A studio is often a reflection of an artist’s mind and work, as well as a source of inspiration. From warehouse spaces piled high with source material to lounge areas where models pose for figurative painters to a historical-church-turned-studio, the studios on this year’s tour promise to reveal the inner workings and the private world of each artist.

Ahead of the Baltimore Office of Promotion and the Arts and School 33’s 30th annual Open Studio Tour on Saturday and Sunday, we visited a few studios that stood out in this diverse range of roughly 120 spaces that will open to the public.

Paul Moscatt
The Cork Factory, 1601 Guilford Ave. (main entrance at 302 East Federal St.)

Not only will you get to see phenomenal paintings that span some 50 years at Paul Moscatt’s massive warehouse studio inside the artist-owned Cork Factory, but you might get treated to his homemade Sicilian hors d’oeuvres, maybe even a tune on his piano, and certainly his delightful company. The figurative painter and former MICA professor has lived in Baltimore since 1967, and his studio’s lived-in feel contains decades of work, as well as a lounge area for models during painting sessions.

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Timothy Horjus

400 W. 24th St.

As cofounder of C&H Restoration & Renovation, Timothy Horjus is no stranger to historic structures and knowing how to make them shine again. His studio is a perfect example. About 18 months ago, the abstract painter began restoration on a church built in 1892 in Remington, which now serves as studio space for his paintings, as well as that of two additional artists (another painter and a jeweler), and the ground level is used for workspace for C&H. The walls and floors have a distinctly historic vibe that makes this studio, especially with all of Horjus’ finishing touches, one of the most unique on the tour (and to think, the property was briefly in danger of becoming a WalMart).

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Neil Feather

The Hooper Industries Building, 2121 Druid Park Drive (proceed up the ramp and enter through door on the loading dock)

This studio in the industrial Hooper Industries Building is a feast for the ears as much as it is for the eyes. Neil Feather is a Baltimore institution in and of himself, but in his creative space, you can witness the inner workings of this mad scientist’s mind. Gadgets, bicycle wheels, machine parts, gauges, drum pieces, and mechanical miscellanea fill the space. His inventions, like the one he calls The Former Guitar, are experimental musical instruments, some of which make music on their own and others that need someone to play them. Most of the sculptural pieces create ambient, organic sounds and beats, a niche that grew out of studying ceramics as a graduate student. As he puts it, “It all involves a little bit of well-crafted chaos.”

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Maxine Taylor

126 N. Madeira St.

Maxine Taylor was living in New Carrollton in the mid-1990s when she decided to sell her home after her kids moved out and buy an old stable in Butchers Hill and renovate it as live/work space. “No one had ever lived here,” the artist says. “I had to put in windows, build a deck.” It was a ton of work, but it afforded her plenty of space to make her mixed-media pieces, and eventually she began opening her studio each year for BOPA’s citywide tour. When BOPA asked her to join the Artscape Gallery Network, the basement of her home was being used as storage space for her work (and bicycles, a lawnmower, etc.). But joining that network gave her incentive to transform it into what it is today: MAX Gallery. She exhibits work by artists in all disciplines there and has open hours on Fridays and Saturdays. This weekend, guests on the tour can see both her work space and the gallery.

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Rachel Guardiola

School 33, 1427 Light St.

With a background in science and art, Rachel Guardiola has taken working from nature to the next level. After becoming a resident artist at School 33 in 2017, she constructed an actual greenhouse inside her studio walls, where she grows plants and later transplants them outside (she’ll start planting a new batch this winter), and also where she occasionally does performance art. She works predominately in photography and film, and when she doesn’t have access to a location or research in the field, she brings the field to her, creating fantastical installations, where she imagines what various landscapes would look like without human presence. “Art is a way to make science accessible,” she says.

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Tony Shore
Crown Cork & Seal, 4401 Fait Ave.

Tony Shore, chair of the painting department at MICA, has made his studio home inside the Crown Cork & Seal building on Eastern Avenue. He will be one of several artists in the old warehouse building to open their studios for the event, although his will be open to the public on Saturday only. He moved into the space in 2000, when there were only a handful of artists working there, and now there are more than two dozen. “There’s a real community of artists here,” he says. His black velvet paintings come from his growing up in the blue-collar neighborhood of Morrell Park and seeing them there. “They were kind of like the poor man’s art,” he says. “They’ve always had a kitschy, lower-class connotation . . . but I wanted to take this lowbrow art and elevate it to be museum-worthy.”

