On a damp September Saturday that coincided with MICA Weekend, town and gown met to dedicate the sculpture Crouching Movement by artist Kristen Campbell. It’s the first of six outdoor sculptures gifted to the neighborhood by longtime resident and art collector Stanley Mazaroff and his late wife, Nancy Dorman.
The couple last year gave the art pieces to BHCA to supervise their installations in parks and public places in Bolton Hill. Crouching Movement portrays a concrete crouching female covered with steel rope, recalling similar crouching female figures made hundreds of years ago during the Greek Pantheon and Italian Renaissance periods. It stands on MICA’s campus on the east side of the 1500 block of Mt. Royal Ave., surrounded by tall liriope.
Mazaroff was present for the ceremony, as was Cecilia McCormick, MICA’s president, and the artist, who now lives and teaches art in Maine. McCormick said MICA would work with BHCA to place and protect the six sculptures “and to create a neighborhood art walk.”
Mazaroff said he and his wife purchased the sculpture shortly after its creation in 1999, when Campbell was a new BFA graduate from MICA. “It could not have found a better new home,” he said. The statue had previously been one of many outdoor art pieces on display at the donors’ Baltimore County farm.
Campbell came to Bolton Hill and MICA with her daughter, who is a high school junior and looking at art schools for college. The artist said that, while several of her sculptures were acquired by Baltimore area residents, “this is my first public installation.” She said MICA was the third school she attended as an undergraduate and she acquired the skills that helped her forge a career.
“I applied to several schools. MICA was the only one that would allow me to bring my dog,” she said, “and it was at MICA where I began to understand what I wanted to do with my art.” She said that when she assembled Crouching Movement, she was looking for grounding. “That was 25 years ago. It’s so interesting to see where I was back then. So much has changed.”
She left Baltimore shortly after graduation for further studies at Pratt Institute in New York, where she taught before moving to Spain, and exhibiting her work in the northeast U.S. and in Barcelona. Living an hour north of Portland in Bremen, ME, she now teaches art in a small town public high school. “I love my life there,” she said. “It’s a great place to raise a family.”
BHCA President Lee Tawney noted that McCormick, MICA’s new leader, has moved into the neighborhood with her husband. “We look forward to their involvement with us.” He said that the installation of Crouching Movement marks the 30th sculpture installed in Bolton Hill. The other five donated sculptures will be placed in Bolton Hill parks. Negotiations with the city parks administrators over costs, maintenance, liability and other issues have moved slowly but Tawney hopes to have the remaining five installed by fall of 2025.
—Bill Hamilton
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