bARTimore supports student exploration of art through mural painting and community connections

Founded to give student artists a place to express themselves, bARTimore seeks to foster community on campus and connect Hopkins with the broader Baltimore community through visual art. The club holds weekly painting and mural sessions to contribute to a visual arts culture on campus.

Each week, bARTimore gathers to work on group or individual projects, allowing members to contribute toward a larger mural or socialize while working on personal pieces. Their past projects have included an Old Bay mural at the Keswick campus, a vegetable-themed illustration in the Hopkins food pantry, and a rainbow Blue Jay in the lobby of the Allston apartments. 

In an interview with The News-Letter, bARTimore Co-President Charlotte Cheung explained the significance of murals produced by students around campus.

“I feel like it is nice to have student work on campus. It makes it feel a little bit more like a community,“ she said.

In an interview with The News-Letter, bARTimore Co-President Ananya Mukundan explained that the mural process begins with club members sharing design ideas, which aren’t restricted by specific criteria and open to all members. Once the designs are collected, the club’s executive board votes for the final idea, and they begin coordinating with Hopkins staff to implement the mural. The process can include converting the design     to a color palette compatible with Hopkins’ branding and slotting painting times into each space’s available schedule. 

Next, the group primes the wall, projects and traces the design, and begins to paint in shifts, for which members sign up according to their availability. The sessions are relaxing, and members have a chance to bond while working together. 

Mukundan elaborated on the beauty of painting the mural as a team of students with varied experience levels. 

“It’s super fun to have a bunch of people who may not have painted before come together and paint a mural, and then, afterwards, it’s something that, every time you walk past it, you can be proud of,” she said.

Because the planning stage for murals often takes several months, bARTimore hosts a medley of painting events in the meantime, such as tote-bag and mini-pumpkin painting, a “Pass the Paint” event in which members rotated canvases every 10 minutes and an event to decorate the letters of Hopkins’ Hoptoberfest sign. 

In addition to an on-campus arts culture, bARTimore aims to foster a connection for students to Baltimore’s arts community. Every year, the club takes a trip to Graffiti Alley, where members have the chance to learn the historical significance of pieces in the arts district and contribute with spray painting of their own. 

Reflecting on her impression of the alley in an interview with The News-Letter, bARTimore Vice President Prisha Rathi explained the unconventional nature of the artworks and how they convey the spirit of Baltimore’s local artists. 

“[There are] things that people have taken hours to make — professionally made flowers or huge, sprawling characters, and the thing about Graffiti Alley is that it’s ephemeral… people paint over your stuff without any remorse,“ she said. “But the point is that people spend their time there and have a connection to that alley, even though their art may not be there forever. It’s a deeper connection...it’s more like ‘[we’re] part of this community, and [we’re] working to keep it beautiful because we are proud of it.’“

Mukundan also noted how the murals on campus themselves serve as a connection to wider Baltimore. 

“We’re thinking of doing a mural in the Student Conference Center conference room, and painting a Baltimore Skyline [there]...[It’s kind of bringing little pieces of Baltimore into Hopkins,“ she said. 

This year’s Graffiti Alley trip has yet to be finalized but will take place in November, and the club has a series of other upcoming events.  The group is currently working with the director of Levering Hall’s Arellano Theater to clear a space in the prop room to begin work for a mural, which will feature theater props and costumes. Members have already finished sketching the design, so sign ups will soon be available to paint the mural. More information can be found on the group’s Instagram account.

In addition, members are working on a project in the Student Conduct Center, a location at which they previously helped paint lettering in the classic Hopkins font. On Oct. 27, the group will be hosting a pumpkin painting event to celebrate Halloween. 

For students looking to join the club, Cheung emphasized that bARTimore is a low-intensity environment to explore one’s interests in art, and that most members have never painted murals in the past. 

“Our murals, when we’ve sketched them, become like a giant paint by number on the wall. So you definitely don’t need any experience, and it’s a lot of fun,” Cheung said.