Arkia Wade of Baltimore County Arts Guild tells Nestor about Arts and Drafts in Halethorpe
SUMMARY KEYWORDS
baltimore county, arts, festival, guinness, art, artists, wife, music, maryland, pineapple, event, baltimore, guild, town, space, county, jewelry, mention, volunteer, beer
SPEAKERS
Arkia Wade, Nestor J. Aparicio
Nestor J. Aparicio 00:01
Welcome home, we are wn st, Towson, Baltimore, Baltimore positive, we are positive to get the Maryland crabcake tour out on the road all month long. This will be a fun segue because we’re gonna be talking about a fun event happening a little later on in the month. Before we get there. We’re gonna get state fair on Thursday, the sixth of the month on the 16th. We’re going to be Coco’s pub on the 20th at Costas and the 25th at Pappas in Parkville. It’s all brought to you by our friends at the Maryland lottery. I love scratch offs to give away I think I’m running low on the PAC man’s, we’re going to have those lucky sevens coming our way, beginning a little later on in the month and our friends at Liberty, pure solutions, keeping our water crystal clear around here, and Jiffy Lube, multi care powering up our Maryland crab cake tour. There’s all sorts of things going on events happening. We are a Baltimore County radio station, we always say Baltimore, Towson Baltimore. And everybody knows I like to do cool Baltimore County thing. So when I heard that the Baltimore County Arts guild, of which I’m not as familiar as I should be, oh, they have a really cool little too can hear wearing a purple two cam with a sort of a Maryland flag thing going on here. I’ll send folks out to arts and crafts festival.org. It’s happening over Guinness, they opened a brewery on the southwest side of town on June 22 and 23rd. She is the president of the Baltimore County Arts guild them better learn about that. We welcome archaea. Wade onto the program and a guest on one of our friendship. Karen Sehgal brought her report because she knows I like first things. First, I hear drafts and I hear beer and I hear Guinness I like yes, yes. And more. And summer. Yes. So I’m already all I need is a little bit of weather. And you can even move indoor over there. So first things first, welcome on you a nice little festival you’re planning this month? Yes,
Arkia Wade 01:48
we do. And thank you so much for having me on today. We are excited to present our fourth annual arts and dress festival, music and arts. And like you said it’s at Guinness on June 22. And June 23. This is our fourth time doing this. We have more than 7000 people that have showed up in the past to this two day festival, where guests can view and purchase unique art pieces from more than 40 top and diverse artist. So and also have some beer and food while they’re there. Yeah,
Nestor J. Aparicio 02:31
I’m looking at the pictures here. And you know, my wife and I during COVID Because it was such an outdoor space went over there with Mastodon this is when we’re outside, ordering beer with masks on outside and pretzels and doughnuts and all the cool food truck stuff they had because you couldn’t go inside except maybe to pee at the time. Like literally if we remember those tough times. And it’s such a wide big space there. And from the pictures I’m seeing up on your website, tents, you know, little vendors, local people, this is kind of an interesting little, I would say street festival, you’ve moved into a really unique space. This was like a lot of fun. It is
Arkia Wade 03:13
a lot of fun. And this is an event for everyone you know, for all ages, we do. If you do bring children to the event, we just make sure that they are accompanied by an adult. Because of course, Guinness is a facility that does serve alcohol. So children are welcome. But they must be accompanied by a doubt. But we’ll have lots of activities. Outside of you know, the artists that are going to be there, there’ll be some they can explore the Guinness history inside the building. There’ll be some magnets and hands on art activities will. Last year we did this wing project where participants of the festival had an opportunity to share an art we had big wings and you could put your fingerprint on them. And we’re going to have that again. There’ll be lawn games. Guinness has produced two specialty beers just created for the festival, a blueberry lime ale and our hermana ks. So
Nestor J. Aparicio 04:27
we climb ale I got called for that. That’s right, blueberry in it, you know?
Arkia Wade 04:34
Yep. Yep, a blueberry puree. So it’s going to be a great time. The festival hours are on June 22. on that Saturday from 11 to seven. And on that Sunday, June 23 from 11 to five. So, yes, it’s going to be a great, great time. We have again, it’s no cost to festival goers but we do encourage you to come and spend money to support the artists that are going to be there. There’s a wide range of artists specializing in glass, acrylic, watercolor painting, photography, pottery, mixed media, jewelry, sculpture, woodwork.
Nestor J. Aparicio 05:18
I gotta tell you, this plays right into my wife’s hand, but so my wife broke her ankle this week. So she does not a lot. She’s going to be able to do like this. But she keeps threatening Lennar Raskin, one of our great sponsors has offered her a wheelie, his wheelie, she can really around. So this a couple of weeks from now, as I’m taping this, she might by the end of the month, begin a little bit better that she can do stuff. So I’m gonna go through this list again, here, jewelry, which my wife loves making jewelry, her sister all that pottery and I always think like ghosts, when I think of pottery, you know, with like, the spinning thing, which looks like a lot of fun. And it looks really hard to do. Woodworking not my thing. But my wife’s like Schneider around here with the hammer and but the glassblowing thing, this is where it gets interesting, because you think like, kids may be seeing this. And then there’s like big kids where my wife went to Hawaii last year. And all she wanted to do was go to this glassblowing thing, she could do that here, but you want to do on a vacation, and she did this big fish thing. And I found it to be like, further education. My wife’s in her 50s Now, but she likes learning new things and seeing new things. And I think for any of these vendors that are they’re having this skill, being able to talk to other artists. It’s just something it’s, it’s up my wife’s alley, I’ll be honest with you.
