This Week: Making Their Mark at NMWA, AWP Conference & Bookfair, Carole Boston Weatherford tribute reading at CCCC, BCAA Public Convening at MICA, BSA’s Expressions ’26, panel discussion on Baltimore’s Confederate monuments at The Walters, Highlandtown First Friday Art Walk, opening reception for Deborah Brown English at Creative Alliance, and Hard Times Require Furious Dancing at 2640 Space — PLUS apply for the Creative Capital Awards and more featured opportunities!
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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Making Their Mark: Works from the Shah Garg Collection
Ongoing though July 26
@ National Museum of Women in the Arts
Making Their Mark: Works from the Shah Garg Collection brings together approximately 80 works by nearly 70 of the most influential artists of the 20th and 21st centuries, including Magdalena Abakanowicz, Cecily Brown, Sheila Hicks, Jenny Holzer, Julie Mehretu, Joan Mitchell, Faith Ringgold, Tschabalala Self, Amy Sillman, Lorna Simpson, Jaune Quick-to-See Smith, Pat Steir, Sarah Sze, Kara Walker, and Zarina. Featuring a wide variety of artworks from the past eight decades, including painting, sculpture, installation, textile, beadwork, and ceramics, the exhibition emphasizes connections between intergenerational and international artists who circumvent and upend conventions in art-making, embracing craft techniques, inventive methods, and alternative materials.
The exhibition is organized within seven sections that illustrate key thematic threads: Gestural Abstraction, Luminous Abstraction, Pixelated Abstraction, Disobedient Bodies, Of Selves and Spirits, The Power of Form, and Craft is Art. Each section juxtaposes works by emerging artists with the pathbreaking contributions of their predecessors, demonstrating how earlier generations anticipated contemporary perspectives on representation, identity, and power. Making Their Mark envisions art history as an interconnected web of influences and affinities among artists who subvert traditional narratives and hierarchies in a historically patriarchal field.
Many of the works on view question rigid and gendered distinctions between art and craft, eroding arbitrary and increasingly obsolete categories and value systems. Making Their Mark assembles significant works by artists whose innovative explorations demonstrate expansive vocabularies of art-making, highlighting the importance of prioritizing diverse perspectives to change the way art histories are told.
Wednesday, March 4 – Saturday, March 7
@ Baltimore Convention Center
The AWP Conference & Bookfair is the essential gathering for writers, teachers, students, editors, and publishers. Join thousands of attendees, explore hundreds of events and exhibitors, and immerse in four days of vital literary community and celebration in Baltimore!
:: Related Event ::
Read the Room: Celebrating Literary Baltimore – AWP End-of-Conference Party
Saturday, March 7 :: 5:30-10:30pm
@ 2640 Space
Wednesday, March 4 :: 6-8pm
@ Charm City Cultural Cultivation
The daughter of a printer, Carole Boston Weatherford was practically born with ink in her blood. She began writing at age 6 and soon after saw her poems in print. Her 80-plus books have garnered 2 NAACP Image Awards and 18 American Library Association Youth Media Awards, including a Newbery Honor, Coretta Scott King Award and 4 Caldecott Honors. Her career achievements have been recognized with the ALA Children’s Literature Legacy Award, the North Carolina Award for Literature, and the Nonfiction Award from the Children’s Book Guild. The 2024 Young People’s Poet Laureate and a retired HBCU professor, she lives in Baltimore.
Zora’s Den is a program of Charm City Cultural Cultivation (CharmCCC), a non-profit foundation whose primary function is to build opportunities for cultural growth in Baltimore’s inner city by introducing and supporting initiatives for public programs in the arts, social engagements, leisurely activities and educational advancement through informal gatherings.
We are dedicated to empowering the lives of Black women writers, by offering a platform for their authentic stories and unique voices.
