The University of Maryland, Baltimore hopes to engage an experienced artist to create a public mural that celebrates the local history of West Baltimore where the campus is located.

Between 1997 and 2011 the University acquired three properties located between 114 – 116 N. Greene Street. The buildings were not in good condition and continued to deteriorate. They were subsequently demolished in 2018. As part of a Memorandum of Agreement with the Maryland Historical Trust, the University agreed to design and install a mural at the site to “celebrate the history of the neighborhood.”

There is a designated location for the mural on the north façade of 108 N. Greene Street (see attached Site Plan). The mural will be located in a dense urban setting so it must be durable, easily maintained and not create public safety issues. The mural should utilize enduring materials that can withstand a downtown environment with pedestrian traffic, and exposure to vehicular pollution. Night lighting of the mural wall area has been installed and is unlikely to be further expanded in the future, so please account for this in your design. Finally, the mural will be a place intended for meeting, hanging out and/or studying, and used for selfies or as a backdrop for graduation photographs.

All professional artists or artist teams residing in the State of Maryland may apply. Special consideration will be given to applicants that reside in the Baltimore region. If artists are applying as a team, the team should be declared on the Application Form, specifying a team leader to receive notifications. Artists currently enrolled in any university or college degree program are not eligible to apply. Staff, faculty, or employees of UMB are not eligible to apply.

Up to four semi-finalist artists or artist teams will be selected to develop a proposal. Each semi-finalist team will receive a $500 stipend towards preparing a site-specific mural design for presentation towards UMB’s selection of a finalist. There will be no additional funds or compensation to each semi-finalist for this effort.

The artwork project budget is $23,000 and is inclusive of all costs associated with the project, including but not limited to: artist coordination and expenses (sub-consultants, travel/lodging, printing, overhead, etc.), artwork fabrication details and specifications, artwork materials and fabrication, storage, transportation and installation, related permits, licenses, and insurance. Any expenses that exceed the contracted amount will be the artist’s responsibility. The artist will be responsible for submitting an artwork maintenance manual upon completion.

The RFQ application deadline is Monday, November 15, 2021.

Please see the PDF below for full details on the project, including photos of the site, timelines, and evaluation criteria.

Disconnect to Reconnect (The hidden and unseen), by Erick Antonio Benitez (photo credit: Michael Bussell)

The Baltimore Office of Promotion & The Arts (BOPA) and the Municipal Art Society of Baltimore City (MASB) announce Erin Fostel and Erick Antonio Benitez as recipients of the Municipal Art Society of Baltimore City Artist Travel Prize. The MASB board of directors awarded a $6,000 prize to two Baltimore-based visual artists for 2018. Fostel and Benitez were selected from a highly competitive pool of applicants. The prize is intended to function as funding for travel essential to an artist’s studio practice that an artist may not otherwise be able to afford. The third edition of the Municipal Art Society of Baltimore City Artist Travel Prize is managed by Baltimore Office of Promotion & The Arts, and sponsored by the Municipal Art Society of Baltimore City.

Fostel will use the award for a three-week trip to Japan, where she will research and draw. The artist plans to focus on the cities of Tokyo and Hiroshima and surrounding areas. Her concentration will be on urban architecture as well as the architecture, rites and rituals of Shinto, a main religion in Japan.

Benitez will use the award to conduct research on the Amazon city of Iquitos, exposing him to a vast biodiversity landscape and the native culture. The project will be a lasting source of material for his practice, including sound field recordings, video footage, photographs, drawing studies and found objects.

Temper and Soothe, by Erin Fostel

About the Artists:

Erin Fostel’s interest in drawing and storytelling led her to the Maryland Institute College of Art (MICA), where she graduated in 2014. Thereafter, she continued to explore visual storytelling through drawing. In her drawings, she pushes the tonal boundaries of charcoal, which is her primary medium. Her work has been included in local and international publications about drawing. Her studio is located in Baltimore.

Erick Antonio Benitez received a BFA from the Maryland Institute College of Art. The multidisciplinary artist has exhibited internationally, including CONNERSMITH, Washington, D.C., Baltimore Museum of Art, Greenpoint Gallery, Brooklyn, New York, and Metàfora Studio Arts, Barcelona, Spain, in addition to private collections. His works of art have also been reviewed by regional and national publications. Benitez has been a recipient of a Ruby Artist Project grant; The Contemporary: Grit Fund 2; Y.L. Hoi Memorial Award, Janet & Walter Sondheim Artscape Prize, and a residency at the Studios at MASS MoCA.

About Municipal Art Society of Baltimore City:

The Municipal Art Society of Baltimore was founded in 1899 as part of the City Beautiful movement. It is one of only two remaining societies to be operating under its original charter “to provide sculptural and pictorial decoration and ornaments for the public buildings, streets and open spaces in the City of Baltimore, and to help generally beautify the City.” Artistic contributions to the City span more than one hundred years. In 2016 the MASOB embarked on a path to provide new opportunities to Baltimore artists and art places within the City, including this Artist Travel Prize and an annual Public Art Prize.

Image credit: Jeff & Aisha Butler of Jazzy Studios

Baltimore-based artist Megan Lewis has been chosen to create new public artwork for the Penn-North Metro SubwayLink station. The inclusion of the artwork, which is intended to focus on the history and culture of the Penn-North community, is part of North Avenue Rising, a project that includes transportation investments across the North Avenue corridors and is supported by a U.S. Department of Transportation (USDOT) Transportation Investment Generating Economic Recovery (TIGER) grant.  The North Avenue Rising will improve transit connectivity and accessibility along the East to West North Avenue corridor, while the investment in new artwork will improve the commuter experience within the station and provide visitors an opportunity for self-reflection.

