Every Baltimorean has felt the impact of the novel coronavirus, but COVID-19 comes with its own set of challenges for our left-brained creative community and its leaders. Cancellations and postponements continue to ripple through the arts scene and have even come for longstanding events like Artscape and AFRAM. Stay-at-home restrictions remain in place for Baltimore City, and there’s no real end in sight.

In the wake of this, many creative leaders pivoted to fundraise or produce virtual events using their personal or organizational platforms. But sadly, many of the early local funding opportunities have been exhausted.

On March 13, I launched Alanah’s COVID-19 Emergency Fund for Artists & Freelancers—which raised more than $5,000 and helped more than 100 artists—but my fund is now closed. The Maryland State Arts Council (MSAC) announced its Emergency Relief Fund on April 3, and received a whopping $2.6 million in requests from artists across the state. MSAC awarded $1 million in emergency grant funding across 125 applications (65 arts organizations at $869,318 and 60 independent artists at $130,682). Similarly, the Baltimore Office of Promotion and the Arts became the fiduciary agent for a coalition-led initiative called the Baltimore Artist Emergency Relief Fund on April 8. It has since exceeded its goal of raising $120,000, helping more than 300 Baltimore City creatives across various mediums and skill levels with $160,780. They have also closed their fund.

So what is the next step? Circling up with some of my peers who serve as Baltimore’s creative leaders seemed like a natural way to continue the conversation. In recent weeks, we have all served in various capacities on COVID-19-related juries and coalitions, as well as thought partners to local arts-related or adjacent institutions and funders.

The Roundtable Participants

This group of creative leaders—who all have community-driven, individualized styles and approaches to arts and entrepreneurship in our city—is a small sampling of a much larger community. We may not work in the same offices, but we all have common goals. COVID-19 hasn’t changed that.

Stephanie Hsu: The founder and co-collaborator of the Charm City Night Market, a festival that celebrates Asian-American culture and has drawn thousands of patrons, vendors, and artists of every medium since its inception in 2018.

Brion Gill: The Pennsylvania Avenue Black Arts & Entertainment District director has spent the last 14 years of her life performing, advocating, and organizing on several continents as an independent artist.

Sharayna Christmas: Founder of Muse 360 Arts and Rayn Fall Dance Studios, she currently wears several hats, also serving as program director for the Baltimore Creatives Acceleration Network (BCAN).

Andrew Simmonet: Founder and director of Artists U, a national incubator for artists in Baltimore and beyond changing the working conditions of artists.

Maggie Villegas: Co-founded the renowned EMP Collective and is a longtime arts and culture producer. She serves as executive director for BCAN.

These are some of the most forward-thinking creative leaders who are driving daily change in Baltimore. Here’s what they had to say about our local arts scene and what’s next:

How would you define “artist relief”?

Andrew Simmonet: Anyone who talks about relief should be talking about the next 18 months.

Brion Gill: When we talk about artist relief we are talking about pushing basic resources because artists are everyday people…relief is not finite.

Sharyana Christmas: Anyone approaching this work should look at the whole artist and their trajectory. We need holistic relief programs that meet artists where they are in their journey, both in and out of the crisis. Funders need to put themselves in the shoes of their audience. They should ask questions about what they might want to know if they were applying.

Stephanie Hsu: Arts relief providers should simply ask creatives what relief looks like…listen to them.

Maggie Villegas: People just want to be heard at this time. The need is far greater than the resources coming at artists.

What’s the greatest need amongst your community?
MV: Creatives just want to know that they are not alone in this struggle. Being heard in isolation can be extremely validating and healing.

I know that, to fill some of this need, the MSAC held listening sessions for every art medium. And following in their footsteps, Maggie and Sharyana held more intimate listening sessions with BCAN for creatives asking candid questions like, “How can we support your work?” But many relief fund efforts are being swarmed with applications and adequate response is near impossible.

MV: You start to feel hopeless when you don’t hear from anybody.

Having applied to over a dozen relief funds myself and talked to nearly 200 independent artists as part of my relief fund effort, I affirm the sentiment of hopelessness in the creative community. You just want to be able to reach out and touch someone.

SH: No one in my immediate network had received funds at the national or federal level.

AS: Five hundred thousand in relief funds is just prolonging the sinking of the ship. Artists are going to survive the novel coronavirus the way they always have—by planning, strategizing, and shifting.

It seems like funds are fine, but togetherness may be the highest need. Who’s getting it right? Which organizations near and far are providing Baltimore artists with their greatest needs during the COVID-19 crisis in Baltimore?

(Artists all fan out over each other’s work, pointing to each other saying, “You’re doing it, NO you are.”)

BG: I really admire the response from the MSAC and encourage creatives in crisis to apply for their Creativity Grant, which is open on a rolling basis.

SH: Myself and the Night Market team have been thinking about the spike in misdirected hate and violence towards Asian Americans amidst COVID-19, and admire the work of groups like Baltimore Asian Resistance in Solidarity (BARS). Their work is an entry point for Asian Americans into a larger conversation about these systemic injustices, and I’m here for it.

AS: In tandem with my Artists U work, I’m working on a graduation speech for an arts high school. They are so moving and powerful and real. They have the skills and tenacity and resilience to move through this crisis. We forget to approach the work with playfulness—we get old and grizzled and quite frankly need a nap.

I’ve seen that grizzled outlook and call those who adopt it “crusty collaborators.” You get to a point in your arts career when you’re just like, “There’s no Money, there’s no help coming.” It’s very important to keep a healthy level and hope and agility when in a creative field, especially amid a global pandemic.

What in-person events were coming up? Should every individual artist and organization be producing virtual events?
MV: We were planning “We Own This” at BCAN, an event where we celebrate the unique spirit of Baltimore’s female founders. We started cancelling events and we didn’t necessarily want to do everything online because so much of our curriculum is about starting a business. It just didn’t feel right.

BG: Paying folks to be artists has been at the forefront of our minds at The Pennsylvania Avenue Black Arts & Entertainment District. We were planning our first large event series since the district’s inception, which was set to run from March to October. We’ve redirected most of our energy to providing programming through virtual competitions and fees for service to do what artists do best. If it is an effort to provide artists their essential needs then by all means, pay and activate especially the black arts community.

SC: Rayn Fall dance studio was gearing up for it’s Summer Dance Intensive. In the black arts community we don’t always have new things to pull something together. I’m used to making things work, I grew up that way. I’ve always been able to do so much with so little. We have to remember those lessons of the resources living inside of us. It’s important not to expect individual artists to operate like large organizations. I encourage artists to create bartering or support systems to create virtual events, it can happen.

I agree that the issues of not having money or resources in the arts community, especially in communities of color, is not new. Not everyone has cancelled contracts. Some folks just weren’t there in their journey. We have to honor that and adjust our expectations of production of virtual events with that.

SH: A lot of community arts and large scale arts institutions usually produce opportunities together—that should continue. In the past the Night Market has worked with places like Central Baltimore Partnership or Motor House on what would’ve been Night Market Underground on April 4. The Charm City Night Market team talked about the production of virtual events a lot and the question we kept coming back to was: “How do we create a mutual exchange?” When producing virtual events, designers should keep that in mind.

What fun virtual events are coming up for your organization or others?
BG: The Pennsylvania Avenue Black Arts & Entertainment District is curating a four-hour long Mini-May Concert Series on Instagram Live. Part one will be held on May 23 featuring headliners Deetranada & Davon Fleming. Part two is on May 30 with George Lovett and Tate Kobang. I’m most excited to be activating and paying local artists like DDm, Lita Lachey, Mike Evenn, Black Assets, and Akilah Divine.

SH: The Night Market Crew thought long and hard about the creation of our new platform “Night Market Online.” We held the first installment with a virtual cooking class on May 16 in partnership with City Seeds and La Cuchara, who offered the ingredients in a neat and tidy package for $15. We’re planning another for June 13 in partnership with Ekiben.

Impromptu live broadcasts have become my favorite source of connecting with artists I know and love, like photographer Devin Allen, who you can catch live talking about everything from anime to wine on Instagram some evenings. He also has a virtual exhibition with City Hall entitled The Beautiful Journey: The Lens of Devin Allen.

I’m also a fan of scheduled curbside and virtual events happening at Hotel Revival Baltimore produced by culture enthusiast Jason Bass. He’s been working alongside artists like Big Fred The Comedian, DJ Sean J, DJ Sun, and even healing artists like Justin Timothy Temple to produce broadcasts on Facebook and Instagram.

The roundtable participants all came up with a list of virtual events to mark on your calendar, as well as a list of resources every artist should have in their web browser favorites:

Events:

Pre-recorded | BCAN | No Permission Needed
5/26-5/29, varied times | Maryland Arts Summit
Ongoing | Revival Virtual Content
Every Saturday | Flow at The Farm w/ Aliya Muhammad
5/30 at 8 p.m. | Official Black Arts District: Mini-May Concert Series
6/3 at 6:30 p.m. | Virtual Sip N Paint Series with Jasmin Manning
6/13 | Charm City Night Market: Night Market Online
6/25 at 7 p.m. | Enoch Pratt Library: Artists Cribs! An Evening with Abdu Ali and Savannah Wood

Check out our roundup, ‘Culturefly’ from the Greater Baltimore Cultural Alliance, and Maryland State Arts Council for a robust list of virtual arts events.

Resources:

All roundtable participants encourage every artist to try filling out an unemployment application, as even artists and gig workers are now eligible. They also suggest every artist should look into The Baltimore Office of Promotion & The Arts (BOPA), which is accepting applications for its Creative Baltimore Fund until June 1.

The following lists are managed by individuals and arts organizations near and far. You’ll find funding, self-care, and even legal advice:

MdVLA COVID-19 Resource Guide
Artists U | SHIFT
Boston Ujima Project | Necessary Systems Daily
Impact Hub Baltimore Live Resource Listing
Freelance Artist Resource Producing Collective
Robert W. Deutsch Foundation | Grit Fund COVID-19 Resource List
Baltimore Artist Relief Fund Resource List

The relief efforts, programming, and resources surfacing now are a continuation of existing work to invigorate Baltimore arts with the assets it deserves. We love to see it.

Starving artists? Not so fast. For many chefs, cooking is already an art form—after all, it has been said that the first taste is with the eyes. But while their Insta-ready plates are something to behold, some area chefs take their artistry a step further. When they’re not working in their commercial kitchens, many chefs dabble in other forms of art (from woodworking to sketching). See for yourself—their talents make us wish we could frame them.

ENRIQUE LIMARDO
EXECUTIVE CHEF, ALMA COCINA LATINA

Enrique Limardo comes by his artistic skills honestly. His mother is a fashion designer back in Caracas, and his grandfather was a painter and sculptor. Growing up in Caracas, he says, “I was very restless, so my father put me in art classes, including painting.” Limardo studied architecture, and though cooking became his calling, he never lost his passion for painting. “I paint every day,” says Limardo, “but it takes a lot of time to do nice-sized canvases, so I started doing sketches with charcoal and pencil. I sketch people I admire, like Einstein, Dalí, and Carlos Santana.” Often working well past midnight, Limardo produces a finished piece every day. “I’ve discovered that this gives me more creativity to bring to the kitchen,” he says. “I always keep design in mind when I’m thinking about plating. I think about colors and textures and, most importantly, flavor, but if I can create it in my mind, I can put it on the plate. The plate is a canvas.”

CARLOS RABA
CHEF/CO-OWNER, CLAVEL

For as long as he can remember, Carlos Raba has been a doodler. “The doodles started because I’m a visual guy,” says Raba. “The doodling helps me focus on one element—and that element is the plate.” In fact, Raba often doodles dishes when coming up with new menu concepts for the Remington taqueria. “Drawing is different than writing,” says Raba, who draws mini-masterpieces with his finger on his iPhone. “If I write down the words ‘spice’ and ‘salt,’ it’s not the same as putting black sparkles on the plate. Drawing helps me envision what will go on the plate and how I will decorate it. Do I need some green color with cilantro? Do I need a slice of something or a drizzle? A painter sees it with paint—I see it with food. Anything you present and have a passion for is art, because you are creating your idea, your vision, and your passion.”

