Up.St.Art Annapolis Winter 2015

ART+CULTURE+LIFE

ANNIVERSARY ISSUE

ANNAPOLIS

WINTER 2015 THE OFFICIAL MAGAZINE OF THE ARTS & ENTERTAINMENT DISTRICT

Aritst • Ciro Schu

Art has no boundaries. Art comes in all shapes, forms, and colors. Art represents the most powerful and pure dreams.

•Roberta Pardo photography by Brian White - powerplaycreation.com

Aritst • Ciro Schu

Aritst • Arlin Graff

Aritst • Arlin Graff

Aritst • Gen Duarte

Aritst • Gen Duarte

get to

THE POINT

4 1 0 . 5 4 4 . 5 4 4 8 | t h e p o i n tc r a b h o u s e . c o m | 7 0 0 M i l l C r e e k R oa d A r n o l d , M a r y l a n d 2 1 0 1 2

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Issue 4

CANVAS

14

ART+CULTURE+LIFE

The Infinite & Unknowable

By Andrea Stuart

ANNAPOLIS

WAVES

20

Tangled Up in Blues

26

Fotos' Photos

By Leigh Glenn

SNAP

By Julia Gibb

CONCEPT

32

Joanne Woodward Tew's - "Wicked" Artistic Journey

By Sydney Petty

ANNIVERSARY ISSUE

CONTENTS 8 | Winter 2015

Volume 2

WINTER 2015 THE OFFICIAL MAGAZINE OF THE ARTS & ENTERTAINMENT DISTRICT

SUP

38

Get to The Point

44

Not Very Long Ago in a Galaxy Close to Home...

COVER "The Human Project Girl with Red Hair" 24" x 24"

By Melanie McCarty

INK

Linoleum block print with mixed media on Kozo paper

By Anita Hagan

By Ryan Abbott

THREADS

50

Finging Balance in Chaos

By ZoĂŤ Nardo

HOOD

CINE

56

Shut Up & Do It

By Leah Weiss

WUNDERKIND

62

XX Marks the Spot

By Leigh Glenn

68

Making Positive Strides

74

Loquacious Scribble & the Tuesday Club

By Patty Speakman Hamsher

AGO

By Lucia St. Clair Robson

Publisher’s Note

Editor’s Inkwell

T

hank you to those of you who sent in limericks for our winter 2015 contest. We loved reading your submissions! While each entertained us, we had to settle on one. This is a very subjective matter, of course, and the winning limerick was chosen for its metrical congruity and intent to surprise the reader.

Congratulations, Anthony LaVorgna, Jr.!

There once was a Wife of a Chef who swore that his food was the best he was fat and she skinny and her face was real grinny until dinner was somebody’s pet!

By now, you have probably scooped up your cat and dog, closed the blinds, and locked the door, ready to dig into our anniversary issue.

Thank you for your support and enthusiasm this past year. You—the reader. You—the advertiser. You—the artist. You—the contributor. You—the community! You are the heart and soul of this city.

H

appy Anniversary. I will forgo my usually flippant “Publisher’s Note” just this one time.

What a journey this first year has been.

There are so many people to thank.

First, I would like to thank all of the great musicians, artists, photographers, business owners, and champions of the arts in Annapolis, who were the inspiration for this magazine. For years, I have had the great fortune of being a part of the creative community in our city. I have become friends with so many talented and intelligent people. For too long, it seemed that not enough light was shone upon the incredible work that these people do to enrich our community. That is what this magazine is for. Up.St.Art Annapolis is my effort to yell from the rooftops about all of the things that make me love and live in Annapolis.

I am so thankful to the people who have worked on this magazine or helped in any capacity—You have made this publication better with every action.

I would also like to thank all of our advertisers, who invest their hard-earned money in our magazine. By doing so, they not only participate in promoting their businesses but also support our creative community.

Last, I would like to thank the most important person. Without this person, this magazine would never exist. YOU. You are the person who goes out to venues to hear music, and attends art shows and openings. You spend your hard-earned money to enjoy the great art created in our city, and WE are all forever grateful.

Onward and Artward, Jimi Davies

upstart-annapolis.com | 9

Fine American Portraiture & Figures Oil | Pastel | Fusain

Por traits by Moe | por traitsbymoe.com

Moe Delaitre

Annapolis, Maryland Ussy-sur-Marne, France

49

WEST •

COFFEEHOUSE • WINEBAR • GALLERY • MUSIC NIGHTLY

49westcoffeehouse.com 49 West St. Annapolis, MD 21401 | 410-626-9796

ART+CULTURE+LIFE

ANNAPOLIS

Publisher & Creative Director Jimi Davies jimihaha@gmail.com Editorial Director Andrea Stuart upstarteditor@gmail.com

ANNIVERSARY ISSUE

Copy Editor Leah Weiss Associate Editors Leigh Glenn Katherine Matuszak

THE OFFICIAL MAGAZINE OF THE ARTS &

Contributing Editors Ryan Abbott Leigh Glenn Julia Gibb WINTER 2015 Hamsher Patty Speakman Melanie McCarty ENTERTAINMENT DISTRICT Zoë Nardo Sydney Petty Lucia St. Clair Robson Leah Weiss

Art Director Cory Deere cdeere@gmail.com Contributing Photographers Clare Barone Dimitri Fotos Alison Harbaugh Joe Karr Jeffrey Pratt Gordon Kelsey Schwartz Linda Vanoff Brian White Allison Zaucha Advertising Jimi Davies jimihaha@gmail.com Kim O'Brien up.st.artkim@gmail.com Social Media Director Adam Narimatsu

facebook.com/UpstartAnnapolis twitter.com/upstartnaptown instagram

UpstartAnnapolis

Mailing Address: Up.St.Art Annapolis P.O. Box 4162 Annapolis, MD 21403 410.212.4242 SUBMISSIONS: For article submissions, email proposal to upstarteditor@gmail.com. Up.St.Art Annapolis Magazine is published quarterly. Address: P.O. Box 4162, Annapolis, MD 21403. Subscription rate: $40, payable in advance. Single copies $4.99. Back issues, if available, $15 (includes shipping and handling). POSTMASTER send address changes to Up.St.Art Annapolis, P.O. Box 4162, Annapolis, MD 21403. Entire contents © 2014 by Up.St.Art Annapolis Magazine™ unless otherwise noted on specific articles. All rights reserved. Reproduction in whole or part is strictly prohibited without Publisher permission.

12 | Winter 2015

P H O T O G R A P H E R S O F

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Alison Harbaugh Music, travel, and art drive me to do what I do. You’ll find me at live music gigs, art openings, and festivals around town. I love seeing art in Annapolis grow with a new energy and I’m proud to be a part of it.

I own and run Sugar Farm Productions and co-own ArtFarm, which is where I photograph, film, create art, and teach. I’m drawn to creative people with unique stories to be told, and I document them through dayin-the-life visual media shoots, showing the realism of things rather than presenting a perfectly controlled environment. My specialties are media promotions for small businesses, nonprofits, and artist profiles.

Fearless Girls Photography workshops and camps are my way of teaching and mentoring the next generation, helping them think creatively and build self-esteem through art. sugarfarmproductions.com & artfarmannapolis.com Instagram: sugar_farm

David Burroughs Born before star wars came out - Made super-8 Ffilms - Went to film shcool at NYU - Worked as a lighting designer in Hollywood and NYC - film credits include "Being John Malcovich" and Arlingon Road - Worked for Herb Ritts, Matt Mahuin, Kevin Kerslake, and even Robert Frank - Have a fully equiped medium format digital studio in Annapolis, MD - Miss shooting Polaroids. davidburroughs.com

Emily Karcher As a mom of young children, I long to freeze time. I long to remember every detail—every curl, every sunlit walk, and every (often sticky) hand in mine. Although I can't stop the clock, photography for me is a close second, reliving family stories of the past and sharing them with future generations, through heirloom albums and gallery-quality wall art.

I enjoy a unique perspective as a storyteller, because I'm not only a photographer but also a freelance writer. I treat my photography subjects with the same warmth and care as I do my interview subjects, so that their most comfortable selves emerge.

I love connecting with people of all ages to deliver fine art photography that is as vibrant and individual as their personalities.

Capturing personal moments of beauty and connection through lifestyle photography has been a big part of who I am for many years, and the photos on my website are a sampling of a decade of my work, from film to digital. Whether you live in Maryland, the District or Northern Virginia, I look forward to working with you. I can be reached at emily@emilykarcherphotography.com.

Allison Zaucha Allison is a humanitarian photographer specializing in documentary and editorial work with a focus on creating powerful images telling narratives of hardworking individuals.

Over the past ten years she’s focused her work, telling stories of resiliency, strength, and hope, using trust and compassion as tools to connect and understand the lives of her subjects. It’s Allison’s goal to make viewers feel close to the subject, as if you’ve known them all your life.

Currently, she’s working on a global education project called Dreams That Could Be to create advocacy for better education worldwide, using stories about the successes of driven students to inspire action. In addition, she’s working on two stories in Baltimore—one on foster youth in the city and one on a family who has endured riots for 60+ years, spanning the '68 riots to today. Over the past few months, Allison has worked with AARP, shown at Black Box Gallery, and attended Look3. In 2014, she won 1st place in the national juried competition, Schwa Show. allisonzaucha.com

upstart-annapolis.com | 13

CANVAS

Infinite & Unknowable THE

by ANDREA STUART

U

nexpectedly steeped in fever and overcome by fatigue, Anita Hagan employed her feet as warriors of spirit. They hauled her suddenly dense body over the fleshy terrain, adapting to its mercurial patterns. Just five miles into a nine-day expedition through New Zealand’s Routeburn Track—an entanglement of ice-carved valleys and meadows—she was struck with flu symptoms.

Hagan found the strength she needed to trek on by crashing into her sleeping bag each night and focusing on nature’s cornucopia of sensory experiences during each day. “The outdoors is so simple and beautiful. There’s texture, color, smells,” says Hagan. This draw to nature is one of the inspirational foundations of her twenty-plusyear adventure in art.

14 | Winter 2015

photography by CLARE BARONE It all began with a charcoal swan that hatched forth from Hagan’s fingertips in third grade. From where she obtained the charcoal or how the idea originated remains a mystery. What she remembers is fervently sweeping the granular black stick back and forth across the page, shading, smudging, and getting lost in her creative labyrinth, until what appeared on the paper was her first artistic creation.

Her current artistic works reflect the unflinching curiosity of an architect in the boughs of a steel skeleton prior to applying its skin— the membrane of the creations remaining just translucent enough to summon inquiry by the viewer.

Created through linoleum block printmaking, Hagan’s art contains gesticulations of what could be a hungry soul seeking play in unfamiliar territory.

