Arts In Baltimore

Georgianna J. Lynch, a local artist whose paintings and sketches of Baltimore landscapes and portraits of prominent residents were displayed at area art exhibits and shows for more than 20 years, died Wednesday of heart failure at Glen Meadows Retirement Community in Glen Arm. She was 86.Since the 1960s, Mrs. Lynch created finely detailed works using oils and pastels in the basement studio of her Lutherville home."

It's the classic story of the understudy who gets a big break and becomes a star.For years, local theater lovers have talked about building a new performing arts center at some prestigious location near downtown -- the Inner Harbor shoreline, perhaps, or the Mount Royal cultural district. But the price tag was always too high. Now they've turned to a promising candidate waiting in the wings.The venerable Hippodrome Theater, a 1914 vaudeville house donated to the University of Maryland last year, isn't in the best part of town and doesn't have the same pizazz as some new showplace on the water.

Mayor Kurt L. Schmoke and his Advisory Committee on Art and Culture have declared October Baltimore's Arts & Humanities Month to celebrate the city as the center of arts and culture for the metropolitan area.One of the many events taking place during the month will be the Howard Street Avenue of the Arts Festival, which will take place between North Avenue and Centre streets from 12 p.m. to 5: 30 p.m. Saturday. There will be music, dance performances, an arts and crafts market, street theater, children's activities and a walking tour of Howard Street.

"I DO NOT doubt but the majesty & beauty of the world are latent in any iota of the world," declared the poet Walt Whitman. "I do not doubt there is far more in trivialities, insects, vulgar persons, slaves, dwarfs, weeds, rejected refuse, than I have supposed."For Whitman, "each precise object or condition or combination or process exhibits a beauty," and "all that a person does or thinks is of consequence." As the writer Susan Sontag has noted, America's greatest poet saw "no contradiction between making art an instrument of identification with the community and aggrandizing the artist as a heroic, romantic, self-expressing ego."

Maryland Citizens for the Arts, working with the Maryland State Arts Council and the Maryland Chamber of Commerce, is calling for nominations for the Governor's Arts Awards. The awards recognize individuals, small businesses, corporations and foundations that have made contributions to the arts in Maryland through artistic achievement, patronage or service to the community. There is no fee for nominating, and all members of the public are encouraged to participate.Singer and actor Harry Belafonte will present the awards March 20 at the Peabody Conservatory of Music.

A panel discussion of how well Baltimore theaters serve art, artists and audiences is scheduled from 7:30 p.m. to 9 p.m. Wednesday at the Cathedral Church of the Incarnation, 4 E. University Parkway.Participants include the moderator, actress Vivienne Shub; Philip Arnoult for Theatre Project; Denise Gantt and Linda Geeson for Center Stage; Donald Owens for Arena Players; J. Bruce Johnson for Vagabonds; Beverly Sokal for Fell's Point Corner Theatre; Vincent Lancisi for Everyman Theater and Tony Tsendias for Impossible Industrial Action Theater.

Art is in windows on Charles StreetTen vacant storefront windows along Charles Street have become mini-galleries this month as part of the "Celebrate the Arts Downtown" window decorating campaign co-ordinated by the Downtown Partnership of Baltimore.The artists represented are David Jerusalem, Greg Fletcher, Charles Ford, Lucy Pealer, Mae Lucier, Derrick Buisch, Terry Thompson, Angela Franklin, Dave Lambard and D'Antell Johnson.Indian music and danceThe ninth annual Indian Music and Dance Competition, a two-day event celebrating the folk and classical traditions of India, Pakistan and Bangladesh, is accepting entries for its 1992 competition, held Nov. 21 and 22 at the University of Maryland Baltimore County.

Arts cuts snip the heart out of BaltimoreIf Mayor Schmoke phases out city funding of the arts in Baltimore, as the Organizational Review Team recommends, he will be cutting out the infrastructure that breathes life, energy and vitality to this city.A common language linking citizens of all ages, races and creeds, the arts are our best opportunity to bring together the fractured, disparate cultures in our cities. The language of music, dance, visual arts and literature crosses all barriers, helping to bridge the gap between people, cities, states and nations.

Despite a sluggish economy and fears of budget cuts earlier this year, the arts are flourishing in Maryland this summer. A smorgasbord of events are scheduled over the next two months, from the popular City Artscape festival to the annual William Kapell competition, part of the International Piano Festival at the University of Maryland College Park, which runs through next Saturday.Artscape '92, which runs happens next weekend in the Mount Royal cultural corridor, promises new and better lighting this year on its main stage at the foot of the hill in front of the old B&O Railroad station as well as greater accessibility from the new Central Light Rail, which can deliver festival goers directly to the site.

HIS TWO NIECES persuaded John P. Kennedy to attend a ballet. It wasn't just any ballet. It was one performed by the pupils of Monsieur A. H. Durocher, the most fashionable dancing master in Baltimore. Durocher was a French refugee from Santo Domingo. He arrived here in 1824, and within a few years was one of dominant figures in the world of belle artes.Kennedy remembered little about the music or the performance of the "Ballet of Telemachus" on that artistic adventure in 1827. PeterKumpaIt was the audience that enthralled him."

