Local attorney Randi Pupkin shares her journey from local lawyer to aspiring artist to making a true Baltimore Positive impact over 25 years of leading “Art With A Heart,” providing art classes to under-served communities and now offering over 16,000 classes annually. Nestor leads her through their mutual friendship with local sports cartoonist and legend Ricig, and this amazing journey and a quarter of a century showing kids the world in color and inspiring creativity. Join them on March 29th to celebrate!
Nestor Aparicio discusses the Maryland crab cake tour and upcoming events, including appearances at Charles Village Pub, Pizza John’s and Essex, and Faidley’s. He highlights the 25th anniversary of Art with a Heart, an organization founded by Randy Pumpkin, which provides art classes to underserved communities, offering nearly 16,000 classes annually. Randy shares his journey from a lawyer to an artist, emphasizing the impact of art on community well-being. The organization’s 25th anniversary celebration is set for March 29, featuring interactive art stations, a band, and a silent auction. Art with a Heart’s retail space, Heartwares, sells art created by students, supporting their job skills.
SUMMARY KEYWORDS
Art with a Heart, 25th anniversary, Baltimore, community art, nonprofit, visual art programming, art classes, art workshops, art exhibitions, art auctions, art education, art therapy, art supplies, art events, art community.
SPEAKERS
Randi Pupkin, Nestor Aparicio
Nestor Aparicio 00:01
Welcome home. We are W, N, S, T. Am 1570 Towson, Baltimore. We are Baltimore positive, positively into the spring season, having some fun around here. We’re doing the Maryland crab cake tour each and every week. This month, we’re out and about. We’re going to be at the Charles village pub on Friday, celebrating all things Towson. We are Baltimore positive Towson Baltimore. So we like to say the Towson part of that. And then we’re going to be at peach Johns and Essex. We don’t say that much on the 21st I kid my Essex friends. I’m a Dundalk guy, you know, gotta poke him when I can. But they got great pizza down there. So we’ll be there on the 21st and also back at Faith Lee’s on the second of April. And actually, Luke and I are going north of the border to Toronto, Canada to take in, hopefully Getty Lee and smoking day later on in the month. Um, everyone that knows me knows that. Like I got my music Jones, and I have a little bit of an art thing going on with me. So anytime I can promote artistic things, I mean, heck, every time I go to Coco’s pub, but we’re gonna be on April 30. Coco’s Pub is k, O, C, O, when you’re Googling it. So my co host, when I am there, is always one of my dearest friends in the whole universe, and that’s Mike wasigliano. Well, we call him reci, or as many people call him reci, or they don’t know how to pronounce it. He’s just sort of resig. His wife calls him a SIG. He’s been my friend for 41 years, and he’s always doing the show. And I gotta tell you, when it came time to do this art with a heart segment, I don’t know that I’ve ever really had Randy pumpkin on, but I’m like about to but I went out to the website, and it’s been 25 years for them, and I got inspired by the Maryland lotteries, big shebang for their 50th anniversary. And then I worked up my 25th anniversary, and now I have just, I’m stuck with just an oyster and a crab and a logo at this point. Because, I mean, how do you celebrate 26 years? But 25 years of doing this and Randy, I’m going to tell you right now. I went out to your website, like, I swear to you 10 minutes ago. I went down to get my coffee, and I even said to my wife, you will believe what I found when I went to the art with a heart website, it opened up, and it’s for SIGs art. It’s just this giant, busy resig thing. And I looked at him, I’m like, that’s for SIGs like. And it’s unbelievable that I have this friend that I know so intimately that all I need to do is just look at his work. It’s like hearing Eddie Van halen’s guitar right, like there’s only one of one with rasig. So I welcome you on and say that I’ve already texted I tried to get him to hijack this thing and bring him in because he’s proud of you, and wanted to send all this love to you that are right off the bat art with a heart. And I see where SIGs work here, and I’m thinking, as Ekman would say, This is real Baltimore thing you got going on, Randy, right?
