Mayor Launches Open Walls Baltimore
This article was posted by Martha Cooper 1 Year, 2 months, 1 week, 5 days, 5 hours, 55 minutes ago.
A serious street art project is happening in my hometown of Baltimore and I’m excited to be part of it. Open Walls Baltimore, aka OWB, kicked off last week with a standing-room only press conference in the WindUp Space, an appropriately funky venue. Mayor Stephanie Rawlings-Blake was in the house and delivered an enthusiastic speech opening with the line, “I love art.”
The lucky neighborhood designated to receive the murals is the Station North Arts and Entertainment District. It’s adjacent to the train station and the Bolt bus stop if you’re traveling from NYC. Gaia helped write the grant for the project, select the walls and curate the lineup of international and local artists.
Baltimore is an old and beautiful city that, sadly, has fallen on hard times. Architecturally significant buildings and ordinary rowhouses, abandoned and boarded up, line the streets. The underlying agenda for murals of course, is to stimulate real estate investment and this can be a double edged sword. However responsible plans are in place to continue to provide reasonably priced housing in the area. PNC Bank, the primary funding source for OWB has a community development program focusing on investments to low and moderate income people.
I personally would love to see Baltimore become an international arts destination. This venerable city deserves some love.
Baltimore Mayor Stephanie Rawlings-Blake at OWB press conference. Her daughter is in the front row.
Ben Stone, Executive Director of Station North and Gaia at press conference.
Gaia with Will Backstrom from PNC Bank, the primary sponsors of OWB.
Mayor Rawlings-Blake with participating artist Maya Hayuk.
Gaia painting the first project wall on an abandoned building along a desolate stretch of North Avenue.
OWB - Open Walls Baltimore
Gaia's wall before and after. Neighborhood residents enjoyed watching Gaia paint freehand and appreciated the familiar pigeon-flyer theme.
Maya Hayuk painting a huge wall opposite the Charles Theater on Charles Street.
Maya's wall in progress.
Maya's wall before and after
© Martha Cooper & 12ozProphet - Saturday March 10, 2012
There are 1 comments...
Martha, Did you see tadays ‘need to know’ on PBS. It’s about the economy from the inner city Baltimore view. They rereunt the show several times, and it’s online.