Baltimore Always Perseveres: A look at the 2023 local festival Artscape

By Assata Makonnen | October 22, 2023

Oftentimes, the heartbeat of a city is only ever as strong as the creativity, compassion, and resilience of its native inhabitants, three traits that could not be better demonstrated than by the local Baltimore festival Artscape.

For the first time since 2019, the free arts festival graced the streets of Baltimore this past September, sporting a multitude of vendors that offered goods ranging from traditional art pieces to crochet, culinary spices, jewelry, bags, clothing, sculptures, body essentials, and other handmade products that displayed the city’s vibrant talents. The creative showcase attracted every single walk of life, bringing diverse backgrounds, demographics, and personalities together to explore the same booth-lined streets. 

Porsha Smith, a Baltimore native, has been going to the festival since the eighties. She believes art & local festivities have the power to “bring all kinds of people together.” 

 “People are able to talk to each other when they might not normally do it,” said Smith. “Vendors come from all over to be here in this city, and it’s really beautiful.” 

Smith’s sentiments were echoed by the younger generation as well. 

“Artscape, and just local festivals in general, are the places where people can come and just be people,” said Yasmine Blanchard, Baltimore Polytechnic Institute student. “There are no external stressors, no aggravations…just art, community, and a sense of belonging.” 

Grayson Williams and Linda Gray, owners of AnIMadeIt Studio, set up a booth to display their unique figurines and masks that draw inspiration from African, Mexican, and Indigenous Peoples’ designs. The couple has been coming to Artscape for 15 years. They see the festival from a different perspective than attendees as business owner working the event, but ultimately had similar things to say about its impact.

“It’s necessary to have diverse influences to create something unique yet understood by everyone,” said Williams about his art work. He sees the Artscape festival in the same way. “Artscape is a beautiful thing because it lets people perpetuate art and grow together.”

That sense of community is the main reason Williams and his wife have been attending Artscape for the past 15 years. 

Artscape evokes similar feelings in its participants across a wide gap of age & background. It shows the connective power of the event and the power of creating a space where everyone has the opportunity to find common ground.

While Baltimore city has often been made out to be a place of violence, the reappearance of the Artscape festival, reminds of Baltimoreans who they truly are – a hearty people built on the principles of community.

On the corner of Maryland Ave there were light shows, and ornaments made from old books, and people dressed so Afropunk that they could have hailed from the future walked the streets. Music washed over the crowd and the lead singer on stage proclaimed what all the Artscape attendees knew to be true in their hearts: “Baltimore will always persevere.”