On this episode of When Creatives Thrive, we feature Red Giant, an artist-run gallery, studio, and workshop, located in the Bromo Arts District of Baltimore City.

Red Giant’s mission is to create a platform for art and artists by curating exhibits and embracing their neighborhood to develop cultural offerings that bring opportunities to local creatives. They are powered by ideals of access, inclusion, experimentation, and community development.

We also discuss Red Giant’s participation in the Scout Art Fair at Artscape, and how festivals are emerging as a mainstream strategy to elevate art and connect with collectors. Festivals like Scout are also an effective way to get cities like Baltimore in on national and international art conversation.

In studio today are two of the founding members, Mary Gagler and Patrick Bell, with a big shout out to the third founding member, Stephen Callender.

Podcast cover art photo: Kayla Morgan

Boob Sweat is a Baltimore-based, woman-led film collective. Formed while in graduate school at the Maryland Institute College of Art, “Boob Sweat” has come to signify the empowerment the founders still feel as a team of women working in the entertainment industry.

Whether they are producing, directing, animating, sound engineering, shooting, or editing, the crew has what it takes to make a film and get it released.

While bringing their varied skills to a range of projects, they are also dedicated to assembling diverse crews and embracing inclusive practices. This philosophy guides the stories they tell, and in turn, the partners that they attract.

Their most recent releases include “Sofia,” which has screened at multiple festivals, as well as the short documentary “Bay to Baltimore,” an official selection of the Maryland Film Festival, where it had its world premiere.

We are joined in studio with half of the Boob Sweat collective, Camila Franco Ribeiro Gomide and Samantha Mitchell. Imani Leigh and Makare Saunders are also founding members.

Ayana Gordon is a self-taught Antiguan-Haitian photographer and multimedia artist based in Baltimore, MD. Working primarily with analog film and darkroom printing, she creates textured, immersive images that explore identity, heritage, and the spiritual connections between people and their environments.

Ayana’s practice celebrates Black identity, feminine strength, and the intimacy of place, memory, and legacy. Her images honor the relationships that shape us: between family and homeland, between ritual and daily life, between who we are and who we come from. By blending personal narrative with broader cultural histories, she creates space for reflection, connection, and a fuller telling of Caribbean and Haitian experience.

Cover art photo credit: Hassan Hunt