Art School

Hans C. Schuler, noted Baltimore sculptor and founder of an art school that bears his name, died Saturday of cancer at the Baltimore Rehabilitation and Extended Care Facility at the Veterans Affairs Hospital in Northeast Baltimore. He was 86.In his art, Mr. Schuler employed the techniques of the Old Masters of the Renaissance.Examples of his work include portrait busts, commemorative medals for universities and hospitals, and architectural renderings for numerous churches and public buildings.

Charles Edward Miller, who owned and operated a Charles Village commercial art school, died in his sleep April 9 at the Charlotte Hall Veterans Home. No cause of death was determined, family members said. He was 93 and had lived in the Cromwell Valley section of Baltimore County. Born and raised in New Windsor, he was a 1936 graduate of New Windsor High School, where he played on a championship basketball team and won silver medals in track and field competitions. A drummer, he played in his high school orchestra and the Maryland State Orchestra.

For nearly two centuries, the Maryland Institute College of Art has been known for training painters, sculptors and fashion designers. But in May, MICA broadened its course offerings, and it is preparing to confer its first master's degrees on about 200 students planning careers in fields ranging from engineering to public health to computer science. The next step: an MBA program that will start next fall and provide classroom instruction at both MICA and the Johns Hopkins University's Carey School of Business.

The "Jaws" theme music plays over the Windup Space's sound system as a short, striking young woman stretches out on stage in a shimmering green mermaid costume. Buh-duh. Buh-duh. The woman stays very still, until she notices it - a five-foot-long shark, bearing its teeth and wagging its fin, floating directly above the pasties-adorned mermaid. And then the crowd, along with the night's model, Little Luna, erupts with laughter. It's just another Monday night at Dr. Sketchy's Anti-Art School, the burlesque-meets-life-drawing session that normally takes place the second and fourth weeks of every month at the Station North bar. This Monday, GiGi Holliday of Sticky Buns Burlesque will take the stage at 7 p.m. And in June, the Baltimore chapter - co-created and run by Mount Vernon's Alexis de la Rosa, 32, and Aaron Bush, 36 - will celebrate its fourth anniversary.

In sculpture class, the art students stand in front of wooden pedestals delicately molding the features of human faces in wet clay. The busts are remarkably lifelike. Two eyes, a nose and a mouth -- all where they should be -- and expressions that make the faces look like real people, not department-store dummies. Clear north light streams down from huge skylights. Below, the students work under the patient tutelage of an instructor who offers quiet advice and encouragement as he strides across the studio floor inspecting their work.

Tattoo Tux stands in the middle of his electric studio and takes a deep drag on his cigarette.Surrounded by colorful stencils and strange sculptures with flickering candles, miniature Buddhas and skulls, he leans against a table and kicks at the leg.He's trying to explain his fascination with tattoos. Why did he, at age 41, after quitting the business to put himself through art school, open another tattoo parlor? Why did he, after painting still lifes and becoming fascinated with religious icons, go back to drawing dragons on men's backs?

Charles Edward Miller, who owned and operated a Charles Village commercial art school, died in his sleep April 9 at the Charlotte Hall Veterans Home. No cause of death was determined, family members said. He was 93 and had lived in the Cromwell Valley section of Baltimore County. Born and raised in New Windsor, he was a 1936 graduate of New Windsor High School, where he played on a championship basketball team and won silver medals in track and field competitions. A drummer, he played in his high school orchestra and the Maryland State Orchestra.

The Maryland Institute, College of Art may be the nation's first art school to market itself in CD form: Last month, it mailed almost 11,000 compact-disc cases containing information about the college to high school art students around the country.Each year the college -- rated this year by U.S. News and World Report as one of the nation's top four art schools -- sends material to a selection of high school students who've indicated an interest in pursuing fine arts on their PSAT tests.The new promotional package, "Music 4 The Eyes," contains a packet with examples of student art and students' thoughts about their work ("Art is the hands and the sense that connects them," "Art is a perfect form of focus")

THE INSTITUTIONAL impact of the exhibit of Joyce J. Scott's work at the Baltimore Museum of Art is not on view. Yet it's significant that this large show and sumptuous catalog are jointly produced by the museum and the Maryland Institute, College of Art. A few years ago, the BMA and MICA together spelled only trouble. They were at each other's throats over the right of one to sell art stored in the other. Fortunately, that was resolved with generous state intervention. That set the stage for unprecedented coopertion spearheaded by museum Director Doreen Bolger and art school President Fred Lazarus IV. Such synergy between art school and museum strengthens Baltimore as an art center.

