Eileen Koenigsberg sits on a recliner in her living room in what would otherwise be a typical suburban home in Towson were it not for the gigantic abstract paintings surrounding her, taking up entire walls.

Over the past five decades and through several moves and life changes, Koenigsberg, 75, has lived with these large-scale paintings by her father, the late Peter Scholleck. In every room, his oil paintings, some of which are nearly sculptural in their thickness, hang on walls, making this house part home, part museum. Her Towson house is a showcase that ranges across spectrum of styles—abstract, figurative, still lifes, landscapes, even religious.

The paintings have a particular poignancy because Scholleck survived Nazi Germany in 1939, when he was just a teenager. Before he left, he witnessed untold horrors. And for Koenigsberg, it was more about the connection to her father who died at only 45.

“When I went through the home, it was like an installation of this artist’s life and work—a site-specific installation,” says George Ciscle, whom Koenigsberg had hired to help organize the body of work. “Of the 157 pieces, all except 20 or 30 of them were in storage. I was just completely overwhelmed by the environment. Back then, her children were still living at home, so even the two girls had [his work] in their bedrooms. And she didn’t [formally] curate herself; these were just works she chose to live with. That was interesting to me, to see that personal relationship to the work she and her children had.”

Ciscle, a well-respected arts educator and curator based in Baltimore, says he gets asked “all the time” to look at family collections of artworks. He never agrees to work with clients until he’s seen the work, and usually, he passes. He says he’s never seen anything quite like Koenigsberg’s collection.

“I was like, wait a minute. This work has never been seen outside the home?” Ciscle recalls. “Here I was invited into this world—and it was a very private experience and very special—and my first impression was this work needs to be seen. It needs to be shared and shown.”

Koenigsberg remembers a recurring scene of her early childhood vividly. She would jump into the front seat of her dad’s convertible, along with their dog, Tango, and head to the Mar-Sue Gallery art supply store in Pikesville. On the way home they would ride down the streets with huge canvases poking out of the back of the car.

At their home in Mount Washington, Koenigsberg would help her father stretch smaller canvases in his basement studio—a space large enough to create his sculptural paintings, which grew in size in the 1960s. 

If he needed more space, her father would move his work to the carport and paint out there. He’d stay up late into the night making art. From 1946 to 1967, he was painting.

“He had this creative restlessness,” Koenigsberg recalls. “He was compelled to paint. Our childhood home was decorated with his work from wall to wall.” Regardless of his various day jobs (including factory manager, tavern owner, and land title examiner), it was his artwork that brought him the most joy. “I think work was secondary. The art was his passion.” But despite that, he rarely showed his art publicly.  

Scholleck was born in Germany in 1923, just three months after his father died. His mother remarried three years later, and his stepfather, Wilhelm Nussbaum, raised Scholleck as his own son in Munich.

By 1938, Scholleck was attending an Episcopal boarding school when he was suddenly told he could no longer continue his education there because he was Jewish. That same year, he witnessed the violent destruction of Kristallnacht by the Nazi regime, and his stepfather was taken to a concentration camp.

In 1939, shortly after his badly beaten stepfather was released from the camp, his family fled to the U.S. His stepfather died just 20 months after they arrived in America, likely due to injuries sustained in the camp, Koenigsberg says.

It’s hard to imagine his childhood did not influence his work, but Scholleck rarely talked about it.

“I’ve wondered how that childhood informed all this [artwork],” Koenigsberg says. “He was so grateful to be in this country. In 1943, he enlisted in the Army. He was not confused about where he’d been and where he was. I can’t separate that from the tension in the work.”

Koenigsberg also notes her father was not particularly religious, but he was an intellectual with “an enormous laugh” who would invite friends over on Sunday mornings for “these very cerebral conversations,” she says. Christ’s crucifixion, a simulacrum of “The Last Supper,” rabbis, and priests show up in his paintings, though nothing directly relating to Germany, she added.

Scholleck died at 45 with little to no recognition for his work, other than showing a few pieces in regional shows, and his wife followed six years later. So, Koenigsberg, an only child, was just 25 when she inherited the collection, which comprises of both large-scale and small works. In the 50 years that followed, she has cared for the work through six homes, displaying different pieces on the walls with each move.

She has managed to find homes that could accommodate storing the work (mostly ones with large, finished basements) and only needed to rent a climate-controlled commercial storage unit once in the past five decades. When she went that route, she visited the unit every two weeks to replace moisture-absorbing material left in buckets to control the humidity.

“I became a bit of a student on how to maintain the art,” she says. “It drives where you live—and how you live.”

Keeping the pieces in her home has meant keeping windows closed year-round to avoid any dust or pollen from entering the house and adding UV-blocking film to each pane. It has meant keeping the temperature and humidity at steady, specific levels. Caretaking the collection has meant hiring professionals to clean or restore pieces as needed. Koenigsberg has also gone so far as to install museum-quality lighting in her home.

While she has enjoyed living with the artwork over the years and has always wanted to honor her father by caring for his work, she also admits the collection has become a true labor of love.

“I’ve had this responsibility for this legacy,” Koenigsberg says. But she was reluctant to sell his work that was so personal and meaningful to her. It took her a while to “embrace the idea that I [need to] distribute the work.” Not just because it deserved to be seen by the public but because, “I know what it’s taken to care for it, and I am not going to pass that down to my children.”

Around 2001, Koenigsberg began the slow process of letting go.

At that time, she hired Ciscle, who recommended a professional photographer to shoot each piece and then taught Koenigsberg how to document them by creating a digital archive. Koenigsberg made a spreadsheet that details any and all information she has on each piece—title, history, whether or not it was exhibited, if it had won any awards—and numbered each of them, including some smaller works like a sketch he drew on the back of an envelope.

Together they eventually created a website, designed by a graphic designer, to highlight the work and ultimately found a gallery in Baltimore where it could be shown publicly. Over those twenty-some years, she and Ciscle also became friends.

“I think of him as my champion,” Koenigsberg says. “There have been a lot of stops and starts with the work—because of life—but it was the friendship that stuck.”

For the first time in September 2024, Koenigsberg showed 12 pieces publicly at Arting Gallery in Baltimore—a vignette of his work, chosen by Ciscle, to give the public a first taste. “The Unknown Paintings of Peter Scholleck” was on view for a month in the space, complete with weekly art talks and salons hosted by Koenigsberg and Ciscle.

“We could have rented a space,” Ciscle says, “but I wanted it to be seen as a professional exhibition.” In an unusual move for a commercial gallery, none of the works were for sale.

“My first impression of Peter’s work was..they were hidden treasure,” says Arting Gallery director Xiaoming Liu. He adds that Arting, which has been open for two years, “is truly experimental. We don’t select the artworks by money and fame…we judge by the artist and his or her works—to some extent, by the sixth sense.”

“The process of letting go of these paintings is almost like grief. It’s not linear. It’s slow, and it’s only sometimes by choice,” Koenigsberg says. “But I want them to have a life beyond this.”

Imagine walking inside an art museum to find men spitting chew tobacco on the floor, friends calling to one another across galleries, people singing, dogs barking, rowdy teenagers, and mothers soothing crying babies.

Though it might be hard to believe today, if the year were 1860 or thereabouts, this scene would be fairly typical.

But, with the rise of technology—and its subsequent noise (think telegraphs, typewriters, phonographs, sewing machines, and so on)—came the regulation of sound in public spaces like museums, as Asma Naeem asserts in her dissertation turned 2020 book, Out of Earshot.

“[Museum officials] were in effect encouraging aural behaviors associated with ‘cultured’ persons and discouraging those associated with the ‘lower’ classes,” writes Naeem, the Baltimore Museum of Art’s former chief curator, who was announced as its new director in January.

Today’s museums, like the BMA, are more like libraries or houses of worship, where the only sounds you might hear are hushed voices or quiet heels against empty halls and tiled floors. It gives museums a rarefied, impersonal air that does not truly reflect the art inside.

“I always think of art as having this aural component or a soundtrack,” says Naeem, “and I always thought museums were missing that.”

Only amplifying the silence in 2023 is the fact that, for the past two decades, museum attendance has been steadily declining across the United States. And while this downtrend is likely due in part to people finding entertainment through the internet (with an assist from the COVID-19 pandemic), museums have increasingly received criticism in recent years for their pretension, irrelevance, and gatekeeping that do not accurately represent America’s diversity of race, gender, class, politics, or ideas.

Throughout her career, Naeem, 53, has been working to dissolve some of those conventions. First, as a curator at the National Portrait Gallery, where she diversified the D.C. institution’s collection by featuring portraits of rappers, including one of late Baltimorean Tupac Shakur, which brought new dialogues and audiences to the space. And, more recently, at the BMA, where she has continued that effort by examining the. historical context of the museum and its collections while championing underrepresented artists—particularly people of color, women, and local artists, such as late Baltimore-based printmaker and sculptor Valerie Maynard, whose work Naeem co-curated for the artist’s first major museum exhibition in 2020.

In 2018, just before Naeem was hired as chief curator, the BMA deaccessioned seven artworks from its contemporary holdings in order to create space for work by underrepresented artists, i.e., those who were also women, Black, Indigenous, self-trained, or had connections to Baltimore. Over the next three years, the museum acquired 125 works by 85 artists—the majority of whom were represented for the first time in the collection.

Several of these new acquisitions were shown in the 2021 contemporary exhibit, “Now Is The Time,” including work by homegrown artists like Maynard, Jerrell Gibbs, and Theresa Chromati. The show provided the public with a visual account of the curatorial efforts led by Naeem, as well as those by Katy Siegel, former BMA senior programming and research curator, who has since left her post to join the staff at the San Francisco Museum of Modern Art. (Another deaccessioning in 2020 created a bit of a stir in the art world, and the BMA responded by taking the three pieces that were set to be sold, one of which was an Andy Warhol, off the table.)

“I want to build upon the fantastic work that the BMA has done in the past few years and continue to make the museum a space that is welcoming, equitable, dynamic, and engaging for our visitors and for our staff as well,” says Naeem about her vision as director, noting that efforts will be focused on exhibitions and collection practices, as well as programming and partnerships with the likes of schools, universities, arts organizations, and other community members. “It’s in these collaborations that I think we stand to make the greatest positive impact.”

A perfect example is the forthcoming exhibit, “The Culture: Hip Hop and Contemporary Art in the 21st Century,” which will fuse Naeem’s interest in the sound—or the lack thereof—of the art world with her passion for making it more inclusive. Co-curated by Naeem and on view at the BMA from April 5 to July 16 before moving to the St. Louis Art Museum (SLAM) for the remainder of 2023, the show comes during the 50th anniversary of the dawn of hip-hop and explores the genre’s past 20 years through sound as well as visual art, fashion, and ephemera. It was created in collaboration with BMA chief education officer Gamynne Guillotte, staff at SLAM, and a wide-ranging advisory board featuring creatives from Baltimore and around the world.

“Music is a big part of my life, but I’m not a musician in any sense of the word,” says Naeem, who has been dreaming about this project for several years. “Hip-hop was just an incredibly energizing sound that I started to hear coming from the radio in the ’80s as a teenager. To hear this new way of rapping was amazing. I spent a lot of time listening to the lyrics. And I loved to dance. That’s how I primarily spent my youth: in dance clubs…And what really gravitated me toward this idea for the exhibition was the ways in which, as a cultural phenomenon, hip-hop has seeped into every aspect of our lives and created a powerful visual set of languages that are both obvious and not so obvious everywhere around us.”

 

“I ALWAYS THINK OF ART AS HAVING THIS AURAL COMPONENT OR A SOUNDTRACK.”

 

 

In a first for the BMA, the exhibition will include atmospheric soundscapes—not audio through headphones, as museums have embraced for years, but a sonic experience that envelopes visitors as soon as they step foot inside the show, with two recordings created by Baltimore musicians Wendel Patrick and Abdu Ali heard throughout the exhibition space.

“The Culture” will also highlight visual work by local artists such as photographer Devin Allen; filmmakers Nia June, APoetNamedNate, and Kirby Griffin; sculptors Murjoni Merriweather and Joyce J. Scott; and painters Ernest Shaw Jr. and Derrick Adams; plus art-world giants like photographer Carrie Mae Weems, mixed-media artist Mark Bradford, and late painter Jean-Michel Basquiat; as well as pieces by global fashion designers like Vivienne Westwood and Louis Vuitton’s Virgil Abloh. Baltimore-born artist Shinique Smith will also create a commissioned mural near Lexington Market in conjunction with the show. Several other city creatives are included in the exhibition catalog, too, such as musician TT The Artist and cultural critic Lawrence Burney, who founded the local arts publication True Laurels.

At a pivotal time for museums, Naeem’s work is helping to shape and shift the BMA to become a better reflection of current culture. And she feels an exhibit like this will go a long way toward demonstrating that the BMA is serious about serving as a mirror of its community.

The BMA is not unique in its efforts to reexamine its mission statement and implement changes, as museums nationwide have been historically composed of majority-white leadership, boards, and featured artists. Internationally, museums have begun to “confront entrenched economic and racial inequities, and the ways in which those are encoded in museum collections, presentations, staffing and organizational cultures,” wrote museum advisor and journalist András Szántó in The Art Newspaper in 2020. Many are reframing their objectives to redress prior wrongs and ultimately make, says Szántó, “their buildings and campuses more hospitable to everyone.”

The current BMA staff is overwhelmingly made up of women, with people of color and gender-nonconforming people represented as well, ultimately making the museum more reflective of society as a whole. After Christopher Bedford’s departure as director last June, Naeem became interim co-director of the museum, alongside chief operating officer Christine Dietze, before being hired for the top post at the beginning of this year, making her the first person of color to lead the BMA.

On the surface, Naeem’s former life as a criminal prosecutor in New York City might seem at odds with her role as a museum director and curator. But the overlap is her desire to effect positive social change. After burning out on life as an attorney, she pursued a master’s degree in art history at American University in D.C., followed by a PhD in art history from the University of Maryland, College Park, ultimately returning to Baltimore, where she grew up after immigrating to the U.S. from Pakistan as a child.

“Asma is profoundly brilliant as a scholar, has a strong vision as an arts leader, and has tremendous and considerable personal warmth…[a combination] that’s rare to find at this level of work,” says “The Culture” co-curator Guillotte. “She’s not afraid to lead with her emotion because she knows that is part of where her intelligence as a scholar and a thinker and a leader is.”

When planning the exhibition, “it was essential that we include local artists, because hip-hop itself is a set of local histories,” says Naeem. “Baltimore has such an incredibly vibrant history of hip-hop. There’s no way that we could pay homage to this canon without including some of the incredibly talented Baltimoreans.”

And that includes visual artists who capture the spirit of hip-hop in their work. Like sculptor Murjoni Merriweather, for instance—a recent Maryland Institute College of Art graduate and Prince George’s County native turned Baltimore resident, whose sculpture “Z E L L A,” one of about 50 busts that the 27-year-old has created using various mediums, depicts a Black woman whose hair is pulled into a dramatic high ponytail woven entirely out of hair extensions.

“Hip-hop is such a huge part of Black culture, and it’s a fight to normalize who we are as people—what we create, what we wear, who we decide to be—which goes hand in hand with my artwork,” says Merriweather, whose works also often feature hoop earrings and metallic grills. “I don’t want people to see grills and think they’re intimidating or some type of danger. They are just teeth jewelry, at the end of the day. I want people to start thinking like that, instead of putting stereotypes on them and making us seem like less-than.”

To make the exhibit as authentic as possible, Naeem brought together a diverse selection of hip-hop experts to be a part of its advisory board, consisting of individuals across academia, music, fashion, and art, such as Martha Diaz, founder and president of the Hip-Hop Education Center at New York University; Tef Poe, a St. Louis-based rapper and activist; and Brazilian anthropologist and curator of Afro-Atlantic histories, Hélio Menezes.

Locally, Wendel Patrick has helped lead the charge. The Boom Bap Society musician has almost single-handedly brought hip-hop to Peabody Conservatory, where he serves as a professor. Part of his role with the BMA advisory committee, alongside fellow local artist Abdu Ali, was to ensure that hip-hop history was presented with accuracy.

“I’ve been an educator at the university level since 2001, so I’ve observed and absorbed the ways in which institutions tend to think about the dissemination of information,” says Patrick. Since the earliest days of hip-hop, which is said to have been invented on the streets of the Bronx by DJ Kool Herc in 1973, “There’s been a real beauty in the way that people have been able to ingest knowledge [about hip-hop] that hasn’t been in a traditional educational setting, where there is a curriculum where people have decided what is important and, by virtue of that, what isn’t.”

When hip-hop is documented in museums or studied in institutes of higher education, continues Patrick, “It’s important that it be accurate or represented in a way where opinions are representative of people who have been present for a significant period of time.” Which makes this exhibition perfectly timed, with its curatorial intention aligning with the more overarching refreshes and newfound mission of the BMA.

 

“ASMA IS PROFOUNDLY BRILLIANT AS A SCHOLAR, HAS A STRONG VISION AS AN ARTS LEADER…”

 

 

The exhibit will also include an archival aspect that goes beyond its comprehensive catalog. Fans and artists will be encouraged to share their experiences by scanning and uploading documents—old ticket stubs or concert fliers, for instance—and telling their own stories, which will appear as an online collection. Items can be scanned either inside the exhibit space or from a phone or computer offsite.

“It was so valuable to have [the idea of] education in the room from the jump, because typically in the way exhibitions come about, education comes into the process once the artworks are decided, the checklist is decided, the floor plan is laid out, and then we come and do the icing on the cake,” says Guillotte. “Asma wanted to bring this in early on in the process.”

Every time the curators got together, their discussions centered around inclusivity and accessibility: Why is this relevant to our visitors? Who is the audience? How will we be engaging with them? What kind of context do they need to be able to understand what we’re presenting? What kinds of barriers do we need to remove to that understanding?

“The Culture” is merely one lens through which to see how the BMA is shifting—in terms of its subject matter, which audiences it’s trying to reach, and whose work is and isn’t included. Last spring, the museum launched the “Guarding the Art” exhibition, envisioned by Naeem and curated by its own security department, and last July, the nearly 140 employees also voted to form a union, becoming Baltimore’s first local institution to do so.

Asked what she thinks the role of an art museum is today, Naeem says, “That’s the million-dollar question that all of us, as stewards of a collection, are trying to work toward, making sure we’re preserving the integrity of our communities around us. What we need to be doing as museum leaders is building a collection of artistic excellence that goes beyond certain cultures and histories that have previously been championed.”

She points to the ways in which, up until the 20th century, women artists did not have access to art schools or artistic materials like oil paints or canvases and would resort to what is known as the decorative arts, a topic which will be discussed in an upcoming exhibit, titled “Making Her Mark.”

“When I think of the ways in which we can tell a far more inclusive story of art-making in our current day, that means interweaving a number of different kinds of art forms,” says Naeem, suggesting incorporating the likes of fashion, and not just couture—but streetwear, too. “If we are going to be including in our permanent collection and displaying 19th-century African jewelry, why can’t we be displaying 21st-century African-American jewelry inspired by hip-hop?”

By Lauren LaRocca

Photography by Joanna Tillman

GameChangers 2022

Marissa Jachman admits sexual violence wasn’t her main focus—and certainly didn’t think it would become her life’s work—until she witnessed its effects on her cousin, Erin Levitas.

Levitas was raped while college-aged. The traumatic event was life changing. In the aftermath, Levitas decided to attend law school and pursue a career in sexual assault prevention and survivor support. Sadly, she passed away from a rare cancer at the age of 22 and was never able to fulfill her calling. But the advocacy and awareness she started took on a new life with the creation of the Erin Levitas Foundation after her death.

Jachman had worked in the nonprofit sector since 2008 at organizations including Hillel at the University of Virginia and Virginia Tech, and the American Red Cross. She worked for the foundation after her day job, often staying late into the night. Eventually, she became so invested in the work and the foundation’s mission that she knew she wanted to give it all her attention. She quickly became the foundation’s executive director.

“[Sexual assault] really wasn’t on my radar,” says Jachman, the mother of two young boys. “But after learning about Erin’s experience, and that her experience was quite common, I realized there’s so much need for sexual assault prevention. It’s one of those things where once you learn about it, you’re like, why doesn’t everybody know this?

“It seems so changeable,” she concludes.

There are 463,634 victims of rape and sexual assault aged 12 or above each year in the United States, according to RAINN (Rape, Abuse, and Incest National Network), the nation’s largest anti-sexual violence organization, and females ages 16–19 are four times more likely than the general population to be victims of rape, attempted rape, or sexual assault. The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention lists youth interventions such as better social-emotional education and teaching healthy dating skills to adolescents as simple yet effective preventative measures.

Jachman found herself asking questions like: Why isn’t sexual assault prevention taught in school? Why don’t we start early with pediatricians? Why don’t more parents know this information? Because programs were already in existence to support survivors of sexual assault, the Erin Levitas Foundation began with the distinct mission to prevent sexual assault before it ever starts.

“We are not just focused on survivors but reducing the number of people who could become perpetrators—people who maybe didn’t recognize that something was not okay.”

Because sexual harassment often starts in middle school—nearly half of middle school-age kids report being sexually harassed—the foundation focuses primarily on that demographic. Sexual harassment in middle school is a precursor behavior that can escalate to sexual assault and rape by high school. “By high school, it can be too late,” Jachman points out.

The foundation’s “ERIN Talk” educational curriculum, created in partnership with the University of Maryland, Baltimore (UMB) Francis King Carey School of Law, teaches middle schoolers boundaries, communication, and safe use of social media and technology. The goal is to support healthy attitudes and reduce behaviors that can be early signs of sexual harassment, such as lewd comments, unwanted touching, gender- or sexuality-based slurs, unwanted and repeated requests for dates, and inappropriate texting.

Additionally, social work students from UMB (like the law students, overseen by the foundation and university), speak in schools on a range of topics including how to communicate with family and friends and conduct group exercises to try to develop empathy. Because the subject is sensitive—and often the impetus for students to share the experiences they’ve had—UMB students are trained to handle situations and questions with care and expertise. The curriculum covers seven sessions, which gives kids time to integrate what they’ve learned and question UMB students on subsequent visits.

Jachman also is working with UMB to create Parent Talk, which will cover issues like the safe use of social media and technology, and Teacher Talk, which will focus on identifying sexual harassment, responding to it in a healthy way, and how to support prevention. Teacher Talk started its second pilot program this summer and is expected to launch officially by the end of the year.

