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Baltimore Love Project

Behind the Curtain

By | Art & Social Change, Of Love and Concrete | No Comments

This month, I started working for the man, umm, woman. I took a job as the administrative manager for Doreen Bolger, the Director of the Baltimore Museum of Art. It has been eleven and a half years since I have worked for someone else. The change is drastic. Art museums are those stodgy institutions we mean to visit but never do, right? Not like the vibrant and insurgent work I was involved in at the Baltimore Love Project.

But perhaps what I’m doing isn’t so different after all. Here’s why…

The Product: Experience driven by meaningful context

Art was certainly discussed my first week at the museum. There were the obvious considerations, such as what we should do about restrictions placed on the collection by a generous patron … and what do we do with this work that was “given” to us? … and how do we inform the staff that some decisions administrative decisions may challenge installation set-ups? But more than anything, the conversation revolved around making the best possible experience for our guests. Context is crucial for making the work matter to them. Something as seemingly insignificant as the flooring in a gallery can radically alter the viewer’s experience, just as the location of a mural can radically alter space and our relationship to it.

The Decision Influencers: The Curators

The “artists” at a museum are the curators.  The museum is going through prolific renovations that will significantly enhance the visitor experience. The renovation also drastically changes the curators’ opportunities, or forces them to give new thought to their work. A concern experienced frequently in my first week were the compromises required of our curators as a result of the changes. Rather than “resolving” the situations with the architect, the contractor, and the director, the curators were included in the decision making process. The curators voices are heard. Needless to say, impossible constraints and limited budget frequently won, but the curator was part of the decision, despite how much easier, and potentially less costly, it would have been to make the decision in their absence. The creativity of an artist, whether on the street or in the museum, needs to be represented at the decision making table.

The Perks: An hour with a world class scholar on Matisse.

The highlight of my week was a guided tour of the current exhibition on Matisse, Matisse’s Marguerite: Model Daughter. For one hour prior to opening to the public, the staff was invited to the Cone Wing for a guided tour by Jay Fisher. This astonishing installation features works by Matisse with his own daughter Marguerite as his model. The finer points conveyed to me by one of the world’s leading authorities on the artist’s life and work on enhanced my own experience at the museum.

It’s exactly the awe and appreciation I felt for these priceless wonders that I want to instill in others. Art museums are not places that art works go to die; they should be a place where art becomes meaningful to every aspect of our lives.

 

The Audience Is Not The Enemy

By | Art & Social Change, Of Love and Concrete | One Comment

The Baltimore Love Project worked for several months to gain permission to paint our iconic image on the side of Rite Aid. We first stopped by the store to find someone who could give us permission. As expected the clerk directed us to the manager. The manager offered words of support but had limited resources, and knowledge, to ink a deal. We proceeded up the ladder. We called corporate! It took a few calls to find the right department, but eventually we reached a sympathetic ear in marketing. Even with an advocate inside, it took several more months to have our one page contract converted into a signed sixteen page document. I am not certain, but I may have lost the naming rights to my first child.

After a three month journey through an organized institution we were ready to paint. We made one more phone call to the district’s city councilwoman. At the time we were not certain if a mural required a permit from the city. It does not. We also wanted to let her know of this great thing we were doing in her neighborhood.

She promptly told us to stop everything. She informed us that “this neighborhood has a process for murals.” Nebulous would be a compliment to the structure of the process that we walked into. We weaved our way through a myriad of community meetings, main street meetings, conversations with stakeholders, and email chains. After two months we did not know if we needed a permit (the permitting office feared making the correct legal decision based on political repercussions) or if the store up the street would call the cops on us. We pushed the councilwoman to act. She said “let’s put it to a vote”. Flyers were placed around the neighborhood and emails were sent to community lists. After a defined voting period the tally was in. 100 percent of the voters wanted the love mural in their neighborhood. 95 percent wanted the mural in the location we had worked to get permission. The councilwomen allowed us to paint, and we learned a valuable lesson.

The community does not have to be a liability. The community can be an asset.

The experience drastically changed our perceptions of engagement. If a work of art truly is about response, not just self expression, invite the audience to the entire work of art. Process is a significant part of the art. Process is also a point in which context can be experienced and understood by others. Context is how the audience gains access to a work of art. Context and process can be shared with the audience before the work exists. In so doing, the artists increases the opportunity to reach the desired goal of completing the work, which is now a shared experience with the audience, AND the artist can ask “what do you think” much earlier in the conversation. The audience can be a valuable resource to the two main objectives of the artist: creation and exploration.

