Creativity

Carroll County Public Library celebrated creativity in both the written word and the video image this week, as the system recognized the winners of its annual summer short story and film contest for young adults Aug. 22 at a ceremony at Carroll Community College. The contest was open to all middle school and high school summer reading participants in the county. Winners were chosen from each age group for each genre. The 12 winners had their works featured during the ceremony. "We had, over the entire contest, over 100 entries," said Beth Heltebridle, children's service supervisor at the CCPL's Mount Airy Library.

It's a daunting feat to try and cover Bob Dylan, but when Creative Alliance rocks their fourth Night of 1000 Dylans on Friday, Brian Simms will be handling the keyboard and accordion responsibilities. "I began picking out songs from the radio on a Schroeder piano at age 5," Simms said. "My parents [later] thought it a sound investment to purchase a life-size one. " Glenelg native and Catonsville resident Simms has recorded and toured with hometown heroes Disappear Fear in the '90s and currently plays in eight bands, including Junkyard Saints.

Standing at her easel on the bridge over the Patapsco River at the base of Ellicott City's historic Main Street, Sam Alger was pleased with the visual elements of the scene she'd staked out earlier in the summer. Arched stone B&O Railroad overpass? Check. Dappled water with lazy interplay of light and shadow? Check. Cool shade on her back? Not so much. She hadn't anticipated the relentless rays of sunshine when she picked a spot to paint, but two out of three wasn't too bad. As she brought the landscape to life in oil paint last Sunday morning, the Longfellow Elementary School art teacher said jokingly that at least she wouldn't have to worry about turning in a still-wet entry to "Paint It!

Plug Ugly's Publick House is a strange name for a tavern. But Baltimore history buffs know the Plug Uglies were a thuggish street gang/political club that ran riot on Baltimore's streets in the 1850s. Don't worry. The newest resident of O'Donnell Square isn't a gangland. Bartenders with untucked shirts are about as rough as it gets, and the staff here, you may be sorry to know, seems to have been chosen for their gentle dispositions. At first glance, Plug Ugly's could pass for any number of its neighbors, but look closer: The wood-filled bar area and dining rooms have been generously furnished with salvaged material like church pews and antique lighting fixtures.

While growing up in a well-to-do Richmond, Va., family, Rob Levit never knew quite what to do with the surge of energy he often felt racing through him like a current. He hadn't mastered an instrument or learned to paint. He had no hankering to write. So he did the only thing he could think of. He became the class clown. "I was always getting in trouble," says Levit, 44, an improvisational jazz guitarist with 15 music CDs and an international performing career to his credit.

By the banks of the Jones Falls is a building that houses the life work of artist Les Harris. The Amaranthine Museum is his view of creativity through the ages. His work, many years in the making, fills several rooms. "Art expresses the spiritual reality of the psyche, not the rational," he says, explaining his mazelike, multidimensional artistic experience. The museum, at 2010 Clipper Park Road, is open Thursday nights, Sunday afternoons and by appointment. Information: 410-523-2574.

When a puppet is animated, a personality bursts forth that is, at its best, engaging and entertaining. This is how it feels to meet Shirley Johannesen Levine of Columbia - owner, performer and creative force behind Puppet Dance Productions. Her energy and enthusiasm burst forth, creating an atmosphere that is positively charged. Levine combines poems and puppets to spark creativity in children and adults. "Poetry needs to be heard," she says, "and puppets need words to say. I think they make a winning combination."

WESTMINISTER - Countians seeking answers to relationship problems will have some extra help, with the advent of "Counselor's Corner" at noon tomorrow on Prestige Cable Channel 55.The show, created by Steven Mednick, a psychotherapist with the Carroll County Family Counseling Center, could reach about 18,000 households."

"Wry Martinis," by Christopher Buckley. Random House. 291 pages. $22.As Christopher Buckley acknowledges up front, this is mostly a collection of his magazine pieces, many of them for the New Yorker, where he is a frequent (and frequently hilarious) contributor to the "Shouts and Murmurs" column.Traditionally, publishers feel that emblazoning the word "collection" on a humor book's dust jacket is tantamount to announcing: "This product was made from the skin of baby seals." But if any potential buyers are put off by the dreaded C-word, it would be a pity, since this is an enormously funny and entertaining compilation.

If the wind is a good metaphor for the process of creativity, as asserted by a PBS series premiering tonight, the breeze blows only fitfully through "The Creative Spirit."The hourlong show, first of three weekly parts, can be seen at 8 tonight on Washington's WETA (Channel 26) and at 11 p.m. on Maryland Public Television.Ambitious in conception -- seeking no less than an answer to how creativity happens -- the premiere episode stirs some zephyrs of interest but also falls calm at least as often.