ANDY GAYNOR
EXECUTIVE CHEF, AZUMI

With a mother who was a landscape architect and a grandfather who built boats on the Eastern Shore, Andy Gaynor was steeped in the arts at an early age. “As a kid, I was always tinkering with things, and I made knives out of scissors,” says Gaynor, who studied business at Salisbury State. These days, the chef works in multiple mediums—from metalworking to woodworking to painting. He has made the family dining-room farm table, a coffee table in the living room, and even contributed to the design for the logo of the Harbor East sushi hotspot. A recent project was crafting a saya, or knife sheath, for the sword he brought back from a recent trip to Japan that will go on display in the open kitchen at Azumi. “I like using my hands and having a finished product,” explains Gaynor. “Once you get marinated in it, so to speak, you kind of lose yourself in it and lose track of time. I love that art allows you to use the other half of your brain.”

JOSH HERSHKOVITZ

CHEF/CO-OWNER, HERSH’S

Long before going into the food industry, Josh Hershkovitz majored in fine art and philosophy in his undergraduate years at the University of Chicago. While in school, Hershkovitz particularly enjoyed sculpting with construction materials. “I felt the weight of those objects made it seem more real,” he says. “You see a Brancusi sculpture, and it’s polished brass and silver, but it’s behind a rope and you can’t interact with it. I enjoyed working with concrete, metal, and wood and something as proletarian as concrete.” After moving to Baltimore, Hershkovitz did decorative painting and gilding for high-end furniture finishers such as McLain Weisand, as well as cabinetmaking for Artisan Interiors. By 2011, he and his sister, Stephanie, opened Hersh’s. And while he no longer works as an artist, he still tinkers at home, where he has built a library and an entertainment center. And at Hersh’s, where he built the bar—he makes pizza with his hands. “If you’re not working with your hands, you’re not doing it right,” he says.

Frank Arthur doesn’t just tell stories—he acts them out. Between bites of a Reuben at an Arbutus diner, Arthur recalls creeping past the Pepsi building on a summer night in 1986 with Scrappy G, One Way, and a few other graffiti writers in tow. An assortment of construction equipment and trucks concealed them from cars whizzing past on I-83. The expressway was being widened, and Arthur and his crew had determined that an enormous pile of metal support beams would be their next urban canvas.

“We wrote our butts off,” recalls Arthur.

“All of a sudden, one of the guys hollered, ‘Yo!'” Arthur hollers it, too, startling a few diners across the room. “Sorry about that,” he says, turning in their direction with a sheepish smile. He continues at (pretty much) the same volume but more excitedly.

“Then, I saw these high beams and crouched behind a truck,” he says, going into a crouch next to the booth. “Four cop cars flew past me and started chasing my friends, so I ran across the highway”—he stands and runs in place—”and see that the cops had them bent over a car. I felt like I had to do something, so I figured I’d create a diversion, and maybe they could get away.

“Me being an idiot, I grabbed four or five big rocks and threw them at the cop cars. Bop! Bop! Bop! Bop! The cops jumped down and thought someone was shooting at them. They called in ‘shots fired’ on the radio, and, as I jumped over one of those Jersey walls, a helicopter came out of nowhere and was right on me, so I ran under the highway near the Jones Falls.”

Arthur slides back into the booth and continues eating his sandwich. “I felt like Harrison Ford in The Fugitive,” he says. “I was climbing and jumping off of things, and, at one point, I had to stop. My body was going into convulsions, and it was scary, a total adrenaline rush. I was shaken.”

He did, though, manage to get away—by plunging into the Jones Falls and wading his way toward Druid Hill Avenue—that’s how his signature tag originated, and “Shaken” started appearing all over the city. By the late-1980s/early-1990s, it was everywhere, and Arthur was Baltimore’s most prolific—and most wanted—street artist, drawing the ire of property owners, community associations, and law enforcement.

If you drove the Jones Falls Expressway, the Beltway, or I-97; rode the subway, Light Rail, or Amtrak; or walked along Pratt or Lombard Streets, you saw his work. His distinctive tags and large, colorful pieces of interlocking letters were emblazoned on warehouses, exit ramps, overpasses, water towers, tunnels, and even the Mechanic Theatre and National Aquarium. By his own estimate, he completed thousands of pieces.

It was a compulsion, an addiction stronger than any drug, he says. “If you put sex, drugs, and rock and roll into one pill and called it graffiti, I ate that pill,” says Arthur. “Then, I spent years painting at all hours of the night and running from the police.”

Although he got away that night in 1986, he notes ruefully, “Sometimes, I didn’t get away, and I got in a lot of trouble.”

Over the years, the Pigtown native certainly paid a steep price for his graffiti habit. Although Arthur credits graffiti with saving him from the hardscrabble streets of Southwest Baltimore, it also landed him in jail, facilitated a long cycle of drug abuse and criminal hijinks, and nearly killed him.

But for the first time in years, he’s sober and not caught up in the criminal justice system. Now 43, he’s trying to go straight, raise a family, and get an education. He even paints on canvasses now instead of walls.

Perhaps even more surprisingly, he’s also being celebrated for the same artwork that got him in so much trouble. Arthur’s work appears in two recent coffee table books, The History of American Graffiti and Tools of Criminal Mischief, and he flew to Los Angeles in April for the opening of the much-ballyhooed Art in the Streets exhibition at the Museum of Contemporary Art, where he signed books in the gift shop for three-and-a-half hours.

“Everyday, I pinch myself, because I can’t believe everything that’s happened,” he says. “I open my eyes in the morning, look around the room, and think, ‘I can’t believe I’m alive.'”

Arthur lives at the Beltway Motel where Washington Boulevard crosses 695. It’s a small, two-room apartment: living room, bedroom, with small bath and tiny kitchen. Album covers of classic-rock records by the likes of Led Zeppelin and Boston line the wall behind the sofa, along with a Star Wars poster and a few Marvel comic-book covers. A half-dozen sketchbooks sit on a coffee table, with a stack of books—including 8,789 Words of Wisdom and a dog-eared copy of The Narcotics Anonymous Blue Book, which Arthur says he reads “constantly.”

Arthur doesn’t own a cell phone or car and says he’s grateful to have a bus pass, which gets him to classes at Catonsville Community College and to his girlfriend’s house. A social-services check gives him enough money to cover expenses and buy some art supplies—stretched canvases, pens and markers, brushes, and tubes of acrylic paints are stacked neatly around the room.

“Living here, I don’t bother anybody,” he says. “I come and go and do my artwork. That’s it. In fact, that’s all I’ve ever wanted to do.”

Growing up, he wasn’t encouraged to pursue art. “Everybody I knew had a hustle, and alcohol and drugs ran rampant,” he says. “If you didn’t do drugs, people looked at you like you had seven eyes and fifteen lips. It was like, ‘Stay back. You don’t do drugs.’ That was ingrained in me all my life.”

Although Arthur describes his family as “very dysfunctional,” he was particularly close to his father, who took him to the nearby B&O Railroad Museum and to movies at the Patterson and the Hollywood theaters. His father also bought him his first can of spray paint in 1984, after Arthur expressed an interest in graffiti. He even kept watch as Arthur wrote his first tags in a tunnel near the rail museum, figuring graffiti would be a passing fad like break-dancing and skateboarding had been for his 15-year-old son. “But he was wrong,” says Arthur. “It consumed me.”

Arthur had already noticed graffiti tags along Pratt Street and started photographing them with a cheap camera. “It was totally mysterious,” he recalls. “It fascinated me, and I wondered why these guys were going around writing their names.”

He explored other parts of the city and discovered more tags, as well as large, colorful pieces by the likes of Revolt and Dillinger emblazoned on walls. “Those big pieces really blew my mind,” he recalls, “and after seeing them, I knew I’d do graffiti for the rest of my life. I also knew I needed to get around town more.”

Which is how Arthur became the least likely member of the Southwestern High lacrosse team.

Arthur played lacrosse, so he could scout locations and check out graffiti in other neighborhoods. “Heading to games on the bus, I’d look for the best walls and map out spots I wanted to hit,” he says.

During a game at Northwestern, a massive wall within eyeshot of the playing field caught his attention. “All I could concentrate on was that wall, which was painted with a lot of nice graffiti,” says Arthur. “The coach was yelling, ‘Frank! Frank!’ The ball was whizzing past me, but I didn’t care. I was mesmerized by that wall.”

Arthur got kicked out of school for fighting in 1985. By that time, he was shoplifting paint and markers, smoking pot, and drinking. He got booted from his mother’s house for writing graffiti and went to live with his grandmother, who turned him out after finding cans of spray paint hidden in her laundry-detergent pail. Homeless, Arthur stole sheets off of clotheslines and slept in freight trains when he didn’t have anywhere else to go.

He also frequented Jules’ Loft, an underground club at the corner of Eutaw and Mulberry streets that booked hardcore bands and attracted skate punks and graffiti writers. One night, Arthur stood transfixed as legendary artist Cuba executed a large piece on one of the club’s walls. “It was basically a step-by-step graffiti lesson,” says Arthur. “‘Here’s the outline. Here’s the filler. Do the other outline. Clean up that outline.’ It was like watching Bob Ross, [host of The Joy of Painting] on PBS. It made complete sense to me.”

Over time, Arthur helped develop a lettering style that’s unique to Baltimore. In The History of American Graffiti, it’s described as “starting small and flaring out left to right, staying straight along the bottom, and finishing with a crazy flourish.”

“Each city has its own style,” says Arthur. “I’ll see these panel trucks from out of town that have been written on, and I’ll instantly say to myself, ‘That’s Philly. That’s New York. That’s Miami.'”

He opens old sketchbooks and flips past rough pencil drawings that eventually evolve into intricate outlines of interlocking letters and finally full-color sketches. There are hundreds of them. “This is Baltimore,” says Arthur. “We’re notorious for our hand styles, which are unique. When people worldwide see that style, they know, ‘Oh my god, that’s Baltimore.’ You can spot it immediately, because it’s distinctive. It’s like Name That Tune. You hear the first three notes of The Beatles, and you know it’s The Beatles. Seeing the Baltimore style is like that. You can identify it right away.”

But it’s fleeting, because graffiti, by its very nature, is so temporary. “Graffiti’s like a sand castle, because it isn’t permanent,” says Arthur. “It gets taken down or painted over, and I’ve lost so many pieces over the years. I’ve risked my freedom and been out there painting my butt off all night, and the very next day, they’ve painted over it.”

But Arthur maintains the impermanence is far outweighed by the adventure and exposure graffiti offers. As he describes it: “It’s three in the morning, the moon’s out, and you’re hearing gunshots—it’s kind of poetic doing artwork like that. You might be painting along the Light Rail, and you’re aware that a normal civilian will never experience the Light Rail between stations. You see things from subway tunnels, water towers, on top of buildings, and under freeway overpasses—things about the city that most people never see, because they just ride along in an air-conditioned car.

“And there’s no middleman when you’re out there painting like that. There’s no gallery involved, and you’re not begging anyone to accept you. When you’re out there on those trains and along those highways, you’re speaking to everybody. On a highway, thousands of people will see your work between seven and ten in the morning. You don’t have to put an ad in the paper or go around convincing people to see your art—you’re just out there.”

Arthur became especially fond of painting freight trains. He was fascinated by the notion that something he created could end up practically anywhere. “Once you do a train, it rolls, and it might go all the way to California,” he notes. “You will never see that train again, but that’s not important. What’s important is that a little piece of you escapes the quicksand of life in the ‘hood.”

Arthur escaped that life, barely. But it’s still a daily struggle. At noon, it’s nearly time for him to visit the drug counselor he’s been seeing for the past few years, a woman he credits with saving his life. Two years ago, she diagnosed him with bipolar disorder and explained that he’d been using drugs and alcohol to medicate himself.

By that time, Arthur had been in and out of jail for two decades. His brushes with the law were initially graffiti related, and, according to Arthur, began in 1988 when he got nabbed for painting 13 city subway trains. He was 20 years old and got sent to Hagerstown, a medium-security prison.

