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BMOREART’S PICKS: BALTIMORE ART OPENINGS, GALLERIES, AND EVENTS AUGUST 6-12

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This week: Made in Baltimore Maker Conversations featuring Taste This Cake at the Parkway, Nicoletta Daríta de la Brown’s Bañera de Flora performance at the Walters, Notes From a Young Black Chef by Kwame Onwuachi talk + book signing at the Lewis Museum, An Elegant Rendezvous with Scott Patterson at The Peale, Rapid Lemon Productions CRUSADE at Baltimore Theatre Project, BROS Cosmic Nectar: Age of Enlightenment, Melissa Webb and John Ralston at Cardinal, Rachel Debuque: HaHa opening reception at ICA Baltimore, on tender ground opening reception at Current Space, and the 2019 Baltimore AFRAM Festival at Druid Hill Park.

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.

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To submit your calendar event, email us at [email protected]!

We’ll send you our top stories of the week, selected event listings, and our favorite calls for entry—right to your inbox every Tuesday.


Maker Conversations featuring Taste This Cake
Tuesday, August 6th • 6-8pm

SNF Parkway Theatre
5 West North Avenue : 21201

Jamillah Muhammad | Taste This Cake

FREE

You love their local products, You’ve seen them repping Baltimore makers on the LED Billboard on Charles St. Now you have an opportunity to hear their stories. Join Made in Baltimore for a new Maker Conversations series at the Parkway Theater, as we introduce you to maker entrepreneurs in our network. On August 6th, the series kicks off with Jamillah Muhammad, owner of Taste this Cake. Learn about Muhammad’s brand, how Baltimore has embraced her, and her journey from healthcare to confectionary baker. 

After the conversation, join Made In Baltimore and in the theater lobby where you can purchase food, beverages, and Taste this Cake treats.


Nicoletta Daríta de la Brown: Bañera de Flora | Public Ritual Bath Performance
Tuesday, August 6th • 6-8pm + Saturday, August 10th • 11am-4pm

The Walters Art Museum
600 North Charles Street : 21201

Visit the Walters Art Museum in August for a public artwork installation created by ​Nicoletta Daríta de la Brown​, a performance artist, interdisciplinary fabricator, filmmaker, mother of four, self-love champion, and unicorn.

Over the course of two days, the artist will assume the role of a lifeguard, monitoring and protecting the galleries of 15th-century Northern Art as a ​safe space for self-love​. Attendees are invited to observe de la Brown as she directs visitors around the space and uses flowers in a bathing ritual.

In a modern world that is constantly discussing the importance of “self-care”, de la Brown’s installation encourages you to think about ​how women have done this in the past​ while bringing you back to ​how you incorporate this into your everyday life​.

de la Brown’s installation is an​ immersive celebration of self-healing and rebirth​ activated by an ancient feminine practice of ritual bathing. Ritual bathing is known as a way to purify the vessel, calm the mind, open the spirit, and release that which no longer serves. De la Brown explores the ​connections between historical religious rituals and the habits and patterns of our everyday, modern lives.

Large-scale sculptural objects ​have been fabricated and installed by de la Brown in the Walters Art Museum for a limited time. Guests are encouraged to engage with these objects during the ​immersive activation ​including a large transparent bath vessel for ritual bathing in public space, a lifeguard chair serving as throne, an ethereal white garment adorned with crystals, two video light-box-style installations, and sound elements to ​activate the senses​.

Attendees are then encouraged to return on August 15th for a ​self-care workshop to develop individual self-care kits ​and take learnings from the installation into their day-to-day life.


Notes From a Young Black Chef by Kwame Onwuachi
Thursday, August 8th • 6:30-8pm

Reginald F. Lewis Museum
830 East Pratt Street : 21202

In celebration of Baltimore’s Restaurant Week (August 2nd-11th) join us for a culinary conversation. In his inspiring memoir about the intersection of race, fame, and food, Chef Kwame Onwuachi shares the remarkable story of his culinary coming-of-age. Onwuachi is the winner of the 2019 James Beard Foundation Award for Rising Star Chef of the Year, recognized as one of Food & Wine magazine’s Best New Chefs. He was a contestant on Bravo’s Top Chef, Season 13.


An Elegant Rendezvous with Scott Patterson
Thursday, August 8th • 8pm

The Peale Museum
225 North Holliday Street : 21202

Explore the alien landscape of 25th century music with composer, pianist and Baker Artist Awardee, Scott Patterson. His compositions for solo piano pulse with future forward melodies that incorporate the classical, soul and rock music of our present day and generations to come.

