Letters to the Editor
We welcome your opinions and letters — with name and address. We will edit when necessary. Include your name, address and phone number for verification. Mail them to Bay Weekly, P.O. Box 358, Deale, MD 20751 • E-mail them to [email protected]. or submit your letters on line, click here
The Right Way to Paint a Baltimore Screen
Dear Bay Weekly:
What a treat to see painted screens featured as the fifth of 101 Ways to Have Fun this summer. But a few words of advice.
First, no paper for drawing your design. Place a black background of paper, board or fabric behind the screen so you can see what you are doing. Once you have selected a clean screen and labeled its top and outside, apply a light blue undercoat to its front side. By building colors from the surface up, you ensure that no blank spaces allow the eye to penetrate the screen.
Then draw on your scene with chalk. It erases easily with your hand. Use exterior paints. Best are sign paints, then oil-based enamels. But these days any exterior latex or oil-based paint with a bit of a gloss will do the trick. You want brushes with a harder bristle since the goal is to keep the holes from clogging.
For the best advice of all, order a copy of The Painted Screen Society’s “How to Paint a Baltimore Screen” video or DVD (mail a $25 check or money order made out to the PSS to P.O. Box 12122, Baltimore, MD 21281). Even better, if you need to get out of the heat, visit the American Visionary Art Museum’s new Jim Rouse Center on Key Highway and see an exhibition of painted screens in a real rowhouse environment. A dozen painters’ work — including its inventor, his sons and grandsons — is on display. While you’re there, visit the museum gift shop and buy the video or a screen by one of the living masters!
—Elaine Eff, Director: Painted Screen Society of Baltimore; [email protected]
Relay for Life Lights a Candle in the Darkness
Dear Bay Weekly:
On June 17, at 6pm at Calvert High School in Prince Frederick, volunteers will gather for the annual Relay for Life. This is the signature event of the American Cancer Society, and one of its main functions is to raise money for research and community services for cancer patients and their families.
I am a beneficiary of the funds that are raised by these events. As a three-time survivor of cancer (breast cancer and two episodes of colon cancer), I believe that I would not be here were it not for the research that led to the early detection of my bouts with the disease.
It is my hope that many of your readers will come out and support this event. It’s a lot of fun, a celebration of life. We have entertainment throughout the night; the Relay is an all-night event, terminating at 8am Saturday morning. There is a very moving luminaria ceremony at dusk, where both survivors and victims of the disease are remembered and honored.
If a member of a Relay team approaches you for a contribution, please give generously. There are very few people who have not been touched by cancer, especially as Maryland has one of the highest incidences of cancer in the country.
—Elaine Koogler, Prince Frederick