Randi Pupkin 02:53
He’s a good friend to the organization. I tell you what, he’s designed many an invitation, and participates in all of our auction creating auction items. He’s just, he’s one incredible talent and human being, and I adore him and appreciate him. And Baltimore is lucky to have or SIG,
Nestor Aparicio 03:16
and I like his wife more. So if you didn’t, you know, honestly, Terry, I love you. Um, little known fact, before we even get into all of this, my intimate relationship with her SIG, if you know of me as nasty Nestor, if you’ve ever heard that phrase about me, it was his children who named me nasty Nestor during an uncle Nestor babysitting episode that would have started a sitcom, you know, had we done this in the 80s. So we’re sick. Is that close to me? I have so much art that rasig is drawn for me, of me and anniversaries and all that. But there’s nothing like getting this 25th anniversary thing together, because I’m looking at the art and I’m thinking back to when he used to do the city fair art, you know, in the evening, some when we work together in the 80s, and all of these human beings, and there’s all these people of color and hair and and eyes, and they all look like we’re six kids in his artwork. And there’s balloons, and it’s Baltimore, but you know what? You’re driving this Durango in the front. And I just must say, for 25 years for what you’ve tried to do in Lyft, and we’re going to promote your event and all that. You know, I’ve known of your work, and I owe you a crab cake or something somewhere on the side to get together in a real room one day. But congratulations. And you know, I know how. You know, in a small town, it feels like it’s easier than it is, because it’s like a barn raising, and we asked for everyone, but they sand Mitch on the front. It almost makes me cry, because I’m like, look at all the people. But that’s what art, where the heart’s been about, yes, 100%
Randi Pupkin 04:51
it’s all about the people. It’s, you know, the art is is important, but it’s about how the art makes them feel. Well. They’re creating it. And you know, it started with four classes a week from the trunk of my Durango, my 1999 Durango. And here we are now, 25 years later, and we have almost 16,000 classes a year in schools and shelters and group homes, community centers, senior facilities all over Baltimore. We’re really we’re really lucky and blessed to be here 25 years later. This is a city of like 5000 nonprofits, so to rise to this milestone is quite an accomplishment. All right, so inspiration.
Nestor Aparicio 05:34
I have a series here called inspiration and perspiration, and I’m sure you have both some desperation probably in there a lot of, a lot, you know, a lot of operations going on, precipitation, you know, all sorts of things. Um, where’s the start in this? Give me the seed of the seed. You know, you’re on a balcony somewhere, somewhere you see a piece of art, like, Where does this start from? And, and I always try to begin at the beginning with any artist. I mean, I John Palumbo on and said, What made you love music? He’s like my parents bought me meet the Beatles. So what was your meet the Beatles moment with art? So
Randi Pupkin 06:09
I have to go back a little bit. So I’m 62 and I’m born and raised in Baltimore, and I remember the 1968 riots, and I, I
Nestor Aparicio 06:20
was born that week, by the way, just so you know, to give you some you were, I was born during the riots, correct, October 68 so
Randi Pupkin 06:28
my father was a tailor and his father was a tailor. So they had this business, and they were, my father put me in the back of his big car with no seat belts to go see if his store was okay in West Baltimore, and in front of Milford Mill Swim Club, I saw a group of people protesting that they didn’t want any blacks allowed in the swim club. And there was one black man standing there, and I’ll never forget his face. And it was a moment in time that changed my life, and from that moment on, I wanted to change the world. And by the time I was eight, I decided I was going to be a lawyer to do that, and that was my track. My entire life. I became a lawyer. I worked for. I went into a firm, and they gave I worked for a construction litigator in the firm, and I never exciting work, right? Construction litigator, exactly never felt like I was doing anything I intended to do. And after 14 years, I was sitting in my office I had a contentious conversation with another lawyer, which is all I ever did was fight with other lawyers. And I looked around and everything was beige, the walls, the floor, the phone, because then it was a phone. And I just decided that I needed to, like, write my life story differently. It needed to be more colorful. I wanted to, you know, it had to be something. I wanted to read. It was very boring. So I founded art with a heart from the desk in my law office. And, you know, just, I knew nothing about nonprofit, but knew deeply that I wanted to combine my love of art and my love of people, and here we are.