He got out a year later and continued writing graffiti with even greater determination.

By then, he was Public Enemy Number One to community groups like the Union Square Association whose members saw him as a vandal and nothing more. The Shaken tag was seemingly everywhere, so when Arthur got busted again, it made the papers, and the Union Square Association’s president told The Sun that she and her neighbors were “delighted, absolutely ecstatic.”

After another stint in Hagerstown, Arthur spiraled out of control, caught in what he calls “the modern day black plague of heroin and crack.” He dealt drugs, shoplifted, and battled addiction for 13 years, until a court finally ordered him to see his current counselor. “I wanted to change, because I knew I was gonna die,” says Arthur, who by then also had a young son, three-year-old Krylon (named after a brand of spray paint), to consider.

He says the counselor, who asked to not be identified in this article, not only diagnosed the bipolar disorder and prescribed medication, she also taught him morals and how to do the right thing. She paged through his sketchbooks and encouraged him to paint, on canvasses and walls that are legal. And she challenged him to get sober for a year. “She said, ‘You have a lot of talent and drive,'” recalls Arthur, “‘and if you just stop doing drugs for one year, there’s no telling what could happen.'”

Arthur’s been sober for more than 18 months. He regularly attends Narcotics Anonymous meetings and takes art classes, like Color Theory, at Community College of Baltimore, Catonsville. “As a graffiti artist, I thought I was Mr. Color, but I had no idea,” he says. He admits to being intimidated by all the technology students use these days, but he hopes to get past that and someday take classes at Maryland Institute College of Art (MICA).

On weekends, he sees Krylon and often finds himself, lying awake, watching his son sleep. “I’ll have to snap a rubber band against my arm to see if this is actually happening to me,” he says. “Then, I’ll get him up and make breakfast, and he’ll start singing Beatles songs. I’ll hear him in the other room singing ‘Magical Mystery Tour,’ and I’ll start tearing up.” Arthur tears up just talking about it.

He also has a two-year-old boy, Lykaios, with his current girlfriend, and likes taking the kids to Patapsco State Park whenever he can. “Kids just want your time,” says Arthur, “and nothing touches doing the father thing. It gave me a completely different perspective, by making me think of someone other than myself. It also made me try harder.”

He’s been beating the pavement, trying to catch a break as an artist. He paints bright and bold acrylics on canvas, mostly pop culture stuff like animated Beatles figures and Transformers characters with an occasional graffiti-inspired piece in the mix. When told they bring to mind Pop artists like Lichtenstein and Warhol, Arthur excitedly grabs a nearby sketchbook and turns to drawings of National Bohemian beer cans that were inspired by Warhol’s soup cans. He hopes to complete a series of Natty Boh paintings, as part of a larger series of iconic Baltimore images.

He hasn’t approached many galleries, opting instead for less traditional outlets like Body Mod, a tattoo parlor in Annapolis Mall; Pedal Pushers, a Severna Park bike shop; and Trax On Wax, a Catonsville record store. He also paints legal walls as opportunities arise and recently traveled to Braddock, PA, near Pittsburgh, where the mayor invited dozens of graffiti artists to paint an abandoned building as part of a neighborhood revitalization effort.

It’s emblematic of a shift in public opinion with regard to graffiti and whether it’s legitimate art or not. The debate goes on, but the Art in the Streets exhibit in Los Angeles certainly helped put the stamp of art-world approval on graffiti and street art. It’s been leaning in that direction for years, thanks to high-profile work by the likes of Shepard Fairey, who famously created the Obama “Hope” poster, and Banksy, who directed the acclaimed documentary Exit Through the Gift Shop.

“That show was a whirlwind of respect,” says Arthur, who was blown away by the reception he got. “A lot of people I met had the American Graffiti book open to the Baltimore section. Some people told me, ‘I’ve been following your work since the 1990s.’ I had no idea.”

Roger Gastman, who co-wrote the American Graffiti book and co-curated the L.A. show, calls Arthur “an icon of Baltimore graffiti.”

“Frank is more committed to his art than pretty much anyone I’ve ever met,” says Gastman, who’s worked on projects with both Fairey and Banksy.

Jeff Vespa, who used to write graffiti with Arthur, agrees. Vespa, who is now a celebrity photographer and editor-at-large for Life magazine, says that his old friend is extraordinarily dedicated. “In my business, I meet a lot of creative and motivated people,” says Vespa. “But I’ve never met anyone as motivated as Frank.”

Vespa, who’s based in Los Angeles, caught up with Arthur during his visit to the city. “It was good to seem him calmed down and focused,” he says. “It’s especially satisfying, because now people really respect what he does. People at the museum were freaking out about it and asking for his autograph, and it was great seeing him in that world. He should have many years ahead of him making art, if he can just keep doing the right thing.”

On his way to meet his drug counselor, Arthur stops at the Corner Florist in Lansdowne. He comes here to get her a bouquet, which always includes a sunflower, whenever he has an extra $10. “It’s not much,” he says, “but she fought a battle with me and pulled me from the dark side.”

On the way inside, he notices someone has tagged the shop’s wall—an indecipherable black scrawl on the white siding—and winces. It’s obvious he doesn’t approve. Arthur mentions the tag to the storeowner, a middle-aged woman with a no-nonsense demeanor. “It’s a shame what they did out there,” he says. “I’m an artist, and maybe I could help you out by painting some big, colorful flowers over it. I could really make that wall look great.”

The owner says she’ll consider it, but she’ll need approval from the neighborhood association. “I understand all about neighborhood associations,” Arthur tells her, with a grin.

Apparently, it’s not the first time the wall has been tagged. “It seems like these graffiti writers have some sort of need to do this,” she says. “It’s like it’s their life or something.”

“I know,” says Arthur. “I used to be one of those guys.”

He reaches across the counter for his flowers and leaves a $10 bill on the counter. “But I’m under new management now,” he says, heading toward the door, “and I’d be happy to help you out.”

Once outside, he stops abruptly and peers intently at the bouquet he’s holding. “Wow,” he says. “Look at the color of that sunflower.”

Edited by Max Weiss. Written by Jess Blumberg, Ken Iglehart, Suzanne Loudermilk, John Lewis, Amy Mulvihill, Evan Serpick, and Max Weiss

Delegate Keiffer Mitchell Jr. is at a cafe, being interviewed for this story, when his cell phone rings. “Hang on a sec, I’ve got to take this,” he says. He leans away and answers the phone. He’s discussing the Baltimore Grand Prix —the upcoming Indy car race that Mitchell was a key player in bringing to Baltimore. All of downtown will be affected by the race, and whomever Mitchell is talking to is clearly concerned about logistics.

The delegate’s omelet arrives and sits untouched as Mitchell continues to talk in a cheerful and reassuring manner. More than 10 minutes later, he’s off the phone. He looks up sheepishly. “Sorry, that was Brian Rogers,” he says, referring to the chairman of T. Rowe Price, who is on our list (under Finance Power). “Speaking of power. . . .”

Mitchell digs into his (now cold) omelet and resumes the interview.

The moment was not staged for the benefit of this story, but it very well could’ve been. Rogers has access (he was calling Mitchell’s cell) and influence (Mitchell was bending over backwards to accommodate him) and probably could’ve interrupted the breakfast (or lunch or family dinner) of just about any politician in town.

This story is our attempt to explore Baltimore power and the various ways it manifests itself in the region. Political power and financial power are perhaps the most obvious kinds, but there are other, less conspicuous types of power at play in such arenas as culture, health care, sports, and technology. What follows is our examination of power in all of its incarnations—from the boardrooms to the chatrooms and beyond.

Politics

The position comes with power. But it’s how you wield it that really counts.

Governor Martin O’Malley
He spends a lot of time in Annapolis, but Governor O’Malley is still a Baltimore guy, and he wields an enormous amount of power here. For one thing, the former Baltimore mayor was a mentor to Stephanie Rawlings-Blake, and the two frequently acknowledge their close working relationship. Further, the road-tested, iron-tough Democratic political machine that O’Malley built (or rebuilt) endures. And every time he has an important moment, whether launching a reelection campaign or declaring victory, O’Malley is in Baltimore, flanked by the city’s political elite, including Rawlings-Blake and Rep. Elijah Cummings. O’Malley is still captain of Baltimore’s Democratic ship.

Stephanie Rawlings-Blake
When fiery Sheila Dixon resigned last year, Rawlings-Blake’s low-key technocratic style was a welcome change. Now, the quiet machinations of her power are bearing fruit. After capably managing the biggest back-to-back blizzards in local history, she balanced an out-of-control budget, overhauling the police and fire department pension systems, making huge spending cuts, and passing a bottle tax—all without raising public ire too broadly. She announced ambitious new projects, like the 2011 Grand Prix race, and moved to renovate vast swaths of vacant housing. With all due to respect to Dixon, Rawlings-Blake demonstrates that one doesn’t have to wave a shoe to demonstrate power.

Rep. Elijah Cummings
Like all of Maryland’s U.S. Senators and Representatives, Cummings spends a lot of time in D.C. But more than any of the others, Cummings is a fixture in Baltimore. He fights for local interests, defending the fishing industry (maritimeprofessional.com calls him “the domestic maritime industry’s biggest advocate in Congress”) and proposing $2.25 billion in federal funds to clean up the bay. He sits on the board of trustees for the Maryland Zoo in Baltimore and the National Aquarium, and generally weighs in thoughtfully and impactfully on every issue of consequence, from slots to education funding.

And don’t count out:

• New Baltimore State’s Attorney Gregg Bernstein upset incumbent Pat Jessamy with support from police commissioner Frederick Bealefeld and a tough-on-crime approach that resonated with voters and could elevate him to higher office.
• Otis Rolley, Frank Conaway Sr., Councilman Carl Stokes, and Council President Jack Young have all been mentioned as potential 2011 mayoral candidates, but for our money, former Congressman and NAACP President Kweisi Mfume seems ripe for a return to prominence.
• As deputy mayor for Economic and Neighborhood Development, Kaliope Parthemos oversees the Baltimore Development Corporation, Board of Estimates, and Board of Municipal and Zoning Appeals. More importantly, she’s the Mayor’s most trusted consigliere.

Religion

For the faithful of all stripes, these men of the cloth carry the most clout.

Frank M. Reid III
Rev. Frank Reid, 59, is senior pastor and CEO of northwest Baltimore’s Bethel AME Church, the largest congregation in the city at over 10,000 worshippers and the choice for a number of politicians and other movers and shakers in the African-American community like Sheila Dixon.

Archbishop Edwin Frederick O’Brien
As if being the spiritual leader of half a million Catholics in central Maryland wasn’t enough, the O’Brien-led Archdiocese of Baltimore oversees five hospitals, 70 schools, two seminaries, a food kitchen that serves 250,000 meals a year, plus countless other social service programs. O’Brien’s military background—he was an army chaplain with the rank of captain who served in Vietnam—has undoubtedly served him well in dealing with the challenges of leading his flock in what have been difficult times for the Catholic Church.

Rabbi Mitchell Wohlberg
For 32 years, Rabbi Wohlberg has been the guiding light of 1,400-member Beth Tfiloh, the largest modern orthodox synagogue in the United States, serving both as rabbi of the congregation and as dean of Beth Tfiloh’s 1,000-student, K-12 school. Dubbed “the master of the sermon” by the Baltimore Jewish Times, he is an author and regular panelist on WMAR-TV’s Square Off.

And don’t count out:

• Bishop Walter S. Thomas Sr., 60, is longtime pastor of the 7,000-strong New Psalmist Baptist Church in northwest Baltimore. Like Bethel AME, New Psalmist claims its own VIP members (like Rep. Elijah Cummings), and Rev. Thomas’s live Internet broadcasts and regular radio services are followed by thousands.
• Rabbi Daniel Cotzin Burg, 34, the charismatic new rabbi at Beth Am synagogue, is packing the pews.
  “He is already the talk of the town,” says one member of the congregation.

Development

They’ve built this town, and, very often, they call the shots (and slots).