“I am inspired both by the natural world and all its unkempt beauty, and the incredible human spirit.�

upstart-annapolis.com | 15

Anita's hands carving

After carving a linoleum block, Hagan first rolls black ink on it, lays painted paper over it, and handrubs the paper to transfer the ink. This impression is used to determine where the paint will be applied on another sheet of paper. She then paints a piece of Korean kozo rice paper with golden acrylics. The result is an exciting and vibrant piece of artwork in which the motion of the golden brushstrokes mesh with the powerful carved effect of the block.

“I am inspired both by the natural world and all its unkempt beauty, and the incredible human spirit,” says Hagan, as she expounds on her affinity for the subjects of her works, which most often take the form of people who carry the whimsy and uncertainty of nature within them. “I’m always trying to get inside of people’s heads and understand them through my work.”

16 | Winter 2015

Her curiosity was partially fed by living in so many places with her parents and spending so much time with her mother, who had a deep awareness of nature.

She recalls childhood camping trips with her family when Hagan’s mother would point out insects, flora, fauna, and other natural paraphernalia.

Other times, she would awaken her in the middle of the night to admire meteor showers.

Hagan, a selfprofessed introvert, has inherited many of those qualities.

Untethered to fear of the unknown, she has hiked in Botswana as well as in parks and wilderness areas in California, Washington, Colorado, Utah and other parts of the Southwestern United States. “I go backpacking by myself in Shenandoah.

There are plenty of reasons that make that a bad idea, but there’s the unknown, and that makes it good!”

Hagan likens her affinity for solo hiking to a hurricane. “Big events stir internal conversations. I think [a] natural phenomenon, even when affecting

in a negative way, is powerful stuff and it’s exciting. When I watched hurricane Sandy make its way here, it was crazy. Once it started, it was like ‘hold on for the 20-hour rollercoaster ride!’” It’s the mixture of fear, wonder, and excitement that ignites Hagan’s internal dialogue and inspires her art. “For years, I thought the finished product was the painting, but then I realized the process is really where the magic lies.”

Since her mother’s death in 2014, Hagan has spent time pondering what kind of person she would have become, having not known her mother.

While she hasn’t answered that question, she has come to the conclusion that a large part of her urge for exploration is about connectivity. “As a kid, I had magpie syndrome [an affinity for shiny objects]—I’d pick up shells, feathers, all kinds of things,”

"The Gate of Hope" 36" x 24" Acrylic painting with mixed media

explains Hagan, whose voice climbs to a peak as she explains how the random items she finds now are often incorporated into her paintings.

For the last four or five years, Hagan has started creating mixed-media paintings again.

Similar in appearance to her block prints, her paintings often unify dark lines, color, and media such as washers, beads, nails, and fabric, “anything I can throw in there!” She then combines the two, taking smaller block prints and attaching them to canvas with a clear medium that glues them down before implementing accoutrements around the block prints.

In the spring, Hagan will become an adjunct faculty member at Anne Arundel Community College, teaching linoleum block in the evenings.

She is also preparing for her upcoming show, Infinite and Unknowable, scheduled for next year at Maryland Hall for the Creative Arts.

Motivated by her passion rather than her success—the former of which she says will always ensure an interesting adventure—Hagan recalls a quote by Eckhart Tolle that declares every living thing has so much depth and complexity that no one person can assume to know that other person or thing. Her words usher quietude as she recounts how all creations, whether flesh and blood or canvas and paint, embody this complexity.

Knowing this allows Hagan to surrender to the fact that no artist can please everyone.

So she continues to paint and create works that represent and inspire her internal adventure. █

"The Dream of Love" | 25" x 30" | Linoleum block print with mixed media on Kozo paper

CANVAS

"The Dream of Envy" | 25" x 27" | Linoleum block print with mixed media on Kozo paper

"The Journey Back" | 24" x 36" | Linoleum block print with mixed media on Kozo paper

upstart-annapolis.com | 17

P H O T O G R A P H E R S O F

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Joe Karr Joe Karr (°1968, Baltimore, United States) is an artist who works in a variety of media. By examining the ambiguity and origination via retakes and variations, Karr tries to increase the dynamic between audience and author by objectifying emotions and investigating the duality that develops through different interpretations.

His artworks never shows the complete structure.

His current project involves a stop motion animation for the local phenom Swampcandy. He is also a songwriter who once spoke at an international conference about the dangers of deploying country music on an underprepared populace. josephkarr.com or approach him on the street

John Bildahl John Bildahl is a well-known East Coast yachting and fashion photographer. During a tenyear career in New York City and subsequently for the past 25 years from his studio in Annapolis Maryland, John has built a reputation for combining an artistic eye with technical and commercial strengths in a broad range of photographic environments. These include product still-life, people (he’s been called a “sick Norman Rockwell”), events, and architectural photography for advertising and magazine illustration. He is currently relocating his fine art photo essay of a fictional western character called Alamo Joe to a Colorado gallery.

Larry Melton Music and photography have been the driving forces for Larry Melton throughout his life. If he’s not playing bass in one of the many Annapolis area bands, you can probably find him taking photographs in the studio, or out in nature somewhere. Being a bass player in a band is a team effort, requiring on-the-spot improvisation and the skill needed to work with other artists.

Photography allowed Larry to be more of a soloist. He started getting serious about photography after taking some of Dick Bond’s classes at Maryland Hall for the Creative Arts. Countless hours were spent in the darkroom, along with assisting Bond in the studio. Digital photography came along and the darkroom days were over. Being in the middle of the transition of music and photography from analog to digital formats, Larry embraced the change. He has managed to make a career out of manipulating sound and light, which is no easy task and can lend itself new discoveries every day. www.larrymelton.net

18 | Winter 2015

P H O T O G R A P H E R S O F

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Rachel M. Fry I am a photographer and visual storyteller who currently lives and works in my hometown of Annapolis, Maryland. I spent a good part of the last six years traveling and living in various places around the world, including Hawaii, Southeast Asia, and the Bahamas. I started blogging and snapping photos during my travels (mostly so that my friends and family back home knew I was alive). I love being able to share a glimpse of these experiences, such as being immersed in Thai culture, viewing the sea from behind a mask one hundred feet down, or helping promote a local chef and restaurant owner here in the Chesapeake Bay region. My photography is largely influenced by the water, farms, nature, and people, and my greatest interest is lying at the intersection of lifestyle and experience. Please feel free to follow along on my website!

RachelMFry.com Rachmfry@gmail.com

Russell Levi My formal fine arts training (after four colleges in six years) was in painting, printmaking, and art history. I was a high school art teacher for a year, left my small travel art-ed business in Paris for a 10-day vacation to St. Croix, and opened my first gallery in Frederiksted before sailing south, down-island, returning to the U.S. from Curaçao. I started an architectural/engineering firm (and family) in the mid80s—turned from painting to film photography and music, then wrote, recorded, and produced several original albums; moved to Annapolis in 2006; had studios and offices on Maryland Avenue and a full-time gallery for five years on the 100 block of Main Street.

Community defines the Annapolis “art life.” I met and worked with the Annapolis homeless community and became an advocate, helping get over 20 homeless folks off the street. Moved across the bridge three years ago into an 1880s country church (Chapel House); converted it into a home and studios.

Glenn A. Miller Glenn started his path in photography his last year in high school, when he took a class and found he had a passion for capturing images. He's been a freelance photographer for the Capital-Gazette newspapers for over 20 years specializing in breaking news stories, and has been internationally published. He also started shooting for Alive magazine in the early 90s where he found his passion for photographing live music. Along with shooting live music, he also does event and wedding photography. facebook.com/Glenn-A-Miller-Photography-126484817373663/

upstart-annapolis.com | 19

WAVES

20 | Winter 2015

Tangled Up In Blues

by LEIGH GLENN

If you make the charts, the girls will tear you apart.

– Chris Hillman and Roger McGuinn, “So You Want to be a Rock ’n’ Roll Star” For young Dean Rosenthal, music was about impressing girls. But for the veteran Annapolis blues guitarist today, it’s about having and sharing fun.

That sensibility was inescapable when Rosenthal, 58, and his many musician

photography by JOE KARR

friends took to the Rams Head stage last May to celebrate his 40 years of performing.

Rosenthal has always strummed to the tune of a different guitarist. Growing up in Edgewater in the late 1960s and early 1970s, he was youngest in a family whose musical tastes straddled different eras. His father, Donald, a stern World War II vet who survived three aircraft carrier sinkings in the

Pacific, liked big bands, bluegrass, and jazz drummer Gene Krupa. Rosenthal’s older sister, Gail, was a fan of Elvis and Motown and turned her brother on to psychedelic rock and the band Cream.

Though Rosenthal revered Eric Clapton, he believed he could play more like Cream bassist Jack Bruce, so he joined one other classmate in playing bass. All the other kids played acoustic guitar.

upstart-annapolis.com | 21

Rosenthal was 12 or 13 when he first heard Bob Dylan. “I didn’t know that Dylan was this prolific writer,” he says. “I thought the songs were funny. I was always attracted to people like Joe Cocker and Leon Russell—who didn’t have this sweet ‘la-la-la’ voice. I love the way Dylan sings.”

After discovering Dylan, he switched to the old Stella guitar his grandmother had given him, added a harmonica, and got a Dylan songbook.

Rather than mimicking musicians like Clapton and English bluesman John Mayall, Rosenthal dug into their inspirations—Muddy Waters, Howlin’ Wolf, Robert Johnson. He spent hours listening to music at a used record store off Chinquapin Round Road. He added roots guitarist Ry Cooder and swamp blues player Slim Harpo to his ever-growing musical pantheon.

The offbeat—the unconventional—was Rosenthal’s inner compass. When others were playing “Jumpin’ Jack Flash,” he was playing Johnny Cash. He recalls Southern High School music teacher and jazz trombonist Bill Taylor encouraging him: “He was a really big guy to say, ‘You’ve got something. You’re not hearing it the way everybody else is hearing it. You should stay with this.’” And he did.

As bluegrass began to mingle with mainstream music in the 1970s—with Old and in the Way, Nitty Gritty Dirt Band, the Grateful Dead, and The Band—Rosenthal joined a bluegrass band that played to every clique in school, in fields and parking lots, acoustically, with no amplification.

Ain’t the way to have fun, son.

– Randy Newman, “Mama Told Me Not to Come” “Take up a trade,” Rosenthal’s parents told him. They disagreed with him about a lot of

things, from the war in Vietnam to his taste in music. Even though he also loved bluegrass, Rosenthal’s father couldn’t fathom what his son was listening to— except when he heard a drummer with whom he could connect; Ginger Baker, for example, knew what he was doing, but Jimi Hendrix, wailing on “The StarSpangled Banner,” was pure sacrilege.

