block party

it seems like forever ago that i sat in a starbucks with donaghy and rapidly took these notes when discussing baltimore and ambitious and unformed plans for a block party.



on monday it happened. and it was amazing.




we kept it simple. and all the elements came together just right. we hung all of our houses (well over 200 now. we've stopped counting) on the clothesline installation we've always dreamed of. the way we meant it to be displayed when we formulated this vision last fall in finding baltimore. parkhurst set up a tent with hot dogs, hamburgers, garden burgers (you can't forget where we're at...). mount royal choir came and kicked it off. e the poet emcee and his entourage of rappers and beat boxers and poets infused the entire thing with energy and honesty. and the simplest concept of all, we set up a table covered with art supplies and cloth and cardboard houses, and asked mica students and community members to add their creation of community to the clothesline. make a house, get an ancb button. and a cookie.



what makes community arts really work is supporting an idea with the right combination of people and place. i can't think of a better place to have done a block party. now it seems like that space in front of the meyerhoff was made for it. nothing is ever really done there, but there was an ample amount of grassy space, lots of railings and lampposts for hanging clothesline, a consistent amount of traffic (mica students going to their dorm or to the dining hall, kids walking home from school, and community members passing by.) kids from the better waverly art club came. a kid that had made a house when we had a table set up at the walters last friday. (he was me & tara's favorite. he asked us if it was alright if he put an alias on the back of his house. he was like 6 years old.) and the group of kids and their teachers from our most recent workshop last wednesday in patterson park. paula walked over with some maca students. my elements teacher katherine came for a bit. chuck the madd-ox, e's beat boxer, brought his little boy. a lot of the kitchen workers came out and made houses. and so many of the little neighborhood kids got sucked into the chalk and couldn't be torn away. it was pretty cool to see them all come. it was really just such a good, fun day.



(it was not an easy task at all to edit 700 pictures down to the ones you see here. i'm working on uploading them all to the ancb website.)