekend. Chesapeake Music soon added its Interlude concerts which feature chamber music stars of the next generation and jazz greats. The organization’s move in 2021 to the Ebenezer Theater enabled Chesapeake Music to acquire its own 9-foot Steinway Concert Grand piano something the festival musicians wanted for many years. At the Ebenezer Theater, Chesapeake Music now had an opportunity for year-round programming.

Running such an ambitious music program over the years with only a part-time staff has had its challenges. According to Buxton, “It took a village to run an organization this large – in particular a volunteer cadre of 150 people. In addition, I relied on a dedicated board of 19 members with diverse professional backgrounds, who brought energy, talent, and treasure to the organization.”

Don added, “Chesapeake Chamber Music is a much broader organization today because it has continued to grow and evolve strategically while bringing renowned musicians to delight, engage, and surprise today’s audiences and educate, inspire, and develop tomorrow’s.”

Barry Koh, President of Chesapeake Music, reflected on Don’s impact and said, “Chesapeake Music will continue to grow in its offerings of fine music and musicians thanks in large measure to Don having built a robust arts appreciation in our mid-shore community.”

She was the first in a long line of celebrities to suffer from an eating disorder during an era when the vastly misunderstood phenomenon brought shame and public humiliation.

For the first time, we hear Karen Carpenter’s personal struggle in her own voice through never-before-released recordings—and through the legendary voices of those who knew her and were inspired by her music.

As the #1 American musical act of the 1970s, the Carpenters were on “Top of the World,” producing a string of pop masterpieces, including “Close to You,” “We’ve Only Just Begun,” and “Rainy Days and Mondays.” But behind closed doors, Karen’s quest for perfection resulted in low self-esteem, a disheartening love life, and a public battle with anorexia nervosa, which resulted in her untimely death at the age of only 32.

The Spy talked to producer Randy Schmidt about his film a few weeks ago.

The LIVE Festival kicks off on September 30 at the historic Avalon Theatre, followed by a second day at The Ebenezer Theater on October 1. The festival will also feature a 7-day Virtual Festival from October 2 to October 8, showcasing 37 outstanding documentaries, narrative films, and animations. Plan your visit and buy tickets today at www.chesapeakefilmfestival.com  

This video is approximately five minutes in length. To attend the world premiere please find tickets and more information here.

 

“Just because I’m coming from a human-rights perspective doesn’t mean we don’t have fun in concert.” So says Leyla McCalla (her first name is pronounced like the Derek and the Dominos title song from their 1970 mega-hit double album “Layla.”) This Leyla and her band play the main stage at Avalon Theatre Saturday night.

While “Layla” and its “Other Assorted Love Songs” were short on issues of social justice, Leyla McCalla, born in New York to Haitian immigrant parents and an American citizen by birthright, is immersed in her heritage and Haiti’s historic struggle with democracy and basic survival from one catastrophe after another.

“Haiti’s always seemed like this faraway place,” McCalla says, “but we’re far more connected as Americans than we realize. Haiti was the first independent black nation in the Western Hemisphere. Its very existence,” she says, “is and remains a threat to colonial power.” (Slavery was abolished in Haiti decades before Abraham Lincoln’s Civil War Emancipation Proclamation.) “When we talk about ‘Black Lives Matter,’ Haiti is a huge part of that.” 

The largest population of Haitian immigrants in Maryland is located in Salisbury, with more than 2,300, doubling the population of Haitians living in Baltimore. Most are drawn to Salisbury for work in the poultry industry. About 200 or so live in the Mid-Shore area triangle of Easton, Cambridge, and Federalsburg. “About 20 percent of our clients are Haitian immigrants,” says Matthew Peters, executive director of the Easton-based Chesapeake Multicultural Resource Center. 

Earthquakes, hurricanes, attendant floods, plus the 30-year Duvalier dictatorship following an American occupation of Haiti, left the country bereft of leadership. It culminated in the 2021 assassination of its democratically elected president, Jovenel Moise. 

In 1995, at age 10, McCalla spent months visiting her grandmother in Haiti, exploring her roots and learning first-hand about the nation’s daunting challenges. She cannot visit Haiti now because it is ungovernable, ruled by gangs who raise “taxes” by kidnapping people of means and holding them hostage for ransom.