Rosenthal was just 15 when his father died, so he never got to play for or have an adult conversation with him. However, they had bonded over bluegrass and comedies. His father had always pointed out things—like Chico Marx doing something odd on the piano—and why they were funny. Rosenthal’s love for music and

40th Anniversary Show at Rams Head On Stage with the Geckos & friends.

22 | Winter 2015

How does it feel . . . to be on your own?

– Bob Dylan, “Like a Rolling Stone” Rosenthal’s longest-running musical love is the blues. “There’s something about the beat, the way it feels, the rawness of it, sometimes the humor behind it, and you can amuse yourself by playing it. It’s such a narrow format, this little box, but inside that box, it goes in all different directions. You can go anywhere—sad, happy, real, fantasy.”

But venue owners and managers weren’t as enamored of the blues as he was. A typical call to inquire about gigs: “What kind of music do you play?”

“Blues.”

“Oh.” Deflation in the voice. “It’s that sad music. We had somebody play blues—it’s that sad song about a woman.”

He’d give it a couple weeks, and call back, taking a different approach: “What kind of music do you play?”

“American roots.”

“What’s that?”

“Blues.”

“Oh, I love blues.”

Often, the night jobs were not in Annapolis. In Baltimore, at his first real gig, he opened for “Robert Junior” Lockwood, Robert Johnson’s quasi-stepson. As word got out, Annapolis club owners began to book

He also enjoyed helping produce a recording for Tex Callens, bringing together musicians to layer Callens’ takes on classic country tunes and a few originals. His next project is pulling together a recording of the 40th anniversary show in time for the holidays.

With the offbeat as his inner compass, Rosenthal’s mode of transport is his ears. He never learned to read music; he just picks up tunes by listening and plays them his way. He expects his fellow musicians, with a feel for the song and the key, to do the same.

He loves every opportunity to play with them: bassist Rurik Reshetiloff, Rosenthal. His persistence paid off. “I’ve keyboardist Jimmy Jacobs, Tom Fridrich made a career out of playing music people on amped tambourine, Gary Wright on don’t want to hear.” He chuckles. mandolin and guitar, drummer Andy Seeking all that’s still unsung.

Hamburger, bassist Jay Turner, and

– Robert Hunter, “Attics of My Life” Rosenthal is ever humble about his talents, others. Depending on the size of the band, Rosenthal calls it Three-Piece even about who he is. He’ll say, for example, that he can play the guitar, “but Bryan Ewald Racket, Four-Piece Racket, or howevermany-Piece Racket. is a guitar player.” And you might see him Rosenthal likes witnessing the helping others, as he did at the Annapolis current, deeper appreciation for live Fringe Festival in September, setting up the sound system for the Sestraluna belly dancers. music and local art. Many local artists are his friends, and he likes what In his forties, after suffering two they’re doing, whether they are painters, heart attacks, his humility made his life guitar-drummers, or all of those, rolled challenging. He needed a lot—financially into one. There’s always been a local and emotionally. His friends implored him undercurrent of offbeat arts—from the to let them have a benefit. Finally, prompted blues to Beatnik—he says, and he thinks by his mother, Ricki, who died around the same time, he relented. He was overwhelmed that there could be even more support for them, including airtime for local by what followed. “I didn’t think I was that musicians and news about who’s playing loved. It was a combination of being at your high school reunion, wedding, and funeral all where and when.

Nowadays, Rosenthal likens himself at the same time. People were genuinely there to Jerry Jeff Walker’s Mr. Bojangles: for me.”

To recover from the outpouring, Rosenthal he used to be on the receiving end of stories told by his elders; today he is the turned his attention to projects that he had been putting off, including South County Dirt, elder, spinning narratives. For young musicians, he suggests something from a CD of original compilations that integrate his back pages: listen to the originators’ local places and stories. At Hudson Street music and play something you like. “It Sound studio with Noel White at the board, he painted a broad musical canvas. Hence the may not be for the masses, but people eerie sounds on songs like “Governor’s Bridge will come to you.” █ Road,” which is perfect for Rosenthal, who also loves horror.

“ There’s something about the beat, the way it feels, the rawness of it, sometimes the humor behind it, and you can amuse yourself by playing it.

WAVES

humor is reflected in his deep respect for groundbreaking songwriters and musicians who excelled at satire: Dylan, Tom Waits, Randy Newman, Warren Zevon, and Frank Zappa.

Between Bill Taylor, the record store, and the progressive rock radio station WHFS—which played new and relatively unknown old songs— Rosenthal became schooled in music.

At 16, he received a nylon-stringed Yamaha guitar from his Aunt Chuckie; it was a perfect learning instrument.

After high school, he had day jobs— at a greenhouse, the airport, doing carpentry—and played music at night.

He stuck to that schedule for about 10 years, but it became too much. One day, when his bosses said something that set him off, he quit.

upstart-annapolis.com | 23

W R I T E R S O F

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Julia Gibb A native Annapolitan, Julia Gibb earned a bachelor of fine arts degree at the Corcoran School of Art in Washington, DC. She teaches traditional Hawaiian hula at Maryland Hall for the Creative Arts.

Tom Levine Tom Levine writes for several magazines about architecture, design, culture, and music. When not on assignment, he whiles away hours smugly thinking about how he snookered Jimi Davies into paying him to while away even more hours hanging out in bars and listening to bands. He knows that he’s lucky.

Matthew Buckley-Smith Matthew Buckley Smith was born and raised in Atlanta, Georgia, but spent his twenties in Baltimore, Maryland, where he met his wife and took a number of odd jobs and degrees. His essays have appeared in or are forthcoming in Cincinnati Review, Contemporary Poetry Review, Los Angeles Review of Books, and 32 Poems Blog. His poems have been published in AGNI, Harvard Review, Threepenny Review, and Best American Poetry. He is the author of Dirge for an Imaginary World, winner of the 2011 Able Muse Book Award. He lives in Carrboro, North Carolina, with his wife and hilarious daughter.

Chris Kalman Sometime during a snowstorm and adolescence, I became a writer. And when writing looked more difficult than the common jobs of ordinary cats and pigs in Richard Scarry’s picture books, I left it behind and became a teacher. I traveled and fell in love and lived a common life, sprinkled with off-the-grid adventures.

I remembered the writing part when I started to get to know myself better. I tried it out in an online newspaper I helped get started on the Eastern Shore. The exercise warmed up my creative muscles, and I continue to tone up my voice.

When I’m not mentally crafting essays or paragraph starters, I’m teaching English to eager immigrants and keeping house for our family of four humans and four chickens. I occasionally chase after paying assignments that come with a byline, and I regularly join a group of motivational Annapolis writers for inspiration.

W R I T E R S O F

2 0 1 4 - 2 0 1 5

Leah Weiss My mother was a librarian, and so I grew up in libraries. When I was eight years old, my father handed me a half-size violin that was hanging on his cousin’s wall; it was love at first sight. Later, I studied ecology in school and integrated my disparate interests by enjoying a successful environmental policy career by day and playing fiddle in an American roots band by night.

Shifting between the music and policy worlds was sometimes startling; one night I’d be playing for a festival audience under the stars, and two days later I’d be suited up, sitting in a conference room, discussing climate change. All the while, I edited and wrote—reams of documents for work, and anything that friends and referrals sent me. I’m now freelancing as an editor and writer. I also teach fiddle and perform with Gary Wright and other area musicians. weissedits.com/www.garyandleah.com

Sydney Petty Sydney Petty is a local Annapolis freelance writer and editor. A native of Montclair, New Jersey, she now lives in Bay Ridge with her husband, son, dog, and cat, and considers herself very lucky to live near the beautiful and fascinating Chesapeake Bay. Sydney is passionate about providing educational opportunities to underserved youth. She has volunteered as a Seeds 4 Success tutor and mentor for the past six years as a way to give back to the wonderful community of Annapolis.

She enjoys music, books, taking road trips, great food, long walks, stimulating conversation with good friends, and laughing at the absurdity of life. Along with every other person on the planet, she now dislikes the subject of politics and wishes it would just go away.

Melanie McCarty Bikes, food, music, and writing: most of Melanie McCarty’s time is occupied by at least one of these things.

When she isn’t biking around Annapolis, she’s reading about food, eating, cooking, or plucking away on her laptop, always with a good soundtrack. In 2013, she and her feisty tabby cat moved from their onebedroom lair in Washington, D.C., to a bungalow in Annapolis to be with her longtime partner (now husband).

Professionally, she’s spent her career as a fundraiser, working for women’s causes, public radio, and restoring the Chesapeake Bay. In her free time, she makes collages the old fashioned way—with scissors, glue, and a stack of vintage Life magazines. She prides herself on discovering and supporting everything awesome that Annapolis has to offer, and is pleased to have increased the city’s quotient of tattooed women.

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26 | Winter 2015

FOTOS' PHOTOS

by JULIA GIBB

A

photography by DIMITRI FOTOS

fter ordering some bread, Dimitri Fotos launches into his ebullient, musical laugh over his Greek salad at Metropolitan Kitchen & Lounge. “A Greek would never have salad without bread,” he chuckles. Through a beautifully absurd twist of fate, Fotos’ last name, which was shortened from Fotopoulos by his grandparents, homophonously hints at the driving force behind his life: photography. In his pursuit of his art and profession, Fotos has created a name for himself in the photography world and a lifestyle that nurtures his do-it-yourself brand of resourcefulness.

Born in Annapolis in 1955, Fotos’ interest in photography took root when he was a boy.

He started taking pictures when he was five years old, and grew more interested when he started working with his parents’ German-made Rolleicord after his own cheap, toy-like cameras fell apart. In his middle school years, he spent time at Miller’s Camera on Maryland Avenue, a popular weekend hangout for bohemian types, where he met camera and photography enthusiasts who helped him choose and operate equipment and nurtured his budding skills.

In ninth grade, he began building his own darkroom in his cellar.

upstart-annapolis.com | 27

Working on his own, he found that it took some time, and trial and error, to figure out the developing and printing process.

He laughs, “I was putting the paper in upside-down, and getting this beautiful soft focus effect . . . it’s one of my dark little secrets.” When he finally got it right, the experience of watching a print develop was magical—one that left an indelible impression on his young mind.

In those formative years, Fotos became a member of the Annapolis Camera Club, where he met well-known local photographers such as Dick Bond, Marion Warren, and Dick Kibbey. From these mentors, he received encouragement and tips for improving his technique.

In eleventh grade, he took a photography class taught by Bond.

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After graduating from Key School, and at the recommendation of art teacher Eric Dennard, Fotos moved up north to study at the School of the Museum of Fine Arts, Boston.