Thank you to the @PoetryFoundation for your support of this program. #AWP #AWP26
Baltimore: The City of Accessible Arts (BCAA) Public Convening
Thursday, March 5 :: 4-6pm
@ MICA
The BCAA Convening, which aims to propel Baltimore toward becoming the City of Accessible Arts, is hosted by MICA in partnership with the Exhibition Development Seminar (EDS), Office of Accessibility and Disability Services (ADS), and the Office of Exhibitions.
As part of celebrating MICA’s Bicentennial, the convening seeks to envision the institute’s future by fostering meaningful conversations about accessibility. The convening will include a presentation by EDS on their practices in accessible exhibition design and public programming, as implemented in the Rooted/Growing exhibition, and a brief overview of MICA’s Office of Accessibility & Disability Services (ADS)’s diverse programs aiming to support students with disabilities and facilitate an accessible learning environment at MICA. The event will also feature a presentation by artist Joseph “Joe” Taylor, who graduated from General Fine Arts in 2025.
The convening is open to all and will also be available on Zoom. Before the event, a guided tour of EDS ’26 exhibition Rooted/Growing at the Decker Gallery, Fox Building, is scheduled for 3 pm.
EXPRESSIONS `26: The Power of Wonder & Awe
Thursday, March 5 – Sunday, March 8
@ Baltimore School for the ArtsExpressions is the premier fundraising event for the Baltimore School for the Arts. This year, we proudly present Expressions ’26: The Power of Wonder & Awe! This event supports exceptional arts training, scholarships, state-of-the-art equipment, technology upgrades, cultural outings, master classes, and vital academic resources. BSA thrives because of your continued generosity and belief in our students.
Expressions ’26: The Power of Wonder & Awe celebrates the magic that happens every day at the Baltimore School for the Arts, where creativity, curiosity, and talent converge. Our students and faculty continually inspire us through their passion, imagination, and dedication to their craft.
We hope you will join us for Expressions ’26 as we honor the transformative impact of the arts and share the wonder and awe that fuel our community and shape the next generation of artists, innovators, and leaders.
From Controversy to Conversation: Engaging Monuments and Memory
Thursday, March 5 :: 5:30 pm
@ The Walters Art Museum
Join us for a lively conversation, at The Walters Art Museum, on contested history, collective memory, power, and aesthetics of public space, including a discussion about what to do with Baltimore’s decommissioned Confederate monuments and their former sites.
There will be a reception following the panel discussion.
Speakers:
Hannah Burstein is a curator, researcher, and public programmer. Her interests include contemporary interventions with historical objects, constructions of race in public space, alternatives to traditional museum interpretation, and horror. She is the curatorial associate of The Brick and the MONUMENTS exhibition at MOCA in Los Angeles.
Nekisha Durrett is a multidisciplinary artist whose practice spans public art, installation, sculpture, painting, and social practice. Durett is especially drawn to stories of Black life, labor and imagination that have been forgotten or intentionally erased, creating spaces that hold both remembrance and possibility. Her permanent public artworks are found at Arlington Arts in Virginia, the Baltimore Museum of Art, Miami Dade County, the Phillips Collection and MLK Jr. Memorial Library in Washington DC, the City of West Palm Beach, and Bryn Mawr College in Pennsylvania. Her commission for the Obama Presidential Center in Chicago, Hem of Heaven, is in production and scheduled for unveiling in summer 2026.
Martha S. Jones is a writer, historian, legal scholar and public intellectual whose work aims to understand the politics, culture, and poetics of Black America. She is the author of: The Trouble of Color: An American Family Memoir, Vanguard and Birthright Citizens and director of the Hard Histories at Hopkins Project at Johns Hopkins University.
Hamza Walker is the director of The Brick (formerly LAXART), a nonprofit alternative art space in Los Angeles. An award-winning curator, writer, and educator, his practice explores the rhetoric of race in the United States, racial identity, and politics. He is the curator of the Monuments exhibition currently on view at MOCA in Los Angeles.
Highlandtown First Friday Art Walk
Friday, March 6 :: 5-9pm
@ Highlandtown Arts District
Free and open to the public.
