Light City Baltimore: Ideas Session – Art

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Light City Baltimore Ideas Session- Art
Location: Maryland Institute College of Art (MICA), Falvey Hall
Date: April 11, 2015
Organized by the Baltimore Office of Promotion & The Arts (BOPA)

Presentation and Moderation–
Bill Gilmore, Executive Director, BOPA
Randi Vega, Director of Cultural Affairs, BOPA
Kathy Hornig, Festivals Director, BOPA
Brooke Hall, What Weekly Studios
Jamie McDonald, Co-Chair, Light City Baltimore Steering Committee

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Jamie McDonald opened the info session with a presentation about Light City Baltimore, its vision, potential areas of impact, and long-term goals. Baltimore has a rich history of innovation tied to light: In 1816, Baltimore was the first American city to illuminate its streets with gas lanterns, thus transforming the city with light and revolutionizing the urban landscape forever. It’s with this spirit of innovation and transformation that 200 years later, Light City will paint Baltimore with light and bring together the brightest thinkers.
Throughout the course of the discussion, several comments were made that are not included as questions below. We received excellent feedback from different members of the community, mostly relating to topics of inclusivity and diversity. History organizations, such as the Peale Museum and the Jewish Museum, expressed a particular interest in including Baltimore’s local history as a key focal point within the festival. Other comments focused around diversity, and expressed concern about the segregation of people of color from participation in the arts. There were excellent points raised about where the physical location of events before and during the festival could occur to be more inclusive of different neighborhoods within the city, as well as different homegrown creative expressions that take shape and are visible in different neighborhoods.

Click through to read full notes from this Light City Baltimore Idea Session.

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Artscape Gallery Network Opening Reception: “Palm Palm” at Randall Scott Projects

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This Past Friday, June 12th, Artscape Gallery Network member Randall Scott Projects in West Baltimore hosted an opening reception for the exhibition titled “Palm Palm,” featuring the works of Charlie Roberts, Kyle Bauer and Karen Yasinsky. Arriving at the reception, I was quick to take photos while the gallery was still quiet, but it soon filled up, attracting a lively, bustling crowd. As the sun set, this indoor-outdoor exhibition was complimented by perfect summer weather, making for a truly lovely evening of beautiful artwork and engaging discussion. Although Charlie Roberts was not in town for the reception, I did have a chance to speak with both Baltimore-based artists Kyle Bauer and Karen Yasinsky about their works in this exhibition, and their lives as artists working in the Baltimore area. Click through for more photos and to read about my interviews with Kyle and Karen.

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Artscape 2015 Press Conference: Musical Headliners, Schedule and Mobile App now available!

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This past Tuesday, June 9th, BOPA held a Press Conference at the University of Baltimore John & Frances Angelos Law Center to announce performance and exhibition highlights for the 34th annual Artscape, which will be taking place on July 17th-19th this year. Baltimore Mayor Stephanie Rawlings-Blake and BOPA Communications Staff introduced this year’s theme, “Dive In!” and talked about some very exciting performers that will be headlining at Artscape, among other things. Although I was not able to attend myself, I talked to Megan Bosse, Communications Associate here at the BOPA office, to get more details about the conference. Click through for more photos and information about what was covered during the Press Conference!

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Artscape Gallery Network Opening Reception: “Shared Visions: Artists from the World Art Center”

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This past Friday, June 5th, as part of the Artscape Gallery Network, The Top of the World Observation Level at the World Trade Center Baltimore hosted a free opening reception for the new exhibition, “Shared Visions: Artists from the World Art Center,” co-curated by father-son duo Allyn Harris and Ed Harris. It was a beautiful afternoon in downtown Baltimore, so I decided to make the 10 minute trek from the BOPA office on East Baltimore street over to the World Trade Center after we closed up for the day. Click through to see more photos of the exhibition and read my brief interview with Ed Harris, co-curator and artist featured in this exhibition.
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Around Town: The Purple Necklace

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Wednesday, June 17, 7pm
at Single Carrot Theatre
2600 N. Howard St.
Baltimore, MD 21218

The Purple Necklace is a video and spoken-word performance about suicide, loss and grief by acclaimed Texas based artist Jim Pirtle. Following the performance, New Day Campaign founder & director Peter Bruun will facilitate a community conversation.

The Purple Necklace is an intimate and powerful performance culled from Jim Pirtle’s writing following the death from suicide of his partner Amanda. The artist began to process what had happened by posting his thoughts in real time to social media—these posts were soon followed across the country by a community of friends who gathered to support him. After 40 days Pirtle called an end to his online grieving and began to put together a performance work based on what he had written and experienced.