Arkia Wade 06:30
Yeah, I mean, I think that’s one of the great things about the festival, talking to the actual artists who are doing the work finding out what inspires them to do their art, and, you know, a real sense of community. And I do want to mention that we you know, we’re going to have our upper we’re also going to have some you know, live music so I don’t want to forget about that.
Nestor J. Aparicio 06:50
I know the pineapple band guy so I gotta give them some love right off the bat. I’ve never seen them play. I know those cats from over Nacho Mama’s, so this might be another opportunity to see the pineapple band for me.
Arkia Wade 07:02
Great. Well, we we have you know, different genres of music. Again, like I said, this event caters to everyone. We have some jazz from the Kevin Howard band, we’re going to have some reggae and so from the Brian Cunningham project, we’re going to have some Irish dance tunes from the pilgrims of deep runs. And you know, as you mentioned, the pineapple banned and skies and chaos will be there as well. So
Nestor J. Aparicio 07:28
hold on here I’m looking at you know, I You got me clicking all over this website, arts and drafts festival.org It’s Baltimore County thing or two Summer Music and Arts Festival. My wife and I always love going to art skate live downtown. This isn’t like a little mini thing. It’s over to Guinness open gate brewery. But I’ve already clicked through here to see that my pineapple guys are playing Five until seven on the Saturday night. So that’s like a little bit, you know, a little bit early. If you’re going out a little bit late. If you’ve been there all day, certainly a happy hour thing at the end of the day on Saturday to get over there. Kevin Howard bands playing early. The dual Jazel jazz brunch, 11 one, then Sunday skies and chaos. I don’t know those cats but fresh beer. That’s and I hope you get impeccable with your plan this third weekend of June. No, it’s like the probably the best weekend of the year. Right for weather. Right?
Arkia Wade 08:21
Well, we have so we’ve been very fortunate in the past three years to have great weather. You know, with Baltimore, Maryland weather you can never tell. But we’ve been fortunate to have good weather and if it’s a little bit of sprinkling, I mean we can take that. But this is a rain or shine event. So we are praying for wonderful weather in Baltimore for this festival.
Nestor J. Aparicio 08:46
I can’t wait. She’s president of Baltimore County Arts guild. Alright, so look, we sold the beer. We sold the music. We sold the arts and all that. Give me the lowdown. I don’t know enough about the Baltimore County Arts Guild and what you do. I tried to get on the Dundalk guy, right? I own a Towson radio station. You know, I I rub elbows all the way around, including the missing Key Bridge around the beltway. Through all of this. Yeah. Tell me about the Baltimore County art school because I want to talk more about that.
Arkia Wade 09:18
Well, I’m actually live in Dundalk as well. So I’m very familiar with the Dundalk area. To
Nestor J. Aparicio 09:24
Costas with us on the 28th. Let’s go. Let’s go get some soup. Let’s do it.
Arkia Wade 09:31
But the Baltimore County Arts guild was actually established in 2012. We are registered 501 C three nonprofit based in Catonsville, Maryland. So not too far down the road here.
Nestor J. Aparicio 09:42
That’s the music capital of Baltimore County. That’s where from my understanding on the state fair on Thursday, so I gotta plug that
Arkia Wade 09:49
Yes, right. Music City, Maryland. That’s right. But we’re dedicated to fostering all aspects of the arts for all citizens of Baltimore County. We want To build an exclusive community by connecting diverse groups of artists and residents of Baltimore County, and I don’t know if you know this, but Catonsville is the first arts and entertainment district in Baltimore County and is the only one and Baltimore counties. So
Nestor J. Aparicio 10:18
we launched recently and you know, I’ve talked over there about the music, the record store over there. I was over there, like, on 420, which is like a cannabis day, but it’s also apparently like a music day, there was a line down the street to get vinyl. I’m old I had vinyl back in the day. So when you see people lined up to get vinyl, there’s a big music store. Stay fair puts the 10 out in the summer, they got music, they’re going on all the time. I’m up at the Beaumont get a steak. I do know it’s the music, but I want to like shout that louder that it’s the music capital of Baltimore County. And you know, and that’s a rival Dundalk thing. We have our we have heritage fair going on the week after your little Soiree. So we we get ours in, we got to get the lead out. And I’ll do that for bro heart and all that. But I’m from the East side to the west side, we got to go. I mean, tassa town festival was going on with great things. I saw Nancy in Las Vegas, go to Baltimore County’s got a beautiful thing going on here. We should write more about it. Yes.
