Open Works is turning five years old!!! That’s right, we first opened our doors in the fall of 2016, which means for the past five years we’ve been making and building this community along with all of you. We were looking forward to pulling out all the stops and throwing y’all a big ole party to celebrate everything you’ve helped us build over the past five years, but like someone checking out a suspicious sound in a slasher film or a red shirt beaming down for an away mission, those hopes were met with a disappointing and now all-too-predicable fate. Are we disappointed? Of course, but we’re makers dagnabbit! Artists, entrepreneurs, designers, we’re creative problem solvers.  We may not be able to throw the party of our dreams, but we can program a variety of events that celebrate our community and highlight cool new features here at Open Works.

Starting with outdoor music on our patio, recently spruced up (cedared up?) with some new seating and a custom patio shade. We’ll be hosting Charm City Porch Concerts featuring trumpeter Brandon Woody on Wednesday, September 29, from 7–8pm.

There will also be a pop-up market on October 2, stay tuned for more info.

We love to see our members work. We also love to SEE our members’ work, so when we heard that one of our members was collaborating with one of our longtime community partners for a mural in the neighborhood, we got really excited.

If you haven’t yet, check out the latest mural from artist and Open Works member Dominique Hellgath of Greenmount Tile that now graces the north wall of the Greenmount West Community Center. Joyous depictions of play and an encouraging reminder to “think, say, do something good” endow the work with a delightfully infectious positivity that will linger in the corner of your smile for the rest of the day. It isn’t just vibrant colors and energy that make this work so special. Dominique, along with Chris Johnson, GWCC’s Art Supervisor and a whole host of others have been working for nearly two years to ensure that community was baked into all of its 280 tiles.

After receiving a Community Spruce-Up Grant from the Central Baltimore Partnership in 2019, Dominique worked with the GWCC to lead workshops where neighborhood children could engage in the design process for the mural. In fact, the silhouettes featured in the mural come from a session where children demonstrated how they play and interact with the GWCC. They also explored skills involved in creating works of art like this with workshops on topics including using software as a design tool and a hands-on demonstration of how tiles are fabricated.

It’s interesting to see how artists like Dominique use the cutting-edge digital fabrication tools found here at Open Works to bring new possibilities to age-old practices like tile making. She used our 3D modeling software and 3D printers to prototype tiles, which help to layout the complicated pattern for this mural (based on a type 15 irregular polygon) and as perfect models to create tile molds. She also had to develop some new techniques to ensure such a large work, with so many custom elements, came out just as it had been envisioned, like using precise vinyl cuts to help keep designs lined up across hundreds of tiles as each one was glazed upwards of 12 times.

If you like this mural, check out more of what Greenmount Tile has to offer. Featuring custom tile in your home is a unique way to engage with art in your living space.

Photos of the mural and process by Vivian Marie Doering.

Open Works will be closed Thursday, September 16 for all-staff training on CPR, AEDs, first aid, and blood-borne pathogens.

Square wooden storage lockers are now available to members for $25/mo. Contact the front desk if you’re interested, they won’t last long!!!

Link Soup

+ Applications now open for the Social Innovation Lab’s 2021-2022 cohort.

+ Greenmount West Playground Working Group first meeting on 9/15.

+ Startup Grind welcome back party and startup showcase, 9/28.

+ Hood College is seeking a gallery director/adjunct instructor.

+ Gutierrez Memorial Fund’s Legacy Grant application is now open.

+ What Baltimore’s highest salary earners say about the city’s future, article by Donte Kirby.