SNAE_OWB2catalog_reducedfilesize

©2015, Station North Arts & Entertainment, Inc.
All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be
reproduced or used in any form by any means without
written permission of the artists and publisher.
Open Walls Baltimore was curated by
Gaia
and managed by
Station North Arts & Entertainment, Inc.
All photos ©ALL ARTISTS, 2015
Edited by Marianne Amoss & Ben Stone
Design by Tony Venne
Logo Design by Santtu Mustonen

ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS
The OWB2 catalog was generously funded by grants from the
Elizabeth Firestone Graham Foundation and the European
Union National Institutes for Culture (EUNIC).

8
OPEN WALLS BALTIMORE 2 LOCATIONS
22ND ST
21ST ST
20TH ST
NORTH AVE
LAFAYETTE AVE
LANVALE ST
FEDERAL ST
OLIVER ST
GREENMOUNTAVE
BARCLAYST
GUILFORDAVE
CALVERTST
ST.PAULST
CHARLESST
MARYLANDAVE
1
2
6
7
8 9 10
12
13
14
16
18
17
11
5
3
4
15
1. LOGAN HICKS
2015 MARYLAND AVE
2. GAIA
2016 N CHARLES ST
3. NANOOK
2021 ST PAUL ST
4. EL DECERTOR
2132 N CALVERT ST
5. ESCIF
4 E NORTH AVE
6. SANTTU MUSTONEN
1910 N CHARLES ST
7. ECB
4 W NORTH AVE
8. JESSIE UNTERHALTER
& KATEY TRUHN
309 E LAFAYETTE AVE
9. ERNEST SHAW JR.
401 E LAFAYETTE AVE
10. OZMO
429 E LAFAYETTE AVE
11. BETSY CASAÑAS
1719 N CALVERT ST
12. ZBIOK
1714 N CHARLES ST
13. LNY
326 FEDERAL ST
14. D’METRIUS RICE
406 FEDERAL ST
15. LESSER GONZALEZ ALVAREZ
1700 LATROBE ST
OWBX
16. PLAY THE PLAZA
1500 N CHARLES ST
17. STOP TELLING
WOMEN TO SMILE
1400 GREENMOUNT AVE
18. STOP TELLING
WOMEN TO SMILE
1 W NORTH AVE

OPEN WALLS BALTIMORE 2
TABLE OF CONTENTS
10 Foreword
16 Letter from Wilfried Eckstein
20 Q&A with Gaia and Nanook
26 OWB2 Launch Party
30 Pushing the Boundaries of Street Art
ARTISTS
34 ECB
38 Santtu Mustonen
42 Ozmo
46 Zbiok
50 Escif
54 Logan Hicks
58 El Decertor
62 LNY
66 Ernest Shaw Jr.
70 Jessie Unterhalter & Katey Truhn
74 Gaia
78 Nanook
82 D’Metrius Rice
86 Lesser Gonzalez Alvarez
90 Betsy Casañas
OWBX
96 Play The Plaza
98 Life After Boring (LAB) Studios
100 Stop Telling Women to Smile
102 OWB2 Closing Party
106 Station North’s “Dance to Keep From Crying”:
Packed, Well-Curated, Twerky, Awesome

10
In spring 2012, Station North Arts & Entertainment,
Inc., (SNAE), produced Open Walls Baltimore, an
international street art festival with murals, painted
in the District by an international cadre of renowned
street artists, at its center. At the time, Open Walls
Baltimore was the largest artistic endeavor
attempted in Station North’s history. Our funders—
PNC and the National Endowment for the Arts—along
with local community associations, businesses, and
residents took a leap of faith in allowing SNAE to
produce this project. Fortunately, the first round of
Open Walls exceeded expectations; it won numerous
awards, garnered considerable national press, and
attracted visitors from around the world to Station
North. The project team agreed to bring back Open
Walls in the future and, after a year off, launched
the appropriately named Open Walls Baltimore 2 in
spring 2014.
By that time, investment in Station North had
increased and SNAE’s role in the District had
expanded. We had always intended for the first round
of murals to leverage other forms of investment in the
buildings and spaces where they were painted, and
this has been successful. Ever painted a mural on
Station North’s largest vacant building, which has
FOREWORD
BEN STONE, EXECUTIVE DIRECTOR
STATION NORTH ARTS & ENTERTAINMENT, INC.