A multi-disciplinary arts project commissioned by Duke University based on Radio Haiti archives it acquired inspired McCalla’s most recent album, “Breaking the Thermometer,” released in 2022. The title is a recognition of the demise of a free press, or in this case, a free voice of a radio network spreading the truth across Haiti. 

The comparison of lost democracy in Haiti and the threat of authoritarianism overtaking American one-person/one-vote is hardly lost on McCalla. Her latest project is a four-song cycle called “Freedom Series,” of which two songs have been released so far.  

But while the concert on Saturday will call attention to injustice, it will not be a gospel or political sermon. Leyla McCalla and her band – drummer Shawn Myers, bassist Pete Olynciw, and guitarist Nhum Zdybel – know how to make “a big and joyous sound,” says McCalla. Check her out on YouTube, especially her banjo and vocal riffs with the Grammy-winning Carolina Chocolate Drops on a foot-stomping number called “Cornbread and Butterbeans.” 

I don’t know if that song is on her playlist, but it’s a good-time, makin’-love celebration of just being alive, which is itself a fundamental human right.

Leyla McCalla and Band in Concert
8 p.m. Saturday, Sept. 23, Avalon Theatre, 40 E. Dover St., Easton; avalonfoundation.org

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

 

The deep, rich colors and textures of Grace Mitchell’s oil paintings will draw you in, but it’s often the title that sets you thinking. Interweaving layers of color glow through the marsh grasses in her newest series “Watershed Assessment.” You could get lost in the sheer beauty of these paintings with their glints of tidal water and shadowy mountains looming in the distance, all saturated with a moist, misty atmosphere that seems to glow with fecundity.

But the title gives pause. These lush, luminous landscapes are meant to be “assessed,” and careful observation finds them full of scars and flaws. Their layers of luscious colors have been scraped raw and sanded almost to nothingness, drips and coagulations of paint stain the surface like rain on a window, everything seems in a state of flux. This marsh that Mitchell has chosen to paint is a transitional place where life is born of water and each element is held in an ever-changing fragile balance.

“Watershed” is an inspired title for this show and carries a double meaning. Every mountain, forest, marsh and sea that Grace Mitchell paints is part of a watershed. Most of us don’t tend to think of that when we look at a landscape, but these paintings make it clear that water connects all things in nature, from the massive clouds Mitchell paints towering over verdant plains and forests to the mists and rain that feed her flowing streams, brooding marshes and restless seas. Time after time, she traces the cycling of water from earth to sky and back again and in so doing, conjures a potent analogy for the complex interconnections that make life on earth possible.

Here, the other meaning of “watershed” comes to the fore. As temperatures warm, wildfires rage and massive storms sweep across the land, there’s no denying we are in a watershed moment. There is no longer any doubt that climate change is happening and happening fast thanks to our continuing use of fossil fuels. Where we go from here is our collective choice.

An art gallery may seem an unlikely place to be confronted with this issue, but Mitchell’s show inspires its consideration. Heart-wrenchingly beautiful, her paintings invite you into a haunting mixture of darkness and luminosity that permeates these scenes so deeply that the vitality of the living land is palpable. Mountains both soar and crumble before your eyes as light filters through the mists swirling around them. Trees simultaneously form and dematerialize in strokes and smears of paint while the marsh grasses surrounding them dissolve into drips of paint that melt into the water of a tidal pool. All is in flux and every detail is related to what’s happening around it.

The artist’s hand is everywhere in evidence in her sweeping gestures, daubs and broken strokes of paint, yet these paintings are smooth as glass and have an inner radiance akin to polished marble. Borrowing her technique from traditional landscape painters, Mitchell repeatedly applies thin layers of paint, sanding each one back then painting again. Fields of color and fascinating details are exposed, then half hidden, then exposed again so that the paintings reveal their own history of making, much as landscapes reveal the effects of weather and geological time.

There is no doubt about the aliveness of every aspect of these landscapes and the seamlessness of the interdependence of each element. With a bracing sense of awe, each of these paintings tells a story of earth and its predicament. They pull on your heartstrings and make you long for the vitality of the ecosystems that form our landscapes to survive and flourish.

