Community Calendar

September 10 - December 6 (closed October 17 & November 26 -29)
Gallery Hours: Monday - Saturday, 11 a.m. - 4 p.m.
Opening reception Wednesday, September 10, 7:30 p.m.

How have recent upheavals—from the pandemic to global conflicts, amplified by media—reshaped our private lives? How do personal memories become collective history? In a world forever changed, how do we find our way forward? Elaine Qiu’s awe-inspiring installation of painting, video, and sound invites visitors into a multi-sensory exploration of communal consciousness, connection, and healing in a fragmented, post-pandemic world.
For parking information visit towson.edu/parking/visitors

On View: October 24 - December 6 (closed November 25 - 29)
Gallery Hours: Tuesday - Saturday, 11 a.m. - 8 p.m.
Reception October 23 following 6:30 p.m. lecture.
Artist talk October 29 at 12 noon in the Holtzman MFA Gallery

Enjoy the works of Alexis Ibry and Zachary Diaz.
Alexis Irby collects physical evidence of places and moments, bringing them together into a constellation of disparate memories. Her sculptures encourage a sense of absurdity by documenting aspects of reality in ambiguous combinations. She highlights the interconnectedness of the physical world and the encompassing layers we cannot fully perceive in her exhibit Manifesting the Unheard Layers of Reality.
Zachary Diaz presents MOTUS an interplay of color, movement, and texture through large-scale oil paintings, drawings, and monotypes by blending intuition and intention. The artworks emerge as intuitive puzzles, balancing spontaneous marks with deliberate layering to evoke emotional responses. With a classical training foundation and heavy influence of abstract expressionist techniques, Diaz’s work uncovers hidden narratives with seemingly simple marks.

Profs and Pints Baltimore presents: “An Encounter with Early Vampires,” a scholarly look at what folklore, grave sites, and various records tell us about centuries-old Slavic beliefs concerning the undead, with Stanley Joseph Stepanic, who teaches a course on Dracula and vampire folklore as an assistant professor of Slavic languages and literature at the University of Virginia.

[Doors open at 5. The talk starts at 6:30. The room is open seating.]

Modern popular culture tends to treat vampires as irresistibly sexy. But the folklore that gave rise to Dracula, Nosferatu, Twilight, and an assortment of skimpy Halloween costumes actually depicted vampires as gruesome rather than attractive, the stuff of nightmares rather than fantasies.

Join a fascinating excavation of early vampire belief with Stanley Stepanic, who has given several excellent Profs and Pints talks and whose course on Dracula is exceptionally popular among University of Virginia students.

He’ll take you on a scholarly journey to Eastern Europe and back in time several centuries, beginning with the first written evidence of vampires in a Russian text from 1047 A.D. You’ll learn about references to vampire burials in Slavic legal codes from the fourteenth century and about the vampire hysteria that swept Eastern and Central Europe in the mid-eighteenth century.

You’ll learn how the vampires of those times were depicted as rotting, reanimated corpses that returned from the grave to attack their victims and inflict diseases such as rabies and tuberculosis upon them. Many of the earliest were undead men whose first targets were their families. Women reported being sexually assaulted by the vampiric forms of their husbands, and those who subsequently gave birth would regard their offspring as human-vampire hybrids destined to become vampire hunters.

We’ll peer into the graves of people whose bodies were chopped into pieces to prevent their rise from the dead. Professor Stepanic will explain how writers of the eighteenth century resurrected the vampire in the much more appealing form we envision today, but echoes of original version continue to thrive in popular culture in the form of zombies.

You’ll come away seeing vampires in a new light that renders them far more terrifying. (Advance tickets: $13.50 plus sales tax and processing fees. Doors: $17, or $15 with a student ID.)

Image by Canva.

Art is often a way to commemorate the end of life and to imagine what happens beyond the world of the living. Join us for an exploration of artworks that contend with what it means to transition from this life into the next.

The Express and Explore Tour is a 30-minute, staff-led art experience for adults that centers creativity and connection. These tours feature a different theme every month and encourage participants to unplug and unwind in our galleries through playful activities and group discussion.

