This page provides information about the organizations that are dedicated to helping artists be successful at doing what they love and the places where the arts are most vibrant. Click on the links to learn more.
Arts and Entertainment Districts
Annapolis Arts and Entertainment District
With regular live music, street festivals, concerts and stage performances, gallery walks and lectures, downtown Annapolis offers a full spectrum of sights, sounds and flavor for everyone.
Bromo Tower Arts and Entertainment District
Located in the heart of Downtown between Read, Park, Lombard, and Paca Streets, the Bromo Tower Arts & Entertainment District unites the city’s Downtown arts community. Its visual and performing arts venues include the Arena Players, the Bromo Seltzer Arts Tower, Everyman Theatre, and the France Merrick Performing Arts Center at The Hippodrome along with local independent artists collectives Current Gallery, EMP Collective, the H&H Building (Gallery Four, the Whole Gallery, Nudashank) and Sub-basement Studios among many other arts assets. The Tower A&E District is easily accessed by public transportation and is located in close proximity to the city’s main sports venues, the Convention Center, the many residences, hotels, and offices Downtown, and the Inner Harbor.
Havre de Grace, already a popular destination for its small town waterfront atmosphere, has several art galleries, numerous specialty shops and antique stores, a thriving local artists community, a quality group of local eateries, annual arts festivals, and a diverse architectural heritage with historical significance. Main Street’s goals for the Arts & Entertainment District are to encourage arts development while maintaining that small town charm and build the city into a major cultural destination of the Upper Chesapeake region.
Highlandtown Arts and Entertainment District
Ha! is home of a Creative Alliance at The Patterson, galleries, artist studios, and retail shops with a variety of activities happening year around including the Salsapolkalooza, the Great Halloween Lantern Parade, the Highlandtown Farmer’s Market and Artket, Annual Studio Tours, Sculpture in the Park, the Highlandtown Wine Festival, and the Highlandtown Basement Bar Tour.
Station North Arts and Entertainment District
Located in the heart of Baltimore, this was the first area in the city to receive the state designation as an arts and entertainment district. Spanning the communities of Charles North, Greenmount West and Barclay, Station North is a diverse collection of artist live-work spaces, galleries, rowhomes and businesses – all just steps away from Penn Station and Mount Vernon.
Advocacy and Support Organizations
Maryland Citizens for the Arts
Maryland Citizens for the Arts (MCA) is a statewide arts advocacy organization, founded in 1977 to represent all Maryland artists and arts organizations of all disciplines. MCA works to increase public recognition and support of the Arts and the role they play in the quality of life and economic vitality of Maryland. MCA achieves this goal by advocating for the arts across the state and by promoting adequate public funding at the local, state and federal levels.
With a celebrated record of commitment to innovation, collaboration and leadership in the arts reaching back four decades, the Arts Council was founded to encourage and invest in the arts for all Marylanders.
The Creative Alliance builds communities by bringing together artists and audiences from diverse backgrounds to experience spectacular arts programs and engage in the creative process. They provide support to area artists, promote Baltimore as a center for creative production, act as a positive force in our community, and advocate for cultural expression rooted in a sense of place.
Maryland Lawyers for the Arts, Inc. is a nonprofit organization that provides lawyer referral services and pro bono legal assistance to income-eligible artists and arts organizations. In addition, MLA presents educational workshops and seminars that focus on the legal aspects of arts related issues such as copyright, contracts, and entity formation, including nonprofit, tax-exempt corporations.
Fractured Atlas is a non-profit organization that serves a national community of artists and arts organizations. Its programs and services facilitate the creation of art by offering vital support to the artists who produce it. Fractured Atlas helps artists and arts organizations function more effectively as businesses by providing access to funding, healthcare, education, and more, all in a context that honors their individuality and independent spirit.
Creative Capital is a national nonprofit organization that provides integrated financial and advisory support to artists pursuing adventurous projects in all disciplines. Our pioneering approach combines funding, counsel and career development services to enable a project’s success and foster sustainable practices for our grantees.
Since it’s inception in 1998, Fusion has facilitated numerous educational and community workshops. Bridge Experience programs and events help create bridges of understanding across diverse perspectives to develop organizational capacity and individual competency in addressing diversity, racism and related social justice issues. Fusion has also served as facilitator for a number of collaborative initiatives.
