In 1964, composer, pianist, and jazz royalty Duke Ellington was interviewed by Byng Whitteker for the CBC, who asked him where he gets all his ideas. Ellington responded, “Oh, man, I got a million dreams. That’s all I do is dream all the time.” His interviewer quips, “I thought you played the piano.” “No!” Ellington emphatically corrects him while turning his attention to the keys, “This is not the piano! This is dreaming!” and proceeds to improvise the most eloquent composition. When he finishes, he reaffirms his initial claim, “That’s dreaming.”

Dreamers walk a different path, a courageous journey with all the heights and pitfalls that come with any disciplined pursuit to manifest a vision. Not all dreamers are masters, but master dreamers are always world builders—they make whole what others only contemplate but rarely pursue. Master dreamers cultivate possibility for themselves and their communities and are a blessing to the world.

Sharayna Ashanti Christmas is a master dreamer. For over 20 years, she has dedicated herself to supporting the development of young visual and performance artists in DC, Baltimore, NJ, NY, Philadelphia, South Carolina, New Orleans, and abroad in Brixton, London, the Dominican Republic, and Ghana. Her journey has been serendipitous and serpentine. However, her passion for art and how it can support young people’s affirming self-actualization continues to reinvigorate her commitment to the work. It is hard, often thankless work, but it is the work she is eternally devoted to, like many master dreamers before her.

“I refer to myself as a cultural worker rather than solely an artist or educator because the term carries a deliberate political weight.” Christmas shared with this writer. “Toni Cade Bambara reminds us that “the role of the artist is to make the revolution irresistible,” and it’s in that spirit that I locate my practice. Cultural work, for me, is an expansive and international framework—one that holds my work as a dancer, filmmaker, educator, and activist in a shared commitment to transformation, imagination, and liberation.”

From the ages of 3-18, Christmas’s métier was dance. She learned to cultivate her skills as a dancer by training with teachers at the esteemed institution, Dance Theater of Harlem. There she learned discipline, a body memory, and intensity that has stayed with her years after retiring from dance. Genius walks the streets of Harlem. Watching the productions of Ulysses Dove, and taking modern dance classes with Ailey dancers, Christmas learned the power of movement to encapsulate Black memory; the body as an archive continues to inform much of her research. Studying the techniques of Dr. Pearl Primus and Katherine Dunham became her north star. Those women and scholars like Dr. Marimba Ani, as well as other creative masters exemplified an unflinching embrace of the power attained when you activate knowledge of self. Guided by their practices of love, Christmas learned the communally healing power of art.

“When I started dance, I wanted to be more like Ailey,” Christmas continued, “He collaborated with Langston Hughes, Nina Simone, Duke Ellington, and Alice Coltrane. That’s powerful! Ailey created a space for himself and his body. Revelations is his story of being from the rural South in Texas. He talked about that when others were embarrassed to be from the South. So, I wanted to do that.”

After 15 years of daily training, a grueling regimen to tone dancers’ bodies for the rigor and strain required for professional ballet, she stopped. It was abrupt. She felt it was time. She was rebelling against respectability, which ironically steered her toward convention. You need money to live and survive in New York. She made much of it, working a short stint as a Financial Analyst at the New York Stock Exchange on Wall Street. Disheartened by the culture of that institution, she quit. It had always been dance that inspired her, after all. Her body remembered. You never forget what transforms you. 

She moved to Baltimore to pursue her studies at Morgan State University and graduated in 2002. A year later, she founded her own dance company, Rayn Fall Dance Studio, where she served as the Director and Lead Choreographer, teaching children ages 3-18, ballet and modern. For many years, those classes occurred at the Druid Hill YMCA and later moved to Eubie Blake National Jazz Institute and Cultural Center, before sunsetting in 2022. Under the nonprofit Muse-360, she founded other culture-focused, youth-led initiatives, including New Generation Scholars (2007), New Generation Scholars Youth Scholar Abroad Project and Intergenerational Institute (2007-present), NGS Open Community Classroom: Learning Our Way (2024), and NGS Young Artist Archival Fellowship (2024), in partnership with AfroArchives.  

All of the initiatives under Muse 360 envision their role as a “center of radical transformative youth development rooted in pursuing culturally centered, critical thought, and creation in the world.” The project’s Christmas stewards are co-led with youth participants. Each is recognized as a scholar and encouraged to activate their knowledge of self to make their mark on the world. Each year, a village of artists, curators, writers, and academics is invited to mentor participating youth, lead lectures, and consult with them about their careers. I was among the cadre of powerful culture workers invited to teach this past Spring. This powerful work encourages young people to stretch their imaginations and use their creativity for good in the world. In a city that is too often presented as a murder capital but rarely uplifted as a bastion for creative genius, the work that Muse 360 models is critical to the inspiration of new generations.

This Summer, New Generation Scholars will curate a Black Femme Freedom School, which Christmas describes as a “space of radical possibility rooted in Black Feminist Thought and the legacy of Freedom Schools.” Co-visioned by Spelman rising Junior, Naima Starr and centering education as a tool for liberation, the program invites young scholars to develop practical skills that promote agency, self-empowerment, and the realization of a positive path forward for their future selves. 

Christmas has spent her career being clear about her calling. Working on behalf of future possibility and teaching the next generation how to realize their dreams is the most radical, reverent, and revolutionary work anyone could ever pursue. Like all master dreamers, Christmas has no shortage of vision. Her latest research initiative, The Black Women Cultural Workers Archives Project (BWCWA), co-visioned with Dr. Nadejda I. Webb seeks to recognize unsung cultural workers in and beyond the region. The thread that strengthens all of her life’s work is her unyielding commitment to love. 

“Toni Morrison said, love is a bench. That’s what I’m really trying to create,” Christmas explained. “I’m creating a bench so that the next generation can feel supported… It’s the ways in which we want to build our institutions, and our intentions are really centered on love… I believe that the ritual of reverence is a way for us to collectively come together. The work that I’m doing is intimate and intense. We can look at all of the gaps and the pitfalls for why an organization didn’t work… but, what really matters at the end of the day is how are we supporting one another? How are we building solidarity? How are we honoring our ancestors and how are we honoring ourselves?”

In an era where tyrants are emboldened and educators are shunned for expanding the perspectives of the next generation, it is a courageous act to stand tall and unabashedly advocate for justice rather than cower in the face of others’ woeful ignorance. When I asked her if she had any concerns about the future sustainability of this work, personally and more broadly for other educators and cultural workers, she didn’t hesitate to give an affirming response.

