Columbia Art

Go to the usual exhibit and you'll visualize how the artwork hanging on the gallery wall would look hanging on your living room wall. An exhibit installed at both the Columbia Art Center and Howard Community College, "Wear Art," encourages one to contemplate how women would look wearing the exhibited clothing and jewelry. Although this Columbia Festival of the Arts-connected exhibit includes its share of whimsical creations, everything is functional. One might not be inclined to wear these items while mowing the lawn, but they'd make a lady look fashionably distinctive for a night on the town.

Art and poetry support a worthy cause in the group exhibit "Haiku for Hope," which is co-sponsored by the Columbia Art Center and Howard County Promotion and Tourism's Blossoms of Hope and Cherrybration. Proceeds go toward Howard County General Hospital's Claudia Mayer Cancer Resource Center. Each artwork has an accompanying short poem that reinforces its inspirational themes. That inspiration generally is found in nature and, more specifically, a number of the artists and poets respond to the cherry blossoms that cheerfully light up the landscape in April.

You can make a case that the vases in "Triple Vision" are meant to be admired as much as used. The three artists showcased in this Columbia Art Center exhibit make vases, platters and other ceramic objects that often have whimsical shapes or surface decoration. Although Pam Hannasch and Dick Roepke generally make functional pieces, they also have playful tendencies. As for Scott McNabb, well, his nonfunctional ceramic art can be used to generate a smile. It's nice to walk around the gallery and see how these three distinctive artistic identities are shaped; however, some of their pieces are displayed on such low pedestals that it's rather awkward to try looking at them.

Art is good for the soul, but it's also good for the soles in the Columbia Art Center exhibit "A Walk in My Shoes. " Speaking of good, this show is co-sponsored by Howard County Promotion and Tourism's Blossoms of Hope and Cherrybration. Proceeds benefit the Claudia Mayer Cancer Resource Center of Howard County General Hospital. This thematically oriented exhibit has two main categories of subject matter: flowers and shoes. Sometimes they appear in the same artwork, as in Sally Stevens' photograph "Happy Feet.

Space for working artists' studios, a satellite branch of a larger museum and outdoor performances were among the ideas for cultural improvements to downtown Columbia shared during a forum sponsored by General Growth Properties Inc. last week. "We are not the kind of consultant who comes to your community and says you have to have this, that or the other thing," said Gail Dexter Lord, president of Lord Cultural Resources, who is part of the design and planning team working on the master plan for Columbia Town Center.

Listings are accepted on a space-available basis. Deadline is 5 p.m. Thursday prior to date of publication at the latest. To submit contest items, mail to Contests, Patuxent Publishing Co. Editorial, 501 N. Calvert St., Baltimore, MD 21278; email hccalendar@patuxent.com ; fax 410-332-6336; or call 410-332-6497. Columbia Art Center Call for Entries — Seeking entries for its annual theme, Umbrella Exhibition, to be held as part of Columbia International Day, July 23, 2 p.m.-sunset, Lake Kittamaqundi, in Columbia.

The Columbia Art Center will offer a course, Handbuilding with Clay, with artist Christina McCleary, from 6:30 p.m. to 9 p.m. Mondays, tomorrow through Aug. 15. Participants, ages 17 and older, will have an opportunity to explore ceramic handbuilding techniques. Beginning and continuing students are welcome. The cost is $175 for Columbia residents; $185 for nonresidents. The art center is at 6100 Foreland Garth in Long Reach village. Information or registration: 410-730-0075. Library to hold meeting of book club for adults The east Columbia library, 6600 Cradlerock Way, will hold a meeting of its Never Never Land Book Club for Adults at 7 p.m. July 6. The adult book discussion group reads juvenile and young adult fiction.

Unless you've been living in a cave, you've probably hear about the big name acts taking part in the Columbia Festival of the Arts, which began its 11-day run last night. But somewhat obscured by the glamour of headliners like the Alvin Ailey AmericUnless you've been living in a cave, you've probably heard about the big name acts taking part in the Columbia Festival of the Arts, which began its 11-day run last night. But somewhat obscured by the glamour of headliners like the Alvin Ailey American Dance Theater, or the Chamber Music Society of Lincoln Center are the free lakefront events scheduled for afternoons and evenings this weekend and next.

The fifth annual Columbia Festival of the Arts offers jazz great Max Roach drumming up a storm, country musician Mark O'Connor fiddling with the Baltimore Symphony Orchestra, members of the Momix dance troupe pretending they're Venus on the half-shell, a chorus of Columbia residents singing Scottish tunes in a VOICETheatre music-theater piece, quilt exhibits, a locally written play about John Wilkes Booth, a "Catfish Dreamin' " down by the Columbia Town...