2014 was a year of milestones and some big changes in the cultural landscape of Maryland. Tom Hall reflects on the year in the arts, and in particular, three women who had a big impact:
It’s been a busy and exciting year for the so-called “creative class” in MD. Several of our most treasured institutions have raised their game, and made plans that they hope will propel them to a new level both locally and nationally. The Baltimore Museum of Art unveiled another part of an extensive renovation and re-imagining of its building and collection, as they enter their second century. The Walters Art Museum and the Pratt Library are undertaking major face-lifts as well. The Baltimore Symphony Orchestra will begin a two-season celebration of its 100th anniversary next year, and it’s already been ten years since the BSO began performing at the Strathmore Music Center in Bethesda. The Chesapeake Shakespeare Theater christened its new performance space this fall, moving its home from Howard County to the Inner Harbor in Baltimore. Their new theater is the third new performance space in as many years for Charm City’s ever-expanding theater community.
And, in August and September, our community lost three of its most ebullient, revered, and respected artists. Seska Peck Ramberg, Binnie Ritchie Holum and Vivienne Shub had been making art and expanding the notion of what art-making can mean, for decades. Seska was a counselor, social worker and art therapist whose spirited embrace of the restorative power of art led her to Indonesia after the tsunami in 2004 and to Haiti after the earthquake in 2010. When I asked her why she chose not to work providing food, water, medicine and shelter to victims in the immediate aftermath of those horrible tragedies, she replied simply that she didn’t feel called to do that. Rather, she understood that helping children and their families make art at that very tender and terrifying moment would help them process what they had been through, and guide them as they recovered and moved forward. Seska helped them selflessly, masterfully, and with boundless love.
Binnie Ritchie Holum was a dancer and actor who lit up the stage with an unhinged energy that she married to impeccable comic and dramatic timing. Her physicality was hysterically funny, and spot-on as a window into what her characters were thinking. Some of my most cherished performing memories include being on stage with Binnie, particularly when we were performing for children. Kids have unfailing radar for inauthenticity, and it took Binnie just seconds to establish herself as a person her audiences recognized as the real deal.
Vivienne Shub was an actor with a tremendous range, a delightful wit, and an extraordinary record of accomplishment. A member of the resident company of the Everyman Theater, she was a mentor and an inspiration for generations of actors. Viv’s sister, Naomi Greenberg-Slovin, is Everyman’s gifted Dramaturg. She collaborated with Viv on several one woman shows, including The Cone Sister, and Viva La Vivienne, which Viv performed to celebrate her 90th birthday. She was a gracious and delightful person off stage, and a marvelously compelling presence on stage, for so many years.
I was blessed to count Seska, Binnie and Vivienne as friends, and to be among the countless numbers of people who were touched by their work, here and around the world. We have all been inspired, moved, and made different by the work of these fearless, thirsty and fantastic artists. In this season of giving, I am thankful to have been one of the many, many people who was on the receiving end of their wonderful, unique, and poignant creative benefaction. They are missed, and they are in mind.
