Art Space is a recurring element in the UpFront section of our print publication that spotlights a local art project making an impact in the city at large. Here’s what’s going on this month:

For moments of reading or reflection, bibliophiles can enjoy the grounds, as well as Concrete Poetry, an interactive outdoor art installation by local artist Julia Kim Smith. Tucked into one leafy corner, 100 freestanding cast concrete letters can be rearranged to compose lines of poetry, with regular events featuring notable poets reciting their own verse.

A former executive director of the PEN/Faulkner Foundation, Emma Snyder returned to her native Baltimore in 2017 to join Ed and Anna Berlin as a co-owner of Mount Washington’s Ivy Bookshop and Charles Village’s Bird in Hand Café & Bookstore. Two years later, the Berlins, readying for retirement, sold both to Snyder. Not long after, she moved Ivy, an institution for Baltimore readers, from its shopping center location to a new home—a big stucco house on several acres around the corner on Falls Road. Weathering COVID, the Ivy has bounced back with a full slate of events and Snyder now plans to open another shop inside Hampden’s Whitehall Market—one more addition to the city’s burgeoning independent bookstore scene.

Your favorite book is The Moviegoer by Walker Percy, and it convinced you to move to Louisiana. Is that an example of the power of reading?
Definitely. I sometimes say the move was based on The Moviegoer, Lucinda Williams’ Car Wheels on a Gravel Road, and the movie Passion Fish by John Sayles, all of which I experienced within the course of a year of my young life. The Moviegoer is transcendently wonderful. Part of it is what the right book at the right time can do for a person. It provided a kind of infrastructure for an interior life. The idea of the search, and the idea of being attentive to everydayness that propels the protagonist through the novel. I read it when I was 19. Reading has the capacity to be a physiological, spiritual experience, and pure pleasure experience. It also has this ability to stay with you because it gets integrated into your sense of self and can then inform your decisions.

The National Book Awards are announced in November. What have you read recently that you loved or are reading now?
One writer I absolutely love is Irish author Anne Enright. Her new novel is The Wren. Another is German writer Jenny Erpenpeck. She has a book called Go, Went, Gone. It’s her reflecting back on the nature of her relationship with an older married man after his death and her first experiences leaving East Germany and going to the West. It somehow brilliantly layers political thinking and philosophy and the intensity and devastating transformational effect of a first doomed love affair.

The local literary scene has never seemed so vibrant. You grew up here. Does it feel that way to you?
Baltimore is such a creative, sincere, open, and collaborative space in cultural and artistic terms. It’s managing to maintain an authentic, creative cultural life that some cities are struggling with—partly because it’s hard to find places with an affordable cost of living on the East Coast. You can still take some risks here, you can still try to live a creative life, and I think that’s connected to this groundswell of activity. Ideas and a sort of playfulness abound here.

Coffee table books, though they don’t technically need to be stacked on a table, are both delightful to look at and make quite a statement about your varied interests. Here are a few recommendations that can be found at local shops:

Books pictured from top to bottom:

• 1000 Record Covers by Michael Ochs ($20) at Atomic Books.
• Inspire Your Home by Farah Merhi ($35) at The Ivy Bookshop.
• Birds of North America edited by Francois Vuilleumier ($40) at Charm City Books.
• Glory: Magical Visions of Black Beauty by Kahran and Regis Bethencourt ($30) at Charm City Books.
• Mid-Century Modern Design: A Complete Sourcebook by Dominic Bradbury ($50) at The Ivy Bookshop.
• Living with Nature: Decorating with the Rhythms of the Seasons by Marie Masureel ($42.50) at The Ivy Bookshop.
• The Look of the Book: Jackets, Covers, and Art at the Edges of Literature by Peter Mendelsund and David J. Alworth ($50) at Atomic Books.
• The Monocle Book of Japan by Tyler Brûlé, Andrew Tuck, Fiona Wilson, and Joe Pickard ($65) at Atomic Books.
• Atlas of Animal Adventures: A Collection of Nature’s Most Unmissable Events, Epic Migrations and Extraordinary Behaviours by Rachel Williams, Emily Hawkins, and illustrated by Lucy Letherland ($35) at The Children’s Bookstore.

Heywood Wakefield lounge chair sourced and reupholstered by 605 Mod ($950) at Taken: Forever Reinventing. Dracaena Marginata plant ($40) and wicker basket ($12) from B.Willow.