Matt Zoll really has nothing against the 21st century, or even the 20th. The artist's Baltimore County studio is equipped with electric lights and two desktop computers that suggest his accommodation to the times, even if he paints in a way that much of the art world left behind centuries ago. On his painting days, he drives about 15 minutes from his home in Anneslie to a commercial strip off York Road. Once he shuts his studio door and goes to work, Zoll has turned his back on the march of art history that has occurred since before the Impressionists first rocked the academy in the 19th century.

People may come to the Baltimore Museum of Art to see the work of many internationally renowned artists, but a recent gathering there was to celebrate local talent. Six area artists, all finalists in the Janet & Walter Sondheim Prize competition, had work on display in a BMA exhibition. That work was the focus of attention for several hundred guests who wandered the galleries, many chatting with the artists themselves. Meanwhile, the museum's Fox Court was jammed with folks, enjoying music, drinks and hors d'oeuvres.

A new journal offering information about the arts - from opera reviews to critiques of lounge acts - is being tested in Baltimore. Called Radar, the free monthly publication is sponsored by the Greater Baltimore Community Foundation and can be found at businesses and arts venues from the Roots Cafe to the Walters Art Museum. "We are trying to create a local culture of criticism and an on-going dialogue between writers and artists," said David Crandall, co-editor of Radar and editor of Link: A Critical Journal on the Arts in Baltimore and the World, another local arts publication.

Many Marylanders know the cast by heart: The Meyerhoff is the home of Baltimore's symphony. Center Stage is a regional theater. The Mechanic presents Broadway-style shows, and the Lyric is for opera and touring productions. The Gilliam isn't yet such a household name, but it has the potential to be. "The Gilliam" is short for the James H. and Louise Hayley Gilliam Concert Hall. With 2,000 seats, it's the largest of several performing spaces inside the $40 million Carl J. Murphy Fine Arts Center that opens next month on the Morgan State University campus in northeast Baltimore.

Georgianna J. Lynch, a local artist whose paintings and sketches of Baltimore landscapes and portraits of prominent residents were displayed at area art exhibits and shows for more than 20 years, died Wednesday of heart failure at Glen Meadows Retirement Community in Glen Arm. She was 86.Since the 1960s, Mrs. Lynch created finely detailed works using oils and pastels in the basement studio of her Lutherville home."

It's the classic story of the understudy who gets a big break and becomes a star.For years, local theater lovers have talked about building a new performing arts center at some prestigious location near downtown -- the Inner Harbor shoreline, perhaps, or the Mount Royal cultural district. But the price tag was always too high. Now they've turned to a promising candidate waiting in the wings.The venerable Hippodrome Theater, a 1914 vaudeville house donated to the University of Maryland last year, isn't in the best part of town and doesn't have the same pizazz as some new showplace on the water.

Mayor Kurt L. Schmoke and his Advisory Committee on Art and Culture have declared October Baltimore's Arts & Humanities Month to celebrate the city as the center of arts and culture for the metropolitan area.One of the many events taking place during the month will be the Howard Street Avenue of the Arts Festival, which will take place between North Avenue and Centre streets from 12 p.m. to 5: 30 p.m. Saturday. There will be music, dance performances, an arts and crafts market, street theater, children's activities and a walking tour of Howard Street.

"I DO NOT doubt but the majesty & beauty of the world are latent in any iota of the world," declared the poet Walt Whitman. "I do not doubt there is far more in trivialities, insects, vulgar persons, slaves, dwarfs, weeds, rejected refuse, than I have supposed."For Whitman, "each precise object or condition or combination or process exhibits a beauty," and "all that a person does or thinks is of consequence." As the writer Susan Sontag has noted, America's greatest poet saw "no contradiction between making art an instrument of identification with the community and aggrandizing the artist as a heroic, romantic, self-expressing ego."

Maryland Citizens for the Arts, working with the Maryland State Arts Council and the Maryland Chamber of Commerce, is calling for nominations for the Governor's Arts Awards. The awards recognize individuals, small businesses, corporations and foundations that have made contributions to the arts in Maryland through artistic achievement, patronage or service to the community. There is no fee for nominating, and all members of the public are encouraged to participate.Singer and actor Harry Belafonte will present the awards March 20 at the Peabody Conservatory of Music.

A panel discussion of how well Baltimore theaters serve art, artists and audiences is scheduled from 7:30 p.m. to 9 p.m. Wednesday at the Cathedral Church of the Incarnation, 4 E. University Parkway.Participants include the moderator, actress Vivienne Shub; Philip Arnoult for Theatre Project; Denise Gantt and Linda Geeson for Center Stage; Donald Owens for Arena Players; J. Bruce Johnson for Vagabonds; Beverly Sokal for Fell's Point Corner Theatre; Vincent Lancisi for Everyman Theater and Tony Tsendias for Impossible Industrial Action Theater.