Every Summer, Baltimore hosts Artscape, an art festival that fills up a 2.5 mile loop of city streets with art installations, exhibits, vendors, and interactive activities. “I was able to identify at least one or two people in every block that in some way used our makerspace to produce some element of the festival,” said April Lewis, the membership manager at Open Works, as she described one of her favorite moments from Open Works’ first year of operation.
Open Works Baltimore was the subject of a series of articles that we ran under the header of “Made in Baltimore.” These articles were written by Will Holman, the Executive Director at Open Works, and detailed the process of starting this makerspace from the ground up. We’re revisiting Open Works to see how things fared during their first year of operation and to take a closer look at Baltimore, MD, a city that seems to be in the midst of its own makerspace Renaissance.
Photograph by Karl Connolly
Open Works: Year One
“So far, we’ve had a perfect safety record (knock on wood)!” Holman says.