Visual Art

Eye to Eye

Rethink the way African-American male bodies are viewed at this new exhibition featuring artists Christopher Batten, Schroeder Cherry, and James Williams II. Observations are both welcomed and obscured in these three contemporary painters’ works. Stop by Oct. 10 from 5-8 p.m. to celebrate the pieces at the opening reception. Oct. 10 through Nov. 9. Catalyst Contemporary, 523 N. Charles St.

Elizabeth Catlett: Artist as Activist

Elizabeth Catlett spent a lifetime using her art to advocate for social and political change, lending her support to Mexican workers and African-Americans living under racist policies during the Jim Crow era. Starting this month, dozens of her sculptures and graphic prints will go on display at the Reginald F. Lewis Museum, beginning a long stretch of programming surrounding the iconic artist-activist. Oct. 26 through March 1, 2020. Reginald F. Lewis Museum, 830 E. Pratt St.

Literature

Story Time with Rachel Kolar

Grab your littlest ghouls and head to The Children’s Bookstore for this story time with local author Rachel Kolar, who will read from and sign her book of spooky retellings of classic nursery rhymes. Enjoy such spirited new versions as “We Willie Werewolf” and “Mary Had a Little Ghost,” and don’t forget to grab your own copy of Mother Ghost: Nursery Rhymes for Little Monsters. Oct. 19. 1-2 p.m.The Children’s Bookstore, 4717 Harford Rd.

An Evening with Mike Rowe: The Way I Heard It

Baltimore’s own jack of all trades and Discovery Channel superstar Mike Rowe is coming home to share some highlights from his new book, The Way I Heard It, featuring a collection of 35 true(ish) stories about figures you think you know. Grab your copy at the door and join hosts from The Ivy Bookshop for a moderated Q&A and audience questions. Oct. 19. 7-9 p.m. Church of the Redeemer, Baltimore, 5603 N. Charles St.

Music

Off the Cuff: Brahms Symphony No. 4

Johann Brahms’ “Symphony No. 4” represents a transitional period from the lush Romantics to the very beginnings of the 20th century’s modernists. Join Baltimore Symphony Orchestra conductor Marin Alsop for an evening of food, drinks, and lively conversation as she reveals the importance of this 19th-century master work. 7 p.m. Oct. 19. Joseph Meyerhoff Symphony Hall, 1212 Cathedral St.

Theatre

Charm City Fringe Festival

Charm City Fringe is back and ready to spread its stories all over the Bromo Arts & Entertainment District. Catch such exciting new pieces as WombWorks’ The Channeling of Ms. Sybby Grant, Amanda Erin Miller’s The Jew in the Ashram solo show, and Tres Brujas Productions’ exploration of witchcraft and Virginia Woolf, Modern Witches. There are 10 days of productions across six venues to explore, so we suggest you start making your checklist now. Oct. 10-20. Various locations.

August Wilson’s Radio Golf

As we roll ever closer to an election year, August Wilson’s final play feels as timely as ever. Resident company member Dawn Ursula will be joined by Charles Dumas, Anton Floyd, Jamil A.C. Mangan, and Jason B. McIntosh on the Everyman stage for this tale of real estate developer Harmond Wikins’ run at becoming Pittsburgh’s first black mayor. Oct. 15 through Nov. 19. Everyman Theatre, 315 W. Fayette St.

Stoop Storytelling: Twilight Zone

Everyone knows someone who swears that thing that went bump in the night was more than their imagination. Meet a few more at this month’s iteration of the Stoop Storytelling series featuring takes of all things strange and supernatural. Be sure to come early for cocktails and live music from local rockers Super City. 7 p.m. Oct. 24. The Senator Theatre, 5904 York Rd.

Film

Art, Youth, and Justice Day at the Baltimore Museum of Art

Greenmount West Community Center and Advocates for Children and Youth are celebrating Youth Justice Month with a whole day of programming at the Baltimore Museum of Art. In addition to self-guided tours of Generations: A History of Black Abstract Art (the ticketed exhibition will be free all weekend long) and an evening concert, the day will feature screenings and panels of both PUSHOUT: The Criminalization of Black Girls in Schools and Rethink Baltimore. 12-5 p.m. Oct. 26. Baltimore Museum of Art, 10 Art Museum Dr.

Visual Art

Time and Place

In this second exhibition at the reopened 1 West Mount Vernon Place, contemplate the bridges between past and present through Jay Gould’s evocative portraits and Antonio McAfee’s haunting composite images from W.E.B. DuBois’ Exhibit of American Negroes. The combination of the two artists work offers a contemporary perspective on 19th-century imagery. Through March 1, 2020. The Walters Art Museum, 600 N. Charles St.

