This year marks BmoreArt’s first-ever official participation in Artscape! We have always covered it as a media partner in the past, but the weather and its requirement that art be exhibited outside has always been a barrier for us. Being inside the SCOUT Art Fair with all of the Baltimore-based artists and co-hosting the Thursday night Vernissage Event proved to be a perfect venue for us.
There was massive foot traffic from Friday through Sunday and I am pleased to report that we had an incredible weekend! Never have I encountered so many people, wide-eyed and excited about art and artists! It was a high energy, positive love fest all weekend long. Initial reports from the first day of Artscape are claiming about 100,000 visitors just on Saturday; everyone wanted to come inside the gorgeous War Memorial Building.
I want to acknowledge that change is uncomfortable and a lot of Baltimoreans love the Artscape of the past. It can be difficult to give something new a chance. For anything gained, there are always going to be losses, but in the conversations I had all weekend long, people at the fair kept repeating the same thing over and over: This Artscape is an elevation. People were impressed.
While the overall reviews of this year’s Artscape are mixed, and I think we should evaluate it in order to make positive changes for next year, we can all agree on one thing: the weather was incredible. Hosting the nation’s largest outdoor free arts festival on Memorial Day weekend, for two days instead of three, was a gamble, but with massive crowds Saturday and nearly the same on Sunday, it seems to have paid off.
From where I sat, just inside the vestibule at the art fair, this year’s Artscape was a game changer for many of us. The SCOUT Team of Tonya Miller Hall, Derrick Adams, and Teri Henderson made it work – Baltimore has never had an art fair like this before! People were actually buying the art and interacting with the artists! This is the first time I can remember Artscape centering living, working, Baltimore-based artists in a meaningful way.