The first time I watched it, it was on DVD, sometime in the late 2000s. I know I’ve watched it in its entirety a second time somewhere in the years since. And now here I am, twenty-five years after its premiere, watching it a third time, and it is somehow better than I remembered.

Most beloved shows don’t survive the test of time. You go back to something you once loved and find it cringey, or dated, or the thing that made it urgent has curdled. The Wire is not that. It still offers relevant commentary, compelling stories, and character arcs that make you fall in love and then gut you. If television is the medium of our time — the medium most relevant to the most people — then The Wire is still the best television series of my lifetime.

People across the country and around the world have watched it and consider it great art, maybe on par only with The Sopranos. So why do I know so many people in Baltimore, people who love this city, people who love great art, who have deliberately chosen not to watch it?

I can’t tell you how many people I know personally who have lived in Baltimore for decades and have never seen The Wire. When I tell them it’s arguably the finest television series of my generation, they tell me they can’t bring themselves to watch it. They’re worried it will somehow diminish Baltimore. Or scare them. Or that it’s too violent, too much.

This is crazy to me. It’s like refusing to read The Merchant of Venice because you might want to visit Venice someday and you don’t want the conflict in it to sour the trip. It’s like refusing to eat at the best restaurant in the world because you’re worried it’ll ruin your relationship to food. The entire world has watched this show. It’s known globally for its quality. And Baltimore, alone, seems to have an official aversion to it — as if great art that achieves global relevance is supposed to double as PR for a fake, feel-good version of the place it’s about. Do you really think great art can also be a Rom-Com?

By definition, great art cannot be great without engaging the most important issues of our time: inequality, poverty, race, class, and along with them, human dignity and suffering. That’s not a flaw in The Wire. That’s the whole point of it, the same way it’s the whole point of Shakespearean tragedies. Like Shakespeare, The Wire isn’t selling anyone on the place where it’s set. It’s presenting the great arc of meaning—life and death, good and evil, the American urban story—and Baltimore is what gives that arc its weight and nuance. It’s the backdrop that makes it real instead of abstract.

The Wire could not have been as good, could not have existed at all, set anywhere else, because it grew directly out of David Simon’s years as a Baltimore Sun police reporter, out of lived experience, out of this specific city’s specific failures but also its beauty and grace. Baltimore IS The Wire. So why can’t Baltimore City embrace its own artistic triumph?

You live here. You already know what Baltimore is like. You see it, you live it, every day. How is a television show filmed between 2001 and 2008 going to change what you already know about your own city?

The acting is incredible. The writing is sublime. The characters go beyond lovable into a kind of intense, permanent emotional attachment. The conflict is stark, the storytelling is gritty and demands your full attention, and it is a quintessential American story in which Baltimore plays the starring role. It’s an indictment that also offers redemption, and it’s relevant to every American city, not just this one. It could have been filmed anywhere, but it was filmed here, which means Baltimore’s culture, history, quirks, and resilience are on camera the entire time.

When I first moved to Baltimore in 1998, about half the working artists I knew had worked for The Wire in some capacity—wardrobe, makeup, running crew, acting, writing, composing. David Simon and this show created work for an enormous number of creative people across the city, and that’s its own kind of civic legacy, separate from anything that happens on screen.

Watching it again now, I keep getting stopped by the faces. This was made before everyone on television looked like an airbrushed sex doll, before cell phones, before facelifts were something other than a rich person’s late-life indulgence. Every face on this show tells a story. Some of the actors are genuinely beautiful — Idris Elba as Stringer Bell, Dominic West as McNulty, Sonja Sohn as Kima Greggs — but they still look like actual human beings.

Watch television now and you’re constantly, subconsciously evaluating whether a face is real. It usually isn’t. The Wire offers the rare gift of cinematic authenticity, where each face offers a deep soul, embodies beauty and redemption and a nobility in being real.

Part of what makes those faces so specific is that the show is full of actual Baltimoreans playing versions of themselves and their world. Former mayor Kurt Schmoke shows up in Season 3 as the health commissioner, defending Bunny Colvin’s Hamsterdam experiment, which lands differently when you know it’s Schmoke, a former Baltimore mayor, essentially making the case for his own city’s harm-reduction instincts. Ed Norris, the actual Baltimore Police Commissioner from 2000 to 2002, plays a cop.

Actress Maria Broom is calculating, brilliant, and cold as Marla Daniels, the perfect foil to her stoical husband, Cedric Daniels. Megan Anderson, a longtime Everyman Theatre actor in Baltimore, is tender and innocent, caught in the crosshairs, as the wife of City Councilman and later, Mayor, Carcetti.

I just watched a cameo in a Season 3 community meeting scene that stopped me in my tracks: it was Mama Kay Lawal from Wombworks (& former Thunder Thigh Review performance partner of Joyce J. Scott), expressing heartfelt frustration with the police at a community meeting. She offers one more reminder of how deep this show’s bench of local, non-professional talent runs.

And then there’s the cast that became legend. I dare you to name a more complex, more dynamic character in the history of television than Michael K. Williams as Omar Little. Andre Royo, as Reginald “Bubbles” Cousins, gives one of the most emotionally honest portrayals of addiction and recovery I’ve ever seen on screen.

Idris Elba’s Stringer Bell is the ambitious drug kingpin trying to run a corner like a Fortune 500 company. Dominic West’s McNulty anchors the early seasons as a brilliant, self-destructive mess of a homicide detective, and Wendell Pierce, as Bunk Moreland, is a genius — hard-drinking, smutty, but somehow the most principled man in the room.

Lance Reddick brings a stoic, coiled dignity to Cedric Daniels navigating a corrupt department, and Clarke Peters, as Lester Freamon, plays quiet, meticulous police work as a form of grace — the same patience he brings to the dollhouse furniture he builds on the side. Aidan Gillen, who later played Littlefinger on Game of Thrones, captures the slippery ambition of a Tommy Carcetti loosely modeled on Martin O’Malley.

And the breakout of Season 1 is a very young Michael B. Jordan as Wallace, a tragic, flawed kid on a corner who never had a real chance.

I had hoped, going back into it this time, that the Baltimore aversion to The Wire would reveal itself as a false flag. However, it didn’t. The truth is: The Wire does not make Baltimore look good, despite the greatness of the art.

Yes, there are nice neighborhoods, handsome rowhouses, City Hall, the polish of downtown. (I loved seeing The Prime Rib show up in Season 1 as the fancy date-night spot, and it looks exactly the same today.) But this is not a show that makes Baltimore look like an appealing place to move. It doesn’t flatter the police, or elected officials, or educators, or dockworkers, or the drug trade. But somehow, you find yourself loving these people deeply.

That’s what makes it great: the flawed, complicated humanity of it. The pathos, the tragic arc of people caught in a mess larger than themselves, doing their best to play a decent role inside it anyway.

It’s a symbol for a much bigger problem, one that faces nearly every American city: we all want to live somewhere we can be safe and successful and happy. We want to protect the people we love, chase our own version of a good life, and be a part of the solution. But that’s complicated. No matter who you are, you run into disappointing compromises and real tragedy along the way.

That’s why The Wire is still relevant, twenty-five years on. It keeps asking the questions that still plague us: Why can’t good people earn a decent living and take care of their families? Why is there so much addiction? Why can’t we treat each other with basic kindness and respect? Why did capitalism gut an entire city through disinvestment? Why are politicians so corrupt? A handful of characters in this show do rise to meet the moment—they hold onto a moral code even when it costs them—and those are the storylines that hit hardest.

Baltimore, there is nothing else like The Wire. Nothing else comes close to it in complexity or quality, and a large part of that is because it’s set here, in this broken, beautiful, historic city. This city plays the biggest role in The Wire, but every single character sizzles with complexity, intelligence, and the ability to break your heart.

The series still has something to teach all of us — whether we live here or not — about what it means to be an American, a community member, a conflicted moral person living through the minefield of late stage capitalism. That’s not an insult to this city; it’s the highest compliment art can pay a place.

If you haven’t watched it yet, what are you waiting for?

The New York Times reported that Baltimore has recorded fewer homicides at this point in the year than at any time on record. The Wall Street Journal went to East Baltimore and found that thousands of the city’s vacant homes are now in demand, with buyers competing at auction for properties that sat untouched for years.

What struck me wasn’t just the news. It was the tone. Compared to what we typically get from the Times and the Journal — Baltimore as cautionary tale, Baltimore as national punchline, Baltimore as the place The Wire never let us leave — these two stories were glowingly, undeniably positive. Unvarnished. I read them almost confused by the lack of an asterisk, wondering: is this real?

Killings Plunge in a City once known for Violence. For most of the past 50 years, Baltimore’s annual homicide total exceeded 200, running above 300 for most of the last decade. This year, the city recorded just 60 murders from January through August, with the police commissioner aiming to keep the annual count under 100.

The Times spent time with the people closest to the change: a homicide detective whose caseload has dropped dramatically, a trauma nurse whose ward now sees far fewer gunshot wounds, a prosecutor who started right after Freddie Gray’s death, a funeral director, and a man who served nearly 40 years in prison and now mediates street disputes as part of an intervention team. Several describe a city they barely recognize from the one they started working in. Reporting by Campbell Robertson, photographs and video by Caroline Gutman, The New York Times.

Abandoned Homes in Baltimore Are Now Being Fought Over in Bidding Wars. The Wall Street Journal spotlighted one of Baltimore’s most improbable turnarounds: vacant homes that once dragged down neighborhoods for decades are now in high demand, with buyers competing at auction for properties that would have sat untouched just a few years ago. The city has cut its vacant home count from roughly 16,000 to fewer than 12,000 over the last decade, backed by a $3 billion city and state commitment to eliminate vacant housing entirely by 2038.

Nonprofit developers are driving much of this progress using a “whole-blocks” strategy, acquiring and rehabbing entire blocks at once rather than scattering resources house by house. In East Baltimore’s Johnston Square, ReBUILD Metro has cut vacant homes in half, replacing a former drug market with a community garden and helping longtime resident Regina Hammond watch the neighborhood become, in her words, “a whole different story.” In Harlem Park, Parity Homes has taken a similar approach, helping families like Alex Queen’s move into rehabbed homes after she left Los Angeles and returned to her native Baltimore following repeated bidding-war losses there. Reporting by Nicholas G. Miller, The Wall Street Journal.

Put these two articles together, and you get the picture that people who already live here have known for some time. Neighborhoods are coming back, residents are staying and putting down roots, and outside capital is finally following what Baltimoreans have been building for two decades. What’s new is that the rest of the country is paying attention. National coverage shapes where people invest, where they take jobs, and whether they consider moving home. This week, it worked in our favor twice.

It’s doubtful we’ll see this level of positivity from the Baltimore Sun anytime soon, so we should enjoy the attention while we have it. However, I am not able to simply enjoy it. For me, it’s an invitation to interrogate it further.

Is this the result of a plan or a a convergence of disparate factors?

How did conditions change enough to make these major accomplishments real? Was there a chain of deliberate actions by people who believed in Baltimore, building toward this on purpose? Or is this a chain of related — and unrelated — efforts that simply arrived at the same moment: violence-interruption programs maturing at the same time as a “whole-blocks” housing strategy, at the same time as a national remote-work migration, at the same time as other cities became unaffordable?

My honest read, having watched this city for two decades, is that it’s both.

The homicide decline traces to specific, sustained choices: a coordinated model of policing, prosecution, and community-based violence intervention that took years to build and has now compounded. The vacant-home turnaround traces to a specific, sustained bet: nonprofit developers buying and rehabbing whole blocks instead of scattered houses, backed by real public money and a 2038 deadline.

Neither of those happened by accident. But they also fed each other, landing in a moment when Baltimore’s relative affordability, walkability, and creative density started to look like an asset rather than a deficiency to people priced out of Los Angeles, Brooklyn, and D.C. Intentional work met shifting winds. I think this is how real change actually happens.

Which brings me to a more important question: What do these developments actually bring Baltimore? Can we expect population and economic growth?

Census projections released this year showed Baltimore’s population rose from 567,517 in 2023 to 568,271 in 2024 — a small gain, but the first increase since 2014, after a decade of decline that took the city from a peak of 623,587 residents down and down again. That’s not proof of a boom. It’s proof the bleeding has stopped, which has to happen before growth can start.

Baltimore’s chronic allergy to federal funding

While much of the country absorbs federal cutbacks, and Johns Hopkins has clearly lost ground in federal research dollars, with real consequences for employment, revitalization, and talent attraction, the rest of Baltimore hasn’t seemed to feel much, because we never had much federal funding to begin with.

Is that impression wrong? Hopkins remains the single largest recipient of federal research funding of any university in the country, and in 2025 it absorbed a roughly 43% drop in new and competitive research funding compared with 2024 — a multiyear portfolio decline of more than $500 million, and over 2,200 associated job cuts across Hopkins and its affiliated institutions.

That’s a real shock, and because Hopkins is Baltimore’s largest private employer, it doesn’t stay contained to the Homewood and East Baltimore campuses - it touches hospitals, contractor networks, and the startups that spin out of Hopkins research. But the city’s own municipal budget, and the broader neighborhood-level economy that the Journal and Times pieces are describing, was never deeply dependent on federal discretionary spending the way a research university is.

Baltimore’s recent gains—falling violence, rising home occupancy, a small population uptick—are running on local and philanthropic capital, city and state housing dollars, and nonprofit developers, not federal grants. So the two trend lines can be true at once: Hopkins takes a real federal hit, and the rest of the city keeps building on a foundation that federal cuts were never really propping up.

What does Baltimore look like in ten years?

Here’s the question underneath all of this. If the murder rate stays at this historic low, and if the vacant houses being bought right now are actually purchased and inhabited and rehabbed — not land-banked the way speculators have been allowed to do for years — what does Baltimore look like in 2036?

I want to believe it looks like Johnston Square and Harlem Park: longtime residents like Regina Hammond watching a former drug market become a community garden, and people like Alex Queen coming home to a city that will actually let them buy a house without losing five bidding wars first.

But I also know what happens when national attention and outside capital arrive in a city with cheap, beautiful housing stock and a deep, under-monetized creative culture. I’ve watched it happen to Brooklyn, where the artists, musicians, and longtime Black and Latino residents who built neighborhood after neighborhood (Williamsburg, Bed-Stuy, Bushwick) were largely priced out of them within a generation. The culture that made those neighborhoods desirable didn’t get to stay and enjoy the desirability.

That is the real question Baltimore has ten years to answer: not whether we can attract capital, but who gets to keep living here once we do.

This is a cultural investment question, not just a real estate question

This is where the arts and culture sector, not city hall, not developers, has a specific and underused role to play. BmoreArt (and many other cultural organizations) has spent nearly two decades doing exactly the work that has helped to make this week’s national coverage possible, long before the Times or the Journal showed up.

We exist because we believe in the significance of cultural production based in the region and that audiences benefit from engagement with the art of their place and time. We were built, from the beginning, as an independent, regional platform for creative communities to share their work and ideas with new audiences— a place that documents the region’s changing cultural landscape and provides a space for dialogue and exchange, as well as a sense of connection, especially for individuals previously marginalized or excluded from the dominant art world. BmoreArt exists to make sure essential voices and ideas are not lost to time, which is exactly what happens in a city undergoing rapid reinvestment if nobody is keeping the record.

That’s not incidental to the housing and safety story. It’s the other half of it. A neighborhood doesn’t become “a whole different story,” to borrow Regina Hammond’s phrase, only because a block gets rehabbed. It becomes that because the people, culture, and institutions already rooted there are recognized, supported, and allowed to stay rooted while the investment arrives, rather than being treated as window dressing for it.

As new money and new attention arrive in this city, some of it flows directly to the artists who have been building Baltimore’s cultural identity here all along, rather than around or above them. It’s a small, deliberate mechanism for keeping cultural capital local instead of extracted — the artistic equivalent of ReBUILD Metro’s whole-blocks strategy: building relationships block by block, artist by artist, instead of hoping value trickles down on its own.

What can we do to keep Baltimore from becoming Brooklyn?

It starts with treating the region’s cultural infrastructure — independent publications, galleries, artist studios, small nonprofits, print journals, local collectors — as civic infrastructure worth the same kind of intentional investment we’re now putting into vacant rowhouses.

You can buy the house and buy the local art. You can read the Times piece on the homicide decline and read the coverage that’s been documenting this recovery, block by block, for the last ten years, in outlets that will still be here covering it in another ten. Support the nonprofit developers rehabbing whole blocks and support the nonprofit publications and galleries making sure the people who lived through the hard decades aren’t erased from the story.

National attention is a spotlight, not a foundation. It arrived this week because of choices Baltimoreans made for decades without anyone watching. What happens over the next ten depends on whether we keep making those choices, including the choice to invest in the cultural sources, local and regional, that will actually tell us, honestly, whether this is real.

BmoreArt has been an independent, women-run publication covering art and culture in the Baltimore region since 2007. If this kind of regional cultural journalism matters to you, consider becoming a member, subscribing, or donating, or make an appointment to visit Connect + Collect at 2519 N. Charles Street to meet the artists building this city’s next chapter.

Growing up in rural Maryland, the Washington Post landed on our doorstep every morning. My parents, both DC transplants, read it cover to cover — politics, but also the regional arts coverage, the cultural criticism. For most of my life, the Post was the gold standard: accurate, professional, and even when it leaned into a point of view, it leaned toward holding power accountable. That was the voice manifested by the the Meyer-Graham family for decades, and we trusted it wholeheartedly.

The internet broke the business model for all of us. Advertising money that used to fund newsrooms now flows to Google and Meta, the companies that control how we find information in the first place. That’s not incidental — less local journalism means less accountability, and less accountability tends to suit the people in charge.

So when Jeff Bezos bought the Post, I did what a lot of people did: I hoped. A billionaire with infinite resources, finally investing in quality journalism, giving writers room to do real work? I feel naive saying that now. I still don’t understand why a billionaire needs his newspaper to turn a profit, rather than, say, protecting democracy or producing excellent stories — but I understand perfectly well why the Post is now running conservative, thinly-reported op-eds. An oligarch doesn’t want unions. He doesn’t want scrutiny. And when you already have more money than you could spend in twenty lifetimes, what’s left to chase is power. My parents, fifty years into their sacred relationship with this newspaper, are now talking about canceling their subscription. That’s not a small thing.

There’s still good journalism happening inside the Post. But as an institution, I don’t think it’s a trustworthy news source anymore — and I think a lot of us are quietly making the same call.

So where does that leave us? My inbox fills up daily with Substacks I don’t have time to read. I stick to a few I trust — Heather Cox Richardson, Christopher Armitage, Paul Krugman — and for anything closer to home, I go local: the Banner, the Beat, Baltimore Fishbowl, Baltimore Magazine. How many Substacks are you actually reading these days? At what point does “more newsletters” just become another version of the noise we’re trying to escape?

