Gallery Beat

The Monster Has Been Tamed...

Hill Street by M Kotarba

...Maybe!

As June arrives, I’m beginning to think that perhaps the Covidian monster has been tamed, art fairs are desperately seeking galleries to apply to show, the DMV’s outdoor art festivals are returning, and brushes, pens and pencils continued to be applied to paper or canvas. Notice that I did not mention cicadas or Brood X or none of that 17-year nonsense that feeds other papers’ pages these days.

Restaurants, museums, bars, and libraries are allegedly open, except in Montgomery County, where Kommissar-Marc Elrich curiously has kept his iron boot on the throat of the county’s attempts to come back to life… and most libraries remain closed.

Plein Air painting has always been a refreshing genre of art production, and our area boasts some of the best plein air painting events, perhaps none better than the one held in Easton, but one a bit closer to the DMV and just as good is and a lot closer is the one in Ellicott City.

In that annual event, artists from around the region gather in Ellicott City – this year the weekend of June 10-13 -- for Paint It! Ellicott City 2021.

This year, the Howard County Arts Council (HCAC) and Visit Howard County have partnered to host this paint-out weekend culminating in an exhibit of 30 juried artists at the Howard County Center for the Arts.

The guest juror for Paint It! Ellicott City 2021 is awardwinning landscape artist Lynn Mehta, who selected the following artists for the juried exhibit: Lissa Abrams, Bruno Baran, Pamela Betts, Julia Bowden, Cathy Cole, Shawn Costello, Ann Crostic, David Drown, Vlad Duchev, Kathleen Gray Farthing, Kathleen Ryan Gardiner, Erin Gill, Marita Hines, Nishita Jain, Rajendra