The arts aren’t just window-dressing in Baltimore – they’re a living, breathing part of everyday life in the city. Wherever travelers go, Baltimore creativity flows all around them, from the corners of each neighborhood to the halls of its museums. In 2020, two cultural gems celebrate major milestones, and some of the city’s creative districts step into the foreground like never before.
The American Visionary Art Museum is celebrating its 25th anniversary in 2020, marking a quarter century of highlighting self-taught, intuitive artistry. The museum’s latest enterprise, a timely thematic mega-exhibition, “THE SECRET LIFE OF EARTH: Alive! Awake! (and possibly really Angry!)” also coincides with the global celebration of Earth Day’s 50th Anniversary in April of 2020.
The Creative Alliance, one of Baltimore’s most important cultural institutions, is also celebrating its 25th anniversary in 2020. Just this past November, The Creative Alliance announced it is moving forward with building new Creativity Center. The Center, designed to support expanded educational and community programming, is scheduled to open in the fall of 2021. Once the new building is completed, the Creative Alliance’s two buildings will form an Eastern Avenue cultural gateway to Baltimore’s Highlandtown’s Arts & Entertainment District.
Highlandtown’s Arts and Entertainment District (aka ha!) is the largest such designated area in the state and continues to grow in a community-driven way, despite pressure from traditional gentrification forces. For example, while the owner of The Laughing Pint, one of the area’s local bars, is selling her business so she can pursue art, she promised she “would never sell to anyone who didn’t have the neighborhood’s best interest at heart.” The area is home to many galleries and even a monthly art walk in the summer..
Station North Arts and Entertainment District, located steps away from Penn Station, is chock full of DIY exhibit spaces, (many of which do double duty as live venues for local punk and indie bands), and is experiencing unique, community-driven growth. New business like North Ave. Market show how a careful growth pattern of old and new can create a more sustainable path for communities. “We’re working very hard showing everybody what growth in Station North can be,” says Matthew Steinberg of Station North’s Secret Sauce Co. to Baltimore Magazine. “We want to activate the space in a way that is beneficial to everybody in Baltimore.”
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