The board of directors of the Talbot County Arts Council has elected its Executive Committee for Fiscal Year 2019 that begins on July 1, 2018. The officers for the coming year are Robert Forloney of St. Michaels to continue as board president, Nancy Larson of Easton to move from secretary to vice president, Carol Gordean of St. Michaels to continue as treasurer, and Patrick Rogan of Easton to become board secretary. The election took place at the board’s annual meeting and strategic planning retreat on Saturday, May 19, 2018.
The Nominating and Bylaws Committee also proposed three candidates who were elected to first three-year terms on the Arts Council’s 15-member board of directors:
Ann DeMart of St. Michaels is a freelance writer and marketing consultant for clients including the Arts Schools Network and other non-profits, as well as a variety of businesses. Ann was born and raised in the Buffalo, NY area, and earned a BA in art history from the State University of New York at Albany. She then moved to Washington, DC, did graduate studies in art history at The George Washington University and later worked at the National Gallery of Art, where she coordinated the metropolitan-area school tours. While attending GWU, she worked in the University’s public relations department and medical center, and developed an interest in both healthcare and communications. After working at Georgetown University Medical Center, she began a long career in healthcare information technology, eventually serving as the marketing director for companies in Chicago and San Francisco. She returned to the East Coast in 2002 and began a new career as a writer and creative director for an advertising agency that had a large healthcare system client. Ann has lived in St. Michaels since 2009. She is a current board member, and former Marketing Chair, for the Academy for Lifelong Learning at the Chesapeake Bay Maritime Museum, and is a member of the St. Michaels Art League and Eastern Shore Writers Association. She is also a painter who regularly exhibits with Barbara Jablin’s Chestnut Street Studio artists and the Art League.
Mary Ann Schindler of Easton was raised in Louisville and graduated cum laude with a BA from Trinity College in Washington, D.C. She first pursued a career in commercial art, editing, and writing. She moved to Alexandria, Virginia, in the late 70’s, where she added specialties in art direction and free-lance illustration and eventually went into business for herself serving both national and regional clients. She is married to Martin Hughes, one of the original tenants of the Torpedo Factory Art Center. Upon moving to the Eastern Shore in 1999 she retired from commercial work and now devotes herself to non-commercial art on a full time basis–pursuing painting, sculpture, mixed media, and installation. Her work has appeared in regional galleries and in the D.C. Metro area. A solo show, “Totems and Touchstones,” was exhibited at the Academy Art Museum in 2014. Her work can be seen at Davis Art Center in Easton, Opal Gallery in Leonardtown, and Main Street Gallery in. Cambridge. She has been involved in volunteer work for a number of local organizations, including Chesapeake Music, the Cinema Society, Academy Art Museum, Rehoboth Art League, Festival of Trees, and the Cambridge Main Street Arts District initiative. She is a member of the AAM Collectors’ Society, a sponsor of the new AAM Artist-in-Residence program, co-chaired the ArtWorks for Freedom/Easton exhibit at the Waterfowl Building in 2017, and is a member of the board of the Artistic Insights Fund of the Mid-Shore Community Foundation.
Amelia “Amy” Blades Steward was born in Easton and has a BA in English/Communications from Hood College in Frederick. In 1999, after returning from working on the western shore in historic preservation, she began work in health care marketing at MGW School of Nursing and eventually Shore Health System. She then founded Steward Writing & Communications, a boutique freelance writing firm in Easton, providing marketing, writing and editing services for non-profit and for-profit companies and local governments. Her non-fiction articles, covering the arts, the environment, tourism, health care, and social services, have appeared in national, regional, and local publications for over 30 years. She has helped numerous clients tell their stories of help, hope and compassion for those less fortunate across the region. She is a graduate of the Shore Leadership Program, Class of 2005, and received the Alfred Knight Award in 2001 for media placement and a 1996 Telly Award for a nursing school video. She is active in St. Mark’s United Methodist Church, and has served on the boards of Character Counts Mid Shore, Maryland Life Magazine, Talbot Partnership, and Channel Marker. She is currently president of Talbot Community Connections, having served on the board since 2011, serves on the Marketing Committees of For All Seasons and for Talbot Hospice. She resides in Easton with her husband, Eric, and her two sons, who both benefited from Talbot Arts Council Summer Arts Scholarships to study what turned out to be their chosen professional fields.
Additional information on the Talbot County Arts Council is available by phone at 410-310-9812 or by visiting the website www.talbotarts.org.
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~ Talbot County Arts Council