This Week: We are featuring online events that you can participate in from the comfort of your own couch plus a few calls for entry to get involved locally and nationally. Stay home, stay healthy, stay engaged in the arts.
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Sonya Clark: Tatter, Bristle, and Mend
ongoing through June 27
@ National Museum of Women in the Arts
Textile and social practice artist Sonya Clark (b. 1967) is renowned for her mixed-media works that address race and visibility, explore Blackness, and redress history. This exhibition—the first survey of Clark’s 25-year career—includes the artist’s well-known sculptures made from black pocket combs, human hair, and thread as well as works created from flags, currency, beads, cotton plants, pencils, books, a typewriter, and a hair salon chair. The artist transmutes each of these everyday objects through her application of a vast range of fiber-art techniques: Clark weaves, stitches, folds, braids, dyes, pulls, twists, presses, snips, or ties within each object.
Featuring 100 works of art, Tatter, Bristle, and Mend spans the breadth of the artist’s career to date. Early beaded and stitched pieces are paired with Clark’s more recent forays into mediums such as sugar and neon. The exhibition focuses on central themes—heritage, labor, language, and visibility—and emphasizes Clark’s astute ability to rework concepts and materials over time, pulling apart threads of ideas and mending them back together to create new layers of meaning. By stitching black thread cornrows and Bantu knots onto fabrics, rolling hair into necklaces, and stringing a violin bow with a dreadlock, Clark manifests ancestral bonds and reasserts the Black presence in histories from which it has been pointedly omitted.
Transmogrify
ongoing through July 10
@ Catalyst Contemporary
Catalyst Contemporary presents Transmogrify, an exhibition featuring the mixed-media collages of Holly Roberts and the rich, textural paintings of Thiang Uk. Together, these artists explore mythologies through the collision of reality and fiction, transforming our understanding of self, our surroundings, and the foundational building blocks that make us.
Holly Roberts’ whimsical and dark collages use multiple layers of paint and photographs to tell poetic and complex autobiographical narratives. Intertwined with imagery from world religions, the cultural history of the American Southwest, she describes an existential dread of the banality of everyday life. Roberts’ scenes feature subjects made out of both human and animal parts. The main figure of Rabbit Walking consists of a lone figure in an ambiguous void. The figure, in a side profile, has the head of a rabbit, a painted peach sweater but also the legs and hands of a human being. The transition from animal to human is seamless and appears natural as if we could see it walking off the page and into our own reality.
Conversely, the works featuring only human elements still retain these seemingly magical and mythical components. Breathing has the lone human subject staring straight out of the work; its face is that of a flat white skull and its arms and other elements are faint white lines of a skeletal nature. The paint intermingles with the photographs of piercing eyes, a dark nose, and hands splayed across it’s chest. The title written across the top conjures a further transformation of the figure, changing it from a static image to a scene of movement. The use of text is found throughout several works. Both printed and written text either serve as a background of the works such as in Two Birds or add a humorous element as seen in Love Me Truck. Roberts’ works offer a variety of different parts of life and living, from light and humorous to dark and meditative.
Thiang Uk’s work consists entirely of painted surfaces but approaches the idea of collage similarly to Roberts. Uk’s paintings, from small-scale intimate experiences to large-scale environments, are filled with a multitude of different cultural and historical elements such as Western representational traditions, Chinese landscapes, Indian pictorial traditions, and Burmese fabric patterns. These rich tapestries map out Uk’s journey of immigrating across the globe and his own relationship with various geographies and cultures. Wrapped within these collaged symbols and ideas are Uk’s own feelings of loss, uncertainty, and the fear often found by being in new and unfamiliar places. Inversely, there exists a sense of comfort fueled by acknowledging one’s own resilience and adaptability that also permeates Uk’s abstracted figures.
The figures present in Uk’s paintings present a collage of landscapes and figures. Although figurative, Uk’s figures become abstracted and it becomes unclear which part of the figure is fore or background, a living singular being or a dense flat landscape. In Refugee 1, both time and a multitude of scenes are collapsed and intertwined with memories and cultural symbols and patterns, all of which are contained within the figure’s torso. Uk’s works are tense yet satisfying, playful yet heavy; his paintings transform and create new ways of seeing time, space, and identity.
Transmogrify brings these two artists together to host a conversation that blends the line of reality and fiction and presents rich textural works that meditate on our own human conditions.