John Paterakis Sr.
Paterakis, 81, made his money as president of the family-owned H&S Bakery, the largest privately owned bakery in the U.S. H&S and its sister companies supply McDonald’s, as well as house brands for Giant Foods, SuperFresh, and others. But he’s as well known now for his H&S Properties, which has developed the $600 million waterfront Harbor East district, which includes high-end condos, office towers, restaurants, hotels, and retail space. Financing, schminancing: In the early years, his Harbor East vision was largely kept alive by Paterakis’s own checkbook, which also has bankrolled numerous political campaigns. And now he’s developing Harbor Point, a former industrial site just to the east that will be an $800 million complex of homes, offices, hotels and shops.

David S. Cordish
The 70-year-old president of The Cordish Companies is from a family that’s been doing urban redevelopment for more than a century (his sons are now VPs). He’s been behind Harborplace-esque urban renewal projects all over the U.S. that include entertainment venues, retailing, restaurants, gaming, residences, and hotels. His big new roll of the dice? The gaming casino at Arundel Mills shopping mall that voters signed off on in a November referendum. Cordish went door to door to make his case. Was there ever any doubt that he’d hit the jackpot?

Edward Miller
What’s the top guy at arguably the best hospital in the world doing under “developers”? Because Johns Hopkins Medicine Dean and CEO Edward Miller is the man behind the curtain for entire medical mini-cities, including the massive renovation projects that have transformed East Baltimore. The two new state-of-the-art hospitals for adult and pediatric patients represent one of the largest hospital construction projects in the nation. In his 13-year tenure as dean, he’s been the driving force for dozens of other Hopkins projects, too, and was a key mover in the Baltimore City-initiated biotech park north of the campus on a once-blighted 80-acre tract. We’re guessing Miller isn’t anywhere near done with his ceremonial hardhat and gold shovel.

And don’t count out:

• Michael S. Beatty, president of H&S Properties Development, is the guy who’s made John Paterakis’s ambitious and complex projects look like a cake walk.
• Edward St. John‘s company, St. John Properties, has built more than 13 million square feet of apartments, offices, retail, and warehouses worth over $1 billion. But St. John, 72, is also known for his generosity—he’s given more than $43 million to various causes through personal, corporate, and foundation donations.

Finance

Money is power and these financiers manage it, spend it, and control it.

Mark R. Fetting
Fetting, 56, the president and CEO of Legg Mason, was the board’s choice three years ago to fill the shoes of retiring founder Raymond A. “Chip” Mason, who in 40 years grew the global firm to nearly $700 billion in assets under management. Fetting was an executive senior VP at Legg for seven years prior to his appointment. He serves on several community boards, including Mercy Hospital and Gilman School.

James A. C. Kennedy and Brian Rogers
T. Rowe Price Group CEO/president Kennedy and chairman Rogers oversee a global investment firm that manages $440 billion in assets. Besides employing 5,000 people, the most noticeable impact that the duo has on the region is the culture they promote of community involvement by T. Rowe staffers, who contribute heavily to local education, arts, and social causes.

Charles Newhall
Got a great business idea? Wouldn’t you love to bend the ear of venture-capital giant Charles “Chuck” Newhall, cofounder (with Dick Kramlich and the storied Frank Bonsal Jr.) of New Enterprise Associates (NEA)? In the past 30 years, NEA has committed more than $11 billion to bankroll some 650 new information-technology, health care, and energy-technology companies here and abroad, of which more than 165 have gone public and more than 265 have been acquired.

And don’t count out:

• Since relocating to Baltimore from New York in 2002 to oversee the takeover of the former Allfirst Financial, Atwood “Woody” Collins III, the M&T Bank Mid-Atlantic Region president, has gotten involved in everything from mayoral task forces and the Greater Baltimore Committee to the city’s economic development board and the Babe Ruth Museum.

Media

Traditional media may not be as omnipotent as it once was, but it still has plenty of juice in this town.

Mary Corey
Corey has been at The Baltimore Sun for more than 23 years, starting as an intern. Over that time, she’s risen up the paper’s masthead, earning allies and kudos. In May, she took over as director of content, the first woman in the paper’s 173-year history to lead the newsroom, replacing Monty Cook, an out-of-towner brought in by the paper’s owners at The Tribune Company who oversaw massive layoffs and downsizing. Under Corey’s leadership, the paper has stepped up coverage of breaking news—evident in its coverage of the September shooting at The Johns Hopkins Hospital—and added new sections, including The Sun Magazine.

Jayne Miller
There is one journalist in Baltimore that virtually every public figure is afraid of: WBAL-TV reporter Jayne Miller. Her investigative reports have exposed corruption in public officials and failures of the criminal justice system. Her 2003 coverage of irregularities at mortgage servicing company Fairbanks Capital was picked up nationally, as one of the first stories to expose problems in the subprime lending industry. These days, whenever there is an important story in Baltimore—from Sheila Dixon’s trial in January to the November elections—everyone looks to Miller for the most decisive analysis, which impacts how everyone else reports the story.

Bob Philips
Philips, the market manager for all CBS radio stations in Baltimore, including The Fan, WLIF, and WWMX, plays a subtle but powerful role in determining the stories, events, and topics that become major in the area. By directing the news departments that Marylanders listen to in drive time, even on a non-news station like WLIF (which is often the number-one rated station), Philips helps to set the agenda for other outlets in town and directs the conversations at water coolers throughout the region.

Mark Miller
Miller has long led the WBAL-AM’s comprehensive news operation, and when longtime program director Jeff Beauchamp left the station last year, the unassuming Miller took on that role, too, playing a quiet but powerful role in the way Baltimore gets news. Over the last year, Miller has made WBAL more news-oriented—launching anchored news programs during morning and afternoon drive times—while still leaving it opinionated, installing right-leaning talk-show host Shari Elliker as anchor for the afternoon program and keeping former First Lady of Maryland Kendall Ehrlich on the air through the elections. It’s the kind of formula that has worked on national outlets like Fox News, and time will tell if it works locally and affects the way other stations in town operate.

And don’t count out:

• Larry Young’s talk show on WOLB (1010-AM) is a powerful voice on national and local affairs, particularly in the African-American community.
• Local NPR affiliate WYPR, led by president and general manager Tony Brandon, has probably the second biggest radio news operation in town, after WBAL (with more in-depth features), and an audience of affluent movers and shakers.
• Dogged Sun reporter Justin Fenton has been behind some of the biggest stories in town, scrambling to get to the bottom of the Hopkins shooting and breaking the news that Ehrlich operative Julius Henson was behind election-day robocalls.

Culture

The ever-strengthening arts community has some of its most high-profile leadership ever.

Fred Lazarus
Lazarus, the president of Maryland Institute College of Art, could vie for the top spot in the education category—MICA is, after all, one of the best art schools in the country—but that designation is too narrow for such a visionary leader. Lazarus has fostered strong ties with the business and nonprofit communities and gracefully shepherded an expansion of the school’s footprint that’s utterly transformed the Station North Arts District and enhanced the city’s cultural riches.

Marin Alsop
Alsop, the music director of the Baltimore Symphony Orchestra, has set the bar high for leaders of the city’s major arts organizations. Not content with being a programming genius and a captivating presence on the podium, Alsop isn’t shy about flexing some marketing muscle—putting the BSO in front of new audiences, whenever possible—partnering with non-classical artists, and reaching out to the community at large.

David Simon
Simon’s work (The Corner, Homicide, The Wire, and Treme) has resonated far beyond Baltimore to shape an ongoing dialogue about urban America. Its been the subject of college courses and even won him a MacArthur grant last year. As if that weren’t enough, he’s also married to author Laura Lippman, no minor powerhouse herself.  

John Waters
Baltimore’s bonafide cultural icon continues to evolve beyond film, with art exhibits at A-list venues like the Gagosian Gallery in L.A., a witty memoir (Role Models), and speaking gigs around the world. Whether trading quips with Letterman or hobnobbing at an Oscars party, Waters is our most enduring and effective ambassador.

Doreen Bolger
Under Bolger’s leadership, The Baltimore Museum of Art has shed its old image as an insular organization and forged stronger relationships with other arts institutions and community groups. While spearheading ambitious capitol campaigns and renovation projects, The BMA director is just as liable to turn up at a warehouse gallery opening as she is a corporate boardroom.

And don’t count out:

• Bill Gilmore, executive director of Baltimore Office of Promotion and the Arts, oversees a $6.4 million budget and local events such as Artscape, the Baltimore Book Festival, and the Preakness Parade.
• Carla Hayden, executive director, Enoch Pratt Free Library, has reinvigorated the Pratt as a vital cultural center and been named by President Obama to the National Museum and Library Services Board and the National Foundation on the Arts and Humanities.
• Jed Dietz, director of the Maryland Film Festival, also serves on the board of Centerstage, where he’s heading the search for Irene Lewis’s replacement.

Education

They’re the toughest——and most important——jobs in Baltimore. These leaders are making a difference.

Andrés Alonso
Since coming to the Baltimore as CEO of public schools in 2007, Alonso has turned the system upside down, decentralizing power from North Avenue, closing failing schools, and opening more than a dozen new ones, with the intention of giving parents more choices. In the process, test scores and graduation rates have gone up, drop-out rates have declined, and many families who had previously fled public schools are taking a second look. With this year’s new contract between the city and the Baltimore Teachers Union, Alonso took on an even more prominent role as a reformer on the national stage.

Nancy Grasmick
As Maryland’s Superintendent of Schools, Grasmick led the charge to win some of the $4.3 billion in federal “Race to the Top” funds. With 19 years in the position, Grasmick was able to quickly mobilize the legislature and education officials across the state to overhaul tenure and evaluation systems, set new curriculum standards, and design a new way to collect student data. As a result, Maryland was one of nine states (along with D.C.) to win funding, earning $250 million that will go toward implementing reforms and creating new schools.

Ron Goldblatt
Tough economic times have meant that many private schools have struggled to maintain enrollment, but the Association of Independent Maryland Schools (AIMS) and executive director Goldblatt have provided a steely backbone for its 115 members. This year, the organization flexed its muscle to help shoot down new legislation that would have required greater state regulation of independent schools and held a steady stream of workshops to help increase enrollment.

Marietta English
The Baltimore Teachers Union took a bold step this year, approving a new contract that includes pay increases, but also ties salary to student performance, making it one of the most reform-minded contracts in the country. After the membership initially voted down the deal, union president English worked with schools administrators to nail down more specifics and held information sessions in every school in the city, which resulted in an overwhelming 1,902-1,045 vote.

And don’t count out:

• Alonso’s hand-picked Baltimore City Public Schools’ new chief academic officer Sonja Brookins Santelises is already getting attention for talk of increasing standards in city schools and raising elite schools to the level of the top public schools in the country.
• Cheryl Bost, president of the Teachers Association of Baltimore County (TABCO), led the fight against a cumbersome new student evaluation tool, the Articulated Instruction Module (AIM), delaying its implementation and putting county superintendent Joe Hairston on the hot seat for granting the program’s copyright to an employee.

Legal

These are the 800-pound gorillas of Baltimore’s law scene, and their firms have the revenue to prove it.

Peter G. Angelos
A honcho among honchos, Angelos, 81, could obviously fit into a number of our categories, including sports (as CEO and chairman of the board of the Orioles) and philanthropy. He’s made his millions representing the victims of faulty products, medical malpractice, and personal injury, but is best known for class-action suits against manufacturers of asbestos and tobacco.

Francis B. Burch Jr.
Frank Burch helped turn the regional law firm Piper & Marbury, with its 250 lawyers, into DLA Piper, an international practice with more than 3,500 lawyers and revenue of $2 billion. And he’s a trustee of The Johns Hopkins University, Johns Hopkins Medicine, and the Carey Business School of Johns Hopkins University, as well as past board chairman of the Greater Baltimore Committee and the University of Maryland School of Law.

James L. Shea
Shea, 58, is chairman of the board of law firm Venable LLP, with 600 lawyers based mostly in Baltimore, Washington, D.C., and New York. He’s also on the boards of the Greater Baltimore Committee and the Downtown Partnership of Baltimore.

