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January 20, 2021

The Talbot Spy

The nonprofit e-newspaper for the Talbot County Community

Arts Arts Portal Lead Spy Highlights Spy Top Story

Art on Lockdown: Yuh Okano

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When I first saw Yuh Okano’s silk scarves during an outdoor Chestertown artist market, I was impressed by the unique spectrum of colors in her work. I wanted to know more about her creative process and ascendance as an artist whose work has been collected by the Museum of Modern Art and many international exhibitions.

Turns out, after befriending fellow artist Faith Wilson while attending many of the same art shows, Okano decided last February to make Chestertown her home after 20 years in New York City.

Okano’s residence on High Street is more like a workshop and gallery. The first floor is a fabric dying room and workspace where yards of silk is stretched hammock-like. These are her blank “canvases” that will be painted and dyed with her visions of the natural world.

The second floor is a gallery for her favorite works from the past and new creations for sale. Okano explains that the fascinating small shadow boxes on the wall are fabric concepts from which larger projects may evolve but often stand alone as art in miniature.

Okano says that her childhood in Japan was influenced by her family of artists, including an uncle who was a renowned famous graphic designer. In the early 1980s, her artistic pathway brought her to the US and Rhode Island School of Design.

“To this day, my network of friends from RISDY, and artists I’ve met along the way, have formed a valuable network. We help each other,” she says.

Drawing heavily from the natural world, Okano exhibits a rich and joyful chromatic scale offset by creations that lean more toward muted olive and cinnamon earth tones.

From bold to subtle, all on silk or fine wool, her commercial work offers ornate necklaces, flower pins, shawls, and handbags of Devore fabric.

 If you visit her gallery, you must see her Shibori Dumpling Bag,

Okano’s fabric art appears in museums and galleries worldwide from Japan and MoMa to Finland and Denmark, and she has taught fabric arts in equally diverse countries.

Scan her website for a full introduction. These few minutes do not do justice to the range of this artist’s work.

This video is approximately 7 minutes in length. To see her prolific range of art, visit her website here.

Cats on High Street in Chestertown

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I’m convinced cats live in a parallel universe and for brief moments slip into our lives to eat, plot and sleep. It must be exhausting on the other side. For seven million years they have perfecting their “I’m a cat and you’re not” sensibility.

Kidding aside, I recently visited Chestertown’s Cat Colloquium on the second floor of the newly renovated 18th century landmark Stam’s Luncheonette to talk with CEO Laura Johnstone Wilson about their mission.

Cat Colloquium was founded by cat-lover and entrepreneur Wendy Culp and conceived as an educational forum with a “commitment to revitalizing downtown Chestertown by establishing a dynamic and inviting community space for both human and felines alike.”

Through partnerships with other, Cat Colloquium also acts as a fundraising source to support organizations that care for animals, children and the community,

Meant as a community open space and educational hub for meetings and school visits, the floor was architecturally designed to be a haven for cats. A 20-ft rope encased tree, with limbs reaching the skylights, sits like an art installation in the play area. Cat tunnels, platform areas, nooks and pillows abound and there’s even a narrow staircase down to Stam’s front window.

And yes, there are cats!

The dozen felines encamped at Cat Colloquium are special—they are all rescues and many of them have suffered from various injuries and medical conditions. Robinson, for example, is blind, but lives and thrives to annoy the group with his antics. Peake (Chesapeake) was bred without ear cartilage—now an outlawed procedure—and Buster lost his tail after being hit by a car. Each cat receives special medical care from Dr. Renee Rucinsky from Mid-Atlantic Cat Hospital.

Cat Colloquium is open to the public. If you are a cat lover, it’s some kind of paradise.

This video is approximately eight minutes in length. To learn more about Cat Colloquium please go here.

Confessions of a Voting Process Witness with Justinian Dispenza

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No, ballots are not delivered in burlap bags by stagecoach.

With allegations of national voter fraud running rampant throughout the news, the Spy wanted to find out what takes place at a ballot canvassing office.