“There’s so much to teach families, schools, society…and we trickle all of that content into our newsletters and social media, too,” Jachman says.

Most recently, the Erin Levitas Foundation has widened the demographic it reaches by educating even younger children through its new book, Every Body Talk, co-authored by Jachman and Matthew Mittleman. The picture book, recommended for children through age 8, teaches boundaries and body safety. But Jachman says adults can learn from it, too. She explains that it is a conversation starter for all ages. Mittleman met Jachman  hrough his wife and pitched the idea of a children’s book to the foundation. “She’s dynamite,” he says of Jachman. “There’s just some magnetic force that she has that makes you want to work with her. She lives and breathes and believes in the work.”

Creating the book, which is bolstered by the latest research about preventing sexual assault by learning to recognize and respect your own and other people’s boundaries, took about two years. Now Mittleman reads it to his 6-year-old daughter.

“It’s not your average nighttime read, but her re- sponse is very cool,” he says. “Sometimes she’ll say a line from the book, and she’s able to set boundaries with her friends, like, ‘Stop—that’s my body and I don’t like that.’ She sounds confident.”

He appreciates that Jachman is being bold enough to tackle an issue that is often addressed after the fact. “Marissa is taking on this hard subject that’s happening everywhere and getting kids at a young age to start to normalize talking about it,” he says. “It’s inspiring.”

When Jeffrey Kent moved into a luxury apartment overlooking Druid Hill Park in the ’80s, it was one of the nicest places he’d ever lived. It reminded him of a scene straight out of a Woody Allen film, with treetop views of Baltimore’s “Central Park.” Except for one thing. There was no art on the walls.

And he had ample time to stare at them. He’d just gotten fired from his day job at a Georgetown haberdashery, where he sold menswear, after being arrested for possession and conspiracy to distribute cocaine. He decided to make his own art and started creating bright, abstract acrylic paintings, often with words embedded in them, to hang in his apartment. Meanwhile, he continued hustling, because, as he put it recently, he still had rent to pay—and now lawyer fees.

“But then people started trying to buy the paintings,” Kent recalls. “People I was selling drugs to—lawyers and doctors and accountants—and the people I was buying drugs from, who had money from selling drugs…they started buying the paintings off my walls. So I had to keep making more.”

It worked out nicely. He fell in love with making art, and he’d also inadvertently given himself a business front. He could tell his family he was selling paintings. Kent never imagined then that art would one day become his life and that he’d influence so many people through his creative work and vision.

In the decades since, Kent has become a mentor for emerging artists, a lodestar for people looking to navigate the art world, and a liaison between working artists and collectors, ultimately being instrumental in putting Baltimore on the map of the art world.

He gave Amy Sherald her first studio space and worked alongside the artist who would become world-renowned for painting her Michelle Obama portrait, which is in the National Portrait Gallery’s permanent collection. Kent and Sherald remain close friends.

Kent also gave Jerrell Gibbs his first studio space, mentored him, and encouraged him to apply to MICA’s M.F.A. program in painting, despite the fact that Gibbs had not earned an undergraduate degree (after all, Kent had done it). Gibbs was later commissioned to paint the Elijah Cummings portrait for the U.S. Capitol and is now represented by the prestigious Chicago-based Mariane Ibrahim Gallery, which exhibited his work in a solo show in Paris this summer. Kent joined Gibbs there for the opening reception.

Kent set out to be a successful artist long ago—and he achieved that, with work in collections at the National Academy of Sciences and the Reginald F. Lewis Museum, among several other institutions. But how he finds time to work on his craft—and still sleep—is something of a mystery, even to his assistant.

Because ultimately the work he’s become best known for is the sculpting of the Baltimore art world itself—as co-founder and co-director of Connect + Collect, chief curator at the recently reopened Peale museum, an adjunct professor at MICA, and founder of Accomplished Art Apprentices, among other roles. His quiet influence over the work and careers of so many artists—as well as collectors, curators, and gallerists—has grown and innovated our regional art scene.

“We all started under Jeffrey Kent at 120 Studio,” says Baltimore artist, author, and entrepreneur Chris Wilson. “He has this gift for giving advice, and he’s influenced a lot of artists’ careers heavily. He’s the king- and queen-maker.”

On a warm September day, Kent’s tall stature exudes a calm presence over his living room in Station North, where he takes a seat next to his assistant, Cleo Rose, at a glass table against a backdrop of art—a miniature who’s who gallery of the Baltimore art scene and beyond. Directly behind him is a work of his own, a floor-to-ceiling collage made of pages of O, The Oprah Magazine, with a large “O” painted over it in blue and a glossy, layered finish. The piece is part of a series, he explains, that will be included in his autobiography through art, which he’s been working on for years. The “Zero” series pays homage to a particular Winfrey show that told the stories of women who had quit their day jobs to live their dream—an episode that played in the back of Kent’s mind for years before he would essentially do the same thing.

Long before that, as a kid growing up in Baltimore, Kent found inspiration in the TV show Bewitched—in particular, the character Darrin Stephens, who worked at an advertising firm. Kent’s young-but-entrepreneurial-minded brain was intrigued.

“Of course, I had pipe dreams of doing something creative, because no one in my family thought it was a good idea,” Kent says. “I got no support growing up.”

 

“HE’S INFLUENCED A LOT OF ARTISTS’ CAREERS HEAVILY. HE’S THE KING- AND QUEEN-MAKER.”

 

After the wake-up call of his arrest, and the subsequent newfound passion for painting, Kent inquired about a vacant building on the corner of Baltimore and Charles streets that got heavy foot traffic. He had the idea—innovative at the time—to install his art in its storefront windows, as he felt ready for the public (not just drug dealers and his clientele) to see his work after two years of painting. The owners were not only excited by his proposition but asked if he’d be interested in operating a full-scale gallery inside.

“I’m like, I’m an artist. I’m not a gallerist. Like, what is this? They told me, ‘You don’t have to pay any rent, no electric, just get a phone and a sign.’ I’m like, I guess I can’t say no to that. So, that’s how I got my first art gallery, Hand Originals. It was really crazy.”

The new space became the impetus for Kent connecting with the Baltimore art scene and expanding his client base—and also for getting clean, after a brief relapse. He also learned he had a penchant for transforming spaces. After running Hand Originals, he moved into a studio in the Copycat Building and renovated the space so well that when the owner saw it, and realized what he could then get for it, he wanted to double Kent’s monthly rent, Kent recalls with a laugh.

Instead, Kent left and found another place to work, this time an 8,000-square-foot warehouse space in the Abell building on the corner of Baltimore and Eutaw streets. It had sat vacant for more than 25 years, he says, and he worked to transform it into a dream studio. The space was so inspiring that Kent, with that Oprah episode in mind, quit his day job selling cars to focus on art
full-time.

“I told myself I’d rather be dead than do anything else but make art for the rest of my life,” he says.

Fast-forward another 10 years of making art to 2008, and Kent was accepted into MICA’s graduate program in painting. He credits Leslie King-Hammond, then dean of the program, for giving him a deeper understanding of art and helping him to develop his skill for critique.

“She taught me so much about myself and my art,” Kent says. “MICA changed my life.”

At the same time, before, during, and after his schooling, Kent was running SubBasement Artist Studios, a huge live/work space on Howard Street that closed in 2014 after a decade in operation.

Cara Ober, founding editor and publisher at BmoreArt, discovered SubBasement as a grad student at MICA and was immediately impressed with what Kent was doing.

“It was really the only artist-run space that was effectively selling art. He was the first person selling Amy Sherald, who had a studio there. I remember at the time thinking, ‘Good God, these prices.’ Amy Sherald’s paintings were selling for $5,000. I was like, ‘These are gorgeous, but I don’t have $5,000,’” Ober says.

“So many artists were undervaluing and underpricing their work, and Jeffrey was like, ‘Nope. This is the price.’ And, as a result, the people who could buy, did…Jeffrey was the one person who was actively cultivating relationships with real estate developers and different kinds of collectors or, as he described it, ‘people in a position to support artists.’ People who could buy art for the price that it deserves to get. Is my husband mad at me that we didn’t buy any Amy Sherald back then? Yes. He’s like, ‘Why don’t you just buy everything Jeffrey buys?’ He’s right. Jeffrey just seems to have a sense of whose work is gonna blow up.”

In 2019, Kent and Ober would go on to found Connect + Collect, a program under BmoreArt that connects collectors to emerging artists in Baltimore through studio visits and talks, usually with Kent serving as host.

“Most collectors buy in New York or Basel or Miami,” Ober points out, “but a lot of these people are also buying a significant amount in Baltimore, and I think that is in large part because of Jeffrey.”

By the 2010s, Kent had gained a solid reputation for himself as an artist and curator and organically became the go-to mentor for young artists, especially Black men in Baltimore.

Devin Allen, for instance, after receiving national attention for his black-and-white photo of the Freddie Gray riots that appeared on the cover of Time magazine (he would land another Time cover in 2020), found himself wanting to evolve his art and break free from the limits of photography. He wanted to branch out into painting and sculpture and try different mediums. Like so many others, Allen reached out to Kent, whom he’d met a few years prior, and Kent gave him studio space, where he worked for three years.

“I didn’t go to MICA or any of that,” Allen says. “I hung with local rappers, I used to hang at the Crown, but I didn’t really know any artists. When I started experimenting with sculpture, I reached out to Jeffrey because he was one of the few artists I knew who worked in different mediums. I started playing with charcoal, I would sit and watch him paint, just to learn. But from there, he taught me how to make editions, how to sell art, how to price my work, and that led to him curating my first mixed-media show.

“I’d be like, ‘Oh, it’s not perfect,’ and Jeffrey was that vehicle that assured me that it doesn’t need to be perfect. It just needed to be great. He’d be like, ‘This is important work. Do it.’”

The mixed-media show, Spaces of the UnEntitled, was installed at The Peale museum in 2019. It was Allen’s first time showing color photographs, as well as multi-media performance art, a component created by Kent and Allen together.

“That was the show that showed people, ‘Oh, he’s able to move into these other spaces.’ It transformed the way people looked at my art and what I was capable of doing,” Allen says.

The exhibit was equally as meaningful for The Peale, where Kent serves as chief curator.

“From the beginning, I wanted the programming at The Peale to be driven by the community, and here was Jeffrey coming to us as a community creator who had a story to tell with Devin, so we were very happy to put The Peale at his disposal,” says Nancy Proctor, chief strategy officer and founding director of The Peale. “The show was important, at that point in The Peale’s history, for getting the museum back on the cultural map. It had been shuttered for 20 years. Most people forgot it had even existed.”

 

“I TELL PEOPLE I’M A SELFISH GIVER,” KENT SAYS. “I GET SOMETHING OUT OF EVERYTHING I DO.”

 

Kent proposed a second show, work by Baltimore street artist Adam Stab, which he mounted later that year. By 2020, he was invited to be part of the leadership team. Proctor credits Kent’s vision as being instrumental in the rebranding and rethinking of The Peale’s mission. That year also saw the launch of Accomplished Art Apprentices, an initiative Kent founded at The Peale that allows young, marginalized men to learn the ins and outs of working in the art business—everything from handling, installing, and wrapping art to learning historical preservation techniques, mastering power tools, gaining financial literacy, and identifying best COVID policies and practices. Kent personally teaches some portions of the program but also hires other professionals to lead sessions when needed.

The first four apprentices who went through the 36-week pilot worked alongside a team of contractors who were renovating The Peale and were paid $20 an hour. Two of them have gone on to start their own business.

Kent has also recently become an adjunct professor at his alma mater, teaching MICA’s First Year Experience. He shares with freshmen what he’s learned over a handful of decades—not just painting techniques but how to be confident in your work and how to grow thicker skin, even if influential figures in the art world visit your studio and tell you your paintings are “too dusty” or your signature is “too large” (yes, Kent was told both of those things).

One might think Kent’s own art gets lost among his many other involvements, but he makes time to get into the studio every day.

Everything is thought out well ahead of putting paint to canvas, down to his signature—which, like most of the text in his pieces, is written backwards, not just a nod to his dyslexia but to give viewers the experience of having dyslexia by forcing them to slow down in order to read.

His conceptually oriented work explores social and political history, systemic racism, and groupthink, including the ways in which commodities are marketed and societal systems erected. The amount of thought behind each piece gives them multiple layers of meaning—and, often, mediums.

Following his passions and curiosity has broadened his career, reputation, and mind. In fact, there’s very little Kent hasn’t tried—in the art world and in his own art.

“I tell people I’m a selfish giver,” he says. “I get something out of everything I do. I only do something if I want to do it.”

On that note, he’s worked with nearly every material imaginable, from the more traditional (charcoal, acrylic) to the more experimental (shredded money, bricolage, and, currently, a technique he’s not yet revealed publicly). Even within a series, he’s likely to include several mediums.

He no longer has extra studio space for artists because all of his home studios are currently occupied by his own works in progress—a different medium in each room. Yet, he’s still exploring new ideas, whether it’s launching a nonprofit or venturing into a new medium.

Meanwhile, his spray-painted mural of a backwards, upside-down flag—a distress signal he painted when Donald Trump was elected, he says—runs along the length and width of his entire long and narrow house.

“I haven’t tried oil yet,” he says. “I’m gonna try that next.”

The Rev. Calvin Keene (pictured above, right) would often overhear dealers in the street outside selling crack cocaine when he was at work in his office in the Oliver neighborhood of East Baltimore. He’d lived there his entire life and, despite the drug dealers, hadn’t realized how alarmingly unsafe it had become until a 2002 firebombing left community leader Angela Dawson and her five children dead—an act of retribution for Dawson alerting police to drug activity on her street.

Fast forward to today, when the nonprofit ReBUILD, which Keene helped to spearhead, has rebuilt not just the neighborhood but its community ties and spirit, essentially making it a healthier, happier place to call home.

Keene can now say with pride that the neighborhood is not what it used to be, as he’s watched it transform before his eyes.

“When I grew up in Oliver, everyone knew my family and my family knew everybody. Councilman [Robert] Stokes lived three blocks away from me—that sort of thing,” Keene says. “It’s returning to becoming a neighborhood where people know one another again.”

ReBUILD grew out of the effort by several groups to reconstruct the Oliver neighborhood after the firebombing incident. They’ve gone on to redevelop and reduce vacancy in more than 700 East Baltimore properties.

“It starts with going to people in these communities and asking what’s working? What’s broken? Let’s build on what’s working,” says Sean Closkey, the founding president of ReBUILD. “You have to start by not displacing folks, because then you’ve actually made the hole you’re digging bigger. If you just fix these houses, it really works well.”

Closkey says the work they have done has had unbelievable effects. Since ReBUILD initiated its efforts, Oliver’s homicide rate has been cut almost in half, vacancies have gone down, and house prices have gone up—without displacing anyone.

When ReBUILD started, Oliver was considered an area of concentrated racial poverty. Now it’s a mixed-income neighborhood that has attracted coffee shops and grocery stores, as well as new residents.

ReBUILD transforms some lots into green spaces and playgrounds, which have two benefits: green spaces reduce the supply of homes in an area, thereby upping the desirability and value of homes that remain; and the neighborhood becomes more interest- ing and beautiful, which also attracts buyers. They don’t stop there. As they work to rebuild neighborhoods, literally and figuratively, they jump in anywhere they think they can help residents. At the start of the pandemic, Closkey learned of families in East Baltimore who had no food.

“Hunger is not like housing,” he says. “If you don’t get food after a couple days, there’s a real problem.”

He immediately called Keene, and they assembled a team of volunteers. At first, they were just making a couple hundred food deliveries. As the operation grew, they began feeding over 1,000 families each week for two years through the pandemic—124,100 meals over 101 weeks—discontinuing the service in May 2022.

“We are a group of people who simply respond to what’s in front of us,” Closkey says. “We have a motto: There’s nothing wrong with Baltimore that can’t be fixed by what’s right with Baltimore.”

After dropping out of college (twice), Jerrell Gibbs worked as a home health aide while he and his wife raised their daughter in Baltimore County. For a while, he worked a day shift and a night shift simultaneously to provide for his family. During one of those night shifts, he found himself looking at a picture in his phone of his wife and daughter, and, on a whim, started sketching it—something he hadn’t done since he was a kid. Then he sent the finished drawing to his wife.

“I got it and was like, ‘Who drew this?’” Sheila Gibbs remembers, laughing. “It came to me by surprise. I was impressed. I was like, okay this could be a little something. Because we were newly married and struggling financially, I was like, ‘Why don’t you start tattooing or something, make us some more money?’”

Gibbs took his wife’s advice to heart and delved more deeply into sketching and also began designing tattoos. Noticing her husband’s growing interest, Sheila bought him an easel and art supplies the following year for Father’s Day, which furthered his new “hobby.” Not only did he begin experimenting with the practice of painting, he devoured books and other materials to learn as much as he could on the subject.

“I really started to get excited about being passionate about something other than football,” Gibbs recalls. “I just kept doing it, day in and day out, spending as much time and money as I could on painting. I just fell in love with it.”

Fast-forward seven years and Gibbs, now 34, has refined his craft through formal and informal mentorship, earned an MFA, acquired representation through the Mariane Ibrahim Gallery, and solidified a reputation for his soulful portraiture that captures Black American life. Most recently, he was selected to paint a portrait of Elijah Cummings, which hung at the Baltimore Museum of Art before moving to its permanent location inside the Capitol building. It’s likely just one of what will be many milestones in Gibbs’ career.

Gibbs has a distinct style, a penchant for conveying deep emotion and the various expressions of Black culture and experience through loose, fluid brushstrokes. But he didn’t start there.

When asked if he was exposed to art growing up in West Baltimore, Gibbs laughs. There were no artists in his family and little to no access to the art world that he’s now a part of. But in retrospect, he noticed from an early age that his doodles weren’t like those by other kids.

“What I was creating didn’t look anything like other people’s creations,” he says from his home in Baltimore County. “I always knew there was something there, but I didn’t have the community or the means to nurture that.”

When he dove back into art in his twenties, he would, piece by piece, find that community, as he connected with other artists and began showing work, initially at small venues like CCBC Essex, Howard University, and Dovecote Café.

When Jeffrey Kent, something of a Baltimore icon and mentor for emerging artists, first met Gibbs, he was still working as a medical aide and, as Kent remembers, painting “Peanuts” characters—specifically Franklin, the Black character in the comic strip. Gibbs reached out to Kent several times over the course of months, until the older artist finally agreed to meet with him

“Jerrell is very persistent and very goal-driven. And I guess at the time, his goal was to meet with me,” Kent says with a laugh. “We met at Red Emma’s, and he told me, quite frankly, he wanted me to be his mentor.”

Kent was renting out studios for a low rate and invited Gibbs to utilize a space in his building, which would become Gibbs’ first studio. Kent also gave him some pointers—how to conduct himself as an artist, how to navigate the art world. Soon after, Gibbs quit his day job and began studying at Maryland Institute College of Art.

“Here’s a Black man in Baltimore, married at 26 with a daughter, and his wife is 100 percent in support of him quitting and becoming an artist,” Kent recalls in amazement. “I’m like, and you’re painting ‘Peanuts’ characters? [His family] deserves every bit of success they’re getting because of the sacrifices they have made for him to be where he is.”

Despite never completing a bachelor’s degree, Gibbs was accepted into MICA’s master’s program at the LeRoy E. Hoffberger School of Painting and started in the fall of 2018.

“It was immediately obvious that Jerrell was very focused and disciplined, very together, always working hard, and very artistically ambitious,” says MICA painting professor Stephen Ellis. Ellis remembers taking Gibbs and the rest of his class to see the Henri Matisse paintings at the BMA and watching the young man’s work evolve almost overnight. “He just absorbed the lesson in those paintings and applied it to his own work in literally a matter of days. It was amazing,” he says.

Gibbs, who had mostly been working with acrylics, began using, then mastering, oil paint and “never looked back.” Also while still a student, four of his paintings were selected for inclusion in the 2019 show “Blackface: A Reclamation of Beauty, Power, and Narrative” at Galerie Myrtis, which proved to be pivotal for his career.

Jessica Stafford Davis, who co-curated the exhibit with gallery owner Myrtis Bedolla, had met Gibbs years prior and suggested him as an artist to include. “As we did studio visits and he shared the narrative behind his work and these wonderful images of Black life, I was like, ‘Oh my God, this kid is genius,’” Bedolla says.

The first piece in the show to sell was his—an oil painting titled “Git It” that depicted a grandmother dancing. His remaining three paintings sold immediately, too, and people began asking for more.

“I really admire his conscious effort to depict Black families at leisure,” says Bedolla. “A lot of what’s addressed in Black art is about our fight against oppression and racism. Jerrell brings another important conversation but one that reminds us of our humanity, our leisure, our play, and that’s a part of our culture that also needs to be shared. His work is a reflection of humanity, and my hope is that people of all races and cultures and belief systems will see themselves in it.”

Stafford Davis echoes that sentiment and notes that his collectors cross generational and geographical lines. “I think it’s because the subject of the work is universal,” she says.

Gibbs’ online bio alludes to this universality, stating, “Gibbs invigorates banal representations of Black identity by depicting empathy, inviting the possibility for a spiritual connection.”

When talking about his process for painting portraits, Gibbs describes something akin to an actor getting into character—and perhaps it’s through this personal process that he’s able to capture something transcendent.

“It’s about me,” he says, simply. “That’s why there’s so much emotion within the figures in the paintings, because I’m placing myself into their space. I’m thinking about myself and whatever I’m going through and allowing the figure to be the avatar for me, whether it’s male or female. . . . It’s almost like becoming the thing, becoming the person, in order to relay the message.”

After Gibbs was commissioned by the BMA to paint the portrait of Elijah Cummings, he read articles online about the congressman, as well as Cummings’ 2020 book We’re Better Than This in preparation. He had long conversations with Cummings’ widow, Maya Rockeymoore Cummings. He watched YouTube videos of Cummings speaking and paid close attention to his disposition, even if it was a clip of him sitting in an audience.

“Becoming the person,” Gibbs repeats. “I wanted to see, hear, and find out who this person was to the best of my ability. I wanted to become Elijah Cummings so I could portray his true essence.”

Certainly, Gibbs’ demonstration of skill and technique in portraiture caught the attention of the BMA selection committee, but it was more than that.