In the resulting performance, Pirtle confronts suicide and its aftermath through the use of an edited selection of the online posts and other personal ruminations, spoken word, and with enhanced multi-layered video projections. The work is intended to open the door for a broader understanding and conversation on this difficult topic.

Following the hour-long performance of The Purple Necklace will be a discussion led by Peter Bruun, founder and director of Baltimore’s The New Day Campaign, an arts-based campaign to challenge stigma associated with mental illness and addiction, making the world a more healing place.

Jim Pirtle is an acclaimed artist from Houston Texas. He participated in the communities seminal alternative art scene in the nineteen eighties and nineties, coming to prominence along with such friends and current art luminaries as Rick Lowe, Mark Flood, Mel Chin, and Nestor Topchy. Pirtle, who worked in many genres, became best known for a series of wide ranging at times transgressive yet humanist multi-media performance events. In 1995 he bought a historic building in the Houston’s downtown district and opened the coffee shop Notsuoh. Notsuoh is now a well-known center for Houston’s bohemian enclave to gather, discuss, and present work.

http://us6.campaign-archive1.com/?u=a7891a56e427682f4a9fbf251&id=d0b2f592ac

Around Town: McKeldin Fountain discussion

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Please join Downtown Partnership for a design discussion about McKeldin Plaza on Tuesday, May 12, from 3-5pm. The meeting takes place at Downtown Partnership’s office,  20 S. Charles Street, 6th floor. RSVPs are required to attend, and a photo ID must be shown to enter the building. Email McKeldin@dpob.org by Monday, May 11 at 12pm.

Around Town: Rubys Award Winners

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The Greater Baltimore Cultural Alliance (GBCA) has announced the eight artists selected for the 2015 Rubys Artist Project Grants in Performing and Media Arts. Grants from $5,000 to $10,000 were made to support artist projects including two films, outdoor aerial performance, environmental media art, two plays, and a shadow puppet piece.

The 2015 Rubys grantees in Performing and Media Arts are:

ellen cherry, Baltimore: to support the music composition for and filming of The Holey Land: An Allegory, a ten-minute “crankie” (hand-cranked puppet piece) created by artist Valeska Populah that examines current environmental issues and the consequences of industry on our communities.

 

Brian Francoise, Baltimore: to support the development of Covenants, a devised play infused with spoken word performance, physical theatre and digital storytelling that will celebrate “neighborhood voices” while exploring the history and legacy of restrictive covenants with residents who live in Greater Northwood.

 

Helen Glazer, Owings Mills: to support Above, Below, and Within the Ice, a series of hand-colored photographic prints and painted sculptures of ice formations, source material for which will be gathered during the artist’s upcoming research trip to Antarctica.

 

Naoko Maeshiba, Baltimore: to support Subject/Object, a solo performance project that investigates the nature of “self” through deconstruction and redefinition with the use of video, sound, poetry and clowning as the exploration tools.

 

A. Moon, Baltimore: to support I Am Learning to Abandon the World, a 16mm, silent film composed of the non-explicit shots culled from a trove of vintage “adult” films that will create a narrative that studies female subjectivity, mood without action and that which cannot be represented.

 

Mara Neimanis, Baltimore: to support Cross Over Stories, a series of three onsite aerial performance pieces designed to transform Baltimore urban spaces into innovative performance spots.

 

Juanita Rockwell, Baltimore: to support the creation of the script, lyrics and music for A Little Patch of Ground, a darkly comic play with songs set in the bloody aftermath of Shakespeare’s Hamlet.

 

Olu Butterfly Woods, Baltimore: to support the creation of the first three installments of Lookout, a grassroots documentary film series on the rhythm and hustle of Baltimore’s performing arts and live music scene.

 

All of the artist projects begin immediately or are already underway and they will be developed over the course of the next 12 months. Each project includes opportunities for public engagement such as an screening or performance. Information on attending a public component of a project will be announced on the Rubys Project Event page.

The Rubys Artist Project Grant program was established by GBCA in 2013 to support the region’s gems – the local creative community of performing, visual, media and literary artists. Created with the vision and initial funding from the Robert W. Deutsch Foundation, the Rubys provide meaningful project support directly to artists. The Rubys usher in a new era of arts grantmaking in Baltimore by offering citizen-philanthropists as well as foundations the opportunity to fund individual artists. The Rubys were inspired in part by Ruby Lerner, the visionary founder and leader of Creative Capital in New York City.