Love wall number 6 at 3133 Greenmount Avenue was a turning point for our project. It gave us confidence about our ability to execute. We signed a contract with a multinational corporation. It gave us confidence as artists. We had a powerful idea that was accessible even before it was completed. And ultimately it improved our practice as artists to express ourselves AND explore new philosophies with others.

 

IMAGE CREDIT. [Sean Schedit].

Expecting Too Much of Creative Placemaking?

By | Art & Social Change, Art That Counts | One Comment

As is probably clear by now, I’m deeply curious and often delighted by creative placemaking. When it comes to evaluation of creative placemaking, however, I’m stumped or underwhelmed, and I’m not alone. Over a year ago, Ian David Moss wrote “Creative Placemaking Has An Outcomes Problem” and Ellen Berkovitch wrote a summary of arguments in “Can Creative Placemaking Be Proven?

Personally, I’m on the fence if the problem is in outcomes or expectations…

Outcomes: We’re not measuring (enough)

In some instances, funders and project organizers are content with anecdotal evidence or uncertain how to establish quantitative data for their projects. Metrics and analysis isn’t an important part of the project from conception, the effort to accomplish something is good enough.

Outcomes: We’re not measuring the right things

More recently, it’s been popular to tie artistic projects specifically to economic indicators — attempting to prove that an arts festival or mural project has increased home values or brought more jobs into a neighborhood. While these are valuable things if/when they can be proven, I don’t believe the value in an art project is in raising home values any more than I believe the purpose of a painting is to match my couch.

Expectations: Vibrancy Indicators & Causation

Creative placemaking grants from both ArtPlace America and the National Endowment for the Arts (NEA) are both assessed after the fact using community indicators. To simplify things, I’ll just talk about ArtPlace’s use of Vibrancy Indicators (the specifics of each program’s indicators are different; the general use and intent is similar enough).

ArtPlace Vibrancy Indicators

ArtPlace Vibrancy Indicators

Indicators aren’t meant to be the equivalent of a project’s goals … which is good, because if you were handed $280,000 (the average size of an ArtPlace grant) to increase the jobs or even the walkability of a neighborhood, it’s unlikely that creative placemaking would be the tool you turned to. However, indicators are taking the place of evaluation and, as a result, projects aren’t assessed based on their unique goals and audiences. Again, this seems to hinder our ability to assess which projects are successful and which are not and the thoughtful analysis of those results.

In looking at these broad areas, the funders are evaluating changes at a neighborhood or city level that may or may not be attributable to the actual funded creative placemaking activity. These sort of changes (e.g., increases in an area’s population, restaurants or artspaces) are the result of a variety of causes and are very worthwhile to track (see Vital Signs data) but can’t necessarily provide any clarity about whether one creative placemaking project was more successful than another — let alone why.

Finally, if the end goal for funders (and creative placemakers!) is to move the dial on some of these indicators, it would be far more encouraging to engage in long-term funding of specific projects and their evaluation and refinement. While a one-year project can positively impact a neighborhood’s walkscore, it can deteriorate into a detriment three years later if there’s no capacity to maintain it.

Scott Burkholder has written about funders questioning the impact of The Baltimore Love Project:

One of my “fondest” memories made during the project was sitting in a prolific Baltimore foundation’s offices. It was one of my first pitches to a significant investor. He had the means to pay for the entire project. Trial by fire was an understatement. Despite our passion, we were not prepared to articulate a change that was of interest to him. He pretty much asked us how many kids would graduate from high school and go to college as a result of our work. We not only didn’t know the answer, we had no response.

Seeing kids graduate from high school and enter college is an extremely worthwhile goal, but it’s not something that happens with only a year of effort (as of the publication of this article, my own kid will be a mere 275 days away from this achievement, so I can say this with some authority). There are twenty Baltimore Love Project murals total — and five of those are at area schools. Will an incoming freshman be inspired by the mural at her school? Will she go to college and get an art education degree? Will she return to Baltimore and teach, having her own hand in inspiring countless graduates?

It’s all possible, but a program evaluation that occurs as a brief requirement at a project’s end can never hope to track such a thing and expecting a project to deliver on those terms is unreasonable. (I should clarify here that the Baltimore Love Project is not specifically a creative placemaking endeavor, but their experience is not a unique one.)