13
undergone renovation by Jubilee Baltimore and part-
ners to be reopened as the Centre, a hub of arts and
innovation. Gaia painted a vacant building at 1 West
North Avenue, which SNAE reopened as the Station
North Chicken Box, featuring SNAE’s offices, a
gallery, and a performance space. Momo’s mural on
East Oliver Street once faced a vacant lot but now
fronts a series of newly constructed and occupied
rowhouses. The vacant lot that once contained Gary
Kachadourian’s installation has become the Green-
mount West Wonderground, a play space for
neighborhood youth. Interesni Kazki’s mural on the
North Avenue Market has been joined by new busi-
nesses in the building, and the building’s entire
facade is undergoing improvements. Properties adja-
cent to murals have been renovated, and new residents
have brought increased energy to Station North over
the past two years.
In planning OWB2, our team set out to surpass what
we’d done with OWB1: create larger, bolder works of
art; include a more diverse group of artists; ensure
that participating artists were educated about
Baltimore and Station North so that their work would
be relevant to its site; connect Baltimore artists
with international artists and international press;
and leverage the attention paid to OWB2’s murals to
bring attention to the District’s artists working in
other disciplines. To accomplish this last goal, SNAE
created Open Walls Baltimore X, a series of perfor-
mances, events, and installations that ran
concurrently with OWB2. (In other words, OWBX
expanded on all aspects of OWB2 besides painted
murals.) In the end, an estimated 3,000 people took
part in OWB2 and OWBX.
When I began my tenure with SNAE, I was the nonprof-
it’s sole employee. SNAE quickly doubled in size,
adding Rebecca Chan as SNAE’s first Program

14
Manager and then Program Director. By the time
planning began in earnest for OWB2, SNAE had
expanded into an eight-person supergroup. I am eter-
nally grateful to this team for their patience,
diligence, and creativity. Open Walls Baltimore 2
was even more successful than its predecessor
because of Curator Gaia’s evolution as an artist and
a curator; Artistic Coordinator’s Nanook’s organiza-
tional prowess, painting skills, and calm demeanor;
PR and Communication team members Dorothy Fuchs
and Kate Ewald’s ability to ensure that our work
connected with the public and the press; Volunteer
Coordinator and artist Rachael London’s management
of a team of fantastic volunteers and creation of
sculptural objects incorporated into OWBX; Commu-
nity Outreach Intern Brandon Buckson’s artistic
skills and flexibility; and M. Holden Warren’s photo-
graphic and video skills.
Even with this all-star team running the project, the
enormous scope of Open Walls Baltimore 2 would not
have been feasible without the support and leader-
ship of Will Backstrom and his team at PNC, who for
the second time partnered with SNAE to produce what
we feel is one of the best street art festivals in the
world. In addition to PNC’s financial support, OWB2
was generously supported by national funders
ArtPlace America and the National Endowment for the
Arts, two behemoths in the world of creative place-
making. We also owe a debt of gratitude to our local
funders, Visit Baltimore, Timothy 618, and the Balti-
more Office of Promotion & the Arts, who saw
potential in our work to improve Station North.
Lastly, the leadership of Wilfried Eckstein and his
team at the European Union National Institutes for
Culture, as well as all of EUNIC’s member organiza-
tions, supported numerous residencies by European
artists, who added additional clout to an already

15
successful project. OWB2 was also made possible
through the in-kind support of Common Ground Café,
Sherwin Williams, Sunbelt Rentals, and Brookshire
Suites. Thank you also to the SNAE Board of Direc-
tors, led by Mike Molla, for their continual
leadership and support of our work. Finally, I am
sincerely grateful to have had Rebecca Chan, Station
North’s Program Director, on board for OWB2 and for
the past few years to help shepherd SNAE into the
cutting-edge organization we’ve become.

16
Wilfried Eckstein, director of Goethe-Institut in
Washington, D.C., provided the below letter, which
shares the story of the relationship between Open
Walls Baltimore and Goethe-Institut, Germany’s
worldwide cultural institute. Mr. Eckstein’s interest
in Station North and his enthusiasm for meaningful
international collaboration led to a fruitful part-
nership among Station North Arts & Entertainment,
Inc., the European Union National Institutes for
Culture, and the Goethe-Institut, as well as several
other European cultural organizations. Station
North Arts & Entertainment, Inc., is extremely
grateful for Mr. Eckstein’s leadership, creative
thinking, and excitement for Baltimore.
Dear Ben, dear friends and supporters of OWB2,
Thank you for the opportunity to participate in OWB2
and contribute to your publication.
On behalf of the European Union National Institutes
for Culture (EUNIC), let me congratulate you warm-
heartedly on your continuous work in the Station
North Arts & Entertainment District and on a
successful and joyful OWB2 with dynamic creative
activities.
LETTER FROM WILFRIED ECKSTEIN
DIRECTOR OF THE GOETHE-INSTITUT

