GyBill
06-26-2007, 14:53
Mind of a Marine; soul of an artist
Art Between The Creeks showcase this weekend
By WENDI WINTERS, For The Capital
Major John Powell Williams is a Marine's Marine. The 1988 Virginia Military Institute graduate recently returned in December from a 7-month tour of duty at Central Command in the Persian Gulf.
While there, he evacuated Americans out of Lebanon, and participated in missions to Jordan, Pakistan, Djibouti, Kuwait and in Hadifa in western Iraq.
Life has returned to somewhat normal for the ramrod straight soldier. He's just finished another semester at his permanent duty station - the Naval Academy - where he is a political science instructor. That was followed by two weeks at Quantico training midshipmen who want to become Marines.
But, when it comes time to chill out, he paints. Not houses. Works of art.
Beginning this Friday through Sunday, Maj. Williams' artworks and those of 16 other local artists will be on exhibit during "Critical Mass," the annual Art Between The Creeks showcase in Eastport. The gallery is a makeshift but sturdy affair the artists built themselves inside the Annapolis Yacht Club's Sailing Center on 6th Street, located at the Eastport foot of the Spa Creek Bridge.
All this week, artists are lugging ladders and sheetrock, swung hammers and used paintbrushes of a different sort to get the raw warehouse space shipshape in time for the show. Passersby were treated to the unusual sight of artists walking through Eastport, gently carrying their oversized canvases into the AYC Sailing Center.
Funds raised by auctions of some of the works, plus patron donations, go toward funding art supplies for the art program at Eastport Elementary school.
"We often joke that the only thing an artist needs to get into the show is a 12-foot ladder," said ABTC founder Cindy Fletcher. "Like Cinderella's carriage turns back into a pumpkin, this gallery turns back into a tool shed by midnight Sunday."
The show includes Leonard Koscianski, an artist who usually exhibits in Manhattan.
"He asked us to be in our show," said Ms. Fletcher. "That's like Carlos Santana asking to be in a garage band. It's a huge compliment."
Another artist, Peter Tasi, is a renowned museum exhibition designer. He designed the bronze plaques for the Alex Haley- Kunta Kinte site in City Dock and the Eastport Walking Tour panels. Still another is abstract artist and piano tuner Phil Gurlik, an Artist-In-Residence at Maryland Hall.
Show times
Show hours are noon to 9 p.m. Friday with a reception from 6 to 9 p.m.; 11 a.m. to 6 p.m. Saturday and Sunday. For more information, call 410-263-8646 or visit the Web site www.artbetweenthecreeks.u s.
"Paintings in the show are for sale," said Ms. Fletcher. "They go from a low of $27 to a high of $20,000. The average is from $100 to $2,000. And, they're not just paintings. We have photography, sculpture and drawings in the show. This show is for people who don't usually have any other venue in Annapolis to show their work."
Maj. Williams has exhibited elsewhere in his short career as an artist. His works have hung in the Asman Gallery at NBC headquarters in Washington, at AHH! Coffee in Eastport, and one piece hung in the Mitchell Gallery at St. John's College, where he's taken courses. He's also studied with the Art League School in Alexandria, Va.
"I'm impressed with the fact the guy has spent his entire life in the military. He's served in Iraq and then he comes home and paints. He pours his heart out on a canvas. That's fascinating!" exclaimed Ms. Fletcher.
"It's a part-time gig for me," concedes Maj. Williams, "but I did take a class in art history at VMI." When a visitor looked incredulous, he said quietly, "VMI has art courses. I was an English Literature major."
But he always wanted to be in the Marine Corps. His older brother Rick is a retired Marine.
"I set my sights and did everything possible to get in. I was born in Virginia and our dad was career Army," Maj. Williams said. "I've never lived anywhere over four years."
He paused.
"I've been here two years. I'm putting down roots here. I'll retire in another year and probably do something inside the Beltway."
Currently the associate chairman of the Political Science Department at the Naval Academy, he teaches the American Government and Politics of Irregular Warfare, focusing on asymmetric threats the military faces now and are likely to face in the future.