BmoreArt at Latela Curatorial | with Phaan Howng and Marta Staudinger
Thursday, June 3 • 6:30pm
presented by BmoreArt
Join BmoreArt at Latela Curatorial, a DC-based woman-focused art consulting service with artist Phaan Howng and Latela founder, Marta Staudinger, an independent curator, historian, and artist. We will discuss strategies for artists who want to sell work at different price points, a range of advice for collectors and artists who want to invest locally – both in DC and Baltimore, and new installation work in Howng’s solo exhibition currently on view at Towson University Asian Art Gallery. RSVP for the Zoom here.
Links:
https://www.latelacuratorial.com
https://www.phaan.com
Virtual MD State Arts Summit
Thursday, June 3 + Friday, June 4
presented by Maryland State Arts Council
The Maryland Arts Summit, now in its third year, is presented by and for the Maryland arts sector and curated by the Maryland State Arts Council, Maryland Citizens for the Arts, the Fine Arts Office of the Maryland State Department of Education, and Arts Education in Maryland Schools. The 2021 Maryland Arts Summit: Art of the Community will hold six live streamed sessions on June 3 – 4, 2021 focused on current topics in the Maryland creative sector, interspersed with creative bursts of art-making and performances. All together, the Summit will elevate voices within Maryland’s arts communities.
“The theme of the 2021 Summit, ART OF THE COMMUNITY, speaks to the 21st Century practice of inviting diverse voices to be the inspiration for artistic products and programming,” said MSAC Executive Director Ken Skrzesz. “Historically, art has been centered around aesthetic choices that were delivered to audiences and participants. During this year’s Summit, we will explore what it means to see art as a response to the desires, challenges, and strengths of communities.”
Day one of the Summit on Thursday, June 3rd will open with a performance and artist statement by Louis Campbell, centered on uplifting indigenous voices through art. Main sessions that follow over the two-day Summit include:
The Summit will also include Creative Keynote opportunities for engagement, inviting participants to make and share art in real time, as well as contribute to affinity group discussions centered on their specific role within the arts sector.
Following the two-day Summit, pre-recorded sessions will be available for participants’ to take a deeper dive into the Summit content on their own time, and, ultimately, engage more deeply with their communities through the creative process.
The Maryland Arts Summit is free and requires registration.
First Friday Art Walk in Highlandtown
Friday, June 4 • 6-8pm
Our June First Friday Featured Artist is Rosa Leff! We are so excited to welcome Rosa back to the gallery! All of Rosa’s work is cut by hand from a single sheet of paper using an X-Acto knife. She never makes prints of her work, and she never cuts the same image twice!
Beverages will be served.
This is a pop-up shop that will be outdoors for your safety. (Weather pending, of course)
Masks that cover your mouth AND nose are required.
Please practice physical distancing.
The number of individuals allowed inside the gallery will be limited.
Hand sanitizer and gloves will be available.
Wash your hands frequently.
STAY HOME if you feel sick or are awaiting test results.
The Stoop Storytelling Series Presents: Re-emergence
Saturday, June 5 • 6pm
@ The Ivy Bookshop
Join us for an outdoor show in the gardens of The Ivy Bookshop celebrating returns, rebirths, revivals, and resilience.
About this Event
Ticketing Structure:
All guests MUST purchase an individual ticket ($25) for this event. If you are interested in reserving a picnic table for 4-6 people, ONEguest in that party must select the Picnic Table add-on ($50) in-addition to the individual ticket in order to reserve your table.
Run of Show:
6 p.m. Doors open for picnicking, book-browsing, and cash bar.
6:30 p.m. Live swing music from Baltimore’s own The New Old Fashioneds
7:30 p.m. Storytelling
Brought to you by The Stoop Storytelling Series, Mend Acupuncture, and The Ivy Bookshop
Rain Date: Sunday, June 6th
Current CDC Covid-19 safety guidelines will be in effect.
Meet Artist Kini Collins
Saturday, June 5 • 1-4pm
@ The Galleries at CCBC Essex
Part & Parcel is an exhibition of recent works by Kini Collins at the Gallery at CCBC Essex. On select Saturdays throughout the exhibition Collins will be in the Gallery to meet with visitors, answer any questions, and have conversations about the work.
Sophia Belkin: Ground Swell & Sasha Fishman: The Space Between Your Nostrils | Opening Reception
Saturday, June 5 • 4-8pm | Ongoing through July
@ Resort
Resort is pleased to present two solo exhibitions:
Ground Swell, a show of new works by Sophia Belkin
and The Space Between Your Nostrils, an installation and material study by Sasha Fishman.
