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Annapolis Maritime Museum presents ‘Maritime Images of Neill Slaughter’
August 26 – October 2, 2011
Artist's Statement
Neill Slaughter Paintings & Drawings
Annapolis Maritime Museum Exhibit
Annapolis, Maryland
August 26 – October 2, 2011
Working as a professional artist as well as a university professor for more than three decades now, I have, throughout the years, painted quite a range of diverse subject matter. While preparing for this exhibit I reflected upon the fact that I have periodically returned to images related to ships and the sea. I had not set out in my early artistic career to purposely plan any of the subject matter, which would serve as inspiration to create my art, but even as a young child my family and I lived in Annapolis while my father, a naval officer in WWII, taught at the Naval Academy. I suppose through osmosis I was always a little wet behind the ears and steeped in the romance of the sea. As a college student I remained fascinated with the sea, suspending my studies in art to spend a period of time as a crew aboard a 90-foot gaff-rigged schooner and was fortunate to meet Jacque Cousteau when his famous ship Calypso docked behind us in Galveston Texas. Later I found myself spending summers between college and graduate school working on Hilton Head Island and in the Virgin Islands where some of my subject matter was of a nautical nature. After receiving my MFA degree I moved to Philadelphia, spending several years investigating a variety of subject matter, but in 1979 I spent the summer abroad in Bosham, England, drawing the ebb and flow of tidal life in that quaint harbor village. In 1980 I sailed around Great Britain aboard a replica of the famous “Beagle”, which Darwin had sailed upon more than a century earlier. I sailed with a number of artists and art historians whom Richard Demarco, my art gallery dealer in Edinburgh had invited on this adventure. Because of my former sailing experience, I became the liaison between the crew and the artists. A large body of drawings and paintings resulted from that adventure. The following year I lived and taught in the Duke of Northumberland’s castle in Alnwick England, only 15 miles from the North Sea. Consequently, I spent time recording my surrounding environment, some of which was the sea and local harbor life. 1983 I moved to southern California, spending the next decade living within a couple of miles of the ocean. Although I explored alternative subject matter, which resulted in my receiving a research grant to Africa and later a Fulbright Fellowship to India, I was rarely far from the sea. For the past eighteen years I have lived just a mile from the ocean in Southampton NY and often walk the beaches studying the ever-present nautical life.
“A ship under sail is a perfect example of form and function. The intricate geometry of masts, spars and rigging reaching from sea to sky, forms an engaging mosaic of patterns. Sails, molded by wind, sun and shadow, suggest a sculptural abstraction”. These words, which I wrote more than 30 years ago in my artist statement for another exhibit, are just as pertinent today as I present this body of art also concerned with a maritime theme.
Neill Slaughter
April 6, 2011
Annapolis Maritime Museum presents the “Maritime Images of Neill Slaughter,” 30 paintings in oil, acrylic and watercolor inspired by a life on the sea and shore. With roots in Annapolis as the son of a professor of civil engineering at the US Naval Academy, the artist is now a professor of fine arts at Long Island University in NY. He is inspired by his voyages aboard schooners and tall ships. “A ship under sail is a perfect example of form and function,” he says. “Sails, molded by wind, sun, and shadow, suggest a sculptural abstraction.” An artist’s reception will be held Friday, August 26, from 5 to 7 p.m. All artwork is for sale and a portion of the proceeds will benefit the Museum’s education programs.
Neill Slaughter graduated with a B.F.A. degree in 1975 from the University of Georgia and received his M.F.A. in 1978 from Indiana University in Bloomington. From 1978 to the present Professor Slaughter has been teaching fine arts courses at the university level as well as exhibiting his drawings and paintings nationally and internationally.
He has crewed aboard a 90-foot gaff-rigged schooner and sailed around Great Britain aboard a replica of Darwin’s 1820 brig-sloop Beagle. Additionally, he has documented sea and harbor life along the North Sea, the Indian Ocean, the Pacific and Atlantic coasts of the United States, as well as from the Virgin Islands to Long Island.
Among the awards and honors Professor Slaughter has received are a Ford Foundation Fellowship (1977-78), a Scottish Arts Council Grant (1980), an LMU Research Grant to Africa (1988) and a Fulbright Fellowship to India (1992). More recently, Professor Slaughter was the 2003 Long Island University recipient of the David Newton Award for Excellence in Teaching. Neill Slaughter has had more than 27 solo exhibits of his drawings and paintings since 1978 and participated in more than 75 national and international group exhibitions.
The exhibit is free and open to the public each Thursday through Sunday from noon to 4 p.m. | Flyer
Tim King
1950 - 2011
Joseph Timothy King, beloved local musician, writer, actor, and teacher died suddenly of cardiac arrest at AAMC on Thursday, March 10, 2011. He had been fighting lung cancer.
Born in Baltimore on August 24, 1950, Tim moved with his family to the then-new development of Winchester on the Severn in 1955 and happily lived in the family home until his death. He loved his neighbors and neighborhood and had many stories about growing up as one of the first families in the community.
