Catch the love at the Creative Alliance in Baltimore, Thursday, August 23, 2012.
Bonnie Schupp has been
recognized for her work by Kodak, Women in Photography International, the
Kinsey Institute, among others. She has shown one-woman exhibits in the
Baltimore-Washington area, and her photos and articles have appeared in
publications including Petersen’s Photographic, Darkroom Photography, the
Baltimore Sun newspapers, the Baltimore Business Journal and the Photographic
Society of America.The Love Effect is a play on the concept
of The Butterfly Effect where a small change in one place can result in
changes elsewhere, a concept that is at the heart of the Baltimore Love
Project. http://bonnieschupp.com
Learn more about the Baltimore Love Project and see photos of the walls completed so far:
Lyrics: ♥ [chorus]
Who's gonna be my Valentine? Who's gonna watch my beauty shine?
I'll shine right through your walls of steel.
I'll shine until I make you feel a little more than a moment in time.
Who's gonna be my Valentine?
♥ [verse]
Who's gonna get me through this night?
Who's gonna kiss and hold me tight?
Young lovers are watching the same moon as I.
As stars will fall my wishes rise!
♥ [verse]
Someone is smiling as I sing this song.
Are they wishing and hoping and singing along?
Are they walking a tightrope up on a high wire?
Are they looking like me and stoking the fire?
♥ [repeat chorus]
♥ [verse]
Is there anybody out there? Pick up the phone.
Call on my neighbor. Tell them I'm home.
Tell them I love them and I wish them kind.
I'm searching the cosmos for my Valentine!
A guest at Innovate Love this past Saturday night studies "The Romancing of Malcolm Chang's Love (by handsome fox hunter)"
by Iowa artist Van Holmgren.
What is Innovate Love? Curious? Read Ibrahim Dabo's blog.
If you are a lover... especially an art lover... you might want to check out the first annual Innovate Love art auction to benefit Innovate Baltimore and the Baltimore Love Project.
It will be held May 22 in the penthouse of Silo Point 7 - 11 p.m. Experience original art from the U.S. and beyond, music by DJ Terry Thompson, appetizers from Chef Frederick "Mookie" Hicks, entertainment by Super Art Fight and more.
Can love murals in an urban environment make a difference? They say that what we eat is what we are. Does what we see also affect who we are?
There is evidence that what our eyes take in does affect us. Cognitive and affective studies demonstrate how colors affect us. Green is supposed to be calming. There are court cases that have addressed the influence of video games on the human psyche. Advertisers seem to believe/hope that what we see will influence our actions and we'll buy their product. The movie rating system seems to back this up too when children are banned from R and X-rated films.
I know from personal experience that looking at the work of other photographers affects how I see things. Have you ever seen Edward Weston's still life of a pepper? After seeing this photograph, I never saw a pepper--or food for that matter-- in the same way again. I'm always aware of the role light and shadow play in our perception and sometimes, thanks to Weston, I see body parts in fruit and vegetables.
The Family of Man photography exhibit, curated by Edward Steichen, also changed the way I see. At one time I thought of people in other countries as exotic and different from me. After seeing this collection, I began to realize that we are more alike than different.
So, the question is... will Michael Owens's love paintings make a difference in Baltimore? I don't think it will change crime and drug statistics. However, it will probably change the way people see a particular space. Or the way people see possibilities such as how we can make love with our hands. (Oops! That didn't come out right but you get the idea.)
Hands and how we use them are important. Gandhi reminded us that you can't shake hands with a clenched fist.
I'm a believer in the bottom-up approach. For instance, we're far from attaining world peace. Our leaders have failed miserably. Why? Because in order to make change on a grand scale, it must first begin in a small way. "Let peace begin and let it begin with me."
Servas, an international peace organization understands the potential of building peace from the bottom-up. As Servas hosts, my husband David and I open our home to visitors from around the world. And as Servas travelers, we stay in other hosts' homes. We begin as strangers and, after two days, say goodbye to new friends. The Servas site reminds us of how small things build: "With every true friendship, we build the basis for world peace."
