On the night of Sept. 12, I went downtown with a few friends and a camera in hand. We had seen the flyers and social media posts, with ‘Bromo Art Walk’ pasted in big bubble letters and a short blurb below advertising a night of creative performances and open galleries. Ever eager to get a taste of artistic expression on a school night, we boarded the Purple Line and headed into the arts district.
The event was set up so that you were meant to guide yourself around the various locations, which were scattered in an area about seven blocks long and five blocks wide. Featuring more than twenty shops, galleries and theaters, one could hardly plot out a route that covered them all. As a result, most people seemed to be wandering freely from block to block and seeing what they chanced upon.
Our first stop was Mount Vernon Marketplace, where we bought drinks and explored the Tigerlilyshop Jewelry store. There were earrings and necklaces of all sorts, from little plastic rocking horses to finely crafted metal charms. As the shopkeeper explained, several venues including her own were offering student discounts that night. This was part of a larger trend of sales and discounts at other locations as a way to incentivize Baltimoreans to visit the Art Walk.
From there, we wandered down the street until we heard live music coming from a particularly colorful storefront. “I want to go there,” said one of my friends, so we dashed across the road to see what was inside. Turns out there were three artists all gathered there: a clothing designer, a drummer and a multimedia painter. The designer, Michele Blu, had her eccentric patterned clothing on racks in one corner of the room while Bashi Rose, the musician, experimented feverishly on the drums on the other side. Sounds and colors flew through the shop, and caught in the crossfire was a mini-exhibit by an artist called Maridian Skyy.
Her multimedia paintings and drawings were pure creativity, flowing fluorescent and nature-centric forms onto her canvases. As she sold prints and explained her work to visitors, Skyy also answered some of my questions about the Bromo Art Walk.
In an interview with The News-Letter, she said: “[My favorite part of the Bromo Art Walk is] seeing people interact with the different forms of art. The fact that we did something multidisciplinary means that everyone has something to tune into. There’s viewing the art, engaging with friends or the fashion and music. So I really enjoy the multifaceted engagement.”
We moved on to the next location, but not without trying a free sample of the ginger tea on a small table to the side. That was the other thing — wherever we turned, it seemed like we were presented with new flavors, experiences and opportunities to look into an artist’s practice. When we glanced into Le Mondo theater, this was very much so the case: a performer was carrying out a curious routine in front of the venue’s red velvet curtains unlike anything I’d seen before.
Inside Vinyls and Pages, magazine pages were sprawled everywhere. Normally, the space was used as a bookstore-vinyl-shop-combo, but that night it made room for collage tables which were busy with people and clippings. The books and vinyls were delegated to either side of the store, and people browsed through them, sometimes choosing vinyls to play on the record player. Someone had a vintage film camera, and everyone was gathering to see it.
As we walked on, we came across two women painting in a parking lot. They had buckets of paint lined up on the ground, and were using them to create various designs on the wall. They explained that they were part of the BRUSH Mural Fest, a group open to the community which went around Baltimore creating collaborative murals. This was just one of the many arts opportunities we discovered that night that occurred not just at the Art Walk but all year round.
COURTESY OF NOEL DA
BRUSH Mural Fest volunteers painting a cement wall as part of a community project.
Shortly after this we decided to call it a night. Though we would have loved to explore each location listed on the walk — especially the galleries which offered open entry to some fascinating exhibits — and maybe even stayed for the after party, it was already late. As we rode back towards the Homewood campus, though, we spoke of the Bromo Arts District, the things we had no idea existed and the places to which we wanted to return soon.
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