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The Scene: Craft in Baltimore

Local artists share the people and spaces that define Baltimore, a city that thrives on collaboration and community.

By Cara Ober and Jennifer Vogel
November 11, 2024

Winter 2025

Free To Read
Photo by Kelvin Bulluck

LaToya M. Hobbs, a Baltimore artist, carves a work in progress called The Lioness II, 2024, 46 x 36 x 2.5 in.

Each edition of The Scene you’ll get an in-depth look at craft in a single city. Published twice per year, this special section goes beyond traditional travel articles. Instead it offer in-depth look at a city’s craft scene through the voices and perspectives of its artists.

In the following pages you’ll find lists of artists and craft-related spaces in Baltimore that are based on the recommendations of local contributors. This coverage is not comprehensive and we encourage you to continue exploring more of Baltimore’s craft scene.

In this Scene:

ARTIST CONTRIBUTORS:
Joyce J. Scott, Latoya M. Hobbs, Tim McFadden, Marco Duenas and Jorgelina Lopez, and Tracey Beale

SPOTLIGHTS:
Pamela Zhang, Aliana Grace Bailey, Kris Kudrnac, Jamaal “Feedy” Jackson, and Mark Melonas

EXPLORE BALTIMORE:
Artists’ Spaces, Studios, Schools, Workshops, Resources, Galleries, Studios, Markets, and Museums

Introduction

by Cara Ober

Baltimore is a historic city where American anthems are made, a conundrum of opposing forces that is nearly impossible to define. It’s the birthplace of the “Star-Spangled Banner” flag that inspired Francis Scott Key to pen what is now our national anthem, but it’s also the site of John Waters’s raunchiest experimental films such as Female Trouble and Pink Flamingos. On the Fourth of July, it’s not unusual to see American flags and plastic pink flamingos dotting lawns and front stoops across the city, an entirely unique reflection of who America is today.

Baltimore is a shockingly resilient and elegant city with affordable, structurally sound architecture and easy access to New York City and Washington, DC. It’s a place where creatives can afford to buy properties and start small businesses, and their space to live and work and dream can be decadent and spacious, with the inventive reuse of all kinds of materials the modus operandi. Like the city itself, Baltimore art and craft communities are complex, diverse, and historic. This multidisciplinarity speaks to a rich tradition of innovation and creativity, collaboration, and community. Contemporary craft in Baltimore includes quilting and fiber arts, jewelry and fashion, ceramics and glass, and traditional and experimental furniture design. These practices exist within their own robust traditions, spaces, and markets, such as the long-running Charm City Craft Mafia fairs. But craft here is also interwoven within fine arts communities and practices. As the editor of BmoreArt, a Baltimore-based art publication, it has been clear to me since our first print journal in 2015 that the deliberate inclusion of stories about fashion, furniture, and jewelry alongside painters, sculptors, and filmmakers is essential in telling a fulsome narrative of our city’s strength, ingenuity, and resiliency.

Interconnection between art and craft in Baltimore has brought about stunning collaborations and results but at times promotes a false dichotomy, where artists working in an array of traditional craft material are viewed, especially by collecting and educational institutions and media outlets, as playing a supplemental role. In recent years, this distinction has been challenged by Baltimore-based artists who choose to create outside these boundaries and delight in the unique physical properties and meaning that craft materials elicit.

Among Baltimore’s most notable visual artists are art jewelers Joyce J. Scott, a MacArthur Fellow and contributor to this iteration of The Scene, and the late Betty Cooke, known internationally for her modernist designs. In the past few years, both mounted retrospectives at our major museums, with Scott’s Walk a Mile in My Dreams at the Baltimore Museum of Art and Cooke’s The Circle and the Line at the Walters Art Museum. Each exhibit highlighted the interdisciplinarity of each career, including fine art, leather, and industrial design by Cooke, and garments, sculpture, and performance art by Scott.

 

Cara Ober is editor of BmoreArt.

Photo by Kelvin Bulluck

Brought together by Joyce J. Scott in the textile department at the Maryland Institute College of Art (MICA), Baltimore textile artists—including MICA faculty and members of the African American Quilters of Baltimore—gather and appreciate handcrafted works. Participants include: Kibibi Ajanku, Hellen Ascoli, Sarah Z. Barnes, Susie Brandt, Carolyn Campbell-Flowe, Rosa Chang, Annat Couwenberg, Monique Crabb, Christina P. Day, Andrea Dixon, Liz Ensz, Dr. Leslie King-Hammond, Don Jones, Jenelle Legge, Kenya Miles, Karen Nelson, Rosalind Peterson, Valeska Populoh, Glenda Richardson, Piper Shepard, Jackie Simpson, Kim Taylor, and Camilla Younger.