He immediately made waves—his work was singled out by visiting artist Amos Chan. Influenced at the time by photographers such as Lee Friedlander (with whom he studied), Diane Arbus, Edward Steichen, and Henri Cartier-Bresson, Fotos used his resourcefulness and eye for irony, photographing human subjects in run-down arcades, street scenes, and other everyday landscapes, with a twist of the absurd or surreal. While in New England, Fotos earned some classroom credits at Tufts University. He then enrolled at the Corcoran School of Art in Washington, DC, and received a bachelor of arts.

The experience of watching a print develop was magical— one that left an indelible impression on his young mind.

After his time at the Corcoran, Fotos returned to Annapolis, where he worked in his family’s restaurant, Dimitri’s LTD, located on Main Street.

He gained experience through art shows at the restaurant,

commercial assignments, portraiture, and some wedding photography. He later worked in a few photography labs— including NASA’s space imaging lab—until 1990, when he established his own business, aptly named Photos by Fotos.

Although a traditionally trained photographer, Fotos jumps on every opportunity to use technology to expand his artistic repertoire with digital imaging and printing. This gives him the capacity to print large-scale works, sometimes on canvas.

In his home and studio, Fotos has stacks of salvaged flat files full of his life’s work. It includes a myriad of portraits, landscapes, and cityscapes of Annapolis—including an aerial shot of the State House, a spherical panorama of Saint

for a show at Metropolitan Kitchen & Lounge.

The show will focus on Fotos’ photographs of the West Street corridor, showing scenes from the 1960s through the 1980s, juxtaposed with current shots of the area.

In addition to photography, the energetic artist dances tap and swing in his spare time. He took up mountain biking 18 months ago, and is blending biking with art, documenting the creation of a single track mountain biking and hiking trail at Bacon Ridge Natural Area in Crownsville. Again, with his characteristic laugh, “I’m almost 60, and I’ve just learned how to do a wheelie!” █

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Anne’s Church on Church Circle that was created from 48 separate images, and the Park Place site while under construction, viewed from atop a 225-foot-high construction crane.

In 2005, Fotos’ show at 49 West Coffeehouse, Winebar & Gallery, Facing the Music, featured photographs of over 30 local musicians. He used a 1920s eight-by-ten-inch film view camera and made large black-and-white prints, some as big as thirty-by-forty inches. To promote the show, he drove a wildly painted 1967 Volvo 122 with a fake string bass mounted to the roof around town.

He is currently documenting and archiving his work and gearing up

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W R I T E R S O F

2 0 1 4 - 2 0 1 5

Lucia St. Clair Robson My New York editor once claimed I was born in the Everglades area. Not so. I ordered my first alligator appetizer from a lite-fare menu in my hometown of West Palm Beach. Learning about the Seminoles in school made their leader, Osceola, my hero. Thirty-six years later, he became the hero of my third novel, Light a Distant Fire.

I went to Venezuela with the Peace Corps, then lived in Japan and Arizona. I had no idea those experiences would appear in novels I would one day write.

In 1979, at Balticon XIII, I met author Brian Daley. I mentioned Cynthia Ann Parker’s life with the Comanches to his editor and remarked that someone should write her story. The editor convinced me to try it. Ballantine Books gave me a contract on the first six chapters. When those six became fifty-seven, Ballantine published Ride the Wind.

I fired my day job.

Emily Karcher Emily Karcher is a lover of a good laugh, a good cup of coffee, and a good story. Formerly a publicist at the U.S. Secret Service and White House staffer, she believes everyone has incredible life stories. Currently completing her masters in Writing at Johns Hopkins University, Emily strives to capture life through prose and photography (www.EmilyKarcherPhotographycom). She lives in Anne Arundel County with her favorite storytellers: her husband and their three strawberry-blonde-haired children.

Desiree Smith-Daughety Desiree’s son, Cam, humorously points out that she writes for work and for fun, and when she’s not writing—she’s reading what others have written.

Desiree’s publishing experience includes authoring nonfiction titles Using Other People’s Money to Get Rich: Secrets, Techniques, and Strategies Investors Use Every Day Using OPM to Make Millions and Camping Virginia and West Virginia. She co-founded waterfrontwriters.com, a fiction site, and recently presented a writing workshop and was an author panelist at the MidAtlantic Fiction Writers Institute.

Her fictional stories weave environmental concerns, the human condition, and all the horror and humor in between. The Edge of Undoing, her first novel to be published, is a post-apocalyptic story exploring the soft nature of modern society and how we take our security for granted. A sequel is in progress, along with a memoir of her grandmother—a character who all but writes herself. dlarasmith.com

Ryan Abbott Ryan Abbott is an Annapolis writer and musician and manages the east coast bureau for Courthouse News Service, a national news agency. He believes in chupacabras, irony, and the Oxford comma. He has two kids that don’t give a hoot about their old man’s work.

30 | Winter 2015

W R I T E R S O F

2 0 1 4 - 2 0 1 5

Leigh Glenn “Where’s that confounded bridge?”

“I’m right here,” she says.

Conceived in the summer of ’69 as an experiment, and born to aging (aren’t they always?) parents, Leigh Glenn has had one foot in the sixties and one in the seventies for most of her life. Her soul spans multiple eras, and she is always curious and seeks to light the way to love, wherever she is and whatever she does. The doing has always been about communication—internal, with herself, external, with various others, in English, in Russian, in song, in dance, in wool “paintings,” poems, photographs, and stories. An interviewer’s interviewer, no question is ever too obscure—or too simple. As nature’s resilience lies in diversity, she cultivates a diverse internal universe—her own clay, steel, sinew, and heart with which to link people, things, and events.

Zoë Nardo When the professor of my first journalism class explained the first assignment, it was to write a travel story. Instinctively, I chose to write about Annapolis. Granted, I was five hours away and homesick, but it seemed right. I stressed the unique juxtaposition between the Naval Academy and St. John's, the eclectic and ever-growing music scene, and the people—the humans that inhabit the nautical city are my favorite part. It turned out to be my easiest college assignment. Not only because writing about somewhere I’ve called home for my entire life came naturally, but also because Annapolis never ceases to amaze me. It has a personality that’s hard to ignore and creates an atmosphere that everyone should experience.

Now I live in Baltimore, but continue to immerse myself in Annapolis and learn about its people through Up.St.Art. The feeling is parallel to writing that first college assignment, only so much better.

Patty Speakman Hamsher Sometime during a snowstorm and adolescence, I became a writer. And when writing looked more difficult than the common jobs of ordinary cats and pigs in Richard Scarry’s picture books, I left it behind and became a teacher. I traveled and fell in love and lived a common life, sprinkled with off-the-grid adventures.

I remembered the writing part when I started to get to know myself better. I tried it out in an online newspaper I helped get stated on the Eastern Shore. The exercise warmed up my creative muscles, and I continue to tone up my voice.

When I’m not mentally crafting essays or paragraph starters, I’m teaching English to eager immigrants and keeping house for our family of four humans and four chickens. I occasionally chase after paying assignments that come with a byline, and I regularly join a group of motivational Annapolis writers for inspiration.

upstart-annapolis.com | 31

CONCEPT

Joanne Woodward Tew’s “WICKED” ARTISTIC JOURNEY

by SYDNEY PETTY

O

nce you learn that Joanne Woodward Tew is from Maine, it explains a lot about her artistic career. Her jewelry pieces, for example, are beautiful, excellently crafted renditions of artistic whimsy.

Her free-flowing, asymmetrical designs incorporate elements of art nouveau style, Victorian filigree, and shells, stones, and other natural artifacts. Each is infused with Tew’s characteristic dry, “wicked” Maine wit.

32 | Winter 2015

photography by ALISON HARBAUGH

Tew has pursued many artistic mediums, including oil painting, woodworking (she made her first child’s crib), sewing (she made her children’s clothes and husband’s shirts and jackets when the family moved to Baltimore for his career) and her latest passion, oil-on-glass paintings that incorporate watercolor and oil techniques. The paintings are designed for display on windows,

where they present differently under varying lighting conditions.

Surprisingly, jewelry-making became Tew’s financial mainstay through her years of transition following a divorce. “It is very hard to help support a family as an artist,” she says, “but I had three young kids and couldn’t afford daycare, so I had to come up with a living.”

...and her latest passion, oil-on-glass paintings that incorporate watercolor and oil techniques.

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People from Maine are known as rugged, hardworking people, and Tew embodies that Yankee temperament.

Her family’s Maine roots harken back to the 1700s, when her French greatgrandfather fled persecution by the Huguenots and settled in Dresden, a small southern town on the Kennebec River. Her family still owns farmland there.

“I never wanted to be anything but an artist,” she says. Artistic aptitude runs in the family. Her grandfather was an artisan woodworker who built houses, furniture, and violins and painted. Her father, whose wooden sculptures stud her studio, encouraged her talents.

“Dad made a living as an architect,” she recalls, “but his real passion was sculpting. I used to walk out to his workshop at the back of our property, where he would be carving huge sculptures made from the trunks of trees.”

Her father shared his love of nature with Tew and her brother.

They spent countless hours hiking through the woods, and skiing every winter weekend. He also taught them to care for their family farm.

When Tew was 15 years old, her father sculpted a bust of her 34 | Winter 2015

head. “I had to sit and model for him for hours,” she says.

They discussed his work and her interest in painting and drawing.

“There were no art classes at our school, so he and my mother got me private art lessons.”

In 1989, needing money to raise her children, Tew tried selling her pottery at a juried show. But the real sellers that day were some of her porcelain jewelry pieces that she had brought along, so she decided to change focus. “I wasn’t going to schlep all those pots around when the jewelry made more,” she says.

She made her jewelry with colored clay, using a technique called millefiori—the clay is layered into loaves and sliced into small flat shapes to form the pieces, then glazed and fired in a kiln. She began adding metal elements to show movement and beads and stones to enhance the designs.

She studied metalsmithing at Towson University and Maryland Institute College of Art. “I tried making chain for a while, but found it tedious,” she says. “Since I am not a precise or highly meticulous person, I found forging [hammered work], fabrication, and wirework to play more of a role in my process.”

Over time, and given the need to create inventory, she developed pieces reflecting her style that could be made fairly quickly. She also worked on more

CONCEPT

intricate pieces, often incorporating differently forged shapes with fabricated silver, gold leaves, and bezel-set stones.

Her driving force? “Fear!” she exclaims. “If I had stayed married, I probably would not have become a successful jeweler. My initial success with it drove me to become more creative with the jewelry and more prolific. I didn’t want to become a production jeweler—I like making one-of-a-kind pieces.” Every day, after her children left the house, she worked in her studio. “I owe my success to being on a daily work schedule and to attending so many juried shows a year.”

