Baltimore Arts

The Baltimore Community Foundation will provide $1 million to strengthen arts and cultural programs in Greater Baltimore, it announced this week to a gathering of corporate, political, education and arts leaders.The foundation's pledge is based upon a report on the state of local arts: "Building Community: The Arts & Baltimore Together," which was written by Ernest L. Boyer, president of the Carnegie Foundation for the Advancement of Teaching. The report calls for a regional effort to advance arts and cultural institutions.

Not even getting stabbed repeatedly by a needle could get Danielle Cromb to put down her smartphone Saturday afternoon. "I've been on Tumblr, Facebook, Pinterest," said Cromb, of Charleston, S.C., who clutched her iPhone as she was having ink injected into the skin on the back of her neck. "Mostly it's helpful if I'm looking up a picture in the middle of a conversation with an artist. And it can definitely be a distraction. " It is a common sight this weekend inside the Baltimore Convention Center: Semi-dressed, prostrate people playing games, texting and listening to music on their cellphones as tattoo artists work.

Patricia Modell, a successful TV and film actress in the 1950s and '60s who became a well-known philanthropist in Baltimore with her husband, former Ravens owner Arthur Modell, died Wednesday at the age of 80. Mrs. Modell was admitted two weeks ago to Gilchrist Hospice, one of several local charitable organizations she had served as a board member and donor. Though the cause of death was not immediately known, she was hospitalized several months ago with pancreatitis and her health continued to decline.

Oversized illustrations of Florida teenager Trayvon Martin have begun to spring up on abandoned buildings throughout Baltimore, the work of a street artist protesting the death of the 17-year-old at the hands of a neighborhood watch volunteer. An image of the young man's hooded face went up overnight on Wednesday at the intersection of Caroline and Baltimore streets. Only the youth's chin is visible, but a bag of Skittles — the type of candy Trayvon was carrying when he was shot — is superimposed in the lower right corner of the poster.

It's one of those great ideas that seems so obvious in retrospect: a boutique where shoppers can patronize five major Baltimore arts organizations while purchasing holiday presents.Today, Arts To Go, a cooperative retail effort featuring items from the Baltimore Museum of Art, Baltimore Symphony Orchestra, Center Stage, Morris A. Mechanic Theatre and the Walters Art Gallery, opens at the Gallery at Harborplace.For the first time, BSO mugs, BMA memberships and Walters nightshirts are available in the same place through Dec. 31.The five performance and cultural arts groups "never worked together in a public way before," says Joan Davidson, group marketing manager for Baltimore area Rouse Company shopping centers.

The founder of Baltimore's Artscape festival insisted yesterday that the event had no connection to City Hall during the Schaefer years although it was run by municipal employees out of city offices.Instead, Jody Albright testified in Baltimore Circuit Court, the summer festival really was run by the little-known Baltimore Arts Festival Inc., a nonprofit corporation.Mrs. Albright also said that she solicited funds for Artscape on behalf of the nonprofit corporation only."I never solicited [Artscape funds]

After four years of bitter legal wrangling, former Artscape officials agreed Wednesday to turn over to Baltimore some of the money raised for the arts festival when Gov. William Donald Schaefer was mayor.In settling a lawsuit filed by the city, the former Artscape officials agreed to turn over to the city 40 percent of the $666,513 that was raised for the summer event, in three annual installments of $88,868.The settlement does not say when the city will get the rest of the funds. Under the agreement, the former Artscape officials will pay their legal fees with Artscape funds.

LOCAL ARTS supporters, as well as six arts groups and their staffs, are to be congratulated for a milestone.The last of the institutions -- the Baltimore Symphony Orchestra -- recently met the rigorous financial and other goals necessary to qualify for a grant from the Baltimore Arts Stabilization Project, a partnership between National Arts Stabilization (NAS) and a local committee of contributing corporations and foundations.The other participating arts organizations are Center Stage, the Walters Arts Gallery, the Baltimore Museum of Art, the Maryland Institute College of Art and the Baltimore Opera Company.

Artists are known for their piques, temper tantrums and jealousies. Sometimes even their mentors are infected with these characteristics. Nothing else explains the petty attempts of two of William Donald Schaefer's former City Hall aides to prevent the Schmoke administration from inheriting some $666,000 they had raised for the annual Artscape happening.Legal wrangling about this money continued for four years. And it probably would still continue, except that the city subpoenaed Governor Schaefer to testify about the collection and purpose of that money.