Ground Swell – If you enter a moderately forested area around Baltimore between Mid-May and June of this year, your senses will be overcome with presence of the Brood X cicadas, a once in 17-year phenomena that temporarily upend the local ecology. Between the percussive rattle of their song repertoire and the particular palette of their eyes and bodies, it is easy to overlook the less conspicuous (but equally magical) aspects of their emergence.
Underground, the larval form of the cicada lives in dormancy for over sixteen years, absorbing nutrients and slowly transforming into its mature form. It then begins a journey upward, tunneling through up to 2 feet of earth to reach the surface. The pathways traveled by each insect leaves its own set of invisible labyrinthine marks, maps of a journey visible only as a circular fissure disrupting the ground.
In these unseen states, Sophia Belkin explores the infinite potential of dormancy and transmutation, using dye, embroidery, printed fabric, original source photography and hand-applied marks. Outside of the lifecycle events marked and charted by science, Sophia questions and gives expansive, visual space to the turbulent, cryptic and alchemical changes that are contained within this unseen phase.
Her work describes transforming energies from cellular to cosmic and the time that is spent in that process. Structures waiver between resolution and falling apart, suspended paradoxically in active change. After a year that the world related very differently to the passing of time, seeds, larvae, cells, stars and things that once felt dormant could be observed more closely and on their own unique timescales.
The Space Between Your Nostrils – Sasha Fishman explores the byproducts and aftermath of the cicada emergence in her installation, examining the discarded shells as a source material that overlaps her existing biomaterial development inquiries. Typically situated in the excess and waste stream materials from the commercial fishing industry, Sasha’s work compares toxicity and sustainability in sculptural material, while considering ethical questions around extraction and long-term impact.
The installation encourages viewers to collect and contribute cicada shells which can be deposited into a door slot at Resort. These shells will be used for a community bioplastic extraction at The Timekeepers Workshop July 9 at The Shed Space. The shells will gather in the installation where biomaterials are growing and decaying at different rates within synthetic containers which will outlast their organic contents. Consisting of casts of the artist’s jawbone, replicas of a deceased hagfish, and growing algae, the installation is a circular investigation of biomaterials, corporeal collapse and its inevitable relationship to our own bodies.
We may observe the abundance of cicada shells as discarded material, but how is the ecosystem deprived by removing this substance for our own use over time? These questions, material investigations, extractions and cultivations are part of Sasha’s perpetual, and potentially futile hope of replacing resin, a toxic material that is vital to the evolution of her sculptural work.
The exhibitions are on view through the end of July, 2021 and open Saturdays 12 – 4pm and by appointment.
These are the final shows at RESORT at its current location and in its current form.
Calls for Entry // Opportunities
2021 Student Design Award | Call for Applications
deadline | June 3
sponsored by AIA Baltimore
AIA Baltimore (f.1871) connects you with more than 1,300 local members representing licensed architects, emerging professionals, students and allied partners. The AIA Baltimore Future Architects Resources (FAR) Committee created this scholarship program for students pursuing careers in architecture. Each year the winning projects demonstrate critical thinking, innovation, social responsibility and environmental stewardship. Submissions can be a single project, multiple projects or a research/theory paper (graduate students only).
Deadline: Submissions are due no later than Thursday, June 3, 2021
BORDERS ART FAIR – FRAGMENTED IDENTITIES | Call for Entry
deadline June 18
sponsored by ITSLIQUID
ITSLIQUID Group, in collaboration with Venice Events and ACIT Venice – Italian-German Cultural Association, is pleased to announce the open call for BORDERS ART FAIR – VENICE 2021.
BORDERS ART FAIR – FRAGMENTED IDENTITIES, curated by Arch. Luca Curci, will be presented in Venice at THE ROOM Contemporary Art Space, at Palazzo Albrizzi-Capello and in other prestigious venues between July 12 and August 01, 2021.
BORDERS ART FAIR is a contemporary art fair that presents collective and solo projects by leading and emerging international artists. The 2021 edition will represent a forum for direct exchange of ideas and contacts between collectors, artists, photographers, designers and art professionals. The art fair features paintings, sculptures, photography art, installations, video art and live performance.
BORDERS ART FAIR provides artists and exhibitors with the unique opportunity to present their works to an international audience of professionals as curators, gallerists, collectors, editors and publishers who seek to acquire, publish and encourage the best contemporary art talents.
Deadline for applications is June 18, 2021 (11.59 PM of your local time)
Click here to take part in the selection.