Here’s something else worth sitting with: as a publisher, I can tell you BmoreArt’s web traffic is way up. But a real chunk of that isn’t people — it’s AI crawlers, scraping our reporting to answer your questions without ever sending you to BmoreArt.com. If a bot can extract the answer and hand it to you frictionlessly, why would you ever click through? And if you don’t click through, how does the work that produced the answer get paid for?

That’s the honest reason behind this Substack. It started as a place for me to think out loud beyond my BmoreArt writing, but it’s proven to be an effective way to actually reach people right now. I say “right now” deliberately — I assume that once Substack hits a certain scale, it gets sold to a tech giant and slowly hollowed out, same as everything before it. When that happens, I’ll move again. But BmoreArt will keep publishing in print — which can’t be scraped or mined — and we’ll keep publishing daily at BmoreArt.com, free, with a full events calendar, for this region.

What BmoreArt produces on a daily basis is, in my opinion, unique and excellent. It’s worth reading. It’s locally focused in a way that makes Baltimore more hospitable, more accessible, more personally relevant. Since the internet, as it currently operates, is actually KEEPING readers from us through circumventing unique searches, I wanted to take a moment and highlight a few articles from the past few weeks that I SWEAR TO YOU are worth your actual time.

GRANT SUPPORTED ART CRITICISM! Coley Gray traveled to Boston on a Rabkin Travel Grant to review Derrick Adams: View Master at the ICA — Baltimore’s hometown hero commanding what critic Tina Campt calls a distinctly Black gaze, “a politics of looking with, through, and alongside another.” Read it →

THE POWER OF COLLECTING! A must-read if you knew Sig and Mary Hyman: their singular collection is now part of the BMA’s permanent holdings. Baltimore is a city of artists, yes — but also of collectors. Let’s all be a little more like Mary and Sig. Read it →

My own hot take on this year’s Sondheim Prize, on view now at The Walters — go see it before it closes. Read it →

Liz Hazen’s beautiful conversation with Maureen Nicol, founder of Our House, a gathering space for Baltimore kids and parents that didn’t exist when her own son was small — and that she wishes had. Read it →

Last, our weekly ART NEWS roundup, every Thursday, rounding up regional exhibitions, press releases, and stories you might’ve missed. Read it →

The internet isn’t going to steer you to us anymore — that machinery is broken, or maybe it was never really built for local arts coverage to begin with.

If you want it, you have to go looking on purpose. Click the links. Read the pieces. Try the new audio player if you’d rather listen while you’re doing something else. Every one of those actions is a small vote for the kind of coverage that actually serves a place instead of extracting from it.

Thanks for reading this far. I’ll try to bring the spice back next time.

After reading Josh Kline’s viral essay “New York Real Estate and the Ruin of American Art,” published in October, a despairing artist-focused rant on the state of the city’s art scene, and all the pieces it inspired, and after visiting the 2026 Whitney Biennial and reading the pile-on of harsh reviews that followed, I want to argue that Baltimore offers some answers — and a counterpoint — to a lot of what these critics are voicing.

First of all, I love traveling to New York from Baltimore. It’s relatively easy and cheap, which means an organic cultural osmosis is always happening. But that transmission mostly runs one way.

As the largest city in the U.S., New York boasts a population of 8.8 million and arguably the world’s most viable art ecosystem and market. The best Baltimore-based artists will always jump at the chance to exhibit there, and they’d love for New York curators and gallerists to come see their studios. Baltimore, meanwhile, is the 30th largest city in the country, with a population that peaked in the 1950s and now hovers around 600,000. There isn’t much of a local art market here — although we are working on it and our museums and institutions could get one going if they actually wanted to.

Given the size gap and the economics that come with it, you’d assume Baltimore has very little to offer New York’s artists, who are living through the exact crisis Kline’s essay diagnoses. But maybe it’s time to retire our old New York/Baltimore comparisons. Maybe Baltimore is actually poised to offer an alternative model — one that’s more sustainable, more artist-centered, and more creatively viable than the one currently imploding two hundred miles north.

Baltimore is a genuine City of Artists (and BmoreArt created the book to prove it!). We have nationally ranked museums, a great symphony, homegrown artists who become global success stories, and no shortage of communities and opportunities for artists of every kind. Despite all our own problems and disparities, New York has a few things it could stand to learn from us. So — what happened?

The Power of Negative Press

If you haven’t read the Whitney Biennial reviews or Kline’s essay, don’t worry — this is your chance to get in on the action.

I don’t know exactly how many forwarded links I received with a “have you read this??” attached, but I’ll estimate around twenty, from twenty different people, an unusually high number. Usually I’m the nerd texting art criticism at people unprompted, not the other way around. Which tells you something about the energy these pieces have generated, and makes it worth asking how they broke through our otherwise relentless, Game-of-Thrones-level daily news cycle.

The common denominator: both Kline’s essay and the Biennial reviews offer juicy, pointed critique that isn’t aimed at individuals. Instead they take on American art’s sacred cows — New York itself, and the Whitney — fairly naming problems that have been sitting in plain sight. As cable news proves nightly, negativity sells, especially when the argument hits close to home and doesn’t pretend to offer a tidy solution. Algorithms favor outrage; humans forward it.

I’ve learned to be careful with my own negative critiques, mostly because Baltimore is a small town and I don’t need to create any enemies. But when a common complaint — one that’s been whispered by many people for years — finally gets put into words publicly, it’s satisfying to read. It makes the reader feel seen. Critique aimed at large institutions or anonymous systems taps directly into collective frustration, which is exactly the kind of thing algorithms are built to amplify.

So, having acknowledged the power of a good public gripe, let’s actually dig into what these two critiques are saying.

The Whitney Biennial

I make an effort to see the Biennial every two years because it feels important. It emerges as this authoritative who’s-who of what’s HOT right now in American art — for the artists included, an unparalleled career moment; for literally everyone else, a head-scratching, uneven, deeply subjective mess.

We’re happy for the friends and colleagues who get in, who clearly deserve it, but at least half of any given Biennial tends to feel irritating, disappointing, and banal. It’s all subjective, and it’s brilliantly designed to provoke — which makes it an easy target. Honestly, the negative critique and the web traffic it generates might as well be considered part of the exhibition at this point.

In The New Yorker, Hilton Als dismissed the Biennial as “ChatGPT Art” — not because any of the work was AI-generated, but because he found it weak and derivative, describing pieces that felt disconnected from the people who made them, existing mainly as products in service of a career. Ouch.

Guerrero and Sawyer’s Biennial — fifty-six artists, duos, and collectives — arrives at a strange moment in American history, one defined by distorted rhetoric and a flight from nuance. Wandering the galleries, I found myself circling back to the sculptures again and again. Johanna Unzueta’s biomorphic shapes and strange color sense are the real thing, but it was the small, exquisite objects by Kainoa Gruspe — built from stones, fabric scraps, fishhooks, nails, and cowrie shells gathered from military bases and resorts in his home state of Hawaii — that stopped me cold. That’s where I felt most clearly the divide between artists working to build a new visual language and artists comfortably speaking one that isn’t quite their own.

For Hyperallergic, Hakim Bishara argued the Biennial hides from our current political reality altogether, acting impervious to the chaos outside its doors despite technically including a diverse, inclusive roster of artists. He described the show as a “traumatized” space where artists “snuggle together” in ambient, quiet, altarpiece-like installations — pointing to work by Oswaldo Macía and Zach Blas — rather than risk anything urgent. His overall verdict: safe, curated, manageable, and allergic to art’s anarchic possibilities.

My own hot take: on a Free Friday night visit in March, I found a handful of works exquisite and memorable, and most of them clever but forgettable — which is more or less how I react to every Biennial. I was thrilled to see former Baltimore artist Malcolm Peacock’s giant redwood sculpture, which had its debut at the BMA last year, and equally excited by work from Kamrooz Aram — a 2001 MICA BFA grad and Iranian-born painter now in Brooklyn, whom I actually studio visited with back when I was an MFA student.

I fell hard for the electric, kinetic paintings of Samia Halaby, who’s having an enormous career moment at 89. And then there was “Kong Play” by Emilie Louise Gossiaux (pictured above), a blind artist who hand-built 100 ceramic replicas of her late guide dog’s favorite chew toy — a way of processing grief and imagining a joyful afterlife in dog heaven.

I don’t have anything scathing to add. But I do share Bishara’s surprise that there wasn’t more political urgency on display — a “same as usual” quality that feels out of step with the actual moment we’re living through. Maybe that’s a curatorial error on the side of subtlety rather than an outright avoidance of politics. Either way, it’s a choice, and it’s one worth naming.

Josh Kline’s Essay

The problem, as Kline sees it, is straightforward: New York’s insanely expensive real estate market is quietly strangling artists, galleries, and the market as a whole. “Meaningful art, relevant for society and our time, may not be sustainable under the current conditions here,” he writes, arguing that the city — once the global leader in contemporary art — is calcifying into a market for safe, saleable objects.

Kline is no outsider crank; he’s a prominent New York artist who had a mid-career survey at the Whitney in 2023. His work has long focused on labor and class, using the tools he critiques — digitization, image manipulation, 3D printing, advertising, early deepfake software — to interrogate truth in a post-truth moment.

His central argument, and the one I find most persuasive, is about space: the corporatization of the New York art world has forced alternative, artist-run spaces to either disappear or abandon their experimental roots. The once-renegade nonprofits have professionalized into something closer to mini-museums, which limits their ability to actually nurture emerging, experimental work. As Kline put it in a follow-up interview, real artist communities — the kind that can birth entire movements — form in artist-run spaces, and there simply aren’t enough of them left in America’s art capital where artists themselves are the ones calling the shots.

“The first step towards a cure is admitting you have a problem,” Kline writes. “Contemporary art in twenty-first-century America is sick with problems.” The essay runs long, hitting rising rents, the near-total collapse of artist-run galleries, and power imbalances that have widened everywhere but are most extreme in New York.

“New York City itself now constitutes a core problem in American art,” he writes. “The answers for younger artists are likely not in New York and not in the American art industry, for which the art of the present and the art of the future are not as important as the art of the past.”

In a follow-up ARTnews interview, Kline elaborated on just how bad the math has gotten: after years of inflation and a multiyear art-market recession that set in around 2023, sales of photography, video, sculpture, and most conceptual work have collapsed except at the very top. Galleries have closed. Sculptors and video artists still showing in major museums have quietly downsized or shut their studios entirely — Kline mentions a friend, repped by a mega-gallery, now working out of his dining room.

Not everyone is convinced abandonment is the answer. Writing in Hyperallergic, Aruna D’Souza pushed back: “Unlike Josh Kline, I choose New York.” She doesn’t dispute the diagnosis — “the problem, as Kline sees it, is pretty unarguable” — but questions the timing and the prescription. If the first step toward a cure is admitting you have a problem, she argues, the second step is diagnosing its causes clearly enough to actually point toward one.

Kline’s essay, in her reading, methodically closes every door — converted office space is legally impossible and aesthetically compromised, “more sellable” media gets scorned, artist-run spaces are too donor-captured to survive — until the only door left open is leaving town entirely, and only for younger artists, not the people who’ve already built their lives there. D’Souza isn’t buying that this is the only solution. Neither, frankly, am I.

Especially after viewing Kline’s Baltimore exhibition Josh Kline: Capture and Sequestration at art hall in 2024 (I reviewed it for BmoreArt), knowing that this modest show in a small, independent gallery, located in a former Hells Angels Biker bar, led to a significant aquisition by the Baltimore Museum of Art. Why didn’t Kline mention Baltimore as a model after such an experience? It seems to me that this alternative model, the loss of an ecosystem of independent and artist-run spaces that Kline bemoans, exists right here already, with his own success as proof.

The Difference Between Noise and Music

Before you see a single artwork at the 2026 Biennial, you hear it: a screech of dry bows landing unevenly on stringed instruments, tense and itchy and weirdly appealing, set against the museum’s new signature neon-citrine wall text. It’s an eighty-second Biennial that wants you dislocated from the jump. You should expect to feel unsure, maybe a little confused. As someone whose favorite color has been this exact shade of traffic-safety yellow for years, and whose own violin sits at home gathering dust, I felt oddly at home in that tension — on edge and welcomed at the same time.

Around the corner, a video tornado of trash and old newspapers churns across a domed ceiling in a darkened room. Visitors lie sprawled on the floor and benches, letting Michelle Lopez’s 2025 installation Pandemonium wash over them like a sound bath. The longer you watch, the more you notice scraps of American flags spinning through the wreckage — beautiful and disturbing, ordinary and overwhelming, an apt metaphor for the daily barrage of headlines and the cortisol spikes that come with them. The audience just lies there together, incapacitated or conserving energy, waiting to see what comes next. Sound familiar?

The Whitney is, after all, a quintessentially American museum, and the Biennial is the country’s longest-running survey of contemporary art. This year’s edition features work made in the past two years by 56 artists, duos, and collectives — most born between 1976 and 1996, mostly American, with a handful from places directly shaped by U.S. foreign policy: Palestine, Iraq, Vietnam, the Philippines. There’s a pervasive low hum of anxiety and fracture, irony without a punchline, reflecting artists’ lived experience of “unprecedented times” — but nothing overtly political, nothing that reads as a warning shot.

I keep thinking about Nina Simone’s line: “An artist’s duty, as far as I’m concerned, is to reflect the times.” Each artist here does exactly that, in scattered, clever, individually honest ways.

Taken together, they sketch a version of contemporary American life defined by cacophony — and by the impulse to zoom in on small, manageable details rather than confront the bigger picture. Simone’s word choice, duty, implies an ethical responsibility to be honest and critical. Does that duty extend to curation, too? The mood here shifts from dark to darkly funny, but there’s no cohesive urgency that matches the scale of what America is actually experiencing right now — a quarter-millennium mark, a democracy that a lot of people think is unraveling.

Critics have been quick to blame the artists for this lack of urgency. I’d put it on the curators, and on an institution that seems more interested in not upsetting wealthy patrons than in making an argument. Selecting the most relevant artists of the moment is only half the job. Isn’t it also the curator’s role — maybe even their duty — to build something coherent out of all that individual work? Shouldn’t there be an argument, rather than fifty-six disparate statements placed politely side by side in a gallery?

That’s the difference, for me, between noise and music. Music requires a hierarchy — an organizing intelligence that shapes sound toward a specific effect. Noise is just everything, all at once, left for the audience to sort out on their own. Editing is hard. Done well, it’s often painful. But it’s the thing that turns a pile of good intentions into an actual argument, instead of leaving visitors to hum their own melody out of the wreckage.

Picture a conductor with a full budget, the best musicians in the country assembled on one stage — and no sheet music. Just: play whatever you want, because selecting a score feels arbitrary, and you’d rather the audience discover a melody for themselves. Even the best orchestra in the world, left without a conductor’s editorial hand, is just noise.

That was my takeaway from this year’s theme-less Biennial — and it’s the same lesson New York’s art world seems to be relearning the hard way, at exactly the moment when a smaller, scrappier, more editorially coherent scene — say, one two hours down I-95 — might have something to teach it.

A recent dive into BmoreArt.com’s Google Analytics panel revealed surprisingly great news: Web traffic is up. Way up.

In the past few months, BmoreArt’s online presence has received an increase of 200% higher visitation rates from the previous year, an incredible feat. Our web traffic has always been good, but very consistent. Predictable. With the knowledge that something has radically changed, why am I not feeling a shift in energy?

My inbox is swimmingly busy, nothing new. Our newsletter open rate remains well above the industry standard 20%, with an average 40-50% open rate. Our social media shares continue to operate at a steady pace. Our online calendar is chock full of dozens of events in the region each day, and our new audio options and share links are clicking.

Print subscriptions are growing, slowly but surely, especially those at the Artist level and above, which include tickets to our private events. And our public and gallery events continue to attract more visitors in person than we expect. All points certifying that our digital outreach is working, our communications are clear, and BmoreArt’s goal to build a broad audience is happening, but none of it matches an over-the-top 200% energy and growth.

So what gives?

In the June 4 article, Bots Now Outnumber Humans Online And The Internet Was Never Built For This, published in Forbes and written by Josipa Majic, the author makes it clear.

On June 3, “Cloudflare CEO Matthew Prince posted on X that automated bot traffic had crossed a threshold no one in the industry expected this soon: for the first time in the internet’s history, machines now generate more web traffic than people.”

Just a FYI: Cloudflare is the same web defense system that BmoreArt has used for years and it’s a trustworthy industry standard organization. Real-time data from Cloudflare Radar reveals that non-human traffic accounts for roughly 57.5% of web activity, leaving human engagement at about 42.5%. They had predicted this crossover, but had expected it by the end of 2027–instead, it’s here now.

What it means is that AI is using automated agents to browse, scrape, and present the information published by websites, keeping web searches that would have previously taken visitors to BmoreArt.com from ever happening, feeding them the information directly - from us, but bypassing us.

Real people are spending just as much time on the internet as ever, but largely spending their time on Google AI, or with Chat or Claude or whatever source they are most familiar with, while the robots surf and scour the internet for useful information.

To say the least, this radical surge in bot traffic is disruptive to an already shaky digital media industry, draining advertising budgets by skewing performance metrics. Bots fake clicks, page views, and video views, creating “ghost impressions” that make ad campaigns look successful on paper while generating zero real revenue. A lot of digital advertisers are fleeing open ad networks, and instead paying for access to “walled gardens,” like Apple, Spotify, or newsletters where readers are humans verified through subscriptions, which is one reason Substack is appealing.

As the publisher in a digital space, BmoreArt can choose to have our site redesigned for generative engine optimization, basically to make it easier for AI scrapers to read and cite us.

Citations and links in AI searches are a new currency for measurement, especially if it includes the source’s name. Imagine that! Citing the actual source that paid the writers and editors and photographers to craft the story, as well as the publishing platform that has invested thousands (and often, millions) of dollars into creating an accessible platform!

To quote a favorite Star Wars character, “This deal is getting worse all the time.”

Is there a way to sidestep all of this and continue to communicate directly with the reader? I am not about to redesign our website for bots, especially given the novelty and volatility of AI technology, as well as AI’s lack of ethics around using the work of journalists and publications without compensating them.

But our solution depends upon you, the reader.

This is not exactly heavy labor, but it does require intentionality and focus on your part. This is your task, if you want BmoreArt to continue to function successfully online. The reality is that your clicks and reads actually PROGRAM the algorithm; you’re telling the internet and the bots to pay attention to us, to value us. That’s it.

It requires you to click a few buttons and actually read, or view photos, to browse and visit the site on a regular basis.

• It requires you to visit BmoreArt.com. You can also use our new audio player to listen to our stories while you’re in the studio or in the car. And we have tried to make it easier to share our stories via links provided at the top and bottom of each story.

• It requires you to subscribe to our free twice-weekly newsletters, click on them in your inbox, not just read the headline - intentionally and on purpose. Click on a few stories and links. Wanna get really wild? Click on our ads! All the organizations are mission-aligned. Do we want them to succeed? Yes.

• Follow BmoreArt on Facebook and Instagram. Like and share our posts. You’re training the platforms to see us and value us!

• And whenever possible, browse our online shop and new online Art & Culture Guide.