Nestor Aparicio 08:11
Wow, second story. So how long did you sort of hang out doing the work that you were read to do, but not
Randi Pupkin 08:17
loving doing about 14 years and then, but the minute you made that decision,
Nestor Aparicio 08:23
from that moment to like, I’m not going to be a lawyer and I’m not well
Randi Pupkin 08:26
for about a year, I, like, was pounding the pavement. So I was like, doing art in community. I started into in two group homes for emotionally troubled adolescent boys. That’s what they called it. The House of Ruth, which is a shelter for battered women and their children and an Alzheimer’s facility. And in that year, I was doing law by day and taking art classes into the community in the afternoons and evenings. And then finally, I just gave up the law practice, transferred my clients to another attorney, and some of my clients still support this organization to this day, from that time, which is really wild. Are you artsy? I’m definitely artsy. Meaning, I mean, like, you
Nestor Aparicio 09:15
were a lawyer, but were you, like, it doing artsy things in high school or, I mean, we’re, yeah, you’re taking weekend ceramic classes, like, yeah. I mean, as a hobbyist, I’m saying arts, yes.
Randi Pupkin 09:27
From the time I was little, I took supplemental art classes at a place called Mary’s art studio. That’s when I was really little. And then in middle school, which was junior high back then, and high school, I did a lot of art, and in college, I took sculpture and photography, and I’ve always had a creative band. I think I’m more probably creative than I am talented, but I love doing art. I love the fact that you can sit and create something, and in your head you can be. Anywhere you want to be. You can be, you know, solving the world’s problems or sitting on a beach, but it’s freeing, and I wanted people in the community who didn’t have the access to that moment or those moments to have that opportunity, and that’s where it all started. Beige. Why beige? Everything was beige, file folders, the carpeting, the walls, the phone like now when I tell the story and I make the motion that I’m hanging up the phone on this lawyer, young people only know this. They don’t know that, right?
Nestor Aparicio 10:39
The joy of that, the sound of it, because sometimes the bell wouldn’t ring in it. We piss off the phone a little bit, shake it a little bit. Is Here she is art with a heart. They are celebrating 25 years. There’s an event. There’s lots of ways to give and be involved. And I didn’t even I, I will never not talk to a SIG without talking to him about this now. So I have another thing to talk to her sick about, but just art in general, and your love of art, and then moving this along to say, Alright, how is it a business? How can we get people involved? How can we take it to places where they don’t have art, or to people like, maybe my wife that just wants to, like, drink some wine and fart around with watercolors. I’m telling you, my wife last Saturday morning, just came down and announced, and she’s, you know, cooking, hiking, she does lots of different things that I don’t I can participate in in some ways. But she came down, she’s like, I’m doing watercolor today. And I’m like, You Are are you? So next thing I know, she’s like, I don’t know, like, Van Gogh in there, and I go in. And she’s got her whole thing and her VISTA. We know what she did. And I can tell you this now, because I wouldn’t have been able to tell you. Last week, she surprised her sister on her 50th birthday. So like, instead of like, I’m like, you know, you can go buy a card if you want to. She’s like, No, no, no. I’m going to do this in watercolor. So I have, like, the wife that you’re looking for that says, Hmm, there’s a way to do a thing, a class, to learn a bit, you know? And she is the one who wants to be in a watercolor class thing. So do tell about art with a heart and all the opportunities for people who are weekend artists like you were when you were the scuffling lawyer fighting with people all
Randi Pupkin 12:22
week? Well, we really try and provide equitable access to art. So most and well not most, all of our work is really geared towards those people who don’t have access to visual art programming. We, in November, opened a store on the avenue in Hamden on 36th street, and we are going to be activating that space with community art workshops and mosaics and watercolor painting workshops right now. That’s, you know, it’s a slow moving train because it’s a process, and we have to do one thing before the other, but, you
Nestor Aparicio 13:00
become much more of a destination like that. For her too, when we’re down there having grabbing some food and things like that, to just to walk in and see what’s going on. And it’s always changing that that space is always changing. That
Randi Pupkin 13:11
artwork that is displayed and sold there is created by students in our workforce program. We use art as a vehicle to teach job skills. So when you buy a piece of art at heartwares, that’s the name of the store. You are supporting our students, we give half the proceeds back to them, and it helps us be a little bit more sustainable. And the work is beautiful. Please go take a look. It’s at 1104 West 36th street.