In 2023–2024, Baltimore enacted a historic collaboration between five museums and four universities to celebrate the visionary quilt-based work of Elizabeth Talford Scott, the late mother of Joyce J. Scott and a self-taught fiber artist. Originally exhibited in 1998 as part of the Maryland Institute College of Art’s Exhibition Development Seminar and led by curator George Ciscle, Eyewinkers, Tumbleturds, and Candlebugs: The Art of Elizabeth Talford Scott was a groundbreaking exhibition of quilts and wall hangings by the community-minded artist that was reenvisioned as a collaborative network of exhibits, programs, and gatherings across the entire city. Talford Scott’s legacy is carried on by mixed-media fiber artists who exhibit quilt-inspired works in museums—such as Stephen Towns, Joan Gaither, and Kibibi Ajanku—and also within collaborations and communities like the Baltimore Heritage Quilt Guild, African American Quilters of Baltimore, and the MICA Quilt Group.

Not only is Baltimore a city where residents explore a variety of artistic and craft-based traditions; it is also a place for convenings around craft. Our city is home to two international residency programs, at Baltimore Clayworks and Baltimore Jewelry Center, where ceramists and art jewelers can utilize a unique array of facilities and materials, teach classes and workshops, and exhibit their work. Former Clayworks resident Hae Won Sohn, originally from Seoul, South Korea, had her work exhibited at the Walters Art Museum as a finalist for the annual Janet & Walter Sondheim Artscape Prize, which she then won in 2021. Each spring, the city is also the site of American Craft Made Baltimore, the largest juried craft show on the East Coast.

Baltimore’s large supply of affordable, light-industrial buildings has long made it an ideal location for artists of all kinds to craft large and complicated works—including Sandtown Furniture, which creates custom tables and desks from reclaimed wood, and Asé Design Studio, a collaborative that focuses on home furnishings and limited-edition furniture. More experimental, Malcolm Major creates sculptural furniture using scrap metal and architectural fabrication techniques, pairing functional and nonfunctional qualities for dramatic results. Maker spaces like Open Works and the Station North Tool Library exist to make these techniques and tools available to a growing community, inspiring new businesses and small-scale manufacturing.

Although Baltimore is not widely known for its glass studios, Scott’s fine art sculpture is largely crafted in blown glass and beadwork. Some of her work was created in Murano, Italy, but much has been fabricated in Baltimore in collaboration with Tim McFadden’s glass studio (McFadden also contributed to this story) and the Washington Glass School’s Tim Tate. In 2022, the work of Scott and a number of more traditional glass artists was exhibited in Fired Up! at Coppin State University’s Cary Beth Cryor Gallery. This exhibition placed “fine artists” on even footing with more traditional glass “artisans”—proving once again that art and craft in Baltimore elevate one another and are impossible to parse.

Regardless of the medium or tradition in Baltimore, our artists and craftspeople place community and collaboration at the center of all that we do. The best artists harness the power of their materials to extract embedded stories, lending an immediate complexity to their work and reflecting our city’s ingenuity and creativity back to itself, an endless loop of multifaceted production.

Photo by Kelvin Bulluck

Joyce Scott took American Craft to the Baltimore Jewelry Center, an educational nonprofit and makerspace, where she brought together some of Baltimore's many jewelry artists. Participants: Adam Atkinson, Bob Baldridge, Sara Bautista, Danielle deCongé, J Diamond, Alexis Dixon, Allison Gulick, Maria Louise High, Andy Lowrie, Zach Mellman-Carsey, Shane Prada, Mary Raivel, Mercury Swift, April Wood, and Elaine Zukowski.

Joyce J. Scott

Sculptor, jewelry maker, glass artist, multidisciplinary artist

@joycejscott

An icon in Baltimore, Scott has been making her stunning, thought-provoking glass and bead sculptures and jewelry for five decades. Earlier this year, the Baltimore Museum of Art launched a retrospective of Scott’s work called Joyce J. Scott: Walk a Mile in My Dreams and declared her to be “one of the most prolific and boundary-breaking artists of our time.”

