OTHERWORLDLY ART

This Earth Day, Wednesday April 22, American Visionary Art Museum founder Rebecca Hoffberger will lead viewers through a free virtual tour of AVAM’s brand-new exhibit, “The Secret Life of Earth.” Now extended through January 2021, the environmentally focused exhibit speaks to the importance and interconnectedness of nature. Filled with a range of whimsical artworks, expect the likes of paper flowers, driftwood sculptures, intricate beaded animal sculptures, recovered plastic litter installations, satellite images from NASA’s Goddard Space Flight Center, and a brief pollinator film by Fantasic Funghi director Louie Schwartzberg.

GREEN LIVESTREAMS

Blue Water Baltimore is evolving in the times of coronavirus with a schedule of virtual events. This week, the local environmental nonprofit is hosting an Earth Day Q&A happy hour, featuring conversation with Baltimore Harbor waterkeeper Alice Volpitta and the launch of their 2020 Baltimore Water Watch report on the health of the Gwynns Falls, Jones Falls, Baltimore Harbor, and Patapsco River. It takes place this Wednesday from 4-6 p.m. via Zoom with a $10 suggested donation. Check back each week for more Facebook Live Q&As on Wednesdays at noon, featuring topics like native gardens, tree plantings, and water health, as well as Fridays at noon, for all things flowers with Herring Run Nursery.

CRABS IN THE TIME OF COVID

On April 1, Maryland’s commercial crab season opened to an unusual start in the wake of the global coronavirus pandemic. With many restaurants closed under Governor Hogan’s social distancing restrictions, one of the industry’s main markets—crab houses touting the state’s iconic crab feast—virtually disappeared overnight. Meanwhile, three of the state’s nine crab-picking houses have received a portion of their seasonal guest workers, who arrive each spring on H-2B visas from Mexico and elsewhere in Latin America, with new safety measures in place such as six-foot workspace spacing, daily temperature checks, and personal protection equipment. Failing to receive workers in the federal lottery system, the other six processing houses remain closed. Meanwhile, seafood markets remain open, with some sighting similar business to years past, while watermen are looking for new ways to distribute their catch, with eateries like The Local Oyster now selling steamed crabs for carry-out. Some watermen fear decreased demand will lead to increased supply and effectively lower crab prices, though with crabs largely not inundating Maryland waters until late spring and early summer, it is unclear how the industry will be impacted long-term.

MPT’S CHESAPEAKE BAY WEEK RETURNS

In the midst of coronavirus quarantine, Maryland Public Television’s annual Chesapeake Bay Week, now in its 16th year, couldn’t have arrived at a better time, with a full evening lineup of local programming on the nation’s largest estuary, on air through April 25. Learn about the likes of the bay’s iconic lighthouses with the brand-new Chesapeake Beacons, rising sea levels with Tidewater, local river-keepers with A Voice for the Rivers, the state’s historic shad fishery in Shad Run, and all things oysters with Oysterfest, as well as some of MPT’s highest viewed specials, Eatin’ Crabs: Chesapeake Style and Eatin’ Oysters: Chesapeake Style. The programs are also available for livestream viewing via mpt.org.

FERRY SERVICE

The Maryland Department of Transportation has struck down the proposal of a publicly operated car ferry as an alternative to a new third crossing of the Chesapeake Bay Bridge. In a recently released 43-page report, MDOT argues that, as a stand-alone option, a ferry would not alleviate congestion at the current spans along Route 50 between Anne Arundel and Queen Anne’s counties, and would also cost up to $3.4 billion to build and operate. (Past estimates project a third span could cost upwards of $7 billion.) Officials have recommended that such operations be considered in combination with other transportation alternatives. Several car-carrying ferries used to operate on the Chesapeake before ceasing operations in 1952 following the completion of the first existing span.

TOXIC TAKEDOWN

Due to the coronavirus pandemic, this spring’s Maryland legislative session was adjourned early for the first time since the Civil War. But while some eco measures fell to the wayside, such as a push for sustainably designed state buildings, the General Assembly did pass a win for environmentalists during the final minutes on March 19 with a ban on chlorpyrifos, a harmful pesticide linked to brain damage in children, as well as disorientation and death in wildlife. The European Union, plus California, New York, and Hawaii, have also banned the chemical, making Maryland the fourth state in the U.S. to do so. Though final amendments included a sunset clause for June 2024, as well as waivers for particular green bean growers and orchardists, advocates feel the legislation is still a step in the right direction.