“I thought about his trajectory,” says Kent, a committee member. “The other artists were just as talented, but Jerrell was the only one represented by a gallerist, he was already being collected by museums, and these things were moving him into the world stage, as we’re seeing now. And also his work ethic. It’s unmatched.”

Gibbs says his successes have come through routine, which keeps him grounded and focused. He wasn’t always so structured. Around 2016, something the motivational speaker Eric Thomas said caught his attention.

“He was talking about taking advantage of the opportunities that you have in the time that you have, and I realized that a lot of my losses were coming from the fact that I wasn’t intentional about the hours in my day,” Gibbs recalls. “Right then in that moment, I made an intentional shift about the time I was spending with my craft, with my family, with my friends, with myself. I just got really specific about not wasting a lot of time.”

On weekdays, for instance, he takes his daughter to school, works out, then spends four to five hours painting in his current space at Parkdale Studios. He also makes time every other day to be tutored in French—a practice he began after gaining representation from Mariane Ibrahim Gallery, which has locations in Chicago and Paris. He wanted to learn the language so he’d be able to conduct a basic conversation, especially when, in September, his work will be featured in a solo exhibition at the gallery’s Paris location.

In April, Gibbs went to Paris for the first time, along with his wife and daughter. As he immersed himself in the culture, something funny happened.

“What really struck me while I was in Paris was that I started to love Baltimore that much more,” he says. “I saw what makes Paris special—the architecture, the cuisine, the artwork, the Louvre, everybody walking around smoking cigarettes, people eating outside. It was beautiful. They even display the macarons in a way that was creative. This is why people love to go there. Why do people like going to Baltimore?”

He thought about that a lot. And after reminiscing and waxing nostalgic about his favorite pastimes back home—visits with his grandma, getting crabs from Lexington Market—he thought, what better way to express his love for his home city than to share his Baltimore with Paris.

Gibbs was preparing to return to Paris and work on his exhibit for a full month in June (our interview was conducted in May). Among croissants and macarons, he planned to make paintings of blue crabs. With the Eiffel Tower and the Louvre as his backdrop, he would capture West Baltimore and folks sitting on stoops and enjoying backyard barbecues.

“I was thinking about what I really appreciate about an artist and realized the artists that I gravitate to always tell me about their experiences and where they’re from,” Gibbs says. “I’m thinking about Kanye West. His first album, The College Dropout, he was talking about Chicago and his upbringing and experiences. Jay-Z, same thing. Kendrick Lamar talking about L.A., talking about Compton. J. Cole talking about North Carolina. I fell in love with them because of that. So why wouldn’t I bring Baltimore to Paris and talk about all the beauty that is here?”

When Emma* found herself gasping for breath one evening in July, she shrugged it off. As a 38-year-old with no prior health issues, she assumed it would resolve on its own. But as the night went on, she continued to find it difficult to breathe, as though there were a heavy weight on her chest.

The Salisbury resident, who lives alone, phoned 911 around dawn and was taken to the ER by ambulance. There, she was wheeled on a gurney to a nursing station, where she waited for what felt like 45 minutes before finally, somewhat desperately, telling the staff she really needed to be seen now. She couldn’t breathe. In retrospect, she wishes she had called 911 immediately that evening, rather than waiting until dawn, as she realizes that was just more time her brain was not getting enough oxygen. She was put on a nasal cannula, which delivered oxygen through her nose.

Despite a negative COVID-19 test, Emma was told she likely had COVID—or another virus. Her white blood cell count was high, but all other tests came back normal. After two days, she was released.

“I came home to a whole new world,” she says. Her brain was not functioning as it used to, and seven months later, her symptoms persist. She struggles with short-term memory, in particular, and, like so many others suffering from brain injuries, she’s had difficulty finding the care that she needs.

“I don’t really know what the lessened oxygen has done to my brain, but I’m aware that lack of oxygen can cause memory problems,” she says. “I keep returning to: There must be damage to some areas of my brain that otherwise functioned before the lack of oxygen…Now I’ve come to terms with the fact that this kind of experience does lead to a brain injury.”

While people are becoming more aware of traumatic brain injuries, such as the kind you receive from a blow to the head, non-traumatic brain injuries—anoxic and hypoxic injuries caused by oxygen deprivation—have similar chronic effects, and can be just as detrimental and tricky to treat.

The pandemic, meanwhile, has become a perfect storm for these types of brain injuries. COVID itself can result in lack of oxygen and strokes. (That loss of taste and smell that continues for several weeks or months after a COVID infection? Experts say it can be due to brain damage.) The pandemic has also exacerbated domestic violence and drug abuse, both of which often lead to brain injury—through overdoses and, in the case of domestic violence, strangulation.

“One of the great challenges of an anoxic or hypoxic brain injury is that you really don’t know where the oxygen stopped going,” says Bryan Pugh, executive director of the Brain Injury Association of Maryland, which is based in Baltimore. “If I’m in a car crash and my airbag goes off, it’s really likely I’ve got a frontal brain injury. Then you have the ‘coup-contrecoup’ [injury], which sends your head back, and it’s very likely you have an occipital injury because the brain hits the back of your skull. If I get T-boned, the part of the brain that’s going to be impacted the most is the side, so you know what to look for.”

It’s much more difficult, however, to diagnose a brain injury due to loss of oxygen. “The reality is, with overdoses and strangulation and COVID, or any time you’re cutting oxygen off from the brain, you really don’t know what’s damaged,” explains Pugh. “It’s incredibly frustrating when you’re trying to tell a family member how long the recovery is gonna be, are they gonna recover, what are they gonna recover…You’re talking about the organ in the body that is both your personality and you. There’s a lot wrapped up in it.”

Patients out of acute danger are still left confused and frustrated. They say things like, “‘I used to be a mountain biker, and now I can’t balance to ride a bike,’” says Pugh. “Or ‘I used to be a reader, and now I forget everything I read.’ Or ‘I used to like to go to the movies, and now the flashing lights and the noise drive me insane.’ You just have to find your new normal.”

Which is not to say improvement and recovery is impossible. “The brain is an amazing organ and can rewire itself,” says Pugh. “We’ll see recovery from brain injuries 20 years out, 30 years out—all of a sudden they can do something they couldn’t do before.”

There’s a saying: If you know one person with a brain injury, you know one brain injury. Some commonalities are memory loss, slower processing time, sensitivity to light and sound, irrational anger outbursts, mental and physical fatigue, depression and anxiety, brain fog, impaired ability to make decisions or plans, poor impulse control, weakness, balance issues, smell and taste disorders, and headaches.

Dr. Anna Agranovich, a rehabilitation neuropsychologist at Johns Hopkins Medicine, performs a cognitive assessment to identify strengths and weaknesses of brain injury patients. Some tests, including MRIs and CT scans, can sometimes show injury. Treatment consists primarily of mitigating symptoms.

“We work together with our rehabilitation team in designing strategies to build on their strengths and get around their weaknesses,” Agranovich says. “We teach coping skills. There’s no one-size-fits-all. It’s very targeted and specific to each individual.”

They teach mindfulness to help with poor impulse control and emotional regulation, as well as compensatory memory strategies, like writing down important things to remember. “It’s a combination of different approaches based on a person’s presentation and their needs and level of functioning,” Agranovich says.

 

“THE BRAIN IS AN AMAZING ORGAN AND CAN REWIRE ITSELF…”

 

DOVE, a program at Northwest Hospital in Randallstown, provides services to victims of domestic violence, many of whom suffer brain injuries. A 2017-2019 study by Brain Injury Alliance Nebraska found that 58 percent of women screened for a possible brain injury in domestic violence shelters tested positive. Estimates of individuals with brain injury in the public range anywhere from five to 24 percent. And in some cases, the person doesn’t even know it.

“We think of head injury as being one really bad injury to the head, but it could be that they’ve been strangled repeatedly and maybe thrown to the ground and hit their head a bunch of times,” says DOVE founder Audrey Bergin. “Maybe no one time caused loss of consciousness or any obvious injury, but the cumulative effect can impact the brain.”

Bergin has spent decades helping domestic violence victims, and says even diagnosing brain trauma is an uphill battle.

“One time I was in the hospital with someone who had been strangled really badly, and no one was offering to do any sort of radio-logical exam,” she says. “I thought, I’ve broken bones before and it’s not obvious on the outside that something’s wrong, but when they X-ray it, they see there’s a problem…In the emergency room, they’re just treating the emergency. With head trauma, there can be long-term, lingering effects.”

Because so many people come to DOVE with brain injuries, the staff is sensitive to their needs. They use lamps rather than fluorescent lights in the facility because fluorescents often bother people with brain injuries and can cause headaches. They supply everyone with a notepad and pen to help with short-term memory issues. They give clients information in small pieces, because they often have a litany of things to do and it’s hard for them to plan and be organized.

“It can be so complicated with these clients, when you see that they’re missing appointments and not able to prioritize, and realizing that it could be from emotional trauma or mental health issues or a brain injury,” Bergin says. “It could be very easy to label someone and say, ‘Oh, they’re not cooperating,’ or ‘They don’t want help.’ We try to understand what’s going on and not make assumptions.”

DOVE is staffed with counselors, case managers, an attorney, even a therapy dog, and a part-time nurse at LifeBridge follows up with client care. Since the pandemic began, Bergin has seen a huge increase in requests for therapy services, as well as an uptick in lethal domestic violence by an estimated 35 percent increase, and a 700 percent increase in the number of clients DOVE is sheltering.

“These women might say, ‘No, he never punched me in the face, but he choked me unconscious all the time’—which can lead to cognitive and executive functioning issues and the inability to initiate,” says Pugh. “Why do these women stay with these men? Maybe they have a brain injury and they’re not capable of thinking through how to [leave]. This was only made worse with COVID, because now you had to hunker down in place with your abuser, and there’s a greater likelihood that they lost their job or started using drugs or you started using drugs.”

After leveling off for three years, likely due to the overdose treatment Narcan, opioid overdose deaths increased by 23 percent in 2020. And those who survive drug overdoses are far from out of the woods.

“Now with fentanyl being sprayed on marijuana and mixed with Xanax and other drugs, people think they’re getting one thing and they’re not prepared to handle the high intensity,” Pugh says. “First responders are amazing at bringing these people back with Narcan, but it’s taking six, seven, eight hits [to revive them], and that takes five minutes each time, so some of these folks are coming back and they’ve basically been at the bottom of a pool for 30 minutes.

“We’re training people on using Narcan, but we’re bringing people back without really letting them know that, okay, you have a substance abuse disorder now, but you’ve woken up with a brain injury, and we have to treat that accordingly.”

Leslee Cramer, a longtime educator with Frederick County Public Schools, was in an abusive relationship when she was 18. Only years later, when working with a therapist, did she realize it had caused a brain injury.

“I was nearly strangled to death,” she remembers. “It took me four years in therapy to admit that was a brain injury. I never had a proper diagnosis, but I’m just as disabled as the person down the street who had a stroke and can’t speak.”

She has also suffered concussions since then, and notes that brain injuries have a cumulative effect. Now 57, she continues to have problems with energy, memory, processing information, headaches and neck pain, hormonal issues, and her seasonal depressive disorder was exacerbated “by a million,” as she put it—to the point where she moved to Florida about two years ago for the sunshine and warmer weather, knowing if she stayed in Maryland, she couldn’t function.

“I’m an educated person, and the first thing you think is you can research your way out of a brain injury,” she says. She’s tried various doctors, neurologists, psychiatrists, supplements, and biofeedback. Nothing has helped but coping strategies, adjusting her lifestyle as best she can. “A lot of us are struggling, and we’re falling through the cracks,” she says. “Thank God for art and music and sunshine.”

*Not her real name.

When Katherine Fahey was in grade school, one assignment changed the course of her destiny. She was tasked with creating a papercutting, but instead of the usual hearts or snowflakes fifth-graders might make, she challenged herself to cut a panda bear in the middle of a bamboo patch.

The homework came at a time when Fahey was sick and had to stay home from school for a couple days. She remembers spending hours in bed, likely with a fever, slowly cutting by hand her intricate image.

“I go back to school and have this amazing papercut, and my teacher was like, ‘Wow,’” Fahey recalls. “I think that was the first time someone had said to me, ‘You’re an artist.’ People had known my drawing before that, but I remember that being the year when teachers started saying things to me like, ‘It’s okay you’re not good at science.’”

Suffice it to say, her papercuttings have become even more elaborate over the years. But it was the discovery of “crankies”—the 19th-century art form that combines storytelling and a hand-cranked scroll of illustrated images—that allowed her to integrate her work as a papercut artist, shadow puppeteer, and vocalist with her love of folk tales.

Crankies, in a word, became her niche—so much so that she’s now known as the Godmother of Baltimore Crankies, the Jane Appleseed of Crankies, or the Matron Saint of Crankies, depending on whom you ask, and her devotion to the all-but-lost art form has had a ripple effect on the Baltimore arts community.

In addition to helping found the annual, wildly popular Crankie Fest at the Creative Alliance with folk duo Anna & Elizabeth—which was set to return Jan. 7-9 but has since been postponed until May 20-22 due to COVID-19—Fahey has toured her crankies around the U.S. and leads workshops for students young and old. All the while, as the city has become known as the epicenter of mechanical, often musical, moving picture shows, she’s continued to empower others to tell their own stories.

“It’s so inspiring,” says Lauraville crankie artist Liz Downing. “You see people at [crankie] shows go, ‘I’d like to do that. I have a story.’ Anyone can create a crankie and have it be meaningful. Kathy, I think, has inspired the crankies to continue. The festival is just once a year, but she takes her work all over the city. It’s just a beautiful Baltimore thing.”

Though they were called moving panoramas at the time, crankies began in the 1800s as a way to expand upon the fashionable panoramic paintings of the era. Artists began creating long paintings that were wrapped around two large spools on either end and hand-cranked to create a scrolling story with a beginning, middle, and end, rather than a static image. It was, in effect, the beginnings of modern cinema.

These moving panoramas were toured throughout the world, transporting people to new places and cultures they’d never seen. Some were created to encapsulate and preserve the stories of historical events. Others depicted astonishing geographical features (voyages to the Arctic) or impressive urban development (a train ride from London to Paris). Several depicted the Mississippi River and included the towns and stories that ran alongside it, the most famous being John Banvard’s painted crankie that was said to be three miles long. Sometimes the scrolls acted as backdrops to plays, revealing changing scenery. Mostly, the crankies were accompanied by a storyteller and served as the main focal point of the performance.

Crankies all but disappeared with the advent of motion pictures at the turn of the century. As far as anyone knows, next to none were made for the next 100 years. Almost imperceptibly, a slow but steady resurgence began, and now, modern tools have evolved the art form into new directions.

Fahey’s first exposure to crankies came about a decade ago through Philadelphia-based shadow puppet and papercut artist Erik Ruin. “I just thought, I don’t know what that is, but I want to do that,” Fahey recalls. “I started basically forcing my friends to make shadow puppets with me at parties.”

Meanwhile, the acclaimed Baltimore indie duo Wye Oak—Jenn Wasner and Andy Stack—who had recently signed with a label and had been to a few of these parties, needed a music video. They asked Fahey if she would create one with her papercuttings and shadow puppets. Thus began Fahey’s first crankie, a vertical scroll that was filmed for the song “Fish,” which has since been viewed more than 255,000 times on YouTube.

But it was another house party, where Fahey met Virginia-based old-time music duo Anna & Elizabeth, that would prove to be even more pivotal. A mutual Baltimore friend, musician Caleb Stine, kept insisting that she come to his upcoming house show, without revealing why. Once there, Fahey was spellbound by Anna & Elizabeth performing their music alongside a crankie they’d made to illustrate the songs.

“Kathy saw our crankie and was just very sweetly complimentary, saying that our show really resonated with her,” recalls Elizabeth LaPrelle. “She told us she was making a crankie, too.”

They became fast friends, especially after Anna Roberts-Gevalt moved to Baltimore, and they toured their crankies together throughout New England. They also co-founded Crankie Fest in 2014, with the help of Josh Kohn, performance director at the Creative Alliance. The winter tradition would prove to be not only an annual must-see for audiences but a major boost for the art form.

“Because of Kathy and Anna & Elizabeth, the crankie community here in Baltimore became so much more prolific,” says Valeska Populoh, who teaches puppetry at Maryland Institute College of Art and co-founded Black Cherry Puppet Theater’s Puppet Slams. “People making them here would go tour with them and meet people who were making them in other places, and then those people would come here, so it sort of built a totally new ecology around crankies.”

In its first years, Crankie Fest organizers reached out to artists, storytellers, and musicians in the Baltimore area, asking them to make crankies for the festival—though often after first having to explain what a crankie is.

Liz Downing, for example, had been a longtime visual artist and performer and had created visual components for plays, like costumes and set designs, but, similar to Fahey, she’d never rolled all of her various art forms into one until she was invited to make a scroll and perform for Crankie Fest. Now it’s a medium she returns to again and again. Populoh, too, was inspired by the festival to make her first crankie, “The Holy Land,” which she used as a vehicle to protest the building of a new city incinerator.

“It’s lovely to be drawn into the intimacy of the performance. I think for many people, there’s something very grounded and calming about experiencing someone telling a story this way,” Populoh says. “We live in a world where there are images flooding our eyes and minds all the time, and we have access to all of this high-tech equipment, all of these digital tricks. What I’m really drawn to with crankies is the accessibility in a world that is so deeply inequitable. If you have a story to tell and you have some basic materials, you can tell a compelling story. And I think we need that. The need to make sense of the lives we’re living is so fundamental and so ancient.”

Soft-spoken and studious, Fahey has always been drawn to folk art in various forms. Upon reflection, she realized most of her close friends practice such old-world arts as well—painting, sewing, quilting. She’s also attracted to old-fashioned objects and abandoned things, often incorporating them into her sculptural work as a student at MICA.

Fahey credits her father with instilling in her an appreciation for these crafts of yesteryear. He was sick for most of his life and worked from home as a mapmaker. His large basement studio impressed upon Fahey from a young age the marvels of old tools, lightboxes, and darkrooms. He was a cartographer at a time when the practice was quickly shifting to become computer-based.  Students who’d gone to school for cartography, in fact, would email him every week, Fahey remembers. He was also the first person to put an X-ACTO knife in Fahey’s hand, “probably younger than most,” she says with laugh. “He would set me up and let me draw at the tables.”

Before beginning a new crankie, Fahey researches her subject tirelessly, reading old folktale books and whatever she can get her hands on. She finds stories she thinks need to be told, ones that might otherwise be forgotten.

She’s made a crankie about Elizabeth Whitmore, a midwife pioneer in Vermont during Colonial times who survived a winter alone with her daughter—while also traveling by horse or canoe, day or night, to help women deliver their babies.

“It’s people like that that make me want to tell stories,” Fahey says. “There are these personal stories of people who are kind of forgotten—nobody knows who they are, they’re never gonna be on TV, they’re never gonna have a book written about them. Here was this woman who was so amazing.”

Another of her crankies tells the story of the arabbers in Baltimore, who have a stable behind her house. “We are the only city in the U.S. with horse-cart vendors,” Fahey explains, “and with some of these guys, their grandfathers did this or it was their family’s way to support themselves when they came out of slavery. It’s really meaningful. It’s not just a career choice.”

She’s also created a crankie about a native Inuit folktale and invited Inuit throat singers to the stage to perform it with her. Perhaps her most personal crankie, though, told the story of her father after he passed. She used various birds as metaphors to show what her father was like and how he inspired her to be an artist and follow her heart.

“She deeply cares about her stories,” says Creative Alliance’s Kohn, adding Fahey is the only artist to have performed at every Crankie Fest. “She has an open invitation, and every year, she surprises us with something new.”

After finding her story, Fahey works in the studio space she shares with her partner, artist Dan Van Allen, in their 19-room home—and creates papercut images to illustrate the story. Then, she lays out her quilt-like cuttings along a scroll, sometimes 100-feet long, as you would a storyboard, rearranging as needed. Rather than paper, she uses the more durable Tyvek house wrap (the stuff new homes are wrapped in) to create her scrolls—a tactic others have adopted.

The scroll is then wound around two hand cranks inside a wooden box that’s backlit with a lightbulb. Handmade shadow puppets bring additional movement to the scrolling crankie. One of her more recent puppets is a serpent whose eyes, tongue, and tail movements she controls with a single finger.

Fahey eased into the performance aspect incrementally—from making papercuttings to filming them as moving images and ultimately to performing her crankies live with story and song.

“The two things I always said I’d never be were a teacher and a performer, and now I’m both,” Fahey says, chuckling. “I was the shyest, shyest, shyest kid. I’d started singing because my father was so worried about how shy I was. He was like, ‘I really think you should join the choir. I really think it would be good for you.’”

LaPrelle remembers Fahey being quite nervous about performing when they first went on tour together, “but now she says it’s her favorite part.”

When the pandemic started, Fahey and Van Allen transformed their van to include a pullout stage and began traveling to neighborhoods throughout the city to deliver outdoor, COVID-19-safe crankie performances, like a traveling medicine show.

“The sidewalk is just as good to her as a theater,” says Downing, who caught one of their outdoor performances near her Lauraville neighborhood. “It was just such a beautiful relief to have art and people gathered during the pandemic.”

They’ve performed in yards, at parks, in cul-de-sacs, on rowhouse porches—anywhere that neighbors can gather together in a safe way. All they need is an extension cord.

“I love the low-tech, do-it-yourself accessibility of crankies,” says Van Allen. “At Light City, artists had millions of dollars worth of lighting and flashing lights and all kinds of lasers and gimmicks, and we have a big crowd gathered with one light bulb.”

Sometimes Van Allen, an accomplished artist in his own right, will read his poetry before one of Fahey’s shows. Often, he also acts as the shadow puppeteer and sound effects guy—replicating the jingling bells and clop-clop-clopping of the arabbers’ horses, and the singing of neighborhood birds.

“It’s really fun and exciting to be able to make crankies, because I can be a low-budget, independent artist,” Fahey says. “When I was in college, I was like, ‘Oh no. I want to be an artist, but I don’t want to mass produce art, I don’t want to make elitist art, I don’t want to make art that’s for galleries only,’ and this was the thing I puzzled over for 20 years—how do I do that? When I started making the crankies, I thought, ‘This is how I do it.’ I don’t have to compromise my way of being in the world.”