“That’s a good question. I do have concerns, but because I’ve been doing it for over 20 years, I’ve had to let go of the idea that everything is supposed to be the way that I imagine it and just allow evolution to take shape. And that’s why I’m trying to plant seeds within these young people. And I’m trying to shout to the hills, ‘Let’s provide reverence to one another! Let’s care for one another!’ Because that’s what is going to truly sustain us.”

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Being human does not make a person humane. Humanity is learned and modeled. It aligns with love, dignity, and the protection of all species on this planet we call home. Some people love their pets more than they love their neighbors. Others love their egos more than they love progress. This explains why although countless communities in every generation have committed themselves to creating a better world, their progress can be easily unraveled. The hope of a brighter future has to be intentionally strived toward. It requires all of us to be better. Though many will stubbornly reject this premise, we can honor the efforts of previous generations by heeding the lessons they learned and found solutions for. If we do not uphold a standard of power that is equitable, love-aligned, and protective of sovereignty, the possibility of a sustainable future becomes untenable.

In times of crisis  — like American democracy has encountered since its establishment due to its dogged repression and regression of civil liberties, devaluation of education and healthcare, degradation of Indigenous land sovereignty, and erosion of environmental protections — it has historically been the underdogs, the outliers, the artists, the writers, the dreamers, and creatives who have advanced fluid, rhizomatic, and radically imagined paths forward. Now on view at the Baltimore Museum of Art, “Crosscurrents: Works from the Contemporary Collection,” reviews the intimate and unifying creative interventions engaged by artists who have worked at the intersections of social and environmental justice. Co-curated by Jessica Bell Brown, executive director of the Institute for Contemporary Art at Virginia Commonwealth University; Cecilia Wichmann, curator and department head of contemporary art at the BMA; and Leila Grothe, associate curator of contemporary art, Crosscurrents forwards the mission of the “Turn Again to the Earth” initiative, which celebrates the museum’s 110th anniversary by centering conversations and action around climate change. The dynamic exhibition spans the BMA’s Contemporary Wing. Companion exhibitions aligned with its theme will continue through January 2026.

“You’ll see that some of the work [and] themes are very directly anchored in ecology, where the artist is making a direct statement about environmental justice. But much more often, you’ll see a more expansive relationship with that subject, thinking about environmental justice and social justice as entwined,” Wichmann shared while she and Grothe led me through a personal tour of the exhibition. 

“If there’s one unifying, shared hope and dream in the installation, it’s learning from artists about when and how to pay attention. [It’s] attunement and contemplation, calling into this idea that in some cases, artists are thinking with materials and learning about longer elemental life cycles,” she added.

“Crosscurrents” is an expansive effort featuring more than 60 works by internationally recognized and regionally championed artists including Abigail Lucien, Fred Wilson, Shahzia Sikander, Ana Mendieta, Ed Clark, David Driskell, Sam Gilliam, and Nari Ward. The exhibition celebrates a broad range of material approaches, inviting audiences to encounter mosaics, sound, sculpture, videos, ceramics, and paintings in dialogue with each other. Nearly half of the works are on view for the first time.

The exhibition has three entrances. If you enter through the primary rotunda of the BMA’s Contemporary Wing, past Henry Moore’s permanent installation, “The Three Rings” (1966), you will be greeted by a towering steel cage, intricately welded by Haitian American artist Lucien, entitled “Zouzou’s Ballad” (2025). The cage has no visible entry or exit. A solitary swing dangles stoically at the center. Its invisible sitter is inspired by the late activist, actress, and singer Josephine Baker’s starring role in the film “Zouzou” (1934). In a particularly troubling and beautiful scene from the movie, Baker performs as a caged bird. Nearly naked, loosely adorned in ornamental bird feathers, she sings the song “Haiti,” a sorrowful ballad about longing, displacement, and return. Lucien’s gilded cage has no song and no sitter, and the absence of the body enunciates the multifaceted intention of all structures as portals of expansion or contractive prisons. Baker’s life and career was ever-entangled in parodying and being exploited by exoticism and stereotypes about Black women. “Zouzou’s Ballad” is one of 10 new sculptures designed by Lucien for an ongoing series entitled “Under Other Skies,” commissioned by the BMA for the “Crosscurrents” exhibition.

Every gallery is engaged in its own powerful discourse that draws clear corollaries between intimate interiority and the climate as a sociopolitical and environmental landscape that affects communal experiences.The immensity of the exhibition and the broad range of artist interpretations around those themes sets “Crosscurrents” apart from most exhibitions on view at this time. Governmental agencies, museums, and educational institutions have been threatened for elevating discourse about environmental and social justice. Wandering through the galleries is both deeply moving and startlingly sobering. Creations in the exhibition span nearly 40 years, reminding us all that artists have been grappling with these ideas and pushing for broader awareness for many generations.

To clarify the ebb and flow of each artist’s approach in dialogue with other artists’ interventions, the curators sectioned the show into seven prominent themes: Structures, inspired by theorist and Third Text founder Rasheed Araeen, considers patterns and interconnected relationships in environments; Elemental, which highlights the ways force manipulates elements in the natural world; Groundswell, which acknowledges artists who engage ideas of dissent, protest, and direct action; Elegy, which ponders individual and collective responses to mourning and grief; Cohabitation, which elevates a conception on Baltimore as an ecology, lifts up artists directly and indirectly connected to the city, and queries the impact of humans in environments; Expanse, which conjures ideas about contemplative and inspired approaches to materiality; and Migrations, which investigates the migratory relationship between materials and humans around the globe and that effect on material, humanity and the climate. Touring all of the galleries at a fairly leisurely pace took around two hours. Anywhere you choose to start is sure to be inspiring.