As luck would have at, Spy friend and videographer Justinian Dispenza at Andover Media was on the scene.

Dispenza was the official videographer contracted to record and live-stream the ballot counting process for the 2020 Talbot County Elections.

“When they ran the live stream, the Committee posted a call-in number. If people had a question about any part of the process, they could call and immediately get an answer,” Dispenza said.

Dispenza witnessed and recorded every minute of the procedures, and he’s here to say that the process he saw was ironclad from start to finish each day with tiers of checks and balances and including sophisticated security for the vote-reading machines before and after each day’s counting.

“There are people who watched the entire day, not a lot of people because it’s really boring, but that’s’ the process— a Democrat and a Republican bridging a gap and saying the most important thing is that we participate in a representative democracy to make sure this election is fair.”

Here, Dispenza describes in detail the scrutiny each ballot undergoes when received at the Elections canvassing office.

This video is approximately nine minutes in length. For information about Andover Media please go here.

 

Chesapeake Arts: Keeping Art Alive and Selling During COVID with Carla Massoni

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Since March, every business open to the public has been forced to invent a new way of surviving the pandemic restrictions. New strategies are required to creatively adapt to the coronavirus.

Carla Massoni, owner of MassoniArt Gallery on High St. in Chestertown fearing the worst for a business dependent on a vibrant tourist trade and community engagement, “pivoted” early with a strategy to continue promoting her artists.

“I will do anything in my power to support the artists that I have represented for years. I value what they do. I love their work—this is the partnership we’ve established. They do the work, and I find a way to get it to market,” she said in a recent interview.

Even before the restrictions began to ease up, Massoni began to enhance her online presence with professional videos by Andover Media and to return to her scheduled exhibits.

Concerned that an open gallery approach risked to much social exposure during the pandemic, Massoni decided to customize her approach by inviting customers by appointment only. That way, she says, visitors can have the gallery to themselves and take their time with the exhibit.

The November-December exhibit, Marc Castelli’s “Shouting at the Wind” is already attracting appointment dates. His reputation for astonishing portraits embracing the heart of the Chesapeake—its waterman—along with his on-site talks about the men who are his subjects have been a perennial draw for the gallery.

But change comes with a cost. She misses the pre-pandemic gallery openings, the crowds of First Friday visitors, and the excitement of Tea Party and Downrigging’s festivities.

“I love being with all the people who have come in all these years… I’ve watched a whole generation of people who come in and out of the gallery, folks who have weekend homes and I’ve seen their children awkwardly graduating from high school and college and now they bring their new wife or husband and baby.”

Massoni speaks for all of us in our lament for better days. But she also speaks to our determination to move forward and to continue to innovate, create, and connect in new ways.

This video is approximately seven minutes in length. To find out more about MassoniArt and watch the artists’ videos please go here.

 

Melissa McGlynn: Savory Pot Pies, a Vaccine for Our Times

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One bright silver lining to the utter mayhem of the pandemic is the necessary drive to innovate. Business closures alone have swept jobs into a river of uncertainty. School closures and remote learning have upended family life. Social distancing has muted social life.

Some are lucky to continue their work remotely while others are forced to scan the horizon for work that may be far afield of their talents. Innovators take the leap of faith and strike out on their own.

One fantastic example of this has been Melissa McGlynn’s Cottage Pies’ sudden appearance and immediate success, a savory vaccine for our time.

For three consecutive Saturdays, McGlynn and her husband, Walt Steffens have hauled a week’s work of their made-from-scratch frozen pot pies from the kitchen at Betterton American Legion to Saturday Market. It takes a week of baking to stock up enough pies for the market, and those are gone within minutes.

McGlynn is no novice when it comes to specialty baking. Cordon Bleu trained and five years of creating popular baked goodies at local bakeries and restaurants from Evergrain Bakery, JR’s, and Louisa’s Restaurant, she has cultivated a community following. But when COVID hit, work came to a halt.

