Last Wednesday, hordes of art lovers gathered on the sidewalk of Art Museum Drive to take in the illumination of Tavares Strachan’s exhibit In Broad Daylight. Above the grand columns and staircase of the Baltimore Museum of Art, the orange letters came to life in front of everyone’s eyes. And, thanks to social media, everyone following along at home also had a front row seat.

Not only has social media been great for promotion and education, but it’s also redefining how the art world operates.

“It gives everyone equal access digitally to get their work out there and to get the word out about what they’re doing,” said Andrea Boston, the social media manager for the BMA. “I use social media to share facts about an artist or to share the history behind the work of art. It creates this experience with art and what’s going on behind the doors in real-time.”

Aside from artists using it to sidestep galleries to make a name for themselves, social media also makes it easier to sell their work. Boston says that she’s actually purchased prints from artists through Instagram and notices that some even forego professional websites for Facebook and Instagram accounts instead.

“Social media requires strong imagery and a compelling message, which is perfect for art,” she said. “Particularly Instagram, which is a platform that is pretty much designed for beautiful, well-curated photos. That’s the perfect soil for artists to grow a following.”

For local visual artist Hoesy Corona, he believes that social media is a game changer for the art world. By opening up the possibilities that were once limited to reach potential audiences, it’s helped him to establish his brand on his own terms.

“I tend to use it as a professional extension of my studio practice—a virtual marketing assistant of sorts,” he says. “I can give both insight into my studio process, as well as keep my audience informed about my goings-on.”

Strachan himself has a complicated relationship with social media. While he believes that it’s beneficial to his craft, he also knows it’s hard to escape. As an artist, he has to make sure that his work remains the most important thing.

“The art world and being an artist has become kind of global I think,” he says. “It allows for us to stay connected.”

Corona shares a similar philosophy about the influence of social media and believes that it will only continue to help open the doors for artists and patrons alike.

“Just a handful of years ago, artists were limited by the ways in which they could reach potential audiences and had to rely on discriminating middlepersons to sell their goods or gain access to show their work,” he explains. “Social media gives artists plenty of exposure without the help of predatory arts professionals which allows smaller independent artist run spaces to carve a niche for themselves and build a wider audience.”

The BMA has seen that happen quite literally. In just one year, their Instagram followers have grown from 8,000 to nearly 17,000 due to what Boston describes as “growing interest in the dope things the museum has been doing.” By using Instagram and other social media channels to share what’s new or coming soon, they have been able to draw in more visitors than they would have a decade ago.

“Our numbers show it,” she says. “It creates this immediacy and accessibility that we didn’t have before. It opens this portal to art and discovery that may have felt exclusive or roped off in the past.”

Once a dumping ground for garbage, the vacant lot on Homestead Street in East Baltimore is now a beautiful sculpture park.

Dubbed The Coldstream Homestead Montebello Sculpture Park, the new installment had its grand opening on June 3 as a part of the Baltimore Office of Promotion & The Arts (BOPA) and the Baltimore Office Baltimore Office of Sustainability’s Sustainability’s Growing Green Initiative’s Lots Alive grant program that supports the creation of temporary public art projects on vacant lots. 

“We ask artists to look for lots and work with community leaders to see which ones they would like to see activated,” said Growing Green Initiative coordinator Jenny Guillaume, who added that funding comes from the Department of Housing and Community Development’s blight fund, used for post-demolition greening of abandoned lots. 

This year, Baltimore-based artist, Lisa Dillin was awarded $10,000 in grant funding from the program to repurpose a lot of her choice. Dillin selected the Coldstream Homestead Montebello (CHM) area from an “adopt-a-lot” list provided by the city, in which residents are able to lease city-owned lots for one year—sometimes for community gardens or simply to maintain them.

“This community wanted art,” Dillin said. “So we’ve been working really closely with them to be sure that everything is what they envisioned.”

Instead of just creating the art alone, Dillin decided to develop a fellowship program that allows eight artists to display their work for six months in the park. Wanting to include local artists, she passed out flyers in the neighborhood. 

“I was really hoping to find non-traditional artists that didn’t go to MICA—ones that live in the neighborhood,” she said. “I imagine there are makers who just can’t stop, or even hobbyist painters that could imagine themselves trying sculpture.”

Before the artwork could be installed, the lot had to cleared of all trash and debris and a volunteering landscaping crew worked for nearly three months.

“There were at least 100 bags of trash that we collected,” she said. “The plants and weeds were up to your knees—you could see nothing except vines and grass.”

Since then, trees and flowers have been planted and eight pieces of artwork have been installed. The sculptures range from an iceberg made of Styrofoam to a blue man in tighty-whities to a bird’s nest that could fit a pterodactyl. Each piece of work is meant to reflect current events in not just the community, but also the world.

For example, fellow Alice Gadzinski’s piece Recess—a wall of 72 1×1-inch colored panels arranged to resemble the test pattern on classic television—represents a break in “regularly scheduled programming.” Gadzinski, who is currently undergoing cancer treatment, wants this piece to encourage people to take pause and take a look at what the world has become. It also doubles as a backdrop for a performance space that can be used for public events. 

Currently, the CHM Sculpture Park is free and open to the public seven days a week with events and sculpture workshops taking place until October 1.

Other artists include D.C.-based Lorenzo Cardim, who came up with the idea of “stitching” the park with metal. 

“I was thinking about mending, and connecting the community,” he said.

Baltimore artist Leanna Wetmore, an environmental activist and master gardener, applied because she wanted to help beautify the neighborhood and show her fellow residents the possibilities of what the vacant space could be.

Her piece, Home, is a large nest made of metal and leftover debris from the park that she repurposed to create a representation of what the neighborhood has meant to her for the last decade.

“It made me feel at home,” she said. “My nest is this neighborhood.”