18
Formed in 2006, EUNIC is a recognized leader in
cultural cooperation. We are comprised of a network
of 32 national cultural institutes from 27 European
countries and are based in over 150 countries. We
work in the arts, language, education, and intercul-
tural dialogue. A EUNIC network is based on open
cooperation and works in a bottom-up, NGO style with
a compact, independent, and flexible administration.
In Baltimore, we partnered with the Baltimore Office
of Promotion and the Arts (BOPA), the Maryland Insti-
tute College of Art (MICA), and the three arts and
entertainment districts on a year-long collaboration.
Our program was about transit hubs such as a bus
stop in Highlandtown, the Metro exit at Lexington
Market, and Penn Station Plaza. We brought artists
from our countries, who joined the team of mural
artists in OWB2 and, with the help of local artists,
connected with Baltimore’s neighborhoods.
European partners in this specific cooperation with
Baltimore included the Alliance Française, the
Austrian Cultural Forum, the British Council, the
Goethe-Institut, and the cultural sections of the
embassies of Finland, Greece, Ireland, Italy, Poland,
and Spain. Our cooperation was generously supported
by the Delegation of the European Union to the U.S.
Our goal is to bring European artists into a dialogue
with local artists. We build bridges to learn from
each other and create a better environment. We are
interested in an exchange of experiences and views
that raises awareness about common topics and chal-
lenges and that fosters transatlantic conversation.
We want to promote a greater knowledge of the Euro-
pean Union, enhance understanding between our civil
societies, and strengthen the value of the E.U.–U.S.
transatlantic partnership. Our focus in Baltimore
has been on experiences and perspectives related to
urban culture and community development.

19
Our major events were mural painting at various
locations, hip-hop dance performances, film screen-
ings, exhibitions and panel discussions about
sustainable development in European cities, three
one-month residencies with artist cooperatives on
transit-focused spaces, and, to culminate, a transat-
lantic symposium about the role of artists in urban
resilience.
We want to thank you, our friends, our partners, and
the departments and institutions who worked with us
here in Baltimore. You have been welcoming and
generous to accept us. Baltimore is a very special
city. We feel its charm and how strongly its inhabit-
ants identify as being Baltimorean. From the
beginning, each visit I made to Baltimore was a
discovery of the magnificence of its city center and
its many hidden urban treasures. I learned that
urban diversity and the city’s jagged edges in
particular are among the most productive corners of
our urban environment. Station North, its people, and
its architectural heritage have become an energetic
center that revitalizes and enriches the city at large.
All of us in our team immensely enjoyed the human-
ness and warmth of the people we met. I would be very
happy if we could find more opportunities to keep in
contact and continue our conversation, our coopera-
tion, and our mutual friendship.
Very kind greetings ⁄ Mit herzlichen Grüßen,
Wilfried Eckstein
Goethe-Institut, Washington, D.C.
europeinbaltimore.org

20
Longtime friends and collaborators Gaia and Nanook
joined forces for OWB2, serving as curator and
artistic coordinator, respectively. They brought to
the project their passion for street art and for Balti-
more, as well as their desire to expand the notion of
what a street art festival can be. They shared their
thoughts on the project via email in September 2014.
—
What is your relationship to Baltimore? What makes
painting in Baltimore unique?
GAIA: I have called Baltimore my home for eight
years now but have spent as much time in the city as
I have traveling throughout the world. Yet despite my
itinerant relationship with Baltimore, it is the
longest I have ever had roots in one place.
Baltimore is unique in many different ways, but what
distinguishes this landscape from any other
throughout the world in terms of painting is its
informality. There are few barriers, beyond a simple
conversation with neighbors, between the artist and
the wall.
NANOOK: I first came to Baltimore to complete my
undergrad degree, so that framed my experience and
initial friend group in the city. Through the years of
Q&A WITH GAIA & NANOOK