Mark Ryder Original Choreography Grant | Call for Applications
deadline June 23
sponsored by Howard County Arts Council
Howard County Arts Council (HCAC) is pleased to announce that applications for the FY2022 Mark Ryder Original Choreography Grant Program are now available. Established at the bequest of Mark Ryder’s family in honor of his life’s work, this program recognizes individual creative expression by providing financial assistance to choreographers to create new original work. A fund has been established at the Community Foundation of Howard County to enable monies to be awarded for this purpose in perpetuity. The grant award recipients will be announced at HCAC’s Annual Meeting and Grant Awards Ceremony in September 2021. The minimum grant amount will be $500.
Mark Ryder was an established dancer, choreographer and leader in the dance community. He danced alongside Martha Graham in the 1940s until founding the Dance Drama Duo — later called the Dance Drama Company — with Emily Frankel. Mr. Ryder went on to teach dance in the 1960s at Goddard College in Vermont, served two years as chairman of the dance department at the University of Maryland, College Park beginning in 1974, and retired from teaching in 1988. After moving to Howard County in 1975, Mr. Ryder also became very involved in choreographing local productions. Mr. Ryder believed individual expression to be the most important part of the creative process for both choreographer and dancer and that more is learned through being a part of the process and actively participating in it than by simply being taught the movements or viewing the final product. He passed away in July 2006 and is survived by his wife and family, who wish to honor his legacy by offering an annual competitive grant award to choreographers through HCAC.
Please refer to the guidelines for criteria and other requirements. The application and guidelines for the Mark Ryder Original Choreography Grant Program are currently available to view and submit in the Opportunities for Artists & Arts Groups section at hocoarts.org. Please e-mail [email protected] for more information. The deadline to submit applications is June 23, 2021.
The Howard County Arts Council is a private, non-profit organization established to serve the citizens of Howard County by fostering the arts, artists and arts organizations.
Public Art Across Maryland and Independent Artist Awards | Call for Panelists
deadlined June 25
sponsored by Maryland State Arts Council
BuildingLOVE | Call for Submissions
deadline June 30
sponsored by Baltimore Architecture Foundation
We want to see your favorite Baltimore buildings! Create one letter, poem, sketch or other creation of your favorite building or place in Baltimore in the format of a 4×6 postcard that will then be digitally collected. This activity is an invitation to submit a token of your love for Baltimore architecture. The goals of Building Love are to reflect on the built environment and values manifested in a building or space and to create a discourse among design professions and the public about qualities that make a building or space successful.
Deadline For Submissions: June 30, 2021
Follow BAF on Instagram and see all of our submissions by searching the hashtag #
Don’t have social media? Send it to us via email at [email protected]
Independent Artist Award | Call for Applications
deadline July 1
sponsored by The Maryland State Arts Council
MSAC’s Independent Artist Awards (IAAs) recognize achievement by Maryland artists making work independent of an institution or organization. The awards are accompanied by grants of $2,000, $10,000, and $15,000 that encourage artistic growth and sustained practice.
2022 IAAs will recognize artists in the Literary Arts. Artistic categories rotate in a three-year cycle. Performing Arts applications will be accepted in Summer 2022; Visual/Media Arts applications will be accepted in Summer 2023. Artists may apply to the category they feel best represents their work.
For further details and information, including IAA Guidelines, please visit our website here.<
NEW! “How To Apply” Webinar Sessions:
Join MSAC Program Directors Emily Sollenberger and Laura Weiss to walk through the IAA guidelines, application, and panel review process. This is a great opportunity to find out more about the program and to have any questions answered.
In Conjunction with BmoreArt’s C+C Exhibit featuring Fostel’s charcoal drawings of women’s bedrooms, a conversation with the Co-Director of the Baltimore Abortion Fund
This Week: MICA Community Art & Service Program exhibition, In the Stacks performance at Peabody Library, City of Artists I closing reception at Connect + Collect, Mari Black at Manor Mill, Open Works yard sale, screening of Black Printmakers of Washington DC at Smithsonian Anacostia, and more!
This week's news includes: Baynard Woods on Larry Hogan's "error-laden" memoir, BMI's new Labor Activism Exhibit, Blacksauce Kitchen, Joyce J. Scott, Glenstone Outdoors this Summer, Rob Lee profiles Anthony Gittens, BSO's Summerfest at the Meyerhoff–and more!
This Week: Bill Schmidt and scholar Kristen Hileman in conversation at C. Grimaldis Gallery, Baltimore School for the Arts Senior Recitals, Work Matters lecture at BMI, Rent Party at Baltimore Museum of Art, Jami Attenberg at Greedy Reads Remington, Out of Order (OOO) and more!