Anu Das’ series of necklaces—in silk, lace, and embroidered glass beads—address climate change and its effects on communities of people and wildlife. Molli Chang’s film short, Sweet Symphony, depicts a mother-daughter relationship—and the daughter’s (seemingly more loving) connection with her cello. A mixed-media collage by Marlo De Lara, with the accompanying ambient audio “Pandemic Scores,” elicits tense feelings experienced by those living through crises across the globe.

For 50 years, the Asian Arts & Culture Center (AA&CC), which operates as a nonprofit within Towson University’s Center for the Arts, has exhibited this type of impactful work by Asian artists as a catalyst to stimulate conversation and education about Asian culture. 

Currently, paintings, drawings, screenprints, film, sculpture, and portrait dolls by two dozen regional Asian-American and Pacific-Islander artists are on view as part of the AA&CC’s third-annual Asia North Festival, which runs through May 15 and is a highlight of year-round programming celebrating the center’s 50th anniversary. The festival also features art, workshops, performances, cooking demonstrations, and talks at venues throughout the Station North Arts District.

“Art is accessible,” says AA&CC director Joanna Pecore, who started her role at the center in 2014 and has devoted her life to learning about different cultures through the arts. “You can connect to any art form without necessarily knowing a language. Everybody can have a response to it, and it has multiple access points. History and culture, personal and community experiences—they are all embedded in works of art.

“You see so many things like cultural competency training, which are good, but can only go so far,” she continues. “You’re just learning techniques and facts about different cultures. You’re not really connecting to anything. But with the arts, you are actually connecting and experiencing.”

As part of the AA&CC’s mission, staff encourages people on campus and in the community to engage with the art, music, film, and performances at the center in myriad ways. This can be by viewing and listening, but also participating in workshops to connect to the art and to one another. Pieces highlighted at the AA&CC ideally serve as a springboard for cross-cultural dialogue that extends beyond the campus and impacts the wider community.

“Asian art can typically be more focused on traditional arts and collecting antiquities,” says Asia North curator and AA&CC’s program manager Nerissa Paglinauan, “but Asian art is a living thing. It’s the work of these living artists and incorporates their immigrant experiences. A lot of them combine traditional art forms with contemporary practices.”

Under Pecore’s leadership, the AA&CC team and featured artists have worked to be more involved in the community throughout the years, rather than  representing static art collections—as exquisite as the pieces may be.

“There is a civic act, a civic engagement, in the participation in art,” says Michele Alexander, marketing and public relations manager at Towson University. “It connects with your basic human needs and what all of us share. I think it’s a more impactful experience when it comes to learning something.”

The AA&CC team also aims to be as inclusive as possible and involve Baltimore as a whole—which is perhaps evident most dramatically in their Asia North Festival, but also noticeable in more subtle ways throughout the year. At a recent interactive installation at the AA&CC gallery, visitors were invited to add to a sand mandala design being created on the floor by pouring various dispensers of colored sand.

When a group of international students visited from South America, “They said, ‘This is exactly what we do at home,’” Paglinauan recalls. “They had no idea that they were connected to a South Asian art tradition. There are so many ways of making connections where you didn’t know there was one, and cultures that can seem really different do have these similarities.”

As part of AA&CC’s anniversary programming, Phaan Howng’s exhibit, “A Bag of Rocks for A Bag of Rice,” has been extended through May 15 at the AA&CC gallery on campus. It can be viewed online and by appointment beginning May 3. A case study of East Asian rock gardens, the exhibit explores the history of privilege, exploitation of labor and natural resources, and cultural appropriation behind the beautiful aesthetic of these Zen gardens. 

All of the Asia North artwork can be viewed online in an extensive virtual exhibit, and the festival will also be featured as a component of a Station North walking tour on May 7.

Drawing attention to Asian culture and the AA&CC seems particularly relevant this year, in the midst of repeated hate-crimes across the country toward Asian-Americans.

“The point of all of this is to educate,” Pecore says. “The Asian-American experience has never been a priority in this country. We can’t do enough soon enough.”

In recent months, singer-songwriter Brittney Spencer has caught the attention of more than a few artists and national music outlets for her penchant for writing honest, raw country songs, sung with soul.

In January, Spotify named Spencer among its “Hot Country Artists to Watch” list for 2021. And just a week prior, Spencer was selected by CMT as one of about a dozen performers in its “Next Women of Country” class of 2021. A few months back, members of The Highwomen caught Spencer covering their song “Crowded Table” on Twitter and invited her to play with them.

The artist was born and raised in Baltimore, and she credits this city for giving her a solid foundation from which to grow musically. In 2013, she moved to Nashville to get serious about her country music career and has spent the past eight years there, honing her craft.

We caught up with Spencer to talk about her Baltimore roots, the gospel thread throughout her music, and what she’s been up to during the pandemic.

Tell us a little about growing up in the church and how it, and the music, were a part of your life.
Church, for me, was very cultural. It’s spiritual, but also very cultural. Families like mine, we couldn’t really afford singing lessons or anything like that, so I just sang in the church all the time. I spent a lot of time there as a kid, because there was always an opportunity to sing. We went to quite a few churches, but the main church where people knew me was Empowerment Temple, off of Reisterstown Road. I served there for about a year, when I was about 20, as the minister of music. That was the last thing I did with the church before I stopped and started focusing on my move to Nashville.

Did you come from a musical family?
Everyone in my family sings, but no one made a career out of it. My dad had a quartet band, my aunt sings, my late uncle sang. Yeah, we’re just a singing family.

When did you learn guitar and piano?
I learned all of that while I was in Baltimore. I went to magnet schools—Loch Raven Academy for middle school and George Washington Carver Center for Arts and Technology for high school. They teach you piano, but I wasn’t proficient. Actually, I’m still not proficient. It’s just a songwriting tool for me.

Were you performing anywhere besides your church while you were still living in Baltimore, like open mics? Were there any people who encouraged your music career?
At the time, I was just singing at church and meeting other singers in the community, like Monét Guthrie Shelton, a vocal coach who taught me how to sing in the studio. She co-founded STEMS Music, an agency for background singers and studio singers in the DMV area, and really took me under her wing. She taught me how to sing in the studio and for other artists, mainly gospel and R&B artists, like Jason Nelson. I sang behind Carl Thomas, and I sang background for Lil’ Mo, who at the time lived in Baltimore.

For me, Baltimore is such a foundation piece in my story. It’s where I learned how to sing in the studio, it’s where I learned how to sing in general, how to be musically eclectic, and how to make music that invites other people to follow along the journey, whatever that journey is. It set me up for Nashville. Nashville has polished me up and helped me find my voice, but I attribute everything I am to Baltimore.

“Baltimore is such a foundation piece in my story. It’s where I learned how to be musically eclectic, and how to make music that invites other people to follow along the journey, whatever that journey is.”

Tell us about Nashville. Had you been there before you moved there? And what was it like to decide to go all in with your music as a career?
I’d always wanted to do country music, I just never had the nerve. I didn’t know if I could do it. I’d watch interviews with Taylor Swift and Reba—I’m really big on documentaries—and they’d say their parents knew they could sing, and they always moved to Nashville. So that stayed in my mind. I kept getting laid off from jobs—I’d gotten laid off three times in a row—because it was just a rough time, economically, in the city. I was like, “You know what? This is miserable, I don’t have money, and if I’m gonna be miserable, I at least want to be doing something I love.”

So I found a way to get out of my lease in an apartment in Mt. Vernon, and moved in with my dad for a year, just to save up. I’d only taken a weekend trip to Nashville in October to look at apartments and go to a few job interviews while I was there, and then I moved that February in 2013. I got an apartment, got a job. I drove in the middle of the night, got to Nashville. I didn’t know anybody. I just made it work. I knew I needed to be here and really saturate myself in the music here. I knew I needed to learn to write songs better and be around musicians who actually played country music, which was a little bit of a challenge in Baltimore.

Baltimore is really big on jazz and rock and gospel, but there’s not a whole lot of country. It’s a great base for concerts if you’re on tour, but in terms of the creative side of it, it was hard to find people who were serious about writing the music. So I was just on a mission. I needed to know I could make it work. I’ve done a lot of odd jobs that allowed me a lot of space and time to do music, and I’ve since gotten my degree in public relations and music business from Middle Tennessee State University.

What has the pandemic been like for you? Have you been able to be creatively productive?
Yes, I’ve still been able to be productive. I’m still making music, working on content, about to release some video content. During the pandemic, when there’s no live music, it’s given me more time, but also a need to do some part-time work outside of music. Honestly, it’s been a great time for me. I just released my first EP this past summer—and to release my first solo project in the middle of a pandemic and for it to be doing relatively well is incredible and kind of blows my mind.

It seems like people need art and music more than ever during these times of isolation. Do you find that to be true for you?
I think that music is so important because it’s not just been a pandemic, vacant of anything but COVID. We’ve had a lot of unrest in the country, and it’s been a jam-packed time of solitude. I think music has played a vital role, almost like a sanctuary for people. It can also provide an escape. I think people have leaned more into entertainment in general. They’ve clung to that a whole lot tighter.

“[In these times of isolation] music has played a vital role, almost like a sanctuary for people. It can also provide an escape. I think people have leaned more into entertainment in general. They’ve clung to that a whole lot tighter.”

What was your introduction to country music? I read that you were blown away the first time you heard the Dixie Chicks—was that your first taste of the genre?
There are two versions of this story. The first time I consciously knew I was listening to country music was when a friend of mine in Baltimore put on the Chicks and said, “You need to listen to them.” I didn’t know who they were, I didn’t understand the genre, but she played an album in her car, and I just fell in love. It sounded like church to me. It sounded like a quartet. But they were telling a different story. It got my wheels spinning and sent me on a path where I started watching CMT and listening to 93.1 WPOC, particularly the “Laurie DeYoung Morning Show.”

Before then, I’d heard country music, but it was crossover country. In the school buses as a kid, they’d play the alternative rock stations, probably because it was neutral and wasn’t harmful for the kids to listen to and also enjoyable for the bus driver. They’d play an eclectic mix—Mariah Carey, Prince, Journey, and also Tim McGraw, Kelly Clarkson, Shania Twain. I didn’t really understand genres, and listening to that as a kid contributed to my not really understanding genre to this day. They just played whatever was good. So, without knowing it, I was already hearing country.

Right. It’s like genres are almost becoming obsolete. You can trace them back to their roots and their essence, which is really distinct, but now there are so many layers of crossover. That seems to be where we’re going.
Yeah, because kids like me grew up listening to alternative rock stations, where there was no genre. We just didn’t use it. And now we’re kind of emulating that in our music.

Were you writing songs in Baltimore as a teenager?
The first song I ever wrote was as a teenager. It was called “Stay with Me.” It was a country song. Prior to that, my introduction to songwriting was writing voicemails—where you call someone and they don’t answer and someone’s singing a song on their voicemail, instructing you to leave a message. It was a very retro thing when I did it. People just weren’t doing it anymore, but I thought it was cool. I found ways to manipulate the technology, where I’d be singing three-part harmonies. I was so serious. I spent hours. I’d take theme songs, from “The Brady Bunch” or “Wheel of Fortune” and change the lyrics so that it would basically be about me not answering my phone and asking people to leave a message.

It kind of spread, and I started doing it for other people in church. It was interesting. When you call someone and want to leave a message, and you hear this person singing, it’s a conversation starter when you get a call back, like, “Who was that person singing in your voicemail?” So then I started doing voicemails for all kinds of people—not just in Baltimore but across the country [laughs]. I brought it back like a ‘90s trend.

“I like to be around people who are honest about how broken they are, because all of us are. I try to make music that caters to those people.”

In light of all the unrest throughout the past year, do you feel any responsibility as an artist to address current issues in your music or use your songs as activism?
I don’t feel a responsibility to be an activist. I have so much respect for people who are really boots-on-the-ground when it comes to activism. I think I do have the responsibility to tell the truth, and sometimes that looks like activism. Sometimes that means telling my experience or writing about something that I know weighs on the hearts of a lot of people.

A lot of your songs have Christian themes running through them and have a gospel feel. And, of course, there’s the stigma of being a Black woman in country music, but there’s also the stigma of Christian music being, well, not great music, to be blunt.
No, you’re absolutely right.

I’m curious if you ever considered branding yourself as a Christian artist or debated which lane to go down, which genre to focus on, or how you would be perceived.
Being a gospel or Christian artist was never really part of my plan. I don’t have an interest in branding my faith, but what I believe does come out in my songs, maybe in untraditional ways. In “Whiskey Lows,” I’m just singing about drinking alcohol, but it’s a drunken prayer.

I don’t really write traditional Christian songs, and I’ve been kind of intentional about it because I want to tell the truth from a different perspective. I wanna tell about the person who grew up in church, but their life doesn’t look the way the church told them their life should look, but that doesn’t mean they don’t have faith anymore or they’re lost. I kind of gravitate to those people anyway—the misfits, the broken, the people who don’t fit the mold. I like to be around people who are honest about how broken they are, because all of us are. I try to make music that caters to those people.

What was it about country music that really drew you in?
Country music is “three chords and the truth.” I mean, I definitely have more than three chords, but I’m trying to tell the truth, which means looking at the big picture, the whole story.

You could say that the humanities have become Phoebe Stein’s life’s work. After teaching writing and literature at Loyola University Chicago and earning her PhD in English, she wanted to gain nonprofit experience and started as an intern at what was then called Illinois Humanities Council (now Illinois Humanities). She later worked in their communications office for eight years before returning to Maryland, her home state, to become the executive director of Maryland Humanities, where she served for nearly 12 years.

February marks Stein’s last month with Maryland Humanities. In May, Stein, 53, will become the president of the Federation of State Humanities Councils, broadening her reach to integrate the humanities into communities across the country. Before her last day, we sat down with Stein to look back on her more than a decade-long tenure with Maryland Humanities.

Humanities is such a broad term. What does that word mean to you, and why do you think it’s important?
Really broadly, what it means to me is the ways humans have understood what it means to be human. That’s what I think the humanities are. Literature, history, philosophy, ethics, the law, journalism, we also have some programs that support archaeology. Here [at Maryland Humanities], we bleed into the social sciences a bit. I think it’s important and I’m proudest of the work that we—and it’s definitely a “we” here—have done to show the value of using those lenses to give context to a current moment, understand the past, and think about the future. I think the humanities really equip us to do that.

Also for me, the humanities are not just areas of study or disciplines; they’re really what happens when we are coming together as communities, and that can be virtual or face-to-face. It is in the interchange, the exchange, and what we’re learning from each other.

You came on board with Maryland Humanities in the summer of 2008, just as the Great Recession hit. How did that affect programming?
When I was interviewing for my job, we were talking about some reserve funds and new initiatives, and it was a very exciting time. Quickly, we were really focused on the bottom line and possible cuts to both public and private funding. We had one grant that was $200,000 and went to $15,000, and we were lucky to get that. That was literally the fiscal reality. When I first got here, we did more with less, and then there were some really lean years where we had to do less with less, but my motto coming out of that was really “more with more.” That’s where we got to.

I’m sure you’ve been doing a lot of reflecting on your years there. What are you most proud of, or what would you like to be remembered for contributing?
I think this idea of demonstrating the value of the humanities to our everyday lives. I’m proud of programs that we did about water treatment and gathering folks together in communities to talk about water treatment, sewage waste, things like that, saying, “How can we think about this as moral or philosophical issue?” Some of that program was called Practicing Democracy. It was intended to bring people with diverse ideological perspectives together to reflect with one another.

We’ve also created some programs to specifically support veterans, and that’s been an honor. We have veterans book groups and some oral history projects. Some of our most recent work has also focused on water, doing two years of programming that looked at the role of water in our lives, not only the environmental impact but also spiritual facets. I’m very proud of some of the work we’ve done to talk about criminal justice reform, with journalists and activists and wrongly-incarcerated folks, to talk about the larger issues at play there—talking about justice, really. So I’m most proud of the work we’ve done to demonstrate the relevancy of the humanities.

What has been some of the feedback from people involved in programs? It must be fulfilling to hear from them.
It is fulfilling. There is certainly a lot that has been said and written about the demise of the humanities, and certainly there are challenges in higher education with the number of students who are majoring in the humanities having had some shrinkage, but from where I sit, the humanities are thriving.

When we have our One Maryland One Book authors travel across the state, people are hungry for this. When we had [Nigerian author] Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie, we had something like 700 people, probably more than that, register for the program and wait hours to meet her and get their books signed and talk to her. And I’ve seen that consistently with other authors, too. People are really hungry for this experience.

When we’re partnering with smaller communities and bringing something like a traveling Smithsonian exhibition, it’s also wonderful to see the community volunteers that come out take pride in sharing their local stories alongside the stories in the exhibit. Or students who participated in our Maryland History Day program will say, “I wasn’t much for history, and now this is the context in which I want to understand the world.” Or there was a female Vietnam veteran who wrote to us and said she’d never told people she’d fought in the war until she attended our book group, and then she felt more comfortable talking about her experience. And I should say, it’s not like we’re empowering people or giving them a voice. They have a voice. It’s more that we provide a forum to come together and learn and listen and share.

Since Maryland Humanities is a statewide organization and there are so many different diverse communities in Maryland, did you target different demographics when you were planning programming? If so, how?
We’re in every county in Maryland and Baltimore City. As part of our most recent strategic plan, we talked about how we could be best proximate in communities, because there are so many diverse communities. Originally, we had this concept that we would have staffed offices in different regions. That developed into regional humanities networks, and now we have five of them.

We have quarterly, community-based meetings, where we’re gathering what we call humanists—that can be someone on an arts council, or a park ranger, or a museum docent—to share what they’re working on and hear how we can support them. That has been a wonderful way to be on the ground, listen to community needs, and seeing if there’s a fit with what we’re offering. The regional humanities networks are Lower Eastern Shore, Upper Eastern Shore, Southern Maryland, Western Maryland, and Capital Region. Some of those are really new.

Let’s talk a little about your new position with the Federation of State Humanities Councils and what you’re looking forward to.
Yes, it’s the membership organization for the 55 state and territorial councils. I’m going to be what they call the president, which is like the executive director. It’s a national role, and I’m very excited for this. I’m really humbled and delighted. When it was time to move on from my almost 12 years here [at Maryland Humanities], I knew what I was going to miss the most was this incredible community. It’s an opportunity for me to support all the state humanities councils, which is just a huge honor, and to advocate for federal and private funding and talk about why it’s important for people to support this work.

So it sounds like you’ll remain connected to Maryland Humanities in this position?
Yeah! They’re one of the members in the organization, and I’ll rely on their perspective. You really need to understand where folks are coming from in their respective areas to best represent them nationally.

Twenty-some years ago, you could find a young Amanda McCormick shut inside a room somewhere, piecing together books by hand, pasting images together, stapling, taping, creating.

Fast-forward to 2019, and not much has changed. As a professor of book arts at the University of Baltimore, McCormick has made publishing books—and teaching others how to publish books—her life’s work. She’s also the founder of Ink Press Productions, which publishes limited-edition, handmade books and hosts events.

“This is what I was meant to do—this is everything,” McCormick says, sitting at a table in the Book Arts Studio at UB. Shelves of intricate handmade books line the walls alongside an old letterpress printer. “Books started as a vessel for the Age of Enlightenment, to give voice to people who don’t always get a voice,” she says. “And I think that books continue to do that. I think that’s the tradition of publishing, and that’s how it exists for us, too. It can be a really empowering art form.”

Ink Press’ mission is to blur the lines between writing, visual, and performance art. They reimagine the typical book launch, for instance, by creating multi-sensory events that incorporate themes and tones of the book being released—like a carnival-themed party at the Windup Space for She Named Him Michael, the true story of a chicken that got its head cut off, lived for another 18 months, and was sold to a freak show—instead of just having an author stand in front of a room reading book excerpts.

Ink Press is one of several small presses in the city, and more crop up every year, coinciding with a national trend. In Baltimore, these independent publishers, each with its own mission and niche, run the gamut from tiny, one-person operations to the oldest small press in Maryland, which has published books for nearly 50 years.

While small presses have been on the rise—and large presses like JHU Press hold steady—the industry has largely been monopolized by “the big five”—Hachette, HarperCollins, Macmillan, Penguin Random House, and Simon & Schuster. With more and more writers and fewer and fewer traditional publishing houses, many writers, new and established alike, are turning to smaller presses, which offer more cachet than self-publishing. Plus, most authors still want a physical copy of their book, rather than a digital version—and readers do, too.

Despite predictions that the e-book was going to kill the paperback, studies indicate the contrary. While periodicals have been on the decline, print books are making a comeback, with sales rising steadily in recent years. It turns out, people still relish holding a good book in their hands. There’s the romantic notion of lounging on a beach, novel in tow. There’s also the practicality of it—you can’t dog-ear, highlight, or scribble notes in an e-book, or store it on a shelf to start your own collection, or gift it to someone else. Plus, that book smell. The reasons are as many and varied as the presses that are publishing them.

“We thought students were reading on Kindles . . . but they actually adore books.”

You might wonder why someone like Dorothy Van Soest chose to work with Loyola University’s student-run Apprentice House Press. The Seattle-based author had published several academic books through traditional publishers but reached out to Apprentice House after she’d written her first novel. The small press is the first in the country to be run by college students, though other schools have since created similar programs.

“It was such a good match,” Van Soest says. “I was way more comfortable thinking about working with students than with a big publishing company, where you’re lucky to get a phone call, and you lose say over things such as the cover design. With Apprentice House, I could still be involved.”

She has since published three novels with the press, working with a different batch of students each time, as well as director Kevin Atticks, the linchpin who keeps the program running smoothly.

“We have so many students interested in writing and books, which is fascinating to us as faculty, because we thought books were going away,” Atticks says. “We thought students were reading on Kindles and iPads, but it turns out, they actually adore books.”

About a third of their authors are local. On the one-year anniversary of the Capital Gazette shooting, June 28, they released Love Punch & Other Collected Columns by Rob Hiaasen.

The program was originally just one course that educated students about the book publishing process, but advances in printing technology made it feasible to put together an entire book in one semester. They began in 2002 and now publish 15-18 books each year, all of which are typically released in the fall, as a new batch of manuscripts comes in for another group of students.

The curriculum is structured into three divisions: acquisitions, design, and marketing. While the students don’t engage in formal marketing, they do work with the authors to develop marketing plans.

