Although part of a family that is clearly on a fast track, Cleo Liu Koppell is decidedly cool and calm – more focused on the muffin and yoghurt before her on a recent morning than any weighty issue of the day. That’s as it should be for a two-year-old with doting parents, two cats to keep at arms-length, and a reliable playmate to hang with just a few doors down Lafayette Avenue.
Passing by the 1400 block of Bolton Hill, you just might catch Leo Wanenchak playing the piano by the front window of his home.
Wanenchak, an accomplished pianist, organist, composer and music teacher, is the Associate Conductor of the Baltimore Choral Arts Society, Director of the Larks, a women’s vocal group, and Musical Director of the ParkinSonics choral group sponsored by the Johns Hopkins Center for Music and Medicine.
In a recent art show at Memorial Episcopal Church, Coming of the Light II, Sarah Ramirez Cross exhibited her latest block prints. One piece, North American Endangered Species, consists of a series of postcard-size prints on canvas depicting a Black Rail (a marsh bird) and a Gopher Frog. Printed in black ink on beige canvas, the animals are elegantly composed, with curved lines that form patterns suggesting feathers and skin. Multiples of the images are stitched together to create a vibrant homage.
Lottie Shivers turned 100 a few weeks ago and, to celebrate her long life and the contributions she and her late husband have made to the neighborhood, BHCA’s Blue Plaque Committee gave her a surprise gift: a Bolton Hill Blue Plaque honoring her late husband.
In New York every winter there is a festival where David Byrne of the Talking Heads dances with Gogol Bordello members. Former marching band nerds crowd-surf with their horns. Hipsters mingle with gray-haired ladies. And Balkan and Middle Eastern immigrants line dance with everyone. The Golden Festival is a unique celebration of Eastern European music and dance, which incorporates the Romany community influence embedded in those cultures.
The Banner and The Sun both ran warm obituaries for Dr. Jeremy Walston, 64, a Bolton Hill resident and geriatrician who died of cancer during the summer. He was a world-renowned physician who ran the Human Aging Project at Hopkins Bayview Medical Center and worked tirelessly to improve the quality of life for people as they age and better manage the progression of disease in the elderly.
“Painting reflects life, it helps me to be more aware that I am part of a diverse global community.” This is Kyoungho Isaac Kim, Bolton Hill resident and a recent graduate of the LeRoy E. Hoffberger School of Painting at the Maryland Institute of Art.
Imagine being in a space where you can feel the warmth of the sun, the breeze through a field, and the stillness of glaziers, all around you. This is one way to experience the art in the parlor room of Leopoldo Cuspinera Madrigal’s newly renovated workplace in Lauraville. Part gallery, part studio, part elegant home, this has been Cuspinera’s most recent project, and his paintings grace the walls and hallways of the first and second floor.
Bolton Hill’s Gary Anderson earned a place in the pantheon of graphic design when as a young man he won a contest to design a symbol that could be printed onto paper to signify that it was made of recycled paper. That symbol, with three arrows rotating in a circle, is now universally recognized as the recycling symbol, and can be found on paper products, trash receptacles, and merchandise across the globe.
When the steering committee of Bolton Hill’s Gray Panthers group decided to stage a salute to people who have lived in the neighborhood for half a century or more, they started out with just a half dozen names.