TRASH TALK

As coronavirus-related quarantine orders are creating positive environmental impacts across the globe, the Order of the Wheel, a secret society of Baltimore’s beloved Mr. Trash Wheel, has returned to recruit its third pledge class of green stewards who will work to protect local waterways. Run by Waterfront Partnership—which oversees the garbage-eating, water-cleaning receptacles around the region—applications are open through May 11, with participants required to complete five green tasks over five weeks times. Each is tailored for at-home or socially distanced outdoor activities, such as recycling used goods and creating your own water filter. As of Monday, some 470 residents have signed up, with approximately half being new pledges.

BAY UPDATES

The Chesapeake Bay Program has released its annual Bay Barometer health report with a new look. Focused on updates to the goals and outcomes of the multi-state Chesapeake Bay Watershed Agreement, the report now highlights only the latest indicators of progress, many of which have been previously reported. For the 2018-2019 year, seven key takeaways include that record rainfall led to the highest amount of freshwater entering the estuary since monitoring began in 1937, contributing to lower salinity levels in parts of the bay and the largest observed dead zone in the past five years. Meanwhile, the Department of Natural Resources’ 2019 winter dredge survey suggests the population of blue crabs increased nearly 60 percent last summer—news that incited a flurry of headlines at the time—while harvests were below the overfishing threshold. The 2020 survey is due out in late spring. In addition, underwater grasses are slightly down, but still make up an estimated 91,559 acres of the Chesapeake Bay and its tidal tributaries. The report also pointed to increased efforts in land conservation, pollution reduction, and public access.

Up a tree-covered drive in Owings Mills, the small hill that is home to Maryland Public Television has grown quiet for the evening. The parking lot of the old brick building sits half empty, and though the lobby glows warmly, there’s no one sitting behind the front desk or on the waiting area’s tan mid-century sofas. The offices are also dark, and aside from the wooden frames hung with faded portraits of colleagues and guests past, the hallways are deserted.

But around the corner, inside Studio B, just before 8 o’clock on this Monday night—under a canopy of metal lights, the floors swept, the stately set tidied, and big black cameras set around the room like giant chess pieces—the work has just begun.

A few dozen volunteers ready the phone banks and rehearse the evening’s lines before Rhea Feikin, the star of tonight’s pledge drive, decked in a salmon-colored pantsuit and silk neck scarf, steps through the side door. Across the way, a team of directors and producers hustle about the control room, sliding into their swivel chairs and tending to their respective computer screens just as the countdown begins: 5, 4, 3, 2…

“The television studio is just a black box with lighting and air conditioning,” says George Beneman, MPT’s head of technology. “The magic is what happens inside.”

In perfect synchronicity, the red “ON AIR” sign lights up in the hallway. Feikin smiles into the camera, then launched into her pitch. The phones begin to ring. The show has officially begun.

 

“The television studio is just a black box . . . The magic is what happens inside.”

 

Public television was born in the 1950s, when those little glowing sets first became fixtures in American living rooms after World War II. But it wasn’t until the late 1960s that the medium found its real footing, just as the country sunk into a state of deep division and unrest. The Vietnam War was underway abroad, and here at home, Martin Luther King Jr.’s assassination incited riots nationwide.

Public television, with its focus on education and community, suddenly seemed like a great unifier. Its programs could “help us see America whole, in all its diversity,” wrote the Carnegie Commission in 1967, leading to the creation of the Corporation for Public Broadcasting that same year, which would give rise to the Public Broadcasting System (PBS) and National Public Radio (NPR).

But before PBS made its debut in 1970, a group of Maryland citizens had already started to lobby for state-supported educational television, sanctioned by Governor J. Millard Tawes in 1966. Twenty acres of the Gwynnbrook State Game Farm in Baltimore County were sectioned off for a new state-of-the-art television facility, while a staff was formed in Baltimore City, converting a St. Paul Street apartment building into temporary office space. Before long, Channel 67 was acquired and a golden shovel, which is still framed in the front lobby, broke ground in the then-hinterlands of Owings Mills.

