Gallery

Terri Hartwell Easter has an interior design philosophy that incorporates three of her favorite things: furniture, art and fashion. They converge in high style at the Maris Elaine Gallery, a fine-art and home furnishings store at National Harbor in Prince George's County. "I like to think of our furniture as a great wardrobe item, like a classic black dress," says Easter, who opened the showroom in August. "The accessories and the original artwork are the jewelry that makes it sparkle.

For some, the sight of a faceless garage or a squat chain store or a long stretch of tract housing barely registers; there's just nothing unusual about such things. For artist Sofia Silva, they mean a lot. And, once framed by her camera lens, they are imbued with provocative power. Nearly a dozen of Silva's photographs form an exhibit, "Meditations on the Landscape of Desire," one of two solo shows on display at C. Grimaldis Gallery (the other show features intriguing sculptural pieces by Lu Zhang)

Like so many skeletons of Baltimore's industrial past, the brick and steel bones of sturdy buildings — devoid of innards — are found all along the harbor. Or maybe it should be said they were found along the harbor, since more and more of these previous eyesores have been redeveloped into unique opportunities for city living. Such is the case at the eastern end of the Inner Harbor, in Little Italy. The Canal Street Malt House, a large condominium complex, is so named as a nod to its previous existence, when, in 1866, it was filled with malt, a vital ingredient to the city's burgeoning brewing industry.

For such a little space, the Student Art Gallery at Harford Community College has made a mighty big impact. For starters, it’s run by a board of student officers who oversee the space and the selection of artists. Then, the exhibits rotate nearly every week and usually include a small reception for the artist each time. The real attraction, however, is the art. “I think the work is more varied. It’s edgier,” says Heidi Neff, faculty advisor to the gallery’s board.Because it’s not a sales-based gallery, freedom of expression is the rule.

Viewers see first the beast's ravenous mouth, with six fangs increasing in size and as pointed as daggers. The fiend is wearing a "Vote" button with an image of the American flag, and its tail snakes into a dollar sign. Even before gallery-goers scan the caption — "Monstrous costs: Total House and Senate campaign expenditures" — they have a good idea which dismal fact of modern life is being illustrated. Moreover, they know exactly how artist Nigel Holmes feels about the increase.

Several concepts that The Sun and its reporters seemingly fail to recognize are "illegal" and "affordability. " I was amazed to read in the article "Tuition bill takes a step forward in Senate" (March 10) by Annie Linskey that roughly two dozen illegal immigrants watched the debate from the Senate gallery on Wednesday. Let's get this straight now — two dozen people who are illegally in this country are watching our state Senate debate a discount for them to attend colleges in a state that has a severe financial problem.

Joan Erbe, at 84, still wields a mean piece of graphite. Inspired by the art hanging in a sunny space at the Edward A. Myerberg Senior Center in a Northwest Baltimore neighborhood, she casually sketches an odd, square, quizzical little face on a corner of white table paper. She limits herself to drawing these days because she longer feels strong enough to push her arm across a canvas. But the spark is still there. She shows off her gnarled hands. "I used to think when my hand went, the art would go too," she says.

Federal Hill art gallery owner Mark Cottman never forgot the night he saw comedian Richard Pryor perform at the old Civic Center. So when he heard that Pryor's daughter, Rain, was living in Baltimore and teaching at a city junior-senior high school arts academy, Cottman decided he wanted to help her students in their efforts to stage a production of playwright August Wilson's "Gem of the Ocean. " "Her father inspired me," said Cottman last week as he stood in a classroom at West Baltimore's ConneXions Academy of Art, where Rain Pryor chairs the drama department.

Stephanie Rawlings-Blake keeps an item posted on her refrigerator door that has nothing to do with her day and night job as mayor of Baltimore. It's a 1983 report card from her flute teacher, Bonnie Lake, a now-retired Baltimore Symphony Orchestra member who gave the then-13-year-old student a B-plus. "It reminds me I have a fallback position," Rawlings-Blake said with a laugh. "What it really reminds me is that there are other things in life. " Like the arts. In her short time in office, the mayor has demonstrated a pronounced commitment to the city's cultural community.

Beyond the mighty Baltimore Museum of Art and Walters Art Museum, beyond such long-established, up-market spaces as C. Grimaldis Gallery and Thomas Segal Gallery , a world of artistic enterprise thrives — some of it off the radar or almost literally underground. Baltimore has its share of artist-run, DIY spaces where the emphasis is more on encouraging and showing new work than selling it, as well as others that are very much in the commercial trade. Some venues are a little hard to find, located in low-foot-traffic areas and in buildings that, at first glance, might be mistaken as abandoned; others occupy inviting, street-level spots.