Abby Becker is the manager of Station North Arts and Entertainment District, where she works with the Central Baltimore Partnership to activate and promote the district and expand support for local artists and businesses. I met with Becker at the newly relocated Mobtown Ballroom to learn more about her work as an arts leader, and our conversation ranged from the complexity of demands that she balances, to her origins and identity as an artist, to why art matters to us as humans.
Becker’s role in Station North ranges from strategic planning and grant writing, to activating events across the district. Through this work, she builds relationships with partners and collaborators toward uplifting the creative community and strengthening the neighborhood’s arts infrastructure. She balances all this with her own creative practice as a musician, performing with her band Cora Sone, and writing scores for original projects like Rock Operas, puppet shows, and theatre productions.
While these two sides of her work hold distinction, for Becker they are intertwined and interdependent. “I think it’s really critical to be an artist in this role,” she says. Her lived experience as an artist informs her management work, though staying dedicated to her creative practice takes intentionality. “It helps to have a project deadline like a show, or to take a class or participate in a residency. I have to be working on my own craft. I have to show up for it, and that accountability helps me. But then the challenge becomes how do I also just play for fun and try new things.”
Becker’s origins as an artist started during childhood, although she didn’t initially plan to pursue it as a profession. “My dad was a musician. I was the kid that really took up the mantle of music, but then I went to Goucher college for the Peace Studies program.”
She planned to work as a human rights lawyer or in the field of International Relations. But right after she graduated, Becker lost her father and her perspective shifted. She started writing music as a way to process her grief and move forward, and her interdisciplinary education in techniques of dialogue, conflict mediation, and philosophies of justice set the stage for her work in the arts.
“I feel in some ways that working in the arts is the most anti-capitalist field. We’re talking about a kind of production that can’t really be quantified. We monetize it, but we don’t do it because of a number,” she explains. “It’s because we’re human, and I think we need to remind ourselves that we’re not machines.”