“They really did their research and had great marketing ideas,” Van Soest recalls. “One student created a mockup interview that I could submit to a radio station. That really got me thinking in a whole new way.”

Two longstanding staples in the Baltimore literary scene are BrickHouse Books and Black Classic Press.

Founded in 1970, BrickHouse is Maryland’s oldest continuously operating small press.

“[BrickHouse founder] Michael Egan and I both thought a press dedicated to getting a person’s first book out was a good idea—because we were both 29 years old at the time and struggling to get our first books out,” says Clarinda Harriss, who has been the editor of BrickHouse since 1973. “In those days, self-publishing was a big no-no, career-wise.”

Some might say she was destined for the role: her father, R.P. Harriss, was an editor of The Evening Sun and good friends with H.L. Mencken. She works from home in her father’s former office, while a team of volunteer editors, a proofreader, and a designer work offsite to publish books each year across all genres, limiting press runs to under 1,200.

Black Classic Press, an African-American book publishing company, began shortly after BrickHouse, in 1978, making it one of the oldest black indie presses in the country. Founding director W. Paul Coates began the company as a means to publish—and also re-publish and bring back into circulation—books by and about African Americans and the black diaspora. It has also grown over the decades to become a printing service for other publishers and various companies and nonprofits, with five digital presses operating onsite at its offices in Halethorpe.

“We’re not looking for a typical murder mystery . . . we want to push the bounds of what is literary.”

A smaller operation, CityLit Press has garnered attention, too. It began in 2010 as an offshoot of CityLit Project, whose mission is to elevate the literary arts scene in the Baltimore region through readings, an annual festival, and, of course, books. Founder Gregg Wilhelm had worked with independent publishers since 1992 and saw a small publishing operation as another way to support writers. CityLit typically publishes books by area authors, including occasional Baltimore contributor Rafael Alvarez, or on subject matter that ties into the region.

Wilhelm essentially runs the press on his own—soliciting manuscripts, working with writers, and even designing the layout and covers.

Some Baltimore presses serve a very precise niche. Press Press, for example, is an interdisciplinary publishing initiative known for its commitment to bringing forth the stories and experiences of underrepresented voices and narratives. Collective members operate a storefront studio and library in Baltimore, which serves as a gathering place to share ideas, a space for immigrant- and refugee-only workshops for youth, an open studio that’s accessible to the public, and a venue for events that coincide with publishing projects. Press Press came onto the scene in 2014 and recently expanded to operate in Los Angeles as well, when founder Kimi Hanauer relocated there. Its massive 2018 release, Sentiments: Expressions of Cultural Passage, was praised widely and garnered national attention.

Gwen Van Velsor aims to serve underrepresented voices as well but focuses on women who are local to the Baltimore area. While she was living in Colorado, she started a writing group at Yellow Arrow Coffee, which she says mostly turned into a group therapy session where those sitting around a table would commiserate about how hard it is to get published. After moving to Baltimore in 2015, Van Velsor created Yellow Arrow Publishing when she wanted to publish her own book.

“At the end of the day, the publishing process was really tough. I wished I’d had more of a support system,” says Van Velsor. “I just wanted to put this book out into the world and move on with my life!”

What started as a way to rectify her own publishing woes soon became a way to support other writers, particularly women, whom Van Velsor says are underrepresented in the literary world. The press also puts out a biannual literary journal, showcasing creative nonfiction and poetry by women. All the printing and binding is done by hand at Van Velsor’s home in Highlandtown. Van Velsor gets a particular kick out of seeing where her authors will go.

“Being on the other side of publishing now, I love that part of it: seeing an author invited to give a reading, seeing that spark,” she says.

Baltimore’s Mason Jar Press has a noteworthy niche, too, but it’s difficult to put into words just what they publish.

“We think of it as the approachable avant-garde,” says editor-in-chief Ian Anderson.

Take, for example, Notes From My Phone*—a memoir that Michelle Junot accidentally wrote on her phone, complete with dreams she jotted down, notes about her day, prayers, and grocery lists.

“We’re not looking for your typical murder mystery,” Anderson says. “I like those stories—I write those stories—but we want to push the bounds of what is literary.”

Like Ink Press Productions, some small presses put a strong focus on the aesthetics and the handcrafted quality of their products. They believe in following the credo of “form follows function.”

“E-books are great . . . but there’s no relationship with the book there. There’s no personality.”

Akinoga, Mychael Zulauf’s one-person operation, is such a press. After graduating from UB’s MFA in Creative Writing and Publishing Arts program, Zulauf wanted to stay connected with the community they’d met there. Zulauf started the press, as well as a podcast, as a means to keep working with writers.

Akinoga typically releases one book a year, each designed very intentionally—hand-bound, eye-catching—and printed in small runs, usually of 60. “E-books are great if you wanna have access to a ton of books, but there’s no relationship with the book there. There’s no personality,” Zulauf says. “I tend to fold and tear all my covers, as opposed to cutting them, and they just seem much more intimate and inviting. They want to be picked up. If you’re gonna take the time to do a physical book, I think you really need to lean into the physicality of it and ask, is it gonna have a deckle edge? Is it gonna be glossy or matte? All of those questions.” (You won’t find an ISBN or a blurb on the back of any of their books either.)

Container takes it a step further. Founded and run by Jenni B. Baker and Douglas Luman, this unorthodox press transforms the written word into art objects. Although they just relocated from Baltimore to Pittsburgh, the press is credited as having a huge impact on the local indie press scene with its out-of-the-box projects. Recent releases have included Saw Palmettos, a set of short poems from transgender poet Charles Theonia, which was presented as a series of 21 tincture bottles housed in a wooden stand and documenting Theonia’s experience beginning hormone replacement therapy and putting saw palmetto oil on their scalp to ward off hair loss. Another poetry collection was presented as a series of origami gemstones. Looks Books is a subscription series where subscribers receive a View-Master and five “books” presented on View-Master reels. The most recent project is Colette LaBouff’s Holdings, an accordion book comprised of individual library cards whose prose and photography form a narrative set inside a library.

Perhaps Joseph Young takes the idea of “form follows function” the furthest of all. In 2017, MicroFiction RowHouse was born when he transformed his entire Hampden home into a life-sized storybook. He’d dabbled in making photo transfers of his stories in galleries but wanted to create something on a larger scale. He checked in with his own landlord, Donna Sellinger, who happened to be part of the Wham City arts collective and gave him the okay to transform his rowhome. Microfiction is strewn throughout—photocopy-transferred in large, block letters on its walls, beds, even on the front porch—telling the story of the fictional family who lives there.

He doesn’t operate a small press, per se, but recently published his book Always Never Speaking under the RowHouse imprint. In May, he held his book launch at the house, one of several literary events he has held there, but rather than read passages to a crowd, he organized what he titled “300 Seconds: Live Magazine,” allowing writers to take the microphone for no longer than 300 seconds to share stories.

Is this the future of literature?

If one thing is certain, it’s that books will survive—in forms both old and new—and it’s small presses that will make them accessible to writers and readers alike.

In her latest, Laura Lippman turns back the clock to 1960s Baltimore, drawing inspiration from the city’s real-life “Lady in the Lake,” the body of a woman that was found in Druid Park Lake in 1969 and identified as Shirley Parker, an African-American barmaid.

In Lippman’s fictional retelling of the eerie story, Cleo Sherwood, a bartender at the Flamingo club on Pennsylvania Avenue, goes missing on New Year’s Eve. No one seems to care except Maddie Schwartz, who recently separated from her husband and became a reporter for the Star, determined to solve this mystery by whatever means necessary.

Scattered throughout the story are first-person perspectives of various characters who meet Maddie along the way. It’s perfect beach reading material—light and breezy and full of juicy gossip, set in historical Baltimore (think pre-gentrification Inner Harbor and a buzzing Howard Street shopping district), with fun twists throughout.

Editor’s Note: 7/19/2024
The television series based on Lippman’s novel debuts today on Apple TV. The show, which was filmed in Baltimore, stars Natalie Portman as Maddie Schwartz and Charm City native actress Moses Ingram as Cleo Johnson—the character inspired by Parker.

In the exhibition Hitching Their Dreams to Untamed Stars: Joyce J. Scott and Elizabeth Talford Scott, it’s difficult to determine who influenced who—and even to differentiate, in some instances, which of the nine pieces was done by which artist.

It’s evident, however—in the asymmetrical, mixed-media textile pieces, the rich colors that vibrate with life, and the stories and meaning woven into each piece—that this mother and daughter, who lived and worked together in Baltimore for 60 years, influenced one another deeply.

“People ask, ‘What’d your mom say to you?’ She said to never give up . . . Just follow that dream and never stop. Persevere. Everything is out there for you,” Scott recalls at the Baltimore Museum of Art during a preview of the exhibit, which opens publicly on May 15 and runs through December 1. “That has been the code for my life.”

She’s cloaked in colorful batik and tie-dyed fabric and sitting in a wheelchair, looking regal (she assures everyone in attendance that she’ll be out of said wheelchair and dancing again as soon as her knee is in better shape). “I come from people who couldn’t be who I am right now who opened that door for me to come through, and I’m very proud to be someone who’s carrying this with me.”

Scott learned quilting from her mother (and her mother learned it from her mother), and both primarily create mixed-media fiber art, though Scott, named a MacArthur Fellow in 2016, became more well-known for her sculptural beadwork and jewelry.

Aside from indirect influence, the mother-daughter duo has directly collaborated to create pieces, too. Talford Scott began “Fifty Year Quilt” (not shown in this exhibit) in San Francisco when she was young, for instance, and wherever she traveled, she’d add fabric. When Scott was born, she got to work on that same quilt, adding more stories of places traveled. They also made beadwork and dolls together, sang together, and talked at lectures together before Talford Scott passed away in 2011.

The piece “Face,” made in the 1970s and included in Hitching Their Dreams, was also created by both of them: Scott wove its colorful wool in response to her mother’s storytelling.

Scott has never been known to shy away from controversial imagery and subject matter either. Some of her work is overtly subversive, either artistically or politically or both (think “Inkisi #2,” her mixed-media sculpture of a woman whose large skirt is affixed with, among other items, bright green penises—representing procreation, she explains).

Talford Scott’s “Plantation” is an example of quilts that were made and used as escape routes for African Americans wanting to flee a plantation in the South. Creating something beautiful that represented something else entirely was a lesson taught to Talford Scott by her grandparents—how to hide in plain sight. For instance, a 20-inch row of the fabric in this topographical map might represent a line of cotton or vegetables. The stars that fill its white background represent the stars they would view in the night sky overhead that could be used for navigational purposes, making the piece both whimsical yet practical, artful yet political, comforting yet tense.

Scott says she has a “classic Negro history.” “My mom picked cotton and my father picked tobacco. They were in the Great Migration from the South . . . not only to get jobs that were better, but so that they wouldn’t be harassed by nightriders every night in their communities. And then they had me.”

Her mother and father attended one-room schoolhouses—roughly equivalent to a sixth-grade education today—but that didn’t stop Talford Scott from bringing her young daughter to the BMA, after her family relocated to Baltimore. It didn’t stop her from believing in Scott’s artwork and cheering her on, telling her she could follow her dreams, a reference Scott makes in the show’s title.

Scott lives in Upton, which she admits can be a rough neighborhood, but it’s home. “I don’t believe the change happens by running away from yourself,” she says, “I believe that when you stay in a community, you make a difference.”

People in Scott’s neighborhood call her “Mom,” just as they called Talford Scott, who would make her own wine and sit around and talk and teach people in the neighborhood to make art.

Scott recalls a talk she gave with her mother at the University of Colorado Boulder, where they were invited to speak to a ceramics class. Her mother talked about how she and her family would make pinch pots during the Depression, because you had to make your own pots for everything. And those things that you made could be beautiful. The class listened in awe, mouths agape. Even Scott was impressed, having heard similar stories as a young child but hearing them again provided new context.

Growing up in Sandtown in the ’50s, Scott was surrounded by stories like this—relatives working as sharecroppers or running and hiding from people who were after them or paying people off with bootlegged drink.

“There’s something about living in the 21st century that is very, very different in the United States, more than other parts of the world,” she says. “When my mom and other people of her generation go, that’s it. You can look them up online, you can even hear them talking online, but that thing about sitting next to them, having a shot of Hennessy or something, and hearing her talk.

“That old generation is taking with them their knowledge and secrets of the past that we in the West don’t always even celebrate,” Scott goes on. “But you go to Asia, you go to Africa, you go to Central America, and you meet that exact woman who is just like my mom, who’s still tilling the soil or spinning something with her grandkids, talking about stuff in the exact same way. I think it’s a loss for us, for our speed to be so future-[oriented]. It’s not giving the props to the past that built all of us.”

Cara Ober is relatively easy to spot at an art exhibit preview. It’s not only because of her art-chic style and general confidence and authority when it comes to art, but because she is deeply, passionately inquisitive about the work. Even if you were to close your eyes, you could most likely recognize her by her voice; she is often the first person, in a room buzzing with press, to look directly at the artists and start firing off insightful questions—the ones that either seem too difficult to ask or had eluded others, sometimes even the artists themselves.

Ober is her own brand. Or, more accurately, her name is synonymous with BmoreArt, the Baltimore arts and culture magazine that she founded in 2007. She didn’t know then how much the city would come to need a platform that exposes the community to what’s happening in the arts while validating the artists who work here. The longest-running arts publication in the city, it gracefully strikes a balance between high art and pop culture, with a range of subject matter covering visual art, music, theater, film, and extending into other culturally rich areas, like food.

“I always have people asking me, ‘Do you still make art?’” the Maryland Institute College of Art alum says in her Area 405 studio, which is relatively barren and appears to serve these days mostly as storage space for her older work. “I’m like, these magazines are art! They are collaborative, community-based art, and it is part of my art practice. Creatively, I find it really satisfying.”

The “observer effect” theory states that an observer changes the nature of whatever it is they are observing. Though usually used to describe scientific phenomena, it could also be applied to Ober’s observations of Baltimore over the past 12-plus years. In 2007, at a time when seemingly everyone was creating a blog, Ober started BmoreArt on Blogspot to showcase visual art events. The webzine evolved to include biannual print magazines, with funding from the Robert W. Deutsch Foundation, and this year has grown again, adding more staff and a new initiative that connects Baltimore artists with collectors.

“BmoreArt is a huge gift for the [art] institutions that are here,” says Julia Marciari-Alexander, director of the Walters Art Museum. “Cara thinks about art in a holistic way. The intelligence with which she approaches the articles, it’s really excellent art criticism in the best sense—not necessarily negative, but thoughtful art criticism. And that’s a dying practice.”

Adds Donna Drew Sawyer, CEO of the Baltimore Office of Promotion & the Arts: “Cara is really an example of the kind of can-do, maker attitude we have here in Baltimore . . . Cara moved forward and published this magazine, fearless of what others thought could or could not be successful. And she made it successful. I think she’s just pure Baltimore. That’s the way we do things.”

As for Ober, she can sometimes hardly believe it herself.

“I never thought this would become what it is,” she says. “I never thought this would be my job.”

“I never thought this would become what it is. I never thought this would be my job.”

Even as a little girl growing up in Westminster, Ober often felt like an observer.

“My younger brother was always the super-super talented artist,” the 44-year-old says. “We were both classically trained pianists, but he was one of those prodigy types. His talent never required any artist statement or introduction. I was like, ‘I’m an artist, too!’” she says with a chuckle. “But I was also in this role of being the audience and the fan, and maybe that’s what all journalists are. Maybe I just didn’t realize that that’s what my art was: paying attention to artists.”

Raised by parents who were both teachers, Ober saw teaching art as a viable career path. So she earned a bachelor’s degree in fine arts from American University and began teaching high school in Carroll County and later Baltimore County.

“I woke every day thinking, ‘This is not where I’m supposed to be.’ Going to a pep rally? Getting asked to prom by your students? Or someone asking you if they can go to the bathroom?”

These days, as a wife and mother in addition to being an entrepreneur, she usually wakes up to a running list in her mind of all the things she has to do, but she loves the work, interviewing and writing about artists, visiting exhibits, and art talks.

When she moved to Baltimore, her goal was to learn about the artists here and what made them successful—essentially, how they survived—because that’s what she wanted to do, too. She took adult education classes at Maryland Institute College of Art and rented studio space while still teaching high school. She started showing her work at galleries in Baltimore and D.C. Thinking her next move would be teaching art at the college level, she earned an MFA in painting in 2005 through MICA’s low-residency program.

Her first introduction to writing about the arts came through Radar, a pocket-sized art guide edited by Jack Livingston and published quarterly. “A lot of times, you pitch your stuff to new publications, and they’re snobby or standoffish, but he said, ‘Send me a draft,’” Ober remembers. “And then he’d be like, ‘This is like ad copy. Rewrite it. Change this. Change that. Change this.’” Ober pressed on, and eventually Livingston began publishing her work, which received positive feedback from readers. “When I started putting my stuff out there, people were paying attention. When you put your energy into something, and you feel that energy coming back—it feels good. So I kept doing it.”

While an adjunct professor at MICA in 2007, she created BmoreArt with another artist she’d met through the school (he quickly realized he didn’t want to write and backed out). Other artists jumped in, and the site was launched as a space to post upcoming events, gallery reviews, and press releases.

She later worked for Urbanite magazine as its arts and culture editor and would often cross-publish some of the content to BmoreArt. When Urbanite folded in 2012, she felt a void, particularly within the arts coverage in the city. Trying to fill it, she picked up the pace of BmoreArt, publishing multiple original pieces of content every week by herself and contributors.

But it was exhausting, she wasn’t making any money, and she had a child now—her son, Leo, was born in 2010. Just when she began considering calling it quits, she got an unexpected email from Jane Brown, president of the Deutsch Foundation. The two met for lunch to discuss the future of BmoreArt, and Brown eventually offered to help fund the publication because she believed it was an important component of the arts ecosystem.

“She had been doing this on her own for years without any financial support at all—which really tells you something,” says Brown. “As an artist herself, she’s super committed to artists at every level, and the emerging artists are a huge asset that this city has never properly valued or made any investment in.”

With funding from the Deutsch Foundation, Ober felt like she’d hit the lottery. She could pay herself for the first time.

By November 2015, Ober branched out to include a biannual print magazine. This was not a business decision, she says. This was an artist decision. “Most people told me not to do it, but I’m not a good follower of directions,” she says. “I wanted it to be beautiful. I wanted it to be an art object. I wanted it to be something people could keep and collect. I wanted it to be thematic, like an exhibition.”

She printed a run of 3,000 and, only days before receiving them, realized she had a few logistics to figure out. Like where to store them. And how to distribute them. Hosting a launch party seemed like a viable option—she’d be able to get as many magazines in people’s hands as possible all in one place. The party sold out, with more than 300 attendees packing into the Maryland Art Place.

“It was so cool, and it was diverse in every way—age and race and background,” she says. “Art events aren’t always like that. All these different people in a room together.”

“I wanted it to be beautiful. . . . I wanted it to be something people could keep and collect.”

It was Ober’s open-mindedness that drew Angela Carroll to become a contributor to BmoreArt about five years ago. Carroll, an adjunct professor at Stevenson University and an arts writer, noticed a lack of people of color in media in this majority-black city, and because of that, artists of color were receiving poor coverage—their works either overlooked entirely or not contextualized properly.

“Cara was open to really supporting me in trying to fill that gap and correct that historical omission,” says Carroll, who also occasionally contributes to Baltimore. “If our archives don’t show these narratives, these publications are going to be in a really precarious situation in a few years when people start asking questions. BmoreArt has always tried to move differently. Cara is all about using writing as a radical tool and a mobilizing tool.”

BmoreArt has diversified since 2007 in every way, through its writers, the people it features, and even from covering predominately visual arts to now covering a variety of artistic mediums. People have noticed and appreciated the magazine’s scope. With a 12-year archive online, it charts a very specific narrative of a time and place and scene that wasn’t documented nearly as rigorously in traditional media outlets. Twelve years might not seem like a lot, but a lot has happened in the city during that time. It saw the rise of maker spaces, the rise and fall of several prominent warehouse studio spaces, and the transformation of city neighborhoods, most notably Station North, Greenmount West, and Barclay, after the Station North Arts and Entertainment District was designated in 2002.

“BmoreArt has become one of the few places you can turn to to trace the evolution of Baltimore’s art scene,” says Bret McCabe, another BmoreArt contributor. He met Ober before her magazine days, while he was covering arts and culture for Baltimore City Paper, where he worked from 2001 to 2011.

“Baltimore is affordable, you can create work, and that’s awesome,” he goes on. “But if nobody’s really paying attention, that kinda sucks.”

Baltimore artist Jeffrey Kent echoes that sentiment when he points out that Ober has helped to “fill a huge void. Without art, we’d not be a city; we’d be a large town,” he says.

Both Ober and Kent have similar missions: they’re practicing artists who help other artists and seek ways to give the city positive recognition.

Ober partnered this year with Kent to launch a speaker series, Connect + Collect. The series brings together nationally and internationally known artists and curators for free events open to the public.

They’re also offering studio tours to out-of-town speakers and Baltimore-based collectors. They select “artists we believe people should be collecting,” says Kent, director of the former SubBasement Studios, once the largest gallery in the city. He was the first person to represent and sell Amy Sherald’s work.

“The Walters, the BMA, MICA—they bring people to Baltimore all the time, but those people don’t see any of Baltimore. What if they could see some artist studios?” Ober says. “I’ve been doing this research for 15 years, and so has Jeffrey. There are artists here who are poised for national or international museum careers. What would happen if a group of collectors invested in these artists? How might that elevate the reputation of Baltimore?”

Ober also expanded BmoreArt’s staff this year, hiring a full-time managing editor and sales and marketing director. This will allow her to focus more on writing stories and being out in the community as the face of BmoreArt, rather than managing its daily operations.

Through the growth of BmoreArt, Ober is left thinking more seriously about its audience and who she isn’t reaching and why. What would draw people who aren’t interested in art to a publication covering the arts? It’s a question she asked herself as a high school art teacher, many moons ago.

“If you can sell the idea of contemporary art to high school kids—when all they really care about is gossip and getting laid—then you can interest anybody,” she says.

The trick?