Scott was born and raised in Baltimore—in fact, the New York Times recently dubbed her the “Queen of Baltimore”—and she still lives in the Sandtown row house she shared with her late mother, the textile artist Elizabeth Talford Scott.

“Baltimore is ‘up south.’ It’s a mid-Atlantic thing,” Scott says. “People left the Deep South to have a better life, to get here and make money. I’m surrounded by people who made a way who had no way, and made something out of nothing. When I think about our city, I think about how we won’t be held down. Baltimore has a long history of fighting for civil rights. What I love about my city is it’s a city where people of all ethnic groups work together.”

Scott grew up engaging with the art and craft she found all around her. “The life scene was the art scene,” she says. “African Americans are adroit at looking good no matter what. You have the seamstress who could whip up a dress. Everybody was a haberdasher. You put something in your hat. That flair and desire to be aesthetically pleasing was always there for me.

“The other thing about Baltimore,” Scott continues, “is it’s an old, post-industrial city. We lost some of our industries. That makes people more entrepreneurial. There are so many smart and active artists here. It’s still a place where you can afford to live. People from this region, some stay because they can have a studio and work. And they can hang with other artists, and get to Chicago by plane in two hours and New York by car in three.

“The city is filthy with artists of all ilks,” she says, adding that Baltimore itself is an artwork. “It is a functioning, breathing artist and artwork.”

Photo by Kelvin Bulluck

Joyce J. Scott in front of Baltimore's Creative Alliance.

“The city is filthy with artists of all ilks,” Joyce J. Scott says, adding that Baltimore itself is an artwork. “It is a functioning, breathing artist and artwork.”

— Joyce J. Scott

Latoya M. Hobbs

Printmaker and painter

latoyamhobbs.com | @latoyahobbs

Known for her intricate, visceral, mixed-media portraits of Black women, Hobbs, who was born and raised in Little Rock, Arkansas, moved to Baltimore in 2013 to teach at the Maryland Institute College of Art after finishing her MFA at Purdue University.

“Baltimore is an amazing city with an exciting arts community—not only in craft but in the fine arts as well,” says Hobbs. “What I find most exciting is the number of practicing artists that live here. Baltimore’s close proximity to surrounding arts hubs like New York City, DC, and Philadelphia make it a draw for artists from all walks of life. There are also a lot of great art colleges and institutions that attract skilled artists to serve as faculty, as well as talented students. More importantly, I enjoy that there is a strong sense of camaraderie and support among the artists who call Baltimore home.”

How has the local art and craft scene changed since 2013? “I would say that the arts scene in Baltimore has only gotten better over the years,” she says. “Several local artists have gained national and international recognition for their work, which is always great to see. I also appreciate the Baltimore Museum of Art and its efforts to have more local artists and women represented in its exhibitions and permanent collections. On the flip side, there has been some turnover within the leadership of some of the city’s art institutions and organizations in recent years. But change always brings about new possibilities.”

LOCAL ARTISTS HOBBS ADMIRES:
Joyce J. Scott, who makes beadwork, jewelry, and quilts and “has an amazing retrospective exhibit at the Baltimore Museum of Art right now”; Oletha DeVane, who makes sculptures out of found objects; Schroeder Cherry, who does puppetry and makes sculptures and paintings with found objects; interdisciplinary fiber artist Aliana Grace Bailey; and sculptor Murjoni Merriweather.

Photo by Kelvin Bulluck

Hobbs sits in front of her mixed-media work Pinnacle, 2024, acrylic painting on carved wood panels, 96 x 96 x 2.5 in.

“I enjoy that there is a strong sense of camaraderie and support among the artists who call Baltimore home.”

— LaToya M. Hobbs

Marco Duenas and Jorgelina Lopez

Lamp designers and makers

laloupedesign.com | @laloupedesign

Lopez and Duenas are the couple and creative team behind La Loupe, a design studio specializing in handcrafted interior lighting. Lopez, a textile designer, is a native of Argentina who moved to Baltimore in 2015, while Duenas, a woodworker, artist, fabricator, and architectural model maker, is from Peru and has lived in Baltimore since 1998.

“Baltimore is an affordable and unpretentious city with a welcoming art scene,” says Duenas. “It’s medium in size with a small-town feel. I guess, being home to colleges such as the Maryland Institute College of Art, we are surrounded by many artists who laid down roots or transited through this city. I would add that its thriving creative class, along with its architecture and history, is something that I find very inspiring. The music scene is also a very important factor.”