A story in some editions of The Sun yesterday incorrectly stated the amount of money Baltimore contributed to Artscape since a disputed transfer of money from a group that managed Artscape funds to a foundation in 1986. The city has contributed several hundred thousand dollars to the festival.The Sun regrets the error.More than $700,000 that had been donated to Artscape, Baltimore's summer arts festival, belongs to the city government, a court ruled yesterday, and should be returned immediately by the organization that holds it, which is controlled by close associates of Gov. William Donald Schaefer.

Inside the once-bustling movie theater on North Avenue, moss thrives on shattered marble walls. Broken tiles hang from the ceiling. Rainwater pours through the roof. But this derelict structure is now seen as a future centerpiece for the growing midtown arts district. A nonprofit developer, backed financially by the Maryland Institute College of Art and a private foundation, envisions the Art Deco building as the home of film screenings, music venues, artists' studios, galleries, a playhouse and a restaurant.

In the past 12 months, some especially high-energy creators have relocated from other metropolises and set up shop within city limits. While a scrappy inventiveness isn't new here — far from it — it could be that the city is reaching a critical mass of innovative thinkers in the arts. Baltimore may be on the verge of a growth spurt that will establish it once and for all as an arts center. It may be about to become a laboratory for experiments that blur the lines between theater, music and dance and the rest of life.

Nick Prevas is truly an “artist of all trades.” The 30-year-old Charles Village resident writes and directs films, works on graphic design projects, plays guitar and sings in the band White Lodge. He even handles communications and media for the American Visionary Arts Museum. Originally from Highland, Prevas tells b that there's no place he'd rather be than Baltimore: “There's just an energy to our city like no place else. I lived in L.A. for a few years and couldn't ever get the vibe there like I can in Charm City.

Patricia Modell, a successful TV and film actress in the 1950s and '60s who became a well-known philanthropist in Baltimore with her husband, former Ravens owner Arthur Modell, died Wednesday at the age of 80. Mrs. Modell was admitted two weeks ago to Gilchrist Hospice, one of several local charitable organizations she had served as a board member and donor. Though the cause of death was not immediately known, she was hospitalized several months ago with pancreatitis and her health continued to decline.

A 22-year-old man was critically wounded after being shot in the Charles North neighborhood early Friday morning, according to Baltimore Police. The incident occurred at 12:30 a.m., in the 1900 block of Maryland Ave., police said. The victim was standing at a bus stop when he was approached by two people, police spokesman Detective Kevin Brown said. One pulled out a gun and fired, hitting the victim twice in the back, chief police spokesman Anthony Guglielmi said. The victim was taken to the Maryland Shock Trauma Center for treatment, Guglielmi said.

On Tuesday, three Baltimore-area artists will each win $25,000 for the Baker Artist Awards and a select few will discover they are finalists for the $25,000 Janet & Walter Sondheim Artscape Prize. We should all be celebrating. These major awards shine a bright spotlight on Baltimore, the talented artists in our community and the extraordinary amount of support we give them each year. Baltimore has a remarkable creative class — painters and sculptors, new media artists, graphic designers, architects, filmmakers, musicians, actors, writers and many artists who work with equal capacity in more than one of these disciplines.

Four mid-sized Baltimore art organizations -- Fells Point Creative Alliance, Everyman Theatre, Baltimore Choral Arts Society and Young Audiences of Maryland -- will participate in a program to teach management skills to arts executives. Run by the National Arts Stabilization, a nonprofit management group based in Baltimore, the program is designed to strengthen participants' ability to raise money, manage their finances and set long-term goals. The NAS also operates stabilization projects in Arizona, Washington state and Ohio.

One of Baltimore's leading bankers yesterday testified that the creators of the Artscape festival were "morally bankrupt" because they had raised nearly $700,000 for the summer festival when William Donald Schaefer was mayor and refused to turn it over to the city after Kurt L. Schmoke became mayor.H. Furlong Baldwin, chairman of Mercantile-Safe Deposit and Trust Co., assailed the festival's creators during testimony in Baltimore Circuit Court. He was the first witness in a trial sparked by a lawsuit the Schmoke administration filed against Baltimore Arts Festival Inc., a nonprofit corporation set up by Mr. Schaefer's mayoral administration.

Free Fall Baltimore, a chance for area residents to sample many of the city's arts and cultural institutions without the need to shell out a dime, will return in October. "People love the chance to be able to sample and experience Baltimore's arts community for free," said Tracy Baskerville, a spokeswoman for the Baltimore Office of Promotion and the Arts (BOPA), which has been putting together the annual event since it started in 2006. "For some people, this might be their one opportunity.