“I was at Louisa’s in March and knew when Italy closed because of the pandemic we would be next in line. The day Memo closed the restaurant closed, I had pastries in the oven.”

The next couple of months were tough.

“I sat around in depression and realized the pandemic wasn’t going away anytime soon, but I couldn’t just sit around,” she says.

McGlynn and Steffens began to kick around a few ideas. “I wanted to head out on my own but wanted to make sure I wasn’t stepping on anyone’s toes.”

Recalling that Swanson pot pies were always a winner at dinner as a kid, McGlynn began to consider creating a medley of pot pies. It seemed the perfect fit. Then things began to fall into place.

Meeting the rigid Health Department requirements for licensing, McGlynn searched for a kitchen and found her new home at Betterton American Legion.

“The licensing took months, and I couldn’t have done it without Erica at the Health Department who took time out of her emergency level schedule dealing with the pandemic. In the meantime, I tested a few recipes in my kitchen, starting with chicken pot pies, the universal comfort food.”

These days she offers a full menu including Chicken Pie, Beef Vegetable Pie, “BOM” Pie (Beef, Onion, Mushroom, Jarlsberg cheese), Shepherd’s Pie, Vegetable Pie, Vegetable Shepherd’s Pie, Aussie Pie, and a seasonal fruit pie. Last week it was Apple, Walnut, and Salted Caramel Apple. And yes, everything is from scratch, from the pie dough to the caramel.

Struck with sudden success, McGlynn looks to the future. At this point, she does not take orders. It’s a first-come, first-served offering that works well as she refines the process and logistics of having 200 pot pies ready by Saturday.

“We’re excited by the challenge,” McGlynn says. “I’m at capacity now and working on expanding the business at a healthy pace,” she adds.

Indeed, the town is ready. If you want one of McGlynn’s Cottage Pies, you have to get to Saturday Market early. Very early. Everyone knows comfort is one pot pie away.

This video is approximately two minutes in length. For more information please go here on FaceBook. 

Chesapeake History: Kent County’s 1863 Failed Election Coup with Kevin Hemstock

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Every election cycle is rife with fear of corruption, ballot tampering, or some nefarious “rigging.” Certainly, a raging pandemic and a storm of hostile political divisiveness aren’t doing much to quell anxiety surrounding the current election.

Despite the general consensus that US elections’ integrity is safeguarded, there have been a few brazen attempts to interfere with election outcomes. New York’s Tammany Hall and Boss Tweed come to mind and before that, an organized mail-in ballot scam by Union troops favoring George McClellan in his attempt to end Lincoln’s presidency.

Others, like the Kennedy-Nixon election of 1960 and Bush-Gore in 2000, still linger under suspicion despite countless investigations finding little evidence for grand malfeasance.

Kent County Maryland, however, is another story, according to Kevin Hemstock.

Hemstock, former Editor of The Kent County News and regarded regional historian tells the tale of an attempt to forcibly “rig” the local county election of 1863 during the height of the Civil War. It is a story complete with a Casablanca “round up the usual suspects” at gunpoint moment, a steamboat of arrested prominent Kent citizens shipped to Baltimore, Federal troops at the polling stations, and a dramatic intervention.

The coup attempt was even bizarre enough to make it to Lincoln’s desk where it might have affirmed his decision to suspend Maryland’s constitutional rights at the outbreak of the Civil War.

In fact, Hemstock’s story reflects Lincoln’s concern with Maryland, a slave-state teetering on succession. In the microcosm of local politics, Kent County faced an Emancipation Proclamation dilemma—could Maryland both embrace the North and retain its slaves? Slave owners in Kent County tried: one party thought as much while another believed unconditionally in abolition however it could succeed.

G. Kevin Hemstock, is a lifelong history sleuth, archivist, and author. His books include “Injustice on the Eastern Shore,” “The Thirteen Most Sensational Murders of Kent County, MD,” “Freaks, Fables and Fires of Kent County, MD,” and “The History of Millington: Vol 1 and 2.”