“I still think the sex and gossip sells it,” she says. To that end, in a 2018 BmoreArt piece, she writes about female sexuality in ancient art but manages to draw in references to Kim Kardashian and the short-lived TV show I Love Dick. But of course, it’s about more than that. “It’s about making people realize that this work is about them. In the best works of art, you see yourself,” she says. “It gives you a sense of who you are and how the world works. It changes and deepens that. . . . It enhances your experience of being human in the world.”

Richie Frieman’s new picture book, Snowballs For Severance, tells the true story of how 9-year-old Dane Best changed a law in his hometown of Severance, Colorado, that banned snowball fights.

Recently, the family signed with Kapital Entertainment, who will produce a feature film about Dane, slated for release during the 2019 holiday season. We talk with the Owings Mills-based writer/illustrator about his process for creating the book, why he fell in love with the story, and his other life as a professional wrestler.

How did you learn about Dane? Did you hear it on the news?
Yeah, I saw it online on some news outlet, and I thought, man, that’s a great story! Look at that kid—9 years old—and look what he’s doing. I have a daughter who’s 10 and a son who’s 6, and I can’t imagine my children wanting to do that. I thought, this would make for a great book. As a writer, I have dozens and dozens of ideas for a good book on my computer. Some are outlined, some are 10 pages, some are 50 pages. But this was something I had to do. I knew I had to track down this kid and see if I could write it. It happened very, very fast—three months. I basically dropped everything else I was working on to solely work on this.

So from there, did you meet him, or did you do phone calls or video calls? His character comes through so strongly in the book.
Let’s just say, I was not the first one to reach out to Dane. Everything from Sony to Miramax to Lionsgate—you name it—every top entertainment company on the planet had reached out to him already, which, by the way, all have publishing companies, so my odds were very limited. When I found out that, I kind of deflated. But I told them very honestly, I want to tell the true story of what happened to Dane, and we can go through the whole process together. After we agreed to do the book together, I did several calls with Dane, I spoke with his mom and dad and his brother. I asked Dane everything, and I tried to get really factual about it: What time of day did you go on the field trip, how far did you take a bus or did you walk, how many people are in your class, what’s your home look like and your bedroom? I wanted to make it as authentic as possible.

It sounds like you went about this almost like you were reporting a news story.
Yeah, in a way it was very much like that. The quotes in the book are what he said. We took some liberties, but when he’s up there talking to the council, those are his words. When he’s saying, “Kids want to have a voice in our town,” that’s his line. What the mayor said, the mayor said: no chickens, no guinea pigs.

Yeah, no guinea pigs! What kind of a law is that? And was no one really throwing snowballs for 100 years?
I started looking up funny laws in states, and there are some ridiculous ones. There’s one where you can’t take a horse to a movie theater. It’s stupid, but I guess somebody did it. The snowball law was kind of like local lore. Everyone knew it was kind of silly. Cops weren’t gonna come arrest a kid for throwing a snowball, but people would talk about it. Dane had a guinea pig, too, and they didn’t arrest him for that, so I think they let some things slide. He’s a bit of an outlaw, when you think about it. What got me the most is that no one decided to do anything about this century-old law. No one said, “This is crazy.”

Yeah, it took a 9-year-old.
Yeah, a 9-year-old who wouldn’t let it go.

I saw that the publisher, Omnibus Publishing, is based in Baltimore. How did you link up with them?
They published my last book, Maddy & Cole: The Food Truck Grand Prix. They’re great, and I have a very big spot in my heart for Baltimore things. I like the idea of Baltimore people doing Baltimore things, so to me it meant a lot to have someone from here help with it.

And let’s talk about the movie! You must be excited.
Like I said, everyone was interested in this story. They ended up signing a deal with Kapital Entertainment—they did Wonder, A Million Little Things, This Is Us. They’re working through the script now. The plan is to have it out this year, probably by the holiday season. I fly out to Colorado this month to meet Dane and do a presentation at his school, which I’m really excited about. I’m meeting with [Aaron] Kaplan [founder of Kapital Entertainment] next week to talk about what they have planned. They want to tell the story exactly as it happened and use my book as a guide. I’ll be involved a lot more as things progress.

I wonder who will play Dane. It seems like he could pull it off himself.
He really could. What’s funny about him, though, is he did not seek out fame for this. When I talk about when he’s going to the town council, he rolls up in his dad’s truck, and everyone’s there, and he’s thinking, what’s going on here? This is a very small town. If you look online, there’s a photo where there must be 20 different cameras pointing at his face afterwards. He didn’t realize he’d be doing 5 a.m. interviews with the BBC and NBC and Time and CNN, and even Derrick [Dane’s father] said, if he doesn’t want to do it, we’re gonna pump the brakes.

But I think he’d be great in the movie—at least a cameo. I’m down for the mayor’s job. I wanna play him. [Laughs.] I don’t look anything like him, but I don’t care. It’s just a great story, you know? It really was a little kid with an idea, and it came true. I had a million dreams when I was growing up, and people told me they were stupid or crazy, but he never gave up. He was able to basically do something. It’s huge, when you think about what goes into it.

Yeah, there was a touch of social activism in there, especially when you list some discussion points at the end for readers.
Ironically, my daughter’s school was going to Annapolis for a day, and they talk about a law that they think should be changed or enhanced. So my daughter was working on that project while I was writing this.

I have one outlier question. What is this wrestling match that you mention in your bio?
[Laughs.] I was a professional wrestler for almost 10 years, until my daughter was born. I loved every bit of it—the bumps, the bruises, the pain. I walk like an old man now. I’m turning 40 on the 21st of this month, and I’ve always joked about having one more match, mostly for my kids. My buddy still does it, so we’re gonna have a match to celebrate his 40th and my 40th, and we’re gonna wrap a charity around it and donate the money. So one more match. It’ll be in Baltimore in the fall. I don’t look like a professional wrestler, but I loved it. Growing up, I really wanted to be two things: an artist and a wrestler. That was it. I really had no other ambitions outside of that. And in some way, shape, or form, I’ve been able to scratch those off the list.

And who would link those two together? An artist wrestler?
It’s funny because I’ve said that line a thousand times, too. When you see me, it’s like, “You look like you should be doing my taxes or something.” And I get that—it’s not lost on me. But what I will say about linking the two is that growing up, I had a severe learning disability. I didn’t read a full book until my senior year of college. I’m not proud of it, it’s just a fact.

When I decided to become a wrestler, it really gave me the confidence to do other things. I thought, if I can wrestle, I can be an artist, I can be a writer. The confidence wrestling gave me to put myself out there and take chances, that really drove my art more than anything else in this world.

A new performance of The Little Match Girl in Baltimore breathes entirely new life into the Hans Christian Andersen story. Baltimore Choral Arts Society (BCAS) director Anthony Blake Clark combines David Lang’s Pulitzer Prize-winning composition The Little Match Girl Passion with Johann Sebastian Bach’s St. Matthew Passion oratorio, which inspired Lang’s piece, to create a whole new production, weaving the story of a young girl living on the streets with the story of Christ’s death. Interspersing both pieces provides context, as pivotal moments of the Bach piece are interspersed throughout the predominately a cappella performance.

But the production, which will be held at Falvey Hall in the Brown Center on February 10, takes this innovation one step further. BCAS partnered with MICA students and faculty to enhance the musical performance with artistic elements that engage nearly all five senses. Billed as an immersive, multi-sensory performance, the show features video projects behind the chorus (comprised of about 30 vocalists).

Each video depicts illustrations and photographs of homelessness and other themes in the story, as well as lyrics to the pieces—some interpreted more broadly rather than straight subtitles. St. Matthew Passion is sung in German and even Lang’s piece in English can be difficult to decipher at times, as the lyrics are often sung abstractly, sometimes extremely long and drawn out, other times extremely staccato. The images and words not only make the story easier to follow but are visually intriguing, essentially act as a multimedia set.

A beautiful moment comes when the chorus begins to strike matches and hold the tiny flames up in the air. The sound of friction and sparks, the image of burning flames and smoke, and the scent of sulphur aids in placing the viewer into the world of the little match girl. And she herself is onstage as well, subtly acting the storyline silently—trying to sell matches on the street—to provide a visual while not detracting from the chorus and moving images overhead. MICA’s interactive arts students had partnered with other groups in the past, including the Towson University theater department and an annual collaboration with Peabody Institute, but The Little Match Girl marks their first collaboration with BCAS.

MICA and BCAS are just down the street from each other so, when Clark wanted to try something new stylistically, he approached James Rouvelle, chair of the Interactive Arts Department at MICA, who got onboard right away.

“I was really interested in it partly because I have a background in musical performance,” Rouvelle says. “I think it was a good experience for everyone involved.”

The cross-pollination concert took months of work from both parties. Clark came to the media performance class at MICA several times during the process. And while it’s unusual for an instructor to participate in the creative process alongside the students, Rouvelle wanted to show his students what a professional experience felt like.

“I encouraged the students to take a risk. We’ve been hired to do something,” he says. “They took a lot of risks. Our hearts are starting to beat faster and faster, the closer we get to the show.”

The music in and of itself is enthralling, chilling at times. At one point, the chorus walks offstage and into the aisles, lining the length of the auditorium to sing a moving piece that fills the space with gorgeous textures in surround-sound. Another time, Canadian composer Stephen Chatman’s “How Sweet and Fair” features a clarinet amid the audience, representing a solo voice in the story. The piece revolves around a flower, symbolizing the fact that we all fade away, and sonically serves as a palate cleanser.

There are a few other surprises that will engage the audience’s five senses, but we don’t want to spoil the show by revealing everything here.

Choosing to work with The Little Match Girl story—both Lang’s and Bach’s pieces—and to make it engaging and provide as much context was very intentional on the part of Clark. The story highlights homeless, poverty, and human suffering, themes he felt important to bring to the forefront through art, issues that still plague our country and certainly Baltimore City. Stories of neglecting the poor and desolate are in the Bible, Hans Christian Andersen’s story, and Lang’s piece, all completely relevant today.

“We have so much work to do in Baltimore particularly. Even the simple act of empathy can help,” Clark says. “I think we put blinders on because things are overwhelming to us. But art has this ability to open us up and break down barriers, so we can become more aware of each other’s lives.”

Sunlight beams through huge glass windows at the Southeast Anchor Library in Highlandtown on an autumn afternoon as personnel gather to give Heidi Daniel, the new president and CEO of Enoch Pratt Free Library, a branch tour. Daniel winds her way through the building while actively listening to the needs and concerns of staff there—what’s working (the outdoor reading garden), what’s not (the windows need something that attracts people from the street), what’s on their wish list (could the former cafeteria be transformed into a maker space?).

“How’s your collection of Spanish-language material?” Daniel asks as she roams through the children’s area in cranberry-red platform heels that add a couple inches to her small stature. “Is it easy for people to get access to cards?”

Daniel, 43, radiates energy and enthusiasm, which, in the role of overseeing 22 library branches across Baltimore City, is needed. But she’s also warm and down to earth, saying hello to staff along the way and introducing herself to new hires.

When passing by the front counter, Daniel leans down until she’s at eye-level with a little girl and boy who stand side-by-side with an older gentleman. “Whatcha got there?” she asks them, beaming. “Are you gonna get some books to take home today?”

The children smile bashfully back at her and then, with the whole library before them, set off to explore new worlds.

When Daniel was growing up in Michigan, the public library was a sacred place. Reading was a way for her to immerse herself in worlds and ideas that she wouldn’t experience otherwise. As the adopted and only child of blue-collar parents—a factory-worker father and a stay-at-home mother—books became a major influence on her life.

“My parents really wanted me to have the opportunity to pursue higher education and be well-educated,” Daniel says, sitting inside her rowhome in Bolton Hill, where she recently moved with her husband and two children. “My mom thought that if I loved to read, then I’d love to learn, so her plan was to take me to the public library. I have all these early memories of picking out books, and the best part was that ability to select things on my own, without limitations. It was never, ‘No, we can’t take that home,’ or ‘We have to wait until pay day.’ There was no economic reason that I couldn’t take 50 books home with me. That was empowering and exciting.”

Pippi Longstocking and The Boxcar Children were among her favorites as a child. In high school, The Color Purple became very formative, particularly in exposing her to diverse voices. “Suddenly there was this literature that was just so incredibly written and so very different from my personal experience,” she recalls, “and yet you always find that piece of human connection and experience. . . . There’s an old metaphor: Books are both windows and mirrors. Reading fiction has been proven to create empathy. For me as a child, it was a window to other people and possibilities, and it can also be a mirror for you to see people like you, which is a really validating experience and why diversity in literature is so important. I think building compassion and empathy is part of creating a civil society.”

“There was no economic reason that I couldn’t take 50 books home with me.”

When Daniel became president of Enoch Pratt in July 2017, she succeeded Carla Hayden, who had held the position for 23 years before becoming the 14th Librarian of Congress.

Daniel had been eyeing Maryland’s state library for years and considers it to be one of the crown jewels of the industry.

“Following a literal legend, you’re coming into an institution that is already well-respected, which is a huge benefit,” Daniel says.

After Hayden left her post at the Pratt, the leadership team and board of directors conducted a national search for nearly a year. Chief operating officer Gordon Krabbe, who has worked at the Pratt since 1989, became acting CEO in the interim.

“You can’t replace Carla Hayden,” Krabbe says, “but 23 years ago, she was in the same kind of situation Heidi Daniel was in. She came around the same age to an organization that she didn’t know a whole lot about, but she had a good baseline experience elsewhere and could see what would work here and learn about the community.”

When the committee interviewed Daniel, who had recently been named Ohio Librarian of the Year, she immediately stood out from other candidates.

“We all thought, ‘That’s it—that’s who I want to work for,’” says Meghan McCorkell, marketing and communication director at Enoch Pratt. “She had ideas that we knew would really move the library into the future.”

She was the unanimous recommendation of the search committee, and the board accepted that recommendation.

“She radiates not just enthusiasm but a real love of libraries,” says Ben Rosenberg, chairman of the board. “Being a librarian is so important to Heidi, and it’s so clear how much it means to her.”

Daniel spent her first year here exploring the city and the library’s many branches and meeting staff, all while working to implement two massive initiatives: going fine-free, which has been a huge success (they’ve had an increase in circulation and materials returned), and extending library hours by more than 30 percent.

“Those are both major policy shifts,” points out McCorkell. “To do one of those things in her first year would be tremendous. To do both is huge. We’re in a totally different place now because of it.”

One thing that Daniel, or any head librarian for that matter, must grapple with is the changing role of libraries in the community. As the digital age has evolved to affect nearly every facet of life, including how literature is acquired and read, libraries have gone from places that house collections of books to community centers that provide access to a variety of resources. Hayden understood that implicitly—and implemented many programs to carry out that vision.

Those include the Pratt’s Lawyers in the Library program, which helps people with advice and can even expunge records; the Social Worker in the Library program, which assists people with finding affordable food and shelter; and the Mobile Job Center, which takes resources directly to neighborhoods where they’re needed the most. The Pratt not only hosts traditional story time for children and myriad book groups (its collections are extensive and constantly being updated) but also houses yoga and meditation sessions, art workshops, and educational classes that are open to the entire community.

And, of course, it’s all free—continuing Enoch Pratt’s original vision to create one of the first free public library systems in the U.S.

These are the things that really drew Daniel to the Pratt.

“It’s all about access,” she says. “Libraries should be a place of possibilities.”

The role of public librarians has shifted, too. While they are still responsible for preserving books—especially specialized cultural collections, such as the Pratt’s African-American and Maryland collections—they have also evolved to become what Daniel calls community navigators, or essential community personnel.

Daniel’s early career path in libraries began with a position at the outreach department of the Metropolitan Library System of Oklahoma City. While there, Daniel led a book club at a juvenile justice center for incarcerated youth and worked with teen moms to ensure that they were getting developmentally appropriate books for their children as well as themselves, so that they, as adolescents, could continue their learning path.

Those early programs affected her sense of what a library can be, which she has continued to focus on throughout her career.

“It introduced me to this idea of a library as a center for community learning and activity, rather than a passive place,” she says. “Now I view libraries as places where people can come do things, make things, learn things, meet with people, connect with information and resources that empower and enrich their lives—and then maybe also take something and leave with it. It’s a place where people come and stay and work and interact.”

“She radiates not just enthusiasm but a real love of libraries. Being a librarian is so important to Heidi.”

In her various library roles—including nearly five years as executive director of the Public Library of Youngstown and Mahoning County in Ohio, a position she held just prior to joining the Pratt—Daniel has worked to make the library more inclusive, listening to the needs of each community. Sometimes that means creating more quiet spaces for individuals among shared spaces or creating active and messy areas for young children. At the Highlandtown branch, for instance, a jigsaw puzzle is set out on a communal table. “I had someone tell me they like to go do that because they end up having conversations with people they never would’ve had conversations with,” Daniel says. Because Baltimore is known as a city of neighborhoods, she sees the libraries serving a crucial role as neighborhood anchors that help connect people.

Meanwhile, Daniel is also overseeing the three-year, $115-million renovation of the central Enoch Pratt branch in Mount Vernon. Slated to be completed this fall, it will include quiet co-work spaces, as well as a job and career center with classrooms, dedicated staff, and small-business help provided by the Maryland Department of Labor, Licensing and Regulation.

“We’re really trying to bridge that gap, not just in terms of accessibility but in terms of equity,” Daniel says. “It’s easy to think that everyone is connected to the internet at all times but, especially in Baltimore, not only is access still an issue for more than 20 percent of households, but digital equity beyond access is important. You can give someone the internet, but that doesn’t necessarily translate into them knowing how to use it to get what they need. So we have people who can show you how to use the internet to talk to your doctor, apply for social services, search for housing, get records that you might need, and also use it for social connection.”

She recounts the story of a man who’d been homeless with his young daughter and had used the Central Library as a place to give her some normalcy and get her away from the stress of living on the streets and in shelters—and also to give himself some dignity. The staff helped him to get a job and a place to live.

“Stories like that happen,” Daniel says, “and you just think, well, this is why I wake up every morning and go to work.”

When an artist is given a blank canvas, the possibilities are endless, and the same can be said for artists invited to create a crankie.

The Creative Alliance hosts its Baltimore Crankie Fest each January (Janunary 4-6 this time) and encourages visual artists to make and present a crankie—even, and especially, if they’ve never done so before. This year, the festival lineup will bring newbie KAL (Kevin Kallaugher), editorial cartoonist for The Baltimore Sun, as well as a seasoned crankie artists Katherine Fahey, Emily Schubert, Liz Downing, and others.

Crankies are moving panoramas with long pictorial scrolls that are typically hand-cranked, hence the name, to tell a story inside a viewing box. The boxes are often backlit for shadow puppetry, and song and narration accompany the performance.

But at Baltimore’s annual festival, there’s really no such thing as typical. Some artists have shown digitized versions of their pieces, essentially creating short films of crankies. In one of Emily Schubert’s pieces, artists used their bodies to transform into life-size human cranks—turning in place, one unraveling while the other collected the story scroll. A fourth show was added this year, but even with an extended run, tickets are expected to sell out.

Anna Roberts-Gevalt and Elizabeth LaPrelle—known for their quilted crankies—founded Crankie Fest in 2014, and around that same time, the Black Cherry Puppet Theater had started its puppet slam series, Slamwich, through a grant from The Jim Henson Foundation. Several festivals and puppet slams later, not to mention numerous crankie workshops, more and more artists are making their own crankies in the city, and several take them on tour for additional performances.

“When I go to the National Puppetry Festival and say I’m from Baltimore, they say, ‘Ohh—there’s a really strong scene there, isn’t there,’” says Katherine Fahey, who some have called the Godmother of Baltimore Crankies. “People know about Baltimore, and I think that’s largely because of the puppet slams and the Crankie Fest.”

Crankies were a natural fit for Fahey, a singer and visual artist who often works with musicians (see her first crankie of intricate paper-cut puppetry in Wye Oak’s 2011 music video “Fish”). When Fahey met Roberts-Gevalt and LaPrelle (aka folk duo Anna & Elizabeth), it was a revelation, she says.

“They were already musicians and thinking of themselves as performers, but I was a visual artist. I got really inspired that they were performing with visual artwork on a regular basis. It seemed like the right direction to move in, but it was also terrifying.” They began working on crankies together and taking them on the road shortly before Crankie Fest was created. “Visual artists, I think, are too solitary sometimes, and this really gives you the opportunity to share your artwork in real time, in a personal way.”

For this year’s festival, Fahey, who also teaches crankie workshops, will bring to life the story of Sedna, Inuit goddess of the sea. Two Inuit sisters from northern Quebec will fly in for the show, performing Inuit throat singing alongside the crankie images.

“I chose that story because it’s been kind of an interesting time for women,” Fahey says. “Sedna is a woman who suffers a lot and then, out of that suffering, becomes very powerful. There’s a harshness in the story that I think in the U.S., we kind of gloss over in our fairy tales. Most of my crankies have been all-ages [appropriate], but there is some violence and harsh reality that was a little bit of a struggle for me, but I realize the importance of including it.”

Another favorite, Downing will return to the festival to present a crankie based on a dream she had during times of changes in her life. “They were instructional kinds of dreams that I deciphered in many different ways,” she says. “I feel like it’s an important part of our daytime to understand our dreams,” she says.

A musician and visual artist, Downing is known for her tall vertical crankies that use a scroll of solid paper. She incorporates paper and wooden hand puppets, rather than shadow puppetry, to add another element of interaction to her stories. Because her songwriting and visual art is primarily psychological in nature, incorporating dreamscapes and abstract ideas, it took her a moment to reorient herself to crankies, when she was asked to participate in Crankie Fest years ago.

“I had to find a way to make a different sort of crankie,” she says. Long, horizontal landscapes were so different from her usual work, so instead, she tapes each illustration to one another, panel by panel, to tell a story vertically through surrealistic portraiture. “When first thinking about it, I didn’t want to start a whole new art form. I thought, what do I love to do and what do I do best—drawing, singing, and storytelling. It’s actually just the absolute perfect fit for me, to create scrolls of drawings and sing their story. . . . It’s kind of part of the revival of going back to handmade and away from technology.”

Her first crankie, Piggly Wiggly, illustrated the story of her getting lost in a cemetery while she wandered off as her mother visited the gravesite of Downing’s grandfather. The angel statues were of no help, as all their hands pointed to the sky, she explains (and not in the direction of her mother), and when they were finally reunited, her mother had eaten all the cream horns they’d gotten from a Piggly Wiggly on the drive to the graveyard (a portrait of half a dozen cream horns was included).