Back to the Baltimore question and love murals...
In the past, Baltimore has tried slogan campaigns that didn't work. Remember "Believe" and "Baltimore, the city that reads"? These were top-down projects. The Baltimore Love Project is different. It is from the bottom-up, beginning with one artist's vision.
The cynics are right though. These love walls won't change the statistics that adults love to quote. The Little Prince understood the problem with statistics:
"Grown-ups like numbers. When you tell them about a new friend, they never ask questions about what really matters. They never ask: 'What does his voice sound like? What games does he like best? Does he collect butterflies?' They ask: 'How old is he? How many brothers does he have? How much does he weigh? How much money does his father make?' Only then do they think they know him."
Although the murals may not change numbers, the love walls might remind us that we can use our hands to spell love instead of throwing rocks or giving Rockefellers. They might make us see a space in a new way so we understand that an ordinary space can become something special. We might want to take our pictures in front of a love wall and share that picture with others, spreading the love even more.
Maybe we will begin to think about a word that has been missing in our conversations, actions and hearts lately.
If the love walls change what we see or feel, even for just a few seconds, then it's worth it because big things always start out small. Maybe it's time we feast our eyes on something positive. Afterall, we are what we eat.
They've done it again! Artist Michael Owen with friends Scott Burkholder and Jae Jin have spread a little more love around Baltimore. Read about the Baltimore Love Project in my earlier blog post.
Immediately after the mural was completed last night, a Kurdish family from Iraq posed in front of the love wall.
This newest mural can be seen at 3429 Eastern Avenue in Highlandtown on a wall of Mirza Yalcin's property. A generous donation from Highlandtown visionary and developer Joseph Schultz of Schultz Development provided the funding.
Optimism and idealism are not dead. More love is coming.
Can love change the world? Most people might say yes. But can art change the world? And can a graphic painting with a love message on walls change the world? Michael Owen and Scott Burkholder believe it can...at least in a small way.
It’s a simple concept.
Artist Michael Owen has designed a graphic of hands spelling out the word “love.” The plan is to paint this on walls in communities around Baltimore City and to connect people through these love-themed murals.
The design is already in two places: Mount Washington Arboretum and Carroll Park/ Gwynns Falls Trail. The project needs funding for 18 more love murals in Baltimore that will be identical but range in size depending on the space.
The Love People
I originally met Scott Burkholder at Watermark Gallery and learned that he is working with Michael on networking and fund raising for the Baltimore Love Project. In an age of youthful cynicism, I was fascinated by their idealism.
The two men originally connected through painting of a different kind. After graduating from MICA (Maryland Institute College of Art), Michael worked for Scott in his interior painting business. Besides making money painting walls of houses, schools and businesses—in solid colors—Michael hoped he would gain some mural clients. However, it proved useful in another way. “My biggest gain was learning how to most efficiently cover a large wall. It was like my Jedi training,” says Owen. You can see some of Michael’s murals at his web site.
The friends kept in touch and later, when Michael told Scott about his vision of the Baltimore Love Project, Scott became involved from a business angle.
Scott says, “The Baltimore Love Project was the perfect opportunity for us to unite, Michael in a creative role and me in a business role. Our skill sets and personalities match well. Because we know each other’s strengths and weaknesses, we are able to execute quite proficiently.”
Why?
It’s not making them money so why are they doing it?
For Scott, it’s about relationships. “I am involved with this project because relationships are something that I value highly, and love is critical to successfully experience relationships. I am involved because we don’t necessary want to change the world, only to inspire it in small ways."
It’s also about using his business skills. “The project brings me joy as it fulfills my desire to use my skills in a significant and meaningful way. Over time I have realized that I enjoy entrepreneurship and business. I like analysis, I like strategic development, I like to build relationships and I like innovation. This project allows me to do all that, and all for a good cause—promoting love through art.”