For those interested in lens-based mediums, pop into the screening rooms to see “Wolfgang Staehle: Eastpoint” (September 14, 2004), Justen Leroy’s three-channel video installation, “Lay Me Down in Praise” (2022), iconic archival footage of the performance “Blood Inside Outside” (1975) by Mendieta, or Sky Hopinka’s “Dislocation Blues” (2017). If you are moved by artists who repurpose materials to craft unconventional sculptures, installations, and fiberworks, spend time with Ward’s “Peace Keeper” (1995/2020), Brandon Ndife’s “Unfurled” (2022), Thomas Hirschhorn’s “Chandelier with Hands” (2006), Rose B. Simpson’s “Heights II” (2022), or Elias Sime’s “Tightrope-Familiar Yet Complex 4” (2016). Seeking scathing commentaries on the constitutional crisis? View Bruce Nauman’s “Raw War” (1970), Kiyan Williams’s, “How Do You Properly Fry An American Flag” (Study) (2020), Mark Thomas Gibson’s “Biden’s Entry Into Washington 2021” (American Portrait as Landscape) (2021), or Soledad Salamé’s “Gulf Distortions I-XII” (2011).  

Over the last decade, the BMA has relentlessly advocated for dynamic reflections in its collections and exhibitions that accurately and courageously portray diverse perspectives in our world. Crosscurrents continues that momentum and clarifies that this work is not a trend; it’s a mission.

“I have a lot of pride in the ways that the institution is responding with nimbleness to the way artists are working today and the ways in which we as an institution are able to come out and really showcase some of the complexity of contemporary art,” Grothe said.

“Thinking about cumulative energy in our work and in our method,” Wichmann added, “I think we’re able to create the installations that you see here because of sustained work, collectively, over many years. It is galvanizing to remind ourselves of that, and to keep going.”

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With the 2025 Met Gala behind us, what better time to examine the deepening, ever-fluid relationship between fashion and fine art? On the magnolia-draped steps of The Metropolitan Museum of Art, the interplay was striking as the lines between artist and muse blurred into stylish abstraction. 

Fresh off the opening of his major survey at the Guggenheim and a recent Harper’s Bazaar cover, Rashid Johnson arrived in custom Tory Burch. Baltimore’s own Amy Sherald wore Fear of God, as did Arthur Jafa. Jordan Casteel and Ming Smith, two generations of Black lens-based and painterly brilliance, stunned in Harbison Studio. Torkwase Dyson, who designed the space for this year’s costume exhibition, arrived in a custom JW Anderson ensemble. Maryland’s own multidisciplinary visionary, Eric N. Mack, brought texture and color in Wales Bonner. Henry Taylor, the artist tapped to paint Pharrell for Vogue’s Met issue (a full-circle moment considering their collaboration at Pharrell’s debut Louis Vuitton show), arrived in custom Louis Vuitton. 

This convergence of sartorial brilliance and artistic might culminated in the Costume Institute’s spring exhibition, “Superfine: Tailoring Black Style.” A Barkley Hendricks portrait is next to a kufi, threading together the legacies of Black dandyism through the lenses of designers like Theophilio and iconoclast Dapper Dan, situating art and style in constant, intertwined dialogue.

Of course, the flirtation between fashion and fine art is far from new. Think Elsa Schiaparelli’s surrealist flings with Salvador Dalí; Willi Smith’s pop-infused Keith Haring capsule in the ’80s; Marc Jacobs inviting Richard Prince’s irreverent nurses into the Louis Vuitton fold; or Raf Simons x Sterling Ruby for his first Dior Women collection in 2012. Fashion and fine art have always existed in tandem. But what feels distinct now is how holistic, fluid, and mutual these partnerships have become. The 21st century has only amplified the dialogue between fashion houses and contemporary artists.

It’s not just that fashion is referencing art; it’s embedding artists, their mediums, and even their physical presence into the very framework of runway presentation. Following last year’s Spring/Summer 2025 shows — think Acne Studios’s atmospheric set design by artist Jonathan Lyndon Chase, Simone Rocha’s moody nod to Genieve Figgis, and Off-White’s textural collaboration with Ghanaian artist Nana Danso — this past season doubled down on the intersection of fine art and fashion. Across menswear, couture, and ready-to-wear, brands embraced the gallery as runway and vice versa. At Dior Couture SS25, Maria Grazia Chiuri tapped Mumbai-based artist Rithika Merchant to transform the show space into a hand-painted sanctuary of celestial motifs. 

For Fall/Winter 2025, British designer and MoMA guest curator Grace Wales Bonner delivered a cerebral, beautifully restrained menswear collaboration with Theaster Gates, built around “The Black Image Corporation,” Gates’s archival excavation of the Ebony and JET photography vaults. Jacquemus staged its SS25 show inside famed architect Auguste Perret’s Paris apartment, with sculptures by Aristide Maillol nestled between minimalist silhouettes. Yohji Yamamoto invited Belgian painter Luc Tuymans to walk the FW25 runway — one of many artist cameos this season, including Rashid Johnson at Rosetta Getty.

In New York, Christopher John Rogers lit up the FW25 schedule with a punchy palette and visual cues pulled from Angela de la Cruz’s crumpled canvases and the Pop gloss of Roy Lichtenstein. Ulla Johnson’s poetic bent manifested in a set designed by French sculptor Julie Hamisky — oversized, surrealist florals blooming between the clothes. In London, Erdem adorned gowns with the romantic brushstrokes of Kaye Donachie, while Roksanda’s vision was steeped in the sculptural language of the late Phyllida Barlow. London-based brand Feben Fall/Winter 25 lookbook was inspired by Lorraine O’Grady’s “Art Is…” series.

Meanwhile, in Paris, Issey Miyake incorporated Erwin Wurm’s conceptual play, and Alaïa’s sculptural FW25 collection felt in conversation with Mark Manders’ architectural quietude and Simone Leigh’s commanding femme forms.

Vaquera, ever the cool kids on the schedule, went full Warholian for Fall/Winter 2025 — designers Bryn Taubensee and Patric DiCaprio riffed on ’80s downtown excess with denim emblazoned with Andy Warhol’s iconic “Marilyn Monroe” screen prints in partnership with The Andy Warhol Foundation. Other notable pairings this season included Kenzo and Futura, KidSuper and Daniel Wurtzel, Bianca Saunders and Steven Parrino, advertising, like a Saint Laurent campaign featuring painted interpretations of the FW25 collection by Francesco Clemente — known for his emotional, often erotic portraiture and polarizing collabs with brands like Supreme and the estate of Ernie Barnes.

You can’t discuss the current art-fashion renaissance without citing Jonathan Anderson’s wildly referential tenure at Loewe. Anderson has long used the Spanish house as a vessel for cultural curation, fusing fashion with the work of artists like Lynda Benglis, Maruja Mallo, and Richard Hawkins. His runways are as informed by Frieze as they are by fabric. After last season’s visual references to Vincent Van Gogh’s “Sunflowers” and a Manet-printed tee, Anderson’s FW25 collection played like a retrospective: garments in direct conversation with collaborators like Anthea Hamilton and Rachel Harrison, a meditation on texture, tension, and taste.