The Creative Alliance is known for featuring genre-defying are just like this, but even this festival stands out on their calendar. Performance director Josh Kohn, who helps curate Crankie Fest, says it’s his favorite event of the year.

“There’s a fireside magic to it,” he says. “It’s like an old-school variety show.”

ArtsCentric’s latest production, Black Nativity, will have you rockin’ and rollin’ in your seat during its run at the Motor House’s black box theater.

At a packed crowd during a Saturday matinee, there wasn’t a soul in the audience who wasn’t stomping their feet, clapping along, and, in some cases, singing. Some even got out of their seats to sway along during this Christmas musical of folk, blues, soul, jazz, and African-American spirituals. The show runs through December 29.

This retelling of the nativity story features an all-black cast and pairs the poetry of Langston Hughes with original musical adaptations that change with each newly launched production. The original music produced by each new theater troupe ensures a unique listening experience based on each troupe’s musical direction, instrumentation, and vocalists. ArtsCentric’s show features the original music of Cedric D. Lyles, performed by a live band—with piano, keys, electric guitar, bass, and drums—behind the set. Some of the songs are new takes on Christmas classics, such as “The Drummer’s Song,” a spinoff of “The Little Drummer Boy” that includes a bongo drum.

The production is an ideal one for ArtsCentric, a self-described color-conscious organization that was founded in 2003.

The play, directed by Kevin S. McAllister, is based on the Gospel of Luke and begins with a young boy singing “Oh Come, All Ye Faithful” on the street, panhandling for change. Several people pass by, dropping money into his bucket and continuing about their day, until a large, white-winged angel appears on set, nudging one last onlooker to give the boy what he really needs: a scarf to keep warm, company during the holidays—in short, love.

Then a full choir enters the stage, donning robes and setting the lively tone for the rest of the play. The chorus of singers lights up the space with song and gives an overview of what’s to come.

Next, we see a shift in time, as the 20-some actors are costumed in traditional African garb—loose robes in African-print patterns and sequins, which adds another dimension to the rich cultural fabric brought to the stage. Act I follows the story of Mary and Joseph, as they prepare for the birth of baby Jesus, give birth, debate on a name, and ultimately celebrate the coming of the savior.

After a short intermission, Act II transports its audience back to the 21st century. Set inside a black church, testimonials about a Christian life are interspersed with soulful renditions of contemporary worship pieces sung energetically, from the poetic to the funky, with songs like The Staple Singers’ famous “I’ll Take You There” (that one really got the crowd moving).

All the while, the young boy in the first scene wanders through the set, taking in each song with innocent eyes and watching the story unfold.

“It shows how belief in the nativity story has actually changed lives,” McAllister says in a release. “It sends a message of hope, endurance, and acceptance, in the spirit of the African griot tradition passed down through generations.”

While Black Nativity is certainly theatrical—with a narrative that moves through the birth of the Christ child and then into the 21st-century aftermath—it also plays out like an epic poem come to life: less musical and more gospel choir performance, with very little dialogue between its roughly two dozen songs. We have the legendary Hughes to thank for that, but also the strong, surging voices of the ArtsCentric vocalists, who give mind-blowing performances.

In the end of the play, as in its beginning, the message resonates: that Jesus is love, and love can save you. And more than 50 years after Black Nativity’s initial run, it’s just as timeless a message as ever.

We traveled to Appalachia to sit inside the last honky-tonk bar in Winchester, Virginia, and took a ride back in time to learn about Maryland’s rich history in music. We were mesmerized by the timeless mystique of mermaids and disheartened by the dire state of the Chesapeake Bay. We got perspective into our city’s history, through stories of the 1968 riots after Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. was assassinated, the Baltimore Uprising of 2015, and the aftermath of both.

And we did this all through books that were penned by Baltimore authors.

We pored over poetry, novels, art books, children’s books, collected essays, memoirs, and handbooks, all of which provided insight into understanding our world and ourselves. Here are our top picks for the must-read books of the 2018. (Spoiler alert: in the case of Michael Northrup’s book, it’s a must-see.)

I Wrote This Book Because I Love You
Tim Kreider (Simon & Schuster)

It’s no surprise that when he’s not writing for The New York Times, Tim Kreider is also a cartoonist (many in Baltimore may know him for his dark-humor comic strip “The Pain—When Will It End?,” which ran for 12 years in City Paper). The Baltimore native’s second collection of essays is chock full of laugh-out-loud moments, mostly at his own expense, as he puts his love life on display with stark honesty. Like the time he briefly dated a prostitute (er, fetish model), or when he followed a girl to the circus and posed as her husband, or when he tracked down the psychologist who tested him as a child for the renowned Strange Situation study that’s used to predict attachment issues into adulthood. All the while, he’s discovered a thing or two. Kreider isn’t solely a humorist—he’s also part philosopher, part psychologist, part poet. Paired with his depth of insight into the human condition and startlingly sharp observations, this intimate collection is as hilarious as it is poignant, as it explores what it means to love and be loved—even if it’s love shared with your 19-year-old cat.

Hummingbirds in the Trenches
Kondwani Fidel (self-published)

Kondwani Fidel’s raw, brutal, and unabashedly honest account of growing up in Baltimore and losing family and friends to murder, drugs, and gang violence is painful to read but also refreshing, uncompromising in its integrity to tell the truth as he sees it. There’s a sensitivity and a fire to the voice of this 25 year old, who has already traveled the country and world to give lectures and readings. His new collection of memoir-esque essays, one-liners, conversation excerpts, and rhythmic poetry—referred to as “The Tracklist” in the table of contents—encompasses the writer’s ruminations and research. Here, he reflects on the repercussions of slavery and systemic racism in America: the toxic lead paint study on black youth; kids suffering in public schools without air conditioning or heat; and general poverty, depression (including his own), suicide, drugs, and blood on the streets of East Baltimore. If you’re not aware of what growing up in a rough neighborhood is like—what it’s like to be a hummingbird in the trenches—this book will pry your eyes wide open.

Clock Dance
Anne Tyler (Knoff)

In Anne Tyler’s latest novel, the Pulitzer Prize-winning Baltimore author explores the passage of time and how pivotal moments come to define us. In blocks of narrative that skip ahead 10 to 20 years at a time, she tells the story of a rather ordinary character, Willa Drake, whom we meet as a daughter, wife, and mother of adult children who longs to be a grandmother. We see her through love and loss, from childhood into retirement—and we watch as she evolves (albeit slowly). It’s Tyler’s graceful prose and solid narrative, peppered with her subtle sense of humor, that makes this book a joy to read. Whether it’s Willa’s straight-and-narrow, slightly miserable second husband; her sardonic little sister; or the badass, motorcycle-riding neighbor in leather pants, these characters come to life off the page, another one of Tyler’s gifts.

Dream Away
Michael E. Northrup (Stanley/Barker)

In this limited-edition art book, Baltimore’s Michael E. Northrup presents a series of 66 photographs of his now ex-wife that revolve around femininity, revealing the girl in the woman and the woman in the girl. These portraits also serve as a love story and an intimate look into the photographer’s own life. “As for the subject matter, we met in 1976, married in 1978, and divorced 1988,” Northrup says succinctly. We see her life—and body—change as she goes from lover to mother, from casually smoking cigarettes and skinny dipping to donning a bare-bummed baby over her shoulder and modeling breast pumps. Black-and-white images are juxtaposed with color, giving a sense of reflection on past times. With Northrup’s imaginative experiments with shadow, strategically placed objects, and curated poses, the moments-in-time feel of a family album is elevated to fine art.

Liza Jane & the Dragon
Laura Lippman (Black Sheep/Akashic Books)

The New York Times best-selling author Laura Lippman’s foray into the arena of children’s literature is delightful and yet manages to maintain the author’s quirky sense of humor. In this tale, a little girl named Liza Jane fires her parents and hires a dragon to take their place . . . until she realizes the dragon has only one tactic for solving problems: breathing fire. Late to school? Set the secretary’s desk on fire. Pizza delivery man got delayed? A fiery blast to his car. The picture book is illustrated by Maryland painter Kate Samworth, who brings the characters to life and gives us visual clues for reading this story in a broader context. While this story is a fun romp through what might be the occasional daydream of many children, it also serves as a political allegory. The dragon has a familiar blond mane that swoops between his two horns.

Before and After Loss: A Neurologist’s Perspective on Loss, Grief and Our Brain
Lisa M. Shulman, MD (Johns Hopkins University Press)

This poetic and insightful, if heartbreaking, memoir from neurologist Lisa M. Schulman stems from her own bereavement of her late husband, Bill Weiner, former chair of neurology at the University of Maryland, as she chronicles his diagnosis and eventual succumbing to cancer. His journal entries, her recorded dreams, and photos of meals they shared add a personal touch to the book that illustrates their love for one another, while interspersed quotes from philosophers, mystics, poets, and psychotherapists offer wisdom on death, dying, and grieving. Combined with the latest scientific studies in traumatic brain injury and holistic approaches to healing, Schulman has created a unique book that touches on all aspects of the process of grieving—the psychological, physiological, and overlap between neurology and psychiatry. Ultimately, Shulman points out that whether brain injury is caused by physical or emotional trauma, it results in similar long-term effects—and also that post-traumatic stress can become post-traumatic growth, with the right tools. In short, it could prove to be an invaluable aid to counselors, psychotherapists, and medical doctors, as well as anyone moving through grief toward wholeness.

A Memory of the Future
Elizabeth Spires (W.W. Norton & Company)

In this new poetry collection, Spires seems to channel Rumi or Buddha or both. The poems feel like prayers, and in some cases koans—each unique but all with a timeless, spiritual quality. To say they’re Zen-like would be both literal and figurative; references to Zen Buddhism are strewn throughout Spires’ work, and her verses unfold like meditations. The Goucher College professor of English possesses the rare gift to present lovely, solemn passages with a light touch and deft use of metaphor while simultaneously feeding her readers profound and heady truths. These little nuggets of wisdom come like offerings placed on an altar, quietly, with grace and intention.

Homeplace
John Lingan (Houghton Mifflin Harcourt)

Homeplace is an honest, bittersweet, and at times humorous look at small-town America through the lens of Winchester, Virginia, in the Shenandoah Valley. Lingan, who grew up in Catonsville and has written for Oxford American and New York Times Magazine, examines Patsy Cline’s hometown and its longtime resident Jim McCoy, the honky-tonk owner who discovered her (and who continued to smoke, drink, and make music well into his 80s). What we ultimately see is a town in the midst of an identity crisis—from a slow-paced, Southern area known for its apple production to a burgeoning suburb of new establishments that have attracted an influx of urbanites from Washington, D.C., and Northern Virginia. But the book also feels like a travelogue at times—clearly the observations of an out-of-towner with a voice of his own. His four years of researching and writing it is evident, as he reveals the town’s (and neighboring towns’) quirks while bringing into focus a broader, nostalgic story of a vanishing way of life, as factory farms, opioids, big-box stores, and even music streaming services swallow up what once was.

The Chesapeake in Focus: Transforming the Natural World
Tom Pelton (Johns Hopkins University Press)

Pelton, one the country’s leading environmental journalists, offers us a wealth of knowledge about the Chesapeake Bay, collected from his more than two decades of reporting on this ecological, cultural, and historical treasure (you may also know him from his show Environment in Focus on WYPR). His book is part history of the bay’s watershed region, part political history of its preservation, and, to a lesser extent, part personal history, as Pelton draws gorgeous imagery of scenes he’s experienced as an avid kayaker on the bay’s waters and tributaries. In total, he paints a compelling portrait of what it is he wants to preserve. Divided into four sections (The Waters, The People, The Wildlife, and The Policies), the book covers a lot of ground, from Baltimore’s sewage issues to the over-harvesting of wild oysters. The highlight, perhaps, comes toward the end, when Pelton proposes 10 realistic steps for bay restoration. We should listen to him.

Acclaimed playwright Marcus Gardley originally penned his script A Wonder in My Soul to be set in Chicago, where it premiered at Victory Garden Theater. But when the play makes its Baltimore debut on December 6 at Baltimore Center Stage, audiences will see a new story unfold—one that is set here in Charm City.

Each version of the play takes place in a beauty salon, the owners of which struggle with the question of whether or not to relocate under the pressures of gentrification. Gardley re-wrote the play after a visit to Baltimore a few months ago and incorporates pieces of our city’s history, as well as current issues, into the revamped script.

This play covers a lot—gentrification, Obama becoming the first black president—what was the impetus for writing the original script?
I’m passionate about writing stories that feature African-American women as central characters, so I spent a lot of time in Chicago interviewing women who own beauty parlors.

Why did you set it in a beauty parlor?
Beauty parlors are really significant to me. Outside of the black church, the beauty salon is the center for all the great gossip. Usually those women are spiritual, but even deeper than that—like they have a mentor or advisor connection with their clients, especially the younger clients. It becomes like family members, and there’s something really beautiful about that. Also, these women are touching their heads, their crowns. What I learned is that these women are extremely influential in their community, and they really care about the people in their community. I always thought that that was an important story to tell.

I read a book The Colored Waiting Room by a man who interviewed Martin Luther King’s barber, which just reiterates what you’re saying: you’d hear things inside the barber shop that you wouldn’t hear anywhere else because it’s a safe space.
That’s right.

Why did you decide to take it to Baltimore?
I did a play in Baltimore called Dance of the Holy Ghosts at Baltimore Center Stage [in 2013], and it was directed by [former Baltimore Center Stage artistic director] Kwame Kwei-Armah. That was the first time I was in Baltimore, when I was at rehearsals for the show, and I fell in love with the city. It reminds me of Oakland, California, where I grew up. There’s a pride in Baltimore. People there have an intense love for their city, and also a notion of “pull yourself up by your bootstraps.” I just really admired that. So even when I was working on the play in Chicago, I always thought it would be perfect for Baltimore. It’s really a play about the city. They’re city plays. The salon is really just a symbol of the city, and these women are so strong.

When you were visiting Baltimore a few months ago specifically for research, what were some of your takeaways for the script?
While I was there, staff at Center Stage introduced me to a number of salon owners. I spent several hours talking to them about their experiences and passions, and why they want to be beauticians. Some have been at their salons for 40 years. It was incredible. Some were quite young, and others were up there in age. Then, Center Stage gave me a tour of the entire city, and I could see these salons within their larger environment. I wanted to learn about Baltimore. I also wanted these women to feel like they were heard, so I took elements of their stories and put them in the play, so they could have a sense of ownership.

Did you find a lot of similarities between the beauticians in Baltimore and Chicago? Or how were they different?
Chicago is a lot larger and more spread out, so there’s less you can do about gentrification. If you had to close and go to another part of Chicago, you’d become totally isolated. But because Baltimore is smaller, people end up moving to low-income areas. Baltimore is also very politically active. They know who their mayor is. They know to vote. They’re truly aware of their political choices.

Let’s talk about how some of this got incorporated into the new script. One thing I noticed right away were the character names.
Yes, all of the character names were changed to reflect neighborhoods in Baltimore and streets.

I noticed the 1968 riots are mentioned, too, which happened in Baltimore in and Chicago. Were they in the original version?
In the Chicago version, there’s no riot. Instead, part of the play focuses on the continuation of the Great Migration. Some of these families came to Chicago to escape the South, and now they’re being forced to move again because of gentrification. One of the biggest themes is how they feel like they can’t stay anywhere—they always feel like they have to move. And that was a tragedy. In Baltimore, one of the stories I really felt moved by were the effects of the riots and how that really changed neighborhoods, how some of them still have not recovered. There’s this pain of having lost this incredible Civil Rights activist and leader, Dr. King, and also, they’re thinking about how their city has become undesirable, so I talk about that. Some of it’s told in flashbacks. What’s great in Baltimore is Pennsylvania Avenue and the history there. These people have the strength and the history to overcome adversity, and that’s why I chose to include that element.

What types of conversations do you hope this play will generate? A lot of playwrights are activists, in a sense—though that might be a strong word—because they get communities to talk about issues they’re facing.
I think activist is the word, if you ask me, and this is really why I do theater. I hope, and this might sound corny or cheap, but I hope people are talking about, you know, how do we create positive change in our community? I hope it sparks a conversation about what role and responsibility we have. When I first started doing plays, I spent a lot of time doing talk-backs, where I’d talk about the work. But you can isolate an audience from having their own opinions about the show when you do this. I hope people talk and leave the show excited and inspired to do something.

Has gentrification affected you personally?
Absolutely. Oakland, where I was born and raised, is probably the most gentrified place in the United States. It’s something like the fourth most expensive city to live in in the country now. Literally scores of people were pushed out of the city. Literally all of my family have left. I do a lot of work there, and it’s really hard, because it doesn’t look like the place where I grew up. The people don’t look like the people I grew up with—not in terms of race, but in terms of class. So a lot of this rich history I grew up with there—the Black Panthers started there, it had this huge artistic community, an arts district with these great painters—all of that is gone. . . it looks sanitized. It’s hard to go visit.

Two of Baltimore’s most celebrated festivals, Light City and the Baltimore Book Festival, will join forces next year. Both events will merge into a 10-day mega festival in 2019 that will run November 1-10, centered at the Inner Harbor with more events scattered throughout town.

At first blush, this might seem like an odd idea. Why change these two landmark festivals when they’ve been so successful? But planners believe that folding them into one major event will strengthen them both and ultimately benefit the city and its arts community as a whole.

“We just thought that combining the two festivals would have such a tremendous impact on the city, and we could have a greater reach,” says Kathy Hornig, COO and festivals director with Baltimore Office of Promotion and the Arts (BOPA). “There’s really nothing else like it in the entire country.”

At its core, Light City is known for its elaborate, large-scale art installations that light up in various ways along the BGE Light Art Walk. Many are site-specific and created by artists from across the globe, as well as right here in Baltimore. In the past, artists have incorporated the harbor itself into some of the pieces. Others feature interactive, musical, and even kinetic elements. The Inner Harbor Promenade becomes a wonderland of lights under the festival’s spell—and all of that will continue.

So, too, will the Book Festival’s variety of panels, readings, book signings, open mics, and other activities.

The change is being made, in part, because BOPA heard from Light City attendees who wished the festival occurred later in the year. Some festival-goers suggested pushing it back to allow kids time to wander along the Inner Harbor Promenade and enjoy the light installations earlier in the day—rather than having to wait until 8 or 9 p.m. for the sky to darken so that they could see them in all their illuminated glory.

Booksellers had a similar need. Book Festival partners, such as The Ivy Bookshop, explained that an influx of books are published during the fall each year, and a September book festival is sometimes slightly premature for authors who have books being released in October, November, or December.

Pushing both festivals back further in the year and combining them “just seemed to check all the boxes,” Hornig says. “We just had an ‘ah-ha’ moment.”

Light installations will be on view for all 10 nights, and literary events will also occur each day of the festival. (As for an official festival name, organizers are still working on it.)

Neighborhood Lights, where local artists make site-specific illuminated pieces in several of Baltimore’s neighborhoods, will still be part of the event, but books will be a focus, too. In order to connect with each featured neighborhood, BOPA has partnered with Enoch Pratt Free Library to offer literature events at several of the 22 library branches within Baltimore City.

Another slight variation to the combined festival will be the elimination of Labs@LightCity, the coinciding panel discussions that occur throughout Light City’s run. Instead, Baltimore Book Festival readings and speaker series will take place throughout the day.

Some of the favorite Labs@LightCity events, like the Pitch Competition for entrepreneurs and the popular Kindling Community Dinner, will continue. These events will be held indoors and outdoors.

“We want to illuminate the city with light during the day and art at night,” Hornig says. “As I looked out onto the harbor today—which is a year to the day from the start of this festival—I’m just so excited about all the possibilities for Baltimore and our arts community.”

It comes as no surprise when Carolyn Turgeon, editor-in-chief of Faerie Magazine, says she’s always loved fairy tales.

She sits in her living room on a purple velvet couch—the same place where she often writes her novels and magazine stories. Flecks of tinsel-like hair extensions make her dark locks sparkle when she turns her head.

“And I loved Disney movies,” she goes on. “Especially as a teenager. I loved that glittery, over-the-top gorgeousness combined with darkness in fairy tales.”

While you might picture Turgeon living in a storybook cottage in the woods, this author of five novels, as well as The Faerie Handbook and The Mermaid Handbook, has called Baltimore home since 2015 and lives in an apartment in the city. Her stories of fairy folk, mermaids, witches, and unicorns come from a deep well of imagination, as well as inspiration found in books, films, and the interesting people she meets through her work.

Her love for reading started at a young age, and it was a book, in fact, that provided her with her first vision of becoming a writer.

“We moved around a lot, growing up, and I was kind of a dreamy, shy kid,” she says. “I was definitely one of those kids who books saved. I had a huge response to them and to things that were beautiful—being able to step into those worlds.”

As a child, she once asked her mother to pick up a Betsy book from the library, referring to the popular Carolyn Haywood series. But instead, her mom brought her back a Betsy-Tacy book, set during the turn of the century, by Maud Hart Lovelace. It was a happy accident. “I fell in love with these books—the long dresses, this girl constantly scribbling in her notebook. I thought she was the coolest thing ever.”

Turgeon actually penned her first novel when she was 8. (“It’s not very good,” she admits.)

Her first published novel was Rain Village—which she started writing in college and then finished about a decade later. Set in the early 1900s, it tells the story of a small girl who doesn’t seem to fit in because of her size—but her world opens up exponentially when a librarian coaxes her to read, starting her on her path of who she is and who she will become.

Turgeon went on to write more novels that contain magical elements but are simultaneously rooted in reality. She often pulls from fairy tales, as she sees them as “primal stories that are in your blood and bones because you know them so well,” she says. “They’re linked to childhood and can take on a mythical sort of thing. In some ways, they’re so loose, you can interpret them in different ways.”

In her retellings, written for adults, she often focuses on characters whose stories weren’t heard in the original tales.

“The perspectives that were left out or overlooked makes you wonder why they were overlooked. Those characters can be really powerful because of that.”

For instance, what happens to all these young princesses as they grow up? To put it another way: why are old women always evil in fairy tales? In her novel The Fairest of Them All, Turgeon fleshes out Rapunzel’s story and imagines her growing up to become Snow White’s evil stepmother.

