♪ WENDEL: Hello.

Welcome to this very special episode of “Artworks”.

The 2022 Baker Artist Awards.

I'm your host, Wendel Patrick.

And we're here at the Baltimore Museum of Art, celebrating this year's winners.

The William G. Baker Memorial Fund was established in 1964 by, Mary Sawyers Baker.

The Baker Artists Portfolios were created to support artists and promote greater Baltimore as a strong, creative community.

And now let's take a look at the 2022 Baker Artist Awardee profiles.

LYNN: I love the way the Maryland landscape looks.

It really appeals to me.

I'm an animator and I'm known for an unusual technique using clay on glass.

I've lived in Maryland for the past 10 years and it feels very much like home for me.

Art's everywhere in my life.

I mean my house is just full of it.

I'm surrounded by art.

My family are involved in the arts.

I love the tactility of clay, I love the way it moves.

So I love my medium.

In fact, I've done other kinds of clay, I've done clay sculptures, I've done mosaics um, but I came back to doing animation seriously when I moved to Baltimore about 10 years ago, I started making independent films again.

And uh, "The Ballad of Holland Island House" is set here in Maryland.

And that really, I think, got me going again, to make short films and having it be seen all around the world in different festivals and now to have it as part of my Baker Arts portfolio, it's really, really rewarding.

A lot of my stories are set in my environment, I'm very influenced by where I live, what I see every day.

For example, in "Ten Degrees of Strange" um, I filmed that in the spring of 2021.

As I was filming it, I decided that the scenes I would film would be following the landscape as it changes as we came out of winter so it started off with scenes of snow on the ground, and then eventually there's cherry blossoms growing off the trees and we kind of arrive into spring.

My last three films have really been involved with music and I've been able to work and collaborate with musicians.

Working to a music track is incredibly motivating, it's really how I've been able to get my last three films done because it takes so much time to animate like three hours for a second because my animation is such a solitary process, it's literally my fingerprints so it's hard to have anybody helping me.

Working with musicians is a way that I can connect with other artists.

So in "The Ballad of Holland Island House" I worked with Anna Roberts-Gevalt and Elizabeth LaPrelle.

Anna and Elizabeth to...

I wrote the lyrics, and they wrote a song to go with the lyrics.

♪ When I was born they cared for me dearly.

I was home for their sons and their daughters.

♪♪ LYNN: Um, in "The Elephant's Song” that was a wonderful collaboration because I worked with my son, Sam Saper who wrote the song and helped me co-write the story.

And then we hired an incredible band from Baltimore Trucker Talk, it was just incredible, that whole process of making the music.

And then I animate to the music track so for me, it's incredibly motivating.

It's really rewarding to be recognized as an animator and visual artist.

Animation's sort of historically been sort of marginalized and thought of, especially in the United States, thought of as commercial or entertainment, um, so I, in recent years I think that's changing, you see more and more animation in galleries and museums and to be part of that, to be making work that's seen and taken seriously, that's seen you know, in a museum, uh, projected along with other art films, it's just really affirming.

The Baker Artists Portfolio are a really incredible resource that we can make artists' portfolios in this really professional-looking way and then have them seen by other artists.

Just that, in of itself is, like a gift to the community, and then on top of that to have every year artists recognized, financially supported, um, it's just so important to support the arts community, I'm really glad the Baker Arts Awards do that here in Baltimore.

PAMELA: I was born in, in Baltimore, Maryland and so, so Baltimore has great meaning for me as an artist, not only was it where I was born, but it's where my paternal family is steeped.

I am an interdisciplinary artist and I'm a filmmaker and immersive media director.

So I mean, there are through lines in my work but the deeper messages in, in specific meanings, sometimes do not come out for me, even as the artist, except through the creative process of itself.

It's not um, always planned.

But what is planned for me, is the fact that I work to add to the cannon and create these um, new narrative forms that are accessible to people especially like me and that would include black people, women, people 50-plus, um, people with all sorts of different challenges too in life.

I mean, that's the heart and soul of what I do.

I'm also a performer, I predominately perform in my own work.

My work is really about amplifying the voices of black women and black girls and others whose joint imagination and inner life are under-explored in American media and popular art and I work to create new narrative forms that accomplishes those goals.

