For Families
Joan Mitchell Community Day
Enjoy a day of celebration inspired by the Joan Mitchell exhibition. Experience live, improvisational music performances produced in partnership with the High Zero Foundation, French pastries crafted by Crust by Mack, a hands-on painting workshop with artist Katie Pumphrey, and free admission to the exhibition.
This event is free and open to all ages. To attend, please reserve a free timed-entry pass on Sunday, March 6 from 1 p.m. to 5 p.m.
No additional passes are required to visit Joan Mitchell during this time.
Schedule of Events
1 – 5 p.m.
Free admission to Joan Mitchell
Special Exhibition Gallery
Painting and mark making workshop inspired by Joan Mitchell with artist Katie Pumphrey
Classroom
1:30 – 2 p.m.
Live, ambient music experience featuring High Zero Foundation musicians
East Lobby
2-2:20 p.m.
Live, improvisational jazz session featuring High Zero Foundation musicians
Fox Court
2-3:30 p.m.
Choux pastries and coffee from Crust by Mack
Outside of the East Entrance
3-3:20 p.m.
Live, improvisational jazz session featuring High Zero Foundation musicians
Fox Court
3:30-4 p.m.
Live, ambient music experience featuring High Zero Foundation musicians
East Lobby
4-4:20 p.m.
Live, experimental jazz session with High Zero Foundation musicians
Fox Court
Community Partners
Crust by Mack
Crust by Mack is a Black-owned and family-run bakery, with a passion for community, food access, and entrepreneurial equity. Founder Amanda Mack started the pop-up bakery in 2018, and even then, her pastries flew off the shelf at local cafes and bakeries across Baltimore. Since opening amidst the COVID-19 pandemic in the Summer of 2020, Crust has raised funds for over a half dozen minority-owned brands in Baltimore and beyond.
Katie Pumphrey
Katie Pumphrey is an American contemporary artist. Her paintings, installations, and sculptures explore the tension between chaos and calm. Pumphrey has a BFA from the Maryland Institute College of Art and has participated in artist residencies at the Studios of Key West, Vermont Studio Center, Gallery Four, and the Creative Alliance in Baltimore. Pumphrey is also an ultra-marathon open water swimmer. Major swims include the English Channel, around the island of Manhattan, and the Catalina Channel. This aspect of her life often influences and drives her work. Katie Pumphrey lives and works in Baltimore, MD.
High Zero Foundation
Founded in 1996, High Zero Foundation produces more than 150 performances of experimental and avant-garde music annually featuring artists from Baltimore, the United States, and around the world. The mission of High Zero Foundation is to (1) produce and present experimental, avant-garde music and performances in Baltimore in a setting that is accessible to all; (2) support and promote both emerging and established cutting-edge artists from the region and afar through paid performance opportunities; and (3) build an international experimental arts community and network by offering artists the opportunity to improvise, create, and present new works together.
The High Zero Foundation curated a host of performances featuring local, female musicians, including:
CK Barlow, multi-instrumentalist and composer, divides her time between producing music for television, performing with electronics, and teaching music technology. CK has music placements in more than 1,500 television episodes spanning more than 300 series, along with several indie films, commercials, and video games. Her work for TV/film evolved from her scores and sound designs for innumerable live theater and dance productions. As a performer she specializes in live-sampling herself and other performers.
Rose Hammer Burt is a saxophonist, among other things, primarily playing the baritone saxophone. Conservatory trained but exploratory-minded, Rose looks to find the wild, joyful, ecstatic, mournful, playful, meditative moments in making music with friends. In non-pandemic times you can find her playing out jazz with Will Redman’s The Compositions, raucous brass band music with Bedlam Brass, and occasionally 60’s soul B-sides with the Bellevederes. Rose has been helping to organize the Red Room series and High Zero Festival since 2005, though she is semi-retired from organizing.
Liz Downing uses voice, bowed electric banjo and paint to create sounds and images. Downing performs in numerous small ensembles, many of which merge unexpected forms and influences, for example psychedelia and Ancient Greek poetry, with folk-music traditions. Downing has earned degrees in painting from Auburn University and the Maryland Institute College of Art with Grace Hartigan as Advisor. Downing creates and performs plays and concerts in museums, theaters, colleges, fields, and basements, creating work during residencies and using funding from the NEA, MSAC grants, Franklin Furnace Archives, and most recently at the Ucross Foundation Residency.
Jessica Keyes is a Baltimore-based performer and composer. Her compositions explore trickster characters, ecstatic energy, and communion with the audience. Her solo practice for saxophone and electronics explores the tensions and transportive nature of durational performance with slowly building complexity. Jessica leads an 11-piece punk brass band called Bedlam Brass and is a member of the experimental chamber group Trucker Talk.
Bonnie Lander is a soprano, composer, improviser, and multi-instrumentalist based out of Baltimore. Versatile, dramatic, with a “signature ability to embody a seemingly endless supply of vocal timbres and personalities.” Bonnie combines an intuitive use of the voice with resonant operatic technique to fearlessly present music that explores the intersection of anxiety and strength.
Sarah Manley is a Baltimore-based trombone player where she studied at The Peabody Conservatory. She is a core member of Mind on Fire and has played with Washington Chamber Orchestra, Sonar Ensemble, Occasional Symphony, and more. She’s in the local brass band, Bedlam Brass, and has collaborated with local artists Dan Deacon, Chiffon, Infinity Knives, and Horse Lords, and was a featured soloist and ensemble performer at the Baltimore Symphony New Music Festival as well as the inaugural WoCo festival through the Boulanger Initiative.
Liz Meredith is a violist, improviser, and composer. Her music explores intersections between acoustic chamber music, instrumental improvisation, electro-acoustic composition, and ambient music. Liz’s recordings include 2 solo albums and various solo and collaborative works. She has performed at rock clubs, D.I.Y. spaces, art galleries, chamber music venues, music festivals, and academic conferences throughout the United States. Liz holds a Master of Arts Degree in Music Composition from Mills College (Oakland, CA). She has studied music composition with Fred Frith and viola performance with Hank Dutt of Kronos Quartet.
Shelly Purdy is a contemporary percussionist and teaching artist from Maryland, where she has for the past decade been committed to presenting new and experimental music. Her sonic explorations tend to favor the mingling of found objects with more traditional instruments and an affinity for chance and silence whenever possible. Purdy regularly plays with such acts as the percussion quartet; Umbilicus, and the science/music ensemble; The Inverse Square Trio. Purdy also has been studying Javanese & Balinese Gamelan under the tutelage of Prof Gina Beck and is a board member for The High Zero Foundation and 2640 Collective.