This video is approximately eleven minutes in length.

Chesapeake History: Community Alliances Preserve an Eastern Shore African American Schoolhouse

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Restoring a link to Kent County’s Black history couldn’t come at a more significant time, and a small African American schoolhouse languishing in disrepair is the perfect collaborative project for an alliance of Chestertown organizations.

Officially registered in Kent County as Worton Point Colored School #2, the one-room classroom was built in 1890 to teach of to 30 local Black children in grades one through six who, prior to the 1930s traveled from as far as six miles by foot or horse and carriage to attend class.

The school stayed open until 1958 and subsequently became a landmark museum under the supervision of nearby St George’s church. Over the years, the structure needed repair and became ripe for restoration. Lacking funds to take up the challenge, St. George’s looked for help.

The African American School House Museum before renovation. Photo courtesy of Rebuilding Together Kent

The stars aligned when Kent Cultural Alliance Director John Schratwieser got involved.

“When the Cliff’s City schoolhouse was finished, Chris Havemeyer of Preservation Inc and Kent County Questers approached me. They had funds left over from their schoolhouse restoration and asked if I could steward the residual money toward the Worton Point School House,” Schratwieser says.

KCA agreed to act as a fiscal manager with Irene Moore, Elder at St. George’s, and together they surveyed the building. The drop-ceiling, wall panels, and carpet had to go.

After a few consulting ideas failed to put together the team’s need for the job, Schratwieser turned to Rebuilding Together Kent, the local arm of the national non-profit home rehab organization.

“Rebuilding Together jumped at the chance of working with us. Their volunteers finished gutting the building and are coming up with basic pricing and guidance for additional work needed,” Schratwieser says. “Our finances will only go so far and eventually we will be looking at the community for help,” he adds.

Rebuilding Together Kent volunteers carefully deconstruct the interior of the Worton Point African American School. Here, John Hanley supervises. Photo courtesy of Rebuilding Together Kent

Before the demolition stage of the structure could take place, the contents of the building had to save, and another partner stepped in: The C.V. Starr Center at Washington College.

“Patrick Nugent, Deputy Director of the Starr Center, Jasmyn Castro, Digital Historian and Archivist at the Starr Center, and Raven Bishop, NBCT, Instructional Technologist, Washington College helped pack and store the contents so that as we could put things back after the construction. This last weekend, critical items, letters, photos were digitized, 3D scanned, and archived for future generations, Schratwieser says.

Here, the Spy sat down with St. George Church Elder Irene Moore how attended the school as a child. For years she was also a Sunday School teacher and gospel choir director.

This video is approximately eight minutes long. To see more photographs of the project, go to the Rebuilding Together Kent County Facebook page. To contribute to this important project go here or mail your contribution directly to Kent Cultural Alliance, 101 Spring Ave, Chestertown MD 21620.

Chesapeake Arts: Artist Marcy Ramsey is Back at It

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Marcy Ramsey’s annual show is up at MassoniArt through October and, due to the pandemic, by appointment only.

While that may sound constrictive, for those of you who know Ramsey’s work, the “by appointment only” requirement will offer visitors time to enjoy the show without distraction. So far it has worked out well and, who knows, it could be the way of galleries going forward.

For fifteen years the Chestertown artist has been entranced by the limitless play of color and light along the rivers of the Eastern Shore and the woodlands nearby. Her trademark meditations on flotsam and jetsam, reeds, floating leaves, and light reflected off of water are widely collected.

These familiar themes are revisited in much of Ramsey’s new work, but the interpretations are fresh and her color palette continues to evolve into luminous canvasses of the natural world around us.

And she is exploring some new themes, but we won’t tell you about them—you have to go see for yourself!

This video is approximately five minutes in length. For more information about MassoniArt is at 203 High Street, Chestertown, Maryland. For an appointment, call 410-778- 7330. Masks are required. To find out more, visit their website here.