This larger moment is mirrored in the exhibitions these artists are simultaneously helming. Amy Sherald’s “American Sublime” at the Whitney, her debut New York museum solo, is a masterclass in portraiture and fashion as self-making. Her grayscale figures, often adorned in bold patterns, become avatars of memory, cool, and quiet power. Sherald wore custom Harbison Studio for her opening — a subtle loop between subject, style, and setting. Rashid Johnson’s “A Poem for Deep Thinkers,” up now at the Guggenheim, not only surveys two decades of his deeply textured practice, but also became a stage for Grace Wales Bonner’s activation “Togetherness,” blurring the lines between gallery and runway, installation and invitation. And in today’s hyper-visual culture, where cultural capital is often mediated by what’s worn, where, and by whom, fashion becomes a critical lens through which we can read and interpret the art world — and vice versa. This moment also marks a shift in who gets to frame these narratives.

Artists like Johnson, Sherald, and Mack aren’t simply collaborating — they’re commanding space in both industries, on their terms. The intersection of art and fashion is being increasingly shaped by Black, brown, and queer creatives who see no need to separate their aesthetics from their politics. Their presence at the Met, on the runway, and in the ateliers isn’t just symbolic — it’s structural. The runway, then, becomes more than a space for debuting collections. It transforms into an exhibition in motion — a place where brushstrokes are translated into silhouettes, where conceptual theory meets commercial aspiration. Whether it’s a sculpture reimagined as a dress or a painting reborn as a print, fashion is increasingly performing the work of art.

Art and fashion have always been in conversation. But right now, they’re speaking louder, more fluently — in bolder colors, on bigger stages, and with a broader vocabulary of collaborators. The runway is no longer just a platform for clothes; it’s a canvas for cultural storytelling, where brushstrokes, silhouettes, and history all walk in tandem. In 2025, fashion didn’t just imitate art. It became art.

Shelton Boyd-Griffith is a fashion and culture editor based between St. Louis and New York City. His work explores the intersections of fashion, art, and pop culture, with a sharp focus on storytelling and cultural commentary. He is a regular contributor to publications including Vogue, Harper’s Bazaar, Teen Vogue, Complex, BET, Ebony, and Netflix.

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You wouldn’t know this just from looking at them, but the cement pillars under the Jones Falls Expressway downtown used to have murals painted on them. For this year’s Artscape, organizers commissioned 32 artists to bring life to the pillars again. 

While there was a suggested theme of “urban oasis,” artists had a significant amount of freedom to create designs within their own style, and to interpret the theme as they wished.  

The resulting murals showcase a wide range of artistic visions, including references to Maryland plants and animals as well as personal experiences. For example, duo Chelsea Henery and Sammi Seezox, who paint under the name Ham and Cheese, included a vivid rendition of the prickly pear cactus, the only species of cactus that is native to Maryland. 

A few artists created murals that depict their vision of an urban oasis, like the view of the city from a fire escape. Other artists explore the challenges of city living, such as having to limit your gardening to the available space within and around urban residences.  

Aspects of surrealist, abstract, illustrative and realistic styles can be found throughout the murals under the JFX, representing a wide spectrum of creative ability. Together these murals create an artistic oasis within an area of concrete and asphalt, inviting viewers to wander through what feels like a forest of artwork, offering a small visual respite from the surrounding environment. 

For some artists, having to translate a flat image onto a surface in which only part of the image is visible at a time was a challenge. Several murals explored different ways to draw the viewer around the entire piece, with specific elements trailing around the pillar and leading to other elements within the mural.  

Interactions between elements of nature and man-made environments are evident in all of the murals. Painter Jenn Wait mentioned that she was inspired by how nature can eventually overcome urban spaces. Her mural includes plants physically breaking through man-made objects. 

The juxtaposition of organic shapes within the geometric, hard lines and edges of the parking lot and surrounding structures adds a break of color in the visual monotony and uniformity of downtown’s architecture. 

Muralists faced a variety of challenges while creating their artworks. They spent hours painting under the highway while cars rumbled constantly overhead.

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Speaking on the impact and influence of our greatest musicians can feel like a fruitless endeavor. Some artists, like R&B legend Luther Vandross, shine a light so bright that attempts to measure its luminance through text amount to little more than waving a small flashlight around in the dark. 

It’s impossible not to fall for someone so brazenly dedicated to a life in song, destined to exist in the shimmering glow of stage lighting. In the documentary “Luther: Never Too Much,” there’s a particularly humorous anecdote about him forcing the collaborators from his first group, Shades of Jade, to wear matching green leather shoes. When they couldn’t convince their mothers to aid in the $23 expenditure, Luther successfully pleaded on their behalf. In his own words, his origin hinges on attending a fateful Dionne Warwick show in his youth. He devoted his life to making people feel how she made him feel that day.

Director Dawn Porter (2020’s “John Lewis: Good Trouble”) reminds us how thoroughly Luther succeeded at that goal. Her film succeeds where most fictional or otherwise films fail when tackling insurmountably superlative icons. Rather than getting caught up in the rigors of hyperbole or the quicksand trap of cliche, she has arranged the telling of a life mainly through the artist’s words and enduring art.

Though this doc takes the same cradle-to-the-grave approach most musical biopics follow, there is a sense you’re moving through history without taking the same tired route every episode of “Behind the Music” once subjected us to. The film employs the usual use of talking heads, but rather than heavily relying on cultural critics and historians, most of the people interviewed are Luther’s longtime friends and collaborators. They all do a much more intimate and entertaining job of making the viewer feel closer to the subject.

If you are, like me, something of a Luther neophyte, you may have a pretty thin understanding of the scope and breadth of his work. Perhaps you’ll recognize most of his ’80s output as the soundtrack to your mother cleaning on Sundays. Through pop cultural osmosis, you’ll know about his extreme weight fluctuations (Cedric The Entertainer’s infamous “I don’t do Lil Luther”) or his alleged penchant for eating hamburgers with donuts for buns (“The Boondocks” and Grandpa’s Luther Burger.) But “Never Too Much” provides much welcome context, detail and texture.