Lopez also appreciates her adopted hometown. “When I first moved to Baltimore I found very interesting and inspiring the industrial feeling of the city and the old architecture of its buildings. Coming from a big city like Buenos Aires, I like the small-city feeling of Baltimore, but at the same time with so much diversity. Even though Baltimore can feel like a tough city to live in, it is very welcoming and I was surprised when I first came here that people were greeting me in the street with a friendly hello. I found a very vibrant and supportive group of people who encouraged me to get more involved with the community and grow a stronger sense of belonging.”

Both note there are challenges to working in Baltimore—they’d like to see the city invest more in the arts, arts venues, and overall civic infrastructure. “The lack of investment in Baltimore City in general for so many years has brought many social and economic problems,” says Lopez. “As I get to know more about its history, I come to understand how inequality and segregation have played a big role in its current situation. Seeing the big picture, I found it very challenging to try to make a difference. That being said, I focus my work on what I can do in my capacity, to do my bit. And when I look around I find a thriving city and art community.”

LOCAL ARTISTS DUENAS AND LOPEZ ADMIRE:
Kellie Gillespie “for her conceptual sculptural installations”; multidisciplinary artist Monique Crabb, who focuses on traditional craft processes; glass artist, sculptor, and jewelry maker Joyce J. Scott; instrument maker, musician and composer, and teaching artist Melissa Hyatt Foss; artist Chul Hyun Ahn “for his mesmerizing light boxes”; and painter Bill Schmidt.

Photo by Kelvin Bulluck

Jorgelina Lopez and Marco Duenas at their La Loupe Design showroom with a linen laminated origami lampshade in progress.

“Baltimore is an affordable and unpretentious city with a welcoming art scene.”

— Marco Duenas

Tim McFadden

Glass artist

timmcfaddenglass.com | @mcfaddenartglass

McFadden grew up in North Baltimore and has lived there all his life, aside from the few years he spent at Salisbury University on Maryland’s Eastern Shore, where he was introduced to glassblowing. Today, McFadden makes inventive sculptures and vessels and runs a custom glassblowing studio, gallery, and art school on Eastern Avenue called McFadden Art Glass.

“Baltimore is awesome because it feels like a small town, even though it’s a decent-sized city,” McFadden says. “This leads to crossing paths with a ton of other talented artists and collaborative opportunities. Also, Baltimore is a short drive to DC, Philly, and New York City, so it has been great over the years getting to exhibit and collaborate with other artists across this region. Everything feels connected.”

The biggest challenge he faces is finding time to make new work while also running a studio and school, which is not a terrible problem to have. “COVID obviously put a halt on showing work publicly here and internationally for a while, but I think we have bounced back well,” he says. “It originally forced us toward more online outreach, which ultimately has diversified our client base considerably. It seems like many art buyers who couldn’t see and buy artwork in person have gotten comfortable with reaching out to artists online, which has expanded our ability to reach a broader audience.”

LOCAL ARTISTS MCFADDEN ADMIRES:
Metal sculptor and furniture maker David Hess; glass artist, sculptor, and jewelry maker Joyce J. Scott; woodworker Ron Ford; glass artist Gianni Toso; and multidisciplinary artist Oletha DeVane.

Photo by Kelvin Bulluck

In addition to making his own sculptures and vessels, McFadden teaches glass blowing, including zafirico, an Italian technique that produces striping patterns.

“Baltimore is awesome because it feels like a small town. This leads to crossing paths with a ton of other talented artists and collaborative opportunities.”

— Tim McFadden

Tracey Beale

Metalsmith and jewelry designer

traceybeale.com | @traceybealejewelry

Originally from Harford County, Maryland, northeast of Baltimore, Beale combines sterling silver, copper, brass, and gold with sentimental and found objects to create jewelry and wall art. “I love infusing my metal work with items that have had another life,” says Beale, who also serves as director of public programs at the Baltimore Museum of Art.

“As a creative I find Baltimore to be the perfect place to explore, try new mediums, and hone your skills,” she says. “There are so many people who have a genuine respect for the arts, artists, and what it takes to create something new. Baltimore is delicate and resilient at the same time, a curious combination that makes for a great landing place for developing your own perspective as a creative.”

Baltimore’s art and craft scene has grown and evolved over the past several years, according to Beale. “The city has carved out new arts and entertainment districts; artist residencies have popped up across different organizations like the aquarium, news outlets, public spaces, and libraries,” she says. “There are also more people taking an interest in buying from artists and investing in their work.”