Scott’s luxuriant compositions will be performed on a gorgeous Knabe piano crafted in Baltimore by the Wm. Knabe & Co. 140 years ago. This will be the Knabe’s official debut at The Peale Center since relocating from the Baltimore Museum of Industry in 2018.

Bring a pillow! This is not a stiff piano concert where you sit in a hard chair until your tuchis goes numb. Instead, grab a piece of floor, lay your pillow down and settle in for a night of music, wonderment and imagination. Chairs will be provided to those that wish to be seated on a chair instead of a pillow on the floor.

Enjoy a Champagne Toast with Scott Patterson at 7:00 p.m. or come for just the performance. Doors will open for all ticket holders at 7:30 p.m. The performance will begin at 8:00 p.m.


First of All, Farewell: Melissa Webb and John Ralston
Opening Reception Friday, August 9: 6-9 pm

Cardinal
1758 Park Avenue Baltimore, MD 21217

Cardinal presents a series of recent collaborative and solo works by John Ralston and Melissa Webb. Utilizing the durability and rigidity Ralston’s gypsum and house paint constructions and the delicacy and detail of Webb’s gridded textile wall pieces, the two explore both the permanence and the ephemerality of forms found within the natural world.


Rapid Lemon Productions Presents: CRUSADE
Opening Night Friday, August 9th

Baltimore Theatre Project
45 West Preston Street : 21201

The third show of Rapid Lemon Productions’ 2019 “Season of Belief” is a collaboration with the Baltimore Playwrights Festival: CRUSADE, a world premiere by local playwright Bruce Bonafede, directed by Timoth David Copney.

It is the future. The takeover of the federal government by Christian fundamentalists, and their assault on the Constitution, has led to civil war. On reconnaissance patrol in the Rocky Mountains, an Army squad is forced to take cover in an isolated cabin owned by a former professor who now wants only to be left alone. A chain of events tests their character and is resolved in a moment of violence that seals their fate.

Showtimes:
August 9 @ 8pm
August 10 @ 8pm
August 11 @ 3pm
August 12 @ 8pm (Industry Night)
August 15 @ 8pm
August 16 @ 8pm
August 17 @ 8pm
August 18 @ 3pm

Tickets:
General Admission – $20 cash at the door ($21 credit card & on-line)

Industry Night (August 12th) – $10 for cash at the door ($21 credit card & on-line)

Please click below to purchase tickets.

Get Tickets


Cosmic Nectar: Age of Enlightenment
Friday, August 9th • 7pm

location TBD

Join the Baltimore Rock Opera Society for an evening of mystical delights in an opulent setting. Attendees will be whisked back in time to the dawn of the scientific age when discoveries were waiting around every corner. This party will be truly cosmic! Enjoy fresh fruit cocktails, delectable nibbles, and a selection of intimate performances. Featuring harpist Maura Tull, a solo performance from very special guest Joseph Mulhollen of Joseph and the Beasts, and an exclusive musical preview of Glitterus, our Spring 2020 original rock opera!

Our theme this year pays homage to the era of exploration, discovery, and philosophy of the 18th century when logic and science firmly established themselves in Western culture. We encourage you to embrace your reason and come dressed as your favorite scientist, celestial body, or abstract concept!

This intimate evening of heavenly delights is sure to be one for the ages andwill be held at a luxurious secret location in Baltimore which will be revealed to ticket buyers. The event is by invitation only.

Space is limited, so reach for the stars and reserve your ticket now!

Tickets: General admission: $60
Supporting Members Rock Operative to Master Luthier: $45
GRÜNDLE HUNTERS and above: FREE!*
*(Up to two tickets)


Baltimore Jewelry Center Baltimore Teen Pop-Up Exhibition and Jewelry Sale
Friday, August 9: 6-8 pm

Baltimore Jewelry Center
Suite 130, 10 E North Ave, Baltimore, MD 21202

The Baltimore Jewelry Center will host a pop-up exhibition and sale of jewelry made by teen jewelers in the BJC gallery in Baltimore’s Station North Arts & Entertainment District (10 E. North Ave.) on Friday, August 9. The pop-up and sale will feature jewelry made by four teens who worked in the BJC studio this summer through YouthWorks. YouthWorks is Baltimore City’s summer jobs program, offering thousands of
youth ages 14-21 five-week job experiences with nonprofit, government, and private-sector
employees. The sale will run from 6-8pm on Friday and remaining work will be on view (and for
sale) through August 20.