• Submit your events to our online calendar. Share calendar mentions!

• If you can become a subscribing member, for print, all the better! But that doesn’t impact our web traffic.

It’s literally that simple.

If it helps, I am sending you a few links from recent stories that perhaps you missed in all of the chaos and cacophony of the internet which is now owned and controlled by billion dollar companies that do not love you as much as BmoreArt does.

From a reader and friend, I received the following testimonial on our recent coverage of Miró at The Phillips: “It’s particularly interesting in this moment for me to see BmoreArt featuring exhibitions beyond Baltimore and international and historic art.” So, of course, read this one.

Michael Anthony Farley saw the Miró exhibit first in Barcelona, and fell so in love with it, he gleefully described himself as skipping from room to room with joy. When we realized the same show would come to The Philips Collection in DC, he reached out to interview the curators, who are smart and erudite and interesting.

Reflecting in the Capital: a Q&A with the Curators of “Miró and the United States” by Michael Anthony Farley

If you missed it last week, read Saskia Kahn’s fascinating interview with world renowned musician Nellie McKay, with photos they created together at the Lord Baltimore Hotel.

Gee Whiz: Picturing Nellie McKay by Saskia Kahn

We always want to celebrate when Baltimore invests in artist, so I wanted to put a new partnership between the MTA, MSAC, and Baltimore’s LGBTQI community during Pride Month, featuring paintings by Joan Cox wrapped around a city bus. It’s colorful and gorgeous and, even better, shows what can be achieved when our civic organizations partner with artists. Also, Liz Hazen is just a fantastic writer!

The Pride Bus Has Arrived by Liz Hazen

These are all worth reading! They will make you feel a connection to Baltimore, feel secure in art’s ability to speak volumes during moments of political upheaval, and learn more about a famous musician we have all heard of but perhaps don’t know much about.

There’s always more… but for now, I’ll be happy if you click these three. While you’re on the site, check our CALENDAR page! It’s overflowing with cool events.

Also scan through our Art & Culture Guide - and make sure your favorite organizations are in there. It’s easy to update and edit and our team is happy to add in anything relevant to readers.

Let’s show the internet that real people actually matter. We are not optimizing our site for bots, but we need your clicks and readership to continue.

I think many readers know that BmoreArt started out as an online blog, back in the heyday of the internet. This was a time when information could flow much more freely, driven by engagement from actual humans. I was a starry-eyed recent MICA MFA graduate with opinions and convictions. With a few other artists, we began sharing information about exhibits in Baltimore, so that more people could be a part of a growing arts community.

Nowadays, I don’t think a website like BmoreArt could exist as a startup; there is simply too much competition from a multitude of synthetic media, including AI-generated websites, deepfake personas, and automated bots, all manipulated by algorithms that favor a pay-to-play mentality.

It makes me sound old, but I’m not sure most people understand how much the internet has changed over the past two decades. Without intending to, I have had a front-row seat to the backend of web media; this means I have been able to directly observe the behavior of readers and web visitors, as well as social media engagement, both on a short- and longer-term basis.

Although outrage and negativity drive viral web traffic, especially through individuals organically sharing through text, email, and social media, there have been some shocking surprises for me, certain breakaway stories that “have legs” and resonate beyond reasonable expectations, especially over months and years, and this is promising data worth considering.

While statistics have never felt like a comprehensive measure of success to me, they are helpful in assessing the basic efficacy of journalistic work. If BmoreArt exists to share information in order to create a coalition of well-informed, Baltimore-focused cultural participants, we have to be able to reach people, and in turn, they have to be motivated to share our stories as well because it serves them to do so.

Online publishing is one thing, but creating a print journal is now more expensive than ever before. Yet this commitment to a printed object—the diligence and time required to design and edit, to work collaboratively with a vast network of contributors, to fact-check and proofread—cannot be minimized. It requires a small army of committed professionals, numerous deadlines, and a strict editorial process. It also requires readers willing to pay a fair cover price, a critical mass of people willing to buy annual subscriptions, and advertising partners willing to invest on a local scale.

With so many contributors, partners, and processes embedded in its creation, a print publication cannot be sloppy. It cannot be casual about its storytelling. It cannot fix mistakes after it goes to print. Here’s the good news: the enormous amount of labor required actually helps guarantee the quality of the product.

I guess one good thing about being an artist in a publishing role is that I have never been married to one particular kind of media or platform. I am impatient and curious, open to experimentation and risk taking. As a result, BmoreArt has been able to remain nimble and evolve quickly, in order to function effectively.

This is one reason I wanted to test out Substack, despite the reality that we are living in an age of online chicanery. Honestly, it’s terrifying once you start thinking about it because the majority of Americans now get their news via Facebook, which uses an algorithm designed to manufacture outrage and ignore factual errors because it keeps users engaged longer, increasing the likelihood that they’ll buy something.

In an age of billionaire-owned newspapers and television, literal fake-news content mills, cloned storefronts, synthetic influencers, and social media bots designed to create the illusion of popularity and success—which can all be purchased and, increasingly, are purchased—how do you guarantee that the information you are receiving and sharing is factual?

For the most part, I rely less and less on newspapers like the New York Times or Washington Post. I am reading Substack, probably too much, and much of the rest of my news comes from local publications and those rooted in a print magazine format.

I adore magazines and periodicals of all kinds. I always have. Now, more than ever, print media signals intentionality, authenticity, and a trustworthiness that I crave—and this stands in direct contrast to much of the online slop that fills Facebook, Instagram, and Apple News.

In 2015, when I was finally able to transition BmoreArt from an online publication to include a semiannual print journal, it was out of a committment to beautiful physical objects. I did this selfishly—out of my own desire to create. A number of very smart and caring individuals advised me against it. They believed the future of media was online, that print was dead, antiquated, and far too expensive.

Had I been a businessperson, I never would have done it.

However, once BmoreArt became a physical object that demanded a certain kind of presence and care, everything changed. The publication became something people could hold, collect, share, and experience together. Our large release parties became necessary for distribution, and along with them our mission to build community.

It took me over a year to secure funding for the first issue and another year to line up advertisers for the second once I could offer proof of concept. There was no guarantee any of it was going to work, that it could become a viable product within Baltimore’s media ecosystem. It could have very easily died after one or two issues.

I had no idea how to price it, and twenty-one issues later, the cover price is still $15—which seemed high at the time but now barely covers the rising cost of paper.

I am an artist, so considering cheaper paper is not an option. Quality paper stock, beautiful photography, and exceptional art are now baked into the process. They are non-negotiable, even though our organization is tiny compared to most publications that offer print at a similar cost.

For me, the element of discovery is also non-negotiable. Each print journal includes stories that might not be expected in an art journal, narratives that challenge conventional definitions of art. This too is a reflection of Baltimore, a city where creativity thrives in unexpected ways and individuals invent their own pathways to success.

More and more, print publications are becoming a luxury good. Yet they are also a necessity in building strong, well-informed communities capable of advocating for and supporting the arts. They also require online components and in-person events, both large and small, all essential for building a complex media platform that actually delivers.

I don’t know if we will ever return to the salad days of magazines in the 1980s, when advertising seemed to grow on trees and magazines were unapologetically niche, oddball, experimental, and luxurious. After the rise of the internet, magazines lost much of their advertising revenue to digital platforms. That money did not go to online publications; it went to Google, Meta, and other technology companies, which is one reason so many respected publications have disappeared.

Back then, classified ads helped keep newspapers afloat and less susceptible to billionaire ownership and censorship. Consider that shift—from thousands of tiny individual investments into local media messaging to concentrated ownership by a handful of corporations—and what that means for creative inquiry and accountability to readers.

My question is: how do we get back there?

Can we return to a place where we support print media at a scale that allows it to be sustainable and effective?

The internet is never going away. It will always be faster and cheaper than print. But it’s growing more and more unreliable, inaccurate, and predatory.

Is there a way to convince people with limited budgets to invest in local media? What would it take to get there, and is it possible to encourage people to invest now—with a subscription, an advertising buy, or an event partnership—so that independent media becomes stronger in the future?

At this point, there is a lot of pressure to do more. We should make more videos. We should host more events, or offer different kinds of events. We should podcast. We should produce a quarterly magazine. We should offer messy, authentic, behind-the-scenes social media posts. We should create more newsletters, more art books, fewer art books. We should host more lectures about professional development, collecting, or hands-on art activities.

These are all good ideas. But I am not convinced that doing more automatically generates more stability or more resources. Scaling up when you don’t have the resources is rarely a good idea. Attempting to be everything to everyone is an impossible task.

Offering a print journal that centers Baltimore creatives, alongside an online publication, with opportunities for readers to become subscribing members at varying levels of engagement, remains BmoreArt’s best shot at sustainability, at least for now. Perhaps our messaging around memberships needs to change. Perhaps what we offer at different membership levels could better reflect what readers want. But at this point, it is working.

As the internet becomes less democratic and increasingly crowded with commercial garbage and clickbait distractions, people are dissatisfied. They are seeking alternatives. Print products, by their very nature, are SLOW. They demand accountability and authenticity; they are simply too expensive and labor-intensive to make otherwise. We can feel a collective desire for in-person experiences—imperfect and awkward at times—instead of sitting at home, isolated behind screens. We want to live in the real world, to have actual experiences, to make discoveries through surprise and sponteniety and otherness.

It’s a sublime experience to hold a book or magazine in your hands, to smell the ink, to feel the paper, to enjoy the transition between pages and the fonts a designer lovingly selected. It cannot be replicated by internet memes or AI-generated content, and that is precisely why we love it.

I believe that slow media—media that is deliberate, artful, inefficient, and creative—is the future.

I have to believe that. I hope you’ll choose to believe it too.

• SUBSCRIBE to BmoreArt here.

• Check out Issue 21 here.

It’s not because Baltimore-based collections are not worthy of such distinction or because practitioners aren’t serious about it. And it’s certainly not because Baltimore lacks historical precedent, with the Cone Sisters and the Walters Father & Son Duo amassing world renowned accumulations of relevant cultural materials.

I think the pressure to eschew the designation of ‘collector’ comes from Baltimore’s down-to-earth, blue collar roots, where artists and makers abound, but it feels pretentious to call oneself a patron. And yet, we all collect.

Artists collect art by other artists. Artists collect all kinds of things and use their gifts for creative problem solving in their display and arrangement. I believe that this appellation, “collector,” is actually an opportunity to bring artists and patrons closer together, onto the same playing field and into the same vocabulary. It’s a tie that binds, but has lurked like a secret, inappropriate for polite conversation.

Like art, good collections tell a story. My own collection tells the story of artistic excellence and mixed media process in Baltimore, circa 2000-2026. Other collections based in Baltimore tell the story of communities, of research and building relationships through travel, of material culture unique to Baltimore, and of cultural omission and discovery.

I am thinking about this today because I just interviewed internationally respected collector Komal Shah, the incredible force of nature behind the Making Their Mark exhibition, on display in Washington DC at the National Museum of Women in the Arts (NMWA), and the subsequent Making Their Mark Forum, a gathering of powerful art scholars and makers, all women.

My conversation with Shah was revelatory; she is everything you could want in a collector. She is brilliant, fearless, and unintimidated by provenance or price.

Her willingness to talk about the why and how behind the collection, which exclusively features women artists who take up a LOT of space, is an opportunity for all of us who are interested in telling stories through the objects (and artists) we collect.

Here is a snippet from the article just published today at BmoreArt.com - and I hope you’ll read the entire thing, whether you’re an artist, a woman, a patron, a curator, arts professional (or listen to it via our new audio player).

We are ALL collectors, and I think we should proudly own this distinction, tempering it with the fact that every art acquisition is an investment in an artists’s life or career; every collection is a story that we feel passionately about.

LINK: Making Their Mark, Holding the Line: A Conversation with Komal Shah by Cara Ober at BmoreArt.com

I asked what she believes collections should ultimately do—a question that can veer into abstraction if you let it. “Tell a story,” she said, without hesitation. “That was the advice I received early on: decide what story you want to tell.”

For her, that story has come into focus over time, through instinct, research, risk, and a willingness to challenge the systems that shape value in the first place. “It became clear that the story was about the power, innovation, and resilience of women artists,” she said. “The collection now has its own identity, it guides future acquisitions.”

Sometimes, she added, the clarity is immediate. “I’ll encounter a work and just know: this belongs, or it doesn’t.” In a city like Washington, DC, built on negotiation, that kind of certainty feels almost radical.

It’s incredible to me that this one woman has had such a huge and ambitious vision, and what she has managed to accomplish in just over a decade of collecting! I should mention that Baltimore is represented in the exhibit by Joyce J. Scott and Elizabeth Talford Scott, both included in the Shah Garg Collection, as well as speakers Lowery Sims and Rashida Bumbray, as part of the Forum.

Baltimore-based artists, collectors, patrons, and arts audiences, if Komal Shah can fearlessly tell a global story about women artists, we, too, have the power to collectively tell OUR story, and along with it, shift the culture in Baltimore to cultivate pride in our collections.

I don’t care what kind of art you love and want to live with. I don’t care if you collect stamps or pianos or abstract paintings or decorative historic objects from across the globe (legally procured of course). That you choose to invest your time, money, and energy into human-made objects that thrill your soul means everything; what I want for you is to think more about how this story is shared with others.

Can we agree to take ourselves more seriously in this practice, for the greater good of our arts communities, our arts institutions, and the reputation of our city?

This emphasis on collecting isn’t new at BmoreArt. It’s no secret that we often consult with institutions around acquisitions of Baltimore-based artists. We have long featured articles in our Living With Art series, stories about creatives who collect (accompanied by gorgeous photos), and the overlap between individuals and museums in order to build a lasting legacy for the future.

I want challenge each and every reader to consider your collection differently, to realize that it has an important story to tell. Your clarity or ambivalence directly impacts the objects and artists you adore, and has an impact upon new opportunities for them.

What story are you telling? How is this contributing to our collective knowledge, purpose, and legacy? We have to take our investments seriously if we want to be taken seriously.

Looking ahead: We will be publishing a story about collector Michael Sherman in our next print journal due out at the end of May!

The essay is really an argument for myself, as an arts writer and publisher, reinforcing the value of using inclusive and conversational language, rather than the coded academic dialect of the professional art world. I realize now that it’s also an argument for accessibility in general within the art world, a consideration for the value of a broad and diverse audience for the arts, rather than a very specific and narrow one.

Although the essay centers John Waters and his Indecent Exposure exhibit at the Baltimore Museum of Art, the ideas presented could be applied to any number of contemporary artists who straddle the divide between class distinctions of global popularity vs. art world success. John just happened to exhibiting at the BMA at the time I was writing about this, and was willing to answer my questions unapologetically and honestly, which I still appreciate.

It was and still is my opinion that the stark divide between the world of blue chip art insiders and everyone else has not had a net positive effect on living artists. It has clearly had a negative impact on ever-shrinking audiences for the arts, people who feel like they’re not invited to an insular and pretentious party.

From the very beginning of my critical writing career, I have always desired to build a bigger tent, have always felt that artists and audiences deserve more. Within a global market where scarcity and pedigree still mostly rule, this is not a popular opinion. However, my focus is on Baltimore, where those rules (mostly) do not apply.

Instead, I have been curious about what intrigues audiences throughout the region, and how to create a sense of connection and hometown pride surrounding Baltimore-based artists, galleries, and museums. How do we create the conditions for regular folks who love art and Baltimore to learn more and invest in “the art of our place and time”? How do we invite all kinds of people into the tent with hospitality and a spark of genuine excitement? How can arts writing cultivate a sense of belonging?

I wrote this essay five-ish years ago, thinking about all of these things, but digging down into the language we use to talk and write about art. Perhaps you will enjoy reading it again, as I did.

“I don’t think contemporary art should be for everyone,” John Waters said during a recent interview at Indecent Exposure, his retrospective at the Baltimore Museum of Art. “What if contemporary art is just for a select few? What’s wrong with that?”

He might’ve been yanking my chain. After all, he’s the writer/director behind Pink Flamingos and Female Trouble, internationally beloved movies so vulgar I cannot watch them in the same room as my parents. Still, I wanted to know why his retrospective didn’t include film, his finest work in my opinion, especially alongside Indecent’s film still photomontages and ironic sculptures, a cinephile’s cabinet of curiosities which did not resonate far beyond the museum walls.

He adult-splained to me that movies belong in movie theaters, whereas the work in the museum—including “Kiddie Flamingos,” a hilarious video featuring children in colorful wigs reading a slightly sanitized Pink Flamingos script—was Art with a capital A, intended for collectors to BUY. He added that when he moved from film to visual art it was essential for him to separate his movie career from his art in order for collectors and curators to take him seriously.

No matter how successful, Waters said his films did not belong in the art world. Similarly, the audiences for his movies were not invited to follow Waters on this journey. He said the conscious division between discipline and audience, high- and lowbrow culture, was ingrained in him by Colin de Land, his first New York art dealer.

I cited recent examples of film I had viewed in museums, such as Arthur Jafa’s “Love is the Message, The Message is Death” at SFMOMA and Youssef Nabil’s “I Saved My Belly Dancer” at the Perez, where the gallery was dark and cinematic with comfy seating like a theater, but he wasn’t having it. I’m not sure if he thought I was being dumb or he just wanted to avoid the conversation, but I was earnest in my line of questioning.

Why is there a semantic divide between “art” and things that look and smell and act like art that are deemed not art? Who gets to decide? Whom does this divide serve? And how can art writers use their skills and influence to challenge antiquated barriers between art and audience? In an age with growing numbers of artists, why are cultural institutions decrying declining attendance and full-time art critic jobs disappearing?

If he is right, and this strict division between “art” and “everything else” still exists, does this mean I’m doing my job incorrectly?

As a pragmatist and the editor of an independent art publication that collaborates with artist groups and cultural institutions, I see so much room for improvement in the language and accessibility employed to attract new audiences. I assumed that a filmmaker like Waters who based his career on brilliant, belligerent narratives would be able to expand my notion of audience, approachability, and the strategies used to attract interest, but he didn’t. Instead he presented a view of the contemporary art world that seems outdated and arbitrary to me, where divisions between genre and class are strictly enforced and punishable by excommunication.

And it’s stuck with me, this uneasy conversation, because it goes against everything I aim to do as an arts writer. Is he correct or am I? If he is right, and this strict division between “art” and “everything else” still exists, does this mean I’m doing my job incorrectly?

Truly, contemporary art and artists have the potential to foster a sense of wonder, to expand one’s understanding of self and the world, and to present effective alternatives to the way we live our lives, but without the proper invitation, a huge segment of the population is missing out.

I have never been an art writer for other art writers. I don’t write about art specifically for those with an advanced degree in art history. I don’t use “Artspeak.” I grew up solidly middle-class in suburbia to parents who were educators. I was a prolific reader of novels, not philosophy or critical theory.

Before I founded BmoreArt, an art and culture magazine based in Baltimore, I taught art in public schools. This environment was frustrating for me, but also forced me to consider the implications and relevance of art for a wide and diverse audience, a group who can benefit immensely from engagement with contemporary art and artists, specifically the art of their place and time.