Tim attended St. Mary’s School before transferring to and graduating from Severna Park High School in 1968. After spending several years in Santa Barbara, CA, honing his acting and musical skills, Tim returned to his beloved Annapolis to care for his parents and became active in the local music, restaurant, and theatre scenes where he collected many, many friends and fans. He continued to delight local and regional audiences with his finger-picking style of guitar playing and his wide range of comedic and dramatic roles on community and professional theatre stages. He was proud of his theatre experiences in New Mexico, Middletown & Lexington, VA, Cleveland, Columbus, GA, and at the Shakespeare Theatre in Washington, DC, and in several Baltimore theatre venues.
Photo by John Bildahl
Writing music and theatre pieces was one of Tim’s many passions. In 2002, Tim wrote and performed a one-man show, James Whistler: Son of Whistler’s Mother, at St. John’s College’s Mitchell Art Gallery, and his “Twas the Night Before Christmas” was an annual crowd pleaser at the Annapolis Christmas shows. He wrote for Severn School productions, for the Annapolis Maritime Museum, and a wide variety of productions. For many years, Tim portrayed Baltimore painter Saul Bernstein in The Immigrant’s Story and Three Jewish Lives produced by the Jewish Museum of Maryland in Baltimore.
In recent years, Tim focused on teaching guitar and used his great good humor and musical skills to inspire his students of all ages to recognize their unique talents and abilities.
Tim’s parents Wayne and Katherine King preceded him in death. Tim is survived by his loving wife, Eloise Ullman, his brother and sister-in-law, Mike and Kathleen King, his niece and nephews and their spouses: Kathy & Lloyd Barron; Chris & Deirdre King, and Michael Wayne & Nancy King, as well as great-nieces and nephews and a host of friends and loved ones.
There will be a celebration of Tim’s extraordinary life in the near future but no funeral. Tim would be so pleased if friends and family remembered him with a smile and a contribution to AMFM (Annapolis Musicians’ Fund for Musicians, Inc. (PO Box 6262, Annapolis, MD 21401).
~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Peter Trogdon, President of Weems & Plath, the world-famous
manufacturer
of fine nautical and weather instruments — that
just happens to be located right
around
the corner from the
Museum campus in Eastport — presents a check
for nearly
$1,400, proceeds from the company’s tent sale on the Saturday
of the Annapolis sailboat show.
~~~~~~~~~~~~~
William S. Dudley, author of Maritime Maryland, a History kicks off
Annapolis Maritime Museum’s 2011 Maritime Seminar Series, January 13
The Annapolis Maritime Museum’s 2011 Maritime Seminar Series opens with author William S. Dudley speaking on his new book, Maritime Maryland, a History, on Thursday, January 13, from 7 to 8:30 p.m. This is the first of ten weekly seminars covering a range of fascinating topics to commemorate our unique maritime heritage.
There will be one hour of presentation, followed by a discussion period. Enrollment fees for Museum members are $60 per person for the full series or $10 per seminar. For non-members, fees are $95 for the series or $15 per seminar. To enroll, call the Museum at 410-295-0104. More information about the series.
Oysters on the Half Shell Exhibit Wins Four Rivers Heritage Award
Four Rivers, the Heritage Area of Annapolis,
London Town and South County, awarded the
Museum’s new Oysters on the Half Shell exhibit
with a “Best Heritage Tourism Product” award.
The Museum’s new exhibit has attracted
visitors from all over the United States, Europe,
South America, Australia and New Zealand.
Four Rivers has also awarded the Museum a
mini-grant to fund an orientation video so that
visitors will better understand this area’s rich
maritime heritage and the many ways the
Museum benefits the community. The video will
debut next spring.
Photo: Four Rivers Board Chair Patricia A.
Barland and Executive Director
Carol Benson present AMM Executive Director Jeff Holland
with the “Best Heritage Tourism
Product” award.
2010 Boatyard Beach Bash Raises $50,000 for AMM Education
The 6th annual Boatyard Beach Bash raised $50,000 for the Museum’s education programs. Over the past six years, the Boatyard Bar and Grill and other sponsors have raised more than $250,000 to renovate the historic McNasby Oyster Co. building and to support the education programs. This past year, the Museum served to connect more than 1,200 Maryland school children with Annapolis’ unique maritime heritage and the environmental issues challenging the Chesapeake Bay. Read more
Architectural Excellence Award for Design of McNasby Building Restoration
Kirby Mehrhof of Moger Mehrhof Architects recently won a Citation Award for Architectural Excellence from the Chesapeake Bay Chapter of the American Institute of Architects for his design of the McNasby Oyster Co. building renovation, citing the project’s “beautiful, simple, flexible and functional spaces.”
Mehrhof donated a significant amount of time and talent to the project.
The Annapolis Maritime Museum has published Over the Bridge: A History of Eastport at Annapolis, a 368-page hardback by Ginger Doyel. 
Annapolis Maritime Museum |
PO Box 3088 |
Annapolis, MD 21403
410 295-0104
office@amaritime.org