Recalling the atmospheric depth and majesty of traditional landscape paintings, particularly of 19th-century Romanticism, as well as the deeply spiritual qualities of Chinese mountain and water tradition, Mitchell makes geological time palpable, yet there’s also a sense of the momentary, a feeling that you are witnessing something in the process of continual change.

Art is always at the forefront of cultural change. From Goya to the Impressionists, and from Picasso to Rauschenberg to Keith Haring, artists have opened our eyes to new ways of seeing and understanding. Perhaps because artists must develop keen skills of observation and awareness in order to do their work, they are more attuned to sensing change long before others do. Certainly, with her flair for capturing both the beauty and distress of the earth, Mitchell falls into this category.

In August, she and I carried on an almost daily email conversation about her work, our shared concerns about environmental degradation and climate change and how art might function to stimulate creative ways of adapting. Here are some excerpts:

MM: From the start I want you to know how glad I am for this opportunity to focus on your work. For some time now, I’ve been struggling with the role of art in reawakening people to a sense of awe and wonder, and how to kindle curiosity about what creative possibilities may be available for healing our relationship with the earth. These are ideas I see you developing in your paintings.

GM: Most of my work has an implied message, that of interdependence in the natural world and threats to that and to the future of life on earth. The future prospects of sustainability depend, in part at least, upon comprehending these relationships and adapting human behavior to them.  Recently, I did several paintings of gardens, an idea that was inspired by the work of entomologist Doug Tallamy, so the gardens I choose are the gardens of the wild with their mix of native plants and trees, rather than our standard suburban flower patches. 

MM: Tallamy’s warnings that wildlife populations are in decline largely because the native plants they depend on are disappearing are something I first learned about from Adkins Arboretum here on the Eastern Shore. Many of my garden plants came from its native plants sales, and it seems there’s a surge in people working to restore habitats by gardening with native plants.

GM: Yes, many people are practicing a form of home gardening which endeavors to replicate native conditions and incorporate some ancient wisdom into the practice of gardening to encourage, rather than kill vital insect, bird and animal populations which are rapidly declining due to agribusiness, development pressures and yes, even suburban gardens.

MM: You’ve written that you see the garden as a source of hope and regeneration. I think that’s so true, both in terms of grassroots conservation and for individual gardeners like you and me. Last winter, I had a bout of Covid with fatigue and inflammation that went on and on. It only let up when I started to work in the garden for at least a little while every day. That felt to me like a direct experience of the healing power of earth.

GM: I certainly agree that gardening helps, but I must admit that the increasing heat and humidity of our summers added to the rampant increase in invasive plants, as well as the ongoing problem with tick-borne diseases have made it harder to enjoy! But even all of that does help put things into some perspective, right? One is forced to confront serious issues even whilst pulling the weeds!

MM: It’s a paradox! On one side, gardening always lifts my spirits but on the other, I’m constantly noticing worrying changes. We used to have swarms of butterflies and bees in our garden rather than the few we see now. The huge decreases in bird and insect populations scientists are warning of are obvious right in our garden beds. These are all issues stemming from the effects of climate change. 

GM: A great many origin stories tell of folks once living happily in a primordial paradise, a lush garden of peace and plenty where toil, want and conflict were unknown. But, as with the Garden of Eden, the stories often report the end of this paradisal existence due to human folly.

MM: The great beauty of your paintings does conjure a sense of paradise, even a sense of the sacred. 

GM: How beauty is defined has changed with time and place, but the elusive concept has been with us, and closely associated with ideas of art, for thousands of years. The artist/activist Theaster Gates has written that “At every level of the human experience, we are looking for the beautiful, something that gives priority to our souls…. We drink in nature, we yearn to commune with the beautiful, we crave the sublime….” He feels that being around beautiful things can actually alter the way humans act.

MM: It seems to me that a great part of beauty’s power is to give people joy and a sense of harmony and well-being. In your paintings, it offers an enticing invitation to look more and more closely and discover the surprising colors, textures and plays of opacity and translucence. Looking closely reveals all this evidence of time and change, injury and adaptation that shows through the many layers of paint.