Teaching art in public schools forced me to mature creatively and professionally in ways working at a museum never could have and to consider innovative strategies for engagement. Although at times I longed move to New York to be part of an elitist, intellectual, and glamorous art world, or at least a full-time grad student in an MFA program, for most of my 20s I surrounded myself with people who didn’t think contemporary art was interesting, meaningful, or applicable to their lives and it was my job to sell them a new narrative.

These are people who would rather get a colonoscopy than go to a museum. These are intelligent, liberal-arts-educated individuals who work hard, pay their bills, and don’t want to spend their free time being told, via incomprehensible academic language, that they are too dumb for modern and contemporary art.

They don’t want to spend their weekends at museums, getting scolded by security guards for standing too close to the art while trying to decipher inaccessible wall text. These are people who have been turned off by contemporary art, not just once but consistently over a lifetime, but could benefit from a relationship with it.

Truly, contemporary art and artists have the potential to foster a sense of wonder, to expand one’s understanding of self and the world, and to present effective alternatives to the way we live our lives, but without the proper invitation, a huge segment of the population is missing out.

These individuals—family, friends, and former students—have remained the primary audience I write for, perhaps because I’m a glutton for punishment but mainly because I see the potential value of contemporary art in their lives as well as the benefits to artists and institutions in broadening their audience and discourse. This is how I envision my job as an art writer: part translator, part evangelist, and part used-car saleswoman.

The more you can muddy the waters around the meaning of a work, the more you can keep the value high.

David Levine, Triple Canopy

I do not blame the audience for a lack of interest or participation in the art world. I don’t blame the Internet for short attention spans, although it is littered with click-bait and garbage writing, or Instagram for presenting a faux-cool curated distraction from rigorous discourse. And I don’t think I’m doing any favors to the artists I cover if my writing is designed solely for other artists or art world insiders. I publish an art magazine in Baltimore, a small city with abounding creative output and stark structural issues, and our content has to resonate with a broad and growing readership or there’s no point in doing this work.

It’s an uphill battle and I blame the elitist class divisions that have always been a part of the art world for turning away a majority of the population, communicating very clearly that this world is not for them. Specifically as an art writer, I charge the overly obtuse and grandiose language that surrounds contemporary art like a moat full of self-important museum curators all wearing matching Cartier watches.

I blame “Artspeak,” also known as International Art English or IAE, which reflects the insular snobbery of the top tier of the art world and reinforces class barriers to the detriment of contemporary art and most living artists who would benefit from a growing network of fans and patrons.

In the defining article, “International Art English,” published by Triple Canopy, authors David Levine and Alix Rule attempted to study and map out its history, usage, and syntax and found its “purest articulation” in the digital press release. “This language has everything to do with English, but it is emphatically not English,” they wrote. “It is largely an export of the Anglophone world and can thank the global dominance of English for its current reach. But what really matters for this language—what ultimately makes it a language—is the pointed distance from English that it has always cultivated.”

The writers acknowledged later to The Guardian that, “Art English is something that everyone in the art world bitches about all the time, but we all use it.” Rule took it a step further, admitting that, “This language has enforced a hermeticism of contemporary art… that is not particularly healthy. IAE has made art harder for non-professionals.”

They said that the MFA graduates and art professionals fluent in Artspeak feel oppressed by it and there is widespread use of it among the galleries, academic institutions, and museums in order to be taken seriously by other art world insiders. Levine claimed a direct correlation between a flood of new money into the art market and the widespread usage of IAE, employed to make art seem less commercial and more subversive and intellectual. “The more you can muddy the waters around the meaning of a work, the more you can keep the value high,” said Levine.

The best art is never merely decorative; it achieves market value through cultural capital. Regardless of market, art functions politically and socially to change our ideas about identity, race, sex, history, human behavior, and other issues significant to living a meaningful and engaged life. Some contemporary art is heavily theoretical and influenced by academic text, and relevant only to a small, highly educated and elite audience, but most is not.

I believe it is disingenuous to use such language to discuss most current art-making, especially in educational contexts, and backwards for an art publication to intentionally narrow its audience to a select few, assuming that 99 percent of the population is too dumb or undereducated to understand it or undesirable because they cannot afford to buy blue chip art.

This seems unhelpful to artists as well, who would benefit from an expanding audience that includes people of diverse backgrounds and not just the one percent of the one percent, a group that continues to shrink in size but grow in the concentration of money and power.

The widespread use of International Art English is all about consolidating power, conferring insider status, and raising sales records, so it’s no surprise that this language is also responsible for keeping “undesirable” audiences at bay. The top museum curators, collectors, and gallery directors of the art world take this language seriously and those on lower rungs must become fluent in the lingo to achieve promotion. In a post-modern art world, verbose rhetoric translates to seriousness and intelligence, and those of us who write about art in conversational, accessible language are viewed with suspicion, even though I would argue that it’s intellectually lazy to rely on absurd insider jargon to convey complex meaning.

The overly academic, classist, and pretentious language of many arts publications is designed to attract academic, rich, and pretentious readers and to reinforce the illusion of superiority in a market based upon scarcity and perception of value. I don’t think it’s a coincidence that the elite individuals that IAE caters to serve on the decision-making boards for museums, collect blue-chip art, and have an interest in keeping power in a few hands rather than sharing it. Despite the hand-wringing that museums and art colleges engage in about declining attendance, it’s possible that the wealthy individuals on their boards have little interest in making contemporary art accessible and available to people like me, my parents, or my students—and institutions rely on consolidated financial support from just a few wealthy persons for survival, rather than a flood of small donations from the many.

However, the central issue for me as an art writer, editor, and artist myself, is realizing that people without college degrees can benefit from a relationship with contemporary art. Engaging with the art (and artists) of your time and place is exciting, challenging, spiritual, political, egalitarian, and fascinatingly weird. Art has the power to confront and delight us to our very core with ingenious materials and concepts, and this enriches our lives, individually and collectively. Art writing doesn’t need to function like cultural broccoli; it should challenge the reader to grow and learn, whereas IAE’s purpose is to make its readers self-satisfied members of an elite and vapid club.

Contemporary artists also benefit from skilled and empathetic arts writers, who can translate idiosyncratic and abstract ideas succinctly to an expanding audience. As humans whose great passion is spending time alone in a non-verbal state making things with no practical purpose in their studios, many artists are not comfortable talking about their work to non-artists because their art is its own visual language requiring a complex and nuanced translation. Art writers can play an essential role in connecting audience directly to the makers of art and their output through a vocabulary that translates and captures the essence of the art clearly, even if acknowledging questions that have no answers or offering critical feedback.

Developing a vocabulary in literary, conversational, or creative diction is an opportunity for empathy and connection within cultural communities and spaces. Skilled art writing offers opportunities to rigorously examine who we are as individuals, communities, and collectively, to serve as a fertile ground for understanding, relationships, and growth. You don’t have to have an art history degree to look critically and write about art colorfully, personally, emotionally, or controversially, but you do need to envision the variety of reader you would like to build relationships with.

There are a thousand business decisions I have to make every day as the editor and publisher of an independent and regional art magazine, but none of it matters if the writing we publish doesn’t reach a broad and diverse audience, or if our audience isn’t engaged and growing. Perhaps my publication would benefit financially from employing Artspeak to attract the art world’s wealthy clientele. Maybe our financial model could be more sustainable if we catered to advertisers in real estate or luxury brands or plastic surgery instead of the museums, colleges, and arts organizations that support artists. There’s no way to know, but we can look to our cultural forebears for wisdom.

My small publication will continue to cover art that is highbrow, lowbrow, and shockingly, randomly in-between. This is a deliberate choice—not because our writers and editors can’t tell the good from the bad, but out of our desire to broaden and deepen an audience for contemporary art and to question what art is and does.

As the creator of truly groundbreaking films that featured actors in drag in the 1970s eating real dog shit, vying for the title of filthiest person alive, John Waters is the master of crushing elitist barriers through transformative films, all canon-worthy works of contemporary art, rendered in colorful language and delivered in a stringy Baltimore accent.

“I can’t be an anarchist at 72,” he told me toward the end of our interview. “I already did it. It’s boring now.”

Perhaps after fifty years of making art deemed pornographic and tasteless, Waters deserves to settle comfortably into the posh art world of New York galleries and collectors. Perhaps he now prefers Artspeak to dirty jokes? Or maybe he was just messing with me for fun and didn’t deign to engage in this conversation.

Whether we choose to approach it explicitly as I have here, in acknowledging a lack of accessibility through the obtuse language that mirrors the snobbery of the art world, or to write in simple and compelling vernacular, arts writers need to realize that their creative decisions have an economic impact, and this can align with our core values. We can choose to participate in the watery charade of IAE or insist on using egalitarian language, proving that a concise and literary vocabulary does not equate to a lack of intelligence or education.

As for myself, I plan to continue writing about the art of my time and place, placing equal importance upon museum-quality art and the local craft economy, upon global and local artists, and publishing the work of writers whose backgrounds and language are as diverse as possible. My small publication will continue to cover art that is highbrow, lowbrow, and shockingly, randomly in-between. This is a deliberate choice—not because our writers and editors can’t tell the good from the bad, but out of our desire to broaden and deepen an audience for contemporary art and to question what art is and does.

Art history is currently being made all over the world and I want to write about the art and artists of my time as they actually are—complex, passionate, frustrating, and inspiring—through the use of accessible, conversational, and inspired language that democratizes and unites, questions and argues, but does not obscure meaning in order to posture as the one percent of the one percent of a self-imposed and hermetic arts intelligentsia.

Artspeak and Audience by Cara Ober was commissioned by BmoreArt as part of Field Perspectives 2019, a co-publishing initiative organized and supported by Common Field. Field Perspectives 2019 invites thinking that reflects on the future of the artist organizing field. The program, a collaboration between Common Field and nine arts publications, is published in two parts. Part 2 includes texts by Art Papers, The Artblog, BmoreArt, Momus, Terremoto, The Third Rail, and Title Magazine. Part 1 included texts by Chicago Artist Writers, The Rib, and Sixty Inches from Center. Generous support for Field Perspectives is provided by The Andy Warhol Foundation for the Visual Arts.

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Common Field is a national network of independent visual arts organizations and organizers that connects, supports, and advocates for the artist-centered field. Founded in 2013 and launched in 2015, the Common Field network has 700+ members across 43 states. Programs include national convenings, grants, research, resources, forums, meet-ups and advocacy. Our vision is to increase understanding, involvement and knowledge of artists organizations and their value, and increase their capacity through national connectivity, dialog understanding and support.

Common Field’s network includes contemporary, experimental, noncommercial artist-centric organizations and organizers including alternative art spaces, publications, digital exhibition venues, residencies, platforms, collectives, collaboratives, and individual organizers. These projects and spaces provide interdisciplinary and hybrid forms for art production, reception, and exchange. They generate independent, responsive, grassroots, artist-centered cultures. They support artists, connect artists with the public in intimate, experimental, and generative ways, and they are deeply involved in the shape and characters of the contexts where they work. Our members stimulate ideas, imagination, and innovation in their communities.

Words: Cara Ober

I am not going to sugarcoat and say that it’s been easy or fun to navigate a complex network of governmental, accounting, banking, payroll, HR, and financial application forms. However, I do know that, when it’s all finished, BmoreArt will be in a more sustainable place, and my goal is for this organization to continue to exist long after my participation in it has ended.

I’m not planning on going anywhere at this point. But I have seen too many cultural organizations founded by individuals willing to do whatever it takes to keep it afloat and then, hitting a brick wall when it comes to leadership change. Typically this is because the founder is willing to work without pay, or for very little pay, and their sacrifice is built into the DNA of the organization. When it comes time to attract a new director with the skills necessary to move the organization forward, there is no qualified person willing to work so hard for so little.

Over the past decade or so, I have been on the frontlines of so many beloved cultural orgs and projects and publications. In writing about them and publishing their stories, there is analysis: what is working and what is not? I am always trying to understand the finances and mechanics of successful organizations. Successful organizations are able to monetize their support from love and respect into actual dollars without undermining their mission. How do they do it?

As Bob Dylan famously said, “You can’t eat applause for breakfast.”

I have seen so many highly respected organizations not able to pay their hardworking employees enough to keep things running. I have seen so many magazines and newspapers that people absolutely ADORE and depend upon being unable to pay their bills or accruing debt. After the entity is gone, constituents mourn and say how terrible it is, what a loss… and perhaps if, given a chance, these people would have supported keeping the organization alive? Regardless, too little, too late is a familiar story.

At this point, my challenge is to prevent this from happening at BmoreArt and I want to give you the opportunity to show your support, especially at a critical point for us, as we become a nonprofit. If you have any questions or suggestions for me regarding this process, please reach out directly!

Over the past year, our team has worked diligently to create new opportunities (like our Icons Ball and auction!) for patrons of the arts to support our work and to invest in the work of Baltimore-based artists. Forming relationships with individuals who are able to collect art, who support cultural organizations, and serve on boards is essential in building a collective ecosystem for creatives in this city. Historically, Baltimore-based artists tend to stick within artist communities, and collectors and museum trustees tend to collect in New York, Miami, and Basel.

For myself, working with Jeffrey Kent on the Connect + Collect initiative, it’s been a valuable learning experience, interviewing collectors in the region in order to gain understanding and to create new relationships that will support artists in Baltimore, largely through educating people about the quality and diversity of art that exists here.

Working with artists is different, though. As an artist, I made the mistake early on of offering too much of BmoreArt’s value for free.

I think artists do this a lot: we give our labor away for free, just because we want our work to function in a certain way or space. Realizing that this is actually not helpful in reinforcing the value of our work has been a learning curve for me, a lesson I am still understanding, while also maintaining that our online stories and our calendar should always be a free resource to readers.

I think a lot of artists carry these contradictory ideas and expectations. We give a lot away for free, but we also expect a lot of free stuff and preferential treatment.

Sometimes there is a sense of entitlement ingrained in being an artist, that we should pour all of our resources into making our work, but not investing anything back into the ecosystem where we want the work to function and thrive. For myself, and also for the Baltimore community, this mentality of scarcity has been shifting towards a longer term and more collective vision.

I recently came across this simple meme on a social media site, and for whatever reason, it has stuck in my brain. It says: “Buy stuff from your friends’ businesses and get free stuff from strangers. Not the other way around.”

Now I can’t unread it. Why do we expect our friends to give us things for free but are willing to pay giant corporations to ship us stuff we don’t even need?

It immediately got me thinking about the media I consume, and which cultural organizations I give my time, energy, and money to. It has forced me to reconsider who and what brings value to my life here in Baltimore, and what I really SHOULD support more.

This past year the The Brewer’s Art, a beloved brewery and bar in Mt. Vernon, closed after thirty years, with the owner citing financial debt as the reason. So many people expressed sadness about this on social media, but how many of them actually patronized the bar in the past couple of years? We cannot expect small business owners and independent cultural organizations, run by regular people, to carry the burden of cultural convening and third spaces. We all have to understand that these entities will only continue to exist IF we support them, that we play an active role in their success.

I am sharing this today with you, in the hope that it will inspire you to think similarly, especially the artists based in Baltimore whose work has been highlighted, improved, elevated, enhanced, seen and heard via BmoreArt’s work.

Artists are the reason that BmoreArt exists at all. Baltimore is a city of artists, absolutely teeming with wild creativity and talent and energy, and it’s the perfect amount of chaos to create the conditions for Amy Sherald, Future Islands, Joyce Scott, Turnstile, John Waters, and David Simon to ascend to global notoriety.

Baltimore also offers the perfect amount of space, time, and proximity for so many more artists to ascend to greater heights, to be fairly compensated for their work, and to elevate Baltimore’s reputation globally as a site for artistic excellence. It’s happening, but slowly, and with deliberate investment in their careers that is, sadly, too rare in this city.

What if our collective success could be accelerated, sharpened, and less random? What if Baltimore could offer more opportunities for local talent to connect with growing audiences, to earn a living, to buy property, to build a stable life around our creative pursuits?

This can happen, but momentum is not a top-down occurrance. If it were, our big cultural institutions would have already achieved this on their own, and on our behalf.

Our museums, universities, library system, and symphonies are excellent - and they add so much value to our city. But they haven’t been able to shift Baltimore’s potential, the one we all see, into a reality, have they? They haven’t been able to bring about the Baltimore Renaissance we envision and aspire to. Artists, if you’re waiting for someone bigger, richer, or more powerful to show up and fix all of our collective problems, you’re going to be waiting forever.

The reality is that major change happens from the bottom up; it’s an inverted pyramid where the vast majority of participants and stakeholders are regular, independent individuals. We often feel powerless, alone, and broke, but the reality is that if we use our resources strategically, toward collective goals, and choose to support the local entities, businesses, and things that support US - there is nothing we can’t do.

Artists, you’re special. Your work is sacred and the money is always going to be tight because you’re always looking to expand and grow and elevate. Your ambition is always going to exceed your resources, this is how it’s supposed to be.

However, if all of the artists invested modestly in the smaller cultural organizations that support THEM - like BmoreArt, Maryland Art Place, Current, Baltimore Beat, Creative Alliance and so many others, through memberships and donations - there will be a massive shift. The changes we want to see collectively will happen sooner, faster, better. The institutions, businesses, and philantrhopic organizations will follow the momentum because they will want a piece of the action.

Artists, you know which organizations have been helpful to you, whose emails you read, whose calls for entry and notifications for grant opportunities are essential, whose events are not to be missed. It doesn’t mean these organizations are perfect or will be able to accomplish your every desire, but it does mean that you will be an artist living in a city with strong and sustainable cultural organizations that are able to effectively serve YOU.

As artists, we can be so focused on achieving our individual goals that we forget sometimes that our quest is collective. Despite an art history focused on individual geniuses, the greatest art came about from movements, where great numbers of artists and audience and patrons all came together to accomplish that which has never been done before. (This is literally the Renaissance that Baltimore City officials invoke.)

Baltimore could have this, could be this. We all see the potential, but it’s not going to happen without all the artists becoming key stakeholders in this process. And of course, I am encouraging you to invest back into BmoreArt, an organization that invests countless hours every day in service of you.

Artists, what would it take for you to invest in BmoreArt with an Artist Level Membership today? It costs $100 a year, that’s just $8.30 a month. I know I sound like the NPR member’s drive on the radio - but it’s because it’s all true. You have the power to make a difference.

Now that BmoreArt is a nonprofit, we will be able to apply for municipal grants and hopefully offer new initiatives, services, and opportunities for you. However, without the support and actual ‘buy in’ from artists, we don’t offer a compelling argument for funding and honestly, we don’t deserve it.

Artists tend to be vocal in their support and their criticism. They always can see how things can be improved–and this creative problem-solving is what artists do best.

If you’re waiting for BmoreArt to become a perfect organization, and then you’ll support us, you’re thinking backwards. It’s never going to happen. However, your support now, and in the future, makes it possible for us to get there.

Artists, you’re our North Star, our raison d’ětre, our modus operandi. You’re our everything.

