So, who are we?
We are, to state the obvious, Greatest City Collective. Our name comes from a slogan slapped on a whole lotta bus stop benches in Baltimore, MD: “The Greatest City in America.” (We don’t tolerate Baltimore slanderers. We’ll fight you.) To us, the greatest city is one built on communal support and expression.
So, why do we exist?
~~~official mission statement~~~
Greatest City Collective is a Baltimore-based arts organization looking to share the processes, work, and stories of human-minded artists, in print and in sound, while generating financial support for humanitarian institutions of their choosing.
Human-Minded Artists
Art doesn’t exist in a vacuum. We want to elevate (as much as we can) artists with an awareness for how their work interacts with the world. We embrace artists who seek change. Art is a survival tactic. Art is in defense of human existence.
Support Communities
We recognize that a barrier called “cost of living” exists between normal artists and financially contributing to community-focused organizations. Whether the organizations attend to city-specific issues, or marginalized communities as a whole, we want to generate donations for communities which represent the beliefs of the Collective.
So, what do we value?
Unfinished/Unseen Works
Scraps, half-sketches, skeletons, sentences, concepts, in-betweeners, forgottens, frustrations, rejects…all of these have value. Every artist has those works which won’t quite let themselves be unpuzzled, or don’t pique the interest of the artist enough to demand completion. There are the works which end up as cousins of later, more polished work. There are works yet to see the world…we want to open the door.
The Human Experience
Y’all, we care about your life. What’s happened in the past, what’s happening now, what you want to happen in the future. That matters. We want to work with artists of all backgrounds and walks of life. Art serves as a tool for greater understanding of the time we walk this planet. Let’s put our heads together.
Community Commitment
So as much as we love art, our core dream is to see the world become a more compassionate, sustainable, and just place. We are committed to directing 100% of our profits and donations towards community-focused organizations, both Baltimore-based and worldwide, as well as paying contributors.
Inexperience
The idea for this collective is now 3 years old this December of 2023. In human standards, we’re just getting our reading skills (and those are fundamental). A time of inexperience is required for everyone and everything, great successes and tremendous failures alike. We hope we’re in that first category, but…well, anyway, our point is this: we don’t care if you’re ‘‘new’’ to art or not. We want to work with artists of all levels of experience. Part of the artistic process is taking the first steps to share your work. It’s never too late, it’s never too soon.