And don’t count out:

• Senior Venable partner Benjamin Richard Civiletti, probably the best-known name in American law, was U.S. Attorney General during the Carter administration, and recently became the first U.S. lawyer to charge $1,000 an hour.

Underground

Baltimore has become a national center for underground culture. Below, the leaders of the artists, hipsters, and tastemakers who make the scene.

Dan Deacon
In 2004, musician Deacon moved to Baltimore with a mantra: “The future surrounds us. Let us begin.” Setting up camp in the Copycat building on Guilford Ave., he and some friends founded Wham City, an arts collective bursting with creativity. Wham City threw massive dance parties in industrial spaces, drawing artists, musicians, and patrons from local colleges, especially MICA, and beyond. In 2006, they founded Whartscape—a more D.I.Y. answer to Artscape—giving a platform to local bands like Beach House and Ponytail, who would go on to gain national followings. They staged theatrical programs like Shoot Her! Jurassic Park: The Play. The excitement around the scene helped spur an arts renaissance in Station North. After a successful Whartscape in July, he announced that it would be no more. “Part of the fun was making it grow,” he said. “But we’d like to move on and try something new.” At the photo shoot for the cover of this magazine, Deacon huddled with BSO maestra Marin Alsop about a potential collaboration. Later that day, a BSO rep called the office looking for Deacon’s contact number. We can only imagine what he has in store for Baltimore next.

Matt Porterfield
Porterfield has a legit shot at being mentioned in the same breath as Levinson and Waters as one of the city’s finest filmmakers. Porterfield’s latest movie, Putty Hill, has been a hit on the festival circuit—screening in Berlin, Lisbon, Copenhagen, and Austin’s SXSW—and elicited raves from The New Yorker’s Richard Brody, who opined that “if there’s an independent cinema, [Putty Hill] is it, and if there’s a new director, here he is.” Porterfield gets extra credit for crafting music videos for local bands such as Double Dagger and teaching film at Hopkins.

Scott Berzofsky, Dane Nester, and Nicholas Wisniewski
These three MICA grads formed the arts collective Baltimore Development Cooperative (BDC), which addresses urban issues with a powerful mix of creative moxie and grassroots organizing. Their recent The Food Network exhibit at the Creative Alliance included installations by community groups such as Hamilton Crop Circle and info-sharing forays into city neighborhoods. The BDC also cosponsors STEW, a dinner (held three or four times a year) that raises money for various social justice projects.

And don’t count out:

• The folks at Red Emma’s present talks and performances at their Mt. Vernon bookstore/coffeehouse and at 2640 in Charles Village, and they operate The Baltimore Free School.
• Program director Megan Hamilton books a wide range of events at the Creative Alliance—a recent run of shows included Ethel Ennis, the Baltimore Men’s Chorus, Mink Stole, Maria Broom, a klezmer band, and a burlesque performance—and is a tireless advocate for the local arts scene.

Business

These impresarios of commerce provide the tax base that is the lifeblood the city.

Jack B. Dunn
The man behind the success of the $1 billion-a-year FTI Consulting has been CEO and president Dunn, a lawyer and former officer at Legg Mason (and current Orioles partner). Besides its corporate consulting services, FTI has some unusual skill areas, especially “forensic accounting,” or the science of finding out where the money went. (Investors hire FTI when a company fails——so that part of the business had been booming.) He’s also a board member at several major corporations.

Fred Festa
Yes, Festa, the chairman, president, and CEO of W.R. Grace, heads a company that went Chapter 11 after facing millions of dollars worth of awards in asbestos suits filed by the likes of Peter Angelos. But the Columbia-based Grace is back, selling close to $3 billion in specialty chemicals, catalysts, sealants, and construction materials worldwide. Better yet, both the company and its thousands of employees donate significantly every year to education, health, and human services causes.

Kevin A. Plank
Under Armour President and CEO Kevin Plank’s big idea (to create a synthetic, moisture-wicking fabric) sells close to $1 billion a year and has gone public. Now Plank is going after the industry giant Nike, with a foray into athletic footwear. (Don’t be too surprised if Nike tries to buy them.) Plank sits on the UM’s board of trustees, as well as serving on the board of directors for the Baltimore City Fire Foundation, the Greater Baltimore Committee, and Living Classrooms Foundation.

And don’t count out:

• Allegis, founded 27 years ago (as Aerotek) by Steve Bisciotti and James Davis, and now controlled by Davis, is a mammoth staffing company with more than $4 billion in revenues in 2005.
• Willard Hackerman, president and CEO of construction giant Whiting-Turner, may be 92 now, but he shows up at the office every day and still wields considerable influence in commerce, philanthropy, and politics.
• Mayo Shattuck, president and CEO of Constellation Energy, took his shareholders for a queasy ride after the market collapse in late 2008, but he’s stayed on the job because he’s making money again and even growing the $16 billion energy giant.

Green

Meet the eco-warriors who are fighting the good fight——and winning.

Malcolm Woolf
Anyone who doesn’t think finding sustainable ways to meet our society’s energy needs is the challenge of the 21st century hasn’t been paying attention. In Maryland, the man with the plan is Malcolm Woolf, head of the Maryland Energy Administration. He’s been instrumental in toughening up the state’s Renewable Energy Portfolio Standard, which requires reducing statewide energy consumption by 15 percent by the year 2015 and generating 20 percent of energy from renewable sources (including two percent from solar) by 2022. “He knows how and when to push and when to ‘play ball’ in crafting legislation,” praises Jim Pierobon, the communications director with the Maryland Clean Energy Center.

Michael D. Smith
Giving a Constellation Energy executive props for green power seems counterintuitive, to put it mildly. But who’s better poised to transform the energy industry than someone on the inside? Enter Michael D. Smith who, two years ago, became the chief sustainability officer for retail energy at Constellation NewEnergy, a subsidiary of the Fortune 500 company/utility that handles development and installation of sustainable product offerings, including its burgeoning solar business. If you want to go green, save money, or both in the future, chances are you’ll be buying what he’s selling.

William C. Baker
William C. Baker is the president of the 200,000-member-strong nonprofit Chesapeake Bay Foundation, which boasts a $22 million annual operating budget, 160 full-time employees, and offices in three states plus D.C. Because of these resources, the CBF is a player on both the state and federal level. They deal with “the big picture,” acknowledges Jana Davis, associate director of The Chesapeake Bay Trust, which contributes funding to some of CBF’s programs. Baker is “organizing their priorities the right way, and he’s getting a lot of big wins for the bay,” she adds, citing CBF’s role in strengthening storm water runoff regulations and Maryland’s new environmental literacy high school graduation requirement.

Beth Strommen
As manager of the Baltimore City Office of Sustainability, Beth Strommen is the city’s green guru, heavily involved in drafting and editing many of our metro’s most important environmental and land use regulations, including the Forest Conservation Program, the Baltimore Bicycle Master Plan, and the Maritime Master Plan. Says Prescott Gaylord, the owner of Baltimore Green Construction, “Beth is highly effective and may be the most well-known face of green in the city.”

And don’t count out:

• David Borinsky, CEO of nonprofit One Green Home at A Time, oversees green rehabs in some of Baltimore’s most blighted neighborhoods.
• Thanks to president and CEO Chickie Grayson’s leadership, Enterprise Homes has already built 1,275 green, affordable homes in the area and is committed to creating or preserving 5,000 more by 2013.
• As chair of the House of Delegates’ Environmental Matters Committee, Del. Maggie McIntosh (D-Baltimore City), holds sway over a matrix of issues ranging from agriculture to motor vehicles.

Technology

These tech titans heard the 21st-century bell——and answered it.

Dave Troy
Even those not too involved in tech circles know about Bmore Fiber, last year’s initiative to bring Google’s ultra-high-speed broadband network to Baltimore. Troy was one of the leaders of the movement, not to mention he has 25 years of experience in technology and design. “Dave is hugely influential in the startup scene,” says programmer Mike Subelsky. “He is definitely the man for our times.”

Sid Meier
Sid Meier has been called “the godfather of computer gaming”—and rightfully so. He’s had 26 years of experience and has helped create the popular simulation game genre. As current director of creative development for Firaxis Games, Meier established Hunt Valley as the gaming capital of Maryland when he started in the early 1980s.

Heather Sarkissian
Heather Sarkissian is somewhat of a tech renaissance woman. She was the CEO of mp3car.com, a local company that builds sophisticated mobile computers for corporate and government clients. She helped found Betascape, which is the tech version of Artscape. She also heads BmoreSmart, a group of social entrepreneurs in Baltimore aiming to make the city a better place. “Heather really knows how to get things done,” says programmer Mike Subelsky.

Jay Steinmetz
Steinmetz is CEO of Barcoding, a company that sells and programs inventory-tracking systems and has been included on several of Inc. magazine’s coveted top business lists. As chair of the Maryland Technology Development Corporation, which provides funding for local programs, Steinmetz is also helping the next generation of techies.

And don’t count out:

• Mike Subelsky is cofounder of Ignite Baltimore and web startup OtherInbox.com.
• Brian Reynolds was mentored by Sid Meier, and is now chief designer at Zynga East (creator of the infamous Farmville).
• Jennifer Gunner, the interim executive director of the Greater Baltimore Tech Council, is known for bridging “old” and “new” tech circles.

Philanthropy

Where government and the corporate world fall short, these captains of charity fill the gap.

William J. McCarthy Jr.
There are foundations and charitable organizations with more money and equally worthy causes, but few are more visible to average Baltimoreans than Catholic Charities, headed by executive director McCarthy. With 2,000 employees and 15,000 volunteers, Maryland’s largest private provider of human services, with an annual budget of $127 million, answered more than 600,000 requests for food and emergency services last year and served 350,000 meals to the hungry, as well as operating 80 other programs.

Marc B. Terrill
Since 2003, Marc B. Terrill has been the face of THE ASSOCIATED: Jewish Community Federation of Baltimore, a 90-year-old foundation whose charitable reach extends far beyond the Jewish community through partnered initiatives in the region with Catholic Charities of Baltimore, the Harry and Jeannette Weinberg Foundation, and other groups.
As president, Terrill, who is also on the Baltimore Community Foundation board, oversees 20 agencies that meet educational, religious, humanitarian, health, and social service needs locally, nationally, in Israel, and throughout the world. And The Associated has financial clout: It raised $31 million last year and has a $500 million trust. (Among other Jewish Federations across North America, Baltimore’s boasts the highest per-capita giving.)

Deborah Flateman
Deborah Flateman oversees 80 employees, two warehouses, and $32 million a year at the Maryland Food Bank, all resources that are focused on gathering food donations from manufacturers, growers, retailers, and individuals and getting it to the needy through 600 soup kitchens, shelters, and other providers in central Maryland and the Eastern Shore. Economic times have increased the need for food assistance by more than a third.

Donn Weinberg
With total assets of $2 billion, the Weinberg Foundation is one of the largest private charitable foundations in the United States, funding nonprofits that provide services to economically disadvantaged people, primarily in the U.S. and Israel. Under the chairmanship of former trial lawyer Donn Weinberg, the foundation’s roughly $100 million annual grantmaking goes to programs to help seniors, the disabled, education, children, and basic human needs and health. And he can sing and dance, too: As a hobby, Weinberg is a volunteer singer-entertainer at older-adult facilities in the Baltimore area and for nonprofit fundraisers.

And don’t count out:

• James Piper Bond is president of the $16 million-a-year, 300-employee Living Classrooms Foundation, which uses boats and the bay to educate inner-city youth, and also provides job training, neighborhood rehab, and management of once-failing charter schools.
• Tim Kelly is director of Fells Point’s Esperanza Center, funded by Catholic Charities of Baltimore, which provides legal and social services to the city’s growing Hispanic population.
• Terry M. Rubenstein is executive vice president of the Joseph and Harvey Meyerhoff Family Charitable Funds, a $100 million group of family funds that doles out roughly $5 million a year to cultural causes here and in Israel, as well as meeting middle-class needs with library and school computers, city parks improvements, and scholarships for families with average incomes.
• He didn’t want to be on this list because he’s fairly new at the job, but we can’t totally ignore Annie E. Casey Foundation president and CEO Patrick McCarthy, whose Baltimore-based foundation, with its roughly $2.6 billion in assets, gives away close to $150 million nationally every year.

