The weekend of the 22nd, hundreds upon thousands of people streamed into Baltimore’s Arts and Entertainment district for the 38th Artscape since the disappointing 37th in 2019. A festival celebrating virtually all types of art, Artscape has been held almost annually since 1982 in the Mount Royal neighborhood, appropriately near MICA and the Charles Theatre. Spanning nearly a square mile, the festival is packed with performers, artists, chefs, filmmakers, muralists, and more, as stages and stalls dot the landscape and buildings are transformed into their own exhibits. The crowds are not at all disappointing either. Alive and grand, the aforementioned thousands are spread throughout the streets, sharing a genuine love for art and connecting with artists around the area. This love translated into persistence as crowds endured the conditions of Hurricane Ophelia, which cancelled the event on Saturday.
My experience with the festival was nothing short of incredible. Arriving shortly after 7:30 Friday night, a quiet, streetlight-lit walk to the event provided the perfect atmosphere in contrast to the liveliness of the event. Entering from the south side, the Meyerhoff and Mt. Royal stage bordering myself from the right and left, a field of drones was laid out as several people hovered around them. Continuing further up Maryland avenue, music began to blast from Mt. Royal’s stage as the drones flew up into the sky and formed a number of different patterns as sponsored by the University of Maryland. Continuing further up Maryland Avenue, I made my way past station north and into the Night Owl gallery, featuring several different incredibly talented artists, one on which being Kelly Walker, who developed a series of graffiti-inspired paintings to be put on display in the exhibit, each including a different set of color and pattern to evoke wildly different emotions in the perceiver. Alongside her was Rosa Leff, whose style utilises colored paper cut with extreme precision to form both extremely famous and mundane yet meaningful scenes within Baltimore.
Going back towards the Meyerhoff hall down Charles street, another performance raved outside, a DJ showering the crowd below with sound. As I came further down Charles Street, the two blocks containing and adjacent to the Charles theatre were completely transformed. The theatre itself was unfortunately closed, though a parking garage across the street was filled with several radiant sculptures as people skated around the empty lot above. Each shop had their own attractions, as a few small musicians in front of a bookstore sat adjacent to a number of more exhibits. Continuing down the road, two long rows of stands sat at either side of the street, packed with canvases and other pieces as dancers performed in the spaces between them. Finally meeting the end of the street, music still roared out from the main stage as I transitioned back into the silent walk that introduced the event, reflecting on the dynamic atmosphere that it introduced. If interested, the event is set to occur again in July of 2024, with specific dates decided a few months in advance.