Her book Mermaid focuses on an alternate character, too: the princess who ultimately marries the prince in Hans Christian Andersen’s story (while the little mermaid ultimately turns to sea foam). Turgeon noticed upon reading the original version that we really know very little about this woman—which was rather intriguing to her.

After selling Mermaid, she launched a blog called “I Am a Mermaid” to serve as a depository for all things mermaid related, as she noticed these magical sea creatures appearing in her life more and more—in pop culture, in stories, even in the Starbucks logo. After the website was up and running and Mermaid was released, she was blown away by all the feedback she started receiving from people with mermaid stories of their own.

“People respond to mermaids in such a big way,” she says.

She dove in head first—attending Mer-Con in Las Vegas, going to mermaid camp at Weeki Wachee Springs in Florida (twice), and being the featured mermaid author at the Maryland Faerie Festival. It was at that festival that she met Kim Cross, an artist and Baltimore native who founded Faerie Magazine in 2005 and remains its publisher.

Soon after, Turgeon began working with Cross to compile a special mermaid issue of the magazine, then stayed on to become the magazine’s editor-in-chief, eventually relocating to Baltimore because of her work with Faerie Magazine (which will change names and become Enchanted Living beginning with the winter 2018 issue).

This past summer also brought the release of Turgeon’s Mermaid Handbook, a gorgeous tome that details all things mermaid, which coincided with a second mermaid-themed edition of Faerie Magazine.

“What fascinated me most about mermaids is how people incorporate them into everyday life in different, creative ways,” Turgeon says. “There are real people who just go and get tails, fitted to their bodies, and go swimming in rivers. It’s like, when they put on these tails, they become a super-heroic version of themselves.”

Of course, the magic doesn’t stop with mermaids, but the idea of transcending ordinary life is one that has always intrigued Turgeon.

A sixth novel is in the works, one that delves into the love story of Dante and Beatrice, and she’s also compiling a third handbook, The Unicorn Handbook, slated for release in 2020 (one can only imagine what sorts of magical adventures that will entail).

Last summer, she went to a witch camp in New York, mostly for fun, but partly in preparation for the Practical Magic-themed Faerie Magazine issue that hit stands last fall. Veronica Varlow runs the gatherings for women at her home, which she’s named Curiosa Magic House.

“It’s like her dream summer camp,” Turgeon says. “We went to a swimming hole, we roasted vegan marshmallows, we made flower crowns and took an archery class. It was crafty and girly and fun, but also we’d weave in spells—things to make us feel empowered—into everything we did, and we all really bonded with each other.”

The idea was to add a bit of magic to your life—an idea that Turgeon believes whole-heartedly, not just when writing stories but when looking at the world around her, seeing the magic in the everyday, and living out her own story.

This is the story of how a small group of people came together to save a cultural institution: Baltimore Clayworks.

On October 10, the Global Day of Clay, a large, cross-generational network of Clayworks students, teachers, resident artists, board, volunteers, and friends, as well as state delegates, gather on the lawn outside Clayworks’ galleries and office building to celebrate one year of their reopening. The crowd fills the foldout chairs on the grass, and others stand to watch as a new executive director, Cyndi Wish, is installed, and an honorary street sign marking this stretch of Smith Avenue as Clayworks Way is unveiled, to much fanfare and cheers.

They have good reason to celebrate.

In early 2017, Clayworks was on the verge of what many thought could be the end of its 37-year existence. The board running the nonprofit at the time had plans to sell Clayworks’ two large buildings in Mt. Washington, pay off its debt, and find a space to rent in downtown Baltimore. When the Clayworks community—students, donors, artists, a thinning staff, and even leaders of clay centers in other parts of the country—learned of this, they banded together to raise funds to pay off the debt.

“People were blindsided. We were in shock,” said Susan Patz, the new board president at Clayworks. Without any power to decide Clayworks’ fate, which was in the hands of the former board, the community didn’t know if or how the organization could be rescued.

Former students, staff, and teachers came together to create the Save Baltimore Clayworks campaign. They made a website. They petitioned. Eventually, they went to the state capitol.

“It became a rather public battle,” Patz said.

A turning point came in June 2017, when Baltimore City Councilman Isaac “Yitzy” Schleifer sponsored a resolution with other council members—which passed unanimously—to stop the sale of the Clayworks buildings. In mid-July, a potential buyer purchased a different building, and the former board closed Clayworks’ doors, unannounced, and proceeded to begin to file for bankruptcy. The classrooms, studios, rooms of loaded kilns, and exhibit spaces all went dark. Artists, summer campers, students, and staff were locked out.

Those trying to save the nonprofit pressed on—at times working 60-hour weeks.

From July through September, the Agreement for the Continuation of Baltimore Clayworks was negotiated and eventually signed by the former board and the Clayworks Community Campaign. An entirely new board was installed when Clayworks reopened on October 1.

During the first couple weeks, some 70 volunteers worked around the clock to clean and paint every wall of the two buildings and prepare the kilns, wheels, and glaze rooms for artists and students to return. “So many people came back to help,” said Patz. “The board, volunteers and staff were indistinguishable.”

Artists were welcomed back and exhibitions installed. Classes started November 1.

Founding member and director until 2011 Deborah Bedwell calls Clayworks a “church for clay artists. It’s a sacred space.” She and eight other ceramic artists started Clayworks as a small collective in 1980 in the old brick schoolhouse building in Mt. Washington (which would later see an addition and remodeling of that building and also the acquisition of a second building across the street). She was among the group who returned to help rebuild the legacy institution.

John K. Smith, who served as board chairman for more than a decade, came back, too. “I was just shocked to hear it was in trouble. This was just an amazing group of volunteers. These women—they saved this,” he said, and begins listing the names of those on the steering committee of the Campaign to Save Baltimore Clayworks: Marsha Smelkinson, Patz, Bedwell, Pat Halle, Ronni Aronin, and Rima Semaan. “Old staff came back and taught for free. It’s just a great group of people who do wonderful things.”

By the end of 2017, the new leadership managed to pay more than $350,000 in previous debt, see record class enrollments, and earn a positive net of about $150,000. Classes were filled throughout 2018, too. The galleries saw multiple exhibitions, 200 kids participated in summer camp, and a new group of emerging artists were selected to be residents artists with studios onsite. Programming will continue to expand in 2019, as the organization builds upon its signature classes, with finding from new grants from Baltimore City and the Bloomberg Philanthropies.

And so, on October 10, the community celebrated.

“I hope we’ll continue to gather here and celebrate,” Patz tells the crowd, before they dispersed and mingled, wandering around the buildings to see exhibits and artist studios and hear live music. Outside, a group of people noticed it has started to drizzle—and then, to their wonderment, they noticed a double rainbow, framing Mt. Washington’s sky. One by one, kids and adults pointed, marveling, saying, “This is a sign!” and “This is our good omen!”

“We believed we were right, and we just persisted,” Patz said succinctly, after sharing her story. “The community had a mission. They knew the value of this organization. I know the value. Its mission resonates with so many people.”

Performers from across the continent will make Baltimore their stage for 11 days during the seventh annual Charm City Fringe festival, which kicks off on November 1. New and experimental theater—featuring more than 20 shows, from comedy to a one-man cabaret. Festival headquarters will be at Mount Vernon Marketplace, where fans can get tickets and get festival schedules. Here are our picks for six not-to-miss performances and events.

Launch Party
The opening night kickoff will be from 7 to 10 p.m. November 1, with festival preview performances, music, art installations, light fare from Maiwand Grill, and drinks. Marble Bar, Congress Building, 306 W. Franklin St.

Beaver Dreams
Charm City Fringe is officially an international theater festival. This year, Lost & Found Puppet Co. from Montreal will perform its brilliant, bizarre show Beaver Dreams. Nominated for five Frankie Awards, this production uses puppets and live acting to tell the story of a group of humans and beavers who live near the same pristine lake, deep in the the Quebecois forest, and share the same nightmare: commercial development springing up nearby that’s threatening the natural world. 322 N. Howard St.

The End of Things
Three Princes Theatre will present their world premier of The End of Things, taking the audience on six journeys through failing relationships and an impending apocalypse (as in, an actual threat to planet Earth . . . but also, of course, its metaphorical implications). The show uses monologue, vignettes, and imagery to weave together these vignettes of love and love lost. Downtown Cultural Arts Center, 401 N Howard St.

I Know It Was the Blood: The Totally True Adventures of a Newfangled Black Woman
Tara Lake, a scholar, vocalist, performer, and historian will present her one-woman play I Know It Was the Blood: The Totally True Adventures of a Newfangled Black Woman, which won an Artist’s Choice Award this year at the Chicago Fringe Festival. Dramady musical (with poetry interspersed throughout) takes us back to the 1980s and ’90s and into the world of an African-American Jersey girl’s coming-of-age. 322 N. Howard St.

33 (a kabarett)
Big Empty Barn Productions will present its one-man production 33 (a kabarett), written and performed by Bremner Duthie. Set in the ruins of a cabaret theater, the show references the experimental form of theater known as Kabarett, which satirizes the audience and was performed in Germany until the Nazis rose to power and suppressed the shows and performers, most of whom ended up in concentration camps. In this show, all the actor’s fellow performers have already disappeared, leaving him alone on the stage to perform the pieces from the missing ensemble members himself. Downtown Cultural Arts Center, 401 N Howard St.

The Male Gaze
BlueShift Dance focuses on “the male gaze” in their new show by performing dance pieces created for specifically for them—and about them—by the men in their lives who love them. The lens shifts from sexual object to deep love as the show moves through complex and varied emotional landscapes. Downtown Cultural Arts Center, 401 N Howard St.

When Peggy Hoffman curated monthly art exhibits on the top floor of Minás Gallery, owned by her partner Minás Konsolas, she would often organize concerts, poetry readings, and other events to branch out and draw in more people and merge what often seemed like distinct artist communities.

She spent 12 years there (she and Konsolas closed the Hampden business in 2014), and now, semiretired, provides management services for artists and curates the occasional exhibit—like the upcoming The Music, Seen, opening at WTMD in November.

Much like her vision while at Minás Gallery, the purpose of this show is to bring Baltimore’s creative communities under one roof.

There will, undoubtedly, be live music for the opening, which runs from 5:30 to 8:30 p.m. November 1. Greta and Joe, who play a lot of instrumental jazz standards, will take the stage during the reception.

“We kind of get in our own creative silos,” Hoffman says. “My approach to curating this show was to bring people together who don’t normally interact. . . . The station is connected to an extensive network of curious, engaged people from the music community. My objective is to expose new groups of people to artwork. WTMD’s objective is to build community through music. The exhibition is a great fit for both of us.”

The show includes about 50 pieces of original, musically-inspired work by five Maryland artists: Landis Expandis, Konsolas, Cody Pryseski, Watson, and Kristin Wiebe, each of whom has interpreted the musical theme in his or her own way.

Landis Expandis may be best known for his role as lead singer and drummer of the All Mighty Senators (or more recently as a Baltimore DJ), but he also works in visual art, creating colorful, loose acrylic paintings, often with a nod to music. It only made sense to feature him in this exhibit, as his work—and life—bridges together music and art.

A Maryland Institute College of Art graduate, Konsolas is working in collage and cardboard for this exhibit, though in the past he’s been known primarily as a painter and owner of Minás Gallery.

Pryseski, who has a studio in Fells Point, is known for his hyperrealistic figure paintings but is trying something new for this show: abstract portraits. The pieces reference songs that are connected to people and memories, and they are meant to evoke an emotional response, much like the way music does.

Also based in Baltimore, Wiebe works primarily in acrylic on canvas, drawing inspiration from such masters as Matisse and Gaugin and also through her former work in international human rights.

A graduate of the arts program at Towson University and now based in Frederick, Watson makes mixed-media pieces with a gritty, urban motif, often incorporating signage and graffiti.

The work will be hung throughout the WTMD building in Towson—the reception area near the entrance, the conference room, and one or more hallways. The majority of the pieces were created specifically for the show, Hoffman says.

The first show she curated in the space was held in November 2017 and titled Rhythm and Muse. It featured work by five artists, as well, including one overlap (Landis Expandis and Konsolas both showed their work), and Fractal Cat played the opening. Hoffman is planning a third exhibit with WTMD that won’t be music-themed, slated to open in the spring of 2019.

WTMD has served as a venue for about half a dozen shows in the past. Sam Sessa, music and media relations coordinator at the station, says that Rhythm and Muse was one of the most well-attended, bringing about 200 people to WTMD for the opening reception. “I was blown away. The response was overwhelming, and all the artists in last year’s show sold pieces,” he says. “Any time we can bridge art and music, that’s what we’re trying to do.”

On a sticky Tuesday evening toward the end of summer, the air inside the Station North Tool Library smells of sawdust and magic. Projects by artisans of all skill levels are in the works. A handful of 20-somethings wander into the workshop around 6:30 p.m. to learn how to build a coffee table. To a newcomer, the piles of wooden planks and massive planer saws can seem daunting, but these folks have been here before—to take the prerequisite safety class, if nothing else—and know that in this quiet woodshop, anything is possible.

When class begins, instructor Sarah Hrovoski slowly pulls samples of wood from shelves and describes each kind, most of which are reclaimed from Remington’s Brick + Board salvage store, in detail—fir and pine are soft and sand nicely, maple is sturdy, mahogany’s color is rich. With fears cast aside, within an hour or so, each student has a rough design of their table, and then, sporting plastic safety goggles, they’re sawing, cutting, and sanding all manner of wood to bring their visions to reality.

“Everybody’s work is always different,” says Hrovoski, “which is really cool, considering the limitations in size and materials.”

In recent years, spaces such as the Tool Library have sprouted up across the city for those looking for weekend hobbies, after-work stress relief, or an education to launch a new profession or small business. We’ve all found ourselves in those post-grad and mid-career slumps. Whether you have a specific project in mind or just want to scratch a creative itch, chances are there’s a space and supportive community in Baltimore to help you see it through.

While traditional colleges and universities offer a variety of continuing education options, they typically involve a larger commitment, stricter schedule, and higher tuition than maker spaces like the Tool Library, The Foundery, Open Works, and many others. Through single classes, full-day passes, and annual memberships, these community hubs allow students of all ages and aptitudes to try their hand at a new trade. They also serve a need for existing artisans who no longer have access to tools, equipment, or workspace to continue honing their craft. Plus, advances in technology mean new ways to make things, and many of these spaces have added resources such as 3D printers and computer-controlled machines to their inventories. Many of the spaces’ founders want to lower the barriers between novice and expert by making shops, education, and resources more accessible.

So whether you’re looking to mold pottery, forge your own metalwork, or build a coffee table, Baltimore has a variety of spaces to help you break your Netflix habit and embrace your inner artisan. Here are a few of our favorites to help you get started.

Baltimore Clayworks

5707 Smith Ave., 410-578-1919

Since opening in 1980, Baltimore Clayworks has continued to grow and literally expand outwards, adding onto its original structure and opening a gallery and office space across the street, creating something of a miniature ceramics campus in the heart of Mt. Washington. Artful benches and a sculptural fountain adorn the walkways between the buildings and are perfect for hanging out and talking shop. But it’s the old brick building where the true magic happens.

Shelves of pottery-in-progress line the walls, chalkboards are filled with design concepts and instructions, and a wall of glaze samples shows some 144 combinations. Studios and classroom areas offer options for hand-building and wheel throwing. Several kilns fill the basement, while a beloved wood kiln is outside.

“People will come from two hours away, sleep on cots, take shifts through the night to use this kiln,” says Mary Cloonan, Clayworks’ exhibitions director. “You have to keep feeding it wood, so it becomes a community thing, keeping it going.”

Clayworks briefly closed last year, but with a new board installed, bankruptcy was averted, and the space reopened quickly, due in large part to its strong community of teachers and artists.

Clayworks offers open studio time so people can work at their own pace, and a range of courses offers a little something for everyone—from the serious student to the late-night bachelorette party, to three-hour “Try It” workshops where people can see how they like the art form. “Everyone starts somewhere,” Cloonan says. “Sometimes people just want to come make something and have fun.”

Baltimore Jewelry Center

10 E. North Ave., Suite 130, 410-243-0479

Not every city is so lucky to have a space dedicated solely to jewelry making.

In 2014, a group of Maryland Institute College of Art faculty members and students from the school’s now-defunct jewelry program founded the Baltimore Jewelry Center inside the Meadow Mill building in Woodberry. It’s now located in Station North, where artists sit at worktables beneath bright white lights and tediously take pliers to their pieces, pound metal with hammers, and painstakingly clip together fasteners and hinges. Exotic necklaces, small sculptures, and other one-of-a-kind pieces dangle above work stations and are clipped to desks and exhibited in gallery spaces.

The center is open seven days a week and supplies a variety of rough-and-tumble tools one might not expect to be associated with this decorative art form—kilns, grinders, sanders, saws, torches, and even a hydraulic press. Here, jewelry is fashioned from metal as well as unlikely materials including fiber and found objects. Other small pieces, like kitchenware and belt buckles, are made here, too.

Classes change each quarter to keep things fresh, ranging from two-day workshops and soldering bootcamps to a certification program. Several local college students take classes, notes one founder, April Wood, who serves as a studio manager and instructor here. “We build on their skills, and we provide a different community.”

The gallery offers artisans a chance to show off their unique and thought-provoking pieces, and it also serves as a way for the center to extend itself into the broader community through free art talks, social gatherings, and exhibits, which have included works by revered artists such as local jewelry designer Betty Cooke and beadwork artist Joyce Scott.

The Foundery

101 W. Dickman St., 855-936-2537

With the exception of the lobby and a break area with hot dogs and and Zeke’s coffee, The Foundery is one gigantic room that somewhat resembles a Home Depot—but this place is anything but a big box.

At nearly 20,000 square feet, the Port Covington maker space (once located on the corner of Pratt Street and Central Avenue) features a wide-open, industrial environment for craftspeople to share materials and sneak peeks at one another’s projects, which helps spark ideas. “Walls can be intimidating,” says CEO Jason Hardebeck, who was a nuclear engineer in the Navy before his Foundery days began. “When people start working with new materials, they tend to push the boundaries.”

“Anyone who has an idea can start their project here.”

One section of this sprawling space is reserved for old-timey blacksmithing, while massive computer-controlled machines run nearby, making metal signage, embroidered pillows, and custom-designed skateboards (Bustin Boards is a regular). They serve a niche for those who have started a business but haven’t reached the point of being able to justify buying a $10,000 machine. “We’re democratizing access,” says Hardebeck. “Anyone who has an idea can start their project here.” The space’s name reflects that idea; it’s purpose is to support founders.

The cacophony of machinery runs seven days a week, with artists dropping by to use the space and tools or to attend one of the 100 classes offered each month, like laser engraving, embroidery, bowl turning, Women Only Welding, or even making knives from scratch—and then going to a steak restaurant as a class to try them out. Unlike many other spaces, The Foundery will hold a class even if only one person signs up.

Open Works

1400 Greenmount Ave., 410-862-0424

Want to make a drone or learn how to 3D print your own sculpture? At this massive and modern Greenmount West maker space, you’ve come to the right place. Technologies that weren’t widely available some five to 10 years ago—or simply didn’t exist at all—can be found within this 34,000-square-foot facility, which opened in 2016.

Open Works acts as a starting point to try these new gadgets and gizmos, and many classes—even safety and beginner classes—involve some element of making, says executive director Will Holman, adding, “We’re here to lower barriers.” Membership gives you access to tools, workspace, and other resources, including computer software such as Adobe Creative Suite.

Meanwhile, graphic designers, copy editors, architects, and other artists fill 115 cubicles, creating a community that fosters a cross-pollination of ideas and expertise. Even sitting in the space is inspiring, as much of Open Works’ interior design elements were custom made right here. Plus, there’s a coffee shop on the ground floor that helps fuel even the greenest of makers into work mode.

Station North Tool Library

417 E. Oliver St., 410-347-0850

The Station North Tool Library prides itself on being an inclusive community shop that caters to the absolute beginner but also supports the high-level artisan. Here you can find more than 30 classes on everything from plumbing to handcrafting a coffee table from scratch.

What began as a lending library of tools (which still fill the front room) quickly expanded into classroom and workspace in 2014 as demand grew. A smaller classroom area was added this year.

“There was a skills gap between the tools we had in the library and the projects people wanted to take on,” says Arman Mizani, director of library services.

Traditionally, someone interested in woodworking would do an apprenticeship or attend a trade school, but “we’re trying to change the culture so that it’s not just an older man with the knowledge—it’s not this elitist thing,” says Chris Lavoie, who handles programming. “We want everyone to have access.”

The library offers sliding-scale membership rates for access to open studio time in addition to that extensive inventory of tools. Because it’s a relatively small space, some of the popular machines come with a 20-minute time limit, sometimes you have to share a table, and you always have to clean up after yourself. At the end of the day, the Tool Library team wants to maximize resources, but first and foremost build a supportive community. As Lavoie puts it, “People before projects.”

EXTRA CREATIVE

A few more spaces worth checking out.

Baltimore Hackerspace

Get geeky with the latest innovative technology in this East Baltimore maker space that brings computers, science, and digital art to the forefront.
6410 Landay Ave., 410-261-9691.

Baltimore Print Studios

Who says print is dead? This Station North print studio allows you access for letterpress and screenprinting projects, with introductory workshops each month to help you learn the machines.
18 W. North Ave.

Domesticity

This fabric shop and craft studio run by Christina Brunyate offers material (from kitschy to couture), classes (sewing, quilting, even macrame), and social nights.
4321 Harford Rd., 443-885-0369.

A Workshop of Our Own

Also known as WOO, this woodworking space in Woodberry is for women and gender non-conforming craftspeople and offers a variety of classes as well as open studio time.
1780 Union Ave., 443-449-5886.

Four Hour Day Lutherie

Want to build an instrument from scratch? Creative director Tyler St. Claire will show you the ropes. He also hosts concerts in the Lauraville space.
4305 Harford Rd., 410-637-3728.

Maker Practice

This new walk-in space offers craft kits that rotate every three months, allowing you to try your hand at making items such as leather totes or stained-glass windows.
721 Frederick Rd., Catonsville. 410-402-9125.

Impact Hub

While not technically a maker space, Impact Hub serves an important role for the maker community by providing free talks geared toward artists and small business owners.
10 E. North Ave., 443-821-7482.