That said, additional funding for the arts would accelerate things even more. “As a cultural worker and program producer, I have the opportunity to work with a lot of artists and creatives,” Beale says. “A perspective that seems to echo across several conversations is the need for skill building around business development and sustainability. I’d love to see more funding opportunities for crafters and musicians as well. Outside of the art/craft world there are real economic issues in Baltimore, and despite the number of well-known artists and scholars coming out of the city, we still can’t shake being mostly known for The Wire.”

LOCAL ARTISTS BEALE ADMIRES:
Kyle Johnson, founder of The House of Bluestone Goldsmithing; Nikki Stokes, the fiber and yarn aficionado behind HGE Designs Co; glass artist, sculptor, and jewelry maker Joyce J. Scott; fashion designer Brandi Lewis of Syeko Design House; and Marco Duenas and Jorgelina Lopez, the artists behind interior lighting studio La Loupe Design.

Photo by Kelvin Bulluck

Beale holds a selection of her work from different collections.

“There are so many people [in Baltimore]who have a genuine respect for the arts, artists, and what it takes to create something new.”

— Tracey Beale

SPOTLIGHT

Pamela Zhang

Zhang is a multidisciplinary artist whose primary media are ceramics and illustration, both traditional and digital. Her pottery can be found at a number of local shops, and each time I encounter a Zhang cup or bowl, I need to pick it up and turn it over in my hands to comprehend its lightness and substantiality. Although her products vary, each manifests an elegant simplicity that references nature through earthy color, texture, and pattern.

pamelazhang.store | @pamelazhang

Photo by Pamela Zhang

SPOTLIGHT

Aliana Grace Bailey

Bailey’s woven tapestries and fiber art have been a highly visible reminder in all kinds of Baltimore art galleries that color, music, and healing can be intertwined into a meditative practice. Cascading across gallery walls in saturated hues of raspberry, cherry, indigo, and saffron, her weavings are impossible to ignore; they radiate a calm but innovative energy where improvisation and accumulation reference growth, wellness, and radical care for oneself and others.

alianagracebailey.com | @alianagrace

Photo by Danielle Finney

Portrait of Aliana Grace Bailey.

SPOTLIGHT

Kris Kudrnac

Kudrnac, Baltimore’s most eclectic collector, purchased his first small works of glass art in the 1970s at the Steuben Glass engraving studios. It was located next to where he worked as a glass engineer at Corning. That practice continues today in a Baltimore home populated with fine art and prints, handmade furniture, functional wooden objects, kinetic sculpture, ceramics, and glass by the country’s top practitioners, including Alex Bernstein, Lino Tagliapietra, Fred Kaemmer, and Steven Weinberg.

Photo by Vivian Marie Doering

Portrait of Kris Kudrnac

SPOTLIGHT

Jamaal “Feedy” Jackson

For those of us who grew up in households where making tufted rugs was a favorite pastime, Jackson has updated the practice to reference pop portraiture, street art, and urban culture. His handmade rug art can be customized to different sizes and styles, and he welcomes people to feel and touch the textures he creates even though his textile art is intended for our eyes rather than our feet.

bmoretuft.com | @bmoretuft

Photo by Jamaal Jackson

Portrait of Jamaal “Feedy” Jackson.

SPOTLIGHT

Mark Melonas

It’s always a pleasure to encounter the multifaceted concrete and wood creations of Melonas, and you’ll find them in homes and public spaces all over Baltimore. His company, Luke Works, experiments with cast concrete as a sculptural and functional medium, creating one of a kind shapes and profiles realized in custom countertops, metalwork, and furniture that is functional but also reads as art.

lukeworks.com | @lukeworks

Photo by Mitro Hood

Portrait of Mark Melonas.

Places and Spaces

Artists’ Spaces, Studios

Baltimore Bead Society
Offering programming, classes, and workshops, this 30-year-old regional arts guild caters to bead enthusiasts, artists, and jewelry designers.

Baltimore Jewelry Center
With a mission to “educate and inspire new and established artists, as well as promote metalsmithing and art jewelry,” this organization, suggested by Tracey Beale, offers classes, workshops, studio rentals, and youth programming—and boasts an impressive roster of artist instructors.

Black Cherry Puppet Theater
Founded in 1980, this nonprofit association of artists and performers presents puppet and marionette shows and hosts puppet-making workshops for children and adults.