Nestor Aparicio 13:40
Half is a gem like that, isn’t it? It
Randi Pupkin 13:43
is. It’s been a wonderful change for us. It’s a supplemental location. We’re all also our office and studio space is in the mill, mill one at 3000 Falls Road. You’re welcome to visit us there too. So we have two rather large spaces. And the one on the Avenue has just been we’ve been really fortunate to have that retail exposure.
Nestor Aparicio 14:07
All right, Randy pumpkins here art with a heart. Here’s Rob, because I love for SIG so much. I’m going to get rid of my face in your face, and we’re going to talk through this piece of art here, because I’ve done these with for SIG. And this thing is unbelievable, because it’s almost like shoots and ladders a little bit, and where this, this literal piece of art, shows your journey. So for those listening on radio, you’re left out. You need to go watch the video. And if you’re watching the video, go for it Randy. Tell this is your journey. And one piece of for SIG art, I’m loving this.
Randi Pupkin 14:40
Yes, yes. So well, that’s me at the top with a pink drink, and the person driving the car. Her name is Megan Gatto, and she is our deputy director who in June, well, in March, we’ll be taking the title of executive director, and in June, I will be retiring. And she actually.
Nestor Aparicio 14:59
She did the show before you did too. So you can google her. And she last when we opened the store in Hampton, we had her on So, yes, yes.
Randi Pupkin 15:07
So that’s Megan, and that’s my Durango that is stuffed with art supplies. And me going into the community at the very beginning of everything in 2000 and then if you follow the road up, you can see that there’s my Durango and my house and my shed. And then our fifth site was the Rose Street Community Center, which taught me so much about our city. And they’re, they’re featured in the documentary, The Charm City documentary, so I encourage people to watch that. And then we go around. And you know, our our first true office space was at the castle at Keswick. We had an event in 2013 where Governor Moore spoke before he was governor. And then our anniversary year for 2015 we had George Benson perform, and we created bent 15 benches that we donated to 15 different city parks. And then around and
Nestor Aparicio 16:07
did he sing? Just the two of us? No, on Broadway. Okay, good. All right, cool. I love it. Beautiful. Yeah, he
Randi Pupkin 16:17
was wonderful. And then, you know, we hit around so the pandemic. And see all the boxes there. Those were art kits that we packed and and shipped or delivered to schools, over 12,000 boxes that we provided to students so they could still have a hands on visual art experience. And then we did the heart of Baltimore sculpture, which now sits outside the University of Maryland medical center. It’s a beautiful sculptural mosaic. And then here we are in 2018 we moved to our space in Mill one on Falls Road, and then we opened the store on 36th street. And here, that was 2024 and now we have 16,000 art classes so, and
Nestor Aparicio 17:03
you’re on Baltimore positive, and you’ve got a big event coming up, uh, Randy pop. Can you see, if you listen on the radio, art with a heart, her telling her story, and sort of the fun little parts of all that, you know, the big heart that’s in the middle that you What hospital is that in front of University Maryland? Okay, okay, just making sure I walk. Jeez. I’m going to be two blocks away a few hours from now. And fade. Lee, so why not walk over there take a picture? There’s one very similar in in different places, with hearts, and there’s love stuff in New York and giant mosaic type things. But I took a real fun one on Union Square in San Francisco, because you left your heart in San Francisco, of course. So you know, I love all the street art when I go to New York, I’m always taking selfies with crazy stuff like that. So I have a lot bent to me as well. Celebrations. Let’s talk about celebrations and taking 25 years and having events and bringing people out to celebrate, yes,
Randi Pupkin 17:59