BmoreArt is not perfect, and we are never going to be. But we are here for you in very specific ways that no other organization is. If you can, support all of the galleries and organizations in Baltimore that bring value to your life. Do so modestly, but intentionally. Hold us accountable. Show up to our events. Share our stories on social media. Be the change you want to see in Baltimore, our city of artists.

If you’re already a subscribing member, and you have been from the start, THANK YOU! Please share with your artist friends and colleagues. It’s time for us to step on the gas and grow, to meet this particular moment’s challenges with clarity and in a way that reflects the communities we serve.

Artist Membership Link Here.

All Membership Plans Here.

When you step inside Waller Gallery, their current exhibit, Transit, initially appears to be a group show. There are color photos on the wall, large concrete letters proliferating across the ground, items of clothing, embroidered badges, and a giant continuous ream of paper hanging from the ceiling covered in text. Along the hallway, there are what appear to be receipts printed large but on rice paper and hung like linen tapestries, with ink brush calligraphy painting flowing words on each one. And then, in the back gallery, there is a series of small red paintings on Kotex pads, more video, more garments, a series of tiny, framed text-basd film stills, two giant framed silhouettes, and a selfie mirror, with rope, an enamel American flag pin, and a mic stand.

The common denominator in all of these pieces is an emphasis on printed text and language, but underlying that is the concept of ‘Transit,’ denoting bodies in motion, migration, and transition between places, cultures, and identities.

The person who created all of the works in the gallery is Baltimore-based conceptual artist Julia Kim Smith. In the list of works provided by the gallery, she explains that the title references Anna Seghers’ fictional novel, Transit, based on Seghers’ experiences as a German refugee in the 1930s. The idea of transit and transition, is not a new concept for the artist.

We sat down for a 30 minute interview, to learn more about the exhibit and the context surrounding it, on Friday, February 20, a day ahead of the closing reception at Waller which is Saturday, February 20 from 7-9 pm.

Great art has the power to inspire, to change the world, to unite us across every and all barriers. Great art speaks truth to power so eloquently, it finds its way into hearts and minds, where it can challenge, confuse, and inspire.

This is a strategy I like to call Subversive Beauty, where art is so seductive it has the power to effectively confront conventional standards. It defies gender, racial, and power dynamics, but it’s never didactic or sanctimonious. Rather, Subversive Beauty infiltrates your consciousness through sensuality; the experience is immediate and nonverbal, drawing you close with feelings and forcing your intellect to wrestle with uncomfortable ideas later on.

Subversive Beauty often provokes controversy and backlash; this is because it’s so successful, it reaches a mass audience, many who share opposing viewpoints. Rather than avoiding a scandal, great artists know that their message will be more powerful when it inspires conversation, confrontation, and even hate. Great art should disrupt and baffle, fascinate and disgust.

The legacy of great art inspiring outrage is as old as art history itself. The artists we now love uncomplicatedly started out as scandalous provocateurs. Case in point: in 1905, Henri Matisse and André Derain and others exhibited paintings featuring intense, non-naturalistic color and wild brushwork, which provoked outrage. This reaction led to their name, “Les Fauves,” meaning wild beasts, given to them as an insult from an art critic. At the time, they were perceived as savage and unspeakably tasteless, but now they are great masters. This epic scandal is being revisited in an upcoming exhibit at SFMOMA, where this particular Matisse painting lives.

I am thinking broadly about this after finding myself in tears multiple times watching, of all things, the Super Bowl 60 halftime show. Featuring Bad Bunny, aka Benito Antonio Martínez Ocasio, the Puerto Rican singer, rapper, and songwriter whose unique blend of Latin trap, pop, and reggaeton has made him the most globally popular artist in 2025, the performance was delivered entirely in Spanish, which honestly - would not be a huge scandal, except for in our currently fraught political hellscape where white supremacy rears its ugly head on a daily basis.

TOGETHER, WE ARE AMERICA. And, THE ONLY THING MORE POWERFUL THAN HATE IS LOVE. Those were the only two phrases in English from the Super Bowl 60 halftime show. How about that, as an intentional choice for English speaking audiences?

For anyone confused about an American football franchise halftime show delivered entirely in Spanish, I remind you that Bad Bunny performed it with Shakira in 2020, and that performance was delivered partially in Spanish. I don’t remember any backlash then, but things are so different now.

To offer larger context, music is art.

Opera performances have been enjoyed for centuries by English speaking audiences and delivered entirely in Italian, German, and French. I don’t recall any MAGA demands that opera performed in America be delivered in English, do you? Perhaps at the “new” Kennedy Center this absurd notion could have flourished, had it not been closed as an abject failure in imagination… But I digress.

Great art is bigger than country, ethnicity, or historical category. We don’t need a literal translation of art to love it, to glean its meaning, to allow its power to change us. Great art functions visually, aurally, theatrically, emotionally. It resonates in a nonverbal place. None of this requires one specific or dominant language.

Someone should explain this to our current president and administration, which has doubled down on tired racist trophes and made it a priority to bring arts institutions to heel. However, with the goal of dividing us as a nation, in order to further an unfettered pursuit of financial grift and of personal ego/grievance, this would be a fool’s errand.

Last night’s performance during Super Bowl 60 was a powerful rebuke of all of this, a reminder that no one group owns the culture or what it means to be American. The best artists have the ability to capture our attention and imagination, and some, like Bad Bunny, use their platform as an extension of their sacred First Amendment rights to point out injustice and celebrate deliberately marginalized cultures.

Last night, Bad Bunny recreated the splendor of Puerto Rico, an “unincorporated” American territory since 1898, from the sugar cane plantations, to dominoes and nail salons and boxing, all to elevate the perception of an island with gorgeous natural beauty and a rich culture. In contrast, MAGA operates based on the Great Replacement Theory, a debunked conspiracy inspired at least in part by American lawyer Madison Grant, who in 1916 wrote The Passing of the Great Race: Or, The Racial Basis of European History.

Grant claimed that the white race in the USA was being replaced by immigrants from “inferior” races, who were bringing poverty, crime, and corruption. His solution? An end to immigration and for driving up birth rates for the “genius producing classes.” Sound familiar? If not, perhaps you should take a look at Project 2025.

Grant’s ideas fell out of favor in this country when it was revealed that Hitler was using his writing as inspiration for the Holocaust, but somehow we are right back here again. Similar statements are now made on a daily basis by the president and his administration; they have become normalized, whereas even four years ago, just one such statement would have resulted in termination of one’s career.

There is no logic behind any of this. It’s all raw emotional fodder, designed to manipulate and provoke outrage, to destroy and tear down, to create chaos and make functioning, independent governmental agencies ineffective. Instead of blaming the billionaires who actively support this chaos and a lack of accountability, the message has been designed to divide the rest of us, to blame one another. It has been surprisingly effective.

However, this is why art is so powerful, so transformative, in pushing against this. It is why they shut down the Kennedy Center and have attempted to take over our Smithsonian Museums, our national parks, and anything else that unites people across political, ethnic, and socioeconomic differences.

Last night’s performance was, in my opinion, an example of great art. The costumes and choreography were inspired. The set was over the top. The music was sublime. The celebrity cameos were subtly placed. The symbolism was intentional but poetic. The message was clear, especially because it was delivered in Spanish.

America’s greatest asset has always been the freedom to be oneself, a unique human being with inalienable rights, defended by a system designed (albeit imperfectly) to provide justice for all. The artistry, the spectacle, the wild joy found in Bad Bunny’s performance on a national American stage, was designed to display the absolute mastery of a culture and people scapegoated in Trump’s America. Black and brown people are absolutely being used and abused in order to make up for the failings of this administration, dehumanized and defamed with false accusations.

As we all witnessed last night, cultural supremacy and excellence is earned through artistic integrity and bravery. Whether you loved it, hated it, felt confused or left out, you’re still thinking and talking about it. The headlines continue to abound. Critics continue to talk and write about it.

Bad Bunny is winning at headlines, stealing away Trump’s most prized possession for a day or two. And for me, this is the point: claiming our narrative and taking up space in our national public discourse, via our publications and social media threads, is one way we can fight back and win.

Art can give us obvious and lasting proof that artistic excellence does not belong to one person, ethnicity, or history. Until very recently, our most significant museums and performing arts venues have reinforced the myth of Western European cultural dominance. I can understand how the correction, to include women and people of color, is threatening to certain people whose sense of importance depends upon feelings of superiority. However, the art exists as its own proof.

If you believe that North and South America are completely disparate, last night’s performance offers a view to the contrary. If you believe that the USA’s relationship with Puerto Rico is equitable, and that Puertorriqueños don’t deserve representation in Congress or a vote in federal elections despite paying federal taxes, those exploding electric poles in Bad Bunny’s performance suggest it’s time to reconsider. If you believe that the USA should keep our borders closed but also dominate, economically and militarily, over all of the Americas, including Brazil, Columbia, Venezuela, Chile, Argentina, Mexico, Canada, and Puerto Rico, the performance of Benito Antonio Martínez Ocasio on Feb. 8, delivered in Spanish, begs to differ.

TOGETHER, WE ARE AMERICA. THE ONLY THING MORE POWERFUL THAN HATE IS LOVE.

These words delivered in English were designed to be remembered. They inspire us to fight back against that which we know is wrong. Can you imagine Trump, or Noem, or Miller, or any single person from our current administration uttering these words? They would never. They want to keep us apart, fighting over the crumbs.

In this moment, the art of Bad Bunny reminds us of an ideal America and our better selves: a shared humanity, love for cultural diversity, and a commitment to treating every single person with dignity. This vision is vibrant, colorful, and inclusive. It is generous. It is multigenerational, multicultural, and it values creativity at any level - from Lady Gaga to the local nail tech. This is a vision worth fighting for. The artists exist to show us how it can be done, beautifully.

“People will forget what you said, people will forget what you did, but people will never forget how you made them feel.”

I am thinking about this Maya Angelou quote today, how it rings true no matter how old or how accomplished you are. How impossible it is to insulate yourself from the feelings that other people can impose upon you if you want to be authentic and earnest. There is no amount of rational argument that can explain away one’s visceral, nonverbal, raw, twisty-turny feelings. It’s just how we are.

I tend to feel my feelings in a big way, which can be a vulnerability and a weakness. I always expect the best from people, both those I know well and those I have just met. I try to treat others kindly and with respect, the way I expect to be treated. And of course, I know I have failed at this a million times, like everyone else, but it’s never intentional. I’m just not good at being a mean girl; it’s not fun for me. I avoid intentional conflict at all costs. I want to like everyone and for everyone to be happy, which is an impossibility but it’s still what I want.

When you come into open and honest contact with other human beings, you open yourself up to being hurt. I am an extrovert, energized from being with people. I’m also incredibly sensitive, as many creative personalities are. Since I know how painful rejection is for me, I never want to cause anyone to feel this way. I go out of my way to extend hospitality whenever I can, erring on the side of inclusivity and being friendly whenever possible. I always expect the best from others, and this tends to be a good thing. Except when it’s really not.

When people are rude or cruel or insensitive or disrespectful, I am completely caught off guard. I don’t have a clever response ready and I’m not able to deflect or diffuse with humor in the moment. I tend to panic, assume it’s my fault, that I have done something terrible without meaning to. I feel foolish and humiliated. I blush and stammer. And then, I find myself mulling over what I should have said, how I should have said it, for days.

I think this is probably true for most people. We cannot control our feelings and sometimes it’s just shocking how intensely they can overwhelm your body and mind, keeping you up at night and messing with your ability to function. Humans are imperfect and we inflict all kinds of stupid cruelty on each other without even knowing it.

When I am in this agitated state of excessive and uncontrollable feeling, I find myself doing the worst possible thing. This is composing a self-righteous email.

I’m saying it right here and now, for myself and for you: Never send that long emotional email. You can write it. You can put all of your feelings into it, build a case, explain yourself–but never, ever hit send. Worse still is a bitchy text message or passive aggressive social media comment.

I’m saying this for myself as much as for you. Just. Never. Ever. Send. It.

As the sender and the recipient of way too many long, emotional, and constructively critical emails over the past few decades, I have learned, irrefutably, that it’s a terrible idea, for any reason and in any case.

It’s normal to wallow in our feelings, to write it all out, to be overwhelmed and melancholy and disappointed and - to feel wronged. Pour all your feelings out onto the page if that helps. However, don’t hit send. It’s an amateur move and will create more drama, the opposite of what you want (unless you’re the current POTUS, but that’s another story).

Even if you’ve been obviously and clearly wronged, insulted, maligned, or injured, sending accusations, complaints, and critical messages in writing always lands badly. Your righteous indignation and intent to correct bad behavior will always bounce back and stick to you, even when you’re 100% in the right. This kind of accusation always results in a pushback, a defensive stance, and never accomplishes its goal, which is for you to feel better. Worse, it gives power back to the person who originally hurt you, so they can do it again.

Usually the recipient of such an email responds defensively, accusing you of being the jerk - not them. They often refute your accusation with additional facts and context that you weren’t aware of, so you realize in part how dumb you’re being. Whatever rational proof you offer will not be accepted, but the feelings you provoke in them will be lobbed right back at you, with additional force.

Once you put your raw, wounded, accusatory self in writing - this also means that everyone the recipient knows will probably read it as well. Possibly, the whole world will read it.

My mother used to tell me to never put anything in writing that you wouldn’t want people to read in a newspaper. Guess what? I have been in that actual situation, where my wounded, private emails were published in the Washington Post by their Chief Art Critic at that time, in a situation where I had clearly and publicly been wronged. Guess what happened? The comments section was savage, about half of them insulting towards me.

I have definitely learned this the hard way - over and over again, and occasionally in public, which is even worse. So how do you resolve conflict, apply fairly earned critical feedback, in a way that actually works? You have to make yourself even more uncomfortable.

Before email and texting existed, we used the telephone or we met in person. This is still the only way to even remotely attempt to excise the bile in your gut and to mend the wound in the situation, if that is your goal.

You can talk to a therapist. Or talk to a close friend who will listen and won’t tell anyone else. You can write it down as therapy. But NEVER EVER EVER send it out into the world in an emotional, accusatory, and self-righteous email.

Don’t tweet it. Don’t text it. Don’t comment.

Don’t hit send, unless you want a public beef on your hands. If your goal is to simply stop feeling bad, sending the long email does not ever solve the problem. It makes you look bad and it will make you feel worse. If your goal is being right and proving to the person who hurt you that they are in the wrong, that won’t go well either.

It’s not about fairness; this is about the inadequacy of our current modes of communication - email, messaging, text - to solve complex emotional relationship-based problems. They are too immediate, too fast, and too easy to escalate without rational consideration. It’s simply to easy to pour your feelings out onto the screen and hit send without realizing the impending consequences, too easy to ignore the complex humanity of the person you’re sending the long emotional email to.

If you’re wondering, YES I receive messages like this, sometimes from random people, and YES, I have learned my lesson. I no longer put anything angry or emotional in an email. If it’s important to me, I’ll call or ask for a meeting. And if it seems like someone popping off with zero consideration towards who I am or what I do - I do not take it seriously because they’re not taking themselves seriously. I do not respond to long emotional emails.

There is no way to go through life insulated from being hurt and from hurting other people at times, even when operating under your best intentions. However, your email inbox is a place for spam and scams and bills and newsletters. For problems that really matter and require resolution, it’s always best to look people in the eye and talk in person. When you put something in writing that can be misconstrued or weaponized against you, it often is.

All images: Barbara Kruger, sourced from David Zwirner website.

I graduated from MICA’s low residency MFA program in 2025, but Timothy and I had stayed in touch regularly over the last twenty years quite organically through shared projects and professional endeavors. As a painter of great significance in the region, it has always been a priority for BmoreArt to cover Timothy’s exhibits at Goya Contemporary whenever possible. In addition, Timothy became a part of BmoreArt’s occasional freelance family, and he wrote thoughtful reviews of a variety of exhibits by painters he admired throughout the region.

A mentor to thousands of artists and MICA grads across the region, I had always intended to publish a story about Timothy in one of our print journals. Seemingly, the time had finally arrived with the 20th “Icons” issue, as his larger-than-life presence and his art work was a perfect fit for ICON status.

Timothy was featured in our portrait series by Justin Tsucalas, a project where artists are photographed in their studios, followed by an in-depth interview online. He had RSVP’d to attend our Ball a few weeks back, but then, the week before, he informed me that he was ill and was sorry but he would not be able to attend.

I knew that he had been undergoing treatment for cancer, off an on for many years. We had scheduled his photo shoot in between treatments, so that he could feel well enough to be there. I think the resulting photos are special, and, despite his less than optimal health, capture someone who has quiet confidence in a lifetime of accomplishments. It’s the photo of a man who knows who he is, who has known great satisfaction achieved through his own creative labor.

Some artists just have charisma and charm. Others are singularly focused on their art, and don’t reserve much energy for people. Timothy was the rarest of rare in the art world. He was able to focus in the studio: diligent, methodical, and driven while also being more than present and generous with his students, who continue to adore him, and his friends, fellow artists, and colleagues.

Sometimes this cult of personality could eclipse one’s focus on his paintings, which, intitialy come off as quiet, methodical, and measured. However, after spending time with Timothy’s paintings in person, their scale, elegance, and subtle color relationships provokes all kinds of monumental feelings and ideas - about the large and difficult abstract questions of life and meaning.

In December, 2024, I wrote a review of Timothy’s solo exhibit, Equipoise, at Goya Contemporary, for the Baltimore Banner and for BmoreArt. I started out by exploring his unusually specific and somewhat cerebral title.

First, let’s address the title. The term equipoise has multiple meanings, but the through line is a state of balance, and specifically a weight used to balance another weight. In clinical trials, equipoise is a state of genuine uncertainty about the value of two or more treatments, where an informed and rational person has no preference between treatments — essential for randomization to be effective.

“Mental equipoise” is a state of equanimity where the mind is purified of negative emotions and arrives at a steady, balanced composure. I wonder if this mindset is available in a pill form for entire countries? It certainly sounds like a necessary next step for positive, rational thought; a calm quietude achieved at the end of a dedicated journey.

When you see Timothy App’s large geometrical paintings, these definitions click. The term is perfect for his recent solo exhibition at Goya Contemporary, a beautiful gem of a commercial art space tucked into the Mill Centre in Hampden.

App was a Maryland Institute College of Art painting professor for five decades, but it makes sense to learn he first considered becoming an architect. The angles, discipline and precision deployed in App’s hard-edge abstractions take on the status of holy icons; the artist has borrowed aspects of formal rituals from his childhood — Catholic ceremony as well as a devotion to the formality of baseball. A balance of Brutalist and Bauhaus, the artist finds endless variation within dusky earth tones, beiges and blacks that would fall flat under a less-skilled artist’s hand.