Founded in June 2014, the Baltimore Jewelry Center is the successor organization to the MICA
Jewelry Center, which had served the metalsmithing and art jewelry community in the Baltimore
area for twenty-two years. Today, the nonprofit is providing a rigorous academic program and
robust studio access program for metal and jewelry artists.

The Baltimore Jewelry Center boasts a growing program for kids and teens that includes after-
school sessions, summer camps, and in-school and on-site workshops for Baltimore City Public

School students. The partnership with YouthWorks has allowed the BJC to add a workforce
development program to their offerings. Through the program this summer, four participants
learned basic metalsmithing and jewelry making skills and learned to produce a small production
line of jewelry. The teens also learned the basics of creating a brand, marketing their work, and
preparing their work for sale. They have taken field trips to local jewelry studios and shops and
welcomed local artists and makers as guest speakers. The BJC teen jewelers created four distinct
jewelry lines which they will present at the sale. Patrons will have the opportunity to meet the
jewelers behind the work!



Rachel Debuque: HaHa | Opening Reception

Saturday, August 10th • 6-9pm

ICA Baltimore
16 West North Avenue : 21218

HaHa is a new body of work that explores the role of humor in art by revealing the potential for laughter in objects, spaces, and within ourselves. Rachel Debuque presents a series of mini installations that defamiliarizes the familiar and reveal laughter as a transcendent bodily phenomenon that holds us in the present moment. Through crafted objects, installation, and video, the viewer is beckoned to see amusement in unexpected places.

Rachel Debuque – racheldebuque.com & plakookee.com

Rachel Debuque is a visual artist and designer whose work spans installation, sculpture, video, and performance. Her work focuses on the transformation of space into imaginative worlds that engage audiences. Her work has been exhibited extensively including at The Cue Foundation (New York, NY) and Vox Populi (Philadelphia, PA). Debuque was an artist in residence at The Bemis Center for Contemporary Arts and a Southern Constellations Fellow at Elsewhere: A Living Museum. Her work has received press from The Huffington Post, Washington City Paper, Bmore Art, Daily Serving, Maake Magazine, and ART 21 Magazine.

She is currently an assistant professor at George Mason University’s School of Art and Design, where she teaches 3D Design and Sculpture. She received her Masters of Fine Arts from the University of Georgia and her Bachelor of Fine Arts at Indiana University of Pennsylvania with a focus in Sculpture. Debuque is also a yoga instructor and certified laughter leader.


on tender ground | Opening Reception
Saturday, August 10th • 7-10pm

Current Space
421 North Howard Street : 21201

Current Space is proud to present on tender ground, a group exhibition featuring the works of Sobia Ahmad, Esin Aykanat Avci, Wesley Berg, Erin Fostel, Cody Graham, Brandan Henry, Sarah Hunter, Taryn Pizza, and Josh Sinn. Curated by Jacob Zimmerman. Please join us for the opening reception.

Opening Reception: August 10th, 7-10pm
Exhibition Duration: August 10th – September 7th
Gallery Hours: Fridays and Saturdays, noon – 4pm

————

on tender ground
A group exhibition

“The inherent susceptibility to impressions or the soft and yielding manner of the work feels indicative of a real labor of love. What this show emphasizes is that tethering to a point in time or a point on a map doesn’t have to be done with force. The sticky strings of nostalgia and sentimentality keep us entangled to places both near and far, imagined and documented, and permanently enshrined in our memoryscapes.” – excerpt from essay by Sam Whalen

Combining these ideas:

Intimacy with vast space
Intimacy with environment
Notice to footwear
Socks or shoes
Larger interactions with the landscape in contrast to human scale.
Incubators
The home and the portable
Human absence
Human evidence
Sense of ambiguous but accessible place in contrast to personal place of growth.
Loving architecture
Vast silence


2019 Baltimore AFRAM Festival
Saturday, August 10th + Sunday, August 11th

Druid Hill Park

Meet me at AFRAM—one of the largest African American festivals on the East Coast! Hosted in Baltimore City’s Druid Hill Park, this 745-acre urban oasis draws crowds of over 100,000 each year! For two days, people from all walks of life come together to enjoy national entertainment, local eats and much more.

This summer we’re taking the festivities to the next level. Stay connected to on our social media @baltimore_afram for updates, creative content and national talent announcements. That’s right, we’re bringing two national acts to Baltimore, but you have to stay tuned to find out.

Join us August 10 from 12PM-8PM and August 11 from 12PM-6PM!

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