BmoreArt’s Picks: August 20-26
This Week: 2024 Little Patuxent Review Poetry Finalists at the Pratt Library, ‘Seeking Mavis Beacon’ advance screening and Q&A at The Charles, 2024 Sondheim Award ceremony at The Walters, opening reception for Baltimore Clayworks’ Short Term Residents Exhibition, Night Owl Gallery’s one year anniversary in Station North, opening reception for Yewande “Wande” Kotun Davis at Genius Guice Studios, Current Space’s 20th anniversary weekend, Joan Cox artist talk at IA&A Hillyer, ‘Miss Mistress of Smut Pageant” at Creative Alliance, and Joseph Plaster + Drew Daniels in conversation at Bird in Hand — PLUS The Arc of Baltimore’s Art in the Round call for entry and more featured opportunities!
BmoreArt’s Picks presents the best weekly art openings, events, and performances happening in Baltimore and surrounding areas. For a more comprehensive perspective, check the BmoreArt Calendar page, which includes ongoing exhibits and performances, and is updated on a daily basis.
To submit your calendar event, email us at events@bmoreart.com!
Celebrating the 2024 Poetry Contest Finalists with Little Patuxent Review
Tuesday, August 20 :: 6:30pm
@ Enoch Pratt FREE Library – Central Branch
In celebration of the finalists of the 2024 Poetry Contest with the Enoch Pratt Free Library and Little Patuxent Review, join us for an evening of readings by the three finalists, Marc A. Drexler, Kate Powell Shine, and Preet Bhela, as well as Little Patuxent Review contributor xochi quetzali cartland. Little Patuxent Review lead editor Sarah Berger will host.
Marc A. Drexler, the winner of the 2024 Poetry Contest, has lived in Maryland most of his life since moving from Iowa to attend Johns Hopkins University. His poem “Baltimore, 1977” appears in Maryland in Poetry (2020). He has a poem on some Arlington Transit (ART) buses in Virginia as part of their Moving Words project through September 2024. He has been published by Split This Rock and The Mid-Atlantic Review. Marc has also served as a Community Teaching Assistant for the Coursera online course Modern & Contemporary American Poetry (ModPo), led by Al Filreis out of UPenn. He worked for many years at the Maryland Food Co-op on the University of Maryland, College Park campus and believes strongly in collectivism.
Kate Powell Shine, a 2024 Poetry Contest finalist, has had poems published in magazines including Fuselit, Beltway Poetry Quarterly, and Gargoyle. She is active in numerous local literary communities including those at Montgomery College, Montgomery County Public Libraries, and the Eastern Shore Writers Association. She lives in Montgomery Village with her husband, John Shine.
Preet Bhela, a 2024 Poetry Contest finalist, is a Punjabi-American poet currently in his second year of the University of Maryland’s MFA program, where he also teaches and conducts workshops with undergraduates. He is from Milwaukee, Wisconsin, where he grew up working at his family’s restaurant. His work inspects the self as a site of interruption and how language can embody such breaks and disruptions, especially through a diasporic lens.
xochi quetzali cartland, a contributor to Little Patuxent Review‘s summer issue, is a queer and Latina poet, seamstress, and transformative justice practitioner. She graduated from Brown University with a BA in literary arts and has since moved to Washington, D.C., where they are rekindling their love of trees and learning to make pretzels. Her work has been featured in Apple in the Dark and Common Ground Review, as well as supported by National Arts Strategies and Brooklyn Poets.
Sarah Berger, a contest judge, is a classical singer, writer, editor, teacher, maker, and editor of the Little Patuxent Review. She’s a graduate of Oberlin College, the Peabody Conservatory, and the University of Baltimore’s MFA program in creative writing and publishing arts. She now teaches at UB in the undergraduate writing program. She’s working on a forthcoming novel about music students. Links to Sarah’s published writing, music, and other projects can be found at orangesloth.com and on social media @OrangeSlothArt.
- Registration opens on Monday, May 13 at 12pm.
- To attend in person please register here.
- Doors will open to registered attendees at 5:30 pm.
- Free parking vouchers are available to program attendees who park at the Franklin Street Garage (15 W. Franklin Street) after 4pm. Ask Pratt event staff for your parking voucher prior to or after the program.
- This free event will be presented in-person and virtually.
- For more information about this event, email poetry@prattlibrary.org.
Pictured: (top row) Kate Powell Shine, Marc A. Drexler, Preet Bhela, (bottom row) xochi quetzali cartland, Sarah Berger.
Virtual Meeting Information
There is no registration required for virtual attendance, simply visit the Enoch Pratt Free Library’s Facebook or Youtube page.
NEON + Black Femme Supremacy Film Fest present SEEKING MAVIS BEACON (early access screening)
Tuesday, August 20 :: 7pm
@ The Charles Theatre
One of the most influential Black women in technology is a figment of our collective imagination. Mavis Beacon was invented by the co-founder of MySpace to sell the world’s most popular typing software, but the real woman she was modeled after disappeared in 1995. Seeking Mavis Beacon poses critical questions regarding anthropomorphization and the consumption of marginalized bodies in the tech industry, while reimagining the legacy of a missing historical figure. A NEON release.
Q+A with filmmakers Jazmin Renee Jones and Olivia McKayla Ross moderated by Angela N. Carroll to follow. Click HERE to rsvp for free – [get the password by following @seekingmavisbeacon on IG and DMing BALTIMORE] or purchase a ticket HERE
Sondheim 2024 Art Prize Finalists: Award Ceremony
Thursday, August 22 :: 6-7:30pm
@ The Walters Art Museum
Location: Level 1 Lobby and Graham Auditorium
Registration is required.
The Walters Art Museum, in collaboration with the Baltimore Office of Promotion & The Arts, is proud to present the 2024 Janet & Walter Sondheim Art Prize Finalists Exhibition. The exhibition showcases the work of three finalists—Hellen Ascoli, Amy Boone-McCreesh, and Sam Mack—in this prestigious competition, which awards a $30,000 fellowship to assist in furthering the career of a visual artist or visual artist collaborators living and working in the greater Baltimore region. Attend the award ceremony and reception and be among the first to celebrate the winner and mingle with members of Baltimore’s arts community.
This program is co-hosted with the Baltimore Office for Promotion and The Arts and presented in conjunction with the 19th annual Janet & Walter Sondheim Art Prize Finalists Exhibition on view at the Walters from July 17 through September 8, 2024.
Image: Amy Boone-McCreesh, Objects of Desire (installation view), 2018, custom wall painting, works on paper, custom linoleum flooring; Hellen Ascoli, We Shaped Soft Gods Here (collaboration with Karl Williamson), 2022, brick molds made of wood, digitally printed components, hand woven bands; Sam Mack, yellow safety cone, 2021, earthenware, porcelain, majolica, glaze, underglaze. All artwork © the artists.
Read more of this week’s picks at BmoreArt.
