Baltimore magazine - Arts

Read It

John Lewis — Fri, 03 Feb 2012 18:54:09 +0000

Bob Ehrlich, Laurel Snyder, and Lauren R. Silberman

By John Lewis

Bob Ehrlich
Turn This Car Around (BenBella)

Play It

John Lewis — Fri, 03 Feb 2012 18:42:14 +0000

Alakazam, Dustin Wong, and Anne

By John Lewis

Alakazam
What Once Was (Howlin Hog!)

Little Black Boxes

Baltimore magazine — Fri, 03 Feb 2012 18:39:48 +0000

All the world’s a stage at Towson University’s suddenly vibrant arts program.

By Geoffrey Himes

His septet had only two days before a big concert, so Ellery Eskelin was conducting this rehearsal with a certain urgency. The highly acclaimed jazz saxophonist, long and lanky beneath a brown-felt porkpie hat and a thin goatee, faced the semi-circle of his six bandmates, talking to them like a stage director: This section needs more energy; that section needs to be lighter; here you have to play the music as written; there you should use the notation just as a guide for improvisation.

Kickstarting the Arts Scene

Baltimore magazine — Mon, 09 Jan 2012 19:03:46 +0000

Local artists are using a high-tech form of patronage to fund a wide variety of projects.

By Rjyan Kidwell

For five years, Erin Gleeson and Benjamin O'Brien have been producing a surreal children's show, Showbeast, and posting episodes online. Billed as "a show to feel weird about," their Web series makes Pee-Wee's Playhouse seem straight-laced thanks to its peculiar puppets, plotlines involving mustache removal or Magic 8 Ball fortune-telling, dreamlike digital animation, and wacky cameos by the likes of Dan Deacon. It isn't the sort of project a network gets behind or a foundation funds.

Read It: January 2012

John Lewis — Mon, 09 Jan 2012 18:37:41 +0000

James Egan, Tricia Tunstall, and Esopus

By John Lewis

James Egan (editor)
John Waters: Interviews (University Press of Mississippi)

Play It: January 2012

John Lewis — Mon, 09 Jan 2012 18:32:11 +0000

Johnny Cash and Old Calf

By John Lewis

Johnny Cash
Bootleg Volume 3: Live Around the World (Sony Legacy)

Read It: December 2011

John Lewis — Fri, 25 Nov 2011 17:39:04 +0000

Stephen Hunter and Jennifer B. Bodine

By John Lewis

Stephen Hunter
Soft Target (Simon & Schuster)

Play It: December 2011

John Lewis — Fri, 25 Nov 2011 17:32:29 +0000

Lurch & Holler, Future Islands, and Greg Pierce

By John Lewis

Lurch & Holler
In the Cabin Below (Thick Syrup Records)

The Next Big: R&B Star

Jess Blumberg — Fri, 18 Nov 2011 19:57:34 +0000

A Baltimore native sings her way to the top.

By Jess Blumberg

Monica Floyd, aka Doll Phace, grew up in West Baltimore singing in church choirs and performing in Poly Follies, the annual show put on by her high school, Baltimore Polytechnic Institute. "I always participated in theater groups and on dance teams," she says. "That was a very special part of my life." Then, while at Morgan State University, Doll Phace (a nickname coined by a fellow Poly student) saw an ad in the paper for someone trying to put together an all-girl group. "I got picked and we moved to California," she says.

Play It: November 2011

John Lewis — Fri, 04 Nov 2011 17:46:43 +0000

Yellow Dubmarine, Tori Amos, and Selected Shorts: New American Stories

By John Lewis

Yellow Dubmarine
Abbey Dub (Gold Lion Records)

Read It: November 2011

John Lewis — Fri, 04 Nov 2011 17:38:02 +0000

Larry Doyle, John Barth, and McKay Jenkins

By John Lewis

Larry Doyle
Deliriously Happy (Ecco)

Education By Design

Baltimore magazine — Fri, 04 Nov 2011 17:15:06 +0000

The new Baltimore Design School brings fashion, architecture, and graphic design to public education.

By Elizabeth Evitts Dickinson

It's early on a September morning during the first week of school, and seventh-grader Deasia Holland waits in the front office to confirm her class schedule, her grandmother, Darlene Sterling, at her side. Deasia is exceptionally stylish, her outfit casual enough for a school day, yet put together in a way—with bangles at her wrists and a bow placed just so—that she looks like she walked off the styled pages of a back-to-school photo shoot. Fashion is clearly something this kid has a knack for.

Handled With Care

Baltimore magazine — Fri, 30 Sep 2011 17:07:19 +0000

From an African slave canoe to a Dale Chihuly sculpture, a local business transports priceless artifacts and great works of art.

By Jane Marion

Along a busy industrial stretch behind BWI-Thurgood Marshall Airport, Scott Pittman wipes the sweat off his brow, brought on by a record-breaking Baltimore heat wave. Once inside the several storage vaults of Bonsai Fine Arts, Pittman reads the thermostat on the warehouse wall: "70 degrees with 50 percent humidity," he says, proudly pointing to the Holy Grail of art-storage climate-control.

Read It: October 2011

John Lewis — Fri, 23 Sep 2011 19:13:58 +0000

Dinah Miller, Annette Hanson, and Steven Roy Daviss; and Michael Fallon

By John Lewis

Dinah Miller, Annette Hanson, and Steven Roy Daviss
Shrink Rap (The Johns Hopkins University Press)

Play It: October 2011

John Lewis — Fri, 23 Sep 2011 19:05:40 +0000

Tommy Keene, JC Brooks & the Uptown Sound, and White Life

By John Lewis

Tommy Keene
Behind the Parade (Second Motion)