Join us for this exciting edition of Sketching Sessions in partnership with our neighbors at the Enoch Pratt Free Library and Peabody Institute at Johns Hopkins University! As always, we invite novices, students, and practicing artists of all ages to spend the evening drawing in our galleries. Participants will receive light instruction on techniques to expand their sketching skills in a multisensory environment. In this double-sized special edition, visitors will be able to sketch throughout the museum’s second level, including the Ancient World and Sculpture Court galleries, as they enjoy music from students of the Peabody Institute. All you need to bring is an interest in drawing—we’ll provide the materials for you!

Christie Dashiell [vocals]
Allyn Johnson [piano]
Romeir Mendez [bass]
Carroll Dashiell, III [drums]

With her sultry, soulful flare and cutting-edge compositions, GRAMMY® Nominated D.C.-based vocalist Christie Dashiell is armed with her distinctive and powerful voice and her serious chops as a jazz improviser and bandleader. As a member of Afro-Blue, Howard’s premier vocal jazz ensemble, Dashiell appeared on NBC’s “The Sing Off.” She has twice received recognition in DownBeat Magazine’s Student Music Awards as Outstanding Soloist and Best Vocalist in the Graduate College division. Her second album, Journey in Black, received a GRAMMY® nomination in 2025. Dashiell tours with her own quartet, and has performed with Nancy Wilson, Geri Allen, Smokey Robinson, Esperanza Spalding and Fred Hammond, to her more recent collaborations with modern jazz luminaries like Terri Lyne Carrington, Marcus Strickland and Marquis Hill. She has appeared at the Lincoln Theater in Washington D.C., Atlanta Jazz Festival, Mary Lou Williams Women in Jazz Festival, DC Jazz Festival and Winter Jazzfest in New York City.

Two One-Act plays written and directed by TU Department of Theatre Arts students.

Hiding in the Light of Day
by Humatabae Smith | directed by Makayla Hamilton
In the 1950s, a woman and her son travel from the deep south to make their way up to Goldsboro North Carolina. Will they make it to their destination? Or will something or someone derail them?

6 Days
by Shamar Martin | directed by Christian Smith
6 days is a comedy exploring the different ways humans connect with one another through love, curiosity, anger, and laughter.

INEBRIATED HALLOWEEN
CREATED BY LAURA STARK & THOMAS SCHOLTES

OCTOBER 24 – NOVEMBER 1

Join us for a hilarious and spooky journey through some of your soon-to-be favorite stories of history with the latest installment of the Inebriated series, Inebriated Halloween. Created by Laura Stark and Thomas Scholtes, with the technical expertise of Stephen Craig and Shayden Jamison, don’t miss the latest installment and our scariest and possibly most inebriated stories yet!
For mature audiences

Back for its second year, Abbott and the Big Ten Conference are hosting the We Give Blood Drive competition to entice students, alumni, fans, and community members to rally around their Big Ten school to donate blood, save lives, and address the country's ongoing critical blood shortage.

From August 27 to December 5, anyone eligible to donate blood can do so anywhere, anytime in the U.S. to count for their school. The school with the most donations at the end of the competition will receive $1 million to advance student or community health.

New this year, everyone who donates or attempts to donate blood throughout the competition will receive an exclusive, limited-edition, Homefield-designed T-shirt specific to their school. To receive the shirt:

1. Show up to donate
2. Submit your donation (or attempt to donate) at BigTen.Org/Abbott or by texting DONATE to 222688 (ABBOTT).
3. Click the link sent to your email
4. Use your redemption code
5. Your shirt will be shipped to the address of your choice. 

Last year, the University of Nebraska won, and is using the funds to advance student health on campus. The University of Maryland is competing this year and will host several blood drives on campus and in the surrounding area throughout the competition. To find a blood drive near you, please visit: https://bigten.org/abbott/maryland

This focus exhibition of 10 works explores the relationship between burning fossil fuels—namely, coal—and the emergence of European modernism. Drawing on research conducted by climate scientists and art historians, the exhibition presents a range of paintings and works on paper by Henri Matisse, Claude Monet, James McNeill Whistler, and others to explore the ways that their artistic practices and style emerged, in part, in response to widespread pollution in London and Paris.
Presented as part of the Turn Again to the Earth environmental initiative.