The early segments that focus on Luther’s youth as a Patti LaBelle superfan growing up in the ’60s are perhaps the most charming. As presented, his dedication to his favorite singers feels like the nontoxic precursor to modern-day pop stan culture. Where listeners of the present fall into cancerous idolatry, Luther and his contemporaries obsessed over the music itself, with multiple friends quoted as saying their relationships began while watching The Supremes together on “The Ed Sullivan Show.” 

In his youth, Luther embarked on a strange but glorious journey to superstardom. Dropping out of college before Kanye, he decided he didn’t want a plan B. If he failed, he would keep at it, resigned to being 80 years old and still trying to make it if fate awaited him. Instead of toiling, his unique gifts as a vocalist, arranger, writer and producer gave him multiple avenues into the public consciousness. 

Throughout the ’70s, he appeared on the first season of “Sesame Street” with his group Listen My Brother, worked with David Bowie on his seminal “Young Americans” album, cut his teeth opening for Bette Midler, wrote music for “The Wiz,” and simultaneously became the industry’s most sought-after back-up singer and its most illustrious writer of jingles. This man sang tunes promoting Miller High Life, Juicy Fruit gum, and Gino’s Pizza that were catchier, more tactile, and more affecting than some artists’ entire discographies!

But that expansive time in varied background capacities collapsed into the singularity of “Never Too Much,” the first official single and title of Luther’s first solo album. From the moment we hear that quirky but unmistakable bassline and the glittering string arrangements, it is clear we’re hearing not only one of the greatest songs of all time in any genre but the birth of a bona fide star who will no longer be denied or relegated to the periphery.

Like any story outlining the arc of a famous career, there’s a passage where Luther Vandross becomes an indestructible entity. Back-to-back platinum albums, writing and producing songs for his idols like Aretha Franklin and Warwick, headlining sold-out shows that are the product of his own inimitable vision. 

We get to see backstage footage of him rehearsing with his tight-knit crew of collaborators. We see how he arranges the backing vocalists so effortlessly, with one former bandmate saying his gifts made him “like a film director for your ears.” The matching, hand-beaded garments, the opulent regalia, inspired staging and choreographed movements were all above and beyond what most of his listeners, in their own words, required — but Luther, having grown up on television performances, wasn’t content to stand around and croon. 

Then, what most would consider his height begins to feel like a cage he’s trapped in. Luther was desperate to cross into the mainstream as some Black artists often endure. The world of Quiet Storm radio and R&B became a racial albatross around Luther’s neck. Similarly, the doc has us watch him lose Grammys to the likes of Terence Trent D’Arby, endlessly iced out of that full acceptance he so craved. By the time he finally won, he was still fighting to reach wider audiences. Though his earlier career saw him cross genres and explore a variety of sounds, being the “love song” guy became an impediment. There’s a scene where Jamie Foxx recounts putting his phone up to the radio when a Luther song came on so the music could woo whatever girl he was pursuing. 

But by all accounts, so much of the love Luther’s music inspired among his listeners seemed to elude him throughout his life. Early on, the doc takes time to allow his closest confidants to point out that he was too Black and too heavy to take center stage in his youth. Once out front, he had a difficult relationship with food, and he saw his size careen between extremes throughout his public life. Eddie Murphy famously called Luther a “Kentucky Fried Chicken-eating MF” in “Delirious.” Seeing Murphy’s name on the guest list for one of his shows, Luther responded by bringing out a human-size KFC bucket and serenading jingles to it. Initially, he seems in good humor about it, but it’s clear he’s frustrated with even needing to acknowledge the comedian’s needling.

He was notoriously private about his sexuality, something the documentary covers but, respectfully, chooses not to labor over. But it does come back to one point repeatedly that makes even the rapturous togetherness of his funeral, where countless contemporaries came together in song to grieve his loss, feel so very tragic.

Luther, in archival footage from an appearance on Oprah’s old show, tells a fan that his favorite song of his is “Any Love.” The film blends him lightly cooing it to her on the show with other performances of the song, allowing the viewer to get caught up in what a dulcet and touching ballad it ultimately is. Then it cuts to Luther’s former assistant saying how it used to be his favorite song too, until he got to know Luther and realized what an aching, pleading ode to seeking connection it was for him. 

In an interview, Luther’s niece says that her uncle had an obligation on this Earth and fulfilled it, as if performing a cosmic task you never asked for should be, in itself, a great triumph. But now that I know more about him than ever before, I find it so hard to listen to songs I once adored and not feel a deep sense of frustration that someone could be such a boundless fountain of love for others and still find themselves dying of thirst.

“Luther: Never Too Much” is currently streaming on Max and CNN+.

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“Are you sure, sweetheart, that you want to be well?…Just so’s you’re sure, sweetheart, and ready to be healed, cause wholeness is no trifling matter. A lot of weight when you’re well.” 

– Toni Cade Bambara, The Salt Eaters 

The journey to healing is intimate and vulnerable. Everyone has a testimony that explains the miracle of their lives, a praise song to the persistence of their sound body, spirit, and mind. Your testimony accounts for the ways you pushed forward when others told you to stop and the moment you finally left those naysayers behind. Your testimony celebrates those who encouraged you when you needed it most and the support you continue to provide for others in need. By the grace of God, beloved, you are still here, still standing, despite all odds. A witness to the wonder and the marvel of life. More than a conqueror.

“God meets you where you are,” wrote Ms. Veda Moore in a testimonial she contributed to LaToya Ruby Frazier’s latest masterpiece, “More Than Conquerors: A Monument for Community Health Workers of Baltimore, Maryland 2021-2022,” which is now on view at the Baltimore Museum of Art through March 23, 2025. Frazier, an accomplished photographer, educator, and activist, has dedicated her life to illuminating the humanity of Black working-class communities. Moore’s portrait is triumphant — she stands regally in the center of a tree-lined path, ova east at North Milton Avenue and East Eager Street. Head to the sky, the sun reflects her radiance. Ms. Moore’s testimonial is one of 18 stories from Baltimore-based community healthcare workers (CHWs) featured in the exhibition. Other contributors include La Kerry B. Dawson, Tracy Barnes-Malone, Karen Dunston, Kenya Ferguson, Griselda Funn, Erica Hamlett, Donnie Missouri, Kendra N. Lindsey, Evelyn Nicholson, Helen Owhonda, Gregory Rogers, Wilfredo Torriente and Latish Walker.