Hard-line linear abstraction isn’t for everyone, and these paintings come off as dry if you’re looking for a quick read. In a study by the University of Pennsylvania’s Positive Psychology Center, it was revealed the average length of time a viewer spends with a single work of art is between 15 and 30 seconds. These paintings extend a middle finger to anyone attempting to casually encounter them; the only way to feel the deep exchange of energy is by taking the time to imagine the painstaking, restrained and inspired process by which they were constructed, mirroring the silent, slow work that moves civilizations forward.

In a 2021 review by Kerr Houston of a different solo exhibit, States of Mind (at Goya Contemporary, the author describes it as “a confident, disciplined show of recent work by an accomplished painter who has spent a full half-century exploring the possibilities inherent in hard-edged geometric abstraction. Featuring seven large canvases and six smaller works on paper, it’s a balanced, cohesive, and handsomely installed exhibition—it’s typical, in other words, of this artist’s meticulous, intentional practice.”

Houston continues:

In a series of short, philosophical statements in the accompanying materials, App repeatedly emphasizes the value of discipline, and speculates that this focused style offers “a model for ethical human behavior.”

That’s a large claim, but it’s not an arbitrary one—and it’s a reminder that App’s practice is deeply informed by a long history of North Atlantic modernism. Elements of that history relevant to App’s practice include the utopian philosophies of the Suprematists, the esoteric tendencies of Piet Mondrian, the systematic rigor of Josef Albers, the luminous spirituality of Mark Rothko, and the spare order of Minimalism.

At times, too, App has spoken of Agnes Martin’s emphasis upon fleeting moments of perfection. It’s a substantial list of influences, to be sure, but it’s united by a shared sense of the larger potential of art: a sense that comes across in App’s further claim that “any human endeavor seeking dynamic resolution of disparate and conflicting elements […] is a potent analogy for the constructive and peaceful resolution of any and all human conflict.”

Painting, here, is positioned as a template for virtuous action: a means to a much larger, and emphatically more concrete, end.

In the writing that Timothy published at BmoreArt, his intellect and understanding of painterly concerns is paramount. Yet, it’s also highly readable, for example his review of Linling Lu’s exhibit at Hemphill Gallery published in 2020. He focused on the timeless and spiritual concerns found in the work and eschewed the identity politics of the day.

I am sure that anyone reading this has also read the press release sent out by Goya Contemporary on Nov. 20, which expressed in much more detail and depth many of the feelings I am still wrestling with. Despite the inadequacy of words to express the avalanche of feelings and ideas, after receiving Zlata’s email, I sent the following letter to Timothy and his wife, Theresa.

Dear Timothy,

We missed you at the Bmoreart Icons Ball - and I don’t know if you have received a copy in the mail yet. So if not, please let me know and I’ll drop one off at your house!

I selected the one photo of you where you weren’t wearing a baseball cap. I just felt like I could see your face better, and I like the expression on it. I am attaching the others here for you to see as well.

I like this photo of you, its simplicity and elegance in composition; you flanked symmetrically by two giant paintings. I like that the paintings are on the ground, rather than the wall because you form the top of a pyramid with them. I wanted the composition to reflect your work, to have a sense of gravitas and weight to it, to feel purposeful. I think it does that.

You and I met by accident in 1999. At age 30, I was desperate to enroll in an MFA program, desperate to stop teaching art to high school students in order to become a college professor. I chose the MFAST because of its affordability and proximity to my life in Baltimore, although I had wanted to attend the Hoffberger School of painting, to study with Grace.

I was supposed to work with Dennis Farber, and when I arrived that summer, he was not there. You showed up a week or so later, along with Zlata Baum, and became my advisor for four years as I navigated my own path through the MFAST program, painting and teaching fulltime to pay my bills.

I suspect that my ambition always outweighed my abilities and that I could be lazy about certain details. I wonder if this was frustrating for you at times, but you had this gentle way of directing me, despite my stubborn attitude.

I remember that we started out with a remedial color mixing exercise, because you quickly discerned that, even though I had an undergraduate degree in painting, no one had ever properly taught me how to mix colors.

I remember that, almost immediately, you gleaned a sense of my aesthetics in paint. Despite my work being completely different, conceptually and stylistically, than yours, you understood what I was trying to do. And you helped me chart a path to get there.

Sometimes the work was frustrating and I felt so much disdain from [redacted name], which still makes me mad. I don’t think it was ever appropriate for him to be so dismissive of anyone’s work, especially mine.

I remember that he announced, once, in front of the entire group crit, that I “romanticized the act of painting” - and that, for him, that was an unforgivable sin. I was supposed to be mortified and ashamed, but I still think about that comment and disagree. In order to do this work, we have to be determined to be romantic.

In retrospect, I think the experience made me tougher. I think it has made me more resistant to setbacks and rejections, professionally, which is why I am still doing the work that I am, at BmoreArt.

Every artist wants to be loved. We all want to feel like our genius is recognized and appreciated. But getting to that place is not a linear process. And you never get to stay there, at that pinnacle of adoration and success. It’s a momentary thing, a Sisyphean labor, and you have to be determined to start over, again and again, at the foot of the hill. You have to love the boulder as much as the summit. For me, your paintings are about that dedication to romantic labor, about the structure behind creative inspiration.

I want to say thank you for encouraging me. I remember that, after I finished the MFA program at MICA, you came to my studio to give me a critique of my work, perhaps a year after I had finished. This really meant a lot to me.

I appreciate that I have gotten to run into you, to chat informally as old friends, and to work together at times over the past two decades. I appreciate your willingness to write about artists you admire for BmoreArt and I am glad that we have been able to write about your work over the years.

I want you to know that you are loved, beloved, and iconic - for countless artists and painters and fans. And this sentiment was reflected and reiterated at our event last weekend by so many people.

For whatever it’s worth, you are a highly regarded person. You are genuinely loved and respected, and this matters.

You have been incredibly helpful to me. Also occasionally a pain in the ass. As I know that I have been, too.

I appreciate that we have been able to know each other and to be real with each other. In your presence I have always felt properly seen and heard. Thank you.

Love,

Cara

In my own collection, I have a fantastic Lilliana Porter print, also from the Creative Alliance annual auction. I have a Phaan Howng painting from a Maryland Art Place ‘Under 5000’ auction. I have a sculptural brooch by Cindy Cheng from a Baltimore Jewelry Center Ornamenta auction. And I now have a small Oletha DeVane sculpture from a very recent Afro Charities auction. In some of these cases, I got into a bidding war to claim my rightful prize, perhaps spending a little more than I should have. Guess what? I have zero buyer’s remorse. I have never regretting buying art - not once, ever. I have, however, regretted NOT buying certain pieces.

For many years, though, I never bid on anything. It never even occurred to me to try.

In my 20’s and 30’s I participated in a ton of art auctions as an artist, so I was on the other side of this process. Some of the auctions were in Baltimore (MD Art Place, School 33, Creative Alliance) and others were in Washington, DC (Transformer, Washington Project for the Arts).

For me, as an artist, it was always preferable to participate in DC-based auctions over Baltimore for one simple reason. In DC, my work always sold. In Baltimore, my work sold occasionally, but not regularly.

Does DC have this much more money than Baltimore? Or is this just a cultural difference between two cities, where art collecting is seen as attainable in one but not in another?

Any artist will tell you, it SUCKS to have your work in an auction and have zero bids on it. It puts artists in a publicly vulnerable position, which is why I appreciate so much that 20 artists have been willing to include their works in BmoreArt’s current auction (ends Dec. 5!!!) at our C+C Gallery.

Browse BmoreArt's Art Auction

In most nonprofit art auctions, the artist receives 50% of the sale, so it’s the same split as selling in a gallery show. However, in an auction, the starting bid is priced low, typically about half of the market price of the work - with the hopes that the low price will invite multiple bids and rise to market level. So an auction offers greater opportunities for those of us with a smaller budget to collect a piece you normally couldn’t afford, and also supports a great nonprofit organization.

So why do people buy the art in DC but not so much in Baltimore?

I never really stepped back to question why this stereotype was reinforced to me, over and over again, auction after auction. Why were patrons in DC willing to purchase art while in Baltimore, my works only sold when priced under $500? Is there really that much more money in DC? Is it because Baltimore is a ‘city of artists,’ who will spend their $$ on art supplies and bar tabs, but not art? Or is there a culture of collecting in DC that does not yet exist in Baltimore??

There are a lot of collectors in Baltimore, and many the most serious ones are concentrated on museum boards. However, these collectors historically have not had a strong relationship with Baltimore-based artists. In general, they are more familiar with NY galleries and artists and international art fairs.

Is this about the clout and validation that NY offers or more about a lack of awareness of artists in Baltimore?

Browse BmoreArt's Auction

Amy Sherald is one obvious example of an artist we all knew was a genius way back when... In the mid-2000s we all should have purchased a painting, but most of us missed out. Looking back, I wish I had carved out the small chunk of change this would have required, but hindsight is always 20/20.

At this point, there are a lot of artists in Baltimore on the cusp of national and international success! Their works are shown and collected in museums across the country. Their works are currently affordable, but probably won’t be for long. And still, it still often languishes in local art auctions.

What if you had the opportunity to purchase work from one of the next rising art stars in the region?? I don’t think anyone should purchase art they don’t genuinely love or merely for investment. However, it is exciting, owning a work of art by an artist whose star is rising. It’s also an incredible thing to be a part of an artists’ upwards trajectory, knowing that your investment has gotten them one step closer, that museums may one day call on you to loan your piece to them.

As we head into this weird next year and holiday season, things are more difficult for a lot of people, not just artists. It’s not a great time to buy anything, and we all anticipate the holiday season adding stress to the lives of a great many.

However, if you’re in a place where adding a new work of art by one of Baltimore’s rising artists is an option - now is the perfect time to consider it. I’m including images of a few of my favorite works of art from the current show and if there is anyone that interests you - message me. I am happy to email you back, with accompanying articles that BmoreArt has produced over many years about the artists.

I’m sure that buying art seems like a crazy thing to do right now, in the face of so much economic uncertainty. However, purchasing a work of art is a profoundly hopeful act. It shows that you believe in the artist’s future, you support BmoreArt’s mission, and you believe in Baltimore as a City of Artists.

I DOUBLE DARE YOU to bid on one auction artwork in our current Iconically Yours Baltimore exhibit and auction at C+C …

And if you’re just being slick and biding your time to bid till the end so the price stays low - I get it. You’re making me sweat. That’s fine but don’t forget!!

Don't Sleep! Bid on Art...

Event planning is not for the faint of heart.

I never intended my job to include throwing giant parties in service to the arts, but here I am. If I’m being honest, I’m really just following the model set forth by all kinds of museums, which host Galas and soirees and cocktail parties on the regular in order to fund the less sexy aspects of museum-ing.

For much of my career, I have viewed “the G-word of events” from a distance. Seeing images from a black tie formal provokes all kinds of emotions - from curiosity to FOMO to derision. On one hand, I love to luxuriate in the beauty of what people are wearing, and I see this as an art form in itself. But it also makes me question why certain people always seem to be in the room and not others, especially the dearth of artists at upscale art events.

When you don’t have to be involved in planning these kinds of events, it seems like a popularity contest or who’s who based on some random idea of an “IN Crowd,” and this can take you back to middle school cafeteria you can’t sit at my lunch table vibes. However, the reality behind beautiful fundraising events is a complex network of responsibilities and relationships; it’s a zillion calls and emails and meetings and flowcharts and spreadsheets and contracts.

From the very start of BmoreArt’s print journal in 2015, throwing a magazine release party for about 300-ish people has been built into our mission. This began as a distribution strategy, well before we had subscribers to mail to or booksellers willing to vend them. Our first party was hosted at Maryland Art Place and we had a DIY (zero) budget, where Union Brewing donated beer and Katie Boyts and Chris Attenborough made tacos and René Treviño hung silver balloons and Michael Anthony Farley was our incredible DJ in drag.

I had never thrown a big party like that before and it was terrifying. I had to pull all kinds of city permits, stand in Kafkaesque lines downtown filling out forms in order to go stand in another long line, and it was a learning experience. Why is the Fire Marshall always out of town? Why do they only accept checks? I digress.

I invited everyone who worked on the magazine, the artists and organizations featured in the issue, and I’m not sure who else? I guess a selection of friends and colleagues and I remember there were tickets and they sold out. But people kept showing up anyway. That night, 500 magazines went out into the world - which was super helpful to me because at that time I was singlehandedly delivering those heavy azz boxes all over town.

After that release party, we settled into a pattern. Slowly, we added a few advertisers into the mix, so those organizations receive a certain number of tickets to each event. And then, with each subsequent issue, we hosted it at a different venue according to the theme of the publication. The “Beauty” issue was hosted at The Engineer’s Club, the “Collect” issue at the BMA Sculpture Garden and Gertrude’s, the “Wellness” issue at The Aquarium, etc. and each space would allow us to host a cute but DIY budget cocktail party with donated alcohol (thank you Baltimore Spirits Co! thanks, Union and others!) for two hours on a Thursday night.

Once we started selling subscriptions, we wanted to incentivize people becoming members at a participatory level, so we included 2 free tickets to each release party - twice a year, fall and spring - for the “Artist” level ($100/year) membership or above. A hundred bucks a year is honestly cheaper than a bar tab for a party that is always unique, because the subjects in each issue and the locations change with the theme. As these parties became more established, they have grown larger.

We began to include some light catering at events, and have worked with a number of wonderful local groups like Classic Catering, Woodberry Kitchen, and True Chesapeake, and these Thursday night cocktail parties have gotten more complex and professional.

All to say, our release events have evolved over time. They are mission-aligned, and I firmly believe that parties, especially where people get dolled up, build community in all kinds of positive ways.

In the beginning, I was always able to say YES to anyone or everyone who shows up, who wanted to be included, and let’s face it - Baltimore is not great at RSVP-ing. BmoreArt’s parties have always been deliberately inclusive and we typically break even on them, cost-wise. They have always been friend-raisers, where we hope to attract new subscribing members through the event, but they have not been fundraisers.

However. Our event on Saturday for Issue 20 was different. This issue was a milestone for our organization and the moment seemed right to host something larger and more ambitious. It was also an opportunity to move closer to our next book publishing goal, and to meet the political and social moment we are in with commitment and intention.

On Saturday, Nov. 1 we hosted our first Ball and Benefit. It was a fundraiser, with a goal of raising $100,000 towards our next book project, an anthology of Baltimore-based photography and poetry in 2026. We were able to cultivate relationships with a variety of individuals and business sponsors in order to reach our fundraising goal, and we sold tickets to the event as well, with discounts towards our Artist+ subscribers, but were not able to offer them complimentary tickets as in past events. As with past parties, the featured artists, contributors, and advertisers all got complimentary tickets as well.

After the tickets sold out, I was not in a position to accommodate everyone who wanted to attend or add names last minute as I have in the past, because it was a different kind of event. I had to be responsible to the venue and my team, to respect the limits of what we were able to do - and this was a hard for me, keeping my “more is more” self in check.

I’m sure from the outside it all looks seamless and fun, and it’s supposed to, especially in all of these gorgeous photos. However, if you’ve ever planned or hosted a wedding, or any other sort of large fundraising event, you KNOW the truth. My pledge to all of you event planners and hosts: my RSVP game will forever be airtight. Fielding and capturing RSVPs is so complicated!!! Missing some, finding some last minute, trying to implement a system for this… is herding cats. It’s chaos.

Hosting a great party is an art form, but hosting a fundraising event and making it a success is a whole other animal. Hospitality, an interesting mix of people, and an authentic sense of conviviality are all necessary in making any sort of event a success. But also, I have learned that certain gatherings serve a greater purpose and at this point, my FOMO has subsided when I see photos of beautiful guests at a beautiful event that I am not a part of. If I am not able to add energy into the mix in some way, I don’t need to be there.

And now, it is done. The 20th issue is out. I am thrilled with the feedback received from our guests, sponsors, icons, and their friends. I am excited to move forward into 2026 knowing that we have raised much of the funding needed to create our next big book project, which will undoubtedly require a giant party to celebrate its existence next year.

Please and Thank You:: If you missed out on sponsoring the ICONS Ball, but are able to support our publishing effort, consider making a tax-deductible donation to our book project here: https://fundraising.fracturedatlas.org/bmoreart. Any amount is great. Book sponsorships, which includes your name acknowledged in print, start at $2500.

After these parties I am always filled with mixed emotions. One one hand, the cortisol and adrenaline are still blipping around in my system and I feel overcome with the need to thank the zillions of people involved with this crazy thing that I decided needed to happen. There’s always a shame spiral of - why did I need to do all this? Was it too much or too little? And there is always pride in seeing how beautiful everyone looks, that we have created a reason for them to get dressed up and show up to celebrate.

At this point, I am thankful this event was memorable and special. I’m so happy that we did it and that so many people attended and had a good time.

Thank you to the Lord Baltimore Hotel for all of your generosity and expertise!

Thank you to our sponsors for believing in the work that we do.

Thank you to our subscribing members for supporting BmoreArt in an ongoing basis and being a part of the momentum towards a shared City of Artists.

Thank you to everyone who bought tickets!

Thank you to the artists, writers, photographers, and everyone whose work made Issue 20 possible - especially the photographers who captured the event!

I am the first person to admit I am not an ideal event planner. I have a lot of big ideas and I usually don’t know how to execute them gracefully. These people though…

The brilliant (and very handsome) team at BmoreArt planned and manifested this event in all kinds of ways that are well beyond my capabilities - and I am so grateful to them, beyond even the ability to express it. THANK YOU: Raquel, Chelsea, Ami, Becky, Aya, Lillian, Ines, Maria, Michael, Advisory Board members, and RWD Foundation.

To anyone who wanted to come but couldn’t or didn’t - I hope you will join us next time! We will continue our Thursday evening cocktail party tradition for the next few issues and do our very best to include everyone we can. Issue 21 will release in May, and the theme is “The Future.”

Coming up, we are hosting two great events in the C+C Gallery, with the ICONS Art Auction up on our walls till the December 4 closing reception. Consider bidding on the art - it’s an excellent representation of what Baltimore has to offer, and artists get 50% of the sale.

All artwork is currently on view in the BmoreArt Connect+Collect gallery, giving you a chance to see it in person before placing your bids. We have an event coming up at the gallery on November 22, please save the date and RSVP here!

Make an appointment to visit. Or plan to attend the closing reception on Dec. 4.

View auction items and bid before December 4: https://bmoreart.betterworld.org/auctions/bmoreart-icons-ball-2025

On Tuesday night, I took off from BWI and landed in Heathrow on Wednesday morning. Thank you to British Air, noise cancelling headphones, a silk sleep mask, and Xanax, for making a semblance of sleep possible.

Bleary-eyed and addled, I was rewarded when my dear friend Stewart picked me up with a mug of coffee. She calmly drove us ON THE WRONG SIDE OF THE CAR to a park next to a castle. She wanted to show me the deer and the birds and the trees, and I did my best to avoid stepping on giant goose turds. We stopped at her house for more coffee. Then we took the tube and a train and walked a bit to check into my hotel and shower before the main event.