"The Cold War was the turning point in the wars we face," he said. He listed terrorists, intra-state insurgents and criminal elements as groups that "stand to make money off peddling arms, drugs and people."
He has a master's degree from the Naval Post Graduate School in National Security Affairs, focusing on Eastern Europe and The Balkans.
The dramatic scar that arches over the left side of his Kojak pate wasn't from sword fighting with Jack Sparrow. In a backyard game of pickup baseball 32 years ago, he stood off to one side as another kid hit a homer. The kid tossed the bat as he ran to first. At high speed, the bat sliced into Maj. Williams' head.
He began painting in acrylics, perhaps inspired by his wife, Rosemary Frietas-Williams, an artist and retired television executive he met through mutual friends several years ago.
"Now I paint almost exclusively in oil," he said. "I do scenes of the Chesapeake. I like seascapes, I like boats, the maritime industry that the Chesapeake is known for. That's what I paint because that's what I enjoy."
His works in the show are glimpses of scenes he's spotted from the deck of his sailboat, "Ro Boat." A member of the Maryland Plein Air Painters Association, he'll paint on site, and also from photographs when there's a detail he wants to capture.
It's marine art by a real Marine.
"I have a thing for propellers," Maj. Williams said, showing off a painting that could be interpreted as either realism or an abstraction of geometric forms. One painting displays a winch off a Hinkley Bermuda 40, and, in another, surreal snatch blocks dangle in space.
Home life
With his wife, he's renovating a home on Burnside Street in Eastport. Along with their black Labrador Samantha, the couple created an impeccably tidy studio tucked under the attic eaves - not a paint splatter in sight.
When the day's work and chores are done, he goes up to the studio and paints. "I just lose myself in it," he said. "Before I know it, the night's past and its time to get ready for the next day. I'll spend five to ten hours a week painting, when I'm lucky."
He prefers painting on board over canvas, but "paints on what's available."
"People have commented, they think it's odd, that I'm a Marine and I like to paint."
His blue eyes widen and he shakes his head in disbelief.
"They haven't seen all the terrific works of art done by Marines hanging at the new Marine Museum in Quantico," he pointed out.
Then, he picked up a brush and turned back to his next work of art.
Art Between The Creeks showcase this weekend
By WENDI WINTERS, For The Capital
Major John Powell Williams is a Marine's Marine. The 1988 Virginia Military Institute graduate recently returned in December from a 7-month tour of duty at Central Command in the Persian Gulf.
While there, he evacuated Americans out of Lebanon, and participated in missions to Jordan, Pakistan, Djibouti, Kuwait and in Hadifa in western Iraq.
Life has returned to somewhat normal for the ramrod straight soldier. He's just finished another semester at his permanent duty station - the Naval Academy - where he is a political science instructor. That was followed by two weeks at Quantico training midshipmen who want to become Marines.
But, when it comes time to chill out, he paints. Not houses. Works of art.
Beginning this Friday through Sunday, Maj. Williams' artworks and those of 16 other local artists will be on exhibit during "Critical Mass," the annual Art Between The Creeks showcase in Eastport. The gallery is a makeshift but sturdy affair the artists built themselves inside the Annapolis Yacht Club's Sailing Center on 6th Street, located at the Eastport foot of the Spa Creek Bridge.
All this week, artists are lugging ladders and sheetrock, swung hammers and used paintbrushes of a different sort to get the raw warehouse space shipshape in time for the show. Passersby were treated to the unusual sight of artists walking through Eastport, gently carrying their oversized canvases into the AYC Sailing Center.
Funds raised by auctions of some of the works, plus patron donations, go toward funding art supplies for the art program at Eastport Elementary school.
"We often joke that the only thing an artist needs to get into the show is a 12-foot ladder," said ABTC founder Cindy Fletcher. "Like Cinderella's carriage turns back into a pumpkin, this gallery turns back into a tool shed by midnight Sunday."
The show includes Leonard Koscianski, an artist who usually exhibits in Manhattan.
"He asked us to be in our show," said Ms. Fletcher. "That's like Carlos Santana asking to be in a garage band. It's a huge compliment."