Music

Lower Dens Album Release

Join Jana Hunter and Nate Nelson as they celebrate the release of The Competition and kick off a month-long tour with two nights of shows at Rituals in the former home of The Windup Space in Station North. Soak up their synth-laced beats and dance like the lead in your favorite ‘80s heartbreaker before these local legends head out of town for September. 8 p.m. to 1 a.m., Aug. 31 and Sept. 1. Rituals, 12 W. North Ave.

Literature

Jessica Gregg: News From This Lonesome City

Jessica Gregg has spent the past decade living in and writing about the city her family has called home for five generations. This new collection of poems from the editor of Baltimore’s Child and Baltimore’s Style explores the experiences gathered by living and working in Baltimore and the loneliness, fear, and ultimate hope that they inspire. Join Gregg at Bird in Hand for a discussion of these new verses and the stories that inspired them. 7-9 p.m., Bird in Hand Charles Village, 11 E. 33rd St.

Film

2019 Black Femme Supremacy Film Fest

Back for its second year at the SNF Parkway, this weekend-long film festival celebrating and connecting black femme filmmakers will feature dozens of films, from music videos to documentaries. This year’s theme is “Access,” and the idea will guide programming throughout the festival. Be sure to catch screenings of Baltimore-made docs such as B. Monet’s Ballet After Dark and Antonio Hernadez’s Indelible: Abdu Ali, both about local artists changing this city for the better. Aug. 30 to Sept. 1. The SNF Parkway Theatre, 5 W. North Ave.

News

Home Sweet Home for Current Space

If you haven’t been by 421 North Howard Street recently, we have good news for you. After three long years of red tape and renovation, Current Space finally has the forever home they’ve been after. Owners Julianne Hamilton and Michael Benevento had been working to acquire the building since 2015 and announced the purchase in late July. Next steps include updates to the roof and HVAC system, among other improvements. Stop by Aug. 31 to pass along your congratulations to Hamilton and Benevento and jam to Horse Lords, Wume, Smoke Bellow, and DJ/MC Lexie Mountain in the backyard.

New Digs for The Ivy Bookshop

The Ivy is already a book-lover’s dream, but take a moment to imagine perusing one of its tomes while rocking back and forth on a peaceful front porch, or maybe even moving into the shop itself. Those dreams will soon be a reality, as The Ivy plans to move into a 19th century home at 5928 Falls Road this spring. New additions will include more space for books, an upstairs workshop, and a writer’s residency apartment, all inside a charming former church near the Jones Falls.

It’s a Woman’s World at the BMA

The Baltimore Museum of Art has announced on Aug. 1 that, starting this fall, the museum will play host to 20 exhibitions celebrating women and female-identifying artists over the course of a year. The program, called 2020 Vision, recognizes the 100th anniversary of the 19th Amendment and will kick off this fall with By Their Creative Force: American Women Modernists, which will feature 20th-century painters, followed by an installation of Mickalene Thomas’ living rooms in the museum’s east lobby in November. Vision 2020 begins in September and will stretch through Summer 2020.

Ed and Ann Berlin had been living in the New York area for 35 years, but for Ed, a native Baltimorean (City College, Class of ’66), home beckoned—and both of them were ready for a change. They settled in Baltimore at the end of 2011.

“I was motivated to move back,” says Ed, “but Ann grew up in Salt Lake City, and the fear was that if we moved back, I would have old friends and connections and Ann would come here and wouldn’t have anything to do.”

Enter The Ivy Bookshop, which was up for sale just as they were arriving in Baltimore. Both Ed, a former technology innovator for CitiBank, and Ann, former head of production for academic publisher John Wiley & Sons, were lifelong booklovers. She tended toward non-fiction and the classics. He liked art books, graphic design, and espionage. On a lark one day, Ed went into the bookshop and made up his mind to buy it. “We decided The Ivy couldn’t close,” he says simply.

That being said, they knew the risks. “There was a period in the United States when there were a lot of independent bookstores in individual neighborhoods,” says Ed, “But with the advent of Amazon and 24/7 availability online, the notion of a neighborhood bookstore became uneconomic.” So the Berlins knew that they needed to do something differently if they were going to have a viable business. “We needed to turn it into something more metropolitan,” says Ed. “It required a major commitment to community events—that was the challenge for it to be successful.”