Mary C. Woodward, an artist, educator and co-founder of the Studio Art School in Bel Air, died of a massive intestinal hemorrhage Sept. 1 at Coney Island Hospital in Brooklyn, N.Y. She was 90. Mary Moore Chamberlain, the daughter of a carpenter and teacher, was born and raised in Brookline, Mass. She earned a bachelor's degree in 1942 from the Massachusetts College of Art, which later awarded her an honorary bachelor's in fine arts in 1992. Mrs. Woodward was an art teacher on Cape Cod, and later in Boston, Bryn Mawr, Pa., and Providence, R.I., before moving to Bel Air in 1954.

For nearly two centuries, the Maryland Institute College of Art has been known for training painters, sculptors and fashion designers. But in May, MICA broadened its course offerings, and it is preparing to confer its first master's degrees on about 200 students planning careers in fields ranging from engineering to public health to computer science. The next step: an MBA program that will start next fall and provide classroom instruction at both MICA and the Johns Hopkins University's Carey School of Business.

The summer may present a break from action for area high school and college teams. But their athletes and coaches haven't struggled to find ways to spend their time. We've asked local high school and college players and coaches about their plans, and over the next four days we'll run their answers. Today, a look at what nine high school athletes are up to this summer. Eric, Eli and Ellis Winston, Digital Harbor, baseball When Severn Athletic Club officials need a three-man umpiring crew this summer, they only need to make one phone call — to the Winston brothers.

Elizabeth Scott, an art-quilt maker whose work was acclaimed by critics as "filled with hope and sadness and love," died of heart failure April 25 at her home in the Penn North section of West Baltimore. She was 95. Born Elizabeth Caldwell near Chester, S.C., she was a middle child of 14. Her family sharecropped vegetables and cotton on the plantation where her grandparents had been slaves. Her grandfather was a basket weaver, potter and blacksmith. Her father, a railroad worker, made quilts.

At age 82, Bennard B. Perlman, the noted Baltimore artist, critic, author, professor and lecturer, is as busy as ever and shows no sign of slowing down. The other day he called to say he was looking forward to the BMA's "Andy Warhol: The Last Decade" exhibition, which opens Oct. 17 . The forthcoming exhibition has special significance for Perlman, who was a close friend of Warhol's when the two were painting and design classmates from 1945 to 1949 at Carnegie Tech, now Carnegie Mellon University, in Pittsburgh.

Ann Didusch Schuler, a noted Baltimore portrait painter and teacher who co-founded the Schuler School of Fine Arts, died Wednesday of heart failure at Gilchrist Hospice Care. She was 92. "Ann Didusch Schuler was a significant figure of the Baltimore art scene, and so many artists were influenced by her school and they loved her," artist Raoul Middleman said Thursday. "I'm a portrait painter, too, and I always respected her work. She was serious and took no shortcuts," Mr. Middleman said.

"Music by Prudence," made partly with the financial and creative support of the Maryland Institute College of Art, overcame several other strong candidates, including the American labor tragedy "The Last Truck," to win best short documentary at the 2010 Academy Awards on Sunday night. Few Oscar films have packed in more profundity per minute than this tale of Prudence Mabhena, 21, and seven other disabled young musicians in Zimbabwe transcending bigotry and isolation through art and fellowship.

Balance is the essence of artist Amalie Rothschild.Balance between intellectual rigor and emotional response informs her art. And balance among roles as artist, wife and mother, teacher and volunteer characterizes her busy life.Her work has appeared in dozens of solo and group shows from Baltimore to Washington, New York, Tel Aviv and Caracas, and is in the collections of the Baltimore Museum of Art and Washington's Corcoran Gallery and Phillips Collection. Maryland Art Place has just opened a Rothschild retrospective.

Jim Butcher was servicing an F-4 jet when a colonel approached him in the hangar. "I thought I'd done something wrong," Butcher said of the visit by Col. Raymond Henri in 1967. "But Colonel Henri had found out that I had art training, and he asked me if I was interested in being an artist for the military." Butcher accepted the colonel's offer and joined the Marine Corps Combat Art program, which began during World War I with battlefield sketches. The combat art program was the first of a progression of artistic endeavors for Butcher, 62, including commercial art, montages, portraits, maritime and landscape art. Spanning more than four decades, Butcher's career illustrates the twists, turns and setbacks an artist can encounter.

Mary C. Woodward, an artist, educator and co-founder of the Studio Art School in Bel Air, died of a massive intestinal hemorrhage Sept. 1 at Coney Island Hospital in Brooklyn, N.Y. She was 90. Mary Moore Chamberlain, the daughter of a carpenter and teacher, was born and raised in Brookline, Mass. She earned a bachelor's degree in 1942 from the Massachusetts College of Art, which later awarded her an honorary bachelor's in fine arts in 1992. Mrs. Woodward was an art teacher on Cape Cod, and later in Boston, Bryn Mawr, Pa., and Providence, R.I., before moving to Bel Air in 1954.