I think creative placemaking projects have their impact, but we’re not doing the proper work yet to best highlight those impacts. The issue isn’t just with the outcomes, but also with our expectations for the projects and the data both.

Why Change Can’t Be Built In A Day

By | Art & Social Change, Of Love and Concrete | 2 Comments

Creating social change is not easy. Creating social change within the confines of cultural norms today is near miraculous. In my previous two posts, I have explored the challenges culture throws at social change makers. In part one, I explored the larger picture through the perspective of a national non-profit fund raising expert, Dan Pallotta. In part two, I explored the challenges on a personal level through my experiences using public art in Baltimore to create social change. In my final post in this series, I hope to suggest things that we can do as a society and as social change makers to make the process of lasting impact easier.

Compensation: Know what it is worth and ask for it.

Pallotta points out that society sees nothing wrong with compensating the developer of a violent blockbuster video game tens of millions of dollars, yet struggles to pay the guy ridding the world of malaria several hundred thousand dollars. Society knows how to keep score for the video game developer. Society has the company’s balance sheet. Society does not know how to keep score for the guy curing malaria. There is no balance sheet. Culture needs to consider that value goes beyond a bottom line. Change makers need to do our part to describe that value. On the personal front, Love Project artist Michael Owen and I had no idea how much work it would take to complete our “simple” project. We now know and as a result we understand better the value of such monumental tasks. We need to share this information with other folks: funders, artists, community developers and anyone working in the area of adding social and economic value through art. We need to help set the “appropriate” market rates for this type of work and ask for the appropriate rate.

Advertising and Marketing: There are more efficient methods than development.

One of Pallotta’s over-arching themes is how society perceives overhead in non-profit work as evil. Society needs to know that overhead may actually work to fight evil. The current methods of non-profit fundraising are ripe for corruption and cronyism. Development, the protocol for traditional non-profit fundraising,  is about relationships with people who already value you or your work. This mindset is supposed to reduce the amount of effort (dollars) spent on raising money as you are not working to find new supporters, but rather expanding the “charity” of the current supporters of the cause. This sounds great but not only does it lends itself to support coming from family, friends and the business acquaintances of the executive director’s spouse, it suggests the pool is only so wide and yet infinitely deep. In for-profit business, a development mindset would be ludicrous. It suggest that the pool of customers never expands; it just grows in depth. Business does marketing because it is easier to make the market wider than it is to make the market deeper. We as change makers need to make some noise on this issue. We need to fight for the opportunity to market and let our funders know that expanding the pool alleviates financial stress on them.

Risk: Failure is a part of learning even in social change.

A trend in start-up business these days is to “fail fast” and change. The notion is that it is better to figure out early that an idea is not going anywhere and move onto the next thing than to linger and waste resources on it. Mr. Pallotta points out that in for-profit that failure is seen as a pivot point, or learning opportunity. In non-profit, failure is viewed as a moral lapse of judgement. Society needs to understand that failure is still a learning experience in non-profit just as it is in for-profit. We need to accept and encourage risk, meaning failure might happen, so that we can grow. If social concerns are still with us, there is still opportunity and a need to try new methods of change. We must learn in order to create change.

Time Horizons: Be real about achieving social change.

Adding value that goes beyond the bottom line requires long-time horizons and there is always someone else behind you ready to take the money from the funder. Society (funders, the public, and organizations) needs to grow in our understanding of realistic expectations for change. We know that Rome was not built in a day, but do we know that the social ills of Rome were never solved? Change makers need to be realistic about the change that they can deliver and over what time. We need to do our part to demonstrate progress whenever possible. We need to embrace accountability and be able to clearly articulate the progress that IS being made. We need metrics and we need to know what they mean. It should be the goal of every organization to make their “balance sheets” available, and I do not mean financials. Funders also need to do their part to express realistic expectations and commit to the long term with organizations. Change will come but it will likely not happen tomorrow.

Social Capital Markets: Ownership of doing good.

When a non-profit organization wants to grow its infrastructure so it can deliver more services or products it relies on the same pool of dollars as it would for programming. Operations and build money are treated as one and the same. For-profit business would find this inefficient. Society needs to rethink the financial opportunities for social change makers. Yes, we are doing that with crowd funding platforms but these are limited by imagination and regulations. Could we imagine a platform that allows for distinctive “ownership” of social good? Could we create reasonable regulations that open up funding for social change? These are in the works but we must again accept some risk and allow for learning and growth so that our efforts to deliver social change can be made more efficient.

