ART AND ABOUT
Take a trip along the Chesapeake Country Mural Trail with its creator
For many, the words “Eastern Shore” conjure images of beaches, blue crabs and summer fun. But the cooling temperatures and traffic-plagued Bay Bridge shouldn’t stop you from enjoying this culturally and ecologically rich part of the state.
The Chesapeake Country Mural Trail in Dorchester County, just south of the Choptank River, renders many of those qualities in spectacular colors and larger-than-life dimensions.
Artist Michael Rosato created each of the trail’s eight murals, rendered on 8-by-10-foot cement board blocks, starting in 2013. Dorchester County’s tourism office commissioned Rosato to develop the art, with input from the community for several works.
“It takes time to identify the location, the content … we really [wanted] the murals to reflect the themes of the Chesapeake,” said Amanda Fenstermaker, the county’s tourism director.
Together, the murals depict the Indigenous tribes, black liberationists like Harriet Tubman and Gloria Richardson, as well as flora and fauna that highlight Dorchester County’s history. They also invoke passages from James Michener’s epic novel, “Chesapeake,” which chronicles several generations from the area.
“I love telling a story in all of these things,” Rosato said during a recent visit to his studio. “You have to look at it, and then, when you start to learn the history, you see what the story’s about.”
The prolific Rosato took a break from his current major commissions at the National Museum of the Marine Corps in Quantico, Virginia, to tell each mural’s story in early October. Starting with the first one motorists will see when heading southbound into Cambridge on the Choptank River Bridge, these are the stories behind the murals.
‘Ode to Watermen’
This mural’s placement, on a wall of the Dorchester County Visitor Center that faces the adjacent bridge, ensures that visitors (especially on clear days) understand the regional importance of fishing before they get off the bridge. “Ode to Watermen” depicts three men on a skipjack, a once-popular fishing sailboat, pulling oysters out of the Chesapeake. “It was hard work,” Rosato said. “These guys, when they’d go out there, they’d drag the oysters onto the boat while it was still moving.”
The artist used the bold style of the Russian-Soviet avant garde to honor these archetypal working men. Departing from the more common images of fisherman, he also made them men of color — a point he said reflected the diversity of people who worked the water.
Location: Dorchester County Visitor Center, 2 Rose Hill Place, Cambridge
‘Local African American Heritage’
Most popular accounts of African American history omit the stories of Pine Street and the black community that surrounded it. Rosato created this mural, with input from that community, as a historical correction.
“Most people don’t even know there were 49 thriving businesses on Pine Street, or that Ella Fitzgerald and Duke Ellington and Ray Charles and all the big band guys came through here, because it was on the Chitlin’ Circuit,” Rosato said. “Local African American Heritage” depicts a singing Fitzgerald alongside other scenes from Pine Street’s heyday: bakers making Maryland beaten biscuits, a barber cutting