Tew made her jewelry enterprise a ringing success that helped pay bills and see her through challenging times. Today, her children are grown and she lives in Eastport. Her home is decorated with her own and other artists’ works, many of which were bartered at art shows. In her spacious studio, which occupies part of the backyard, she focuses on painting. She also teaches art at the Ginger Cove retirement community.

She maintains her passion for the outdoors. “It was the sailing culture that brought me to Eastport from Baltimore,” she says. She returns to Maine frequently for visits to the family farm and the seashore, where she finds much artistic inspiration.

Like the Maine weather, Tew’s art has changed and shifted. She has followed it along various paths to earn a living and build the only life she’s wanted—that of an artist. █

upstart-annapolis.com | 35

HARBOUR CAFE y b e m o C

for Rise up Coffee, Carlson’s Doughnuts, & some good food & good company.

We’ll see you at

Harbour Cafe.

Harbour Cafe 303A Second St Annapolis, Maryland 410.263.5276 Eastportharbourcafe.com

A Taste of Home T

by KATHERINE MATUSZAK

here’s always some special dish that takes you back to a time and place; when you close your eyes, you can picture yourself back at your parents’ house at the kitchen table, at a big family dinner out on the town, or locking eyes with someone on an unforgettable first date.

Food is so important to memory, in fact, that one could probably guess another’s hometown based solely on how the comfort food is described. After all, certain foods are more popular on the East Coast than the West Coast because they are simply made better in their hometowns. These hometown dishes are usually the same local cuisine that travelers are told that they must try. For Illinois, it’s Chicago-style deep-dish pizza. For Louisiana,

photography by ALISON HARBAUGH

it’s gumbo. For Maryland, it is, without a doubt, fresh-from-thecoast crabmeat.

Sometimes it takes planning and traveling to get that familiar taste again, but it doesn’t always have to be that way. The future of food and travel is the less-usual approach of having your food come to you.

Chesapeake Food Works, currently known for its successful Baltimore catering company, recently began shipping its ultra-popular crab cakes nationwide.

For friends and family outside of the Old Line State, this is big news—a taste of home is now one convenient online order away.

And Chesapeake Food Works even allows small orders (in case you really just want to buy them for yourself ), offering four, eight, twelve, or sixteen crab cakes per order.

When Chesapeake Food Works caters, its crab cakes are the staple of every menu. Co-owner Amy Le Vie says that seeing customers’ reactions is how they know they’ve got it right. After changing the recipe several times, they’re confident that they now truly reflect the taste of Maryland. Chesapeake Food Works always uses fresh, handpicked, jumbo lump crab meat—it is never pasteurized—which differentiates it from local competitors. Chesapeake Food Works also perseveres to keep its prices competitive, often at around half the price of its competition. The focus is on always using fresh, high quality ingredients while keeping prices as low as possible.

Ordering online with Chesapeake Food Works is an easy, affordable way to bring the true taste of Maryland to your table, to give the gift of local flavor to relatives or friends nationwide who may have never experienced it before, or to offer those who are away from home a moment to close their eyes and hear the ocean again.

chesapeakcrabcakes.com upstart-annapolis.com | 37

SUP

38 | Winter 2015

GET TO

POINT

THE

by MELANIE MCCARTY

I

photography by ALLISON ZAUCHA

t’s seven o’clock on a Saturday evening. As I wait for a table at The Point Crab House and Grill, I notice a startling number of people ordering Bloody Marys. But they aren’t college kids who don’t know any better, they are adults.

Yet, sitting at The Point’s openair bar, I have to admit that the Bloody Marys look pretty good.

Something about The Point makes it feel as though you’re on vacation.

Maybe it’s the breeze rolling in from Mill Creek, maybe it’s the customers arriving by boat, maybe it’s the simple décor—all glass and stainless steel, a chalkboard inviting you to return during the week for live music—or the bartenders who, despite being inundated, have an easy confidence that lets you know

that you’re in good hands. It all gets you thinking, “Why not have a Bloody Mary?”

In just three years, The Point has made its mark on the regional restaurant scene. Each day, hundreds of people head to Arnold for chef Bobby Jones’ creative take on Maryland food. The restaurant has received nods from Washingtonian, the Washington Post, Travel and Leisure, and even Cigar Af icionado. It has won numerous awards, including a bevy of 2015 Reader’s Choice Awards from the Capital Gazette.

When I return to The Point to interview Jones, it’s Labor Day weekend, which marks the restaurant’s anniversary. I ask him what stands out over the past three years.

upstart-annapolis.com | 39

“The first day was a nightmare,” he says with a laugh. “We opened at 4 p.m. and had beer trucks dropping at 3:50 p.m. We burned through a pile of food—and everything is homemade. When you’re braising a pork shoulder, you’re brining it and rubbing it and holding it for 12 hours, then it goes into the oven for another 18—this isn’t something [you] can pull out of a bag!”

The quality of the food and Jones’ attention to detail are reasons for The Point’s acclaim.

Nearly everything is made inhouse, from the brioche rolls to the crab seasoning (hotter, sweeter, and less salty than Old Bay, according to Jones). In

40 | Winter 2015

addition, Jones is committed to responsibly sourcing his food; almost all of the produce and seafood are from local sources, and the meats are organic, nonGMO, and hormone free.

Despite the restaurant’s success, Jones didn’t initially set out to become a chef. An art major, he worked long hours at area restaurants to put himself through college, sometimes 60 hours a week on top of a full course load. He held nearly every position in the business, from dishwasher to manager.

After college, with interests ranging from computer graphics to music, Jones was less concerned about the medium in which he worked than finding

a career that would give him the freedom to be creative. “I love creating and making stuff, whether it’s music or anything,” he says. “When its good, [art] has certain characteristics.

For me, typically, it’s a series of balanced contrasts. There’s more than one sour-andsweet, more than one softand-crunchy . . .,” he explains.

Ultimately, Jones committed to the business that he knew well and became a chef.

The Point’s concept was inspired by family gatherings at his grandparents’ house on Maryland’s Kent Island. “We would all hang out and eat and drink,” he says. “Nothing fancy, no bullshit going on, just really

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great Maryland local food.”

Family is important to Jones. He runs The Point with his wife, Julie, and speaks warmly of his children, Jack, Patrick, and Erin Kelly (“my girl,” he says affectionately), as well as his mother and grandmother, who helped to teach him how to cook.

It was a family-based request that led to his friendship with Foo Fighter Dave Grohl. After visiting The Point on the way to the Eastern Shore, Grohl approached Jones for a favor.

“He called me out of nowhere and asked for some help to get his mother some crabs,” Jones recalls. Grohl’s mother’s birthday was approaching, and she had missed the family vacation to Maryland because she had been ill. “They live on the West Coast, they can’t get [crabs] there,” he explains. The two became fast friends.

As Jones looks ahead, he and his business partner, Michael Neall, are preparing to launch a new venture: Public 22. Located in Crofton, the new restaurant will retain The Point’s casual feel, but will have a more ambitious menu. He hopes to use the green space beside the restaurant to host events ranging from concerts to small festivals. They’re hoping for a fall 2016 opening.

In the meantime, Jones doesn’t take his success or The Point’s popularity for granted. “I’m surprised by the response, how much people like it,” he tells me. “Every day I throw a party with really good food. And the lights are still on.” █

upstart-annapolis.com | 41

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INK

44 | Winter 2015

N O T V E RY L O N G AGO IN A GALAXY CLOSE TO HOME . . .

By Jonathan Stone Photos by Joe Karr

by RYAN ABBOTT

Jim Luceno is cool.

photography by ALLISON ZAUCHA

Maybe not James Dean cool—although he slides into the bustling City Dock coffee shop with a relaxed yet poised gait, wearing dark shades and a faded T-shirt—but an informed cool. Appropriate for a writer tasked with plucking the mythos of Star Wars off the screen and putting it onto the page while keeping a sometimes-ornery-sometimes-downrighthostile fan base satiated.

After a friendly handshake, he sits down and puts his shades on the table. Our chat stretches from classic rock guitar licks to Japanese anime, to classic horror movies and, of course, the expansive Star Wars universe.

Jim Luceno is a nerd, in the coolest way possible.

He’s lived in Annapolis for 20 years, but has never felt that he’s really fit in. “I don’t sail, and I didn’t go to Navy,” he says. He revels in

upstart-annapolis.com | 45

the local arts scene, however, and mentions several musicians with admiration.

Luceno’s own art is nothing short of admirable, if not exceptional. If George Lucas is god to the Star Wars universe, then Luceno is an apostle— one of a few chosen writers entrusted with filling in the gaps around the Star Wars movies.

Although he’s written books focusing on Star Wars fixtures Han Solo and Darth Vader, many of his books are told from the perspective of characters that appear on the periphery of movie plots or are anecdotes in dialogue.

His most recent book, Tarkin (Random House Publishing Group, 2014), tells the story of Governor Wilhuff Tarkin, who fans may remember as Darth Vader’s gaunt military henchman; he stoically watched as the Frankensteinian Anakin Skywalker force-choked an obstinate

Carpentry work paid his bills for many years, before he became a New York Times bestselling author.

46 | Winter 2015

advisor aboard the Death Star at the beginning of the first released Star Wars film (later retitled A New Hope).

Before Tarkin came Darth Plagueis (Random House Publishing Group, 2012), the story of the Sith lord of all Sith lords who took a young politician named Palpatine and covertly turned him into a raging menace who shoots electricity from his fingers. Palpatine becomes Darth Sidious, the craggy-faced antagonist of the franchise.

Only the most shrewd Star Wars academic will recall the conversation in Revenge of the Sith (Star Wars—Episode III), where Palpatine, somewhat resembling a conniving Dick Cheney, tells the ever-fussy Anakin about Plagueis, his former master.

Luceno was fascinated by the possibilities of a Plagueis backstory, and pitched an outline to Lucas at his Skywalker Ranch, but was initially shot down like an x-wing on its way to the Death Star’s nuclear exhaust vents. Later, Luceno managed to get the project approved, and he embarked on a four-year effort to tell the story.

The four years spent conjuring Darth Plagueis was an anomaly; Luceno usually pumps his novelizations out in a matter of months.

He likens his craft to writing a season of television.

His writing process is governed by a combination of hard work and meditative practice. His wife

leaves their log cabin on the South River early in the morning for her job with a statewide nonprofit. This leaves Luceno to a routine that might include listening to National Public Radio and Howard Stern and watching YouTube instructions on how to play whatever Jimmy Page riff is stuck in his head.

He takes long walks and tackles the numerous home maintenance woes that come with living in a log cabin. Carpentry work paid his bills for many years, before he became a New York Times bestselling author.