The artwork created by Lewis will be the first new artwork commissioned for the Baltimore Metro SubwayLink system since the stations were built more than 30 years ago, and will be the first artwork by a black woman artist commissioned for Maryland’s transit system. Lewis joins the ranks of artists like Romare Bearden, Patricia Alexander, Paul Daniels, Mary Ann Mears and others who have artwork commissions located along the Baltimore Metro SubwayLink line.

The North Avenue Rising Penn-North Station project is Lewis’s first public art commission. The artist has been an active and well-regarded member of Baltimore’s arts community. A past Greater Baltimore Cultural Alliance Urban Arts Leadership Fellow, Lewis began translating her work into public murals in the summer of 2015 through Art @ Work, an award-winning partnership between BOPA and Jubilee Arts. Since that time, she has been an Art @ Work teaching artist four years in a row, and has completed seven murals across the city. Her mural, Lady Liberty Please Know Thy Self, located at 1800 Baker Street, made national news when singer-songwriter Alicia Keys visited Baltimore for “Shining a Light: A Concert for Progress on Race in America” presented by A+E Networks. The artist will begin designing the artwork for the station this fall, with installation scheduled in 2020.

Meet Lewis and hear about her creative process during an artist talk on Wednesday, October 24, 2018 from 6pm to 8pm at Arch Social Club, located at 2426 Pennsylvania Avenue, Baltimore, MD 21217. The event is hosted by Cultureworks and part of BOPA’s Free Fall Baltimore.

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More information on North Avenue Rising can be found at www.northavenuerising.com.

The Baltimore Office of Sustainability’s Green Network, in partnership with the Baltimore Office of Promotion and the Arts, is hosting a sculpture contest for seven vacant, city-owned lots along Park Heights Avenue in the Lots Alive contest.   The winning sculptures will be eligible for grants up to $5,000 and the deadline for submission is Saturday, July 28.

The seven winners will be installing temporary outdoor sculpture on city-owned, vacant lots along Park Heights Avenue. All projects will need to be installed between Sept. 22-Oct. 5, 2018.  Projects must be removed by Saturday, Oct. 5, 2019.   These visual art projects will be designed to enhance and beautify the community as well as bring visitors to the Park Heights neighborhood.

This RFP is open to artists, designers, architects, and community residents over 18 years of age and living in Baltimore City. To apply, artists must create an online account and upload their proposal at https://promotionandarts.submittable.com/submit/46445/2018-lots-alive-request-for-proposals-for-temporary-public-art-in-vacant-lots.

For more information, go to http://promotionandarts.org/grants/lots-alive.  For more information, please contact Chris Brooks at Baltimore Office of Promotion or cbrooks@promotionandarts.org and The Arts at 410-752-8632 or Kim Knox, Greening Coordinator at 410-396-5902 or kimberley.knox@baltimorecity.gov.

The Schuler School of Fine Arts is hosting its 9th Annual Juried Animal Exhibition: From Fur To Feathers in March 2018. The theme for the exhibition is animals — an animal must take visual precedence in the composition. The quality of the work will take precedence over the subject.

Any original, representational, two dimensional work in the mediums of oil paint, pastel acrylic, watercolor, ink, pencil or scratchboard and wall-mounted sculpture relief or in the round under 40 lbs will be considered. 

All works must be for sale.

Deadline: March 10th

Cash Prizes

Click here for more information. 

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The Municipal Art Society of Baltimore City and the Baltimore Office of Promotion & The Arts are happy to announce the recipient of the first annual Municipal Art Society of Baltimore City Artist Travel Prize, Stephen Towns. Stephen was selected from a highly competitive pool of applicants and with this $6000 award will take his first trip abroad to Ghana and Senegal to visit important historical sites that mark the transatlantic slave trade. Images and research from this trip will inform a future body of work exploring the history of colonialism and its effects on modern society.

Currently, based out of Baltimore, Maryland, visual artist Stephen Towns was raised in Lincolnville, South Carolina, a small town outside of Charleston.  Towns earned a BFA in Studio Art from the University of South Carolina and works at Maryland Institute College of Art (MICA).  Working primarily in oil, acrylic, and fiber, Towns draws much of his visual inspiration from Medieval altarpieces, Impressionist paintings and wax cloth prints.  His work has been exhibited at Gallery CA, Platform Gallery, Hood College,  Galerie Myrtis and is in the collection of the City of Charlestown, South Carolina.

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About his work, Stephen says “The portraits I create are not only glimpses of the sitters; they are also a reflection of myself and mirror my struggle to attain a sense of self-knowledge, self-worth and spirituality beyond the Christian values that are so often idealized in African-American culture.”

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The Municipal Art Society of Baltimore City PUBLIC ART PRIZE: Call for Entries

Application deadline – Friday, September 30, 2016

The Baltimore Office of Promotion & The Arts, Inc. (BOPA) is proud to announce the first edition of the Municipal Art Society of Baltimore City Public Art Prize, sponsored by the Municipal Art Society of Baltimore City (MASOB). The Municipal Art Society of Baltimore was founded in 1899 as part of the City Beautiful movement. It is one of only two remaining societies to be operating under its original charter “to provide sculptural and pictorial decoration and ornaments for the public buildings, streets and open spaces in the City of Baltimore, and to help generally beautify the City.” Artistic contributions to the City span more than one hundred years. In 2016 the MASOB embarks on a path to provide new opportunities to Baltimore artists and art places within the City. This prize will award $30,000 to a visual artist or visual artist collaborators, living and working within 100 miles of Baltimore City.

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