Social change is hard. I do not think that will ever change. But as a society, we can rethink our perspectives on delivering that social change and make it far easier. Many hands can lift a far greater weight when we don’t hold ourselves back.

Classic Concrete: Why Art?

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Editor’s Note: Our resident bard of Love & Concrete is recovering from his all-consuming labors in birthing the latest incarnation of CreateBaltimore. So in the style of vintage summer re-runs, we present a classic installment of his column.

A typical conversation:

“What do you do?”
“I promote art in Baltimore.”
“That’s interesting. Did you go to MICA?”
“No I went to Johns Hopkins.”
“Did you study Art History?”
“No, I studied engineering?”
“Why would you promote art?.”

Sometimes I am surprised by my transition, but I know that this is where I was destined to be.

My junior year of college I was living with several roommates in a typical Baltimore row house. One evening my housemate exclaimed that his sister had just won a prestigious poetry prize. Having no interest in poetry, I asked to read the work only reluctantly, out of politeness. I was appalled. It had no logic and made no sense. I proceeded to voice my opinion and thus begun a furious debate about the merits of art. I on the side of “what value is gibberish?” and he on the side of expression and new analogy. That was my engineering perception of the world. If it could not be explained scientifically what value did something have?

After graduating with two engineering degrees from Hopkins, and spending two years studying lung cancer, I put on an entrepreneurial hat. I began painting living rooms and bedrooms for upper- middle-class Baltimore. A painter with a degree from Hopkins became a hot commodity. The list of clients grew and I started hiring. Did you know that the most flexible, and surprisingly dependable, work force is artists? My crew had two writers, two visual artists, a musician, and an aspiring architect. Needless to say, our days were spent talking philosophy. Our clients frequently joined the banter much to their own surprise. My crew exposed me to a new type of intelligence. They didn’t know an integral from a derivative, but they knew the classics and understood the world in a different light. They started to shift my sense of value.

The painting business was going great but I had recently married and the future was becoming a reality. As only a spouse can, Jenn expressed that my talents and my personality were not being used to their full potential in my painting business. Shortly after our wedding an employee was injured on the job. The experience shook not only my business but my own outlook. I needed to move on, but to what? I had been reading a book on hope. One of the chapters focused on art. It suggested that art is one of the few places we can honestly explore the reality of the world and, more importantly, that art is a place to express the hope of the world. Could art have value beyond meaningful conversations?

A former employee had been working for a summer to launch a “small” public art project. He could not find traction. He needed a skill set beyond his own. Now, as friends, he expressed his needs and asked if I might use my entrepreneurial skills to do the business side of his art. Looking for a change, and with my growing understanding of art, I agreed to take on the role. Besides, my not-entirely-reconstructed-engineer’s-mind thought, I was now planning to attend business school, so this would also look great on my resume. We began creating a plan to paint 20 walls with the word ‘love.’ I was now commissioned to express the value of art.

Four years later, we have completed 14 Love Project murals. I have got my business education without a degree (or the debt), and I can tell you art is the most valuable thing in the world. It changes people.

I recently visited my college roommate. We certainly touched on art. This time it was I showing him this “amazing” installation that challenges the notion of place, and he wondering if I was crazy! If art can change me, I can only imagine what it can do for the world! In this space, I look forward to exploring that extraordinary power.

Agents of Change

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I have been asked to speak as part of a panel at Johns Hopkins called “Agents of Change.” In preparation for the panel the moderator has sent out a series of questions. The thoughts bouncing in my head might serve more than the freshman students I will be speaking to that day. Many of our readers are likely on the precipice of being an “agent of change.”

How would you describe a change agent in your own words?
A change agent is someone who uses the resources at their disposal to creatively solve problems. Society often assumes that meaningful change is the result of significant investment of time, money, or special skills.  The reality is that change is more often a series of small steps that require nothing more than commitment and your best effort. Age is a number. Money is a medium of exchange and is not required. Skills can be learned. Relationships can always be formed. Your presence and desire is all it takes to start making an impact. A change agent is someone who starts acting with what they have. It’s an artist saying I can paint and that wall could use my skill. It’s an engineer saying I can analyse a situation and make it more efficient. Change is a verb.