The exhibition was initially commissioned for the 58th Carnegie International and won the esteemed Carnegie Prize. In 2023, The Baltimore Museum of Art acquired the work for its permanent collection. Every portrait is a monument unto itself, mounted in socially-distanced rows on stainless-steel IV poles. Collectively, the work stands as a living commemoration of unsung heroes, essential workers who daily put their lives at risk to support the needs of others. Many of those workers are women. All of them are people of color. All are members of a vital army who operate in plain sight but are rarely recognized for their efforts. At the height of the COVID-19 pandemic, when a mandated sequester stalled the world, essential workers — particularly community healthcare workers — stood in the gap.

Frazier was made aware of the efforts of CHWs by reviewing the public health equity research developed by Dr. Lisa Cooper, Bloomberg Distinguished Professor at Johns Hopkins University School of Medicine and Director of the Johns Hopkins Center for Health Equity; Dr. Chidinma A. Ibe, assistant professor of medicine at Johns Hopkins University; and Dr. Anika L. Hines, assistant professor, Department of Health Policy at the School of Public Health at Virginia Commonwealth University. While on a panel discussion with Dr. Cooper, an audience member posed a query to Frazier about the developments that could occur in public health equity work when artists and doctors collaborate.

“The seed from this project was planted on that panel,” Frazier shared with me over Zoom. “It was the first time Dr. Cooper and I met, and she knew my work, ‘The Notion of Family (2001 – 2014),’ and my 14-year collaboration between my mother, grandmother, and me, and it represented for her a methodology that doctors, researchers, and scientists use called photovoice.”

Photovoice is a qualitative research process of inviting patients to use cameras to document their lived experiences in order to better share those experiences with doctors, who can utilize that data to support public health equity policy change. Frazier has a long history of using her camera as a tool for social advocacy on behalf of Black working-class communities in America. The urgency to assess healthcare inequities became especially central to Frazier’s practice when she became the victim of medical racism and was denied access to the COVID-19 vaccine. That instance concretized for Frazier that if she could experience that level of blatant disregard for her health, despite her success, while wearing business attire, then it was likely that many others were also unprotected and unsupported in times of medical crisis. She wondered who was providing those services when traditional facilities were not. She learned that it was CHWs.

“If Black people are afraid of being racially profiled at these sites, if we’re afraid of the law enforcement at these sites if we have disabilities or don’t have access to get to these sites, who is the person that is the liaison that helps us get access?” Frazier noted. “When I called Dr. Cooper and told her what they did to me, she understood that it was about implicit bias in the medical field, and she immediately put me in touch with her mentees to learn more about their work in Baltimore.”

Public health equity research clarifies the environmental factors that influence health disparities or barriers to health. To better understand the realities of community health care workers in Baltimore City, Dr. Cooper introduced Frazier to Tiffany Scott, co-founder and president of the Maryland Community Health Worker Association, who intimately understood CHWs’ needs.

“CHWs need as much support as we give to our communities,” Scott shared. “With most professions, once you finish your day or shift, you are no longer on duty. But as CHWs, we can’t turn that off. It’s a ministry.”

Scott personally drove Frazier around the city so she could better understand the neighborhoods that the CHWs come from and continue to serve. Scott was an essential liaison between the CHWs and Frazier. I asked her why she felt the project was so important.

“I felt it was time for recognition,” Scott continued. “CHWs do a lot more than people will ever be able to recognize…I wanted the voices of the underdogs to be heard. Having the interviews with LaToya and the conversations one-on-one with CHWs was a healing process for us because we got to say what we were going through without judgment.”

Monuments are rarely dedicated to the living, and it is even more unusual for laborers, underdogs, and the working class to be honored. We are socialized to be apathetic to the experiences of everyday people rather than advocates for each other’s protection. This was made startlingly evident during the height of the COVID-19 pandemic when communities that were most vulnerable, uninsured, and low-income were also more likely to be on the front lines providing essential support. By working with community healthcare workers in Baltimore, Frazier understood how important monumentalizing their efforts would be not only for them but as a model for the entire nation.

“They immediately started crying [when they saw the monument] because they said nobody had ever wanted to make a portrait of them, let alone pay attention to them at all,” Frazier continued. “They helped me understand that they are the foot soldiers of the healthcare system, but no one respects them or recognizes them. So [More Than Conquerors] was an affirmation and a confirmation for them that for me as an outsider to care and to show up with my creative resources to try to document this understanding was historic… This is an anti-monument,” Frazier elaborated. “It’s about the love that is enacted upon us in times of great sorrow that society chooses not to perceive — it’s about a monument of solidarity, a monument about agape love, the highest form of love — it’s important for humanity… all of us in the work are survivors. I strongly believe in democratizing the arts, I believe it should be accessible to all people.” 

The post More Than Conquerors appeared first on Baltimore Beat.

Hall of Fame Inductees

Thommy Davis

Maysa

DJ Technics

Tim Trees

Tracy Stafford-Smith

Wayne Davis/The Paradox

Larry Whaddup

Wendel Patrick

DDm

Phil Crump

Tank

Miss Tony (posthumous)

Dukey Man (posthumous)

