This weekend, August 13-15, 2021, Rock Hall will be having the 14th Annual Pirates and Wenches Weekend. While the theme is Pirates, there is plenty of Art to be seen. This photo-essay was originally published as ‘Point of Interest” on the ChesaDel Crier in February.

——-

The Chesapeake Bay town of Rock Hall, located in Kent County, MD is well known as a bay community with long ties to commercial fishing and more recently as a haven for boaters. But in a way it has also become an art town. A couple of years ago Main Street Rock Hall commissioned three murals. These murals can be found on the Main Street wall of Bayside Foods, the rear entrance to the Mainstay and on the rear of Java Rock.

Chestertown artist Ken Castelli’s mural at Bayside Foods mural depicting the lives and traditions of Chesapeake Bay watermen who continue to ply their trade and have played a significant role in shaping Rock Hall;

Wye River Upper School (in Centreville) Art Teacher Katie Lillard and Language Teacher Karen Gilbert, in consultation with Hagopian Arts on the back wall of the Mainstay to depict the natural resources of the Chesapeake Bay. Plants, fish and birds are the focus of the mural;

Kirk Seese of BB Murals, in collaboration with Jen Jasper of Cecil County behind Java Rock depicting the lives and traditions of Eastern Shore farmers.

In 2019 High School Senior Brianna Pierce and a few of her friends, as part of a Senior Project, created art work around a number of the town’s storm drains. A few of these can be seen on and near Main Street.