Creative Baltimore Fund

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Yesterday, Mayor Stephanie Rawlings-Blake announced the creation of the Creative Baltimore Fund at the new location of the Single Carrot Theater in Remington.

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Creative Baltimore has two primary grant programs: Mayor’s Individual Artist Award – Project Support  provides support for arts or cultural programs that promote public access and encourage the breadth of arts and/or cultural programming in our community. General Operating Supportprovides core support for established arts or cultural organizations that benefit the public and are artistically or culturally vibrant.

Click here for more information on the Creative Baltimore Fund.

Sometimes it’s the little things…

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This past month community members and visitors to Highlandtown A&E District enjoyed a month of fun, free events. Outside, Santa waived from his Santa House and took pictures with visitors, children and families walked through Candy Cane Lane on their way to explore the Highlandtown Train Garden at the local fire house. Overall, 4000 visitors came to the district! Highlandtown has also begun work to create a sidewalk seating area next to High Grounds Coffee on Eastern Avenue. Overhead new lighting was installed that illuminates the seating area, nearby bus stop, and future mural site, which has received excellent feedback from the community.
Additional projects will be happening through spring 2014, including permanent outdoor seating, completion of a new mural, and improved lighting to Conkling Plaza. It has been a good month for Highlandtown: 6 new gooseneck lights were installed, and the mural artist was selected for the mural at East & Eastern Avenues.
The simplest projects can make a big difference. When planning the mural/lighting/seating area at East Ave & Eastern Ave, the most practical part of the project was the lighting. Although it was difficult to predict the impact it would have on the space, especially since the other components weren’t completed yet, the community has really taken notice and given many positive compliments. Since, the owner of High Grounds Coffee submitted a facade grant application to fix up his building. This project should be completed later this spring!

The Bromo Tower A&E District has received a lot of press coverage on the artistic crosswalk installations that were created last month and described in more detail in the blog post from November 2013, such as The Atlantic Cities’: Baltimore’s Got Some Playful New ‘Hopscotch Crosswalks’,  The Architect’s Newspaper Blog: Baltimore’s Hopscotch Crosswalk Colossus, and Fast Company’s: Hop, Skip, And Jump Across The Street With New Artist-Designed Crosswalks. Moreover, the grant process has been so helpful in allowing the Bromo Tower A&E District to identify and continue to refine its desired outcomes – and also the incredible potential – of this project. Additionally, bringing its arts advisory committee together to discuss the value that will hopefully derive from this project has been a very important exercise and community-building activity that facilitates a sense of ownership for each group over the outcome of the project.

Preparations are well underway for the spring TRANSIT project at Penn Station Plaza in the Station North A&E District. Though things may seem quiet, there is a flurry of work in the Station North offices as they work on a communications and marketing plan to maximize the project’s reach, order paint for test sampling, work through the many practical logistics of the project, and lay the groundwork for our community outreach strategy once the residency begins in full. The project will be officially announced in the coming weeks… stay tuned!
Station North feels very fortunate to have a number of partners that support the work at Penn Station Plaza. Representing a range of sectors and interests, these partners have lent their professional expertise and resources to the project as planning gears up.  These partnerships will help extend the impact of the project. Station North is confident that they will be helpful to engage new audiences in the district, and strengthening the bonds with its existing audiences.

Openings this Friday at School 33

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BIPOLAR, CURATED BY ANDREA POLLAN

 

January 17 to March 8

Opening Reception: January 17, 2013
6pm to 9pm

 

The authentic experience in art production for serious contemporary artists requires an acute awareness of both the external apparatus of the art world – including the rigors of academia and the fickleness of the market – and a finely honed consciousness of the internal voice that motivates the making of art. One might argue that the latter point is far more important. Nonetheless in discussing these two extreme poles on a spectrum with many artists, I find that there is a psychological terrain akin to bipolarity that many endure in the studio. Mood swings, isolation, mania, doubt, exhilaration, depression, and inspiration are but a few conditions that characterize and color the artistic (and curatorial) process.

The exhibition includes painting (Hedieh Ilchi, Dan Perkins), sculpture (Mary Frank), installation (Lauren Frances Adams), video and performance (Katie Duffy). As artists embrace more means of visual communication within their distinct œuvres, mixing up and challenging approaches to their media, we are treated to a more complex, sometimes dizzying array of aesthetic and social issues that can lead us, the viewer, to parse our own difficult yet pleasurable spectrum of response and understanding.

Participating artists:
Lauren Frances Adams
Katie Duffy
Mary Frank
Hedieh Ilchi
Dan Perkins

Image: Dan Perkins, X Marks the Spot, 2013, oil on canvas, courtesy of the artist.

 

 

ANIMAL SIGHTINGS, BY REBECCA KATZ

 

January 17 to March 8

Opening Reception: January 17, 2013
6pm to 9pm

 

School 33 Art Center is pleased to present Animal Sightings, a series of screen prints by Lotta Art 2013 Best-in-Show winner Rebecca Katz.

This series explores the barriers and boundaries between animals and humans. Through encounters with wild animals in their natural ecosystems and interactions with our pets at home, we have an opportunity to consider animals’ complex and varied forms of communication and sensory experiences. What is their experience? How is their understanding of the world the same or different than ours? These multi-process screen prints explore the complicated relationships, connections and friendships between animals and humans.

Image courtesy of artist.

 

IN THE ROUND, BY MORGAN FRAILEY AND KRISTIN MCWHARTER

 

January 17 to March 8

Opening Reception: January 17, 2013

6pm to 9pm

 

In the Round is a collaborative project by Baltimore based artists Morgan Frailey and Kristin McWharter. On view are a series of fiber-based sculptures and performative objects that are constructed via traditional knitting and weaving techniques and that speak to a larger idea of social circles and interactions. The work addresses both the physical challenges of creating space as well as the challenges of breaking social barriers.

Image is courtesy of the artists.