Crown Industrial Park
“Crown Industrial Park is an old industrial complex transformed into art and maker studios,” according to Marco Duenas and Jorgelina Lopez. Located in the Highlandtown Arts and Entertainment District, Crown provides workspace to artists of all sorts, from sculptors to printmakers.

KSM Candle Co.
“Taking candle-making classes at KSM Candle Company is always a good vibe,” says Beale. KSM sells candle-making supplies and self-care kits and holds regular workshops.

Open Works
Lopez and Duenas give the thumbs-up to Open Works, a collaborative makerspace founded in 2016 that features classes, studios, equipment, fabrication services, and even maker fellows who provide support and guidance in working with wood, metal, textiles, and more. Tim McFadden likes it, too: “As for craft hubs, there’s a makerspace called Open Works that gives the general public the opportunity to work with a bunch of machines, tools, and materials.”

String Theory Theater
This Baltimore-based puppet troupe includes visual and performing artist Dirk Joseph and his daughters, Koi and Azaria. American Craft featured Joseph, who makes intricate hand-turned “crankies,” in our Winter 2024 issue.

A Workshop of Our Own
The mission of WOO, founded by fine furniture maker Sarah Marriage, is “to create a professional woodworking environment which cultivates and promotes the careers of women and gender non-conforming craftspeople in our field.” Lopez and Duenas endorse this organization, and so does Beale.

Photo by Kelvin Bulluck

Members of the Baltimore craft community gather at the Creative Alliance at the invitation of Joyce J. Scott.

Schools, Workshops, Resources

African American Quilters of Baltimore
This guild, founded in 1989 by quilt artist Barbara Pietila, is designed to support African American quilters in an “environment of acceptance and welcome, and to encourage the practice of quilting as an expression of a shared history and culture.” aaqb.org Almanac This custom hardwood mill on West Hamburg Street specializes in giving new life to reclaimed wood—including redwood, yellow pine, and chestnut—and is “guided by a reverence for the materials we work with.”

Almanac
This custom hardwood mill on West Hamburg Street specializes in giving new life to reclaimed wood—including redwood, yellow pine, and chestnut—and is “guided by a reverence for the materials we work with.”

Baltimore Area Turners
This local chapter of the American Association of Woodturners offers mentoring and regular meetings where members can learn new skills and witness demonstrations.

Baltimore Clayworks
“Baltimore Clayworks is a community-centered ceramics organization that exhibits world-class artwork,” says McFadden, and offers “demonstrations and instruction classes to the public.” A clay collective founded by artists in 1980 in the Mount Washington neighborhood, Baltimore Clayworks also offers studio space, equipment, and residencies, and names its core values as “artist-centeredness, excellence, inclusivity, integrity, and joy.” Beale is also a fan of the organization.

Baltimore Heritage Quilt Guild
Offering monthly meetings, workshops, and community outreach opportunities, this guild’s mission is to “bring quilters together to learn and preserve the art and skill of quilting.” baltimorequilters.com Made in Baltimore “Since I moved here I have seen good changes and new organizations taking shape, such as the Made in Baltimore program, which focuses on helping and providing resources not only to small local businesses but local makers and the craft community as well,” says Lopez. According to the organization’s website, “Our mission is simple: Encourage investment in Baltimore’s economy by growing the market for locally-made goods and supporting the people who make them.”

Made in Baltimore
“Since I moved here I have seen good changes and new organizations taking shape, such as the Made in Baltimore program, which focuses on helping and providing resources not only to small local businesses but local makers and the craft community as well,” says Lopez. According to the organization’s website, “Our mission is simple: Encourage investment in Baltimore’s economy by growing the market for locally-made goods and supporting the people who make them.”

Maryland Art Place
Offering exhibition openings, gallery talks, workshops, and professional development events, MAP “inspires, supports, and encourages artistic expression through innovative programming, exhibitions, and educational opportunities while recognizing the powerful impact art can have on our community.” Duenas and Lopez give MAP the thumbs-up.

Maryland Institute College of Art
A leader in art and design education, MICA counts itself as the “oldest continuously degree-granting college of art and design in the nation.” The college fosters cross-pollination of ideas and innovative thinking through its coursework—which includes graduate programs in sculpture, curatorial practice, illustration, and social design—and its campus galleries, performance spaces, and makerspaces. Joyce J. Scott, a school alumna, heartily recommends MICA.

