If it’s the hottest weekend of the summer in Baltimore ? so doggone hot that the chickens are standing in line to be plucked ? it must be time for Artscape.
Launched 27 years ago during the “Why the hell not?” administration of William Donald Schaefer, Artscape takes up its traditional residence along Mount Royal Avenue and expands into the Penn Station arts corridor on Charles Street this weekend.
A near-miracle of organization pulled off by the Baltimore Office of Promotion and the Arts, this is the City Fair that our fair city has not had since 1991.
The difference?
“Lots of people get to see your art,” is the innocent answer of Dina Kelberman, founding member of the downtown Wham City art collective and curator of a half-dozen booths along the new Artscape “Midway,” which will link the Mount Royal campus to Charles Street.
“And sometimes,” said Kelberman, “you even make money on your art.”
Having grown from a germ to a giant like Sea-Monkeys in a cheap fish tank, Artscape is always as much about food as art ? thus the simultaneous Foodscape festival at the Mount Royal Tavern.
It is as much about music as food ? everybody remembers Aretha Franklin in 1994, but how many saw the regal Alberta Hunter just a few months before her death a decade earlier?
And it attracts a bigger crowd than the combined attendance of Woodstock and the best day NASCAR ever had.
“An insane number of people ? you can reach an audience that otherwise would never see your work,” said Jennifer Strunge, a needle-and-thread artist ? no Mary Pickersgill, she ? known as the “Cotton Monster.”
Did anyone mention that ? even on years when it has rained ? it’s almost always hot enough to fry an egg on your little brother’s shaved head? This year’s forecast calls for clear skies and daytime temps in the 90s.
So the coolest thing at the gala will likely not be the weather.
“The coolest thing,” said Gary Kachadourian, longtime Artscape honcho for the city, “is the expansion of the festival. We’re hoping that people will get a better grasp of the Charles Street area just like the [early festivals] brought a new focus to the Mount Royal corridor.”
Thus the “Midway,” as though christened by the great Barnum himself, a man who would have felt at home behind the wheel of a Plymouth turned into a rolling art exhibit or selling tickets to a performance of “Carmen” in which hot dogs are dressed as divas.
The new area will have a jazz stage on Lafayette Avenue at Charles Street; a “green” food court (only peas and broccoli? No Silver Queen corn?); more art where folks usually park cars; alfresco cinema a la Little Italy; a jazz contest at the Everyman Theatre in honor of native Baltimorean Cab “Hi-Dee-Ho” Calloway; and at least half-a-load of hijinks at the Load of Fun studios ? 120 West North Avenue ? which lobbied the city to push the boundaries of the festival.
Strunge will grace the Midway with her “Belly of the Beast” project, stuffed animals of a different stripe than the keepsakes boys won for their girlfriends in the ring toss back when Ricky “Lonesome Town” Nelson was a heartthrob.
“It’s an alternative carnival,” said Strunge. “And it’s going to be hopping.”
Local art?s starring role
How much art do you think the average American ? much less the average Baltimorean ? takes the time to ponder as they go about their daily business?
For no other reason is Artscape important. And if it takes an Italian sausage sub with fried onions and green peppers to keep them looking, so what?
“We’re not angry anymore,” or young enough to get worked up about things like whether a taxpayer-supported art festival properly represents art, said Kelly Lane, a founder of Foodscape.
A consumption-themed exhibit that goes up at the Mount Royal Tavern each year about a week before Artscape opens, Foodscape has long shadowed its progenitor the way that Slamdance took root beyond the periphery of the Sundance Film Festival.
Because Artscape is the magnet ? and the Tavern is air-conditioned ? artists show their work to people who otherwise wouldn’t visit Baltimore.
“There’s a lot more inclusiveness of local art than there was early on and they moved the food,” said Lane, a painter living in South Baltimore. “And they finally moved the food.”
[Originally, Artscape was run by the Mayor’s Advisory Committee on Art & Culture. When that agency was absorbed by the Baltimore Office of Promotion and the Arts in 2002, BOPA director Bill Gilmore moved the food vendors to the University of Baltimore parking lot; a swift and simple decision 20 years in the making.]
Where were we when that plate of jerk chicken got in the way?
Oh yeah, art.
And getting young people interested in art instead of Crabtown?s more toxic and perennially popular pursuits.
Like making art made directly onto the body, interior and undercarriage of an automobile ? the legendary Baltimore “Art Car,” always a festival winner ? in the best tradition of Ed “Big Daddy” Roth.
Big Daddy’s got nothing on Pigtown?s own Tony Shore, the noted oil-on-swaths-of-black-velvet painter who won the Baltimore Museum of Art’s 2007 Janet and Walter Sondheim Prize, a $25,000 honor bestowed in conjunction with Artscape.
The founder of Access Art, a youth center in Morrell Park on the southwest side of town, Shore has worked with kids on vehicles entered into recent Art Car competitions.
“The first year we painted our van and called it ‘Passenger Van Gogh,’ ” said Shore. “We removed the seats and installed a mini gallery inside the van complete with hardwood floors and crown molding. On the walls we had photos showcasing the numerous community projects that Access Art had been involved in.”
One day, perhaps, one of those kids might stand before an approving Sondheim Committee with a tear in his eye ? as did Shore last year ? and think about all they surmounted to make something out of next-to-nothing.
Some people call that art.
“Too often in Baltimore young people are blamed for the city’s problems,” said Shore. “At Artscape, kids are showcased as positive proponents of social change.”
A ?scape like no other
If Artscape is the mother of all ?scapes along the shores of the Patapsco, it has given birth to Foodscape; Whartscape, Altscape and whatever ‘scape some new gang of wigged-out wisenheimers is about to foist on the city come next weekend.
The sincerest form of flattery, indeed.
“I don’t think anyone had any idea how huge this thing was going to get,” said Mark Moreland, a member of the mayor’s advisory council in the early years, devoted to the good time in a way few people ever see ? like running around at the last minute to pick up donated concrete to anchor the huge, outdoor sculptures.
“It’s cool to have everybody in the same place,” said Dina Kelberman, “everybody all mixed in together.”
Rafael Alvarez can be reached at [email protected]