GM: I think that visual art, or at least what I do, aims to create objects of beauty that enrich human lives in some way, that when successful perhaps enlighten, inspire, uplift, or otherwise point to something “beyond” the quotidian cares of the world.

MM: Years ago, I reviewed Ellen Dissanayake’s book What Is Art For? for an art magazine. Her premise is that art denotes particular things as special, as socially important and thus serves an important cultural and evolutionary function. I think that the intense beauty of the landscapes in your paintings denotes them as special.

GM: The beauty of nature/land has inspired so much art through the ages, up to and including some of the modern abstract painters who still claimed nature as their muse. I grew up with that love of the land and continue to cherish its beauty and hope to be able to share the feeling with others. So many today are separated from the natural world to the point that they can lose touch with it. The paintings ask people to stop, look and reconnect—and hopefully to really see and feel.

MM: That’s so important! We’re usually too busy (or at least think we are) to look around, to be aware of the environment we’re living in. It’s a cultural failing, and I think it’s part of why young people are experiencing so much depression and desperation. Between the rigid schedules of activities kids are required to keep and the fear of allowing them to go outside unsupervised, they rarely get a chance to connect directly with nature.

GM: I think the lack of contact with the natural world is bound to have an impact on the minds of kids today, especially since it comes together with increased exposure to virtual media. Certainly that close contact with the sights, sounds, feeling of being in the natural world in the early years can be formative—the brain programmed in a certain way that stays with you as you wander on through life!

MM: Although I wouldn’t categorize you as a “climate artist” in the sense of creating activist art, I think that experiencing art such as yours encourages people to pay attention to the natural world, maybe even with a sense of reverence, and to develop a deeper understanding of the environmental crisis and hopefully, a stronger commitment to addressing it.

GM: Right, we need to open both hearts and minds. And actually, I also see both as interconnected parts of the same system which can be touched by art.

MM: You brought my attention to another book, Conversations Before the End of Time, in which the art critic and teacher Suzi Gablik has a conversation with Dissanayake about the function of art in these times of ecological and spiritual crisis. They discuss Dissanayake’s theory about art as a behavior that helps define us as human, a biological urge that actually contributes to survival. At least in traditional societies, it’s a way of defining what’s special, what people need to care about. Defining and affirming those values helps to make a strong, resilient culture. She sees that as antithetical to the contemporary Western understanding of art as a kind of luxury item subject to capitalist values.

GM: Although our culture has thought of art as a “frill,” or as just another commodity, I hope there’s still space for art as a means of communication, inspiration and enhancement of human life.

MM: I see your work as being full of hope, even while it’s saturated with pathos and sorrow both for humanity and the earth. It seems to me that each of your paintings is a call to focus on what we need to care about, just as Dissanayake says. Your mountains may be weathering away but they still soar and inspire, and your waterfalls, pools and streams run with life-giving water. There’s a feeling of the sacred that tempers the pathos. So, facing both cultural malaise and ecological disaster, how do we maintain hope? You and I are both being confronted with the reality of rising sea level. I’m seeing it here on Maryland’s Eastern Shore and you’re it seeing around your home in a Hudson River village adjacent to the large estuarine Piermont Marsh and the source of inspiration for many of your paintings.

GM;  Well, in terms of hope, I think we choose. And in so many ways, our marsh provides a metaphor for the times. It is a liminal space, a place in constant flux between land and water, fertile, full of life and potential, the breeding ground for many species and vital to the life of river and ocean. There’s a beauty and a mysterious quality here, but also somehow a sense of portent.  For ages, people considered marshes to be wasteland and a great many of our marshes have been destroyed, lost to landfill and development. Science has since shown us the error in those ways and is taking positive steps to mitigate the damage. The Hudson River National Estuarine Research Reserve was formed to help protect and preserve remaining marshes of significance, including Piermont Marsh, and reserve them for research as well, finally recognizing their importance to the environment. Today, of course, the whole area is under a new threat from human-induced sea level rise, and we actually can’t be sure it will even survive. But a state-funded pilot project is now underway to stabilize the eroding shoreline and help preserve the marsh, so we hope for the best!