I also have an upcoming piece um, which is the piece that will be showcased at the Baltimore Museum of Art in a room unto itself, just my work, called “Antione and Me” and in that piece for instance I have created a new art form called “Sound Design Photo Narrations.” “The moment Antione takes this photograph of me, I'm satisfied, a little angry, still or maybe sad, but satisfied all the same.

He had told me this story that was a punch to my gut not a week before and it had sent my head spinning in all that time since I've been carrying the story's weight inside me and then 'poof'.

The weight's gone.” That particular piece was inspired by the life of my paternal grandmother and 100 years ago she took these photographs that we, I still have the albums of, of her life in, in Baltimore, Maryland.

As a Baker Artist award winner, it affords me the opportunity to promote my work and present my work on an even broader stage.

Your art represents who you are as a person, so um, it would really, my advice to an artist really would have much to do probably with them as a personal message as an individual and that's just to go live your life and live your life as beautifully and proudly as you can and the art will come.

ALLEN: It's such an honor to receive this award and it's really deeply meaningful for me.

Maryland pretty much the second hometown for me.

I grew up in China and came here back in 2010, came to school.

Um, that was the first state I visit and since then I've been living in Maryland, from 2010.

So for me, it's the place um, carrying a lot of memory and starting the new life in the new country, starting the, learning new language, starts from here, everything's brand new and then start building myself, building my life and um, friends and work and the studies, everything, um, pretty much my second hometown.

Right now we are at the Xing Dance Theater rehearsal space, it's one of our larger location spaces um, here, this studio, it's brand new for us.

For me the dance space is a very magical, important space to me, uh, when I come in the space that's kind of the moment let me to calm myself down to have a moment, block and escape what's going outside the studio and then come in, I have a moment to restart my mind to think what is important or what is inspiration for me today to leading to the equation.

And on this floor it's kind of like a piece of paper about me so I can draw, I can create and make art here and work with the dancers through the floor is kind of my process, like researching the movement and to experiment and how we can use our dancer um as the body of the dance to, against to the gravity to fly in the air or go with the gravity to fall to the floor and to build dance.

Baker Arts for me is the platform that gives artists opportunity to build their portfolio and to show their work and to share with the audience.

Um, and be able to give that portfolio um, build the actual portfolio for me, leading my thinking process that how can I create important work that meaningful to myself, to my audience, and to the community.

♪ MENG: I think as an artist it's really important to be true to yourself.

And as guitarists, we have a couple missions, first is to preserve our current repertoire all the way back from Renaissance to Contemporary.

And secondly, we need to expand our repertoire to commission new pieces, new music, to bring my own culture into this I think it's really important to bring the guitar, the music of guitar to a larger group of audience who might be less exposed to classical music, through collaborations and innovative ideas.

Art is everything to me.

As a child, I began playing the guitar at age 5.

And it has led me through every step to where I am now, being a performer and educator, troubadour.

Because I with my guitar travel around the world and play my music to the people.

Maryland is my second home.

I came here when I was 18 years old to attend the Peabody Conservatory and it's really here that I grow as a musician and flourished as an artist.

I always feel Maryland is a great place for arts and very supportive for artists.

Every time I come back to Maryland from my tour I always feel this is a place that I can settle and to focus and to be creative on my work.

It is really my privilege now to perform and share my music with the world and it is really great to see people from all backgrounds and all cultures to enjoy music and to share the beauty of art through music.

I really think the Baker Artist Portfolios is a great way for local artists to showcase their work and to inspired by each other.

I have been documenting my works over the years on the platform and it's really an honor to be selected as a winner this year.

♪ TIMMY: I'm a novelist, fictional writer in general, I do journalism and I'm an English professor.

My family hasn't left this town, Baltimore City, in over eight generations.

Maryland's meant everything to me.

I got an Old Bay logo tattooed on my leg, a blue crab tattooed on my arm, a raven tattooed on my chest.

My identity and even books I've written and stories I've written that don't necessarily take place here, they usually have some sort of track back to here with a character, or it's still informed by here because I can't write or make any art that isn't informed by Maryland and more specifically Baltimore City.

You cannot keep writing the same story over and over again, so my style's always changed, uh, book for book.

Writing is an experience of trying to keep myself interested in life.

I, I wouldn't have fun doing if I, if it didn't surprise me.