Michael admits that he had “no divine moment I recall where the image from The Baltimore Love Project came to me.” He wanted to incorporate his more personal studio themes into public murals. “Then I began to see the possible repercussions this project might have on others. What if some guy saw a love wall on the way home from work? What if he smiled a bit and decided to pick up some flowers for his girlfriend? What if a mom saw one when pushing her kid home in a stroller? What if she didn't hit the child for that one night? These are small acts of love that can be inspired by these murals. Last week the project flashed through my mind when arguing with my own wife. I can't say it resolved the issue, but I did feel more compassion for her. To me, these incidents of love mark the success of the Baltimore Love Project.”
Neither of the friends is native to Baltimore, but they both want to create something positive in the city that they’ve grown to like. Scott came to Baltimore as an engineering student at the Johns Hopkins University in 1998 and when he graduated, he remained in Baltimore as a lab technician at Hopkins. Recognizing the lack of relationships in science, he started a painting business as a transition to whatever lies in his future role of promoting art. He likes the people and diversity in Baltimore and sees it as a place to discover and get to know many more people. “I have only begun my Baltimore adventure,” he says.
Michael, too, came to Baltimore as a student-- at MICA in 2000. At first he didn’t like the area and felt disconnected but an assignment in one of his classes drew him out to other areas and he began to see the city in a new way. Michael explains, “Marcel Proust said that ‘the real voyage of discovery is not in seeing new landscapes, but in seeing with new eyes’. Baltimore is not palm trees and dolphins kissing as they jump toward the sunset, [Michael is from Orlando] but I latched onto a brokenness in the city that resounded in myself and from there into my art. Peel back the makeup and ego, it is in us all.”
Edward Steichen's curated exhibit and book, The Family of Man, made me change forever how I looked at our world and the people in it.
Simon Schama, author and speaker, says, “The power of the greatest art is the power to shake us into revelation and rip us from our default mode of seeing. After an encounter with that force, we don't look at a face, a color, a sky, a body, in quite the same way again. We get fitted with new sight: in-sight. Visions of beauty or a rush of intense pleasure are part of that process, but so too may be shock, pain, desire, pity, even revulsion. That kind of art seems to have rewired our senses. We apprehend the world differently.”
Remember the iconic newspaper photograph that Nick Ut (AP) took in 1972 of Phan Thị Kim Phúc at age nine running naked through the streets after being severely burned by a napalm attack? Or the photo taken by Eddie Adams (AP) in 1968 of General Nguyễn Ngọc Loan executing a Viet Cong soldier? These two photos would become become two of the most famous images in journalism that would change the American public's views on the Vietnam War. Images can change the world.
There are other projects going on that seek to connect people through public art. One is the Dialogue Project which brings to cities installations consisting of ten, 7x8-foot free-standing screens covered with thousands of inspiring and insightful quotations from people throughout history.
Again, the question, can art change the world or change a community? Does public art have power? Can two young men with a vision make a difference? If you believe in possibilities and would like to help, you can purchase a T-shirt with the love logo. Proceeds will go to help the project.
The strange power of art is sometimes it can show that what people have in common is more urgent than what differentiates them. ~ John Berger, author/art critic
Bonnie J. Schupp (1944-2021) was raised in Baltimore and graduated from old Eastern High School in Feb. 1963. She earned a bachelor's degree from Frostburg State College, her master's from Johns Hopkins University, and, at age 60, a doctorate in communications design from the University of Baltimore. She was over the years a public school teacher, camera store owner, writer and award-winning photographer, and mother of two daughters,. She self-published half a dozen books combining her writing and photographs, notable among them "Dog Tag Poetry" (2012, Blurb Books), "365 Gifts on Turning 70" (2016, Amazon), and, posthumously, her memoir "Curious Possibilities" (2021, Amazon) edited by her husband, David M. Ettlin.
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