Subject Matter

Deidre Scherer employs the traditions of drawing, painting and fiber art to create her own art form: pictures of people made entirely of pieces of patterned cloth sewn together.Her method of working requires creativity and a high degree of technical skill. And in choosing the aged as her subject matter, she works with great sincerity to foster appreciation of old age and its accumulated knowledge of life. So one can certainly admire her current show at the Baltimore Museum of Art, but not without reservation, for these images suffer from a communication problem: They try too hard.

In her new show at the C. Grimaldis Gallery, painter Grace Hartigan remains true to herself, which means that she's not doing the same old thing. At 75, she's reinventing her art as energetically and imaginatively as ever.Through a distinguished career that now spans half a century, one of the constants of Hartigan's work has been change. Even when her followers have wished she would linger longer with a particular subject matter or style -- as with her much-admired pointillist period of the late 1980s and early 1990s -- she has felt the need to move on. Here, she introduces not one but two new series, the "Stars" of American popular culture that she produced in 1996 and earlier this year, and the more recent "Gods" (Greek and Roman)

Funny thing about sculptor Kiki Smith. Somebody who's been a hot property on the New York and world art scenes for half a dozen years, somebody whose publicity photograph features a look that burns right through you, you expect to talk with an intensity that matches those eyes and the drive of her career.But she doesn't. The voice comes across the phone line from New York in a slowish, informal, conversational tone that immediately announces this person is not an intimidator; and instead of a crisp, no-nonsense recitation of what she's going to talk about in her free slide lecture at Towson State tonight, she seems to be, well, a little unsure about it."

I was browsing through the fall catalog of a mail-order house that sells movies on videocassette. Though the 123-page booklet was mostly divided up by subject matter - "Action," "Great Couples," "Family Movies" - a dozen or so famous names were given sections of their own: Clark Gable and Robert De Niro had a quarter-page each, Alfred Hitchcock a column, Audrey Hepburn a page. But only one star got two whole pages all to himself. Tom Hanks? Bogart? Fred Astaire? Nope. It was John Wayne.Sixteen years after his death, the most popular movie star of the century remains exactly what he was throughout the second half of his life: a universal symbol of what America means to itself.

Arvie Smith's paintings, in the current regional exhibit at University of Maryland Baltimore County, stick with you. His vivid colors, his active line, his figures shown close up so that they're right in your face, and his combination of topical subject matter and art historical references make his canvases arresting and unforgettable.Smith's "Strange Fruit" is a visual rendering of Billie Holiday's song about lynching. Its central figure, a black man with a rope around his neck, has the faraway look in his eyes of martyrs from Renaissance paintings, and his hooded killers show by the trousers and shoes that stick out beneath their gowns that they're people who will be walking around among us tomorrow.

CensorshipDonna Dallas' letter, ("Who's Sleazy?" Aug. 16) shows that she, like many people today, does not understand the meaning of the word "censorship."Censorship is the removal or prohibition of news, literature, movies, etc., by a person or entity who has the power to do so.For example, if a town, school board or other governing-type body were to examine newspapers and books, and this body had the power to prohibit or remove those items it felt to be "wrong," the actions of prohibition or removal would rightly be called censorship.

Lou Stovall has had a silk-screen printmaking studio in Washington since 1968, and in the intervening 23 years has made prints for about 80 artists, by his own estimate. Last year a group show of works by some of those artists, and Stovall himself, opened at the African-American Atelier in Greensboro, N.C., and then went to the Corcoran Gallery in Washington.A smaller version of that show has opened at Dundalk Community College in celebration of Black History Month. Called "Heroes, Teachers and Friends," it contains 24 works by Stovall and 11 colleagues for whom he has made silk-screen prints of their works, including such famous artists as Jacob Lawrence, Elizabeth Catlett and Sam Gilliam.

Painting is alive and well in the Maryland Institute's current exhibit, titled "Painting." The five artists included do not share a common theme or style, but at times what they have to say does overlap.Karen Gunderson's black paintings remind us forcefully that we're in the postmodern age. Her works reach back into art history for very representative and association-laden subject matter -- "Sunflowers," "Conversations: Before the Fall -- After the Fall," (Adam and Eve, of course), "Still Life."

About three quarters of the way through "Henry Ossawa Tanner" at the Philadelphia Museum of Art (through April 14) there is a painting that may be Tanner's most distinct and modern."

A glowing critical notice for John Viles' current exhibit at the Katzenstein Gallery would refer as much to his radioactive subject matter as to the ingenuity of how he uses industrial materials.The environmental message in his exhibit "Industrial Strength: Textiles and Objects" comes through loud and clear. This is not art that lends itself to ambiguity.Just consider the strips of police caution tape reading "Police Line Do Not Cross" that Viles has woven together to form a "Security Blanket."