so we’re having a celebration on March 29 from 630 to 1030 at M and T Bank Exchange, which is next to the Hippodrome. And it’s going to be all inspiringly creative. I mean, we’re really pouring our souls into the creativity that we’re going to show community that attends this event. So we’re going to have a great band, we’re going to have great food, we’re going to have really art immersive stations, where that will be interactive for the guests, and we’ll be silent auctioning 25 masks, one that were sigmade. That is just unbelievable. And we just look forward to having a large crowd in a creative atmosphere celebrating a really incredible milestone. Well,
Nestor Aparicio 18:56
I wish you all luck to keep this thing going. Another 25 another 125. And certainly great pride, I say, inspiration and perspiration involved in all of this for you and Megan taking over what, you know, Emeritus founder, I didn’t know what to call executive director. You know, all these years into this, what, what is the future? Will there be more? Will there? Will there be more? You know, hardware, kind of stores and different things to continue to move this out is this scalable to Washington, Philadelphia, other towns, other places, you know, I’m sure a lot of places, there’s just a lot of art, some of it even protest art these days that really popping up all over the country and everywhere I go. I think that the liberal side of our universe always talks about how important art is and keeping it alive. And certainly it’s people like you that are keeping it on the street level, whether it’s music, art, the arts, theater, just the reading, writing, all of these very, very important things that. That lead to art? Yeah,
Randi Pupkin 20:01
the future is that there’s great need in Baltimore, and ultimately, Megan will decide if it will expand to other cities. We’re not we really have. It’s not just it’s the Greater Baltimore area because we’re in surrounding counties, but I think that there’s a lot of work everywhere, and I think it’s important to stay true to the mission. And my next role is, she says I’m going to be her little buddy or her consigliere. She’s not sure which. So everybody
Nestor Aparicio 20:37
needs one of those. I hear you have a law degree. I mean, everybody needs a lawyer. Nobody wants a lawyer, but then you need lawyers. So Randy pumpkin is here. She is art with a heart.net. Is the way to find them. The event is on the 29th of March, and I’m really kind of bumming out, because I’m going to be in Toronto with the Orioles that weekend, and I’m going to be getting home in the middle of this otherwise I would come down there because I got dancing shoes. I can dress in colorful cocktail attire. And I like kind of people who are artsy and party oriented. So if you dig that sort of thing and an immersive art experience, just click on it. It’s up there. And as well as if you are in the in the radio world, or you’re listening with the podcast, like the kids, make sure you’re checking out the artwork and having a good time. Go out to the website just to see for six art. And certainly when you’re in Hampton, stop in the store. So the ask for the community, other than the event itself, come down to Hampton, participate, uh, buy the art, be a part of it. Hit the website. There’s just you’re you guys are always doing something, right, right?
Randi Pupkin 21:38
We’re always doing something. We appreciate volunteers, we appreciate donations. We appreciate community. So yes, please check us out online and also on social media. We’re at art with a heart underscore on Instagram and Awa Baltimore on Facebook. You can find us. So check us out everywhere. We’re pretty active on social media, you
Nestor Aparicio 22:05
know, what? From a brand perspective, you know, I always say I screwed it up with the baseball and the football teams both being birds and my name being Nestor. That we didn’t call this thing Nestor, something like that. But art with a heart, it says it all. I mean, right? The name is, I don’t have to tell anybody what it is, right? They didn’t. They know what it is. That’s a perfect brand. So good luck to you guys on the 29th and thanks for finally coming on. I know your time’s valuable. I appreciate it. You’re working hard.
Randi Pupkin 22:29
Thank you very much, Nestor, thank you. I am
Nestor Aparicio 22:33
Nestor. We are W, N, S T. Am 1570 Towson, Baltimore, and we never stop talking Baltimore positive, just like that. You.