Food Network star Giada De Laurentiis says that her mother would make frittatas, the Italian egg dish, with whatever leftovers she had in the refrigerator. " That was the joke," she tells viewers in segment of her cooking show. "What's in the frittata today, Mama?" What better dish to serve Mom on Mother's Day? A frittata is quick and easy, and the kids can help. As a bonus, Mom wakes to a clean fridge. An omelet without the fold and a quiche without the crust, the frittata has its own selling points: It can be sliced and eaten, hot or cold, with a fork or fingers.

Artist and muralist Pat O'Brien confronts a bare room as she would an engineering project. She takes measurements, makes scale drawings, and plans precisely the colors, fabrics and furnishings she will employ. It all makes perfect sense for the former electrical engineer who used to design systems for military aircraft when she worked at AAI Corp. in Cockeysville. O'Brien's artistic talent will be on display at the Baltimore Symphony Associates decorators' show house, which opens Sunday, April 29. Hers will be the first interior space visitors encounter as they tour the Eck House in Baltimore County's Cromwell Valley Park.

Kwame Kwei-Armah is doing his utmost to speed up the transitions. Center Stage 's new artistic director strides back and forth along the stage where the troupe's production of "The Whipping Man" is being rehearsed, scrutinizing the set from all angles. He brings in more helpers. He removes obstacles from the actors' paths and cuts out extra steps. He signals the precise moment when two bags of loot are flung through an open doorway and land on the floor with a muffled thump.

Elaine Karp-Gelernter, a retired Veterans Affairs psychologist who was also a textile artist, died of complications from pneumonia March 20 at Sinai Hospital. The Mount Washington resident was 78. She was the daughter of Polish immigrants who ran a custom-tailored bridal shop in New York City. She grew up in the Williamsburg section of Brooklyn and earned a bachelor's degree in psychology from Brooklyn College. In 1952, she married Steve Karp, a psychologist. She and her family moved to Mount Washington in 1964.

Pictured in a tall glass with ice cream poking above the rim and foam overflowing, the Irish Float looked obscenely tantalizing. It stood out from the mosaic of golden fries and fluffed up burgers in the menu of the new Greene Turtle at McHenry Row. A combination of Guinness and Bacardi rum, it suggested one of the alcoholic shakes at Abbey Burger Bistro. Those aren't cocktails. They are unapologetic guilty pleasures, both potent and decadent. But what I got at the Greene Turtle last week turned out to be little more than an alcoholic Shamrock Shake.

When Jerry DeWitt paints a barn, there's a bit of the gentle clanging of cowbells mixing in with the watercolors. That sound echoes back to his grandfather's Depression-era farm at the end of a lane in Bedford County, Pa. He was just 2 years old when his father left home for good and the youngster was uprooted from Lansing, Mich., to live with his grandparents. And in between trips to the pasture to the hand-dug well for another bucket of water, or out to the shed for an arm load of firewood, the sights and sounds and smells of farm life wrapped themselves around Jerry's memory, eventually finding their way to paint and paper more than 30 years later.

Button Howard used to be in the mortgage business, but her creative side got the best of her and now she fashions fantastical hats under the name of Button's Sew On and Sew On. She sells hats at festivals and fairs, and they also appear at weddings and on theater sets.Howard, naturally, wears her own hats, including baseball caps decorated with pansies and other frilly flowers. Howard does have to dare herself to sport her most outrageous pieces, decked out with feathers, veils, blooms, "you name it!"

Often when an old home is in the final stages of an interior renovation, the grandeur of new molding, flooring and light fixtures stands out like a masterfully worked canvas awaiting the addition of the primary subject. Such is the story unfolding behind the new windows of the Alice and Mike Gosse's circa 1920 East Baltimore rowhouse, where the scarcity of furniture draws full attention to the quality of the detailed work completed. Just inside the front door, off a narrow hall, the entire first floor is open, extending little more than 15 feet wide and 65 feet long to the back wall of the home.

Who knew that Baltimore had such happy feet? Three icons of tap dance who were famous nationwide — known colloquially as Baby Laurence, Buster Brown and Hawk — were born in Charm City and first perfected the "shim sham" and "cramp roll" and performed for spare change on local street corners. The late hoofers will be honored Saturday during Buster, Baby and Hawk: Masters of Maryland Tap, a concert produced jointly by Coppin State University and the Creative Alliance at the Patterson that will mix local talent and national stars.