22
making work in the public sphere and Baltimore
being my home base, I have made connections and
had the opportunity to be part of some very unique
mural projects. These projects really make the
painting experience here unique from any other
place I have have painted.
—
What effect do you hope OWB2 has on Baltimore? How
can this mural project make a difference in our city?
NANOOK: I cannot attest to murals making a differ-
ence other than starting a dialogue about the work
that is getting installed and the way it relates or
does not relate to the residents that live around it.
There is always the underlying desire to meet people
that you would not normally have the opportunity to
communicate with and form a relationship beyond the
creation of the mural.
GAIA: I wanted to position Baltimore as a city that
is receptive to a global network of street artists
and muralists. I wanted to show what is feasible in
terms of budget and formal scope with contemporary
muralism.
—
How is OWB2 different from OWB1? How is it different
from other international street art festivals?
GAIA: Open Walls is very discerning in terms of who
from around the world is invited to paint. Rather
than simply copy and paste the most popular roster
from other street art events, we attempt to choose
artists we feel are pushing the boundaries of the
medium formally and conceptually, and we tend to shy
away from hype.
The second iteration of the project was concerned
with two questions: How do we make the non-creative
community that constitutes most of Greenmount West
feel more represented by the project, and how do we

23
deconstruct the understanding of how a mural func-
tions to put the tradition into a fresh perspective?
In this way, OWB2 occupied two vastly different
extremities depending on location: more celebration-
oriented and more challenging.
NANOOK: With OWB2, we had a strong desire to bring
more site-specific pieces to Baltimore. Another goal
was to make a project that would span the course of
three months and have artist talks and different
events throughout the three months, as opposed to
other festivals, which are normally held over the
course of ten days.
—
What drove your curatorial decisions? Were you
going for an overall mood?
GAIA: For the second iteration of Open Walls, I
wanted the walls to either be formally challenging
to our assumptions as to how a mural functions today
or engaged with African-American identity. Once
sites were determined and paired with the pertinent
artist, the muralist was asked to develop a couple of
proposals that we then presented to the property
owner. Once we all negotiated a happy conceptual
balance, the mural was executed.
—
Talk about the community buy-in process and the
ways that residents interacted with you, especially
during the painting process. What did Baltimoreans
think of what you were doing?
NANOOK: I had an incredible experience while
painting my wall. The garden that was pre-established
in front of my wall was an incredible microcosm of
people who would spend extensive amounts of time
talking to me about what I was painting. In my expe-
rience the most potent time for a mural is in its
creation. It was incredibly humbling to listen to
people interpret what I was painting.

24
In your mind, which wall was most successful this year?
GAIA: Escif’s wall was especially interesting
because it was simultaneously tongue-in-cheek and
realistically straightforward. Its sheer scale and
simplicity is jarring, and yet its acknowledgement of
complicity in the processes of divestment ⁄ reinvest-
ment was what made the piece so effective.
—
What was it like working together on OWB2? What
about each of you is complementary ⁄ challenging to
the other?
GAIA: Open Walls is a unique organization due in
part to its remarkable efficiency. All parties
involved in executing the murals are extremely dedi-
cated and adept at what they do. Nanook is like a
brother to me and, to be perfectly frank, was the
backbone of the logistical aspects of the project
beyond being a participating artist. We are both
steadfastly goal-oriented and essentially push
around the clock, between lending a hand painting
the walls, receiving and maneuvering lifts, picking
up paint, caring for machinery, getting last-minute
permission for walls and acting as host for our
guests. There is no one I know capable of going as
hard as he does, and for that I am indebted to his
ethic.
NANOOK: It is always a pleasure to work with Gaia.
His energy and understanding are a huge inspiration
to me and my work.
—
What are your thoughts on the future of Station
North?
NANOOK: Station North is the center of redevelop-
ment in Baltimore, and it is crazy to think about the

25
aesthetic of Station North during OWB1 in compar-
ison to OWB2. There are many projects currently in
the works for the area, and it is interesting to see
people begin to take ownership of vacant spaces and
know that there is going to be more development. I am
always interested in change.
GAIA: Station North is infused with reasonable fear
of rising property values and displacement of legacy
residents by creative types. As to whether this night-
mare will come to fruition depends on the unity
between the artists and African-American community,
and of course the decisions of those redeveloping
the neighborhood. Presently, the new amenities and
additions to the area have made my experience of
Station North healthier.
—
Will there be an OWB3?
GAIA: If there were an Open Walls Baltimore 3, I
would have to play a significantly reduced curatorial
role for many reasons. I believe that Baltimore and
the creative community would like to see a diversity
of programming strategies that extend beyond murals
and enter other forms of community engagement. I am
perfectly suited for coordinating a street art
festival, but in order to avoid being redundant, OWB
needs to be more than a mural project. Plus I think I
am too sensitive to undergo so much scrutiny and
criticism again for engineering such an ambitious
and contentious venture.
NANOOK: I cannot say, but it would be amazing to see
it happen again and continue to grow and change.