We had a full day on Wednesday. According to the pedometer on my phone, I walked seven miles. We attended to the VIP Opening of the Frieze London art fair, held in a giant white tent in Regent’s Park. There was a complimentary champagne toast (Ruinart, fair sponsor) in the gloriously dense and colorful booth of another dear friend, René Treviño. He had been recommended for a solo booth in the Artist-to-Artist section by Amy Sherald, a friend from MICA grad school and after, when they were both resident artists at the Creative Alliance.

The booth was organized by Erin Cluley, another MICA MFA graduate and former Creative Alliance resident, of the Erin Cluley Gallery, based in Dallas, TX, her home town. In the midst of a gigantic, bustling, art-filled fair, their presentation was timely, relevant, ambitious, beautiful, disruptive, and overwhelming in all the best possible ways.

Thank you to René and Erin for giving me an official excuse to travel to London. I am proud to say that I taught myself basic phone video editing on the fly, which was an unexpected and necessary value-add, all accomplished while sitting in the exhibitor’s secret lounge, a quiet white space full of baked goods and caffeine products.

My wifi wasn’t great the entire week and my phone battery was constantly low, probably due to all the photos I took. Now I have thousands of new photos and videos - and honestly, what do I do with them all? This one video (with voiceover) was at least proof that I was there and accomplished something.

I had never been to London before, except for a few layovers at Heathrow, so this was my chance to see as much art as possible and explore the city with friends who love the same things that I do. We were awed by the Kerry James Marshall survey at The Royal Academy, blown away by the Doh Ho Suh exhibit at the Tate Modern, and luxuriated in the insane plaster caste galleries and jewelry displays at the Victoria & Albert Museum. We froze our asses off taking a boat up and down the Thames. We had fish and chips, pints in pubs, and wandered through parks and outdoor shopping bazaars. It was cold and kind of dreary the entire time, but it didn’t rain.

I returned to Baltimore on Sunday, just after I finally adjusted to UK time, so here I am, up crazy early and dying to go to bed at 6 pm. Now what? Do I jump wholeheartedly back into the maze of tasks and goals and emails and follow-ups and editorial calendar, and - the major thing - event planning for the BmoreArt Ball on Nov. 1?

I don’t have time to extract any sort of coherent ‘content’ from the trip. I didn’t have the time or the Wifi to write an official report on Frieze. I don’t have the bandwidth to review any of the exhibits I visited, despite taking a gazillion photos and falling in love with the commitment to exhibition design I found across the board. What do I do with this experience, in terms of making it ‘productive’ or ‘valuable’ or ‘important,’ from a professional standpoint??

The truth is - I don’t know. What did I learn? How do I compartmentalize, edit, and share this experience in a profound way? At this point, I need more sleep and more time to process all of it, but I don’t have that. All I know is I am thankful for the experience. And I need more sleep.

The very American need to monetize our time, at all times, is not helpful nor realistic. I now know a lot more than I did before last week, and that has to count for something.

I had a chance to spend real time with people I care about, especially Stewart who has been living in the UK for close to six years. I had the opportunity to sample all kinds of public transportation that functioned at an optimal level. I walked over giant bridges, and wandered about in parks and graveyards. I learned that London is chock full of antique bookstores, full of early editions and specific specialties, each unique.

I ate great food that included mushy peas, Spanish tapas, Indian curry, and Italian Carbonara. I walked through a lot of beautiful gardens, saw a zillion cute small dogs, and saw many beautiful birds that I will never remember. I wore sneakers the entire time, and am now richer with the knowledge that packing heels or any sort of slightly uncomfortable shoes for a trip is a waste of priceless suitcase space.

I learned that pants are called trousers, fries are called chips, an apartment is a flat, a sweater is a jumper, and a charity shop is one of my favorite things–ever. I learned to look both ways, repeatedly, before crossing a street. I saw a few global celebrities sitting in bars and tearooms right next to me, and I pretended like they weren’t there. English people are so polite! Even the street signs start with the word ‘Sorry!’ I was not about to disrupt someone’s meal for any reason.

I saw a ton of great and (also, good) art. I experienced and appreciated museums that fully embraced all manner of artistic vision, with equal commitment to historic and contemporary work, to fine art and fashion, to diverse ideas and architecture. And I suspect that those experiences will impact the choices I make, professionally and personally, going forward.

One week later, I know that my brain knows a lot more. Sleep-addled and still a bit dazed, I have to jump back into regular life here in Baltimore, but with the knowledge that something important occurred.

I am thinking about two quotes attributed to Mark Twain about travel, and they’re helping me to grant myself the permission that I seem to be looking for.

“Travel is fatal to prejudice, bigotry, and narrow-mindedness, and many of our people need it sorely on these accounts. Broad, wholesome, charitable views of men and things cannot be acquired by vegetating in one little corner of the earth all one’s lifetime.”

“Twenty years from now you will be more disappointed by the things you didn’t do than by the ones you did do. So throw off the bowlines, sail away from the safe harbor, catch the trade winds in your sails.”

Cheerio.

However, a month or two has passed since my last essay and… I have been trying to give myself the space to feel a genuine creative spark, some kind of authentic experience in real life that inspires me to show up on the page, but it hasn’t happened. Yet.

I know it will happen again because, it’s just how I am. But for the last month or two I have been ALL IN on administrating for a small arts organization. This is no joke and, for all the artists and creatives who have built some sort of infrastructure, organization, collective, or business because it didn’t exist as an opportunity for you–I see you. I feel your administrative creative brain suck acutely.

If you follow BmoreArt, you know that our publication is reaching a milestone: the 20th print issue and ten years of print publishing. It’s a big deal, especially given how broken our media ecosystem is, locally, nationally, and globally.

I didn’t think it was possible for our major newspapers to sink lower than the depths of inaccuracy and bias of last spring, but here we are. It’s like Game of Thrones realized as a news ecosystem. You think, OK, it cannot get any worse now… and then, it does! Things are demonstrably worse now. We need positive storytelling and local publications more than ever.

Rather than wallowing, I prefer action. And the action that I have chosen for myself is to produce our 20th issue, themed around Icons, which requires a lot of logistical organization, communication, meetings, photo shoots, more meetings, spreadsheeting, and bill paying. I have also set a goal for myself to raise $100,000.00 through a Ball & Benefit event (ask me about sponsorship opportunitiess!!! See? I can’t stop / won’t stop), which will serve as the release party for Issue 20, in order to produce our forthcoming book - In Light and Verse: Baltimore Poets and Photographers.

So yeah, you read that right. When I’m not racing against editorial deadlines, I am planning an event, raising funds, in order to… get ready… DO MORE WORK. To be clear, I love what I do and creating this next book is something I have wanted to do for two years now. It’s time, and BmoreArt’s milestone achievement needs to mean something, beyond a great party and a beautiful new issue.

For me, this means that I have to stretch myself beyond all previous comfort zones, to be humbled and to learn, and it’s terrifying sometimes, but I love it. It also has meant that I have ZERO left for myself as an individual creator right now. Hence, no Substack venting.

I think this is ok, it’s normal - and I firmly believe in the Julia Cameron “Artist’s Way” restocking the pond/ refilling the well analogy, in terms of how to regain your creative mojo. I have Morning Pages and Artist Dates in my future, with the plan to wake up an extra 30 minutes earlier, and be one of those 5:30 am productive geniuses. Right now, though - I am just barely hanging on! I can’t even keep up with my email inbox.

Again, this isn’t a complaint - this process can be thrilling at times. But it’s weird. It’s a shift that happens when an artist or creative person turns their vision into an actual thing. The idea is always seductive, beautiful, perfect… insert any superlative adjective here: ________. But the reality is different. The reality is a slog. The reality feels too busy. And there are no shortcuts, no fast forwards, no jumping ahead in line here. You just have to do the work, day in and day out, and get through it and do the very best you can do.

In my own self-talk therapy sessions, I remind myself that doing the work, even the (boring) administrative, (scary) sales, or the (stressful) events/ lectures, are the place where you learn the most. These are the times when you meet new people, have conversations that are unexpectedly meaningful. Sometimes, you really feel a door closing and there is a solid NO. These are all teachable moments, and I try to remind myself that No’s are a part of the process, that if you don’t get any rejections you’re not pushing far enough. It is humbling, though.

This is probably the least spicy of all my Substack letters. It was just venting actually, so if that’s a turn-off for you, that’s ok with me. Right now, it feels good to be typing these words when I should be returning emails, updating my calendar, and following up.

All you artists turned administrators, you creative business people, especially those who work in development, I just want you to know that your labor is appreciated and essential. We all have big ideas and an expansive vision for a future where creativity is valued, rewarded, and realized… and this doesn’t happen without spreadsheets, calendar notifications, Zoom meetings, coffee meetings, lunch meetings, dinner meetings, lectures, public events, panel discussions, and just, showing up. This means time away from the studio and personal work.

The eventual payoff of our labor is twofold. One is the art object, the beautiful thing we wanted to bring to life, the other is the community we build while we are administrating. You really cannot have one without the other. If you’ve ever poured your soul into a creative project and then, had no one show up to experience it, you know what I’m talking about.

Administrative labor, when done thoughtfully and well, builds a community of stakeholders, people who care and invest their time and resources into what becomes a shared vision. And perhaps this is even more valuable than the art itself.

If you want to celebrate BmoreArt’s Issue 20 - Buy a Ticket! LINK HERE. We don’t have a ton of tickets left, even thought we just starting selling them…

Even better - Become a Sponsor! LINK HERE for more Info.

And/ also - come to this talk! It’s this Weds at the BMA and requires an RSVP. Email me for that info… But - it’s all about building infrastructure for our City of Artists.

Infrastructure – Building a City of Artists
BMA Council Talk and Reception
Wednesday, September 17, 2025
6–8:30 p.m.

The Baltimore Museum of Art invites you to an evening of thought-provoking conversation, galvanized by City of Artists, the landmark publication released by BmoreArt in 2023. The esteemed panel, featuring artists Derrick Adams, Devin Allen, Jackie Milad, and Cara Ober, will be moderated by Angela N. Carroll. Their conversation will consider what it takes to sustain a city of artists, highlighting the ways in which artists have fostered collective infrastructure to grow and sustain artistic communities. Panelists will discuss alternative institution building, mentoring and creative entrepreneurship, publishing and criticism, and education.

Program Highlights

Panel Discussion in the Joseph and Rebecca Meyerhoff Auditorium

6–7:15 p.m.

The evening begins in the Auditorium with a compelling panel discussion featuring Derrick Adams, Cara Ober, Jackie Milad, and Devin Allen. The panel will be moderated by the esteemed Angela N. Carroll.

Reception in Fox Court
7:15–8:30 p.m.
Enjoy music, light bites, and an open bar as we continue the celebration.

If you work in sales or marketing, I am sure that you are familiar with the phrase “reducing friction.” Now that I am aware of it, I’m seeing it everywhere. This is the modus operandi of late stage capitalism, the most successful sales technique expanded to exponential and devastating consequences.

Being unsure or uncomfortable or inconvenienced used to be a normal part of daily life, but now we live a mostly frictionless experience, like rich people. When we are physically, emotionally, or intellectually challenged, that is, forced to be uncomfortable, we get angry. This is not right! It’s unfair! We want our experiences to be easy, simple, with no unexpected surprises. We want our biases to be confirmed at all times. We want to feel in control in every scenario, but this is a sales tactic, a facade. While luxurious, it’s not real and it’s not healthy.

How do we keep ourselves from becoming mindless blobs floating around with our brains plugged into screens designed to distract and sell and swipe right and slowly kill us? I know that you know what I am going to say next, but I am going to say it anyway. Great art of all kinds, especially that which confuses us and requires us to interact with other humans, is the answer.

Unlike sitting at the Department of Motor Vehicles, where friction abounds in a torturous, Kafkaesque way, the best artists deploy friction within seductive, compelling, and downright demanding creations. By jamming our senses with images so fantastic, beautiful, mind-boggling, and strange, artists induce friction. When done right, they jolt us awake and force us to confront confusing and uncomfortable ideas, and this is essential to our survival.

One aspect of discomfort is navigating within a state of not knowing. Great art requires decoding. It is not immediate or direct. It requires effort. This can feel daunting, like attempting to translate a foreign language. It’s that feeling of waking up in the middle of a dream, where everything made sense one moment ago but suddenly it’s bizarre, elusive, nonverbal. You know the artist is trying to tell you something, often many many things, but you’re struggling to make the puzzle pieces fit together. It’s annoying. It’s irritating. Your frictionless brain hurts. Who do these artists think they are?

Wickerham & Lomax's "Return of American Pest" at Current Space is an intelligent, weird, beautifully crafted, poetic, crass, immersive, maximalist, bombastic sensual romp. It’s also about the most toxic and divisive issue of our time - American electoral politics, but it somehow manages to completely sidestep the minefield of partisan messaging while luxuriating in its language and rich symbolism.

“American Pest” channels political symbols and chaos, waste and fraud, showmanship and sales, but there is no sense of partisan allegiance or outcome. Honestly, this is the strangest part of this show, the utter lack of connection between political language and outcome in our collective daily lives. As I stepped over the red, white, and blue floor littered with overturned tables and chairs, hanging buckets of dead rats, and walls of electoral T-shirts, I kept looking for MY politics - everywhere. I was looking for a reflection of my own political biases, because everything I read in every source confirms that I am right and they are wrong.

When I didn’t find this here, I immediately felt betrayed. How dare they? However, the exhibit is just so overwhelmingly detailed and lovingly, intentionally crafted, I put my politics aside for the moment. It hurt to do this, but I wanted to understand and my personal framework was inadequate for the job. I was forced to let curiosity lead me into new places.

What I find most compelling is how these artists integrate site- and time-specific metaphorical images into an over-the-top, over-produced dystopian but beautiful funhouse mirror world where nothing is as it seems. The familiar becomes arcane. The obscure becomes vernacular. Like Kendrick Lamar’s halftime show, the red, white, and blue provides a baseline for the story, but whose story is this?

“American Pest” feels intensely familiar and specific, yet it reflects nothing from my highly partisan social media feeds. It feels like entering into an America that exists, because there are Tshirts and swag and plywood and giant dream-catchers made of resin emblazoned with chains and rats and penises, but I’m seeing it as if under water or on some other plane of reality that I have never visited before.

Does “American Pest” reflect the traumatic election hangover of the entire country? Or does it reflect the political reality of the majority of Americans who chose not to vote for either president this last election cycle? When completely surrounded, literally every inch is filled with intricate, intentionally-made objects and images. My only choice was to simply observe, rather than think.

“American Pest” makes no sense to my logical brain. I’m annoyed by this red, white, and blue art that surrounds and enfolds me, these flattened rats in buckets and Topo Chico bottles and crushed beer cans, these artists who clearly know what they’re doing and what they’re saying, but within a code I cannot completely crack. Or, their ideas simply are too complicated for words.

We live in a time where we expect there to be text accompanying every piece of visual art. We expect a simple A.I. summary, a translation for everything we see. We want to be able to stick a flag into a work of art, and triumphantly proclaim comprehension. But the reality is this: visual art is mostly nonverbal. It’s intended this way.

Sometimes the art insists on this, and when it does, you can react one of two ways. You can get mad and reject the experience for making your brain work too hard and making you feel dumb, or you can suspend judgement and simply float in a visual space where pictures contain their own power and words are inadequate for experiencing them.

The only way to process this kind of art is to let it be poetry. You have to lie down, supine, and let it wash over you, waves of contradictory feelings and nonsensical nonsense, before you can arrive at, if not a “comprehension,” a sensation, a feeling of wonder and inadequacy.

Wickerham and Lomax’s artistic practice centers around historic and contemporary social research, with an emphasis on obscure fabrication techniques and objects. This artist duo is obsessed with accumulating beautiful things, cramming them all together in a space where they are too big and too intricate to be ignored.

While their interpretations challenge definitions of beauty and taste, the craftsmanship and monumentality goes far beyond most of the big budget museum exhibits I have ever seen. Talking directly to the artists is helpful in decoding their densely crammed work, but teaching yourself to navigate a friction-filled land mine of American political symbolism is a much greater gift.

The reality is, we are not happy living in a frictionless world. Friction sharpens a blade. Friction yields energy. Friction creates fire. Friction builds to a climax, slowly but surely. And, who would ever want a frictionless fuck? Or, for that matter, a frictionless life? Living on our screens is making us dumb and soft and slow, intolerant and easily manipulated. In contrast, great art is contradictory, irritating, difficult, and confusing.

Are we all just American pests, a pestilence upon the earth? Are we destined to be like these exquisitely rendered rats, floating in buckets that Wickerham & Lomax have created? Or is there hope for us to craft a new existence that requires vigilance and a perception informed by all of our senses, living in the material world?

If we can lean into the friction generated in this monumental and bizarre and beautiful art exhibit, if we can familiarize this sensation in other aspects of our lives, perhaps we can learn to see truth beyond the endless barrage of clever memes and tweets and sound bites designed to keep us divided and on the path of least resistance.

Warning: This newsletter runs on caffeine and ideas. It is unedited so please excuse any typos!

I have always been a voracious reader, spending days locked away in my bedroom, devouring novel after novel. Although I may not remember specific details about myself at different points in my life, I can recall characters, conflicts, and story arcs with precision. I absolutely believe that reading a book imprints itself upon our consciousness forever (and in a way that listening to a book or watching TV does not), and that reading changes our belief systems and the way we see the world. In short, books have power. This is why Republican “Liberty” groups are attempting to ban them today.

In addition to reading lots of new novels, I tend to re-read certain favorites, over and over. Usually there is a decade in between readings, but I always come back to specific books. Some do not hold up over time, while others grow more relevant.

While the book is the same, reading it makes me realize how much I have changed. Each time brings new experiences to the way I process the information on the page. These books have the ability to present new insight–about myself, my relationships, and the world, despite having read them a gazillion times.

Over the past few months, I have read George Orwell’s 1984, Margaret Atwood’s Handmaid’s Tale and Oryx and Crake, and a variety of Octavia Butler novels, including Parable of the Sower and Parable of the Talents. These books have beckoned to me because of current events in the United States where illegal authoritarian practices have become the norm at a federal level and the rule of law is breaking down.

We are living under the influence of individuals with wealth so vast that it nullifies democratic safeguards. Our news and media has devolved into a propagandistic, for-profit system so effective it’s radicalized half the country. It feels like we are all trapped in an absurdist cult at times, and this makes me feel powerless, harboring anxiety that it will worsen. I think this is one reason that reading certain books, especially dystopian futuristic novels, offers me solace and a sense of control.

It’s not as if I wish for a future where our current civilization, imperfect as it is, has broken down. I’m not obsessed with doomsday or authoritarian regimes. However, reading these kinds of books shows me what we are fighting for and against, how much we have to lose. They also remind me that human beings can survive under any kind of government system, although being miserable and forced to censor yourself, to pretend everything is fine when it is not, is required.

These books help me to see current events in context, but also to visualize a massive societal collapse or what happens afterwards. What I have realized in this most recent reading cycle is that the fictional worlds created by these authors ALREADY EXIST. They just don’t exist in Western nations, for most people anyway - yet.

