BmoreArt’s Picks: December 12-18
This Week: Victoria Walton artist talk at Clayworks, D. Watkins and Celeste Doaks in conversation with Cara Ober at Bird in Hand, opening reception for Paula Gately Tillman at Arting Gallery, Get On My Level opening reception at Creative Alliance, closing reception for Kim Rice and Paul Rucker at Connect + Collect, Current Space 10th Annual Holiday Market, reception for Madeleine Keesing at Goya, and Waller Gallery holiday party — PLUS Maryland Film Fest call for submissions and more featured opportunities!
BmoreArt’s Picks presents the best weekly art openings, events, and performances happening in Baltimore and surrounding areas. For a more comprehensive perspective, check the BmoreArt Calendar page, which includes ongoing exhibits and performances, and is updated on a daily basis.
To submit your calendar event, email us at events@bmoreart.com!
Baltimore Clayworks Artist Talk with Victoria Walton
Tuesday, December 12 :: 12:30-1pm
@ Baltimore Clayworks
Ceramic artists are at the heart of Baltimore Clayworks. Artists are at the center of the mission of Baltimore Clayworks, and provide the organization with talent and innovation to inspire our community and to enliven the artistic impact of ceramics in our region. Their professional and personal networks provide a kaleidoscope of interactions with peers, galleries, and academic institutions, which keep the organization at the forefront of contemporary ceramic art.
Victoria Walton b. 1994 is an emerging visual artist based in Baltimore. They have an MFA in Ceramic Art from NYSCC at Alfred University and a BFA with a focus in ceramics from Towson University. Victoria explores the wonder and complexity of Black identity, creating large-scale sculptures and video works that center the narratives of women and gender-expansive people. Walton draws from their own life: reflecting on the intersection of her identities and ongoing battle with her health. She further investigates the impact that historic societal factors and personal experiences have on the individual and the Black community, making multi-layered connections between clay and the body.
City of Artists: D. Watkins and Celeste Doaks with Cara Ober
Tuesday, December 12 :: 6pm
@ Bird in Hand
We are thrilled to invite you to Bird in Hand for a celebration of CITY OF ARTISTS, Bmore Art’s first ever full length book! This gorgeous coffee table book highlights the range and depth, contradiction and harmony of Baltimore’s artists. Pairing essays from local writers with reproductions of artists’ work, CITY OF ARTISTS explores the reasons why Baltimore creates a rich, vital context for artistic creation and practice.
Two featured writers from the book, D. Watkins and Celeste Doaks, will speak on a panel with Cara Ober, Editor and Publisher.
Books will be available for sale at the event.
Poet and journalist celeste doaks is the author of Cornrows and Cornfields, Wrecking Ball Press, UK, March 2015. She’s the editor (and contributor in) of poetry anthology Not Without Our Laughter: Poems of Humor, Joy, and Sexuality, Mason Jar Press, May 2017. Cornrows was listed as one of the “Ten Best Books of 2015” by Beltway Quarterly Poetry. Her poem “For the Chef at Helios…” received a 2015 Pushcart Prize nomination. Her multiple accolades include a 2017 Rubys Grant in Literary Arts, a Lucille Clifton Scholarship to attend Squaw Valley Writers Workshop, the 2010 AWP WC&C Scholarship, and residencies at Atlantic Center of the Arts and the Fine Arts Work Center in Provincetown. Her journalism has appeared in the Huffington Post, Village Voice, Time Out New York, and QBR (Quarterly Black Book Review). Her poems have been published in multiple on-line and print publications such as Chicago Quarterly Review, Asheville Poetry Review, Bayou Magazine and Beltway Poetry Quarterly. Her poems have also appeared in multiple anthologies including Misrepresented People: A Poetic Responses to Trump’s America, Rabbit Ears: TV Poems, and Home Is Where: An Anthology of African American Poetry from the Carolinas.Celeste received her MFA from North Carolina State University and has held teaching positions at East Carolina University, Morgan State University, and Stevenson University. She was also the 2017-2020 Visiting Assistant Professor of Creative Writing at University of Delaware.
Her newest work, American Herstory, is the winner of Backbone Press’s 2018 chapbook competition. American Herstory has also been named Best Chapbook by Maryland Poet Laureate, Grace Cavalieri. This chapbook focuses on Michelle Obama; it includes ekphrastic poems about the First Lady’s art choices, which decorated the inside of the White House. American Herstory was published August 2019.
D. Watkins is the New York Times bestselling and award-winning author of The Beast Side, The Cook Up, Where Tomorrows Aren’t Promised, and We Speak for Ourselves—which was Enoch Pratt Free Library’s 2020 One Book Baltimore selection. His newest book, Black Boy Smile, was released in May.
Watkins is Editor-at-Large for Salon. He is a writer on the HBO mini-series We Own This City and hosts the show’s companion podcast. Additionally, he was featured in the HBO documentary, The Slow Hustle. His work has been published in the New York Times, Esquire, New York Times Magazine, The Guardian, Rolling Stone, and other publications.
Watkins is a college lecturer at the University of Baltimore, where he earned an MFA in Creative Writing. He also holds a Master of Education degree from Johns Hopkins University.
Some of Watkins’ awards include the Johns Hopkins Distinguished Alumnus Award, the BMe Genius Grant for Dynamic Black Leaders, the City Lit Dambach Award for Service to the Literary Arts, the Maryland Library Association’s William Wilson Maryland Author Award, and Ford’s Men of Courage Award for Black Male Storytellers. He was also a finalist for a 2016 Hurston Wright Legacy Award, and The Cook Up was a 2017 Books for a Better Life finalist. He lives in Baltimore, MD with his wife and daughter.
Cara Ober is the founding editor and publisher at BmoreArt, Baltimore’s art and culture magazine.
Cara Ober writes about Baltimore’s unique cultural landscape from the perspective of an artist and feminist. She approaches all kinds of cultural production from a constructive and critical perspective informed by material and pop culture, history, social movements, and politics. Over the past decade, Ober’s critical reviews, essays, and interviews have explored the political and economic impact of the arts in Baltimore and the way artists maintain a professional practice and thrive in a city full of rich and diverse cultural traditions as well as serious social issues.
She writes regularly about artist and museum culture and and the way they intersect and collide, assessing how this impacts art communities and establishes hierarchies of value.
Paula Gately Tillman: Aligning Stars | Opening Reception
Thursday, December 14 :: 6-8pm // Ongoing through January 25
@ Arting Gallery
This solo exhibition aligns rising stars across generations—twenty-four artists in the earlier stages of their careers, from the 1980s to the present. These portraits reveal the photographer’s extraordinary long-term focus on artists and beauty, serving as a gentle reminder that artistic lives can be looked at with historical, evolutionary, and poetic vision. Aligning Stars portrays the amazing stories of icons and evolving stars from the perspective of Paula Gately Tillman’s unique lens.
IMAGE: Self Portrait in Salzburg, 1996 © Paula Gately Tilllman Image. Courtesy of the artist.
ARTING GALLERY 3500 Parkdale Avenue, Woodberry District
Building 1 Floor 2 Suite 212
Baltimore, MD. 21211
phone 443-717-2851 onsite free parking lot
Read more of this week’s picks at BmoreArt.