26
OWB2 LAUNCH PARTY
On March 25, 2014, Station North Arts & Entertainment, Inc.,
and partners launched OWB2 at the Metro Gallery at the Charles
Street gateway to Station North. The evening’s celebration
included previews of OWB2 artists’ work and performances by
Team Squad Up and TT the Artist.

30
In late March 2014, we launched Open Walls Balti-
more 2 with the mission of executing a project with
greater impact and reach than its 2012 predecessor.
The bar was set high: the first Open Walls Balti-
more, which mounted 23 murals by 29 artists over the
course of a few months, catapulted Station North—
and Baltimore—onto the international stage of
street art festivals and mural making.
Nearly two years after the launch of the first Open
Walls Baltimore, after leading dozens of mural
tours, receiving numerous accolades, and watching
the walls get featured in national publications or
go viral on the internet, the requests for a second
round—both locally and from the growing out-of-
town fan base—were trickling in. As rumors of the
return of Open Walls spread, however, it became clear
that Baltimore—from individuals to organizations
to the press—was also wondering what would be
different, and better, than the first round. People
were also perhaps a bit skeptical that we could pull
off a second Open Walls that was sensitive to an
ever-evolving Station North, while producing art of
the highest caliber for Baltimore.
PUSHING THE BOUNDARIES OF STREET ART
REBECCA CHAN, PROGRAM DIRECTOR,
STATION NORTH ARTS & ENTERTAINMENT, INC.

32
Such is the challenge of creating art in the public
realm, but the Station North team was up to the
task. We embarked with the core team from the first
Open Walls, along with a few new additions that we
knew would help take the project to the next level.
Thanks to Gaia, the project’s fearless curator, we
were able to assemble a widely diverse roster of
artists in terms of country of origin, style, and age.
Artists were invited on the condition that they would
create a piece unique to Baltimore—and get to know
Station North.
In addition to murals, Open Walls Baltimore X was
created in an effort to push the boundaries of
“street art” and offer programming that encouraged
community-building and engaged with the historical
and social context of Station North. The Open Walls
Baltimore X performances, installations, lectures,
and programs were intended to complement the
murals by incorporating additional forms of artistic
practice into the festival and expand its scope and
appeal to a broader audience. OWBX included Play
the Plaza, a residency at Penn Station Plaza by
the U.K.’s Urban Playground Team, featuring their
signature Performance Parkour and collaborations
with local dancers, musicians, sculptors, and youth;
Tatyana Fazlalizadeh’s Stop Telling Women to Smile
project, a series of wheatpaste messages addressing
street harassment; Free Yoga Fridays courtesy of
Charm City Yoga at the Ynot Lot, SNAE’s outdoor event
space on North Avenue; Life After Boring Studios, run
by local artists Jaimes Mayhew and Marian Glebes,
which served as the base of operations for OWB2’s
visiting artists; and architectural and historical
research conducted by Baltimore Heritage. These
projects expanded the audience for and partici-
pation in OWB2 and, in the spirit of Baltimore’s
interdisciplinary approach to creative production,

33
connected street artists with artists working in
other disciplines to create a truly immersive expe-
rience between March and June 2014.
As Alister O’Loughlin, OWB2 artist-in-residence
from the U.K., valorously announced to an audience
gathered at the base of the Male ⁄ Female statue for
the start of the OWB2 closing party at Penn Station,
“This performance is only possible here, in this space,
at this moment, because we are in Baltimore.” Balti-
more witnessed this site-specificity in the Play the
Plaza performances that fused performance parkour,
Baltimore club, vogueing, and a marching band with
the historic train station as a dramatic backdrop.
And we continuously experience this specificity in
each of the 15 Open Walls Baltimore 2 murals, each
offering a story about a building, a person, or a
place in Station North. Baltimore insisted that OWB2
do more, and even though it wasn’t a perfect project,
Station North delivered.
As the Program Director for Station North, I am proud
to work among a community that is collaborative and
multidisciplinary—one that exudes energy and a
hunger to better our city while maintaining a sense
of levity and an appreciation for the absurd. Despite
our differences, we hold our projects, particularly
those in the public realm, to the highest standards.
Keep demanding the best, Baltimore. You deserve it.