Just over a year later, the Maryland Center for Public Broadcasting—the predecessor of modern-day MPT—would open its doors in August 1969, and a ragtag crew of creative young people would get to work on creating brand-new, hyper-localized programming from the ground up. “It was a very exciting time—a young, vibrant, inventive place,” says Beneman, the company’s longest-tenured employee, who started as a studio camera operator that first year before moving up the ranks. “What was public television? What did we want it to be? We were going to change the world.”

George Beneman (right) with fellow staff during filming of an MPT production; Groundbreaking for the original Maryland Center of Public Broadcasting, CIRCA 1968; “Miss Jean” feeding Aurora in front of the Hodgepodge Lodge, circa 1970s -Courtesy of Maryland Public Television

Even as a state agency, the environment was more collegiate than corporate, with a diverse mix of people of different ages, races, and genders in every role, and each employee encouraged to spread their wings. The staff, like many arts organizations across the country, was double the size it is today, with writers, editors, producers, directors, cameramen, photographers, musicians, and composers all on payroll, plus a full scenic shop filled with carpenters, painters, and designers who crafted the sets by hand.

There was the talent, too, like Miss Jean, the center’s actual neighbor—who landed her beloved kids’ show, Hodgepodge Lodge, after walking through the woods during construction to inquire about all the noise—and eventually Feikin, the MPT pledge queen. A small Walk of Fame in the front plaza now celebrates their tenure with Hollywood stars.

“It was all so new,” recalls Feikin. “People came here from different walks of life, and they would stay for years and years.” Some two dozen couples would even meet there, like Beneman and his wife, Tina, who starred in her own organic gardening show.

The station was a sea change for Maryland, too, as the region only carried a handful of channels back then. “It was a big deal, because we only had three stations in Baltimore—2, 11, and 13,” says John Shields, chef-owner at Gertrude’s Chesapeake Kitchen, who hosted MPT programs Chesapeake Bay Cooking and Coastal Cooking. “We were getting another station … and one without commercials!” (In an already oversaturated world, public broadcasting avoids advertising as part of its non-profit mission.)

When Channel 67 went live for the first time on Sunday, October 5, 1969, the station and its staff made their ambitions known, launching the inaugural telecast with the center’s first original series, Stories of Maryland, and on Monday morning, they would start airing their own educational programming for local school students. About a month later, they broadcast the national debut of Sesame Street, with viewing centers set up for inner-city kids in downtown Baltimore.

From the earliest days, MPT was dedicated to capturing the sense of place of its diverse state, long known as “America in Miniature,” and over time, new transmitter towers would help spread the station’s reach across all of Maryland and into surrounding states. The station would detail both rural and city life, from the mountains of Western Maryland to the sands of Ocean City to the streets of Baltimore, launching groundbreaking urban series like Our Street, a soap opera about an African-American family from East Baltimore. For the first time, many state residents saw their communities on the small screen.

 

“It really is the station of the people. You don’t have to have cable or a credit card to see it.”

 

Over the years, MPT has produced more than 850 productions, leaving few topics unturned, from women in the workplace and global warming to veterans and the opioid epidemic, winning national and regional Emmy Awards along the way. They celebrated notable Marylanders, such as H.L. Mencken, Barbara Mikulski, and the Baltimore arabbers. They commemorated the opening of Harborplace and the Meyerhoff Symphony Hall. They covered the arts, and sports, and the great outdoors, extensively. And now, two highly anticipated documentaries on Harriet Tubman and Frederick Douglass are in the works.

The station has also been a source for local, regional, and national news. When The Baltimore Sun went on strike in 1970, the Owings Mills studios housed print journalists who delivered their beats on air, and during the Watergate scandal, they suspended programming to show the investigation hearings in their entirety. They’ve hosted town halls, political debates, and steadily addressed public affairs, as shown in the ongoing State Circle and Direct Connection. “It really is the station of the people,” says Shields. “You don’t have to have cable or a credit card to see it. It’s not driven by big bucks. It’s a station that is made for Maryland, and the entire region.’”

