Leonardtown Gallery Opens

By Barbara Geehan
Contributing writer

Metalsmith Cynthia Rosenblatt was perched atop a 3-step ladder in the middle of the small empty room as she described its imminent transformation into Leonardtown, Maryland’s, new art gallery. Soon, the walls will be covered with the eye-popping surrealist paintings by Mindy Camponeschi, the gallery’s first featured guest artist.

Opal Fine Art Gallery, 41625 Park Avenue in the Drury Building, opens with a public reception 5-9 p.m. Oct. 5. The gallery’s grand opening is Nov. 2, and the owners hope art lovers and the general audience drop by.

“We want to expand the vibrant local art community and bring more national and international artists to the area, says Ms. Rosenblatt. “New artists bring new patrons to this charming and historic town.”

Ms. Rosenblatt and local artist Angela Wathen are partnering in the gallery. Ms. Wathen is an area art instructor, surrealist sculptor, fine art photographer and painter. They met when they were members of the North End Gallery; then they had studios across from each other at Leonardtown Arts Center. Now, they have decided to “do something on our own.”

Is this the right time to open a new business? “No time like the present,” says Ms. Rosenblatt. “We just really have a positive attitude. Also, this is a time of year that is busy for Leonardtown with a number of events, such as the Christmas Tree Lighting Ceremony and our on-going First Fridays.”

Ms. Rosenblatt was wearing one of her creations the day we met, lovely textured sterling silver earrings wrapped in brass. “I just fell in love with metalsmithing,” she says.  “It uses ancient  techniques to create beautiful and useful things. I feel connected to the past because this art is a link to our ancestral roots.”

She largely works with hand tools to make her jewelry, vessels, belt buckles, and other art. In fact, we joked that when Christmas comes around she is not one to ask for a piece of jewelry. “No, I ask my husband for another tool.”

Smithing literally means taking the hammer to the metal. Ms. Rosenblatt took us through the steps, using the technique of “raising,” to create a metal bowl:

Take a round metal disc, and start hammering around the edge. The disc slowly begins to rise. Continue to hammer in concentric circles moving towards the center. The actual shape depends on how hard the hammer blows are, where they are placed, and when you heat the metal.

Turn the form over and place it on a mushroom-shaped stake. Again, begin hammering in concentric circles, this time from the center out. When you like the shape…(and no, this is not easy. Ms. Rosenblatt says she literally stepped on her first bowl to get the right shape.)… you use a planishing hammer, a scratch-free mirror finish on its head, and tiny blows, to get the desired finish and polish.

From there, you can leave it as is, or embellish with, for example, gold leaf.

Artists  Rosenblatt and Wathen are both passionate about their new enterprise and the opening Oct. 5. “We are honored to have an artist of Mindy Camponeschi’s caliber to exhibit with us,” says Ms. Rosenblatt.  Ms. Camponeschi was born in New York and raised in Baltimore, and received a bachelor’s of fine arts degree from the San Francisco Art Institute. She has studied printmaking at Atelier 17 in Paris, and has exhibited and lived around the world.

Her evocative works begin with a word or a piece of text, then ripen to include brilliant colors in the forms of animals and landscapes. As she says in her biography: “My painting is a process starting with poetry and color. I cannot predict how the beginning will evolve to the end in any painting. I just weave my way to the fascinating end with spiritual and unconscious guidance.”

The new Opal Fine Art Gallery can only add to the creative reputation of Southern Maryland. When the interview ended, Ms. Rosenblatt jumped off her ladder perch and touched on how art can influence all of us. “You know, I think the public generally wants to slow down and see more work by hand,” she says. “Society is so digitized and busy! Art lets you see the world differently.”