The Highlandtown First Friday Art Walk is a free, self-guided walking tour of arts venues, exhibitions, performances, pop-up shops and more! SBM Gallery will be participating beginning at 7:30 pm this month with a free artist reception. Join us for snacks and a chance to meet some of the exhibiting artists!
Details about other happenings in the neighborhood, such as participating venues are posted on the Highlandtown Arts District website: ihearthighlandtown.com and on social media here: @highlandtown arts on FB and IG.
Time’s Breath: An Odyssey in Words and Pictures | Opening Reception
Friday, March 6 :: 6-8pm
@ Creative Alliance
Time’s Breath: An Odyssey in Words and Pictures, a new exhibition of paintings and works on paper by Deborah Brown English, will open at Creative Alliance in March. English’s debut illustrated novel, Time’s Breath: An Odyssey in Words and Pictures, which also serves as a catalogue for the exhibition, was published to rave reviews in September.
Creative Alliance is located one block from the Southeast corner of Patterson Park, with the Main Gallery located inside the Patterson Building at 3134 Eastern Avenue. The exhibition will be on view to the public from Tuesday-Saturday, 12pm-5pm. Exhibition admission is free.
Time’s Breath combines English’s paintings and works on paper with accompanying fiction, connected by an overarching narrative that resurfaces a mysterious island and a lost civilization. In a lighthouse off the coast of Norway, a book is found within the debris of a small boat. It contains pictures and stories, written in several hands. Together, they tell the tale of a volcanic island in the North Atlantic called Tokket Fall, lost a century before, and of the community that lived there—people, animals, and mythical beings.
:: Related Event ::
Tiffany Lange: Monsters and Moons | Opening Reception
Friday, March 6 :: 6-8pm
@ Creative Alliance
Hard Times Require Furious Dancing
Friday, March 6 :: 6:30pm
@ 4MLK | UM BioPark
When the world is heavy, we must find our joy and dance. Come celebrate that one good thing that’s worth the sweat.
Hard Times Require Furious Dancing* is a gathering that is defiant in joy. This free event invites writers, readers, and literary folx to step out of conference mode and onto the dance floor.
A high-energy evening designed to bring together creatives from across the country to celebrate literature, movement, and connection. Music curated by Baltimore’s own DJ Chris Brooks, featuring The Jonathan Gilmore Project, light bites, a cash bar, a photo booth, and plenty of room to dance, meet new people, and reconnect with old friends. Whether you come to move or simply be in the room, this is a space for collective joy and footstompin’ music.
The only thing left to bring is a good vibe and your energy. Registration is required. As you register, we invite you to pause and reflect: What are you celebrating right now? What song makes you get up and dance without thinking twice?
*from Alice Walker’s book of poetry of the same name
Featured Opportunities
Teaching Artist | SALA (Summer Arts for Learning Academy)
Arts for Learning Maryland is hiring experienced teaching artists to work at our award-winning, arts-integrated, summer program, Summer Arts for Learning Academy (SALA), in Baltimore City! Professional artists of all disciplines with experience working with children are encouraged to apply. Each SALA teaching artist is paired with an experienced classroom teacher to design and deliver daily arts-integrated lessons (pairing the arts with academic subjects) as well as leading daily lessons in their art form.
• COMPETITIVE SALARY $50/hour for the five-week program, plus paid training
• NEW SKILLS, KNOWLEDGE + TRAINING to implement arts-integrated academics
• WORK WITH OTHER PASSIONATE ARTISTS and teach your art form in a supportive learning and teaching environment.
PROGRAM DATES: JUNE 29 – JULY 30, 2026
Prior to SALA, artists will participate in professional development and arts integration training (paid).
2026 Asia North Exhibition
deadline March 6
posted by Towson University Asian Arts & Cultural Center
The 2026 Asia North exhibition committee is excited to announce Dylan Kaleikaumaka Hill as our guest curator! Hill is currently the Baltimore Museum of Art’s Meyerhoff-Becker Curatorial Fellow. Her curatorial practice aspires to center underrepresented perspectives and interrogate colonial narratives.
