Painting

Much of Baltimore turns out for Artscape every summer, and so it seems appropriate that one of the five visual arts exhibits opening this weekend comments so directly on life in our city."

A Baltimore jury on Wednesday awarded $1.3 million in damages to a 17-year-old girl, finding that negligence by the Housing Authority of Baltimore City was a substantial factor in lead-paint poisoning she suffered as a young girl. Amafica Woodland lived in a now-demolished house in the Flag House Courts housing project in East Baltimore until she was nearly 3. Her attorney, Scott Nevin, said he expected the award to be reduced to $690,000 because of a state cap on non-economic damages.

It sounds like an art gallery's dream come true.The Delaplaine Visual Arts Center in Frederick is currently showing the most topical and most popular art exhibit since it opened in 1986. Instead of the usual quilts or landscapes, "Right Down to the Roots" deals with such subjects as homeless women, race relations, the Gulf War and the Holocaust.Instead of the usual desultory attendance -- an average of maybe 25 to 30 people a day -- 800 people saw the show the first two days it was open.And they were involved.

Timothy S. Reuwer, an artist who was the co-owner of the Happy Hollow plant nursery, died of cancer Friday at St. Joseph Medical Center. The Cockeysville resident was 59. Born in Baltimore and raised in Hunt Valley, he attended the Boys' Latin School and Baltimore County public schools. Nearly 30 years ago, he and Sue Bloodgood, who would become his wife, founded Happy Hollow Nursery in Cockeysville. They cultivated and sold numerous varieties of day lilies and hostas, among other perennials.

George H. Barrett says his interest in painting was whetted in high school, but he didn't start dabbling in art until he retired from Westinghouse three years ago.Mr. Barrett, who has been taking watercolor and oil painting classes at the Pascal Senior Center in Glen Burnie, says he "likes watercolor a little better. My oil paintings come out a little dark a lot of time."One of his watercolors, a seascape of a lighthouse, won third place at the 1994 Anne Arundel County Fair. He didn't enter this year's fair competition.

In 1993, a leaky roof damaged the Walters Art Gallery's 9-by-16-foot early Tiepolo painting, necessitating a restoration. During the restoration process, it became clear that as much as 80 percent of the original painting had been covered by earlier "restorations." The conservators uncovered Tiepolo's original painting and revealed an early masterpiece, which was then invited to the Metropolitan's Tiepolo show.The painting is now thought to depict "Scipio Freeing Massiva," an incident in Roman history.

Artists will be putting themselves on display tomorrow at Paint Annapolis, an outdoor painting event organized by the Mid-Atlantic Plein Air Painters Association. Lee Boyton, a founding member of the 7-month-old association, wanted to try Paint Annapolis after he heard about similar events in the Northeast and on the West Coast. "We are very excited to do something like this in Annapolis," he said, noting that there was such interest and support that Paint Annapolis 2003 has already been planned.

In the largest collaboration ever between the Baltimore Museum of Art and the Walters Art Gallery, the BMA presents "The Triumph of French Painting," a survey of more than 60 masterpieces by 19th- and early 20th-century French artists drawn from the collections of the BMA and the Walters. The show, which opens Sunday, includes landscapes, still lifes, portraits and history paintings by more than 30 artists, including Ingres, Delacroix, Millet, Corot, Monet, Renoir, Cezanne, van Gogh, Picasso and Matisse.

In her shop in Montgomery Village, Savita Jain practices the ancient form of henna art - applying a temporary stain made from a ground-up plant in intricate patterns on her client's bodies. Jain says she has equal numbers of Indian and American clients. The Indian clients prefer to have their hands and feet adorned, while Americans are apt to ask for designs on all parts of their bodies. The stain lasts about three weeks.

THIS MONTH'S show at Slayton House Gallery in Wilde Lake Village Center features realistic oil paintings by Fred Peacock and abstracts by Estela Rotondaro. Peacock, a resident of Harper's Choice who also lives part-time near Garrett County's Deep Creek Lake, has 23 paintings in the show. "Twenty-one are of the Youghiogheny River" in Western Maryland, he said. The other two are of the woods surrounding the river. "The river is beautiful and wild," Peacock said in a phone interview from his home in Garrett County.

The question had been nagging for almost the entire half-hour spent seated at the kitchen table of Mary Veiga and Jeff Lipkin's home in Baltimore. Just as the urge to know the cost of a thick, pure slab of marble on the kitchen counter is about to trump politeness, the answer is freely given. "The counter is painted to look like white marble," explained Veiga, 44, a decorative painter and muralist who also dabbles in trompe l'oeil , the painting style designed to trick the eye. "I like to keep with the style of a house; otherwise it doesn't make sense.