Sports

It’s not just our favorite pastime (and obsession), it’s one of the driving forces of the local economy.

Steve Bisciotti
There’s really no disputing it anymore: Baltimore is a football town. Last year, Forbes magazine estimated the Ravens’ worth as $1.1 billion (as compared to the Orioles’ $376 million). And owner Bisciotti has a low-key, hands-off leadership style that appeals to the local fan base. Pressbox’s Stan “The Fan” Charles praises Bisciotti for “being smart enough to know what he doesn’t know.” Says WNST’s Nasty Nestor Aparicio: “The Ravens have become the most important binding element in our local society—across race, color, creed, gender, age. When they do well, the city feels good. That’s a lot of power.”

Ozzie Newsome
Ravens’ GM Newsome’s ability to “gauge talent” is unsurpassed, says Pressbox’s Stan “The Fan” Charles, but he also knows when to give up draft picks and pull the trigger on a great trade. “He’s the prime [force] in making the Ravens great,” says WNST’s Nasty Aparicio. And since much of the Ravens’ enormous value stems from its on-field success, it’s no surprise that Steve Bisciotti told The Baltimore Sun last year: “We want Oz to be here as long as Ozzie wants to be here.” Looks like the owner can evaluate talent almost as well as his GM.

Andy MacPhail/Buck Showalter
Both these men represent a sea change in the Orioles organization: President Andy MacPhail was the first person under Peter Angelos to be given some measure of control. “Though he’ll always answer to Peter, there’s no question that Andy has been given total leeway to do his job as he sees fit,” says WJZ sports director Mark Viviano. As for Showalter? “Buck brought credibility to the position that it hadn’t had in 10 years,” Viviano says. “And it was immediately reflected in how the players responded.”

Cal Ripken Jr.
From introducing baseball in China to building little league stadiums, Cal Ripken Jr. is using his power as an ex-Oriole for good. “One of the greatest reflections of Cal’s power is that the mere mention of his involvement in something uplifts its potential,” WJZ’s Marc Viviano says. “He’s one of those personalities you just trust and believe.”

And don’t count out:

• Linebacker Ray Lewis “ultimately has the most power to change our city over the next 20 years,” says WNST’s Aparicio, “with his brand, star, and transcendence.”
• Jay Davidson, the president of Baltimore Racing Development, leads the team that took the exciting gamble of bringing Grand Prix racing to Baltimore.
• Terrance Hasseltine, the director of the Maryland Office of Sports Marketing, was responsible for bringing the 2009 World Football Challenge to M&T Bank Stadium.
• The Sun’s Mike Preston is the most influential sports columnist in Baltimore. Many believe that Preston’s relentless criticism led to the firing of Ravens coach Brian Billick.

Health

If there is a single dominant field in the Greater Metropolitan area, it’s health care. These are the scions of the industry.

Robert Chrencik
Chrencik served as the financial officer at the University of Maryland Medical System for more than 20 years before being named UMMS president and CEO in 2008. He serves on the board of each of the 12 UMMS hospitals (which have 15,000 employees), and gets out of the office, too: He’s on the board of the Greater Baltimore Committee, The Center Club, and is a past president of the Maryland Chapter of the Health Care Financial Management Association.

Ronald R. Peterson
As president of The Johns Hopkins Hospital and Health System, Peterson oversees Johns Hopkins Bayview Medical Center, Howard County General Hospital, Suburban Hospital, and Sibley Memorial Hospital, as well as The Johns Hopkins Hospital. How big a job is that? Hopkins hospital, consistently ranked America’s best, includes more than 2,200 beds, employs 22,000 people, treats more than 800,000 patients from all over the world, and brings in $1.3 billion in revenue (plus the value of $161 million in uncompensated care).

Robert Murray
Every spring, hospital administrators, doctors, and insurance companies around the state wait with bated breath to hear what Murray will say. As executive director of the Health Services Cost Review Commission, Murray leads a process that determines how much health care providers can charge for services. The Commission’s decisions directly affect virtually every doctor and patient in the state, and, in a state where health care is the largest industry, that makes Murray our local equivalent of Fed chairman Ben Bernanke.

And don’t count out:

• As president and CEO of Sinai Hospital and, after the 1998 merger with Northwest Hospital, of Lifebridge Health, Warren Green has been a leader in the world of community hospitals for 19 years, providing a perspective to balance the big university institutions downtown.
• Chester “Chet” Burrell is president and CEO of CareFirst BlueCross BlueShield, the top medical insurer in the state. The company’s decisions—such as recent ones to include nurse practitioners in its network as primary care providers or to maintain child-only plans—have a huge impact.

Nightlife

Here are the forces behind everything that goes bump (and grind) in the night.

Heidi Klotzman
Klotzman owns special event firm HeidnSeek Entertainment, which specializes in event coordination, marketing, and runs an online entertainment guide with more than 30,000 subscribers. Beyond promoting parties at Red Maple and Milan, Klotzman advertises charity events and hosts networking functions. “She’s a promoter with a conscience,” says Sam Sessa, The Sun’s entertainment editor.

Cullen Stalin
Long before Baltimore’s nightlife scene was on the map, Cullen Stalin was drawing a crowd. He and Simon Phoenix are resident DJs of TaxLo, the city’s biggest dance party for nearly a decade (attracting such famous acts as M.I.A). Last year, he helped start “No Rule”—a hugely popular dance party at the Metro Gallery—that bridges the hipster and hip-hop scenes. Cullen has helped developed TaxLo into “one of the most powerful nightlife brands in the city,” says City Paper’s music editor Michael Byrne.

Bill Muehlhauser
As the owner of the Rams Head Group, Muehlhauser owns five spaces in Stevensville, Annapolis, and Baltimore—including Rams Head Live! and Pier Six. He was smart enough to partner with promoter Seth Hurwitz of I.M.P. to bring big-time national acts to Rams Head Live! (like the Beastie Boys and Smashing Pumpkins), and is currently working with David Cordish to plan a new live music venue in the Arundel Mills slots parlor.

And don’t count out:

• Casey Hard, beer manager at Max’s Taphouse, helps organize beer festivals and built the bar into what it is today.
• Marc McFaul is growing a little bar empire with two Ropewalk Taverns (in Federal Hill and Bel Air), The Stalking Horse, and McFaul’s.
• Frank Remesch, general manager of 1st Mariner Arena, has brought huge names to Baltimore, like Bruce Springsteen and Jay-Z.

Dining

These restaurant royals are at the top of the Charm City food chain.

Tony Foreman and Cindy Wolf
The formidable restaurant team—Foreman’s a restaurant visionary; Wolf’s a world-class chef—came to the forefront of the city’s dining scene in 1995 and haven’t stopped since. The business partners have since formed the Foreman Wolf group to oversee their four restaurants: Charleston, Cinghiale, Petite Louis, and Pazo (they also have two wine stores). It’s no surprise that this duo is planning another business venture this year. Their empire grows.

Eddie Dopkin
Dopkin is probably best known for transforming a stretch of W. Cold Spring Lane into a mini restaurant row with Miss Shirley’s Cafe, S’ghetti Eddie’s, and Roland Park Bagel Co. (He also owned Loco Hombre and Alonso’s until selling them about a year ago.) His Crazy Man Restaurant Group now has another Miss Shirley’s at the Inner Harbor, and Dopkin is grooming his son David in the business. Dopkin is also exploring locations for one, possibly two, Miss Shirley’s in the next year.

Vasilios Keramidas
Keramidas, who heads up Kali’s Restaurant Group, has carved out a dining stronghold in Fells Point. The elegant Kali’s Court started the buzz, followed by Mezze, Meli American Bistro, and Tapas Adela. Now, he and his partners—Karen Patten, Eric Losin, and Theodore Losin—are gutting and renovating the old Admiral’s Cup Cafe.

Qayum and Pat Karzai
The Karzais, along with son Helmand, didn’t stop with their success at The Helmand, Baltimore’s go-to place for delicious, authentic Afghan food. The couple added Tapas Teatro and b bistro to their restaurant roster and are planning to open a tapas place at the reinvigorated Senator Theatre. They’re also eyeing the long-shuttered and once esteemed Chesapeake Restaurant on North Charles Street as a location for a seafood venue.

Patrick Russell
When Russell opened Kooper¹s Tavern in Fells Point, naming it after his yellow Lab, he had no idea he was embarking on a mini restaurant conglomerate. Now, he and his wife, Katie, operate Sláinte Irish Pub and Restaurant, Woody¹s Rum Bar and Island Grill, and Kooper¹s Chowhound Burger Wagon. Patrick Russell has also joined forces with Bill Irvin, the restaurants¹ director of operations, to form the Fells Point Hospitality Management group. So far, they have acquired Celie¹s Waterfront Inn in Fells Point and plan to open a wine bar in Fells Point and another restaurant in Baltimore County in the future. They also brought in a top-notch chef, Bill Crouse, to deliver the best possible cuisine at the current restaurants.

And don’t count out:

• Although the Food Network has announced that this will be Ace of Cake’s final season, they’re already looking to develop new shows for Duff Goldman, who has brought national attention to our fair city.
• Spike Gjerde‘s three-year-old Woodberry Kitchen has raised the bar for everyone else in the field.
• The Vitales—Aldo and Regina and sons Sergio and Alessandro—exert their influence at Aldo’s Ristorante Italiano in Little Italy by entertaining local bigwigs and hosting political fundraisers. The younger Vitales plan to open an upscale pizzeria in Harbor East.

Society

Two couples rule the gala scene with their philanthropy——and their rolodexes.

Eddie C. and C. Sylvia Brown
The generous Browns could neatly fit into several of the power categories on this list, but they most conspicuously wield their power in the social arena. They were feted at galas at MICA and The Reginald F. Lewis Museum and have been coveted guests and honorees at nearly every big society event in town, including the Arthritis Foundation and the Living Classrooms Foundation.
“They’re the most influential African American couple in the state of Maryland,” says talk show host Anthony McCarthy. “Everyone is knocking on their door. White, black, and in between.”
And when the Browns chair a party—or, even more often, are honored guests at one—the A-list of Baltimore is at their beck and call.
“They go to the right parties, they chair the right galas, they show up at the right dinner parties,” says McCarthy.
“They are the quintessential power couple,” agrees Del. Keiffer Mitchell Jr.
Says McCarthy: “Their legend continues to grow.”

Art and Pat Modell
The Modells are the 3 Rs: Rich, retired, and revered. In a relatively short period of time (by Baltimore standards at least), they have become significant patrons of both the arts and local charities.
“They have given so many wonderful philanthropic gifts to so many institutions around town,” says Sandy Richmond, the executive director of the newly renamed The Patricia and Arthur Modell Performing Arts Center at The Lyric. “There’s no way to say thanks.”
And when the Modells chair a party, “people show up,” says one high-ranking society observer.
“Art and Pat Modell do not take their commitments lightly,” says Lori D. Mulligan, director of development and marketing for Gilchrist Hospice Care. (The Modells recently chaired its
Holly Ball.) “Their name alone is associated with good judgment and impeccable taste.”

And don’t count out:

• Look out for David and Michel Modell. After chairing parties for Pam Shriver and MAP, the couple are clearly following in Art and Pat’s (gilded) footsteps.
• Rising stars Jennifer and George Reynolds recently chaired the Walters Gala and are big contributors to St. Joseph Medical Center. She’s also the next National Aquarium board chair. “They cut a wide swath among all sectors,” says one insider.
• Aris Melissaratos, the former DBED secretary (now at Hopkins), has become a serious player on the social scene, chairing galas for Cystic Fibrosis and the American Heart Association.

The Power Vacuum

How Baltimore’s power has shifted—and why that may not be such a bad thing.

