Baltimore Museum

An installation artist who sculpts with mirrors and salt, an innovative cellist and a self-taught photographer whose work has been informed by the four decades that she has spent battling a rare genetic illness are the winners of the 2013 Baker Artist Awards. The $25,000 awards, announced Thursday night on Maryland Public Television's "ArtWorks," are being bestowed upon Dariusz Skoraczewski, the principal cellist of the Baltimore Symphony Orchestra; sculptor Jonathan Latiano, a recent graduate of the Maryland Institute College of Art ; and photographer Lynne Parks.

Helen Bruce Thomas, a retired nurse and homemaker, died April 23 at the Rogerson House assisted-living facility in Boston of unknown causes. The longtime resident of Phoenix, Baltimore County, was 89. Born Helen Whitridge Bruce in Baltimore, she was the daughter of Albert Cabell Bruce, a businessman, and Helen Whitridge Bruce, a homemaker. She was raised in Guilford on Charlcote Road. She attended the Calvert and Bryn Mawr schools before graduating from the Foxcroft School in Middleburg, Va., where she rode horses.

Sadie B. Feldman, a former art teacher and Baltimore philanthropist whose generosity endowed cultural, educational and medical institutions, died from stroke complications Tuesday at Gilchrist Center for Hospice Care. She was 95. Born in Baltimore, the daughter of Russian Jewish immigrant parents, Miss Feldman was raised on Roslyn Avenue. She was a 1926 graduate of Western High School and held undergraduate degrees from the Johns Hopkins University and what is now Maryland Institute College of Art. In 1940, she earned a master's degree in psychology from George Washington University.

An installation artist who sculpts with mirrors and salt, an innovative cellist and a self-taught photographer whose work has been informed by the four decades that she has spent battling a rare genetic illness are the winners of the 2013 Baker Artist Awards. The $25,000 awards, announced Thursday night on Maryland Public Television's "ArtWorks," are being bestowed upon Dariusz Skoraczewski, the principal cellist of the Baltimore Symphony Orchestra; sculptor Jonathan Latiano, a recent graduate of the Maryland Institute College of Art ; and photographer Lynne Parks.

Children used paper plates, yarn, feathers and beads to make dream catchers decorated with words and phrases like "hope" and "I have a dream" to celebrate the memory of the Rev. Martin Luther King Jr. on Monday while their parents watched President Barack Obama's inauguration on a big-screen television. To Terry Taylor, the dual celebration at the Reginald F. Lewis Museum was a full-circle moment. "People seemed pretty excited; they cheered when Barack took the oath. They were clapping and stomping their feet," said Taylor, education programs coordinator at the museum.

More than five years after a financial crisis ravaged the U.S. economy, the Baltimore Museum of Art has finally run out of options. Museum administrators announced Monday that after exhausting other cost-cutting measures, they have laid off 14 employees, or 9 percent of the 154-member staff. The cuts, which affected 11 full-time and three part-time employees, took effect immediately. The job cuts are needed to make up a projected deficit of more than $500,000 by July 1, according to museum director Doreen Bolger, and to accommodate a budget that is shrinking by $1 million from its current level of $12.9 million for the 2012-2013 fiscal year.

A man's body was pulled Tuesday morning from shallow waters of the Inner Harbor near the 1400 block of Key Highway, Baltimore police said. The body was found about 8 a.m., police said, near a stretch of Key Highway home to the Baltimore Museum of Industry. jtorbati@baltsun.com

If you're going to call your fund-raiser "Steamboat Landing 2001," it's a good idea to have both steamboat and landing on hand. Good thing this was the Baltimore Museum of Industry's annual shindig, because both were parked right outside the South Baltimore building. "There are only two working steam tugboats in the entire U.S., one in California, and this one. It's a historic landmark," said museum volunteer coordinator Rob Williams, referring to the 1906 tug Baltimore tied up at the dock.

In the 1990s, crowds packed the Walters Art Museum to see a touring show of artifacts from the reign of China's first emperor. They flocked as well to the Baltimore Museum of Art to see a collection from London's Victoria and Albert Museum. Those were the days of the so-called blockbusters, the traveling exhibits of high-profile art. The prevailing trend now at museums in Baltimore and across the country is to cut down on the number of touring shows. "They're expensive, and money is so tight," said Gary Vikan, director of the Walters Museum of Art. "We would have brought in two major shows in 2007-2008, but we couldn't afford it. " Museums aren't left with empty galleries, however.

