Baltimore, MD, November 20, 2023 — The Baltimore Office of Promotion & The Arts (BOPA) announces a

Request for Proposals (RFP) for the Artscape 2024 logo design. In collaboration with Mayor’s Office of

Baltimore City, BOPA seeks to commission an emerging or professional visual artist or visual artist team to

produce a unique, original digital artwork design for print fabrication and electronic distribution in

celebration of the 2024 Artscape Festival. The digital image criteria are as follows:

The mighty 2024 Tenth Annual Urban Arts Leadership cohort has been undertaking an incredible journey since they began their sessions in September. With the leadership of GBCA’s Kibibi Ajanku and Renz Balagtas, their learning has included marketing, fundraising, financial management, and more, all through the lens of racial equity and inclusion. Learning leaders for this class include Camilla Bryce LaPorte, Maurissa Stone Bass, Larry Poncho Brown, Sonja Cendak, Cheryl Waters Hassan, Kayla Morgan, Olu Woods, and GBCA staff Alix Finhagen, David London, Richard Okonkwo, and Lauren Saunders.

Community safety is a critical issue in Baltimore, one in which community-based arts organizations have played a vital role for many years.

The Baltimore Film Office at the Baltimore Office of Promotion & The Arts (BOPA) is accepting entries for the 19th annual Baltimore Screenwriters Competition. This is anopportunity to craft a winning screenplay that highlights Baltimore. The competition awards prizes in both the feature and shorts categories for scripts that are set or able to be filmed in Baltimore. The Baltimore Screenwriters Competition is a project of the Baltimore Film Office in conjunction with film programs at Johns Hopkins University and Morgan State University.

If there was ever a time when the humanities were desperately needed, it's now. Between the violence, conflict, and human suffering happening around the world in Ukraine, Israel, Palestine, Somalia, and right here at home, practices in the arts and humanities provide a proven path to understanding and combating the dehumanization that can all too easily arise between enemies.

Young writers with disabilities enrolled in high school (generally, ages 14-19) are invited to submit a ten-minute script for the opportunity to participate in a playwrights program. The script should have at least two characters, incorporate an engaging plot, and move the audience through an emotional or entertaining experience all within ten minutes (this is usually eight to nine pages in 12pt. Arial font).

In Blackwater Woods by Mary Oliver

Look, the trees

are turning

their own bodies

into pillars

of light,

are giving off the rich

fragrance of cinnamon

and fulfillment,

the long tapers

of cattails

are bursting and floating away over

the blue shoulders

of the ponds,

and every pond,

Last week was

“Labor Day is a U.S. national holiday held the first Monday every September. Unlike most U.S. holidays, it is a strange celebration without rituals, except for shopping and barbecuing. For most people it simply marks the last weekend of summer and the start of the school year. The holiday’s founders in the late 1800s envisioned something very different from what the day has become.