Center Stage never has been a theater company for wimps, and the slate of six shows to be staged during the 2008-2009 season has the potential to deliver a powerful left hook. Four of the six shows scheduled for next season take as their subject matter such dark themes as incest, race relations and a terrifyingly toxic marriage. Things lighten up for the first show of the season - a classic light romance - and the last, a mischievous new comedy about backstage antics. The season contains the qualities that have become Center Stage hallmarks during Irene Lewis' 17-year tenure as the troupe's artistic director.

New -- Artists' Gallery in the American City Building, 10227 Wincopin circle, Columbia, will show Explorations, an all-member show focused on the artists' pursuit of new media, style, subject matter and perspectives, from Monday through Aug. 24. A reception is planned from 6 p.m. to 8 p.m. Aug. 3. Gallery hours are 11 a.m. to 5:30 p.m. Monday through Friday, 9:30 a.m. to 12:30 p.m. Saturday, and by appointment. 410-740-8349.

Every year, most metropolitan newspapers will produce several multipart series. It is certain that the first part of a series will receive a large, splashy treatment on the front page, that the package will contain at least two full inside pages and that readers will be asked to make a major investment in time. Critics see many of these big projects as exercises in journalistic vanity, saying they are disconnected from community concerns or interests and designed more to be read by journalism contest judges than readers.

Hooking Up is the story of what happens to 11 young women in Manhattan when image and text are transformed into flesh and blood in the unpredictable world of online dating. Produced by the ABC News team that in 2000 took viewers inside the Johns Hopkins Hospital in a series called Hopkins 24/7, the five-part documentary is an addictive and illuminating look at courtship in the age of the Internet. It also may serve as a model for journalistically sound, nonfiction drama that's compelling enough to compete in the ratings-driven world of prime-time network television.

RECENTLY, THE FIRST "blogger" was given credentials by the White House to attend the daily press briefings. The implication is that bloggers have a status similar to that of journalists. Naturally, this makes mainstream journalists react with hand-wringing, worrying that their professionalism is being compromised by "quasi-journalists," or worse. Before addressing the larger issues of the relationship between bloggers and journalism, key concepts need to be made clear. "Blog" is short for "Web log" and generally connotes an online journal that is managed by one person or a group of individuals (bloggers)

The versatility of one medium will be on display, beginning Saturday, at the School 33 Art Center. Declaring Space: Recent Drawings by Baltimore Artists, part of the city's annual Artscape celebration, is a group show that features disparate drawing styles, techniques and subject matter. Each artist's body of work is different, from gestural figure compositions to sketches of graphic forms, but all of the pieces give the viewer a glimpse into the creative processes behind the drawing.

Wilson's `Ma Rainey' at Arena Players Ma Rainey's Black Bottom - the 1920s installment of August Wilson's decade-by-decade chronicle of the African-American experience in the 20th century - opens tomorrow at Arena Players. Wilson's first Broadway play is set in a 1927 Chicago recording studio where the famed blues singer fights to win the respect of the white recording industry, for which she is already a major moneymaker. Wynonia Rhock heads a cast that features Jonathan Claiborne, O'Bryant Kenner, Archie Williams Jr. and Sean Yoes, under the direction of Amini Johari-Courts.

Deidre Scherer employs the traditions of drawing, painting and fiber art to create her own art form: pictures of people made entirely of pieces of patterned cloth sewn together.Her method of working requires creativity and a high degree of technical skill. And in choosing the aged as her subject matter, she works with great sincerity to foster appreciation of old age and its accumulated knowledge of life. So one can certainly admire her current show at the Baltimore Museum of Art, but not without reservation, for these images suffer from a communication problem: They try too hard.

In her new show at the C. Grimaldis Gallery, painter Grace Hartigan remains true to herself, which means that she's not doing the same old thing. At 75, she's reinventing her art as energetically and imaginatively as ever.Through a distinguished career that now spans half a century, one of the constants of Hartigan's work has been change. Even when her followers have wished she would linger longer with a particular subject matter or style -- as with her much-admired pointillist period of the late 1980s and early 1990s -- she has felt the need to move on. Here, she introduces not one but two new series, the "Stars" of American popular culture that she produced in 1996 and earlier this year, and the more recent "Gods" (Greek and Roman)

Funny thing about sculptor Kiki Smith. Somebody who's been a hot property on the New York and world art scenes for half a dozen years, somebody whose publicity photograph features a look that burns right through you, you expect to talk with an intensity that matches those eyes and the drive of her career.But she doesn't. The voice comes across the phone line from New York in a slowish, informal, conversational tone that immediately announces this person is not an intimidator; and instead of a crisp, no-nonsense recitation of what she's going to talk about in her free slide lecture at Towson State tonight, she seems to be, well, a little unsure about it."