35
ECB
4 EAST NORTH AVENUE, FACING SOUTH
German artist ECB specializes in large-
scale portraits, and his work for OWB2
was no different. He created a six-story-
tall portrait of the late father of Jae
Won Kim, the owner of the Seoul Rice
Cake Factory on the 2000 block of North
Charles Street. The portrait pays tribute
to the neighborhood’s Korean enclave,
which predated the establishment of
Station North and still exists today.
EC B ’ s p a r tic i p a ti o n i n O W B 2 wa s
supported in part by the European Union
National Institutes for Culture (EUNIC),
a grant by the EU Delegation to the U.S.,
and the Goethe-Institut.

38
OPEN_WALLS
SANTTU MUSTONEN
1910 NORTH CHARLES STREET, FACING SOUTH
Santtu Mustonen’s mural became the
backdrop to the Ynot Lot, Station North’s
outdoor event space that launched in
spring 2014. His abstract, organic forms
lend a relaxed vibe to this busy intersec-
tion of North Avenue and Charles Street,
which more than 30,000 commuters, resi-
dents, and passersby see every day.
Mustonen, a Finnish illustrator, graphic
designer, and animator, also painted the
shipping container that anchors the Ynot
Lot’s stage, which was the site of the
OWB2 closing party.
Mustonen’s participation in OWB2 was
supported in part by EUNIC, a grant by
the EU Delegation to the U.S., and the
Finnish Embassy to the U.S.

50
ESCIF
4 EAST NORTH AVENUE, FACING NORTH
Spanish artist Escif’s smiley face mural is painted
on the north-facing side of the former bank
building—the same one that sports ECF’s portrait
of a Korean businessman on the south-facing side.
With its sun-yellow color and the words “Looks much
better now!” painted across the top, this mural is
among OWB2’s most provocative.
Escif’s participation in OWB2 is supported in part
by the SPAIN arts & culture residency grant.

58
EL DECERTOR
2132 NORTH CALVERT STREET,
FACING SOUTH
Peruvian artist El Decer-
tor’s piece plays with the
eye. His mural faces a vacant
lot that stretches nearly an
entire block—in fact, it is
painted on the side of the
only remaining rowhouse.
(In an unexpected twist, his
large mural is replicated on
a much smaller scale on the
building to the rear of the
rowhouse.) The grassy expanse
will soon be redeveloped by
Telesis Corporation, a devel-
oper rebuilding the Barclay
neighborhood. In addition to
El Decertor’s mural, the lot
is home to a replica Easter
Island head, created by local
artist Sarah Doherty, who was
commissioned to create the
work by Station North Arts &
Entertainment, Inc.

62
LNY
326 FEDERAL STREET, FACING WEST
The mural by LNY, aka Lunar New Year, is painted on an
end-of-group rowhouse whose front bears signature
Baltimore formstone. Raised in both Ecuador and the
U.S., LNY illuminated this brick-paved alley in color
with his painting. Across the street is the recently
opened Baltimore Design School, a public middle
and high school that trains Baltimore City youth in
architecture, fashion design, and graphic design.

66
ERNEST SHAW JR.
401 EAST LAFAYETTE AVENUE,
FACING WEST
Baltimore artist Ernest Shaw
Jr. depicts three giants of
African-American history:
author James Baldwin, musi-
cian Nina Simone, and civil
rights activist Malcolm X. A
poignant quote from the home-
owner, J.C. Faulk, adorns the
lower-left hand corner of the
mural. This intersection of
Barclay and East Lafayette
streets now features three
murals, including work by Josh
Van Horne and Overunder.

70
JESSIE UNTERHALTER & KATEY TRUHN
309 EAST LAFAYETTE AVENUE, FACING EAST
Baltimoreans Jessie Unterhalter and
Katey Truhn have collaborated on murals,
sculptures, and installations since 2001.
They often take an unorthodox approach
to large-scale murals, extending their
pieces onto the street itself—in this
case, the narrow alley next to the
rowhouse on East Lafayette.

72
JESSIE
& KATEY

74
GAIA
2016 NORTH CHARLES STREET, FACING SOUTH
American artist Gaia, a Station North resident
and curator of both Open Walls Baltimore 1 and 2,
painted his multifaceted mural on the side of the
Seoul Rice Cake Factory, whose owner is the son of
the man painted by ECB at 4 East North Avenue. Gaia’s
mural features depictions of regular visitors to the
wall (a dog walker and taxi drivers), the University of
Baltimore’s Angelos Law Center, and a copy of Albert
Bierstadt’s 1865 painting Looking Down Yosemite
Valley, California, among other elements.

76
GAIA

78
NANOOK
2021 ST. PAUL STREET, FACING SOUTH
As befits a mural overlooking a community garden,
Nanook’s piece features flora and fauna—flowering
plants and a halo of bees around the head of a young
man. The mural, located along the north boundary of
the Charles North Cooperative Garden, blends into
the verdant green space. American artist Nanook
served as artistic coordinator for Open Walls 2.