Leveraging Investments in Creativity (LINC)
Leveraging Investments in Creativity is a 10-year initiative to improve artists’ ability to make work, build social capital and contribute to democratic values. LINC builds on recent research by the Urban Institute that identifies more than 5,000 programs and services for artists but points to the need for new efforts that:
- Expand financial supports for artists’ work;
- Improve artists’ access to essential material supports such as live-work space and insurance; and
- Bolster knowledge, collaborations, and public policies that affect the work of artists and their contributions to communities.
The Artists’ Health Insurance Resource Center
AHIRC.org is an up-to-date, comprehensive and unbiased database of health care resources for artists, performers, freelancers and the self-employed. The health care reform legislation passed by Congress will finally make health insurance available and affordable for the American artist. As the changes begin, AHIRC is here to guide you through the legislation and how it will affect the visual and performing arts and entertainment communities. Our mission is insure every artist in the United States by 2014.
Springboard for the Arts is an economic and community development organization for artists and by artists. Our work is about building stronger communities, neighborhoods, and economies, and we believe that artists are an important leverage point in that work. Springboard for the Arts’ mission is to cultivate vibrant communities by connecting artists with the skills, information, and services they need to make a living and a life.
Art on Purpose is dedicated to the notion that art has an intrinsic value that is best revealed when it connects and engages with real life concerns and is, at the same time, presented professionally. They view artists’ expressions and community interests as equally important, and believe each can enhance the other through innovative and informative art workshops and exhibitions. Art on Purpose provides an educational, guided process, so that individuals and groups whose concerns really need to be seen, and should be heard, will be understood through a high-level of artistic presentation.
Baltimore Clayworks is a non-profit ceramic art center that exists to develop, sustain, and promote an artist-centered community that provides outstanding artistic, educational, and collaborative programs in ceramic arts.
Baltimore Songwriters’ Association
The Baltimore Songwriters Association is a 501 (c) 3 nonprofit corporation formed for charitable and educational purposes, including but not limited to: developing and promoting songwriting in all genres, providing educational opportunities and serving as a center for the exchange of information between songwriters, publishers and persons involved in music throughout the greater community.
CityLit Project nurtures the culture of literature in Baltimore and throughout Maryland. CityLit creates enthusiasm for literary arts, connects a community of avid readers and writers, and opens opportunities for young people and diverse audiences to embrace the literary arts.
Megaphone Project amplifies the voices of under-served communities and those who advocate for them in order to increase political access, inspire action and create social change. We accomplish this through message development, media production, and targeted media distribution.
Women in Film and Video of Maryland, Inc. is an all-volunteer, 501-(c)(3) non-profit organization dedicated to educating, mentoring, and promoting individuals in radio, film/video, television, multimedia and related disciplines.
Arts Education in Maryland Schools Alliance
AEMS facilitates improving the quality of, and access to, arts education for all Maryland public school students through an array of interrelated strategies including supporting arts education policy and advocacy efforts, developing partnerships with schools and school systems, disseminating information, convening the fields of arts and education, organizing focused task forces, offering professional development for teachers and artists, providing technical assistance through research and evaluation tools, and hosting recognition programs.
County Arts Councils
Baltimore City, Office of Promotion & The Arts
The Baltimore Office of Promotion & The Arts, a 501 (c) 3 non-profit organization, tasked with producing events and arts programs as well as managing several facilities.
BOPA coordinates Baltimore’s major events including New Year’s Eve and July 4th celebrations at the Inner Harbor, which routinely attract hundreds of thousands of spectators; Artscape, which serves more than 350,000 people each year; Baltimore Book Festival, Baltimore Farmers’ Market & Bazaar, Baltimore Open Studio Tour and the Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. Parade.
Baltimore County Commission On Arts & Sciences
Baltimore County’s arts and sciences grant program is designed to ignite creativity in the region’s cultural organizations, encourage public participation, extend outreach to students and diverse populations, and provide the citizens of Baltimore County with a range of offerings that reflect the diversity of the County’s cultural heritage.
Harford County Cultural Arts Board
The Harford County Cultural Arts Board is a government-appointed public commission and, in fact, a direct extension of the Harford County Council.
