Baltimore has a Book Festival, a Running Festival, a Jazz Festival, an Herb Festival, a Fun Festival, a Comedy Festival, a Seafood Festival, a Playwrights Festival and an International Edgar Allan Poe Festival.
Coming up this month is one of the city’s newest annual events, the BRUSH Mural Fest, which celebrates public murals in Baltimore and the artists who create them.
Ten teams of muralists are painting murals on the exterior of the Baltimore Convention Center by Sept. 14, the date for this year’s event. The artists started work this week on the Pratt Street side of the convention center’s 1979 building, between Charles and Sharp streets.
“The theme is Hidden Gems, and we let the artists interpret that however they want to,” said Jaz Erenberg, director of programming for this year’s festival. “We have an artist highlighting waterways. We have an artist highlighting community gardens. We have an artist highlighting hip hop and club culture. Locomotive history. Bicycle routes. They’re all highlighting what they feel is a Baltimore hidden gem.”
This is the second year for the festival, which was started by Erenberg and two other Baltimore-based muralists, Saba Hamidi and Jess Langley. In the first year, six murals were created by teams of women and non-binary artists, and a daylong celebration was held at Lexington Market on Oct. 21.
This year, Erenberg and Hamidi are running the event. Their goals are to highlight the talent and creativity of local artists, provide opportunities for emerging muralists, and represent Baltimore’s vibrancy through “intentional community-centered public art.” They say the Convention Center is an ideal location to showcase the work of local artists.
“Oftentimes, visitors’ experience stops at the boundaries of downtown Baltimore,” said Hamidi, director of operations for the festival. “We see the Convention Center as the ‘gateway’ to the beauty and stories layered throughout our urban landscape. It’s our hope that the vibrant art produced through BRUSH Fest, representing communities outside the downtown area, will encourage those visitors to go beyond and explore further.”
Leaders of the city-owned Convention Center are partnering with the festival organizers as part of Mayor Brandon Scott’s ‘Downtown Rise’ initiative.
“We are thrilled to host BRUSH Mural Fest, an event that promises to bring well-deserved recognition to local artists while furthering the Baltimore Convention Center’s commitment to fostering a more authentic, vibrant downtown corridor,” said convention center executive director Mac Campbell, in a statement. “In alignment with the mayor’s ‘Downtown Rise’ initiative, showcasing Baltimore’s artistic excellence along Pratt Street helps amplify the cultural heartbeat of our community to the countless residents and visitors who walk through and by our doors.”
Hidden gems
For nine of this year’s teams, Erenberg and Hamidi paired one professional muralist with a “rising star” mentee who aspires to be a professional muralist. Then they teamed up to take the final spot, for a total of 10 murals in all.
Each team was assigned a space that is about 200 square feet in size. Some spaces are taller than others, and some are lower and longer. This week and next, artists will be working on the murals as passersby watch and take photos.
Given the Hidden Gems theme, the artists had many different responses. Justin Duvall and Justin Nepomuceno are the artists painting “A map of Baltimore’s waterways,” depicting tributaries that feed into Baltimore’s harbor, such as Herring Run, Gwynns Falls and the Jones Falls, with the Inner Harbor’s dragon-themed paddle boats in the composition as well.
Jasmin Manning and Kolpeace are painting two of Manning’s friends who just got married, in a mural titled “Sho look good to me.” Saz Ross and mentee AfrOdelic are painting a mural that reveals “unexpected creatures and unexpected architecture” in the city, a work that’s reminiscent of illustrations by the late Maurice Sendak.
Jordan Lawson and mentee Stephanie Lawson are celebrating Baltimore rowhouses and community gardens. SolRaya (Nicole Buchholz) and Susan Tuberville are painting “Bicultural Baltimore.” Hiro Hubbard and Kid Balloon are painting the B&O Railroad Museum with its distinctive 22-sided roundhouse.
Other artists include: Rowan Bathurst with HOPE; LaToya Peoples and Rosy Sunshine Galvan; and Hannah Atallah and Mansi Yaduka.
People walking by frequently stop and talk to the artists. One man said he thought he saw a mistake in one mural because it had a phone booth in it, and “they don’t have phone booths anymore.” Bathurst said her mural is a series of vintage Baltimore scenes, as if from a scrapbook of old photographs, and that’s why she included a phone booth.
Celebration Day
Sept. 14 is the date when all of the artists will be present to talk about their work and meet with people who come to see it, from 11 a.m. to 4 p.m. Organized like a block party, the celebration will feature live musical acts on an outdoor stage, family-friendly art activities facilitated by Messy Art Music Lab, food trucks and a live art painting competition that has been dubbed “BRUSH Battle.”
Erenberg said she and the other organizers were inspired by other cities that have mural festivals, including the “Sunny Dayz” mural festival in Oklahoma City. She also noted that Baltimore was a pioneer when it had an Open Walls mural program, in 2012 and 2013, that brought a series of murals to the Station North area.
For the current festival, she said, the organizers wanted to enlist all local artists, and that’s how they came up with the idea of pairing professional muralists with rising stars. Once they’re complete, Erenberg said, the murals will be up for at least three years.
Erenberg said the organizers raised $100,000 for the festival, and all of the participating muralists are getting compensated for their work. The Robert W. Deutsch Foundation joins the Baltimore Convention Center in presenting the event. Other sponsors include the Mayor’s Office, Visit Baltimore, PNC Bank, DUO Signage and Graphics, and Bloom Arts Strategy.
For the weeks leading up to Festival Celebration Day, organizers scheduled a series of free public events in the city’s arts and entertainment districts, starting with a Community Paint Day in the Station North Arts District on Aug. 24.
Still to come are: a program entitled “Social Gravity of Joy” on Sept. 9 from 6 p.m. to 8 p.m. at NoMuNoMu, an art center at 709 N. Howard Street; a panel discussion focused on creative entrepreneurship and local public art moderated by Baltimore-based interdisciplinary visual artist Maura Dwyer on Sept. 10 from 6 p.m. to 8 p.m. at NoMuNoMu; and a presentation on “Building Your Brand in the New Art World,” on Sept. 11 from 6 p.m. to 8 p.m. at Night Owl Gallery.
Also, an artist Happy Hour on Sept. 11 from 8 p.m. to 10 p.m. at Royal Blue, 1733 Maryland Ave.; a Community Paint Day led by Dwyer on Sept. 12 from 4 p.m. to 8 p.m. at 303 N. Howard St.; a workshop on “Color from Screen to Your Walls” on Sept. 13 from 4 p.m. to 5 p.m. at Night Owl Gallery, 1735 Maryland Ave., and a Wellness Workshop on Sept. 15 from 11 a.m. to 1 p.m. at The Fitzgerald, 1201 W. Mount Royal Ave.
“By hosting these events in the city’s art districts, we’re hoping to not only engage a wider audience – including local business and art purveyors interested in collaborating with our selected muralists for future project future – but also to spotlight Baltimore’s existing art scene,” Erenberg said. “The essence of BRUSH Mural Fest lies in its dedication to the City of Baltimore, its vibrant artists, and its supportive community. What better way to demonstrate that dedication than providing interactive programming that activates multiple neighborhoods across the city?”
More information about the event is available at www.brushmuralfest.com and @brushmuralfest on Instagram.
