Fine Arts

Queen Elizabeth II has something in common with most collectors: She doesn't have insurance. Few can forget the monarch's pained expression watching Windsor Castle burn and her salvageable antiques and artworks being dragged out into the rain."

Reductions in Glendening's budget should not snub Md. arts and cultureWhen I heard recently that Gov. Parris N. Glendening's proposed Maryland state budget was about to be cut, with a direct effect on the arts, I felt compelled to write.Governor Glendening has proposed a fiscal 2000 budget that includes a $2.1 million increase for the Maryland State Arts Council's budget.Because the governor's income estimate exceeds the General Assembly's by $140 million, the legislature is forced to cut the governor's budget.

In an article Sunday about the African-American art exhibition at Washington's Corcoran Gallery, I remarked that historically black colleges and universities were among the first to collect the work of African-American artists.However, it's also true that these institutions had significant holdings of works by white American and European artists. In fact, works by early American modernists like Arthur Dove, Marsden Hartley, Alfred Stieglitz and Georgia O'Keeffe constitute an important part of these collections.

Music, drama, physical education and work-force development programs at Carroll Community College are about to get a significant boost.And lots more space.The school will break ground next year for a $12.9 million expansion that includes two buildings:A fine arts and business building that will house a theater, art studios, music practice rooms and conference facilities for local businesses to train their employees.A fitness building that will include a new exercise center and classrooms and faculty offices.

ON a recent Saturday morning, the Baltimore School for the Arts -- the city's only public school specializing in fine arts education -- was jammed to the rafters with children eager to participate in dance, music and theatrical performances.The event was so successful that organizers had to turn away late-comers. That same day, a few miles away, children plucked violins and swiveled their hips at Cold Stream Elementary, where another arts workshop was in progress.For many children, these events were a rare treat.

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."

The office of Coleen M. West, executive director of Howard County Arts Council, is dominated by a huge abstract oil painting that stands guard over the room. West's desk is a glorious mess: Papers, drawings and pamphlets for events sponsored by the arts council litter the desktop.With so much on her plate, West, 39, and the council's deputy director, Debbie Meyer, face an imposing task.The council's $660,000 annual budget must go a long way toward operating the county's Center for the Arts and funding exhibitions and programs.

It will be hot. It could be wet. It will be crowded. There will be controversy, likely tempered by good humor. There will be people from down the street and across the globe. The lines for funnel cakes will be longer than those for the galleries. There will be high art and low, art for sale and art for art's sake. Everyone who is not an artist will be a critic. It will be, in short, another Artscape.Artscape, which runs Friday through Sunday, is a ripe old 18 now, having survived thunderstorms, political storms and endless debate over what it is and ought to be. Those who produce it have put an annual focus and a face on Baltimore's arts community; some of the faces of Artscape 1999 are pictured here.

Mission: A component of the college of Fine Arts and Communication at Towson University, the Maryland Arts Festival strives to provide a forum for high-quality artistic endeavors with emphasis on production and display of work by Maryland residents. The summer festival features six weeks of theater, music, art and film. Participating artists include recognized music and theater professionals, community members and students selected through competitive auditions. Festival programming is chosen to enhance accessibility of the arts to the public, to develop new works, to produce revivals of masterworks of the Broadway musical repertoire, and to present existing works that are never or seldom seen in the Baltimore area.

Morgan State University will break ground today on an arts center that officials hope will mark a fundamental change in their campus and its community."

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.

David Winfield Scott, a noted American artist and author and former Eastern Shore resident who was the founding director of the National Museum of American Art, died of multiple organ failure Monday at an Austin, Texas, hospice. He was 92. Dr. Scott was born in Fall River, Mass., and raised in Claremont, Calif., where his father was a professor at Pomona College. After graduating from the Webb School in Claremont, he studied painting with Millard Sheets, a prominent California watercolorist, who became a formative influence on the young artist.