What motivated you to get involved and start your project?
Relationships. Art is not in my background. Through relationships with several talented artists my perspective on the value of art altered. I started to see that artists were intelligent in ways that I was not, and that art has the power to transform philosophy. Human action is the result of our perspective on the world, or our philosophy. If we can shift a person’s perspective we can radically change the world.

What’s the greatest challenge you’ve faced? How did you overcome it?
One of the most difficult aspects of art, and anything creative, is that it is disruptive for those who did not create it. Something is brought into reality from nothing. This disruptive nature, which is often times positive, is not always understood. A significant challenge of art, particularly art that is seeking to create social change, is inviting the audience to engage with something they may not understand. We have to overcome this challenge through carefully articulating our idea. We have thoughtfully considered our story, how best to tell it, and where to tell it. Then we have gone out and practiced. There have been numerous occasions where we have failed, but we have used those occasions as points to learn from and grow.

What advice do you have for others?
Spend time with people that are different from yourself. If meaningful change is the result of action and action is the result of our philosophy, we will never act differently if we are never confronted by people who think differently. And bonus points for spending time with people who agitate you. Those people likely possess strengths very contrary to your own that could be put to good use in tandem with your strengths. It’s how an engineer is working with an artist to change Baltimore!

The Corner: A Drug Market or A Concrete Gallery

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I have lived in Baltimore for 14 years. I have been an avid advocate of Baltimore for four years. I have NOT watched David Simon’s “The Wire”. Over the recent Thanksgiving holiday I started reading the book that lead to the HBO series that defines Baltimore for many. I delved into Simon’s 500-page tome on west Baltimore’s infectious drug markets. I can honestly say I am lost in The Corner. Read More

Process is Part of the Art

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“The process is part of the art.” ~Christo

I can not think of an artist more qualified to make that statement than Christo. He and his life partner, Jean-Claude, have produced some of the most grand art of our time. When your work requires millions of yards of fabric, when your canvas is miles of coastline or the most powerful building in a country, and when the crafting takes months, certainly the way you produce your finished product says something. Process is part of the art.

Understanding that the process is part of the art is challenging for artists and for the audience. An artist is challenged because it requires thoughtfulness throughout the journey of creation. The audience is challenged because they are not usually exposed to the entire process. They miss part of the art. However, if both parties embrace the challenge, art becomes much more powerful.

How is an artist to be thoughtful throughout the creative process? This has been a very important question for the Baltimore Love Project, a city wide street art project. First and foremost it is a recognition of what we are. We are a public art project. We maintain design and implementation control so that the original aesthetic vision is cast. Our idea of loving is to use our skill sets to the best of our abilities. This means delivering the highest quality art that we can. It would be hard for us to do that if we gave everyone a brush. We are also frequently asked if we can change the color or the design to cater to an individual neighborhood. Love of self and individuality are important but we think love is more meaningful when it connects rather than divides.

Beyond the aesthetic vision there is a philosophical vision. Because the finished “product” is love we must embody our understanding of love throughout. Our project explores the notion that love is for everyone, and that regardless of circumstances love is possible. The project must live this out even when it is extremely difficult – When we are critiqued for the way the image looks, for the process we are using to make things happen, and even the partners we have worked with on making love happen. We must respect, seek to understand, and honor the dignity of contrary perspectives. Love is tough particularly in the midst of a marathon public art project. But without it, our project losses its message and its power.

How do we share the process with the audience? Information! As artist we often believe that the finished work itself is enough. Unfortunately not all people are as experientially minded as most artists. We must offer information to our audience the entire way. Let the audience decide if they want to be informed prior, during, after or not at all. I can not tell you how many perspectives of our project have changed once people are provided even nominal information beyond our four silhouetted hands spelling out love on the wall. For many people, the availability of information is an invitation to experience the art in a richer way.

As I have explored public art and worked to create an installation, I understand that our strategy of implementation MUST be in line with the aesthetic and philosophical vision. The mechanisms we choose to put our work out there says something about the work itself. And of course we are always willing to share it. When art is more than a finished product, it becomes bigger than itself.

If Public Art Can’t Reduce Crime, What Good Is It to Society?

By | Art & Social Change, Of Love and Concrete, Social Media | No Comments

Recently the Social Enterprise Alliance hosted a summit on metrics and impact. The day-long event featured speakers contemplating how to measure change. More specifically the event asked how we determine if an organization is creating the change that it purports to be making.