At the same time, public stations like MPT have also made their mark on a larger scale by launching niche shows decades before they would become dedicated channels on cable. Take 1970’s Wall $treet Week, about which declared: “Who would have thought the financial press would have some rivalry from Channel 67 atop a Maryland hill?” Or 1981’s MotorWeek, which became television’s longest-running car show (and is still the station’s best performing series). “Public television was really the original Cooking Channel—Madeleine Kamman, Jacques Pépin, Julia Child,” adds Shields, whose own programs have been household favorites since the late 1990s.

But perhaps the most well-known programs, especially in recent years, are the live pledge drives, tied to that now-famous slogan: “Made possible by viewers like you.” On-air fundraising has been a vital staple for public television since its inception, with monetary contributions from audience members—often in exchange for gifts such as coffee mugs and DVD sets—being a lifeline for the noncommercial stations.

“I’m a good begger, I guess,” says Feikin, who began spreading the MPT gospel in the 1970s and whose fans have come to love her native Bawlmer accent and no-bull attitude. Even once, “I was sitting by the pool in Thailand, and all of a sudden, I hear a man’s voice yell, ‘Miss Rhea! I pledged!’ I look over to see his arm lifting up one of our tote bags!”

Lately, though, MPT has been working to limit its pledge drives, which some viewers have come to consider a nuisance. Today, the station operates with an annual budget of $34 million, of which they receive some 25 percent from the state and nearly eight percent from the federally funded Corporation for Public Broadcasting, which the Trump Administration continues to threaten. Filling in the rest is up to them, which they do through on-air contributions, online donations, and memberships, with some loyal viewers even leaving money to MPT in their wills.

And it’s an uphill battle. One of their largest hurdles these days is attracting a younger audience, as the majority of the 1.3 million people who tune in to the station’s two main channels, MPT and the lifestyle-focused MPT2, are 65 and over. Add to that the rise of cable television and, more recently, “cord cutters” who are switching to streaming services like HBO and Hulu. Even Beneman would have to think long and hard before choosing broadcast television over Netflix, and that’s coming from a man who still reads two newspapers a day. “I like the ritual, the same way I like turning the dial,” he says. “But those days are gone.”

Of course, MPT has seen changes before, like the switch from analog to digital broadcasting in the late ’90s—the biggest technological advancement since color television. Not long after, they launched their website, and in the next decade, wrote their first Facebook post. In recent years, they also introduced MPT Digital Studios for web-exclusive content and a mobile app for on-demand video, which could help bridge their age gap. And now they’re thinking about 2020, when ATSC 3.0, the next-generation broadcast standard—think of it as smarter than smart TV—might make its official debut.

“A lot of people are frightened by change,” says CEO Larry Unger. “But if you’re quick enough and smart enough, you can end up better for it.”

Still, the future remains unknown. “If anyone thinks they know what we’ll see a few years out, God bless them,” says Beneman. “You can’t even put money on whether or not the Preakness will still be in Baltimore. But, we’re getting ready.”

At 50 years old, the station is looking forward more than it’s looking back. Sure, the anniversary brings about celebrations steeped in nostalgia, but they’ve also just broken ground on a $9-million renovation of Studio A, their pièce de résistance and largest black box with lighting and air conditioning. The project is Beneman’s baby—bringing the old brick building, still charmingly 1960s, into the 21st century—and his eyes light up when he talks about all the possibilities that lie ahead.

Meanwhile, the old control room where he has made so much magic happen over the past five decades has just been named in his honor. He still finds himself there often.

Even after all these years, “When a show starts, no matter what it is, there’s still that excitement, that adrenaline rush,” says Beneman. “That never goes away.”

If the election were today, 54 percent of likely Maryland voters would cast their ballot for incumbent Republican Larry Hogan in the race for governor, according to the latest Goucher College poll. Thirty-two percent say they would vote for Democratic candidate Ben Jealous.

Green Party candidate Ian Schlakman and Libertarian candidate Shawn Quinn each received one percent of the support of likely voters.