By Max Weiss

Once was, it was easy to identify the powerful people. They were the CEOs of local firms like Alex. Brown, the Maryland Jockey Club, and Mercantile Safe Deposit. They were the political apparatchiks of William Donald Schaefer and later, Kurt Schmoke. They were graduates of the big urban public schools—like City or Poly—or the big private ones, like Gilman, Boys’ Latin, and Calvert School.

But now, as more local headquarters are closing (or being bought out), and as the old guard is retiring (or dead), there’s a bit of confusion in this town.

Who’s running Baltimore?

John Willis, the former Secretary of State of Maryland under Parris Glendening, now the director of the government and public policy program at the University of Baltimore, puts it like this: “No one knows who to call anymore.”

The Irv Kovens of this world—he was famously the kingmaker behind Schaefer—are gone, as are likes of H. Furlong Baldwin (the former Mercantile chief), Joe DeFrancis (from the Maryland Jockey Club), and Buzzy Krongard (of Alex. Brown). And while H&S’s John Paterakis and Orioles owner/superlawyer Peter Angelos are still enormously powerful, they have become less hands-on with time.

“We’ve run out of the kind of people who used to sit on the board of the GBC [Greater Baltimore Committee],” says Aris Melissaratos, the former head of the Department of Business and Economic Development (DBED) and now an adviser to the president of Hopkins.

And while Larry Gibson, the political adviser who helped put Kurt Schmoke in office, still has some measure of power, he wasn’t able to mobilize the vote behind the candidate he most recently supported, Pat Jessamy. (She lost her city State’s Attorney seat to newcomer Gregg Bernstein, largely because voter turnout was historically low.)

“Large groups of people just aren’t being controlled like they used to,” says WEAA talk show host Anthony McCarthy, the former spokesperson for Mayor Sheila Dixon. “It used to be easier to turn out voters.”

And that’s at least partly because of the waning influence of The Baltimore Sun.

“The media market is fractured,” notes Willis. “Makes it that much more difficult to reach large numbers of people.”

Of course, there are people who have power—the mayor, the governor, the county executives—just by virtue of their postions. But elected power isn’t the same as personal power. And everyone agrees that the personal power in this town has become splintered. But here’s the rub: Most feel that’s not necessarily a bad thing.

“There’s been a generational shift,” says Del. Keiffer Mitchell Jr., who himself hails from a long-serving political family. “Power these days can be influenced by the number of friends you have on Facebook.”

Adds Kathy Sher, the deputy director for external affairs at the National Aquarium, “It feels like the thirtysomething and fortysomethings have as much cachet as the old guard. And that seems like a very healthy and positive dynamic.”

As for the notion that you had to have been born and raised in this town to rise to power? Not necessarily true, our observers say, but Baltimoreans are still wary of outsiders.

“You can’t just fly in and have a Tea Party member [as CEO] and expect it to work,” chuckles Willis. “There has to be a certain amount of awareness.”

“You have to get involved with your community,” adds Mitchell. He points to Atwood “Woody” Collins, the high-ranking M&T Bank exec, who has become a local leader. “He doesn’t drive around in a limo. He walks to M&T. People like that.”

Worshipping at the right churches is still a factor, as is knowing the right opinion makers, what Mitchell calls the “chattering class.” But Melissaratos points out that even those folks are less easy to identify. “Who’s calling the shots right now?” he muses.

All agree that the best part of this power shortage is that it gives an opportunity for new leadership to emerge in rising populations, like the Latino community, the green community, and both the new technology and health care sectors. And power is also materializing from increasingly diverse pockets (which is why we broke up our larger feature into categories).

“Now it seems like there are different segments of power and they’re all very unique,” says Kathy Sher. “And they reflect the business and social complexities that are going on in Baltimore.”

For now, we have shifted from what Willis calls an “elite” power structure to a “pluralistic” one. But he’s not sure it’s going to last.

“Politics abhors a vacuum,” he says. “The question is, who’s going to emerge?”

Like so many visionary artists, it seems, John Root Hopkins lives in the middle of nowhere. Outside Cambridge on Maryland’s Eastern Shore, Route 16 rolls past clusters of aluminum sided houses and fields of corn and soybeans. In Church Creek, just beyond the firehouse, the road branches off and meanders through stands of Loblolly Pines to a gravel driveway that leads to Hopkins’s home, which overlooks the creek. The house actually belongs to Hopkins’s lady friend, Helen “Bunny” Crump, and she’s scurrying around packing for a trip to London, while Hopkins sits at the kitchen table.

The 80-year-old Hopkins may have 10 pieces in the American Visionary Art Museum’s (AVAM) upcoming exhibition, What Makes Us Smile? (co-curated by Simpsons creator Matt Groening, artist Gary Panter, and AVAM founder/director Rebecca Hoffberger), but he’s hardly your typical visionary artist. He isn’t a recluse, hasn’t struggled with mental illness or addiction, and isn’t prone to anti-government rants or religious epiphanies. He’s actually a South Carolina native, retired patent attorney, world traveler, decorated war veteran, and all-around southern gentleman, with a disarming smile and wicked sense of humor. “I like to paint every day and stir up trouble,” he’s fond of telling people.

Since retiring from AMP Inc.—where he worked out of offices in France, Italy, Spain, and Harrisburg, Pennsylvania—and moving to Dorchester County 20 years ago, Hopkins has painted 1,400 pieces and, he estimates, sold more than half of them. They’re popular items at Joie de Vivre, a Cambridge gallery that’s been exhibiting his work for nearly a decade.

“The ones that make people smile sell the best,” says owner Joy Staniforth. “They’re simply a reflection of John Root’s brilliant wit.”

Hopkins’s larger-than-life portrait of Jack Kevorkian, holding an actual scythe, is in AVAM’s permanent collection, and he’s been included in two previous exhibitions at the museum. And he’s quick to joke that he’s had work shown at The Louvre and The National Gallery: paintings done on sardine cans and Altoid tins that he secretly hung in the restrooms. “That way, I can say my art has been shown at the finest museums in the world,” he cracks.

Though he painted as a youngster, Hopkins never had any formal training, and his work leans toward a wry primitivism that suits his humor. “I don’t think there’s any rational explanation for what I’ve painted over the years,” he says. “I just paint what comes to mind, and that’s it.”

Crump points out Hopkins’s pieces that hang throughout the house, surprisingly conventional paintings of cats, a lion, sailboats, a blue heron, and a perfectly drawn rabbit—a gift to “Bunny” from the artist. “That rabbit is the best thing he’s ever done,” says Crump. “You can see every hair.”

“You know, the Cambridge Women’s Club always asks him to donate a painting for their auction,” she adds, proudly.

When asked if there’s anything on display that reflects Hopkins’s sense of humor, she points out a painting of Noah’s Ark. At first glance, it’s a typical scene of the animals heading two-by-two toward the giant ship. Look closely though, and you’ll notice that the tiny mice holding hands in the foreground are iconic Disney characters and McDonald’s golden arches illuminate the distant shore.

“I get such a kick out of that,” says Crump. “It always makes me chuckle.”

Rebecca Hoffberger figured the time was right for a humorous exhibition at AVAM.

“With the economy and job market the way it is, it seemed like a show centered on humor and the things that make us smile would be timely and useful,” she says. “If you think of when you laughed hardest and best, it probably didn’t have anything to do with money. I think it’s healthy to refocus people on that.”

So she began researching laughter in primates—she gleefully notes that apes have the capacity to tickle themselves—and looking at laughter’s scientific underpinnings, cultural significance, and therapeutic value. Besides learning that, yes, laughter is good medicine, and that smiling is, indeed, a universal language, Hoffberger also found something surprising: Jokes about flatulence are more ancient and universal than one might think.

“Did you know that the ancient Greeks wrote a book of fart jokes?” she asks. “It turns up in the writings of Shakespeare and Chaucer, too. And the highest paid performer in late-1800s France wasn’t Sarah Bernhardt, the great actress, it was Joseph Pujol”—the “fartiste” known for his musical expulsions of gas.

So, yes, the exhibition will include a Whoopee Cushion Bench, in a gallery titled “Toot Suite.”

It will also include more sophisticated fare, some of it suggested by Hoffberger’s co-curators, who are both steadfast AVAM fans.

“AVAM is a wonderful place,” says Gary Panter, the legendary alt-comix artist who’s probably best known for designing the Pee-Wee’s Playhouse sets. “One senses a great spirit behind the scenes, which turns out to be Rebecca and Ted [Frankel, who runs AVAM’s gift shop] and friends of the featured artists.” Beyond that, Panter calls the art “strong,” and says he recognizes its “supernatural charge of unhinged exploration.”

Matt Groening had a similar reaction while visiting AVAM a few years ago. He was in town to see his son, who was attending a local college, and left a message for Hoffberger. “He left his card, which had Marge Simpson on it,” recalls Hoffberger, “and he wrote how much he loved the museum and the museum store, which he said was his favorite in the whole world.”

Hoffberger contacted Groening, and they talked for an hour-and-a-half. “AVAM is the only museum that has ever brought me to tears,” he told Hoffberger, who says they also bonded over how much they loved Fractured Fairy Tales and Mad magazine as children. Hoffberger asked Groening to co-curate What Makes Us Smile?, and he agreed.

It turns out that he and Panter are good friends, and they’re both huge fans of a famous Baltimorean.

“Matt and I are both rabid Zappa fans,” says Panter. “It’s one of the things we bonded over.” Panter notes that they’re both John Waters fans, as well. In their discussions about the exhibition, Panter says he and Groening “enthused about the museum and talked about humor and objects a lot.”

At Groening’s suggestion, the show will include a tribute to Mad magazine—in the form of an elaborate, Alfred E. Neuman-inspired bedroom; work by Pedro Bell, who drew the classic Parliament/Funkadelic album covers in the 1970s; and screenings of The Simpsons episode in which Homer unwittingly becomes a visionary artist (“Mom and Pop Art,” from Season 10).

For his part, Panter recruited Atlanta cartoonist Lonnie Brooks—“His cartoons make me laugh and have a great offhand attitude,” says Panter—and artist Ian Flynn, whose work Panter describes as “high energy folk cubism.”

But Hoffberger did the lion’s share of the curatorial work, choosing the balance of the show’s 80-plus artists. She’s excited about a metal sculpture of a red-haired, bikini-clad biker—by Lou and Judy Hagen, who are husband and wife and long distance truckers—that will hang over the front entrance, and a giant “Smile” welcome mat made from toothbrush bristles by Boston artist Nadya Volicer. She’s also got costumes and props from physician/clown Patch Adams, a huge collection of “junk-picked” toys from comedian Michael Baldwin (known as “the legendary WID”), drawings by quadriplegic humorist John Callahan, a few pieces by John Waters, and postcards culled from Frank Warren’s Post-Secret project.

“This is going to be a very playful and loving show,” says Hoffberger, “but with some serious undertones. Its themes are meant to spark communal contemplation, so it’s more grassroots than some of our previous exhibitions.”

Hoffberger finds Hopkins’s art especially playful, and she spends a day rummaging through the attic of the Cambridge condo where he stores his work. Hoffberger’s eyes sparkle with a glint of anticipation as she makes her way through stacks of paintings and drawings, as Hopkins looks on. Every so often, she shrieks with delight and pulls a piece from the pile.

There’s a watercolor of a safe leaning against another safe (Safe Sex); a painting of a man walking his dog, their faces nearly identical (It’s True); a large painting of a nude woman wearing a small hat and driving a tractor (Straw Hat is its unlikely title); and an untitled piece showing Winnie-the-Pooh with a popgun and Christopher Robin’s hands in the air.

“I love the sense of play, coupled with a keen intelligence,” says Hoffberger. “We often think that intelligence makes for serious art, but this work shows that needn’t always be the case. It has an impish sense of joy and delight.”

“It’s true that I want to make people smile,” says Hopkins. “And I do that. Sometimes, I even make myself laugh.”

A few weeks later, Hopkins finds himself in a Cambridge nursing facility. Bed-ridden and withdrawn, he’s struggling with the effects of diabetes and various other maladies that have sapped his strength and darkened his demeanor.