As current political events unfold each day, these fictional worlds have become more plausible, more familiar. More and more, I recognize aspects of them on a global stage. I don’t know whether this is helpful or not, but I tend to take the ideas that I have been exposed to, the ones that feel true or real or relevant, and see their application in real life. In a very odd way, reading fiction is helping me to see current events within a context that appears more truthful, more universal, and more cyclical than reading the actual news.

I know that Orwell and Atwood and Butler invented the worlds that exist in their novels, but truth is often stranger than fiction. Great art captures the zeitgeist of our time and often predicts the future, even when the artist isn’t necessarily trying to do that.

In Atwood’s Gilead, women are stripped of all of their rights and forced to procreate under a Christian theocratic totalitarian regime. Both ignorant and barbaric, everyone except the leaders of this new government are forced to obey draconian rules, with the secret police (The Eyes) watching you at all times. Fake religious fervor is a must, as is terrible fashion (probably because heterosexuals are in charge of it).

But, how different is it to live in the Taliban’s Afghanistan right now? In Kabul, it is now illegal for women’s voices to be heard in public. Two decades ago, Afghan women were doctors and lawyers and professors. It seems insane and counter-productive for a government to remove half of all professionals from the work force, to turn their back on education and health care and science, but it’s the reality now. With our current president targeting scientific research, health care, and college, it makes me realize Gilead could happen here, too, with support from highly focused Christian Nationalist groups.

There are so many prescient details in all of these books. Butler’s Parable of the Sower, written in 1993, features a Christian charlatan grifter of a president of the USA whose “Make America Great Again” slogan rang hollow, even to the devout characters in her book. President Donner dismantles government programs and enlists violent militias to kidnap citizens for no reason and puts them into prison camps where they are forced to labor and follow “Christian” values. It’s so eerie to read it now, given where the USA is politically. In Sower, the need for walled cities where the haves are protected from the chronically poor have-nots echoes modern day South Africa, so it’s not surprising that Elon Musk supports cutting back on the government programs that have kept us from this kind of obvious apartheid state.

In Atwood’s Oryx and Crake (2001), the first of the MadAddam trilogy, the United States is controlled by independent biotech corporations within militarily protected walled cities where only the educated and ‘valued’ are allowed in; the rest of the people live in desolate “Pleeblands” and other environmentally devastated landscapes.

This scenario is playing out right now in the US government with tech billionaires advocating for their own ‘network cities’ also known as ‘freedom cities’ and states. What is a freedom city? It’s a privately controlled and policed, undemocratic space, and there are modern examples like Telosa, Praxis, and California Forever.

I assume this is the reason that so many tech billionaires support Trump. Even though his policies are economically, environmentally, and ethically detrimental, they would rather support a party that imposes no regulation on their business rather than a democracy that protects individuals from them. The system we have now is far from perfect, but tech oligarch-owned city-states are not an improvement over three separate branches of government with checks and balances and a rule of law that, at least in theory, protects everyone equally.

The Orwellian existence laid out in 1984 is perhaps the most extreme and disturbing of all of these books, with an ending so traumatic that I had blocked it out until this recent reading. The main character, Winston Smith, goes to work each day in gray, greasy clothes at the Ministry of Truth, where he rewrites historical records to reflect Big Brother and the ruling party’s ever-changing narrative. He starts to rebel when he finds himself writing the opposite of yesterday’s facts, over and over, but rebellion is not tolerated. In Oceania, there is mass surveillance of every single person which guarantees zero privacy or freedom, as well as the idea of the “thoughtcrime,” which is anything individualistic or questioning of the authoritarian rule. Basically you can be disappeared for any reason at any time, with no recourse.

Today, we choose to surveil ourselves, almost every minute of the day, with our smart phones and electronic devices. How many times do you mention a specific product or topic - and find it, minutes later, showing up via any number of social media feeds? Our devices are listening and we rarely turn them off. In contrast to Orwell’s version, we are choosing to be monitored, and while now it may seem like a benign, economically-driven process, our laws are the only thing keeping it from greater and more draconian control.

The main thing that stood out for me, reading 1984 now, is the power of disinformation and propaganda, the ubiquity and effectiveness of it. There is no longer any such thing as the truth; the ruling party releases a steady stream of traumatic, contradictory information that radicalizes family members against each other. It makes children spy on their parents and there is no kinship and trust, even within a marriage.

There is no safe place, only fear and suspicion, and this feels oddly familiar when talking to family members who consume Newsmax and Fox. They live on a different planet where facts never reach them. They are subjected to nonstop fear-mongering and propaganda. These are the 37% or whatever percentage it is today, that polls mention as being in favor of this ridiculous political regime. Propaganda has effectively fractured America into two distinct and threatening countries, which is why the daily barrage of stupidity and incompetence doesn’t undermine devotion to the supreme leader.

Is there hope? Of course there is. I think that’s why I am writing about these novels today. They are each worth reading and re-reading because they offer us strategies for resistance and empathy for people who are different. In general, books are transformative and deepen our connection to one another. They are a catalyst for social and political change. Books have power.

The Civil War was fought, at least in part, because of one book.

I have not read Uncle Tom’s Cabin (1852) by Harriet Beecher Stowe, and I don’t know if I ever will, but this book, more than any other, played a critical role in shaping public opinion, ultimately fueling the abolitionist movement, secession, and war. What did this book, written by a women for other ladies, do? It humanized enslaved people and crystalized anti-slavery sentiment in the North. It was incredibly popular in its day, inspired all kinds of performances and theatrical productions, and ultimately influenced the election of Abraham Lincoln.

In addition to voting and protesting, I encourage you to put down your phone and READ a BOOK. These in particular that I mentioned have been important to me and helpful during times of political regression. But really, any good book will be an improvement over a steady diet of news.

Looking toward the future, I am waiting for the next “big book” that will tell a story so compelling that everyone across every political spectrum will have to read it. If anything can break through the impenetrable wall of propaganda and lies holding a significant proportion of our country hostage, it will be some kind of otherworldly fiction that speaks truth and is too beautiful and entertaining to put down.

Warning: this newsletter is unedited, so please excuse the occasional typo. It runs on caffeine and the desire to clarify ideas that have been swirling around in my brain for days, months, and sometimes decades. Thanks for reading!

On Sunday, for Mother’s Day, my son agreed to visit the Baltimore Museum of Art (BMA) with me. He prefers math to art and I wanted to make the experience more meaningful for him, so when we were parking the car I asked him to do a search on his phone for “most valuable works of art at the BMA.” This is a question I had never actually asked myself, and it came out of my desire to create a quantitative approach to the art for him, but I was surprised by some of the answers. I suspect that AI is, in general, full of shit, especially when it comes to facts. However, the results inspired a conversation that led me somewhere I hadn't expected.

The Cone Collection, of course, was at the top of the list, with Henri Matisse’s “Blue Nude” and “Large Reclining Nude,” Paul Cézanne’s “Mont Sainte-Victoire Seen from the Bibéus Quarry” named as highlights. It also included the Botticelli, Van Gogh’s Boots, Monet’s “Charing Cross Bridge,” and a Rembrandt painting of his son, Titus. It mentioned the Warhol ‘oxidation’ painting and also the museum’s one Amy Sherald painting, “Planes, rockets, and the spaces in between,” 2018, which had never occurred to me. But now, of course it is!

My son knows that she lived in Baltimore for the majority of her painting career thus far and he asked me why the BMA didn’t have more than one of her paintings if they’re so valuable? Again, I found myself in the position of trying to explain something that actually makes no sense to me either.

Sherald was living in Baltimore, making these gorgeous, iconic paintings - mostly of Baltimoreans! While considering this, I took a moment to imagine the significance of the collection, both culturally and financially, had the BMA (or Walters) found a modern ‘Cone Sister’ type of collector, and acquired early and often from Sherald. It could have been a global draw for the museum and supported the artist at a crucial time in her development. It’s hard to predict future success, but also - not that hard if you really care and pay attention. (What would you do if offered the opportunity to acquire art that is destined to be valuable?)

After visiting her “American Sublime” survey at the Whitney this spring, I don’t have to imagine the story these paintings could tell to a Baltimore audience, a shared vision that could elevate an entire city. If even just a portion of the “Sublime” show lived permanently at the BMA, instead of just one piece, it would attract visitors from all over the world. But unlike the Cone Collection, it would reflect the culture and creative excellence IN and OF Baltimore, not just the excellent taste of two collectors who chose Baltimore as home because Johns Hopkins was the only medical school that admitted women.

This global success story could have been collective and inclusive with MICA, the Creative Alliance, her SubBasement and Motor House Studios, Galerie Myrtis, the Women’s Museum in DC, and the National Portrait Gallery all a part of elevating Baltimore as a place where genius artists live and work.

Hindsight is always 20/20, I understand that. But we all knew Sherald’s success was coming, didn’t we? In my 2016 interview with BMA Director Chris Bedford, published in BmoreArt’s Journal of Art + Ideas: Issue #3, we talked about building a legacy for Baltimore. His big idea for the museum was to be equally “global and local, from Venice to Remington” and I was happy with this vision. My advice for him at the end of the interview was this: Find Amy Sherald and buy as many of her paintings as you can. Obviously that didn’t happen.

The BMA director did not meet Sherald until 2017 when trustee Amy Elias asked me to curate a studio tour for him and Mera Rubell, who had recently purchased the Lord Baltimore Hotel. I planned and executed a two day tour featuring 22 studios. We visited Sherald’s studio first, (and then Paul Rucker, also then a Creative Alliance resident), because she was catching a train to NYC for a pop up show with Monique Meloche, the Chicago-based gallery that represented her at that time.

Of the 22 artists we visited, 8 were later shown or collected by the BMA over the next few years, though not the Rubell Museum. During our tour, both cultural leaders repeatedly said the same thing: “We had no idea that Baltimore has such high quality artists.” And I was just like, “This is why I am driving you all over Baltimore in my beat up Subaru 🙄🙄!!” Sometimes you have to show people, rather than tell them. (I really try to do this by using the very best photographers I know in crafting our stories about artists!)

I say this all the time: Baltimore is home to globally relevant artists, but we don’t have the gallery infrastructure and collector money of NY. Serious Baltimore-based collectors wait for a local artist to show in NY before acquiring the work. I think that most collectors want the validation of a market, rather than trusting their instincts or doing their own research.

Over the course of our 2017 tour, just one work of art was purchased: Bedford bought a quilt from Stephen Towns. The museum later collected several works from Towns, and - side note - the artist is currently exhibiting a swooningly gorgeous body of work at the BMA as part of the Baker Artist Awards exhibit, located upstairs in the Contemporary Wing. Towns is a prime example of a globally-relevant artist living in Baltimore who received private and institutional support at just the right time in his career, allowing for him to steadily grow into exhibiting regularly across the country.

Back to my Mother’s Day visit and the BMA’s “lost” potential for a Baltimore stronghold of Sherald’s work…

It’s wild to me that a 14 year old kid with an AI-generated search was able to see something new at a museum that I adore and have written about extensively over the last two decades. Why don’t they own more of her paintings?

The one they own is a transitional work, rather than a seminal one. What I mean is that it was created at a time when the artist was in a place of experimentation and stylistic change, eschewing the cropped, life-size, frontal portraits on abstract backgrounds that had become a consistent process for her. She had begun to experiment with multiple figures, placement in landscape, and, for the first time ever - feet. (Ask a painter, doing feet is a challenge.) In the “American Sublime” show at The Whitney, this painting is located next to the portrait of Breonna Taylor; the museum said in a press preview that they wanted that painting situated ‘among friends,’ which is touching.

I explained to my son that the museum could have purchased lots of Sherald’s work, well before 2018, when her representation by global mega gallery Hauser & Wirth was announced along with the unveiling of Michelle Obama’s portrait. There were a number of collectors in Baltimore who acquired her paintings early when they were priced around $5k, but they sold them, kept them, or donated to other museums, like Steven Scott’s two Sherald donations to the National Museum of Women in the Arts.

Then, I spilled some tea. I showed my son the painting that I had recently seen at the Whitney, featured in numerous published reviews of the show, that should be in the BMA collection, but is not. I never wrote about this before, mostly out of the desire to mend my relationship with the museum after publicly disagreeing with leadership on the deaccessioning scandal of 2020, but now things are different. All those individuals have left for other positions and new leadership has moved the institution forward. I want to state clearly that current museum leadership knew nothing about this decision and did not play a role in it.

Seeing that piece again in person, and then in so many publications, brought it back into my consciousness. “The Rabbit in the Hat” 2009 is a stunning painting that possesses all of the notable qualities that made her the successful artist she is today: variegated background created by splashes of turpentine, a calm, single figure making eye contact with the viewer, and whimsical props (a black magician pulls out a brown rabbit from his hat). It’s quintessential early Sherald, not a transitional work.

The piece was first purchased by a Baltimore-based collector who offered this painting to the BMA as a donation in 2017, and a YES and THANK YOU should have been a no-brainer on the part of museum leadership. However, they advised the donor to sell the painting instead and then donate the proceeds (about $200,000 or so, according to the museum’s annual report from that year) so that they could use it for ‘some other great need.’ Read that again for me.

Instead of gaining a second, great, early work by arguably the world’s most important portrait painter for FREE, the only artist at this caliber who created IN BALTIMORE and OF Baltimore - the piece was sold, the money donated, and it is now owned by the Green Family Foundation, courtesy of Adam Green Art Advisory.

All I can say is the Green family got a deal, and Baltimore lost a masterpiece.

In the big scheme of things, it’s just one painting, and people were doing the best they could with the information they had available. This story is a symptom rather than cause. What I am actually most disappointed about is that the BMA (or the Walters!) doesn’t own twenty paintings by Sherald. Had those in charge at the time been able to muster the foresight and dedication of Etta and Claribel Cone, Baltimore could be sitting on one of the world’s greatest contemporary collections.

Art is subjective but the art market is not. If you need certain assurances from auction results or validation from certain collectors, you’ve already missed the chance to purchase art from the NEXT Amy Sherald, if she exists. Baltimore does not have the market, the gallery infrastructure, the communications pipeline that New York has - and I believe that all museums should collect the best works of their time, both globally and locally. The collection outlives us all, and tells the story of now to visitors in the future, often in ways we cannot predict.

We live in a global economy where we buy the same things from the same handful of companies, and museums have become this way too. How disappointing is it to spend a pile of money to visit a different city or country and see all the SAME artists in their museums? It’s like eating at McDonalds in Rome or shopping at Target in Mexico City. Why would you do that???? The whole point of travel is to expand your understanding of the world, to taste and smell and hear and experience new ways and ideas.

So why don’t we expect the same professional expertise, based locally, from our museums? When I travel, I want to eat the food of the place, this helps me to understand its history and culture better. Likewise, when I visit museums and galleries, I want to discover new art and artists, to see the very best each unique place has to offer. Sure, this is a different kind of orientation for museums and it requires a different kind of expertise than before, but a truly excellent local collection explains the history, socioeconomics, politics, and material culture of a unique place - and to do it through beautiful objects. It is the artist’s job exactly to do this!

Visiting the Whitney this spring, there were so many familiar paintings, some depicting models I know - and it was incredibly validating to see all these works together and in a space worthy of them. It brought tears in my eyes often, and it was a delight to see these works again, but until my son’s AI-generated search, it had never dawned on me that Baltimore has slept on its greatest opportunity in my lifetime to attain a Cone Collection level body of work.

Unlike the Matisses, Picassos, and Gauguins the Cones purchased, Sherald’s paintings were created in Baltimore and tell a Baltimore story. These paintings are no longer affordable for the BMA, unless other collectors want to step forward and donate their paintings. Especially those 12 O’clock Boys? Those belong here.

So what do we do with this information besides feeling mild regret? We can act.

Whether you’re an institution, a museum, a college, or an individual, you can collect art that you love from the artists of your place and time. Every purchase is an investment in talent - and in our city. If you pay attention, you can see certain career patterns emerging.

For anyone who wants to dip a toe into the waters of collecting, local art auctions are an effective, affordable place to start - and I know of two people who purchased small Sherald sketches at Creative Alliance auctions. They are now sitting on an investment that can easily pay for college tuition if they choose.

For the first time ever, BmoreArt is hosting an auction in conjunction with the release of our new print journal - Issue 19, to be delivered from our local press later this week. And YES - Godddamit, I am selling something here! What I have to sell you is 100% Baltimore cultural excellence.

They are all artists who have been featured in BmoreArt for a reason, who are being collected by museums and institutions, and at prices that are currently affordable - but won’t be in the future, as it should be.

LINK: Auction at Better World. com. You can see images of the art and opening bids.

If you’re not a BmoreArt member and not attending the release event - you can still participate. If you win, we will arrange a pick up via email with you next week.

While I cannot guarantee that ALL of these artists will become international sensations, some of them already are well on their way. Several are already a part of the BMA’s permanent collection, which has become more and more interested in local artists in practice rather than just in press announcements. Some of them have recently been collected by Johns Hopkins University, part of a partnership with BmoreArt. We have done the research for you over the past two decades, each artist included has been featured in BmoreArt’s print and online publications.

You can read more about BmoreArt’s ongoing collection initiative with Johns Hopkins in the JHU Magazine here and here and here (no paywall), and in the Washington Post review by Kriston Capps published May 10 (with paywall and I deleted my subscription so I am including an image below).

For anyone who doesn’t know about this project, BmoreArt facilitated an initiative where a committee of JHU students, faculty, and staff invested $500,000 in art by Baltimore-based artists over the past two years. Many of these works are currently on display in an exhibit titled “Strong, Bright, Useful, & True” at the Bloomberg Center’s Frary Gallery, along with several others including a loan from the BMA. That show was curated by director Caitlin Berry, and it is, as Capps stated in the Post review, “diverse, reflecting the city not just in the race and age of its artist practitioners but in the media and mastery they display.”

For me, what is validating is that the writer got it, that it’s not just an exhibit of various art works, it’s a collective and multifaceted STORY of a city and a relationship. According to Capps, “Johns Hopkins’ investment in Baltimore - inspired in no small part by Ober’s dedication to building a first-class platform for the city’s artists - may be measured best by how it pays off for the arts community.”

We all benefit, our city benefits, when our artists thrive, but success doesn’t happen without purposeful support. This means we have to INVEST early and often like the Cone Sisters and Matisse, and to center Baltimore’s story in our consciousness.

Our auction and ongoing exhibits at Connect + Collect gallery are available to everyone, but there are many other events and opportunities including Maryland Art Place, Creative Alliance, and our incredible galleries that deserve support (link here to BmoreArt’s Online Gallery Guide). Collecting art is not easy and it can be intimidatingly expensive - so we want to help make the process more fun, more inclusive, and more productive.

Other upcoming opportunities to purchase art locally include the new SCOUT Art Fair, part of Artscape and happening in two weeks! Message me if you want a ticket to the private Vernissage opening event on Thursday - BmoreArt is a co-host! We would love for you to attend, especially if you want to be a part of Baltimore’s “Collecting Solution” going forward.