Nine percent of voters remain undecided. Another quarter of likely voters indicated they could change their mind, leaving some hope for Jealous, who trails Hogan significantly in fundraising efforts and only began airing his first television commercial after the poll concluded. Interestingly, by a margin of 47 percent to 36 percent, likely voters say they value a governor who is more focused on bringing about change than ensuring stability.

Statewide, likely Republicans voters favor Hogan by 91 percent to 1 percent margin. Currently, registered Maryland Democratic voters only break for Jealous by 10 points—48 percent to 38 percent.

“The cross [tabulations] tell the story,” St. Mary’s College political science professor Todd Eberly commented on Twitter. “The lesser known GOP candidates running against Cardin, Frosh, and Franchot are getting crushed. But Hogan is receiving strong support from core Democratic voters.”

In the first half of the Goucher College survey released yesterday, a significant majority of Marylanders backed policies—typically viewed as progressive Democratic initiatives and supported by Jealous—while also strongly supporting Hogan. Seventy-one percent of Marylanders now back raising the statewide minimum wage to $15 an hour—up from 66 percent in February 2018—with 25 percent in opposition. By a margin of 54 percent to 33 percent, Marylanders hold a favorable opinion of a Medicare for All/single payer healthcare system. And 62 percent of Marylanders support the legalization of marijuana for recreational use.

The single, one-hour televised debate between the two candidates is scheduled for 7 p.m. Monday and will be broadcasted on Maryland Public Television.

“Ben Jealous has faced a months-long barrage of negative ads and has a substantial disadvantage in campaign fundraising—and it’s prevented him from defining his candidacy to the public and making gains on his opponent,” said Mileah Kromer, director of the Sarah T. Hughes Field Politics Center at Goucher College. “Hogan’s electoral strength continues to be grounded in political moderation and the confidence the public has in him to handle economic issues. We have less than two months to see whether Hogan can maintain his bipartisan voting coalition or if Jealous can turnout enough progressives to make up the difference.”

The Jealous campaign appeared to suffer an unforced error earlier this week when they vetoed a Hagerstown Herald-Mail reporter from the upcoming MPT debate panel and then rescinded the move after an up road from other local media outlets.

The economy/jobs (25 percent), education (13 percent), racial/social justice (13 percent), President Donald J. Trump/national political concerns (13 percent), and healthcare (11 percent) were highlighted by likely voters as the most important issues in making a vote for governor.

Overall, 66 percent of likely voters expressed more confidence in Hogan in terms of economic development and job creation, 51 percent had more confidence in Hogan in handling education concerns, and 51 percent had more confidence in Hogan in regards to healthcare issues.

Sixty percent of likely voters said their opinions toward embattled President Trump, the GOP’s national standard-bearer, “will have no or little effect on their choice for governor.”

A Hogan endorsement, the poll found, holds less sway perhaps than his strong survey numbers suggest. Just 38 percent of likely voters said they would be more likely to vote for a candidate endorsed by the governor. Meanwhile, Democratic incumbents Sen. Ben Cardin and Maryland Attorney General Brian Frosh both maintain significant leads on their challengers.

Fifty-six percent of likely voters in the state indicate they will vote for Cardin and 17 percent for Republican challenger Tony Campbell. Independent Neal Simon captured eight percent support.

Fifty-eight percent of likely voters in the state indicate they will vote for Frosh and 26 percent for Republican challenger Craig Wolf.

“Ben Cardin and Brian Frosh are both in a strong position to easily win their reelection bids in November,” said Kromer. “They both earn strong support from their Democratic base, as well as a solid percent of independent voters.”

It might come as no surprise to learn that Amy Sherald has won yet another major arts award tonight—this time, the $40,000 Mary Sawyers Imboden Prize as part of the annual Baker Artist Awards, presented by The Greater Baltimore Cultural Alliance and the William G. Baker Jr. Memorial Fund.

A jury selects winners from a large database of some 900 artists in the region who have created an online Baker Artist Portfolio.