Arkia Wade 11:13
And you know, like I said, we are the first arts and entertainment district in the county and the Baltimore County Arts guild manages that entity and we support artists. From all over the county, we have two locations, we have a gallery space where we have about 10 resident artists that are able to we are able to provide affordable studio space for them to work on their art. And we also do exhibits in that space, public art installations and other programming. And then we have another space. The called the Catonsville clubhouse, where we do a lot of programming. We have vendor markets, and all types of programming for all genres of art. So yeah, please come visit us at the Baltimore County Arts guild for a diverse set of programming and activities to do and we invite everybody in the county to come. All right, and
Nestor J. Aparicio 12:19
I haven’t heard you say the word our beauty. So I gotta give our viewers some love. Because I just went I went out here, you know, it’s all kittens bouquets. And over on that side of town, they get a little sensitive about that. It’s like when I was sitting in, I was sitting in Costas, literally my wife’s at Casket or foot up. There was a very excited young lady from Ocean City ordering some delicious chocolate martinis, and we were like talking and she told me her boyfriend and she approached me. And she said, Are we in Essex? And I’m like, weren’t on doc. All right, so that whole Catonsville Arbutus thing we get into that over there, not to mention Hale Thorpe and Paradise and Lord knows Woodlawn are can’t wait to see her. She’s the president of the Baltimore County Arts Club. How can folks out what other things do you do around the year that folks could be involved in? This is sort of your Super Bowl, right?
Arkia Wade 13:05
Yeah, um, arts and crafts is, you know, one of our signature events, big, big productions that we do. People if you if people want to volunteer for arts and crafts, there is still time available to do that. If you go onto our website, art synth, drafts.org, Baltimore County Arts guild, you can find our information, to volunteer, there’s a form that you can submit to be a volunteer at the festival. And that, you know, could entail you know, helping load in artists load out artists help during the festivities, and you get a t shirt and you get lunch provided if you’re a volunteer and you get a close up of you know, all the activities. So if you’re into volunteering, you know, please come out there’s still time available to sign up to be a volunteer. I didn’t mention that. I think I did mention that this there’s no cost for festival goers for the festival. But I wanted to mention that we couldn’t do this out with couldn’t do this without our supporters. Baltimore County is a big supporter of arts and crafts and has been for the last four years. But we have other sponsors that are include the Baltimore Museum of Art, the Patapsco heritage Greenway, Charles Town retirement, Universal Windows direct and the bath authority shore United Bank, which is in our Butis and is one of the locations where we have our artists base on top of the bank, and then the lobster Family Community Foundation. And again, you know, we couldn’t do this event without Guinness open gate brewery for opening their doors to help us do this fantastic event. Oh,
Nestor J. Aparicio 14:52
get that on the calendar June 22 23rd. It’s not even going to conflict with me going out with my buddy ace and shaking My tale and singing some alarm songs. I’ll be doing that at the Emerald Tavern on the 22nd with a cultivator but that happens later in the night. This is earlier in the day, come on out to Guinness, if my wife if I can crush her up, and we’ll are in this is and the weather’s extraordinary and I’m hoping for that for you and the pineapple ban will get everybody out to the Guinness open gate and listen anytime in the future. I’m up on your website here man. This is like give a little give me some digits here on the actual website for BC arts guild.org It’s all sorts of really cool looking like wall art and pictures and stuff that’s going on right here in our community right here in Baltimore County. open mic nights jewelry things and Carl Filipiak is jazz quartet. You gotta love that Celtic music and I even see meditation going on here’s African drumming stuffs happening so go to BC arts guild.org And if you want to know more about the actual festival itself, it’s called arts and crafts festival.org a pleasure to know you archaea. And you know, I appreciate you doing good things here and representing Dundalk the right way more than anything else. I don’t I don’t let anybody in Essex or beauties talk bad about Dundalk. So, we know that only Avila. I said only I’m allowed to talk bad about my people. I appreciate you appreciate everybody out there supporting our Maryland crabcake tour as well where my pappy shirt will be at Pappas in Parkville. Also Baltimore County on the 25th let’s see we’re going to be on the 20 we’re going to be cost assessed Baltimore County 16th. We’re going to be at the mic given that right the 16th Or am I given the wrong date? I am given the absolute wrong date. We are going to be the 12th My bad at Coco’s Wednesday the 12th I hope Maxon was sick and Damian show up at the right time. So we’re out on the road we’re given away the scratch offs in the Maryland lottery. I have Pac Man right now. Well, that’s lucky sevens coming your way that later on in the month as well. Lucas covering all things oriels right now we got the ravens and mini camp, things are happening. Festivals are happening. People are getting out on the streets in the city in the county fleet weeks happening. We’re down at Coopers and Fells Point next week as well. So get out support the community stay local Lord knows we are on crutches at this point. I am Nestor we are wn st am 1570, Towson Baltimore. And we never stop talking Baltimore positive