Going Purple: A Conversation with Kent County Sheriff John Price

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Often buried beneath news of the global pandemic and political discord, the ongoing opioid crisis continues unabated. Isolation, loss of income, and treatment center closures due to the COVID-19 pandemic have contributed to the increase of fatal overdoses.

September’s National Recovery Month continues to spotlight this health emergency and promote the benefits of prevention, treatment, and recovery, especially during a pandemic that has seen an increase in overdose fatalities. According to the Association of American Medical Colleges (AAMC) studies, fatalities are trending upward by as much as 18%, following a year of 71,000 deaths.

Although too soon for definitive data, AAMC points out that alcohol sales have risen by 25%, and there is a worrisome trend of overdose from increased non prescribed fentanyl. The National Institute on Drug Reports that 90% of all drug fatalities in Maryland are from  opioids (15,000 in 2018).

The Spy caught up with Kent County Sheriff John Price to find out how law enforcement is participating with National Recovery Month and how the pandemic has required alternative paths to reach out to the community. 

This video is approximately six minutes in length. For more information about International Recovery Day please go here.

 

John Winslow: Turning the World Purple One Day at a Time

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By September 30, John Winslow wants to celebrate recovery by turning the world purple from Niagara Falls to the Samuel Beckett Bridge in Dublin and your porchlight. He’s doing it one day at a time throughout September, leading up to International Recovery Day on September 30.

Winslow’s lifelong career in the addiction recovery movement has prepared him for this endeavor. He was former President of the Maryland Addiction Directors Council, former Founder and Director of Dri-Dock Recovery and Wellness Center, Former Director of Addictions and Co-Occurring Services at Dorchester Health Department, and former Coordinator; Recovery Leadership Program at the National Council on Alcoholism and Drug Dependence (NCADD-MD).

If that’s not enough, the life-long Eastern Shore resident founded International Recovery Day to seek worldwide awareness about addiction recovery no matter the pathway to recovery one might be taking.

Winslow cites the 2014 The Anonymous People movie and recovery movement as his inspiration to take the addiction recovery movement to an international level and specifically include all recovery pathways from 12-step programs to other individualized therapies. It’s a message of inclusion, what Winslow calls a “We” celebration of recovery that expands The Anonymous People’s mission to destigmatize addiction.

As Winslow formed his idea of an International Recovery Day, he reached out to Greg Williams, Founder of The Anonymous People, and the esteemed addiction historian William White, author of Slaying the Dragon: The History of Addiction Treatment and Recovery in America. Both saw the transformative value of international networking. Williams joined the Steering Committee along with 28 members from the United States, Scotland, Malaysia, Australia, Ireland, Nigeria, Ghana, and Canada to guide the non-profit through its inaugural year.

Signing up at The International Recovery Day website or Facebook page will let registrants participate in the online event on September 30. Recovery fireworks will go off in the digital globe, symbolizing worldwide interconnectivity.

In the meantime, each day, additional key worldwide monuments and structures will become purple.

The International Recovery Day Project couldn’t come at a better time. All of September is National Recovery Month, an annual observance” to educate Americans that substance use treatment and mental health services can enable those with mental and substance use disorders to live healthy and rewarding lives. Winslow wants to catapult recovery awareness into the community of the world.

And then there’s the global pandemic. Already, data reveals that US overdose deaths, which had begun to drop, are now up 5% from the 69,000+ recorded in 2019 as the consequences of isolation, treatment center closures and wide availability of fentanyl and heroin are playing out.

With the addition of purple-lighted awareness, however, the recovery movement and addiction awareness get an added boost as it become an annual celebration of addiction recovery.

International Recovery Day is a free online event launched globally during September and a special online event on September 30.

The Spy talked with John Winslow about it via Zoom. The conversation begins with how the Anonymous People movement moved the 12-step recovery programs into public recognition and how International Recovery Day will move the recovery movement forward and worldwide.

The video is approximately six minutes long.