Winners—one per each artistic discipline—were announced during a pre-recorded awards ceremony that aired on MPT this evening in the program The 2018 Baker Artist Awards: An Artworks Special. Additional artists, winning $10,000 Mary Sawyers Baker awards, were Lisi Stoessel for Performance, Lafayette Gilchrist for Music, Margaret Rorison for Film/Video, Dora Malech for Literary Arts, Abraham Burickson for Interdisciplinary Arts.

Beloved in Baltimore, Sherald rose to national fame when her official portrait of former first lady Michelle Obama was unveiled at the National Portrait Gallery. Also in 2018, she was chosen for the prestigious Driskell Prize and named as a new trustee on the Baltimore Baltimore Museum of Art of Art board.

“Amy’s work has struck a profound cord with the American public this year, and I am thrilled to see her win the 2018 Mary Sawyers Imboden Prize for her remarkable artistry,” Connie Imboden, president of the William G. Baker Jr. Memorial Fund, stated in a release.

Visual and Interdisciplinary Arts winners will present work at the BMA September 12 through October 14 with 2017 awardees in the same categories. This year’s winners in the remaining categories will present their work during an opening reception Sept. 12 at the BMA.

“The Baker Artist Awards reflect the vitality of this region’s creative community. It sounds almost cliche but it’s a fact,” says Susanne Stahley, Senior Producer, Arts & Culture, for Maryland Public Television. “The celebration of these artists hopefully inspires viewers to get out and visit galleries, concerts, theaters—and the web. The Baker Artist Portfolios showcases hundreds of the area’s artists across genres.”

The Baker Artist Awards ceremony will air again at 8 p.m. May 19 on MPT2/Create and 6:30 a.m. May 20 on MPT-HD.

It’s a good thing Rhea Feikin isn’t superstitious. Almost two years
ago, the longtime Maryland Public Television personality sold her
Stevenson home of 42 years and moved into a swank new condo on Charles
Street in Baltimore. “I always knew I wanted to live in the Charles
Street area,” she explains. “My friends live in this area, and I was
tired of being the designated driver!” But literally a few days after
she moved in, disaster struck. Feikin woke up at 4 a.m. with a startle.
“I got out of bed and ended up walking through two inches of water,” she
recalls. A pipe on a water heater in a neighboring apartment had burst
and leaked water into her apartment.

While Feikin moved to the nearby Colonnade for a week (and her
belongings were stored), a team of disaster specialists dried out the
walls, pulled up the soaked carpeting, and dehumidified the space. Once
the apartment was restored, a reordered Karastan carpet was laid down
again, and designers Ted Pearson and Rita St. Clair (also two of
Feikin’s dear friends) got back to the business of decorating.

Crisis averted, right? Wrong.

Within days, Feikin noticed strange dirt spots appearing all over the
carpet. This time around, the carpet was deemed defective (the glue
backing was eating up into the yarn). Because Pearson and St. Clair were
afraid the glue would get on Feikin’s belongings, the movers came back,
put everything in storage for a second time, and Feikin moved back to
the Colonnade.

Unbelievably, yet a third round of carpeting was defective, and
Feikin was forced to hang her hat at the Colonnade again before moving
in for good in July of 2007.

“She was a champ,” recalls Pearson. “She was so kind and sweet and
patient with us the whole time. I said to her, ‘You’ve been so nice to
us—anyone else would have lost it.'”

As for Feikin? She took the whole thing with characteristic good
humor. “I’ve never been faced with anything like that before,” she
laughs. “What could I do except believe it was going to be all right?
Did it teach me anything? Not a damn thing other than don’t use that
carpet! I loved being here. I knew it was going to work out.”

Standing in her condo’s doorway, dressed in a navy-and-white-striped
boatneck sweater, elegant white trousers, and the perfect pair of white
leather sandals, the 73-year-old Feikin seems to have completely
recovered from the stress of moving in. In fact, she positively glows.
It was light, Feikin says, that sold her on the two-bedroom apartment in
the first place. “When I first saw this apartment,” she says, “the
light drew me. I love light.”

While Feikin also loved her suburban home, she decided it was time to move on after more than four decades in one place.