After lunch, he sits down to write—not in an office, but wherever the mood grabs him.

For Luceno, writing is much like carpentry. “It starts with framing and putting your studs in, then the walls go up,” he says.

“And then, after a while, you’re just touching up the paint.” The next day, he goes over what he’s written the previous day, tweaking in places and rewriting in others.

It’s a meticulous process.

Luceno has churned out dozens of novelizations, not only in the Star Wars universe, but also for other famed franchises like The Shadow and Zorro. He has an impressive list of original novels under his belt, informed by years of globetrotting. He’s traveled across Peru, Croatia, Tanzania, New Zealand, Nepal, and other remote areas of the world, visiting landscapes that look as alien as the bogs of Dagobah to the average American.

He published his first book, Head Hunters, with Random House in 1980. It’s a story about

planets, alien races, ships, and characters that appear in the books and films.

Boxes brimming with Star Wars facts help him maintain continuity; they also hold the answers to the many trivia questions posed to him at conventions by super fans sometimes dressed up like Jango Fett.

Wars universe. By doing so, it essentially ignores established characters and plots, affecting overall continuity. “That’s the power of the Mouse,” Luceno says, and shrugs. “Many of the super-fans are frustrated." He’s not sure if he’ll be asked to write another novelization, but supposes he could, if he can get over the idea of writing a story that bulldozes one that he’s already written.

I pack up my notes and laptop, and we leave the shop. As we walk through the crowd, I show him my Crocs, etched with tiny x-wings swarming the Death Star. it departs significantly from the chronicity established by the universe “Cool,” he says. I’m disappointed when he hops into a car instead of the reptoliterature.” mammalian tauntaun he needs to keep It seems that Disney’s way of the perimeter of his rebel base safe from reconciling its approach with the forces of Darth Disney. █ the years of content produced by Luceno and other writers is to deem those books “legends” in the Star

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American backpackers who happen upon a large quantity of cocaine in South America. The story was born out of ten years worth of journals he kept during his travels.

His friend and collaborator, the late Brian Daley, introduced Luceno to science fiction, and was his link to the Star Wars franchise through a project to write a trilogy of books set around Han Solo’s adventures after Return of the Jedi. Luceno went on to write 11 books for the franchise, including extensive reference guides that provide details on the numerous

Often, he has to admit he has no idea what they’re talking about.

Jim Luceno is not that big of a nerd.

His Star Wars work seems uncertain, however, in the shadow of two giant black mouse ears. In 2012, Disney bought Lucasfilms for four billion dollars, handing the fate of the Jedi to the king of reboots, director J. J. Abrams.

Apparently, Lucas tried to pass on an outline explaining where the story is intended to go, but Abrams reportedly disregarded it. “I’ve read the script for The Force Awakens,” says Luceno, “and

upstart-annapolis.com | 47

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photography by KELSEY SCHWARTZ

t’s difficult to sustain a conversation over the constant rumbles, horns, and sirens of downtown Baltimore. Holly Ann Miller, 25 years old and unfazed by her city, continues telling the story of why she’s back from New York. She rarely breaks visual contact; her eyes are framed by dark catlike eyeliner and her gaze is far from intimidating. She’s comfortably perched on the couch, with one leg folded underneath her body, perfectly embodying the theme of this story: balance.

The story began when Miller moved to New York City after graduating from college, She packed a bag, her cat (Miss Kitty), and her Casio keyboard— she was raised in front of a piano, sitting on her mom’s lap, her hands mimicking every note, so she always made time

50 | Winter 2015

to play. Her new degree in event planning landed her the job she always wanted—working for Peter Callahan at high-end events and dinner parties for the likes of Martha Stewart and the Tisch family. But she surprised herself when she realized that she hated it. She found herself,

at age 22, living in Bushwick with Miss Kitty and completely out of balance.

In an attempt to steady herself, Miller decided to pursue fashion. While still in college, she had modeled for South Moon Under’s online pages.

She was now living in one of

the industry’s epicenters, and that facilitated an almost instantaneous career change. She landed a fulltime job as executive assistant t at Models.com, a website that connects prospective models with the most prestigious agencies in the world.

Although Miller would not be in front of the camera, she nonetheless dove in head first, completely immersing herself in the work.

Each day was different—some were spent in the office, taking photos of models entering the scene or managing the social networking sites of Models.com; others consisted of covering high-fashion presentations or runway shows. One morning after she walked into the office, she was immediately asked to attend a Calvin Klein presentation, where she was expected to interview models, take photos for Instagram, and piece together short write-ups. She then walked out with a complimentary article of clothing, a perk of the job.

Her workday was far from over after she left the office. She would head straight to designer events for Versace, to parties for models such as Coco Rocha and Cara Delevinge,

or to charity events attended by Rhianna that were hosted by Jourdan Dunn. She was enjoying it, but was also becoming exhausted. And her keyboard was steadily collecting dust.

One day, the IT person at Models.com overheard that Miller played and taught piano. His daughter Alana needed a teacher, and Miller jumped at the opportunity. Teaching piano was in her blood—her relatives all played piano, and her mother and grandmother were teachers—and when she began teaching at age 15, it came naturally. Seven years later, after giving her first lesson in New York City, she continued the lessons after work, and began teaching a former student from Baltimore via Skype. Teaching was fulfilling, and gave her a feeling that she had never felt after leaving a fashion show or an A-list party. Miller reevaluated her life, realized how off-kilter it was, and moved back to Baltimore in May 2015.

That same month, she opened Redberry Music and began giving private piano lessons out of a spare room in her father’s house. In August, she taught her first group class at St. Paul Elementary in Baltimore County, where she now teaches music. She simultaneously able to maintain a job at Models.com, which allows her to scratch her itch for fashion.

Thirty minutes later, Miller stops talking to let an ambulance thunder by, and ends her story by stressing how important it is to value happiness

and quality of life. She admits that her 13-hour days are still as long, if not longer, than her days working in New York City, but they don’t feel like work. She teaches piano to 14 private Redberry Music students, teaches music to six elementary grades, and singlehandedly manages the scouting section for Model. com while modeling for her friend’s various companies, including shops in Baltimore and Canyon Bikes. Not surprisingly, she sees all her work expanding in the future, but for right now, she is contented and perfectly balanced. █

upstart-annapolis.com | 51

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CINE

Photo by Sam Holden

SHUT UP

DO IT

by LEAH WEISS

J 32 Ford hot rod. Youngstown, Oh

effrey Pratt Gordon’s apartment got him his first job in the movie industry. It was a loft above Baltimore’s original Daily Grind coffeehouse, where he’d been earning meager wages. One look at the environment—a self-made world full of original artwork and antiques—and Vincent Peranio, John Waters’ production designer, said, “You got it, kid.”

“It” was working in the prop department for Waters’ 1994 film Serial Mom. Gordon had sent a letter of interest to Peranio, who interviewed him over brunch and then asked to see his

56 | Winter 2015

photography by JEFFREY PRATT GORDON

apartment. Gordon took joy in learning the craft, and then propelled himself into the belly of the movie beast.

Gordon’s trajectory from Annapolis High School graduate to prop master, production designer, screenwriter, actor, and producer has been anything but straight. It twists and turns as he seeks creative inspiration from anywhere and everywhere. Whenever a new idea or whimsy grabs him, he shares it with his wife, whose usual supportive response is, “Shut up and do it.”

Growing up, Gordon was surrounded by creativity. His grandfather was a collector

and wood carver, his mother painted, and his father— who was in the Navy—was a photographer. Moving frequently, Gordon observed the world around him.

“Being the new kid teaches you a lot,” he says. “Every city has a different vibe, a different personality. You’re constantly having to adapt to understand, fit in, rebel.”

He constantly rearranged his room, perhaps mirroring the force of change in his life. It’s something he still does.

In the early 1980s, Gordon’s family settled in Annapolis. After stumbling across a cassette tape of punk rock music, he became enthralled with

punk expression. That these artists were doing whatever they wanted to do, carving out a space for themselves in abandoned buildings, resonated with him. He found his way into the scene by photographing bands (he would meet his future wife at a Bad Brains show in DC), and went on to study photography and art history, receiving a double bachelor of fine arts from University of Maryland, Baltimore County.

After working props on Serial Mom, Gordon went with the crew to Homicide: Life on the Street, where he worked for seven years.

During the show’s threemonth production hiatus,

In Front of Johnny Eck exibit at MICA. Photo by Lisa Morgan

upstart-annapolis.com | 57

Johnny Eck's Uncle, Pat Moran, holding the wooden spider Johnny Ecks carved during the 1940s

he worked on feature films. This led to other television series, including David Simon’s The Corner and The Wire, and films such as Wedding Crashers, Syriana, National Treasure, Head of State, and Ladder 49.

He became a prop master and eventually an on-set dresser, ensuring that the artistic vision translated on camera. He then rose to his current position as a production designer. “You go from the written word to stage direction, visualizing the set’s look and feel and presenting it to the director and studio,” he says.

It’s based on a series of creative, collaborative conversations with the director, show runner, and actors. “I like distilling an idea to the essence of what it should be, and a week later, it’s built and people are standing inside of what was originally in my head.” It’s also chaotic and intense: “I always get really nervous when I deliver a set for the first time, just hoping that it works for everybody.”

While at home, caring for his newborn daughter, Gordon collaborated with fellow set dresser Jeff Stacy on a screenplay.

Seven years later, Gospel Hill, starring Danny Glover and Angela Bassett, was showing in theatres.

“Here we are, these Podunk little crew guys, writing and producing a feature film,” he chuckles.

When he felt the pull to act, he auditioned and landed roles.

While playing the role of Johnny “Fifty” in The Wire, he split his workweek between acting and crewing. “It was a six month headspin, but I loved it,” he says.

"My Favorite Tree" Shipman, VA

Gordon as Johnny 50 w/ “Det Bunk Moreland”/ Wendell Pierce and Amy Ryan

Gordon as Johnny 50 with “Ziggy” James Ransone

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"Man and his trike" Douglasville, GA

Notwithstanding his screenwriter, actor, and producer status, Gordon stays grounded in set work, a choice that perplexes some. Once, while working in the greens department on Night at the Museum, a fellow crew member who saw Gordon planting shrubs asked, “You’re a big-time screen writer, why are you slummin’ with the crew?” His answer: “Because I love what I do.”

One of Gordon’s muses is Johnny Eck. Born in 1911, Eck lived in Baltimore, and although he had

a truncated torso—he was 18 inches tall—he had an active life as an artist, sideshow performer, and Renaissance man. “During his 79 years, he did more than most people did with two legs,” says Gordon. “If you have that fire inside, you can do it.” Gordon acquired much of Eck’s estate, created an online Eck museum, and curated an exhibit for Maryland Institute College of Art. Based in Baltimore, Gordon spends time in Atlanta, working as a production designer on several television series and feature films.