The Baltimore housing department received a $2.9 million federal grant Friday to clean up poisonous lead paint found in the walls of thousands of city buildings. Baltimore will receive $2.9 million from the federal government to fix lead-paint hazards in more than 200 homes, the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development announced Friday — a vote of confidence in the city's efforts to resolve past problems with its abatement program. "It's a tremendous boost to our work in protecting children from lead-paint poisoning," said Ken Strong, an assistant city housing commissioner who began overseeing the program last year after Mayor Stephanie Rawlings-Blake moved it from the health department to the housing agency.

Lutherville resident David Kressin, a professional house painter for nearly 20 years, recently released a new DVD "Take a Professional Painter Home with You," designed to teach the average person how to paint an interior room in several concise steps. "The paint industry assumes everyone knows the basic painting fundamentals or recommends taping everything in the room," Kressin said. "If I painted the way most online videos teach, I would be out of business. " He said the video, "illustrates the fundamentals and tricks of the trade, which aren't hard.

With some paint and glazes, a few tools and a little time, a plain, functional front door can become a home's welcoming statement, with the rich colors and grains of oak or mahogany. A concrete column can look like marble, a ceiling can become a cloud-dappled sky and old cabinets can get new life. To get those looks and more, all homeowners have to do is go to school. The Faux School, founded in Frederick by artist Ron Layman, 41, offers classes on decorative painting techniques to amateurs and professionals alike.

Apparently my good friend, Fred Rasmussen , who wrote an interesting piece about passenger ship founderings over the past century ("Some show bravery, others cowardice," Feb. 26) was not aware of one of the most outstanding rescues in history. Coincidentally, the master in charge was a ship captain from Baltimore. The rescue has been recorded on a painting entitled "And Every Soul Was Saved. " An engraving of that painting is included as the frontispiece of a book on America's merchant marine, printed in Baltimore in 1915, with the description reading as follows: "The engraving opposite, taken from a famous painting by Thomas M. Hemy, commemorates one of the most graphic rescues at sea ever recorded in the history of maritime events.

Even after watching her team surrender a 14-point lead in Wednesday's Class 4A North Region semifinal, Poly coach Kendall Peace-Able never lost faith in the No. 3 Engineers. "When you don't want to see it end," Peace-Able said, "you find a way. " Facing Paint Branch, host Poly did just that. Sophomore Teira Pendleton celebrated her 16th birthday with 16 points and 10 rebounds, including seven points during a four-minute stretch in the fourth quarter that ultimately made the difference in a 52-45 win. "Sometimes it's other people's day, but today was my day," Pendleton said.

ANGLERS ALL across Maryland will have a small piece of Carroll County on their 1997 fishing licenses. Wildlife artist and Sykesville resident Stephen Perrine has won the 1997 Maryland Trout Stamp Design Contest with his acrylic painting "Gold Rush."The watercolor, which depicts brown trout feeding, was awarded first place by a panel of graphic artists. The judges rated the image on correctness of biological detail, artistic technique, coloration and the possibility of reproducing the design.

After 30 years of lobbying, campaigning and organizing to save open spaces in Maryland, Nancy Lee Davis of Clarksville has turned to a different preservation tool: the paintbrush. Davis, a founder of the Maryland League of Conservation Voters, has been personally drawn to barns, old houses and open fields - particularly on the Eastern Shore - as subjects for her oil paintings. She said she realized that "I could at least capture on canvas those things that were disappearing." Her paintings are on display at the Artists' Gallery in the American Cities Building in Columbia through May 25. Davis said she got involved in preservation causes while raising her children, who are now grown.

Amanda Walsh has been named to the fall 2011 dean's list at Gonzaga University, Spokane, Wash. Nadejda Hvoyneva , a resident of Cockeysville, has earned a bachelor's degree in business from Excelsior College, Albany, N.Y. Michael Lackey , of Towson, and Hannah Shultz , of Lutherville, have been named to the fall 2011 dean's list at Juniata College, Huntingdon, Pa. Rebecca Taylor , of Timonium, graduated from...

Harry Reese Gamber, a high school dropout who became a successful businessman specializing in drywall and painting, died Sunday of pancreatic cancer at Gilchrist Hospice in Towson. The Owings Mills resident, who had lived in Catonsville for many years, was 85. The son of an auto mechanic and a homemaker, Harry Reese Gamber was born in a home in Westminster that is now Maggie's Restaurant. His great-grandfather, William Snyder Gamber, who was a Civil War veteran, served as postmaster from 1881 to 1903 of the Carroll County village that was named for him. In 1930, Mr. Gamber, who was known as Reese, was struck by an automobile that left him with serious nerve damage and a permanently injured right arm. Numerous hospitalizations left him behind in school, and when he was 13, he dropped out. Unable to enlist for the service because of his arm, Mr. Gamber worked for the Red Cross during World War II. From 1945 to 1948, he worked a variety of construction jobs, including driving a cement mixer for the Harry T. Campbell Co., and later rose to become a foreman.