MM: That’s a great project, though as you say, sea level rise is already a given. The side of our yard here on the Chester River is bordered by a marsh that’s creeping slowly into our lawn as the river is getting higher. Our house, like many close to the water, was flooded by Hurricane Isabel 20 years ago. Ever since, my husband and I have talked about elevating the house above the floodplain. We just went through a long process of conferring with architects, contractors and county officials about the possibility, only to find out the cost is prohibitive.

GM: On the face of it, that’s very bad news about the house. But it might turn out to be for the best. That process is complicated and obviously horrendously expensive, and who’s to say what level of protection it ultimately offers. If current science is correct and the rate of warming and sea level rise  is accelerating, then all the estimates of what the levels will be and when are going to have to be looked at yet again.

MM: One of the paintings in the show is called “Solastalgia,” which is a term coined by the Australian philosopher, Glenn Albrecht that refers to an increasingly common psychological distress suffered by those whose familiar environment has been dramatically changed, all too often by our changing climate. That’s the kind of distress I’m feeling as we see flood tides coming closer and closer to our house.

GM: This has been the hottest summer on record, and people are more widely acknowledging that climate change is real, but still we have no real solutions in the works. My daughter and I have had this conversation about Homo sapiens as a flawed/failed species—one that has irreversibly fouled its own nest and is destined for extinction. 

MM: This is something that Gablik and Dissanayake discuss, and it both shocked me and made so much sense when Dissanayake talked about how we’ve created an unnatural “supermechanistic” environment that we simply can’t adapt to. We know in our hearts that our ways of living are unsustainable both in terms of our own psychological wellbeing and for the earth. When I fall into despair about the crisis that is already unfolding, I think of a stone I found along the river. It has tiny fossils of scallop shells and must date back to a time when the land where I live was part of the ocean floor. It comforts me to think that the earth is always changing and adapting, and that even if humans disappear, it will ultimately survive us, as it has survived countless cataclysms in the distant past.

GM: Homo sapiens have been around for the tiniest blink of the eye in terms of the existence of life on earth. The fossils you found convey a sense of the deep time of that existence and do help put things into perspective, don’t they? I have a slab of stone about a foot square I pulled out of a woodland stream in the Catskills that’s full of fossilized shells. I love looking at it and thinking about the time involved with the formation of that stone, the shells, the mountains.

MM: You sent me an article about Piermont Marsh titled “Why a Marsh” from the journal Places. It details the vital functions of the marsh for a host of species and gives a wonderful chronology of how it was formed and continues to change both through natural processes and human activity. What’s fascinating is how it’s all about interconnection. It reminds me so much of your paintings, that sense of being able to trace the many stages of creation both in the marsh and the painting process. And although it posits that the marsh may eventually be swallowed by the water again, it closes with the thought that that will change, too, and at in some distant time, green plants will again sprout from its mudflats. Of course, there’s no knowing whether humans will still be around by then.

GM: It is almost beyond our capacity to imagine, but it is possible that the species will become extinct if unable to evolve quickly enough to correct its ways. I think my paintings look at that underlying world which supports us and will quite possibly survive us and continue to exist for whatever follows us. So in that there is some hope.

MM: Yes, the thought that earth will continue to evolve is heartening, but it’s human nature to hope for more and I can’t help hoping that a collective survival mechanism will kick in and the sooner the better! And maybe art can be part of that. The biological urge to make art that Dissanayake talks about is something you and I have both felt from childhood. Being artists, it’s our way to explore the world and make sense of it. The more art shows us what we need to care about and the more it pulls on our heartstrings, the more chance there is that we’ll make the necessary changes to allow humanity and all the other threatened species to survive.

GM: Living here at Piermont, though I never do plein air painting and almost never even sketch, I do store up something from frequent walks around the village, including the changing effects of light, and carry it back to the studio. I guess it all goes into some kind of big stew that I access via a mysterious process that I’m not sure anyone can really explain! But the main thing is that at times it can be accessed and shared. And if and when that succeeds, perhaps there is passed along something of the enormous importance of that sense of being in nature that contemporary people have lost and must regain if we are to make it to the next level! I found a quote from William James that I’m going with for now: “I will act as if what I do makes a difference.” I think that answers the question about maintaining hope in these difficult times!!