He is co-writing, shooting, and producing a documentary about the late Rolling Stones saxophonist Bobby Keys, developing a television series based on Baltimore novelist Justin Sirois’ books, So Say the Waiters, and continuing work on his Johnny Eck documentary. He also stays busy with his wife of 15 years, raising their nineyear-old daughter, traveling as much as possible, and photographing the world around him.

For Gordon, life is about going on tangents. “I would kill myself if I had to work in a cubicle,” he says. “I’ve got too many ideas and too much to say and do. Drive is about creativity, however it manifests itself, and I want to be in the center of it.” After twenty-three years, he values being able to find his way kindly. “A good day is a day when you have learned something and have been able to teach somebody something.” █

CINE

...Drive is about creativity, however it manifests itself, and I want to be in the center of it.

Detail of a set for a "horror film" called The Dead Ones. Photo by William Gray upstart-annapolis.com | 59

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MAR THE SPOT N

by LE IG H G LE N

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photog raphy by LI

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com d of early 1990s sit Six, the best frien r x, to by adding anothe u’ll want aracter Blossom, ch he second thing yo . boost of unique xx Orange— give Sixx a bigger to know about Si ir ha r ot of light, fun, he s sp se The xxs mark a after how she choo oach -holds-barred appr she got that creativity, and a no er, colors—is where cc so g in ay ms—pl running down drea to name. g in av le e , d, at 12 , Franki learning guitar, an Because her father s to m fro lis for Los Angele ps po -u na ix m An d n re ow ffe et m su , ho III ge Oran wanted something pursue acting. being a “third,” he r father—who e name th d te ap ad Orange counts he He r. different for he f festival logistics coordinates one-of ake and remotely for hip-hopper Dr ess aspects of his manages the busin Orange Tattoo—as West Street shop, tion. Their love a favorite inspira well as an all-too for each other, as as t an di ra , are as rare centeredness ir. ha Orange’s essed about “When I can be str eep focused ‘K , something, he says do what you’re and have fun and can be half the meant to do.’ If I I’m complete, I’m person he is, then good.” good. In March She is better than d o’ spend her 2014, Orange, wh camp, was in g summers at actin ckelodeon Kids’ Ni e th California for d heard about an Choice Awards an r the script from he audition. She got d rte sta st ju d ha she agent, with whom d t the next day, an working, tried ou h she decided to enjoyed it so muc mmitment to the make a serious co

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upstart-annapolis.com | 63

ed out to one, though it turn nce. Moving be a great experie e wondered, to Los Angeles, sh d any “What if I don’t fin found many— s e’ friends?” But sh d acting. through soccer an she was in her n, tio di At the au play like I was element: “I got to She landed the shooting a goal.” r of The Kicks, role of Devin, sta

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Nickelodeon's g lin et oo rp ch Ca es m ge ho an given commitments: Awards 2015 Or Best guidance going to y, da a s ur ho e hy live trying four to fiv “Be yourself. W soccer Studios in er th on ei az en Am th d by an ed , releas ne else? auditions to please someo the novel by ons. It also ss on le d g se tin ba ac s It’ or . e ly Ju practic ms—love it er gold medalist Follow your drea ily back in m fa g in iss m ns US Olympic socc mea gh passion e new team’s ing up with ep ough, have enou ke en d an d an yl Alex Morgan. Th ar M really hard on ’t up to snuff, al media. for it, and work performances aren ends through soci fri ld fie , r us he rio p up ything you t too se and Devin must ste it. You can do an When activities ge t r ge de to in s m ill re sk to a and interpersonal it means listening want.” ts and find it’s good just lic nf at th co e er th th h fa r ug he thro m fro d ve e. . Viewers ra ing the age you ar positive solutions azon to enjoy be , Am gs d in le th h ic n fu wh to t, translates in about the pilo at Th rly s in ea to pick up the serie

64 | Winter 2015

WKIND

Selfies

“

pires It not only ins ts kids,”—paren their have told her want to children now play soccer—

or nia ccer on her Calif Sixx playing so " ns Lio y lle Va t club team "Eas

upstart-annapolis.com | 65

DANCE WITH CHAGALL AT THE ONLY ART MUSEUM IN ANNE ARUNDEL COUNTY.

Chagall: The Early Etchings Now through December 17, 2015

THE MITCHELL GALLERY THE UNEXPECTED TREASURE IN ANNAPOLIS

GIVE ME YOUR TIRED, YOUR POOR, YOUR MUSEUM LOVERS.

Pure Photography: Pictorial and Modern Photographs from the Syracuse University Art Collection January 13 – February 28, 2016

For information

about all exhibition-related events, including tours, lectures, and book club, visit www.sjc.edu/mitchellgallery or call 410-626-2556.

OUR EXHIBITION IS THE BEST LURE IN TOWN

St. John’s College | 60 College Avenue | Annapolis, MD 21401 Credits: Upper right: Marc Chagall, Nozdriov, 1923-27. Etching and drypoint. Courtesy of Contemporary and Modern Print Exhibitions. Middle: Frank Weston Benson, On Grand River, c. 1920. Oil on canvas.

Courtesy of the Reading Public Museum, Reading, PA. Bottom: Alfred Stieglitz, The Steerage, 1907. Photogravure on laid paper.

Courtesy of Syracuse University Art Collection.

American Impressionism: The Lure of the Artists' Colony March 9 – April 24, 2016

HOOD

MAKING POSITIVE STRIDES

by PATTY SPEAKMAN HAMSHER photography by ALISON HARBAUGH

68 | Winter 2015

upstart-annapolis.com | 69

Y

outh sports have shaped the lives of many of us, teaching perseverance and cooperation as well as providing lifelong skills and tools to tap into our own grit and determination. Whether on the field, in the pool, or on the court, young athletes learn tangible lessons of camaraderie, character, heartbreak, and triumph that shape their lives.

Sometimes, promotion and competition in sports also include pitfalls and injuries along the way. While a typical injury list from years of athletics may only include a black eye, shin splints, and a sprained ankle, many athletes fare far worse.

And they often go through the suffering and recovery experience alone, with much higher stakes.

Ryan Brant, a former lacrosse player from Annapolis, knows the pain of sports injuries.

Recruited to play Division I lacrosse for Ohio State University, Brant suffered injuries that led to several surgeries in his freshman year; eventually, he had to give up the sport that he had spent much of his life playing. This left a void that he did not know how to fill, at first. He became depressed and found himself searching for a support group. His family and doctors provided invaluable assistance and reassurance, but what he sought was the mentorship and experience of another athlete.

This propelled Brant to establish a nonprofit organization in his hometown that would provide mental, physical, and financial support to young athletes suffering life-changing injuries. Now in its second year of operation, Positive-Strides.org

70 | Winter 2015

has served more than 45 athletes, linking them with people and places where they can find best practices to overcome and recover from injuries.

The organization has worked with top athletes from the National Football League and collegiate players. Though its efforts are concentrated in MarylandWashington, DC-Virgina areas now, it has reached out to athletes in Louisiana and South Carolina as well.

Positive Strides was instrumental in helping Sprissler get her life back.

Courtney Sprissler was an elite field hockey player who was bound for an exciting career in Division I collegiate play. In high school, she suffered seven concussions, which took her out of playing during her senior year. She continued playing at the club level, and earned invitations to four colleges.

Weeks before her collegiate preseason began, Sprissler got word that her head injuries—including three suffered during her senior year—had precluded her from being cleared by a physician to play collegiate field hockey. She had to give up a full scholarship and her dreams to play Division I sports.

“Everything I had worked for got shut down in the blink of an eye,” Sprissler says, admitting that athletics had always been her life’s focus. Like Brant, Sprissler went through a dark phase of

depression while dealing with the pain and immobilization from frequent, blinding headaches and sleeplessness—aftershocks of the concussions.

Two years and two unsuccessful surgeries later, Sprissler met Brant. They bonded over shared stories of athletic injuries and depression. Positive-Strides.org was instrumental in helping Sprissler get her life back. She receives regular neurofeedback treatments, a noninvasive treatment that sends electronic pulses through the brain to break up and rid the body of the chemical that is created each time a body suffers a concussion.

Sprissler says she can now sleep longer at night, and the headache pain is not as severe or frequent.

Memory impairment is still present, but connecting with the PositiveStrides family of support has greatly improved her outlook on life and given her hope.

Positive-Strides.org works hard to spread the word about services it can provide to young injured

HOOD

athletes. The organization is determined to be what Brant once sought out, and is also committed to being an advocate for injury prevention in youth sports, raising awareness of the growing epidemic of youth sports injuries.

Brant and his team talk with parents, coaches, athletes, and school administrators as often as possible about ways to prevent injuries, and signs and symptoms to keep an eye out for, on the field and at home. The message simply points out the big picture: there is life beyond athletics, and it is not always worthwhile to get back in the game too early.

Looking back over all of his injuries, and the pain and frustration they have caused, Brant says, “It’s helped me become a role model, but it has taught me great lessons in overcoming adversity, perseverance, and being a teammate.” His team now runs along the sidelines, encouraging athletes everywhere to make positive strides towards a healthier life. █

upstart-annapolis.com | 71

72 | Winter 2015

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AGO

LOQUACIOUS SCRIBBLE & THE TUESDAY CLUB

by LUCIA ST. CLAIR ROBSON

Oh, we can make liquor to sweeten our lips Of pumpkins and parsnips and walnut tree chips.

– Carl Bridenbaugh, Vexed and Troubled Englishmen: 1590-1642

T

he vexed and troubled English colonists in seventeenth-century Maryland drank any crop that could be steeped, mashed, fermented, and distilled. They didn’t say no to corn, barley, pine bark, apple skins, cherries, plums, persimmons, or sassafras roots.

When the Ark and the Dove set out for Maryland’s shores, stowed below were 4,158 gallons of wine and beer “for the use of the right honorable Lord Baltimore

1

74 | Winter 2015

and other gentlemen.”1 Lord Baltimore never visited his New World real estate, and that left more booze for the gentlemen who did.

Speaking of booze—in the fourteenth century, the English borrowed the Dutch word bouse, which means to swill, guzzle, tope, and tipple. It also means to drink for enjoyment or good fellowship.

That second definition describes most of the social clubs in Annapolis in the early 1700s, but

particularly the Tuesday Club.

Thirty-three-year-old Scottish physician Alexander Hamilton started the Tuesday Club in 1745.