Seven years later, not only has the bookstore found success—with roughly 26,000 to 28,000 titles in its inventory—but authors from all over the country, including Michael Downs and Doris Kearns Goodwin, come there to read from their latest works. On the heels of their success, the Berlins joined chef Spike Gjerde in opening Bird in Hand, a bookstore cafe near the Johns Hopkins campus. “Baltimore likes home teams,” says Ed. “And Baltimore treats us like the home team the way they do the Orioles and Johns Hopkins and lacrosse. We are local merchants wearing our Baltimore hearts on our sleeves.”

Equally Baltimore is the fact that the Berlins live in a charming 1905 Roland Park home they believe was once the headmaster’s house of the original Roland Park Country School on St. Paul’s Street. “When you walk out of the house, the front walkway goes right to what would have been the front door of the school,” explains Ed.

There’s still plenty of learning taking place under the slate-shingled roof. Not surprisingly, the house is brimming with books, including many for the Berlins’ 5-year-old granddaughter, Isobel, who lives with them. There’s also a wonderful collection of 20th-century art. “Most people go to an art gallery and just look at the pictures, Ed actually buys them,” says Ann. “But what I love most is that everything here has a memory for us.”

There are plenty of food memories, too. “My family is from Texas, so my mom made the world’s best fried chicken and the world’s best chili,” says Ann. “We’d go down to visit my grandparents and it was black-eyed peas and the vegetables were cooked to death in salt pork.” While Ann does the cooking, she tends toward a utilitarian approach. “I’m always looking for things that are fast, including recipes from Pierre Franey’s 60-Minute Gourmet, like this recipe for shrimp in Indian sauce in which I like to substitute chicken.” Her cranberry pecan salad, improvised from a friend’s recipe, is similarly quick to assemble.

For Ed, family meal time was nothing if not predictable when he was growing up in Baltimore. “We had the same food every Monday, we had the same food every Tuesday,” he says, laughing. “Thursday was deep-fried chicken, Friday was meatballs and spaghetti, Saturday was food from Attman’s. Unfortunately, Tuesday was liver night and Wednesday was potluck—it was like being in the army, but the food was better.”

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Cranberry Pecan Salad

Ingredients:
• 1 head romaine
• ¼ cup chopped pecans
• ¼ cup dried cranberries
• ½ cup crumbled goat cheese or feta
• Balsamic vinaigrette
• ¼ cup balsamic vinegar
• ½ cup olive oil
• Splash of water
• 1 tsp. Dijon mustard
• Salt and freshly ground pepper

Directions
Combine first four ingredients in a bowl. In a separate mixing bowl, combine vinaigrette ingredients. Whisk dressing. Toss salad with dressing, according to taste. Serves four.

Chicken in Indian Sauce

Ingredients:
• 6 chicken thighs, cut into small pieces
• 2 tbsp. butter
• ½ cup finely chopped onion
• Salt and freshly ground pepper to taste
• ¼ tsp. ground cardamom, or use and equal amount of curry powder
• ½ tsp. ground cumin
• Juice of one lime
• 1 cup sour cream
• ½ cup plain yogurt
• ¼ cup chopped fresh cilantro
• Long-grain rice

Directions
Heat butter in a skillet and add onion. Cook briefly and add the chicken. Salt and pepper to taste. Cook about six minutes, stirring often. Cook chicken thoroughly, but don’t brown. Add cardamom and cumin and stir. Add lime juice, sour cream, and yogurt. Bring gently to boil, stirring. Sprinkle with cilantro and serve with rice. Serves four.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Marvey Le Pen ($2) at Trohv

South and West by Joan Didion ($21) at The Ivy Bookshop

Designworks Ink cactus journal ($14) at Poppy and Stella. 

Treason the Biddle backpack ($125) at Treason Toting Co. 

Bronze water bottle ($24) at Su Casa. 

Bettye Ace sling back pompom slides ($69) at South Moon Under. 

Heart shaped sunglasses ($20) at Brightside Boutique. 

Marvey license plate key chain ($9) at Trohv. 

Ursa Major traveler’s skin care kit ($48) at Trohv. 

Auto Bingo ($2/each) at Shananigans Toy Shop. 

The 3rd Dimension ($7) at Shananigans Toy Shop

Free Play Magnatab ($25) at aMuse Toys. 

Instax Mini 8 ($70) at Service Photo. 

Through the Past Darkly by The Rolling Stones ($20) at The Sound Garden. 

Bobino cord wrap ($6) at Su Casa.