“I was living in the house by myself,” she explains. (Son Daniel
lives in Kenya and is an epidemiologist for the Center for Disease
Control; daughter Jennifer lives in Los Angeles.) “My second husband
[actor Colgate Salsbury] had died seven years before,” says Feikin, “and
my dog, Maud, died. So there I was in this house, which I loved, with
beautiful old trees, and a basement stuffed with things my kids couldn’t
get rid of. The years went on, and they never looked through any of it.
I just decided one day it was time for me to change my life.”

The first order of business was selling the house. Feikin’s Realtor,
Michael Yerman, thought the ’60s-era home, with its small rooms and
outdated spaces, might be a tough sell. But within several days of
putting it on the market in October 2007, a developer purchased the
one-and-a-half-acre property with the intention of razing the house and
building a new one on the land.

“I didn’t have to paint it or do anything,” says Feikin. “All I had to do was empty it and find a place to live immediately.”

Ironically, it was Feikin’s kids who found it more difficult to let
go. “My children, who come home two times a year at most, were
broken-hearted about my move,” she says. “We had to go through every
room of the house with a camera and talk about our memories from every
room. Then my daughter put it to music and gave us DVDs.”

Not everything was left behind. Feikin was able to take her favorite
pieces from her old county home and incorporate them into her new urban
one—while updating and creating a space of her own. The airy,
light-filled apartment is a rhapsody in cream, peaches, and pale pinks—a
palette based on the Indian silk taffeta Tafford curtains in her
bedroom.

“I didn’t want a lot of color,” she says. “I didn’t want to be
jangled. I wanted to feel calm and serene, and I wanted the art to show.
Because Rita knows me so well, I didn’t have to say a lot. I like Art
Nouveau and Art Deco. I wanted some of that feel here.”

Feikin brought all of her artwork (magnificent signed lithographs
from Art Nouveau artist Alphonse Mucha, a Douglas Hoffman painting,
wooden antique hand carvings from an Italian donkey cart) and objects (a
valuable 1920s Handel leaded stained glass lamp, a stunning silver tea
set samovar, a wooden box from a noted Chinese artist purchased at the
American Craft Council Show in Baltimore) from the old house. For the
furniture, St. Clair and Pearson balanced treasured pieces—like Feikin’s
Scandinavian table and chairs (actually purchased by St. Clair nearly
50 years ago) and a pair of black lacquered and zebrawood Art Deco
chairs—with new ones, including a Deco-style dining room sideboard, a
stunning living room sofa covered in a cream-colored Old World weavers
fabric, and woven outdoor furniture with leopard upholstered cushions
(where Feikin reads her beloved crime novels).

At least one relic from the Stevenson home didn’t make the final cut.
“I’m a big lover of bathrobes,” says Feikin. “When I get home, I don’t
put on warm-ups. I put on a bathrobe. I had my favorite old, ratty
bathrobe, and as I was washing it at my old house, I looked at it and
said, ‘Girl, I’m sorry, but you’re not coming with me—you go with the
house!'”

Feikin’s bedroom is a study in feminine glamour. After sleeping on a
platform bed for many years, Feikin wanted one with a headboard. “I told
Rita I wanted something really special,” she says. “She said, ‘I want
to show you something. If you hate it, just say so.'”

Rita’s grand idea? To take elements from an Art Deco armoire and
headboard she had bought at a French flea market and use them all
throughout the room. “She said, ‘What I’d like to do is take the armoire
apart and build you a headboard and side table,'” Feikin recalls. St.
Clair also designed an elegant walnut and silver-leafed dresser with
legs fashioned from the leftover wood.

The results are quite striking—and Feikin is thrilled with them. “It’s just what I wanted,” she says.

“I would like to think that we captured her look and personality,”
says St. Clair of the bedroom. “Rhea is a diva, but without all that
drama. She is not what I’d call a drama queen. She is a warm,
intelligent, and very feminine lady, and I wanted to create a ‘stage
set’ according to her personality and lifestyle.”

Part of that stage set includes a walk-in closet stocked with
beautiful clothing purchased at favorite shops such as Ruth Shaw and
Jones and Jones and a makeup table with ample lighting. “I am a makeup
junkie,” says Feikin, who loves Bare Escentuals makeup. “I’m fast, and I
can practically put it on in the dark.”

