“Sincerely Yours, Pauli Murray,” Grace United Methodist Church, 5407 N. Charles Street, June 6 and 7.
In 2012, the Episcopal Church made Rev. Pauli Murray a saint, and whatever Baltimore City’s version of sainthood is, it ought to also be bestowed on the queer icon and civil rights lawyer and activist, who was born in the city in 1910.
Murray didn’t stay in the city long — her mother died and her father was killed by a white guard in the Crownsville psychiatric ward. She was sent to live with an aunt in North Carolina, and then went on to be one of the most important lawyers in the nation’s struggle for Black civil rights, creating a compendium of Jim Crow laws that is still useful today and providing some of the arguments that our city’s other great legal mind, Thurgood Marshall, would use in Brown v. Board of Education.
Many think Murray would identify as nonbinary today but didn’t have that option in the ’30s and ’40s, when she requested hormone therapy and was denied. But she always loved women presenting on the masc end of the gender spectrum and, in one of the numbers in “Sincerely Yours, Pauli Murray,” presented at Grace United by the New Wave Singers, her aunt sings about how she had to strike a deal with the young Murray that would allow her to wear “boys’ clothes” all week if she would deign to don a dress for church on Sundays.
Commissioned by a consortium of choirs, “Sincerely Yours, Pauli Murray” by composer Steve Milloy and librettist Kim Hines dramatizes Murray’s life and some of her legal arguments.
“Seprate but equal the approach is all wrong / We can’t advance our rights with the same old song / We need a legal lexicon that’s bold and brave / Equality for all, that includes former slaves / In the 14th, I could make a plausible case / that the language across the board is not about race / No person may be set aside or marked inferior,” the choir sings.
As the 14th Amendment comes under attack again, along with the civil rights of trans, queer, and Black people, this is both a joyous and defiant way to celebrate Pride.
“Tilted Halos,” a solo exhibition by G. Pack, The Outpost at The Last Resort Artist Retreat, 521 Chestnut Hill Avenue, June 6 through August 29.
Recently, Baltimore magazine, via multihyphenate artist and writer abdu mongo ali, declared that “Baltimore is in the midst of a Black Art Renaissance,” based partly on the presence of the new nonprofit Charm City Cultural Cultivation, which was founded by artist Derrick Adams, who recently returned to the city after gaining international acclaim for his work.
While “renaissance” narratives are always a little suspect — to have a renaissance, you have to have a “dark age,” and Baltimore’s Black art scene has been surging for years — ali is right to be excited by the growing scene and a vital energy around the Charm City Cultural Cultivation and its The Last Resort Artist Retreat. This solo show by G. Pack, in The Outpost, is a great chance to check it out.
It may not be exactly renaissance, but Pack’s work packs a baroque punch. “I draw heavy inspiration from the chiaroscuro techniques of the Baroque period, using light and shadow to create a sense of tension that mirrors the balance between grace and suffering,” he writes. “My goal is to create a visual language that speaks to this duality, shedding light on marginalized narratives and giving visibility to the people and stories that are often overlooked.”
As of press time, we haven’t seen all the work that curator Arthur Fitzhugh III has included in the show, but this is one you’ll definitely hear more about over the summer. G. Pack’s paintings of Black men are a powerful emblem that capture both a sense of Baltimore right now and of a style that spans from the baroque and into the 1970s.
Renaissance or not, all art needs supportive patrons, like-minded collaborators, and space to work, think, and show. So check out G. Pack’s solo show and The Last Resort, which is helping to nurture and showcase this talent.
Homage to Baltimore: A Quilting Exhibition Opening Reception, Current Space, 421 N. Howard Street, June 6, 6 p.m. to 9 p.m.
If you haven’t read our January story about quilting in Baltimore by MacKenzie River Foy, you need to fix that, stat. Quilting has been and remains a vital art in the city, carried on by members of the African American Quilters of Baltimore guild such as Denise Bailey-Jones. You’ll be able to check out work by Bailey and more than 20 other quilters who were finalists in the revival of a quilting contest first created by Mayor Schaefer in 1981. That contest offered a $1,500 prize, and now, 45 years later, Brandon Scott has upped the prize money to 5 grand.
Mimi Dietrich showed a quilt in that first contest, and was one of the three jurors who chose the top 22 from the more than 50 entries. The chosen quilts, along with two from the original competition, will be on display from the opening on June 6, when the winner will be announced, until July 19. The list of artists is diverse, and includes veterans such as Bailey-Jones, Karen Middleton, and Ursula Populoh, and “8th Graders in Ms. Downing’s Class at Baltimore Leadership School for Young Women.”
“In traditional quilting, you have to make sure everything is a quarter inch.… But the art quilts? It’s about the story,” Bailey-Jones told Foy. “I use people’s clothes. For people who passed, I’ll ask family members, ‘Can I have a pair of pants or a shirt?’ and incorporate those in the quilt.”