Sam Robinson, Fine Artist

When I first met Sam Robinson, many years ago, he was the president and founder of a company called Valley Craftsmen, who did faux painting (remember, this was many years ago) and other decorative painting. I thought Sam was terrific then, on a slight acquaintance, and now, many years later, on a nice friendship, I think he’s even more terrific.I was kindly invited to an opening of his wonderful art works, much of it done over the last few months… during the spring races. For a certain segment of Baltimoreans, spring hails the arrival of steeplechase season, picnics in the grass, excellent cocktails, horse races and good friends. Sam views it as an opportunity for plein air painting.

He approached the racing officials who let him set up his easel and paints in the midst of the paddock, where all of the action is… at least before the races begin. The center of the three paintings below is the painting drying on the left above.

His equestrian knowledge and his love of his part of Maryland, the Green Spring Valley where he lives, all contribute to his deep sense of place, which is reflected in his paintings.

Each aspect of the race is shown in Sam’s paintings. From the trainer and the owner discussing strategy, to the grooms bringing the horses in to the paddock to be saddled, to the riders making their way to the starting line, to the fierce competition over the fences,

to the announcer calling the race,

to the final run down the home stretch,

to the final cooling off of the horses, Sam’s paintings reflect the true gamut of the day.

His paintings have a light, quick touch that really conveys the highs and lows of this racing life.

Sam Robinson’s show runs through early August at Halcyon House Antiques in the Green Spring Valley. For more information on the show, click here, and for more information on Sam’s paintings, click here.

Gardenias

I have two gardenia plants. Unremarkable until you learn that one is about 15 years old, and the other is about five years old. Both are cuttings from a gardenia which was given to my mother more than 45 years ago. That plant has been carried outside at Easter and inside at Thanksgiving to keep it alive and growing. I continue to do the same with mine because these plants won’t tolerate our cold Maryland winters, even though we kept the original one in an unheated but sunny room for several winters.

Mine have suffered over the past year due to a botched pruning job and a winter outbreak of aphids. Many of the leaves fell off and those that remained were not the deep green associated with gardenias. I had very few blossoms on either plant, although one was at my former office, and one was at the house. As soon as the weather looked like we were past any hard freezes, in early April, I lugged both plants outside and let the sun and the rain work on revitalizing them. Clearly this has worked better than I even anticipated, since both plants are covered in buds. I found the first open blossom when I let Connor into the back garden, and could smell the its gorgeous peppery scent in the morning air. I picked it, put it in a little silver pitcher and took it into the office.

When I got home from work, several more buds had bloomed into beautiful white blossoms, and I picked those as well, and brought them in to bask in their scent and their beauty. I love gardenias for the same reason I love magnolias – the amazingly white flowers against the glossy dark green leaves. I love these plants for their long history and for the unbroken chain of life that they represent.

Concours d’Elegance

Ohhhh, that’s just the fancy way of saying antique car show! We do it every year at the Baltimore Architecture Foundation’s golf tournament. The men (and yes, it’s all men) bring their cars and everyone admires them and imagines that they’re the owners.
The cars ranged from our friend Bob’s older, slightly rusty MG, to a gorgeous classic 1928 Rolls Royce,
and a stunning Packard.
The car that actually got the most attention was a brand-new Tesla with its electric engine and 0-60 mph in 4 seconds speed!Nothing in the front, nothing in the back. Just loads of batteries running under the carriage of the car. Fascinating.
Another car that got a lot of looks was an Aston Martin.
Really quite swish!The interior was all glove (as in baseball glove) leather and the car smelled like old leather… in a good way.
Some of the other cars were actually ones I liked more than the Aston Martin and the Tesla.
Like this…

or this…It wasn’t in the perfect condition that some of the others were, but I liked it all the same.I mean, who wouldn’t want an old woodie station wagon?
Or for that matter, an old Austin Healy?
Or even our friend Josh’s Porsche, with no air conditioning!
It’s always such fun to spend a beautiful early evening looking at these terrific cars, each wonderful in their own way, and each treasured by their owner.
Especially in a location as lovely as this:With a sky like this overhead.
Always a fun time with some great friends!

And thanks to much to the major sponsor of the BAF Golf Outing: Pella Windows! We greatly appreciated your support!

Before & After

I’ve been playing around this weekend with some of the formulas for cleaning the pieces of china that I bought at auction last week. After some serious scrubbing with vinegar and salt, the smell of which gagged me, and then with a paste of baking soda and water, I realized that they don’t work too well. I went back to my life philosophy: Better Living Through Chemicals! {kidding}.

One of the pieces was in much worse shape than all of the others. The image on the left is the piece as I bought it at auction. The image on the right is after an all-day soak with a paste of Soft Scrub® with bleach. There is a marked improvement after this process.