And if it didn't surprise me, it's not going to surprise the reader.

One, two, eight, eight books and then a couple other like chap books, a lot of short stories in journalism online, this is like a message to young writers, none of them came out in order.

Don't expect always, all of your books to come out in the order in which they were written.

You kind of have to get a snowball rolling, that snowball becomes a bigger snowball and then people ask you, “What else have you written?” And that's when the thing will come out.

I would say when I was younger I was more in the moment, now often think about yea, my full body of work.

If you're not questioning what you're saying then it's unhealthy anyway.

It's not, or it's not, it's certainly, if it's not unhealthy, it's unhelpful.

It feels great!

Big pat on the back always to be awarded for anything in the Baker Artist Awards.

I won the Semmes G Baker Award once before in 2015 and that felt great, and then to win the whole literary arts award this time felt great, so I, I, yea, I mean it's, they're just a fantastic service to the community.

WENDEL: Hi, I'm Wendel Patrick, your host for “Artworks” and I'm here now with Connie Imboden president of the William G. Baker Jr. Memorial Fund.

Hi Connie, good to see you.

CONNIE: Good to see you Wendel, nice to be back.

WENDEL: It's great to have you back.

So I wanted to ask you, uh, this year, how is the Baker Fund and GBCA handling uh, sort of a return to how the fund has been handled and dispersed?

CONNIE: Uh, we're returning to the way that we did it pre-pandemic which is, artists are invited to upload their work to the portfolio site um, which is a tremendous site, it can hold a vast amount of material and information.

So many artists use that as their website, which is terrific.

And the jurors look through the website to select the awardees.

Uh, so we're returning to that.

Last year we um, during the pandemic, we decided that we would give out as much money as we could, so instead of um, dividing, our $90,000 is a lot of money.

WENDEL: Yes.

CONNIE: Yea, into six people, we divided it into 36 people, so we're giving out less money but to more people, trying to help support the art community in such a difficult time.

WENDEL: Yea, that's wonderful and I know that must have had a huge impact as you say on so many more artists um, and allowed them to hopefully thrive somewhat during that difficult period.

CONNIE: Yea, if not thrive, exist maybe.

WENDEL: So I imagine you're very excited about this year's artists and we are here at the Baltimore Museum of Art and I'm wondering what role did the Baltimore Museum of Art play in this year's Baker Artists Awards?

CONNIE: The, the BMA has been partnered with us from the very beginning, and these exhibitions at the BMA, significantly increase the value of, of our prize.

Um, for an artist to um, have the experience in a, in a high-level museum, of working with the curators and the staff, it's just a tremendous experience.

And then for the artists to see their work in a space like this, hung so beautifully, um, it's a thrill of a lifetime.

WENDEL: It, it really is beautiful just walking in here's so inspiring.

CONNIE: It is, it is, it's great work.

WENDEL: And how long will the exhibition be up here at the BMA?

CONNIE: It will be up until March 12, 2023.

WENDEL: Wow, that's a good long time for people to come and see it.

CONNIE: It is, it is.

Worth seeing too.

WENDEL: So the Baker Artists Awards have a tremendous legacy and have had an incredible impact on artists in the region.

I can personally attest to that as a winner from 2015.

CONNIE: Yes, you can.

WENDEL: What are some of the goals and values uh, that you have moving forward?

CONNIE: Uh, our goal has always been to um, in, invest in this lively and rich cultural scene that we have in Baltimore.

We have amazing artists as the portfolio attests to and the show is just phenomenal.

Um, so our goal is really to continue to um, support artists, encourage artists to stay in Baltimore and this is our fifteenth year and we have given out $1.3 million... WENDEL: That's amazing.

CONNIE: To over, to over 150 artists, and we're still going.

WENDEL: Yea.

CONNIE: Yea.

WENDEL: Wonderful.

CONNIE: Yea, it is.

WENDEL: So here we are in 2022, approaching 2023 and we are returning at least somewhat to normalcy and uh, I'm wondering, what uh, do you see in the future with your partnership with the Greater Baltimore Cultural Alliance and the Baker Fund?

CONNIE: Uh, one thing that I've always loved about Team Baker our alliance with the Greater Baltimore Cultural Alliance is that we are constantly evolving and trying to make the site the best that it can be.