McFadden Art Glass
Launched in 2006 and expanded in 2016, this glassblowing studio, gallery, and art school offers interactive events and workshops for children and adults. Read more about its founder, Tim McFadden, on page 50.

Station North Tool Library
This membership-based tool library on East Oliver Street offers classes, tool borrowing, and shared workspace and equipment.

Photo by Kelvin Bulluck

Joyce J. Scott brought together this powerhouse group of artists in the textile department at the Maryland Institute College of Art (MICA). Participants include: Kibibi Ajanku, Hellen Ascoli, Sarah Z. Barnes, Susie Brandt, Carolyn Campbell-Flowe, Rosa Chang, Annat Couwenberg, Monique Crabb, Christina P. Day, Andrea Dixon, Liz Ensz, Dr. Leslie King-Hammond, Don Jones, Jenelle Legge, Kenya Miles, Karen Nelson, Rosalind Peterson, Valeska Populoh, Glenda Richardson, Piper Shepard, Jackie Simpson, Kim Taylor, and Camilla Younger.

Galleries, Studios, Markets

American Craft Made
The American Craft Council began hosting marketplaces in Baltimore in 1977 and now considers the three-day immersive and interactive gathering to be its flagship event. The juried craft marketplace—the largest on the East Coast—features the work of hundreds of artists and makers, including lamps made by Duenas and Lopez of La Loupe Design and pieces by other artists featured in this story.

Area 405
Located in a nearly two-century-old artist-owned warehouse, Area 405 offers artist studios as well as gallery and event spaces. It shares a building with Station North Tool Library.

Artscape Baltimore
This yearly arts and music festival—organized by the Baltimore Office of Promotion & the Arts and the City of Baltimore—dubs itself the city’s biggest cultural event. Launched in 1982, the most recent fair was held in August and included live music, visual arts, performance, fashion showcases, and food. Hobbs is a fan: “In terms of events that are specific to Baltimore,
Artscape is one of America’s largest free outdoor festivals.
This annual event boasts several performing and visual art experiences and an artist marketplace where local artists showcase and sell their work.”

Art Walks
“There are monthly art walks in the city arts districts that are worth visiting, with open galleries and studios, music, performances, and food,” according to Duenas and Lopez. They specifically recommend the monthly Second Friday events in the Station North Arts District; the First Friday Art Walks in the Highlandtown Arts District, “where a vibrant Latin community has grown over the past years”; and semiannual art walks in downtown’s Bromo Arts District. Hobbs suggests yet another event, the ArtWalk held annually by the Maryland Institute College of Art. “At the end of the spring semester, MICA’s campus buildings are transformed into galleries to exhibit the work of its graduating seniors,” she says.

Blue Light Junction
“One of the places we also recommend is actually where we have our showroom,” say Duenas and Lopez. “Blue Light Junction is a natural dye lab and studio. The studio has two floors and an annex community natural dye garden. On the main floor is where plants are germinated and natural dyes are processed and where they have a dye kitchen. On the second floor, they have a craft library and a concept store where we have our showroom along with other artists’ spaces.”

Charm City Craft Mafia
“Of course, besides the American Craft Council’s show here in Baltimore, we recommend the Charm City Craft Mafia’s shows that happen twice a year in a cool old church in the city,” say Duenas and Lopez.

The Creative Alliance
Founded in 1995, the Creative Alliance offers exhibitions, readings, workshops, live/work studios, theater space, and a lounge, whereby it “promotes Baltimore as a center for creative production, acts as a positive force in our community, and advocates for cultural expression rooted in a sense of place.” Beale endorses this organization.

Current Space
This artist-run, member-supported gallery, studio, outdoor performance space, and bar is recommended by Duenas and Lopez. “Current Space is an art gallery, and during the summer season, they open their patio with music, performances, movies, and more.”

Drama MaMa Bookshop
This bookshop, which binds and sells handmade journals, is operated by its founder, Alisa L. Brock, who says, “My safe place, my haven, has always involved paper and ink.”

Galerie Myrtis
“I also enjoy frequenting the exhibits at Galerie Myrtis, which is a staple in the Baltimore arts scene,” says Hobbs. Founded in 2006, the gallery and art advisory specializes in “twentieth and twenty-first-century American art with a focus on work created by African American artists.”