82
D’METRIUS RICE
406 FEDERAL STREET, FACING WEST
Baltimore-based D’Metrius
“DJ” Rice’s mostly black-and-
white mural is close to the
new Baltimore Design School,
as well as several artist live/
work buildings: the Copycat,
the Cork Factory, and the
recently constructed City Arts.
Also nearby is Area 405, a
former factory that now houses
artist studios and exhibition/
performance space, and the
new Station North Tool Library.

84
D’METRIUS
RICE

90
BETSY CASAÑAS
1719 NORTH CALVERT STREET, FACING NORTH
The mural created by Philadelphia-based
artist Betsy Casañas honors women in
art. In her piece, painted on the side of
a rowhouse in a developing residential
area, Casañas features Philadelphia poet
and activist Ursula Rucker and her first
child, born more than 19 years ago.

94
OWBX

96
PLAY THE PLAZA
In partnership with the Baltimore Office
of Promotion and the Arts, the European
Union National Institutes for Culture
(EUNIC), the British Council, and ArtPlace
America, Station North Arts & Entertain-
ment, Inc., proudly presented Play the
Plaza, a six-week residency in Station
North in spring 2014 featuring the
Urban Playground Team (U.K.). Part of the
TRANSIT initiative, the UPG Team animated
Penn Station Plaza by inviting Station
North’s residents, visitors, and pass-
ersby to “play the plaza.” Play the Plaza
combines elements of functional architec-
ture and design with performance-parkour,
street dance, and street-based arts and
sporting disciplines, all led by the UPG
Team. This mass collaboration resulted in
a series of objects fabricated by Balti-
more artist Rachael London and Urban
Evolution Baltimore’s Adam McConnell
and free performances, workshops, and
events all aimed at transforming Penn
Station plaza from a place people move
through to a destination in its own right.
The UPG Team is Miranda Henderson,
Alister O’Loughlin, and Malik Diouf.

98
LIFE AFTER BORING (LAB) STUDIOS
Life After Boring (LAB) Studios is a resi-
dency for creative research, focusing on
post-studio practices, and is currently
located in an apartment building in
Baltimore. LAB fosters creative exchange
between Baltimore residents and visiting
artists and works with local galleries and
art spaces to provide exhibition opportu-
nities for visiting artists. LAB served as
the Baltimore residence for all of Open
Walls Baltimore 2’s visiting artists.

100
STOP TELLING WOMEN TO SMILE
Stop Telling Women to Smile is a public
art series that addresses gender-based
street harassment. The series consists
of large black and white wheatpaste
prints that feature drawings of local
women, created by Tatyana Fazlalizadeh,
a visual artist and native of Oklahoma
City, Oklahoma, now living in Brooklyn.
Below the drawings are captions that
speak directly to perpetrators of street
harassment, defined as unwanted, unwel-
comed, and often dangerous treatment of
women in public.

102
OWB2 CLOSING PARTY

106
On Friday evening in Station North, you could hear
the “Ha” from a few hundred feet away, at least. That
stop-start-and-drop vocal sample from Masters
of Work’s “The Ha Dance,” a song snippet that has
gone on to define vogue-house, yammered from the
Ynot Lot at the corner of Charles Street and North
Avenue. On the turntables was Jersey’s vogue ⁄ ball-
room producer MikeQ, here for “Dance to Keep From
Crying,” a free outdoor dance party that was part of
Open Walls Baltimore 2’s closing events, and spin-
ning for a growing-by-the-minute group of dead
serious voguers, twerk-minded punks, and plenty of
regular-ass people who just wandered over to check
out the origins of the cathartic commotion. A barrage
of manic, “Ha”-inflected Beyoncé remixes landing
somewhere between soulful house and industrial
noise will make people curious like that.
Organized by Alex Coleurs of Primary Colors Pres-
ents, as well as executive director of Station
North Arts & Entertainment District, Inc., Ben
Stone, program director Rebecca Chan, and Andrew
Pisacane, better known as the street artist Gaia, who
curated Open Walls 2, “Dance to Keep From Crying”
was expertly conceived: along with MikeQ, there was
92Q DJ and our city’s new club queen DJ Angelbaby,
Bmore club legend DJ Class, forthright rapper TT
the Artist, and New Orleans bounce hero and “queen
diva” Big Freedia. “Dance to Keep From Crying” was
an in-the-pocket collection of brash dance-oriented
STATION NORTH’S “DANCE TO KEEP FROM CRYING”:
PACKED, WELL-CURATED, TWERKY, AWESOME
BRANDON SODERBERG