Of course, when Feikin gets dressed for the day, she has to mind her
fashion more than most. “I probably am a little more cognizant of how I
look when I go to the grocery store, although sometimes it’s bad,” says
Feikin, who is a fixture at such Baltimore restaurants as The Prime Rib
and Kali’s Court. “It’s part of the job. I’m grateful that people like
me. I’m grateful they want to say, ‘Hi,’ but that means I can’t go out
in my bathrobe. That’s the downside. It’s hard to look hideous when you
go out, though I’ve managed to do it quite a number of times!”

When Feikin was a little girl growing up in Hampden, she dreamed of
becoming a movie star. “I wanted to be an actress, and I acted all
through high school and college at University of Maryland.”

But her career choice was frowned upon by her family. “My parents
said, ‘You have to learn to do something. You can’t major in drama.'”
Feikin graduated with a degree in speech pathology, and went to work for
the Department of Education as a speech therapist.

As luck would have it, a year into her job, WBAL-TV was looking for
someone from the department to do a show on speech. “They said, ‘Who
wants to do it?’ And no one did, and I said, ‘I do, I do!’ and that was
the beginning of my TV career,” says Feikin.

A stint on the children’s show, Miss Rhea and Sunshine with puppeteer
Cal Schuman (who kept things lively when he came straight to work
hungover from a night of drinking, Feikin reports) followed, as well as a
weather gig with Schuman at WBAL-TV in the ’60s. “We didn’t know a
thing about the weather,” says Feikin. “They had teletype machines in
the newsroom and we would pull off the weather and make it up. Once in a
while, when the teletype machine didn’t work, we had to call the
weather bureau and talk to a meteorologist, and they were always so
annoyed that we were doing the weather and didn’t know the first thing
about it.”

Even as Feikin’s TV career was flourishing, she never lost her first
love: the theater. She helped found Centerstage in 1963 and appeared in
several productions including La Ronde by Arthur Schnitzler; it was also
where she met her second husband. Acting in professional theater,
however, helped her realize that acting was not going to be her calling.
“I was smart enough to know that, although I thought I was hot stuff in
college, I was mediocre when it came to people who really knew how to
act,” she chuckles. “So fortunately, I was able to forge a career in
TV.”

That’s an understatement. Feikin is about to celebrate her 35th year
with MPT. As the host of Artworks This Week (recently renamed Artworks)
and other shows, Feikin has proven herself the consummate
conversationalist, able to interview actor Jeremy Irons (an admitted
crush), cellist Yo-Yo Ma, and lifelong friend John Waters (whose movies
she has had bit parts in, including Hairspray and Cecil B. Demented)
with equal aplomb.

Ironically, she might even be most famous around town for her
cheerful and persuasive presence at MPT fund drives. “One time I came
home from doing a membership drive, and my second husband said, ‘You
know, you really are a fabulous actor.’ And I said, ‘What are you
talking about? I’m doing a membership drive!’ And he said, ‘You only do
one character—you—but you do it so well.’ That was a really wonderful
compliment because, in fact, I think people on TV who are closest to who
they really are are the most believable and successful—you can’t choose
a role you can’t play.”

Feikin, a devoted yogi, plans on playing herself for a long time to
come. “MPT doesn’t have this age neurosis, especially since they have an
older audience,” she says. “It’s never been an issue for me there. My
daughter says, ‘Who do you know that’s your age except Barbara Walters
who does what you do? You are making younger women realize they can have
a career on camera for longer.’ And I hope that’s true. I hope women
will be allowed to age on camera, just as men have been allowed to age
on camera.”

Meanwhile, off camera, Feikin couldn’t be happier about this turning
point in her life. “Sometimes I feel like I’m living in a hotel,” says
Feikin. “The feeling I get from living here is so welcoming and
comforting. And other times, I feel like I’m living on a big cruise
ship. Everything is here, and it’s all very easy.”

For now, it’s smooth sailing. “I’m finished with responsibility. I
went away to Italy recently and had my mail held at the front desk. I
closed the door, and I left. This is the right thing for me now. This,”
she says with dramatic emphasis, “is nirvana.”