Dr. Hamilton’s face, by the way, does not grace the sawbuck in your wallet, nor was his monthly gathering of gentlemen the only one dedicated to toping. The Ancient South River Club, the Royalist Club, the Redhouse Club, and the Ugly Club preceded it, but the Tuesday Club is the most famous. That’s because

Captains and Mariners of Early Maryland by Raphael Semmes, Johns Hopkins Press, 1937

Dr. Hamilton, alias Loquacious Scribble, wrote a satirical history about it. His manuscript of 1,900 pages plus illustrations is still available as Records of the Tuesday Club of Annapolis: 1745-56.

Largely farce, it’s considered the first comic novel in the colonies. What Dr. Hamilton reported as fact might be mostly spoof, but here’s what he wrote about the men’s groups that preceded his: Attempts by the founder of the Royalist Club to

introduce democratic reforms “led to an explosion in which he was ignominiously ejected, with considerable damage to his person and apparel.” The meeting place of the Redhouse Club “was destroyed by lightning in 1732.”

Its successor, the Ugly Club, “was rent with faction and soon expired.”

Vexed and troubled Englishmen, indeed.

After Dr. Hamilton visited New York’s Hungarian Club he

wrote, “Two or three toapers (sic) in the company seemed to be of the opinion that a man could not have a more sociable quality . . . than to be able to pour down seas of liquor, and remain unconquered, while others sank under the table.” Under Hamilton’s leadership, however, the Tuesday Club flourished. It limited official membership to fifteen, but welcomed guests and honorary members. Benjamin Franklin, dubbed Electro Vitrifico, visited the club in January 1754.

upstart-annapolis.com | 75

Annapolis bustled as a center of commerce and culture, and the Tuesday Club’s roster listed some of the besteducated and most creative minds in town. Samuel Middleton, original owner of Middleton Tavern, belonged.

So did Jonas Green, publisher of the Maryland Gazette, the pastor of St. Anne’s church, a lawyer, a judge, the Secretary for Indian Affairs, and several government officials.

The men called their meetings Sederunts, Latin for they sit. Each member received an alias—Jealous Spyplot, Prim Timorous, Philo Dogmaticus, Merry Makefun, and Crinkum Crankum, among others.

They gathered every Tuesday evening, most often at Dr. Hamilton’s home on King George Street, and sometimes at Middleton Tavern.

The Tuesday Club exemplified the Age of Enlightenment’s enthusiasm for literature, music, theater, and philosophy. Dr. Hamilton and his colleagues added drinking, humor, and tomfoolery.

76 | Winter 2015

The weekly program began with a candlelit dinner, a punch bowl making the rounds, and toasts to the king and then to the ladies.

Some of those toasts were off-color, as when someone commented on how easy it was to find a word to rhyme with Miss Hunt. As Hamilton put it, “We converse, Laugh, talk, Smoke, drink, differ, agree, Philosophize, Harangue, pun, Sing, Dance, and fiddle together.” (sic) Members composed some of the earliest known secular music in America, and performed on fiddle, flute, cello, viola, and harpsichord.

To allay the province’s bitter partisan disputes, the club’s “gelastic law” required everyone to burst into laughter at mention of Maryland politics. Members read their humorous or satirical poems and essays, and discussed philosophy and literature. Hamilton and Green composed punning riddles, called conundrums, and challenged members to solve them. Some of them bordered on bawdy: “Why is a wanton lass like a book just published? Because she is in sheets and wants stitching.” (Stitch was an eighteenth-century term for lying with a woman).

The conundrums were such groaners that some members demanded they be abolished as a “[s]pecies of low wit altogether unworthy of the dignity of the Club.” The factious group was led by William Cummings, aka Jealous Spyplot. Hamilton and Green claimed that Spyplot was miffed because he couldn’t guess the answers and had to forfeit all

the games, but the conundrums were finally eliminated.

Club members organized balls and staged elaborate processions.

People lined the streets, or watched from windows, walls, and balconies as the members passed by, decked out in their “double gilt badge medals.”

The club met until Dr. Alexander Hamilton’s death, on Tuesday, May 11, 1756. He was forty-four years old. Green wrote, “No man, in his Sphere, has left fewer enemies, or more friends.”

The Tuesday Club’s members were prominent men in colonial society, but they mocked both Old and New World aristocracies. They blurred the distinctions among social classes and provided a new sort of public entertainment. In a way, their legacy lives on as people gather in local bars to play Trivia, discuss current issues, and sing karaoke. █

AGO upstart-annapolis.com | 77

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Jimi Davies

Publisher/Creative Director Jimi Davies (aka Jimi Haha) is the singer/guitarist/songwriter for Jimmie’s Chicken Shack and Jarflys. Jimmie’s Chicken Shack has released seven records, one movie, and three MTV videos over 25 years. It has toured the United States and Europe, garnering airplay around the world.

Jimi is also a visual artist who works in many different mediums and has sold paintings locally and internationally. He has worked with numerous mentoring programs, charities, and fundraisers over his 30 years in Annapolis. He plans to release his first solo record Hole Hearted in 2016. Jimi likes to catch fish and dance like it is the last day of his life. jimihaha.com jah-haha.com

Andrea Stuart

Editorial Director

It’s easy to get lost in the lexical overgrowth of conversation. I suppose that’s why I feel more comfortable behind the page than on it. If you ask my mother, she’ll say I was born a performer, having enjoyed a potpourri of activities, from playing violin and cello, to dancing, singing, acting, painting, and writing. If you ask me, I’ll tell you I’m a chameleon who has never mastered the art of camouflage. I’m simply contented to know that we don’t need to have all the answers, just a curiosity to seek them out.

Being a magazine editor has allowed me to learn from shared experiences. Meanwhile, teaching yoga reminds me to keep my thoughts as beautiful as I imagine the world to be.

When I’m not writing, editing, or striking a pose on the mat, I can be found dancing with my vacuum, singing into spatulas for my pooches, or laughing with a glass of wine in-hand. andrea-stuart.com

Cory Deere Art Director

Spawned from a traditional sign painter and visual artist, Cory has always been surounded by all things visual. Growing up in a sign shop with an insatiable curiosity for art and design has helped shape Cory's instinctive abilities for design. He has painted murals, the entrances to amusement parks, and haunted houses, and has done faux-finishing on furniture and houses, paintings, mixed media, and captained a towboat. He is also a musician. Self-taught in computer graphic and web design, Cory now produces as many as 35 publications a year as well as myriad web projects.

upstart-annapolis.com | 81

Photo by Dimitri Fotos

A&E DISTRICT CALENDAR Compass Rose Theater “Brigadoon” November 12- December 20, 2015 A Musical by Alan Jay Lerner and Frederick Loewe

Live Arts Maryland “Celebration of Christmas” Presented at Maryland Hall Friday, December 11, 2015 - 8:00 pm Tickets: General Admission $50

MFA “Small Wonders” November 27-December 23 at Circle Gallery.

Exhibition of small 2D and 3D artworks.

Reception on December 3 from 6-8pm.

Annapolis Opera”Angels and Demons” At Maryland Hall Friday, December 11, 2015 - 7:00 pm Saturday, December 12, 2015 - 8:00 pm Tickets: General Admission $35, Student $22

Annapolis Shakespeare Theater “It’s a Wonderful Life” A Live Radio Play by Joe Landry December 4, 2015 January 1, 2016 Studio Annapolis Young Artists Program “Member Recital” Presented at Maryland Hall Saturday, December 5, 2015 - 3:00 pm Tickets: General Admission $6 MD Hall “An A Cappella Holiday with The Capital Hearings” Presented by Maryland Hall Saturday, December 5, 2015 - 7:30 pm Tickets: Non-Member $20, Member $15, Child $15 Arts District “Chocolate Binge Festival” December 6, 2015 at Historic West Street Family fun and activities and lots of Chocolate

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Annapolis Symphony Orchestra Holiday Pops: “Simply Sinatra Christmas” Presented at Maryland Hall Friday, December 18, 2015 - 8:00 pm Tickets: $48-$58, Student $13 Ballet Theatre of Maryland “Nutcracker” Present at Maryland Hall Saturday, December 12, 2015 - 7:00 pm Sunday, December 13, 2015 - 1:00 pm Sunday, December 13, 2015 - 4:30 pm Saturday, December 19, 2015 - 7:00 pm Sunday, December 20, 2015 - 1:00 pm Sunday, December 20, 2015 - 4:30 pm Tickets: Non-Member Adult $52, Member Adult $47, Senior $43, Student $32, Child $27

Live Arts Maryland “Handel’s Messiah” Presented at St. Anne’s Church, Church Circle Friday, December 18, 2015 - 8:00 pm Saturday, December 19, 2015 - 8:00 pm Sunday, December 20, 2015 - 3:00 pm Tickets: Non-Member $45, Member $40, Student $17 MFA “Winter Member Show” January 7-23, January 2016 at Circle Gallery.

Exhibition of diverse artwork by local artists.

Reception on January 10 from 3-5pm.

Compass Rose Theater “Cat on a Hot Tin Roof ” November 12- December 20, 2015 A Musical by Alan Jay Lerner and Frederick Loewe

Ballet Theatre of Maryland “Sleeping Beauty” Present at Maryland Hall Friday, February 19, 2016 - 7:30 pm Saturday, February 20, 2016 - 7:00 pm Sunday, February 21, 2016 - 2:00 pm Tickets: Non-Member Adult $52, Member Adult $47, Senior $43, Student $32, Child $27 AMFM “An Annapolis Christmas” December 7 and 8, 2015 Presented at Ramshead on Stage Doors: 6:00 pm / Show: 7:00 pm Annapolis, MD This event is 21 and over

Annapolis Shakespeare Theater “Three Sisters” Directed By Donald Hicken January 22- February 21, 2016 ASC Studio 111 MFA “Focal Point” January 28-February 27, 2016 at Circle Gallery.

Exhibition of juried fine art and photography from across the country.

Reception on February 14 from 3-5pm.

Annapolis Opera “Cinderella”: A Children’s Opera Presented at Maryland Hall Saturday, January 30, 2016 - 10:30 am Tickets: General Admission $15 Arts District “Artie Party” Annapolis “ARTIE” Awards January 30, 2016 at Metropolitan Restaurant on West Street Annapolis Art District Awards and Rooftop Ice Sculpting Live Arts Maryland Broadway in Annapolis: “Finian’s Rainbow” Presented at Maryland Hall Friday, February 12, 2016 - 7:30 pm Saturday, February 13, 2016 - 3:00 pm Saturday, February 13, 2016 - 8:00 pm Tickets: Section A: Non-Member $45, Member $40, Student $17, Section B: Non-Member $40, Member $35, Student $17

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Engage Enlighten Exalt Annapolis Fringe Festival 2015 Photo by Alison Harbaugh