Another artist, Peter Tasi, is a renowned museum exhibition designer. He designed the bronze plaques for the Alex Haley- Kunta Kinte site in City Dock and the Eastport Walking Tour panels. Still another is abstract artist and piano tuner Phil Gurlik, an Artist-In-Residence at Maryland Hall.
Show times
Show hours are noon to 9 p.m. Friday with a reception from 6 to 9 p.m.; 11 a.m. to 6 p.m. Saturday and Sunday. For more information, call 410-263-8646 or visit the Web site www.artbetweenthecreeks.u s.
"Paintings in the show are for sale," said Ms. Fletcher. "They go from a low of $27 to a high of $20,000. The average is from $100 to $2,000. And, they're not just paintings. We have photography, sculpture and drawings in the show. This show is for people who don't usually have any other venue in Annapolis to show their work."
Maj. Williams has exhibited elsewhere in his short career as an artist. His works have hung in the Asman Gallery at NBC headquarters in Washington, at AHH! Coffee in Eastport, and one piece hung in the Mitchell Gallery at St. John's College, where he's taken courses. He's also studied with the Art League School in Alexandria, Va.
"I'm impressed with the fact the guy has spent his entire life in the military. He's served in Iraq and then he comes home and paints. He pours his heart out on a canvas. That's fascinating!" exclaimed Ms. Fletcher.
"It's a part-time gig for me," concedes Maj. Williams, "but I did take a class in art history at VMI." When a visitor looked incredulous, he said quietly, "VMI has art courses. I was an English Literature major."
But he always wanted to be in the Marine Corps. His older brother Rick is a retired Marine.
"I set my sights and did everything possible to get in. I was born in Virginia and our dad was career Army," Maj. Williams said. "I've never lived anywhere over four years."
He paused.
"I've been here two years. I'm putting down roots here. I'll retire in another year and probably do something inside the Beltway."
Currently the associate chairman of the Political Science Department at the Naval Academy, he teaches the American Government and Politics of Irregular Warfare, focusing on asymmetric threats the military faces now and are likely to face in the future.
"The Cold War was the turning point in the wars we face," he said. He listed terrorists, intra-state insurgents and criminal elements as groups that "stand to make money off peddling arms, drugs and people."
He has a master's degree from the Naval Post Graduate School in National Security Affairs, focusing on Eastern Europe and The Balkans.
The dramatic scar that arches over the left side of his Kojak pate wasn't from sword fighting with Jack Sparrow. In a backyard game of pickup baseball 32 years ago, he stood off to one side as another kid hit a homer. The kid tossed the bat as he ran to first. At high speed, the bat sliced into Maj. Williams' head.
He began painting in acrylics, perhaps inspired by his wife, Rosemary Frietas-Williams, an artist and retired television executive he met through mutual friends several years ago.
"Now I paint almost exclusively in oil," he said. "I do scenes of the Chesapeake. I like seascapes, I like boats, the maritime industry that the Chesapeake is known for. That's what I paint because that's what I enjoy."
His works in the show are glimpses of scenes he's spotted from the deck of his sailboat, "Ro Boat." A member of the Maryland Plein Air Painters Association, he'll paint on site, and also from photographs when there's a detail he wants to capture.
It's marine art by a real Marine.
"I have a thing for propellers," Maj. Williams said, showing off a painting that could be interpreted as either realism or an abstraction of geometric forms. One painting displays a winch off a Hinkley Bermuda 40, and, in another, surreal snatch blocks dangle in space.
Home life
With his wife, he's renovating a home on Burnside Street in Eastport. Along with their black Labrador Samantha, the couple created an impeccably tidy studio tucked under the attic eaves - not a paint splatter in sight.
When the day's work and chores are done, he goes up to the studio and paints. "I just lose myself in it," he said. "Before I know it, the night's past and its time to get ready for the next day. I'll spend five to ten hours a week painting, when I'm lucky."
He prefers painting on board over canvas, but "paints on what's available."
"People have commented, they think it's odd, that I'm a Marine and I like to paint."
His blue eyes widen and he shakes his head in disbelief.
"They haven't seen all the terrific works of art done by Marines hanging at the new Marine Museum in Quantico," he pointed out.
Then, he picked up a brush and turned back to his next work of art.