Courses at St. John's St. John's College is offering a number of continuing education and fine arts courses starting Sept. 13. Registration deadline is Thursday. Tuition is $210 for preceptorials. In preceptorials, up to 15 students meet with a St. John's tutor for a close reading of one book or several works relating to a theme. Preceptorials this fall include works by psychologist William James, Plutarch's Lives, the first two novels in Paul Scott's historic epic, The Raj Quartet, and film director Akira Kurosawa's classic Seven Samurai.

Charles Parkhurst, a museum director in Baltimore and Washington and one of the "monuments men," an Allied Forces team that chased down leads, pried open crates and snooped around museums, salt mines and castles in search of art stolen by the Nazis during World War II, died Thursday at his home in Amherst, Mass. He was 95. His death was confirmed by his wife, Carol Clark. From 1962 to 1970, Mr. Parkhurst was director of the Baltimore Museum of Art. Mr. Parkhurst's tenure in Baltimore was marked by a $5 million to $7 million increase in the worth of the museum's collection, a figure he estimated in a 1973 Sun article.

Donna Hepner said she generally avoids nature whenever she can. But when the opportunity arose to take an outdoor art class, she took it. On a recent afternoon, she sat in a garden and sketched reflections of a tree in a pond, with ink, pencils, and charcoal. As she made marks on the paper, her work took on life. "When you create art outdoors you need to be relaxed and open," said Hepner, 41, of Joppa. "If you try to control nature, it doesn't work well." Hepner was one of several students who participated in art classes offered by the Maryland Institute College of Art at Ladew Topiary Gardens in Monkton.

A new report confirms complaints that a lot of teachers and school districts have voiced about the federal No Child Left Behind law - that the focus on reading and math doesn't leave enough time for other subjects, such as social studies, art and music. It's a dilemma that didn't originate with NCLB but has been exacerbated by it. The best solution is to recognize, as Maryland does, that exposure to a variety of subjects is what constitutes a well-rounded education. According to the Center on Education Policy, more than 60 percent of school districts have increased instruction time in elementary schools for either or both English language arts and math since 2001-2002, just before NCLB was enacted - and 44 percent have done so at the expense of other subjects.

Michael William Kirby, a world-renowned street painter, created a soft pastel mural for Saturday's second annual Harbor East Fine Arts & Music Festival. The project, which measured roughly 12 feet by 15 feet, took Kirby five days to finish. He says he's more concerned about the problems of finishing a piece than the impermanence of his work.

JAZZED ABOUT MUSIC Jazz pianist Larry Willis will perform at the Washington County Museum of Fine Arts on Sunday. Willis has performed with many jazz greats, including Dizzy Gillespie and Lee Morgan, playing on more than 300 records in his career. His versatile music style will please fans of rock and pop music as well as those interested in more worldly styles, such as African and Brazilian music. .................... The concert will take place at 2:30 p.m. Sunday at the Washington County Museum of Fine Arts, 91 Key St. in Hagerstown.

Susan Kroiz Krieger set a plastic foam square on a work table in the basement of her Baltimore home, picked up the frame of an old clock and squished it down into the foam. "I use items like this that I find all over the place to create my art," said the 63-year-old Baltimore native, picking up some beads to add to her creation. "When I find something I can use, I call it a happy accident." Krieger was creating a relief piece similar to items she is showing in an exhibit that opens today at the Liriodendron Mansion in Bel Air. She is one of four artists who created an exhibit when the scheduled artist -- Carole Jean Bertsch -- had to cancel her show after losing her home in a fire at the end of March.

A new face will join the dais where the Carroll County Board of Education sits for public meetings Wednesday. For the first time, Barbara Shreeve, the board's newest member, will vote on budget adjustments and contracts, construction policies and bid awards. Shreeve may be sitting in a more prominent seat, but she said she's not nervous about her role. "Because I've been so involved, I don't feel like a new person," said Shreeve, who substitute teaches, volunteers and has served as the PTA president.