It’s easy to find world-class museums in Baltimore, but arts aficionados won’t be able to see the city’s newest exhibition inside any of them. Art on the Waterfront, a temporary showcase featuring four public installations, uses the great outdoors as its gallery instead.

Produced by the Baltimore Office of Promotion & the Arts, the exhibition snakes throughout Middle Branch Park on the Gwynns Falls Trail. Four Baltimore-based artists created the larger-than-life sculptures, which each draw inspiration from and interact with nature. BOPA will celebrate the show’s grand opening at 4:30 p.m. on July 4 with a public reception followed by a view of the Ports America fireworks from the beach.

Ryan Patterson, the public arts administrator at BOPA, says the show fills a gap in the city’s arts offerings. “We have wonderful art institutions around Baltimore where we can go see historic and contemporary artworks,” Patterson says. “The one area we miss is the kind of contemporary sculpture that gets installed on a temporary basis, something that’s a little longer than Artscape or one of those festival settings, but can really change an environment.”

Featured artists Becky Borlan, Graham Coreil-Allen, Ashley Kidner, and Matthias Neumann approach their pieces in unique ways, but with similar local themes. Borlan’s Prisms and Coreil-Allen’s Baltimore Banner Vista both pay homage to the city’s rich history of transportation, while Neumann’s Basics #24 explores the function of public sculpture in its natural surroundings.

Ashley Kidner’s Pollinator Hexagon is perhaps the most unusual installation in the exhibit—a circular garden with 19 internal hexagons, each filled with plants native to Maryland that attract pollinators, like bees, butterflies, and birds. It’s the fourth in a series of five public works by the English-born artist, who is, in his own words, “really big about trying to save bees.”

“I’m hoping that people will look at it and say, ‘Hey, that’s a great idea,’” Kidner says. “People will be inspired to go and start planting their own native plants.”

Art on the Waterfront is open to the public every day of the week and is completely free to visit by car, bike, and foot. The 150-acre Middle Branch Park, located across the Hanover Street Bridge, marks the southern end of the Gwynns Falls trail, which connects over 30 neighborhoods throughout Baltimore.

Artist Becky Borlan jumped at the chance to display Prisms next to the Patapsco River, where she says the piece takes on special resonance. “It’s sort of an appropriate context for this piece to have it next to the Baltimore harbor,” says Borlan, whose work resembles five technicolor sailboats. “I hope my work heightens people’s awareness of the visual world around them. It’s something that I’m personally very attuned to, and maybe obsessed with.”

The temporary exhibits will be on display along the Gwynns Falls Trail through September 28. There are no concrete plans yet for another showcase at Middle Branch Park, but Patterson hopes that this first edition will inspire an annual tradition of public art exhibitions.

“It’s the beginning of how we can feature new artwork in parks,” he says. “A number of really creative communities with all sorts of really great residents have visions for what that park can be.”

The many free attractions created and organized for the third annual Light City didn’t stop locals and tourists from spending their money in Baltimore. Baltimore Office of Promotion and The Arts (BOPA) announced today that the light, music, and innovation festival brought about $33.5 million into the city.

That economic impact came from approximinately 442,500 nighttime visitors to the Inner Harbor, including a record-breaking estimated 175,000 who headed downtown on opening night.

“The Baltimore Office of Promotion & The Arts brought the magic of Light City to more than 38 neighborhoods before we opened the festival at the Inner Harbor,” said Roz Healy, BOPA’s interim CEO. “We are thrilled that Light City has been embraced so wholeheartedly by visitors and residents alike.”

By comparison, last year’s festival contributed more than $44 million to the local economy (a $10 million increase from its inaugural year) and an estimated 470,000 visitors.

Artists looking to get their work in front of those approximately 885,000 pairs of eyes next year should start brainstorming now. The call for entry for Light City 2019, set for April 5-13, is now open, and BOPA offers grants of $10,000-75,000 to fully fund pieces for the festival’s Art Walk. About 25 temporary visual light art installations from local, national, and international works will eventually be chosen from the hundreds of applicants.

Finalists will be chosen by a panel of jurors including filmmaker, curator, and author Elissa Blount-Moorhead; Marcus Civin of the University of Nevada, Las Vegas Department of Art; Burning Man Director of Art & Civic Engagement Kim Cook; Signal Prague Light Festival co-founder Jan K. Rolnik; and Jess Wilcox, Director of Exhibitions of the Socrates Sculpture Park in New York. Finalists will be notified in late October, and participating works will be chosen in December.

