It’s too hot, too crowded, the parking is awful, but still we go every year. Because each time we’re tempted to skip Artscape, we remember something special that happened at the last one, and we find ourselves heading down to Mount Royal Avenue once again.
Maybe it was that time we were standing in the middle of the street by the Fox Building, so transfixed by a young rock-and-roll band that we forgot all about leaving early to beat the traffic. Maybe we wandered into the Mount Royal Station Building just to get out of the heat and into the air conditioning, but we were so taken by the paintings that we started attending gallery openings in the fall. Maybe we were so tickled by the Art Car Parade that we went out and bought a glue gun and started attaching toys to that old car we were going to trade in for $100. Maybe we bumped into an old Baltimore friend in the crowd, someone we hadn’t seen in years, and, after an exchange of phone numbers, a friendship was rekindled. Maybe we were walking from the Main Stage to the Food Court and saw, out of the corner of our eye, a hand-carved wooden bowl in a woodworker’s booth, a bowl that now sits on our living room table, urging us to go back to Artscape one more time to see what else we might discover.
This year, July 15-17, is the 30th annual Artscape, and despite complaints and controversies, economic downturns and budget cuts, the festival is bigger and more popular than ever. It’s a demonstration to the rest of the state that downtown Baltimore can be safe as well as fun. And it’s one of the few events in Maryland where people of all races, all ages, and all lifestyles assemble in the same place and get a good look at one another.
To read the article in its entirety at Baltimore Magazine, click here.
More from Geoffrey Himes: As a freelance music critic, I attend a lot of festivals around the country. I’m a big fan of Artscape, but there are some things that other festivals do that Artscape would be smart to adopt. Here are five suggestions:
CROSS-POLLINATION ACROSS MEDIA: The South by Southwest Music Conference in Austin, Texas, and the Folk Alliance Conference in Memphis, Tennessee, are both music gatherings, but both make an effort to supplement live performances with other media. Both screen documentary films about musicians who are attending. SXSW always has an exhibit of concert posters, and the Folk Alliance always has an exhibit of photographs about its musicians. This visual supplement to the live music (or the musical supplement to the screenings and exhibits, depending on how you look at it) deepen the experience in a way that makes the musician’s appearance something special—and not just another stop on the tour.
WORKSHOPS AND PANELS: The Newport Folk Festival in Rhode Island and the New Orleans Jazz & Heritage Festival in Louisiana both encourage their performing artists to do workshops and/or interview sessions in addition to their regular performances. They may talk about the techniques of clawhammer banjo or the history of the Mardi Gras Indians or the influence of gospel on modern R&B. These side sessions add a serious, educational aspect that you’re not going to find when the same performers appear at the Rams Head Tavern or the Merriweather Post Pavilion, and that makes their festival appearance more special.
ANNUAL THEMES: The Smithsonian Folklife Festival in Washington, D.C., and the Montreal Jazz Festival in Quebec both adopt a theme each year that gives a focus to the event and makes one year different from the next. The Folklife Fest usually adopts three themes—a state, a foreign country and a profession—and then invites musicians, craft artists, historians and cooks to display different aspects of the same theme. The Montreal Jazzfest chooses a particular musician each year and then presents him or her in four or five different contexts to reveal the full breadth of that career. Again, these are experiences one can get nowhere else but at these festivals.
MIX AND MATCH PERFORMERS: Merlefest in Wilkesboro, North Carolina, and the International Bluegrass Music Association Fan Fair in Nashville, Tennessee, both take advantage of having so many musicians gathered in one place at one time by having them play in different combinations. A guitarist who might be singing his own songs in one group might be a harmony singer and rhythm guitarist in another group and a duet singer in a third. A fiddler might play with his current band, with the reunion of his old band and as a guest with a band he’d never played with before. These rare and unprecedented line-ups make the festival special for the musicians and the audience alike.