K Swift Award

Porkchop

Unruly

Ducky Dynamo

Run It Up Jordan 

Mighty Mark

Kai McFly

Buckshot

Neek B

Derrick Ooh Jones Service Award

Grace Love

Artivist of The Year 

DJ Squirrel Wyde

Art Educator of The Year

TSU Terry

Athlete of The Year 

Angel Reese 

Baltimore Excellence Award 

Angel Reese 

Band of The Year

Eat The Cake Band

Barber of The Year 

SlimDaBarber

Battle Rapper of The Year

Apex Tha Genius

Bike Life Award

Undarated Mark

Bookstore of The Year 

Urban Reads 

Business of The Year 

Mogul Printing 

Baltimore’s Best Carry Out

Sunny’s

Chef of The Year 

Chef Rock 

Clothing Boutique of The Year

Classic Consigns by Kys 

Best Clothing Line

Waaah Lifestyle Brand

Comedian of the Year

Jess Hilarious 

Creative of the Year 

Akio Evans

Crown Them Now Award

MUMU FRESH 

Dancer of the Year 

King Q 

DJ of The Year 

Porkchop

Duo of the Year

K Mack & J Funk 

Entrepreneur of the Year 

YG Teck 

Establishment of the Year Award 

Upton Boxing Gym 

Event of the Year

Park Heights Reunion 

Event Curator of the Year

TV Biddy 

Event Host of the Year 

Cue Reckless 

Fashion Designer of the Year

Elena Siri 

Foundation Award 

Unruly 

Genius Award 

Timothy Fletcher 

Graphic Designer of the Year 

RED DESYGNZ

Group of the Year

Down By Law 

Hairstylist of the Year 

Pretty Girl Fun Lab 

Hip Hop Artist of the Year-Female 

2Raww

Hip Hop Artist of the Year-Male 

YG Teck 

House Music Award

DJ Spen

Impact Award 

Ayo Shag and TSU Flash 

Innovator Award 

B 360

Baltimore’s Best Landmark/Attraction 

Graffiti Alley 

Make Up Artist of the Year 

Star Faces 

Manager of the Year

Xtravagant Dad

Media Award 

Bmore Wrap Review 

Movement of the Year

Purple Wallstreet 

Musician of the Year 

Brandon Woody

Best New Artist

Lu Boogie 

Open Mic of the Year 

The Vibe Check 

Organization of the Year 

Ballet After Dark

Photographer of the Year

Tut 

Podcast of the Year 

Bmore4Real

Poet of the Year 

Black Chakra 

Promoter of the Year 

TV Biddy

Producer of the Year

Mighty Mark 

Public Servant of the Year

Grace Love 

Best Radio Show Personality 

Porkchop 

Best Radio Show 

Quicksilva Morning Show

Best Ravens Player

Lamar Jackson 

Renaissance Man of the Year

Akio Evans 

Renaissance Woman of the Year

Rebecca Dupas 

Restaurant of the Year 

Papi Cuisine 

Retail Store of the Year 

City of Gods

Song of the Year 

“Let’s Get It” by Run It Up Jordan 

Special Appreciation Award 

The Floaters

Special Acknowledgment Award

Alvin Gray

Studio of the Year

Compound Studios 

Supporter of the Year

Charm City Live Music 

Talent to Watch 

Nu Blacc

Tattoo Artist of the Year

Ace Boog

Under the Radar Award

DreamGirlz

Best Underground Release

“Cook’s Lane” by Mook Ali

The Wellness Award 

Do The Bike Thing

Writer/Author of the Year 

Black Chakra

Vendor of the Year 

Raven Crystals 

Venue of the Year

Motor House

Videographer of the Year

Byrd Eyes View 

Visual Artist of the Year 

Megan Lewis 

Vocalist of the Year 

Davon Fleming

Youth Artist of the Year 

Lor Xay Xay

Youth Entrepreneur of the Year

Nyame Fatiu

The post 2024 Baltimore Crown Award Winners. appeared first on Baltimore Beat.

Launched 12 years ago to support Downtown Baltimore’s gifted creators and cultural venues, the Bromo Arts District is widely known for its biannual Art Walk, allowing attendees to sample the district’s creative delights. 

Its eighth iteration, scheduled to take place September 12 from 5-9 p.m., marks the debut of the district’s new, colorful branding in honor of more than a decade in Baltimore. 

“It started with nine locations and 14 participating organizations, and for our next event, we have 25 locations and over 35 organizations that are participating,” said Emily Breiter, the Bromo Arts District’s executive director. 

“We’ve also seen steady growth throughout the district in terms of new creative spaces that are popping up, the growth and expansion of existing spaces of our anchor organizations, new artists coming into the area, and, of course, new visitors who are constantly experiencing and exploring Bromo.”

This year, the free, self-guided walk includes more than 30 locations and concludes with an afterparty in the Current Space Garden Bar. 

Ahead of this week’s walk, we spoke with Breiter about the lasting impact and new mission of the cultural community, along with its trademark event. 

Baltimore Beat: Each pocket of Baltimore has a distinctive arts presence. What makes the Bromo Arts District stick out? 

Emily Breiter: There’s so much that makes Bromo special and unique. It’s centrally located in the city, which is really incredible in terms of access for everyone. We have several theaters, gallery spaces, artists, studio hubs and collectives. And being downtown, the scale of things is very different from some of the other areas in Baltimore with a high arts density. We have incredible anchor organizations like the Bromo Seltzer Arts Tower, which is our namesake, the Hippodrome Theatre, Arena Players, and the Eubie Blake Cultural Center. We have a healthy mix of groups that have been in the district for a very long time and are very historic, along with many newer organizations that are coming in.

BB: What were the Bromo District’s goals in establishing its biannual Art Walk?

EB: The event was created to showcase all of our unique creative offerings in the district while also creating an opportunity for venues in the south of the district to have more connections with those in the north, and for theaters, galleries, and retailers to be able to work together. We also wanted to improve accessibility to our creative spaces. We know that sometimes, the public might feel intimidated walking into some of these spaces for the first time. We’re providing an opportunity where people can step inside of these spaces and feel comfortable doing so. We also provide funding opportunities for our creatives and participants.

BB: What would you say is the best part of seeing the Art Walk evolve? 

It’s seeing the creative partnerships that come through an event like this, but also outside of the Art Walk. For example, Everyman Theatre has their own theater productions, but then they’re also bringing in local artists like the Black Genius Art Show to be able to exhibit within their space. It’s seeing some of these collaborations that aren’t always the most obvious — in terms of setting and even in terms of the type of artwork that is existing in these spaces — come to life. It happens all the time. 

BB: Times are obviously different than they were when both the district and the walk began. In launching its new brand, why was it crucial to revise the ways we think about and talk about the Bromo Arts district?

EB: We’ve seen a lot of change, but it’s really helped us become intentional about what we are working on. Our focus is on the two Art Walks, but we also want to redirect attention to all of the incredible annual programming taking place in the district. People are always saying there’s not enough time in the evening to be able to experience everything, and that’s really the point of this event. We don’t want you to only come to Bromo twice a year. We want you to [come back to] get a taste of all the different spaces [that are part of] the event. You’re exploring new spaces, revisiting your favorite ones that you’ve been to every single Art Walk, and coming back outside of the Art Walk to be able to experience the rest of the district.

BB: Why are events like the Art Walk important in driving momentum to visit downtown? 

EB: It’s so important to be able to provide these open opportunities for the public to be able to come out and engage. We’ve heard many times from our creative participants that not only are they meeting new audiences during the Art Walk, but that they’re also seeing these audiences come back for future events. They’re buying tickets to other shows. They’re coming for opening exhibits. They’re visiting an artist studio. We’ve also seen this show up through attendees who are meeting artists during the event and following them later. 