Students from all Baltimore County public elementary schools and their families are invited to participate in the annual Project Quality Time event 2-5 p.m. Dec. 11 at The Baltimore Museum of Art. The free event will include self-guided tours and a Free Family Sundays hands-on workshop in the museum's classroom.

Mark Montgomery, president and CEO of Ports America Chesapeake, will be the guest speaker at the BWI Business Partnership's May signature breakfast and annual transportation forum, Wednesday, May 15, from 7:45 to 9:15 a.m. at the BWI Airport Marriott, 1743 West Nursery Road, in Linthicum. Ports America, the largest terminal operator in America, is responsible for the widening of the berth at Seagirt Marine Terminal in Baltimore. The Port of Baltimore is one of only two ports on the East Coast that will be able to accommodate the super-sized ships expected to arrive through the expanded Panama Canal in 2014.Montgomery was honored as the Baltimore Museum of Industry's Industrialist of the Year in 2012.

As chairman of The Baltimore Museum of Art 's board of trustees, I want to thank you for the balanced reporting and editorial on the recent steps taken by the BMA to secure the financial stability of this great institution ("The BMA's shrinking staff," April 12). The BMA's board is committed to ensuring the museum's future for our members, patrons and the community through the adoption of a sustainable business model for the 21st-century. We want the citizens of Baltimore and the state of Maryland to continue to enjoy and benefit from this wonderful cultural and educational resource for generations to come.

The case of a small painting by Pierre-Auguste Renoir stolen from the Baltimore Museum of Art decades ago took an unexpected turn recently when new questions were raised about a woman's claim that she bought it at a flea market. The holes in her story should cement the BMA's legal efforts to reclaim its property after all these years, but the strange tale also throws a fascinating light on the pitfalls that inevitably arise in any dealings with artworks of mysterious provenance.

One of the ironies of the art world is that for all its important holdings the Baltimore Museum of Art is laying off 14 people in order to balance its budget (" Baltimore Museum of Art lays off 14," April 9). Yet right over the city line, in Towson, the federal government is funding the construction of a new museum to house a collection of unknown value - the artifacts of the Ridgley family of Hampton. To make matters worse, the site chosen for the building is in an area of running streams and granite deposits.

Mavis S. "Sherry" Sheedy, a retired Baltimore public schools art teacher and longtime museum docent, died April 4 of congestive heart failure at Carroll Hospital Center in Westminster. The Reisterstown resident was 74. The daughter of a civil engineer and a registered nurse, Mavis Sherron Grantham was born and raised in Whitney, Texas, where she graduated in 1956 from Whitney High School. She earned a bachelor's degree in 1960 in Spanish from Baylor University in Waco, Texas, and later earned a master's degree in art education from Towson University.

It's one of the ironies of the art world that major cultural institutions like the Baltimore Museum of Art are home to priceless collections of paintings, sculpture and other works by the world's greatest masters, yet they often struggle to come up with money to fix a leaky roof, pay the electricity bill or hire staff. We'd hesitate to guess the value of the BMA's holdings, but surely the total must reach into the hundreds of millions of dollars. Yet no museum that valued its reputation could sell off a Picasso or a Matisse every time the basement flooded or a heating and air-conditioning unit failed.

Baltimore helped the avant-garde painter Max Weber forge a national reputation in 1915. Now, nearly 100 years later, this could be the city where the late artist begins his long-overdue comeback. It's not that critics and curators are unfamiliar with the Russian-born, Brooklyn-raised painter's work. As a new exhibit at the Baltimore Museum of Art makes clear, Weber has long been considered one of the most significant American artists of the 20th century. But, at the peak of his career, Weber was a bona fide celebrity, with spreads in "Time," "Life," "Look" and 'The Saturday Evening Post.

More than five years after a financial crisis ravaged the U.S. economy, the Baltimore Museum of Art has finally run out of options. Museum administrators announced Monday that after exhausting other cost-cutting measures, they have laid off 14 employees, or 9 percent of the 154-member staff. The cuts, which affected 11 full-time and three part-time employees, took effect immediately. The job cuts are needed to make up a projected deficit of more than $500,000 by July 1, according to museum director Doreen Bolger, and to accommodate a budget that is shrinking by $1 million from its current level of $12.9 million for the 2012-2013 fiscal year.

This schedule will be in effect Friday, March 29: Government offices Closed in Anne Arundel and Carroll counties, and in Baltimore City and Annapolis. Open in Baltimore, Frederick, Harford and Howard counties. Courts Open in all jurisdictions. Libraries Closed in Carroll, Harford and Howard counties and Baltimore City. Open in Anne Arundel, Baltimore and Frederick counties. Public schools Closed in all jurisdictions.