Uh, we, we listen to, actually, Greater Baltimore Cultural Alliance listens to um the feedback from the artists, um, some of it is very positive, some of it is not so, um, but we're always listening and trying to make the website as user friendly as we can.

And also keeping in mind that the most important thing for us is to use the money in the most effective way we can.

WENDEL: Hopefully there won't be a, a, a wrench quite like 2020-2021 there again, but you handled it brilliantly and very effectively.

CONNIE: Thank you, thank you very much.

WENDEL: As an artist yourself, how has the art from this year's awardees inspired you?

CONNIE: Well that's a great question, and as an artist yourself, you know the power of art, and when I look at art like this that is so carefully crafted and um, done with such dedication and creative um honesty, authenticity, I feel very touched inside, it touches me in a very deep place and um, in a world that's so divided, I think we need connection more than ever before and that's what art can do for us.

Yes.

WENDEL: It absolutely can.

Connie, it's a pleasure as always to see you and get to talk to you.

Thank you so much for joining us.

CONNIE: Thank you, thank you.

WENDEL: Thanks for that conversation, Connie.

Now, let's take a look at the creative process for our final and featured awardee, visual artist and image maker Ernest Shaw.

ERNEST: I pretty much been drawing and painting all my life, my mother painted, so I had the privilege of watching her paint, and uh, my parents also exhibited artwork from local artists uh, on our walls.

So I've always been surrounded by art.

That art was specifically of African people, they were portraits of South African women and children.

So that has had a direct impact on my aesthetic.

Uh, I don't think it's by mistake that my work is portraits mostly of people who are part of the Afrodiasporic world.

What I do, I stand on the shoulders of others that's done it before me.

Being born in the late ‘60s, in the midst of the, what you could say is the tail end of the civil rights movement but in the heart of the black artist's movement and the black power, movement having experienced that in the ‘70s and then being a child of the hip hop movement, or, or hip hop music and culture.

Um, one thing I know is that there's no such thing as a self-made artist, or a self-made person.

So I am strongly influenced by many of my elders and some of which who are ancestors now, strongly inspired by the young people to create work that connects with people.

Again I've had the privilege of studying traditional West African cultures, I'm a byproduct of the three HBCUs actually because I was a student at Coppin, I graduated from Morgan and Howard um, but it, it was partially that HBCU experience that taught me that my work is not for my own self aggrandizing and through my studies I come to understand that in pre-colonial West Africa there isn't a word for art per se.

Um, but there are aspects of what we define as art, music, dance, theater, um, masquerade, very high visual aesthetic relative to, to West African culture but all of those things happen all at the same time, they're not separate, you know.

And the audience is not separate from what we would deem to be the artist.

You know it's all, it's very communal.

So I kind of take that approach you know, I, I study music, um, I study theater, when I go to a movie or the cinema I'm not just going to be entertained, I, I have to choose which hat I'm going to wear.

Um, I love studying other artists' work.

You know and to me, it's all really one vibe, one rhythm, one energy, because our roles are, the role of musician, the role of a visual artist, a writer, we really have some of the same responsibility, you know, it's to communicate that which um, is very difficult to communicate.

To bring in from the metaphysical into the physical.

So I'm finding my current inspiration mostly from my students.

You know I'm 20-year veteran Baltimore City Public Schools and I've come to the understanding that my practice as an educator and my practice as an artist/image maker are not two separate practices.

It's the same practice.

And my students, uh, the vibe, spirit, energy of my students, uh, their mind, the way their mind works, their lived experiences and lived expertise is probably, probably the number one inspiration and motivation for my work.

It's slightly difficult to put into words, I wish I kind of spoke multiple languages to really express um, the gratitude that I have for being acknowledged by the Baker.

Especially at 53 years old.

You know, uh, I will say that I believe all things happen in divine order, in divine time, in divine rhythm, uh, and Baker has served this regional artist as um, a beacon for validating and justifying the work that we do as, as artists.

WENDEL: Congratulations to the 2022 Baker Artist awardee's for their outstanding work.

What a wonderful look into artist and image maker Ernest Shaw's creative process.

Thank you Connie for the conversation and also for your continued valued support for the artists.

I hope you've enjoyed this year's “Baker Artist Awards Special.” I'm your host Wendel Patrick, and I'll see you next year.

(music plays to end).