I bring a book of Impressionist paintings and make small talk, with little result. Not even a mention of the October 9 opening at AVAM draws much of a response. When I ask Hopkins if there’s anything he’d like to have, something that might make him feel a little better, he says flatly, “I wish there was,” and drifts off to sleep.

A few moments later, I go to the nurse’s station for scissors and tape. I tear pages of paintings by the likes of Monet and Cézanne from the book, trim them, and hang them around the room.

At one point, Hopkins awakes and looks around. His eyes widen just a bit, and he smiles. Then, he goes back to sleep.

At 7:15 on a Wednesday morning, Bobby Cicero makes his way down Bank Street, between Conkling and Eaton, in Highlandtown. Balancing a cardboard take-out tray packed tight with coffee and a half dozen egg sandwiches, he stops at the door of a nondescript warehouse and fishes keys from his pants pocket.

A faint smell of ink wafts through the air and intensifies as Cicero pulls open the door. When he steps inside and turns on the lights, the office walls practically explode with color. From floor to ceiling, they are covered with bright, gaudy posters advertising soul revues, hip-hop extravaganzas, carnivals, gospel revivals, college homecomings, political campaigns, and swap meets. Welcome to Globe Poster, a Baltimore institution and one of the most celebrated poster companies in the world.

Cicero walks behind the counter, where a “100% Down On All Purchases, No Checks” sign states the firm’s billing policy. He unwraps a sandwich and sorts through a pile of paperwork. There is a fax for an Italian festival poster, as well as recent orders for DJ Hollywood Breeze and the Krazy Praise “Gospel Go-Go for God.”

The phone rings. “Hey, how are you?” Cicero says, as if greeting an old friend. He extracts a few paper-clipped pages from the pile of papers. “Yeah, I have it right here. . . Do you want it to read, Family Fun Carnival? . . Do you need this in Spanish, too? . . . I can fix it, no problem. . . I’ll dress it up. . . Let me get this in the works. . . I’ll have it for you, don’t worry.”

He returns the phone to its cradle. “It’s carnival season,” he says, knowing the seasonal work will keep him busy for the next few months.

Like the caller, many others will come looking for the classic Globe treatment—big, bold letters over splashes of Day-Glo color (orange, green, and red are the most popular) on a heavy stock that can withstand most weather conditions. “A lot of customers ask, ‘Why does it have to be so big and bold?'” Cicero explains between bites. “Well, if you’re trying to reach people driving past at 40 miles per hour, it has to be big and bold. That’s basically been our philosophy for all these years.”

Over the next hour, a half-dozen pressmen come through the door—each one is offered an egg sandwich—followed by various members of the Cicero family who take up positions around the shop. Bobby is the shop foreman, and he oversees the press work in the back; his brother, Frank, works out front, dealing with customers and sketching designs on notebook paper; Frank’s wife, Debbie, answers the phones and keeps the books; and Frank and Bobby’s brother, Joey, does the shipping and handling. Their father, Joe Sr., has been working at Globe since 1935, and although he’s officially retired, he comes in most days to help out. “They gave me a retirement party,” he’s fond of saying, “but I fooled them and came to work the next day.”

In Joe Sr.’s office, a copy of The Art of Rock sits on the desk. A gorgeous coffee-table book published by Abbeville Press, it features classic concert posters dating back to the 1950s.Globe is well represented, and

Joe Sr.’s copy has Post-Its bookmarking examples of the company’s best work. Of the Globe designs pictured, there’s an eye-popping 1957 “Biggest Show of Stars” poster for an early rock-and-roll revue featuring Chuck Berry, the Crickets, and Fats Domino; a poster for James Brown at the Apollo that promises “a show for the entire family”; and one for Ike and Tina Turner that, with flames surrounding sultry shots of Tina and the Ikettes, is decidedly less wholesome. “Tina Turner used to phone in orders herself,” says Joe Sr., pointing to the page. “She’d be on tour and call in to order posters for upcoming shows.”

Looking over his shoulder, Frank adds that lots of soul stars used to do the same thing. “I’d talk to people like Solomon Burke all the time,” he says, referring to the 1960s R&B great, “and dad will tell you that bandleaders like Count Basie used to stop into the shop when they were in town. They were good customers for us.”

“You weren’t a star until Frank and the people at Globe put your picture on a poster,” says Burke, when asked about the company. “Those were the good old days, when Globe printed thousands of posters for me.”

“I used to ride around with a stack of [Globe Posters] in my trunk,” recalls Ike Turner. “I used them for all our shows in the early days.”

“The posters gave you a little pride,” B.B. King has said. “You might be driving through by yourself and sneak a look at them and smile. Sometimes you would be passing through a town—let’s say Atlanta—and you would be stopping at a service station in one of the suburbs for fuel and directions. Someone would say, ‘Hey, you’re B.B. King! Hey, fellows, that’s B.B. King; I just saw his poster!'”

Now, those same posters, if you can find them, are worth thousands of dollars.With Globe’s now-iconic style inexorably linked to the glory days of R&B, and with deep-pocketed Boomers spiking demand for music memorabilia, vintage Globes are hot items. Old Globe posters, staple holes and all, have been auctioned at Sotheby’s and purchased for display at the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame and Museum and the Memphis Music Hall of Fame. And the Rhythm and Blues Foundation recently called about acquiring some old posters. “It’s shocking,” says Bobby. “Who would have figured that our posters would be valuable someday? After all, they were made to look good hanging from telephone poles.”

Globe Poster was founded during a card game in 1929. As Joe Sr. tells it, Norman Goldstein, a wealthy New Yorker, and Harry Shapiro, whose family owned a printing business in Texas, were both at the table that night in Philadelphia. At some point during the game, Shapiro proposed going into business together, and Goldstein took to the idea. When the question arose about where the new company would be located, they took a map of the East Coast and randomly folded it. When it was reopened, the crease was on Baltimore. “So they started out in Baltimore,” Joe Sr. says, with a knowing smile and nod of the head.

The new company set up shop in the Smith Building on South Hanover Street with three letter presses and a cutter—”that we still use,” Frank notes. Despite fallout from the Depression, Globe prospered by printing for burlesque houses, vaudeville performers, movie theaters, and carnivals.

Joe Sr. was recently married and looking for work in the fall of 1935. The son of a Sicilian shoemaker, he’d grown up in South Baltimore, the fourth of six children. He knew about an opening at Globe, where his brother-in-law worked, and inquired about the job. “I started the next day,” he recalls, “cleaning and putting away type.”

He went on to perform virtually every job in the shop, and by the time Harry Shapiro’s brother, Norman, took over in 1954, Joe was foreman of the pressroom and the father of three young sons. He unfailingly refers to his old boss as “Mr. Shuh-pie-ro” and says it didn’t take them long to establish an excellent on-the-job rapport. “For twenty years, I was his right-hand man,” says Joe.

When Shapiro retired in 1975, he sold Globe to Joe. By then, the company had moved to the Candler Building at Market Place, and the younger Ciceros—who’d worked summers at the plant during their high school years—had struck out on their own. Joey became an accountant, Frank was a social worker, and Bobby worked at Black & Decker. But by the end of 1976, they’d all joined their father at Globe, full-time.

Since then, Globe has relocated twice; first, to a brick building on Byrd Street (that was also home to the National Federation of the Blind) in South Baltimore, and three years ago, to its present Bank Street address. Except for the hulking presses, which weigh as much as 13 tons a piece, the Ciceros moved everything themselves. “It practically killed us,” says 58-year-old Frank, during a tour of the print shop. “We’re not getting any younger, you know.”

With the presses whirring, a huge overhead exhaust fan humming, and a radio blaring the Who’s “Won’t Get Fooled Again,” he practically shouts to be heard. He points out an in-house promotional poster from the 1970s that was used to drum up business at print conventions and expos.With eye-catching panache, it promises “fast service and low prices” for a variety of posters, including “circus, rodeos, hell drivers, races, concerts, and bumpers.” When it’s noted that the phone number listed on the poster is still Globe’s number, Frank is unfazed. “That was a Mulberry number,” he says. “Mulberry five.We’ve had that number for at least fifty years.”

He walks past a few offset presses, the aforementioned paper cutter, a pair of Heidelberg numbering machines (for tickets), and a paint-splattered “clam shell”(for screen print work) that brings to mind paintings by de Kooning or Pollock. A pair of Miehle letter presses, dating back to 1907, quietly await repair. A five-gallon bucket of fluorescent orange ink sits beside a table with a pile of red shop rags on it. A bright green “O’Malley for Mayor” sign hangs on a nearby wall, along with recent concert posters forWillie Nelson, Rage Against the Machine, and Beck.

When asked how Globe’s distinctive style evolved, Frank and Bobby head for the composing room, where yards of hand-cut wood type are stored on shelves. This alcove used to be the domain of Harry Knorr, who designed posters at Globe for almost 50 years. When asked if any single person is responsible for the Globe “look,” Frank and Bobby respond in unison. “Harry,” they say, nodding in agreement.

In the mid-1950s, Globe began putting fluorescent inks behind its type, and Knorr started using multiple colors to highlight and define various parts of a poster. That’s one reason why Globe was such a good match for those old soul revues; it could draw attention to all the artists on a multi-act bill, and the music was bright and vibrant, just like the poster hyping it.

It was also common for Knorr to create custom letters reinforcing that vibe. “If it looks kind of weird, that was Harry,” says Frank.

And if the pressure of being creative during tight production schedules ever got to Knorr, he never let on. The Ciceros remember him pacing calmly, with a six-ounce Coke bottle in one hand, a pencil in the other, and a head full of ideas. “We’d be running around trying to get everything printed, and he’d be back here in his own world,” says Bobby. “He was always looking away, thinking. Then all of a sudden, he’d start sketching on a piece of paper, cardboard, anything. He had that sort of artistic temperament.”

Knorr’s design would be transferred to a block that was handrouted and cut to size by a woodworker making about $40 a week. The custom block was then incorporated into an overall design that also included more traditional block type. A nearby shelf holds various wood cuts created by Knorr, blocks with things like “Air Show,” “Fireworks,” “Farm Fair,” “Outdoor Frolic,” “Fish Fry,” “Jamboree,” and “Show Girls” cut into them.

Although his designs were fairly sophisticated for the Eisenhower era, Knorr never forgot that Globe posters were more utilitarian than artistic, and he passed that on to his disciples. “Harry always said that you should be able to read a poster in three seconds,” says Frank. “I think that’s true, and that’s how I judge our posters.”

It may not seem like much has changed since Knorr retired in the late-1970s, but Globe has actually proved to be quite versatile on the business front. The firm switched over from letter-press to offset printing in 1988, the year it began designing posters on a Macintosh computer. It also began printing just about anything, and over the years, the list has swelled to include restaurant menus, FBI shooting range targets, directional signs for real estate developers, spiral notebooks, ties, scarves, and T-shirts.

But more than anything else, it’s the Ciceros’ strong sense of family that shepherds Globe through the tough times. Lately, health problems have threatened the company’s existence, but always, the family pulls together to make the best of it. When Globe’s longtime secretary Barbara Carson (a cousin of the Ciceros’) suffered a stroke in 1998, everyone pitched in to make up for her absence. Debbie worked extra hours, and it wasn’t uncommon for Bobby to take a computer home at night to catch up on paperwork.

And when Frank fell ill from kidney failure in December of 2000, Bobby stepped forward to donate a kidney to his brother, who looks remarkably well these days. “It’s hard,” says Bobby, “but thank God we get to work with people we love and care about. You know, I think that sense of family also spills over to the other guys who work here. That’s the way we like it.”

Glancing around the shop, Bobby suddenly seems a bit antsy. Frank has left to tend to a customer at the front counter, Joey has been wrapping orders that need to be shipped, and Joe Sr. walks past on his way to the paper cutter. “I don’t want to seem rude,” Bobby says, “but I have a job to run.”With that, he tucks a shop rag into his pocket and hustles away, stepping in time to the mechanized rhythm of the presses.