We invite artists to submit artworks that explore the many facets of hospitality—a core value rooted in respect, ritual, and community for many of us who grew up in APIMEDA (Asian Pacific Islander Middle Eastern Desi American) households. Considering hospitality as a malleable practice, we ask that submitted works address the ways in which hospitality beckons us to prioritize the care of others, create safe spaces for exchange, and reinforce/redefine cultural traditions. We invite works from across mediums that convey the nuances of what it means to be “hospitable” across the greater Baltimore and DMV regions today. The exhibition will feature works from guest artists and from this open call for art and will be installed in the SNF Parkway Theatre and Currency Studio throughout the month of May.
NextGen 13.0 Exhibition
deadline March 11
posted by VisArts
VisArts invites emerging artists ages 17–27 from the DC, Maryland, and Virginia region to apply for NextGen 13.0, our annual exhibition spotlighting new and developing voices. The exhibition will be presented in the Gibbs Street Gallery from March 27–May 10, 2026.
Designed especially for artists with little or no prior exhibition experience, NextGen 13.0 offers a rare chance to present work in a professional gallery setting while engaging in a robust slate of supportive programming. Selected artists will participate in an opening reception, artist talks, and conversations with fellow emerging artists, as well as critiques and professional development sessions led by local curators and arts administrators who actively work with young artists.
Artists who previously participated in NextGen are not eligible to apply. However, applicants who were not selected in past years are encouraged to reapply.
Tall Stories at Maryland Film Festival 2026: Vertical Video Submission Form
deadline March 15
posted by Maryland Film Festival
Submit your 9:16 aspect ratio film for a chance to be screened at the SNF Parkway. Whimsical, cinematic, global and regional stories welcome!
2027 Artist & Writer Residencies
deadline March 31
posted by Vermont Studio Center
Vermont Studio Center (VSC) was founded by artists in 1984. We welcome writers and artists for residencies in Johnson, Vermont, and host programs and events. Our mission is to provide studio residencies in an inclusive, international community, honoring creative work as the communication of spirit through form. Our buildings, many of them historic Vermont landmarks, overlook the Gihon River in the northern Green Mountains.
For four decades, our residency program has offered residents and the general public an opportunity to engage with global creative communities. We invite Visiting Writers and Artists from around the world to join us during our residencies to mentor residents, present readings, facilitate craft talks, and give lectures that are open to the public.
Call for Entries, Thoughts of Summer
deadline April 1
posted by SE Center for Photography
Thoughts of Summer, that time of year for family, friends, fun and food. The time for vacations, the beach and the mountains. Share your best images that celebrate summer.
Color or monochrome, all subjects, digital or antique processes, analog and digital manipulation, all forms welcome. Photographers of all skill levels and locations are welcome.
Creative Capital Awards
deadline April 2
The 2027 Creative Capital Open Call seeks proposals from individual artists in all 50 states for new artistic works in the Visual Arts, Performing Arts, Film, and Literature.
The Creative Capital Award provides unrestricted project grants of up to $50,000 to individual artists to create new work. The new State of the Art Prize provides unrestricted artist grants of $10,000.
Fanny Knapp Allen Artist In Residence
deadline April 3
posted by University of Rochester Department of Art & Art History
The Department of Art and Art History at the University of Rochester (www.sas.rochester.edu/aah/) invites applications for a one or two-year Fanny Knapp Allen Artist in Residence position beginning July 1, 2026. We seek artists or artist collectives whose practice centers on fiber-based and textile processes, including both traditional and experimental modes. Candidates should be engaged with the expanded field of fiber art as a conceptual, socially engaged, or technologically integrated practice and demonstrate a strong connection between material production, surface design, and conceptual inquiry in their work and teaching.
The selected artist or collective will be in residence at the University of Rochester to conduct research, develop a body of work, and teach studio art courses associated with their expertise and research interests. Teaching expectations include no more than three courses per academic year with additional expectations that encompass leading workshops, visiting classes, mentoring Studio majors in the Senior Studio and Seminar course, and potentially supervising Independent Studies.
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