Turn Over a New Leaf
In the language of old movies, falling calendar pages symbolized the passing of time. Years could go by in seconds, just as 2011 surely has done. Now December is about to top the pile of the last 11 months. So it’s time to choose a new calendar.
Most of us still do that, you know. Or have a calendar chosen for us, as calendars rank high in holiday gifts exchanged among acquaintances.
Even in the age of digital calendars, the good old-fashioned wall calendar, with its provocative pictures, remains securely tacked to our lives.
–Sandra Olivetti Martin
January
Vintage Maryland 2012 Calendar
Celebrate Terrapins football gone by with a calendar of game-day programs. The calendar samples a wide range of programs, from 1922 to 1963, from Rockwell-inspired scenes to photos of coaches and teams.
The calendar was printed on recycled paper, and Asgard Press gives a clear listing of the product’s wastes and how it was offset.
Published by Asgard Press; $19.95 from http://asgardpress.com.
–Diana Beechener
February
Maryland Natural Resource 2012 Calendar
The 13-month Department of Natural Resources Calendar features the winners of its 2011 photo contest. Each month includes a tip on making your household greener as well as a paragraph on DNR’s green initiatives.
The 17-by-11 calendar marks all major holidays but not the phases of the moon. It does offer helpful reminders for DNR services, and DNR contact numbers are listed on the useful 2013 calendar page.
Published by the Department of Natural Resources; $9.99 from http://shopdnr.com/2011dnrcalendar.aspx.
–Diana Beechener
March
Vintage Marvel 2012 Calendar
Get tangled up in a web of exciting art in this calendar tribute to Marvel Comics. The Amazing Spiderman, Captain America, Iron Man, The Hulk and the Fantastic Four are just 30 days away.
At the bottom of each month, you’ll find a brief history of the issue featured and the artists who created it.
There’s ample room for writing appointments and notes in the daily rectangles. Be sure to pencil in Baltimore’s Comic Con, this year in September.
Published by Asgard Press; $18.95 from http://asgardpress.com.
–Diana Beechener
April
The Economist Wall Calendar
Baltimore Sun readers will likely remember editorial cartoonist Kevin ‘Kal’ Kallaugher as one of the best things about a very good newspaper. Kal (whose last name comes close to including laughter) illuminated and laughed at the doings of the day (he drew most days a week) in fully rendered, lovingly detailed, caricatures.
He’s continued to delight readers of the British journal The Economist, which brings us for 2012 its third Kal wall calendar, “a dazzling journey through the world’s most notable (and occasionally obscure) events, milestone and holidays.”
$14.99 from www.economist.com/calendar.
–Sandra Olivetti Martin
May
South County Images
Chesapeake photographer Frances Borchardt frames her South County Images in the wooden cases printers of old used to hold the individual pieces of type. The chambers are filled with Borchardt’s photos, cut to fit each compartment. The results, she says, are “panoramas that don’t exist in reality that still convey the spirit of place.”
May’s image, West River Crew, features Susie Borchardt, and a former Bay Weekly intern who wrote our story about local crews, including Aunt Fran’s.
Read Susie’s story on the West River Rowing Club at http://bayweekly.com/old-site/year08/
issuexvi1/leadxvi1_1.html.
$16 from [email protected].
–Sandra Olivetti Martin
June
Chesapeake Beach 2012
Chesapeake Beach 2012 is a community calendar all the way, displaying the work of local photographers, who compete for the annual honor.
The back pages lists the businesses of Chesapeake Beach. Running across the bottom of each month are important local phone numbers.
For all 30 days of June, you’ll enjoy the spectacle of 10 kids enjoying their community’s parks, playgrounds, beach and waterpark.
Free at Chesapeake Beach Town Hall (M-F 8:00-4:30) and the Chesapeake Beach Post Office.
–Sandra Olivetti Martin
July
Vintage Navy 2012 Calendar
This calendar of Navy Football programs is for football lovers, appreciators of classic graphic design — and supporters of Navy.
This month’s program is from the dedication of Navy-Marine Corps Memorial Stadium in 1959, one of 12 pigskin battles from the 1920s to the 1970s. Many months feature artwork from the ’30s and ’40s, when football players were destined for bigger conflict after graduation.
At the bottom of each page, you’ll find a cartoon and the score from each historic game. Navy won only four of the games remembered here, but they beat Army. Major holidays and cycles of the moon are clearly marked.
Published by Asgard Press; $19.95 from http://asgardpress.com.
–Diana Beechener
August
Maryland SPCA 2012 Pet Calendar
This calendar raises money to help Maryland SPCA protect and care for our local furry friends. This fun nine-by-12-inch calendar features 12 months of photos submitted by proud and loving human companions.
SPCA begins accepting pictures for the 2013 calendar in February. Submit photos of your own best friend, rescued or not, via the website for a $40 submission fee. Thirteen pictures are selected for the calendar.
Tucker cools off under a spray of water for the dog days of August.
Published by Maryland SPCA; $18.40 from http://www.mdspca.org/events/calendar.html or $15 at Grauls.
–Angela Worland
September
Muddy Creek Artists Guild
Twelve artists — painters, photographers, a jeweler and a worker in stained glass — contribute to the 2012 Muddy Creek Artists Guild calendar. As I covet a Ruth Ostrander watercolor, I’m looking forward to September, when I’ll have 30 days to contemplate her image of three rowboats in a marsh.
$16 at Whimsey Cove Framing in Edgewater and in Annapolis Market Space; River Gallery in Galesville and the South County Chamber of Commerce in Churchton.
–Sandra Olivetti Martin
October
South County ShowStoppers
We Aspire to Inspire Before We Expire says this plucky band of entertainers 55 years and older. The South County ShowStoppers 2012 calendar compresses a year of performances into 12 months of photos .
You’ll need to be brief to write on the daily squares. Instead of holidays, the calendar notes days that senior centers are closed. The back cover lists all Anne Arundel senior centers. Like the ShowStoppers, this is a calendar for those who are young at heart and not too attentive to the passage of time.
Published by South County Senior Center Advisory Council; $10 from the Senior Center, 27 Stepneys Ln., Edgewater: 410-222-1927.
–Diana Beechener
November
What Will You Build?
Habitat for Humanity Worldwide’s What Will You Build? calendar gives you 12 months and tugs at your heart for each month’s photo shows people, whether in need of homes, building homes or savoring their own homes. November’s poster girl is a young Haitian girl, one of the hundreds of thousands Habitat committed to help after the 2010 earthquake.
$3 from [email protected]. Find Habitat of the Chesapeake at www.habitatchesapeake.org.
Find Patient Habitat of the Chesapeake at www.patuxenthabitat.org.
–Sandra Olivetti Martin
December
L’il Angels for Anne Arundel Medical Center
Li’l Angels calendar pictures the cutest kids under three in Chesapeake Country to support Anne Arundel Medical Center’s Neonatal Intensive Care Unit. With adorable faces, this calendar has raised more than $60,000 in four years.
Doting parents and grandparents will no doubt make note of the application deadline for scheduling photo shoots for 2013’s calendar. The cutoff is 100 babies, who are then posted to the website for voting by the public at $1 per vote.
You don’t have to have a baby in the race to enjoy this calendar or help the hospital’s youngest patients. You only need $12.99.
Published by Visual Concepts Ltd; $12.99: 410-626-7474; [email protected].
–Angela Worland