BB: What excites you the most about Thursday’s event? 

We have several first time participants that will be at the Art Walk this week. Making Art Matter has a glow-in-the-dark, interactive painting experience, which will be super fun. We have Brush Mural Fest doing one of their community murals during the Art Walk as well. We also have three different dance groups that will be performing at the Eubie Blake Cultural Center. And of course, we always end things with an after party, which will take place from 9 to 11 p.m. at Current Space in their Garden Bar. It’s always such a fun time to be able to gather with everyone at the final end point.

The post New branding but the same love for Baltimore’s craftsmanship: Biannual Bromo Arts District Walk returns this week appeared first on Baltimore Beat.

Earlier this month — in partnership with the Baltimore Office of Promotion and The Arts (BOPA), the Maryland State Arts Council and M&T Bank — Mount Vernon’s Walters Art Museum unveiled the works of this year’s Janet and Walter Sondheim Prize finalists with a new exhibit. 

Now on view in the museum’s Centre Street building through September 8, the exhibition features the creations of ceramist Sam Mack, weaver Hellen Ascoli, and local mixed-media artist Amy Boone-McCreesh, each of whom currently live and work in Baltimore.

The exhibit marks the 19th iteration of BOPA’s annual Janet and Walter Sondheim Art Prize, named in honor of the celebrated late Baltimore couple (a trailblazing dancer and civil rights leader, respectively) and their lasting impact on the city’s arts landscape. 

This year, the distinguished competition, which was created to provide artists in Baltimore with resources to flourish, will conclude on August 22 with a ceremony and reception at the WaltersArt Museum. Each artist will receive the M&T Bank Finalist Award of $2,500 to assist with exhibit costs. One artist will win a coveted studio residency at the Bromo Seltzer Arts Tower, and after a series of final reviews, a jury of historians and curators will choose one lucky winner to receive the top prize: a $30,000 fellowship to help them further their career.

During a preview event for the exhibit on July 16, Boone-McCreesh said it was “incredible” to be named a finalist and showcase her pieces at the Walters.  Her color-rich portfolio includes sculpted and paper-based creations.

“Baltimore is such an incredible art city, [but] it flies under the radar a little bit. Of course, every city has its issues, but I’m just so excited to be recognized as a part of the art community here,” she said.

Complex and effervescent just like Baltimore, Boone-McCreesh’s maximalist works — often including paper, fabric, and found objects — encourage dialogue surrounding beauty, taste, and class disparities. 

 “I think something we don’t think about a lot is having access to beautiful spaces,” Boone-McCreesh said.

“That really is a luxury — like having a view out your window. Or think about how if you rent an apartment or book a hotel room, you’re paying the premium for the view.”

The same applies to indoor creature comforts: being able (or unable) to afford the latest, trendiest, interior decor, and what that says about one’s finances. Perhaps the concept of access to beauty is most evident through Boone-McCreesh’s “Hostile Seating (Ottomans),” in which two lavish ottomans are caged off using steel fencing — designed to mimic window bars seen often here in Baltimore and throughout Boone-McCreesh’s works — to prevent access to seating. The artist also customized the ottomans with handbag-style charms, much like those sold by high-end brands like Louis Vuitton to illustrate the idea that wealth shows itself in many different ways. 

With only three months to prepare for the exhibit, Boone-McCreesh said she enjoyed the challenge of choosing which works made the final cut.

“It was interesting to think about what artwork I had available, and what I could do in the time remaining. It forced me to kind of step back from my work and think about the bigger picture,” she said.

Like Boone-McCreesh, Mack, who was also in attendance on July 16, enjoyed collaborating with the Walters’s team to bring some of their most impactful works to one iconic space. Mack, who is transgender and uses they/he pronouns, is known for art that centers evolution. Their sculptures utilize ceramic, metal, clay, and myriad found objects to explore issues related to transgender life, particularly in the South and Midwest. 

Mack’s portfolio is meant to be a work in progress, they said. Flaws serve a purpose in pieces such as “Historical Present” and “A Practice in Immediacy,” both of which feature the use of ceramic and carpet tile.

“The individual vessels are constructed to crack and break. I’ll build a form of clay and then we’ll fire it, take fresh clay and build it onto that,” said Mack, explaining that creations in their final formats illustrate the journey of a body in transition in a way they hope makes sense to viewers.

While Mack’s  pieces — not unlike those of Boone-McCreesh and Ascoli, whose woven creations encompass themes including oral history and poetry — revolve around serious, personal matters, they hope viewers take note of light-hearted details, like puns, as they take in the works on display.

“There’s so much that’s gone into the exhibit — so much care and attention,” Mack said, 

adding that they’re grateful to have been part of the process. “It’s been very, very, exciting.”

Learn more about the works of this year’s finalists by visiting thewalters.org.

The post The Walters Art Museum Reveals This Year’s Janet and Walter Sondheim Prize Finalists With New Showcase appeared first on Baltimore Beat.

These photos were taken at the opening reception for “Grad Show IV,” which featured the work of graduates from MICA’s MFA in Studio Art Low-Residency (MFAST) program. “Grad Show IV” was on view at MICA from June 18 through July 7, in the Riggs & Leidy Galleries in the Fred Lazarus IV Center on North Avenue. It’s located directly next to Nancy By SNAC.

The Maryland Institute College of Art (MICA) is a private arts institution located in Bolton HIll, with undergraduate, graduate and open studies programs. Every year, the MICA Grad Shows showcase the culminating capstone and thesis projects of 14 residential MA and MFA programs through a series of exhibitions and events. The other three Grad Shows happened earlier this year, showing work by students in MICA’s other graduate programs.

The MFAST program is a summer intensive that allows students to participate in graduate study while still working, and is designed especially for artists, teachers and art professionals who already have practices to obtain a graduate degree.

According to the website, the four exhibitions presented works by artists, designers, filmmakers, educators and curators who demonstrated how “art disrupts in the most benevolent sense, awakens us to the present moment, and contributes to our shared becoming, that we might imagine things otherwise and become more fully human.” The works ranged from photography to sculpture to installation.

This class of MFAST students completed parts of their degree while MICA’s campus was closed during the beginning of the global pandemic. The resulting exhibition echoed an exploration of these unprecedented times. (Teri Henderson)

The post Photostory: MICA Grad Show IV appeared first on Baltimore Beat.