The event got me thinking about art organizations. Many creative organizations are designated as 501(c)3 non-profit entities. The status is given to a business based on it working for the benefit of the public not an individual. (Check out IRS language for specifics) I know that art is good for society but how does a non-profit arts organization demonstrate that the work that it is doing is good for society? What are metrics that we can use to demonstrate our impact?

Fortunately, the Baltimore Love Project, a city-wide street art project, has gone through many trials. One of my “fondest” memories made during the project was sitting in a prolific Baltimore foundation’s offices. It was one of my first pitches to a significant investor. He had the means to pay for the entire project. Trial by fire was an understatement. Despite our passion, we were not prepared to articulate a change that was of interest to him. He pretty much asked us how many kids would graduate from high school and go to college as a result of our work. We not only didn’t know the answer, we had no response. We learned that day that we need something tangible for people to see the value of our work. We needed metrics. We walked away with no money but an important lesson.

Since that conversation we have figured out what we are doing besides painting beautiful images on the sides of buildings. We have come to define our social value in three ways. First we are aesthetically changing the face of 20 communities. Second, we are putting Baltimore on the map as a destination to visit. Third, we are changing the philosophy of individuals.

The first change is obvious but important to note. We are physically changing the way our city looks. It is simple to measure. We can point to the mural on a wall or show photographs of the work. What is harder, and just as important, is to show that the change is positive. We have achieved that with thousands of people through social media and elsewhere espousing love for the murals. The second change is also important. We want people inside and out to see that Baltimore is more than HBO’s The Wire. Our metric for this comes in the form of content created. How many stories are being told about the Love project and where? We have a list of over 45 platforms that have shared our work. On top of that, we also have a catalog of responses from folks that are impressed with the city simply because something like the love project is happening here.

The final change is probably the most powerful. Art is meaningful because it can change philosophy. To measure this we are tracking two things in particular. The first is our presence at events in the community. We have explored philosophy on over 75 occasions in the past two years with over 3,000 people directly and 125,000 indirectly. The events range from large scale street festivals, to intimate three-hour conversations with a college class. You may be thinking that talking is not necessarily a sign of a changed mind. We agree. We are also tracking action that has happened as a result of the project. We have dozens of examples of individuals DOING SOMETHING as a result of the work. It is as simple as individuals empowered to tour Baltimore with murals as their beacons, or as intense as a couple reconsidering how they fight.

Over time we have learned how to describe our value. Our metrics are likely not complete nor perfect but have become very important to us. They help us understand the value of our project but more importantly they help others understand why a future where every wall is a canvas and every street corner is a gallery is a future worth pursuing.

Baltimore-Love-Project-Mural

Public Art and Community Art – We Need Both

By | Art & Social Change, Of Love and Concrete, Social Media | No Comments

(Photo: Sean Scheidt)

When I started working on the Baltimore Love Project four years ago, lead artist Michael Owen and I defined it as a city-wide mural project. After several months of pounding the pavement and telling the story of a mural project we discovered that people were confused. We needed to express ourselves differently. We began to define ourselves as a city-wide street art project. We discovered that murals were often viewed as a form of community art, not public art. So what’s the difference?

We found that many communities strongly support murals. They were willing to let an artist paint on the side of their buildings as long as the community had control over the image and the process of painting the image. They believed in community engagement, particularly in the process of creation. This is community art.

The Love Project proposes painting on the side of buildings which communities supported. However, the definition of the project is to paint the exact same image on 20 walls. It does not cater to the specific aesthetic or story of a community. To maintain the integrity of the image and provide exceptionally high quality art to ALL communities the process is also tightly controlled. We believe in community engagement but it happens after the art work is completed. This is public art.

Community art AND public art are incredibly powerful!

Community art can provide the euphoric experience of creation to everyone. A child has the opportunity to hold a paintbrush in hand and see a product of their own doing at the end of the day. A citizen has the opportunity to tell their story and see the reaction of others to their experiences. Community art empowers people where they are at.

Public art provides the challenge of new perspective. A thoughtful and highly skilled artist can establish new analogies with provocative concepts and the stroke of a brush. The creator confronts individuals with a new way to experience the world. He can show the world not only as it is but also as it can be. Public art empowers people with new outlook.

A city with a litany of walls can and should be home to both community art and public art. There is enough room for everyone to express themselves. There is enough room for new perspectives. The combination of both will lead to a healthy city that knows and expresses its story but is also striving to achieve.

In future posts I will delve further into the specific value of the Baltimore Love project. Much like a great wine, the power is in the nuance.