“Watershed” will be on exhibit in the 203 High Street gallery.  Hours at both the High Street and Cross Street galleries are Thursday, Friday – 11-4; Saturday 10-5. In addition, the Cross Street gallery is open Sunday 12-3. Private appointments may be scheduled at any time by contacting Carla Massoni. 410-708-4512 

Mary McCoy is an artist and writer who has the good fortune to live beside an old steamboat wharf on the Chester River. She is a former art critic for the Washington Post and several art publications. She enjoys kayaking the river and walking her family farm where she collects ideas and materials for her writing and for the environmental art she creates, often in collaboration with her husband Howard. They have exhibited their work in the U.S., Ireland, Wales and New Zealand.

For additional information please visit www.massoniart.com.

 

 

By his own count, Emmy-nominated producer and director Harold Jackson has done 12 full feature films or shorts since he fell in love with cinema while growing up in Los Angeles. After growing up in an extended family of film consumers and serving his time in the U.S. Marine Corps, Jackson immediately doubled down on his love of film with an undergraduate degree in television and a master’s in film from American University. 

Since those school days, Harold has produced, written, and directed multiple films, series, and documentaries and is a critically acclaimed writer, director, and filmmaker. Some of his award-winning productions include “Last Night” (ABFF BEST SCREENPLAY/AUDIENCE CHOICE Winner) and HBO Best Film winning “Unarmed Man.” Harold received an EMMY Nomination for his guest-producing work on the series “Anacostia.” Harold’s recent projects include “The Forgettable Life of Liam White,” with a cast of Jasmine Guy, TC Carson, and singer Brave Williams, “GASLIGHT,” and his latest creation, “Once Upon A Time In The District.”

The secret sauce for his successful film career is a commitment to tell different stories to different audiences. A case in point is Harold’s most recent film, Million to One, which will open this month in theaters. Unapologetically a family film with traditional comedy and warm-hearted characters, Jackson doesn’t hesitate to use tried and true traditional storytelling when he connects with a good plot. 

But unlike other filmmakers who stay within a specific genre, Harold equally embraces pushing the envelope. Immediately after finishing Million to One, Jackson moved to the other extreme with his production of Iceman: Chapter One, which will have his world premiere at the Chesapeake Film Festival on September 30th. 

In Iceman, Jackson turns his camera to the world of organized crime and the tale of a newly retired organized crime fixer pulled back deeper into the underground than he’s ever been before. 

The Spy chatted briefly with Harold last week via Zoom to hear about his career and why he selects such diverse projects for his passion for storytelling.

This video is approximately three minutes in length. For tickets and information about the Chesapeake Film Festival, please go here.

 

 

 

 

 

Shore Lit recently marked its first-year anniversary, and founder/director Kerry Folan couldn’t be happier with their progress. The organization has successfully hosted eight community author events, creating a vibrant space for literature and conversation on the Eastern Shore.

But what sets Shore Lit apart is the quality of its literary events and the sense of community it fosters.

Folan, a professor of writing and literature at George Mason University in Virginia and a six-year resident of Easton, took the initiative to create the authors’ reading series to bridge the gap between art and culture and foster a greater sense of community.

“I feel like one of the reasons I moved here to the Eastern Shore is because, despite us having a very small, tight-knit community, we have incredible cultural resources,” Folan says. “That was really exciting to me but one piece I found to be missing was adult literary programming.” 

To that end, Shore Lit partners with the Easton Academy Art Museum, the Talbot County Free Library, Adkins Arboretum, Washington College’s Literary House, and more. These partnerships allow for diverse events that combine literature with other cultural elements, like Shore Lit’s Pride Pop-Up Bookshop during Easton’s Delmarva Pride Festival in June.

 “Gathering is how we actualize as a community. Community is a concept until you actually come together and sit in a room with somebody who may have different ideas or a different experience from you and listen.”

Upcoming events will include author readings by Tania James on September 15 and CJ Hauser on October 13, both at the Academy Art Museum. 

The Spy recently connected with Kerry via Zoom to talk about Shore Lit’s first year and her vision for the coming year. 

To stay updated on Shore Lit’s events and literary happenings on the Eastern Shore and to register for upcoming readings, go here.

 This video is approximately nine minutes in length.