109
artists from Baltimore and likeminded cities, and
that’s great. But there was a deeper vision behind
this edgy combination of artists. Combined, it led to
a living, breathing party music mix connecting the
sonic dots between Bmore club present (Angelbaby
and TT) and past (DJ Class) and revealing our home-
grown dance music’s similarities to vogue-house and
New Orleans bounce. In short, these are all populist
party musics birthed out of mid-tier cities’ limita-
tions and the creative spirit of the marginalized
people living there. And here it all was, unfettered.
And considering the protest from conversation-
starters Luminous Intervention, who in March
crucially declared Open Walls 2 a “Sausage Party”
due to this year’s artist lineup being almost entirely
male (of the 14 artists picked, only one is female), the
variety of performers chosen for “Dance to Keep From
Crying” and the multitude-filled crowd it brought
out was heartening: queer performers outnumbered
straight performers, and the ratio of women to men
was nearly equal. Gaia’s response to the criti-
cisms back in March was fairly reasonable, and the
diverse lineup of “Dance To Keep From Crying” is
proof that the critiques from Luminous Intervention
were taken into consideration. Separate from all
that very important context: wow, Big Freedia and
her MC-on-Adderall chanting over forever bucking
beats to close the night—holy shit, dude. These
are the kinds of shows where sometimes headliners
half-ass it, but Freedia performed for about an hour,
barely even taking a breath it seemed as she facili-
tated call-and-response chants while her dancers
shook to every hook (“I’ve got that gin in my system ⁄
Somebody’s gonna be my victim” remains a crowd-
pleaser); one dancer even climbed on top of the
trailer behind the Ynot Lot stage and acrobatically
bent down and danced, upping the spectacle’s stakes.

110
Other cities wish they had something like “Dance to
Keep From Crying.” When these sorts of bleeding-edge
free party things do swing through, say, New York, they
for the most part tend to be overcrowded with no-fun
media types that push to the front for photos and
reporting and kind of crush the spirit. Not so here.
Indeed, this had the feeling of an event like MoMA’s
increasingly legendary and somehow still enjoyable
PS1 Warm Up shows in the summer—you know, artfully
curated and open-minded and indefatigably fucking
cool without even trying very hard.
The night after “Dance to Keep From Crying,” Station
North’s Gold Bar had its last show. Apparently, some
other bar of some kind will occupy its space in the
Hyundai Plaza building. Maybe it will be cool; maybe
it won’t be. Either way, it won’t be run by the same
people who ran Gold Bar. The Hyundai Plaza building
sits right next to to the Ynot Lot and so, it was in
clear view all of Friday night, subtly reminding those
who cared of Gold Bar’s imminent demise, adding a
bittersweet quality to “Dance to Keep From Crying.”
One cool thing starts up at about the moment when
another cool thing is ending. We should all remember
then that a scene doesn’t live inside of a building
or space but in the people that show up and popu-
late that scene, whether that’s in a cool-as-fuck bar
on the second floor of a weird building going away
too soon or in a perfectly organized and executed
and city-sponsored (!!!) outdoor oddity like “Dance
to Keep From Crying.”
Originally published in City Paper, June 25, 2014.
This article has been reprinted by permission. It has
been edited and condensed from the original.

OPEN WALLS BALTIMORE 2OPEN WALLS BALTIMORE 2
WWW.STATIONNORTH.ORG
In spring 2014, Station North Arts &
Entertainment, Inc., presented Open Walls
Baltimore 2, an international festival
of site-specific street art, performance,
and installations in the Station North
Arts & Entertainment District. Building
on the success of 2012’s inaugural Open
Walls, more than 15 outstanding artists
from Baltimore, New York, Europe and
South America, selected by curator Gaia,
created large-scale murals throughout
Station North between March and June
2014. The mural sites were selected to
draw visitors across the district, to
produce artistic gateways to Station
North, and to challenge artists to tell
the story of legacy and revitalization
in this central Baltimore neighborhood,
which is experiencing renewed vibrancy
through the arts. In addition to murals,
OWB2 included a range of additional
programming under the banner Open Walls
Baltimore X, including Stop Telling Women
to Smile and Play the Plaza, a residency
by the Urban Playground Group, a British
performance-parkour team who animated
Penn Station plaza with free perfor-
mances and workshops.

SNAE_OWB2catalog_reducedfilesize

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