Goya Contemporary Gallery and Goya-Girl Press
This gallery on Chestnut Avenue, which represents Joyce J. Scott (read more about Scott on page 44), focuses on postwar and contemporary art and has “built a progressive reputation on lifelong commitments to representing and protecting artists and artistic practice; and for creating visionary, historically relevant exhibitions, publications, and scholarship around artists who we believe are the truthtellers of our time.”

guesthouse by good neighbor
Inside this boutique hotel (see photo on page 54) on Falls Road, which celebrates local artisans, guests can admire and purchase handmade furniture, books, ceramics, and more. The long concrete sink in the lobby was created by Mark Melonas of Luke Works.

Lexington Market
“The oldest market in the US is here, Lexington Market,” says Scott. “The Baltimore Museum of Art has a site where they do work there.” Established in 1782, the now 60,000-square-foot Lexington Market houses merchants selling food, flowers, books, shoe repair, handmade soaps, and crafted jewelry.

Wild Yam Pottery
Founded in 1996 by a group of ceramists, this working studio includes a gallery selling ceramics made on the premises.

Photo by guesthouse by good neighbor

Inside guesthouse by good neighbor, which is filled with craft and located in Baltimore's lively Hampden district.

Museums

American Visionary Art Museum
“There are some really amazing museums in Baltimore that center craft,” says Hobbs. “The Visionary Art Museum has a wonderful collection that is vibrant and eclectic.” Focused on outsider art, this one-of-a-kind museum explains its specialty as “original thematic exhibitions that seamlessly combine art, science, philosophy, humor and especially social justice and betterment.” Duenas and Lopez endorse this gem, too, calling it “unique here in Baltimore.”

Baltimore Museum of Art
A Baltimore institution and centerpiece of the city’s creative communities, BMA was founded in 1914 and holds a collection of 97,000 works. Most recently, the museum, which prides itself on being “bold, brave, and essential,” featured a 50-year career retrospective of Joyce J. Scott’s work. Artist, filmmaker, and writer John Waters, another celebrated Charm City native, recently bequeathed 372 works to the museum, bringing “a particular cutting-edge articulation of American individualism to the BMA’s collection, particularly as it relates to queer identity and freedom of expression.” In a fitting gesture, BMA named its all-gender restrooms after Waters. “Two of my favorites are the Baltimore Museum of Art and Glenstone museum,” says Beale. “Noting that I’m the director of public programs at the BMA, but truthfully it would be on my list regardless.”

Glenstone
Located in Travilah, Maryland, this museum integrates art, architecture, and nature, showcasing contemporary art and a large sculpture garden.

The Peale
Established in the historic Peale Museum building on Holliday Street, the Peale describes itself as the “first purpose-built museum in the nation” with a focus on stories, not objects. “We are building an archive of Baltimore stories, and the Peale is now dedicated to preserving Baltimore’s intangible cultural heritage: its stories, in the form of exhibitions, performances, talks, immersive experiences, and other creative media, and the community voices that share them.” Scott gives the Peale high marks. “The first museum building built in the US was the Peale Museum, which is here,” she says. “It’s just been reopened by strong and smart art enthusiasts and artists.”

Reginald F. Lewis Museum of Maryland African American History & Culture
Beale appreciates this museum, which boasts “over 400 years of history in its permanent collection” and is focused on African American history in the areas of industry, politics, the arts, and more.

The Walters Art Museum
Established in 1934 “for the benefit of the public,” this museum started when Henry Walters bequeathed to the City of Baltimore the art collection of his father, philanthropist and collector William T. Walters. “The Walters Art Museum is a great place to visit if you’re into furniture, ceramics, and jewelry,” says Hobbs.

 

Jennifer Vogel is contributing editor of American Craft.

Photo by Mitro Hood

Works in the Baltimore Museum of Art's 2024 Finding Home exhibition include Passamaquoddy basket maker Jeremy Frey's Aura, 2023 (foreground left); The Fire Within, 2016 (middle), by Shan Goshorn (Eastern Band Cherokee); and Blanket Stories: Beacon, Marker, Ohi-yo, 2016 (right), by Marie Watt (Seneca).

Photo by Pamela Zhang

Ceramic mug by Pamela Zhang.

Photo by Danielle Finney

Detail of woven tapestry by Aliana Grace Bailey.

Photo by Jamaal Jackson

Tufted rug by Jamaal “Feedy” Jackson.

Photo by Mark Melonas

Concrete and wood creation by Mark Melonas.

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This article was made possible with support from the Windgate Foundation.

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