What can attendees expect from the new pieces? The prompt calls for works that exemplify the core values of collaboration, social innovation, technology, sustainability, audience engagement and accessibility, and transformational impact. How those ideas manage to light up the Inner Harbor is up to the artists.

Cue the giant sculptural campfire, the Adirondack chairs, the dance socials—and, apparently, performances by a Gypsy punk band and a kick-ass female drummer.

Gogol Bordello will headline this year’s camp-themed Artscape, performing on Saturday. The night before, legendary R&B and funk performer Sheila E. (“Glamorous Life”, anyone?) takes the stage, and Sunday features soul group Robert Randolph & The Family Band.

“Artscape is one of the most exciting things we do in the city every single year,” said Mayor Catherine Pugh at the press conference announcement at the Parkway Theatre today. 

Camp Artscape: Adventure Awaits—as the country’s largest free arts festival is being designated this year—runs from July 21-23. And there are plenty of features that are on theme—from a “camp site” on Charles Street where festival-goers can taste camp-inspired eats and connect with fellow “campers” to a whole installation devoted to “dance camp” where you can live out your summer stock dreams in a workshop or catch a high-energy performance.

And, of course, there will be plenty of the old favorites—the artists’ market that lines West Mount Royal Avenue, street performers, concerts from the Baltimore Symphony Orchestra and OrchKids. Plus, there’s food from 100-percent Maryland food vendors and, new this year, the beers will also be 100-percent local, including selections from Flying Dog, Heavy Seas, Union Craft, and The Brewer’s Art. 

“It’s great because it’s right in our backyard,” says Tom Creegan, co-owner of The Brewer’s Art. “It’s been a trend that’s been building for a long time and the people at BOPA have really taken notice. I’m glad they’re seeing the plethora of really awesome products available and are choosing to highlight them along with all of the local artists.”

As for new features, the Parkway will host a free feature film and short films, Argentinian dance phenom Che Malambo will perform at the Lyric, and a portable gallery will showcase the work of Brian High, a junior at the Baltimore Design School, at the median of Mount Royal Avenue.

Add to that sets by Ama Chandra, Baltimore rockers Super City, and 15-year-old rapper Faame Emanuel, plus pop-up performances and art shows around the city, and Artscape promises to be the same sweat-soaked, mind-blowing, city-wide party that is always a highlight of the summer. 

Light Installations

(all located at the Inner Harbor)

Dear Baltimore (Thick Art Studios, Baltimore)
While you’re strolling the harbor, art might whizz right by you. Keep your eyes out for a jumble of neon letters propelled by bicycles that spell out phrases composed of the letters from “Dear Baltimore.”

Pipelines (Luminous Intervention, Baltimore)
This piece “really brings home the social justice component of the festival,” says Light City co-founder Justin Allen. It consists of a large-scale projection mapping at McKeldin Fountain that presents some of the issues that Baltimore faces: police violence, recreation, education, and housing. Along with the piece, the artists have arranged forums and musical performances to relate to the content so we can continue the dialogue surrounding this important work.

Peacock (Tim Scofield and Kyle Miller, Baltimore)
When this illuminated fowl unfurls its tail to stand 20-foot-tall and 40-feet-wide, it will be quite the sight to see.

Diamonds Light Baltimore (Cheon Kroiz, Artist and Architect Collaborative, Baltimore)
The 15, diamond-esque structures that will surround the harbor will use light to do more than just highlight these geometric shapes. At 10 p.m. each night, the lights will change from white to blue, to signify the curfew that went into effect after the unrest following the death of Freddie Gray. You can walk inside and around each structure and you ponder what has changed and what hasn’t since last April.

Labyrinth (Ian Brill, Pittsburgh, PA)
Mazes have frequently been thought of as metaphors for a spiritual journey. In this case, they become a symbol of the transformative power of art. Festival visitors are encouraged to get lost in this installation, whether together or separately, and you might be amazed to be immersed in something made solely of light and sound.

Tips & Transportation The only street closure will occur in Harbor East—Lancaster Street from Exeter Street to Central Avenue, which is by a performance stage, will shut down at 6 p.m. each night of the festival. If you’re concerned about parking, check out BaltimoreParking.com, where you can reserve and pay for a spot. And BOPA’s Kathy Hornig says many of the garages will have Light City deals. Light Rail and Metro will also run at least an hour after the festival’s 11 p.m. end time. Download the free Light City app—created by local technology innovation agency Mindgrub—to get maps and schedules to customize your experience.