Before

After Soft Scrub

 

Next, I pulled out the Oxyclean® and tried that. I filled the bowl with water and added about an eighth of a cup of powdered Oxyclean, mixed it up so it all dissolved, and let it sit for several hours.  You can see that almost all of the staining, except for the big stain on the left, which actually almost looks like a burn mark, is gone. And that stain on the left is reduced considerably. There’s a fold in the lower right, but that almost as much of a shadow than discolouration. I’ve got this piece soaking again so I can see if I can get rid of some of the staining around the rim, and on the reverse side.

I am pretty pleased with the outcome of this experiment!

Happy Flag Day!

In the neighbourhood where I used to live, Locust Point – the Gateway to Fort McHenry, everyone flew an American flag on Flag Day, which is June 14th.

Out Damn Spot!

I’ve gotten a number of questions about how to remove spots from the blue and white china that I bought last weekend.

Here’s what happens with china. As it’s used and it ages, it gets very small cracks in the glaze called crazing. There’s not a lot you can do about a piece that’s already crazed. Dirt, grease and other disgusting things get into the crazing and cause discolouration. The image above is from a planter, so it’s probably dirt. In my pieces, it’s probably grease.

There are a few things that you can do to try and get rid of the stains. My friend Reggie Darling has a long piece about using hydrogen peroxide to remove stains. It’s a lengthy process, involving submerging the piece in hydrogen peroxide (H2O2) for several days and then baking it for a few minutes in an ELECTRIC oven (as gas ovens could cause an explosion!). You can read about the process and Reggie’s results, here. They were dramatic. You can either get lots of smaller bottles of H2O2 at the drug store, or a larger bottle, which is a higher percentage, at a beauty supply store.

Another suggestion is to make a past of a cleanser like Comet®, or something that has some bleach in it, and spread it over the stains. You can leave it overnight and see what it does. Do not use bleach full-strength as that can damage the porcelain.

Since the old tureen I have is already pretty badly damaged, I put some Soft Scrub® on it and left it all day long. The process cleaned the dish up a bit, but some of the stains go all the way through the china.

The piece does date from the 1830’s, so that’s excuse enough for me to be a little worse for the wear.

Other suggestions for cleaning china are denture tablets, water softener with a Z code, and naval jelly, which is terribly caustic. Natural options include a paste of white vinegar and salt, baking soda and water, or a past of Oxyclean® and water.

What are your tips for cleaning china?

Did the Mosquito Do It?

I had the opportunity to tour historic Davidge Hall at the University of Maryland this morning. As many times as I’ve driven by this beautiful 1812 building, I’ve never been inside. It’s the oldest medical school building continually in use, and while I was there, a lecture was taking place in one of the two lecture halls. The building is in classical Greek revival style, and was modeled on the old anatomical halls found in the 1700’s in Europe. The larger of the two lecture halls is completely round, and topped by a beautiful coffered dome. When you stand dead center, you can hear your voice echoing around you. It’s fascinating, but a little creepy. This was an early method of amplification. The lecturer stood in the center of the room and demonstrated his medical operations, while the students sat on the benches which completely surrounded him. Each student could hear the lecturer perfectly. The center of the dome is also topped by a central skylight, which is surrounded by dozen smaller lights. Most unfortunately, due to some bad early repairs and some issues with the building’s HVAC system, the beautiful plasterwork’s paint job has not lasted. However, there’s a certain beauty to the peeling ceilings, and the peeling paint has revealed the names of some of the early painters, who scratched their names into the woodwork, where it remains today.

There’s a gallery of exhibits surrounding the lecture hall, highlighting the accomplishments of the school’s alumni. One of the most charming displays was a series of letters from a physician talking about Yellow Fever, which ravaged the Eastern and Southern United States. Paper was a valuable resource in those days, so for this physician to use an entire side paper to announce that he’d finally found the source of Yellow Fever was quite astonishing! This discovery lead to the eradication of Yellow Fever in the United States and saved millions of lives.

Students subscribed to lectures given by many notables of the day. They received chits of paper with the lecture, date and lecturer and that allowed them to attend the lecture. Each cost about $20, quite a sum in those days.

The intertwining story of the University of Maryland’s Medical School, founded in 1807, and the Medical and Chirurgical Faculty of Maryland (where I work), founded in 1799, has at it center the riots caused by John Davidge (after whom the building was named) performing anatomical studies on cadavers (perhaps acquired from the nearby Westminster Burying Ground). Until that time, there was no formal medical training for doctors in Maryland, and physicians were licensed by the Faculty.

The other of the two lecture halls is smaller in scale but interesting nevertheless.

The two urn-shaped pieces in the back of the hall are actually heaters, and there are others scattered around the building.

The back of the smaller hall features a large bank of heaters, and several busts of the classical physicians and philosophers.

There are also beautiful niches, which are being used to store historical medical books.

We are truly lucky to have a building like Davidge Hall in our city, and even more fortunate to have the School of Medicine producing some top physicians and some ground-breaking medical research.

Thanks to Larry Pitrof, Director of the Medical Alumni Association for showing me around and for the fascinating book on the history of the University of Maryland’s School of Medicine.