New Public Art Project Features Local Residents on 12-Foot-Tall Road Signs Pointing to Catonsville's History

CATONSVILLE, Md. (Oct. 5, 2026) ― Ten large-scale road signs with bright yellow silhouettes of Catonsville neighbors pointing toward historic sites will be unveiled on Saturday, Oct. 10, from 1 to 4 p.m. Highly visible to drivers and pedestrians alike, the signs portray local people, chosen through an open public nomination process, who have a special story to tell about these places. The public can meet them on a free walking tour of the signs.

Signs of People by Eva Salmerón and Ciro Márquez, internationally recognized artists, is a permanent public art project presented by the Baltimore County Arts Guild (BCAG) in the Catonsville Arts District. Each sign includes two sidewalk-level plates: one with a photograph of the resident, quotes from their story, historic text and a photo of the site, and the other with a map of related sites. As Márquez puts it: “The signs work first as a draw, and they also create a network of several routes linking places that are historically related to one another.”

The signs point to ten places along Frederick Road and Winters Lane: the Remus Adams Blacksmith Shop; the Old Catonsville High School; the Albert Smith House, home to Catonsville’s first newspaper; Heidelbach Grocer and Butcher; the Fire Station House; and the Catonsville Health Center, a women’s public health advocacy organization and clinic. They also include Greenwood Electric Park, a social center for Catonsville’s historic Black community; the Winters Lane neighborhood; Salem Lutheran Evangelical Church; and the Post Office, where the sign tells the story of Victor Gustav Bloede, inventor of postage stamp glue.

Former firefighter Mike Eagle, portrayed on the firehouse sign, says: “This is not a fire station, it’s a house, and for half of my life I lived here. I had two homes. These were my brothers and sisters. We ate together, food was good here, firefighters cook well.”

Catherine Carey, 90, remembers the end of Greenwood Electric Park: “It closed in 1941. There was a snowstorm on a Sunday and it was so heavy that it made the pavilion collapse. The next day I had to go to school and the snow was higher than me.” Mae McCoy recalls Winters Lane: “Neighbors looked out for neighbors. You could go to anybody’s house and eat. My mother was known for her crab cakes.”

The artists selected the residents portrayed on the signs from a pool of 43 nominees put forward by the community. “Signs of People doesn’t just work with the community, it depends on the community to take shape and content,” says Márquez.

“It’s a project about identity,” adds Salmerón. “It reflects the spirit of the place. Very sociable, hospitable people, with their own distinct way of being, who love to eat and are very proud of their town. The most beautiful moments for me have been seeing some of the neighbors cry as they told me their stories. Imagine having your own road sign in your town, sharing something personal about a place you’re connected to in some way. You get emotional. That is the soul of the project. It doesn’t just celebrate the community, it magnifies it, because residents will have 12-foot-tall signs that won’t go unnoticed.”

“These highly engaging and eye-catching signs will transform the visitor experience,” says Monica Herber, executive director of the Baltimore County Arts Guild, which manages the Catonsville Arts District. “We want people to slow down and discover places they may have passed a hundred times without knowing the story behind them.”

Signs of People builds on years of community planning in Catonsville, Baltimore County’s first designated Arts & Entertainment District, including an engagement process that reached 249 community members. The public art project has been supported by a major grant from the former Catonsville Historical Society, with additional support from the Maryland State Arts Council, the Baltimore County Department of Planning and Patapsco Heritage Greenway.

A nationally competitive process led to the selection of Salmerón and Márquez, sibling artists with a longstanding connection to Baltimore. They first came from Spain as part of the team that created BUS, the sculptural bus stop in the Highlandtown Arts District that went viral internationally as a placemaking landmark. For Signs of People, they have again partnered with local fabricator Kyle Miller, who also fabricated BUS in 2014.

Márquez explains the thinking behind the silhouettes: “A road sign has to work from far away and up close, and too much information can be confusing from a distance, so it has barely any content inside. It has been a challenge to turn each person, with their individual character, into an almost abstract drawing that works as a sign: to synthesize a person into a silhouette with that simplicity, boldness, and clarity. I combined elements from different photographs, trying to refine a gesture, an attitude, a profile that characterizes the person. Everything that wasn’t truly necessary to give the sign a certain personal content, to understand where it was pointing, and to differentiate it minimally from the others has been removed.”

Salmerón sums up the experience: “From our first visit to Catonsville, throughout the two years it has taken to create the project, the town has grown on us through our relationship with the neighbors — those who have been portrayed and those who haven’t, equally meaningful.”

BCAG anticipates the signs becoming destinations: “something that brings people into the Arts District to explore the community, visit businesses and experience Catonsville in a new way,” Herber adds. “That’s an important part of what an Arts & Entertainment District can do.”

To learn more about Signs of People and its unveiling, visit www.catonsvilleartsdistrict.org/signsofpeople or email info@bcartsguild.org.

About the Artists

Eva Salmerón and Ciro Márquez have created interactive public art projects in several cities on three continents since 1998 (as part of the collective Mmmm... until 2021). Examples include the Meeting Bowls, first created for Times Square in New York City: large bowl-shaped objects with seating for eight people (or “tourist cages in Times Square,” as one newspaper titled them), designed to foster dialogue by bringing those seated inside face to face. The artists’ work has been covered by major media outlets such as The Washington Post, The Wall Street Journal, CNN, BBC News, The Guardian and Bloomberg. They have lectured internationally at universities and institutions such as the National Gallery in Washington, D.C., Sapienza University of Rome, the School of Architecture in Madrid, the Royal Melbourne Institute of Technology, and Virginia Commonwealth University in Qatar. For more information, visit www.mmmm.tv.

Public Art Planning in the District
A major grant from the former Catonsville Historical Society enabled the district to hire the California-based consultancy Art Builds Community, which developed a 2023 Public Arts Master Plan for Catonsville. A Public Art Across Maryland planning grant from the Maryland State Arts Council then supported work in 2024 with Baltimore's Neighborhood Design Center, which further explored creative placemaking and wayfinding opportunities reflecting the rich character of the area.

About the Catonsville Arts District
Established in 2020 through an official designation by the Maryland State Arts Council, the Catonsville Arts District is the 29th and newest arts and entertainment district in the state, and the first in Baltimore County. The district stretches along the historic section of Frederick Road and down Mellor Avenue in a “T” shape that encompasses a walkable area. Catonsville was designated “Music City, Maryland” by the Maryland General Assembly in 2002, and the district celebrates that rich musical heritage with music specialty shops, businesses and performance venues that flourish alongside restaurants, art studios, galleries, boutiques, and maker spaces. The district strives to promote community involvement, tourism and revitalization by attracting audiences, artists, arts organizations and other creative enterprises, reflecting the traditions and evolving culture of its community. For more information, visit www.catonsvilleartsdistrict.org.

About the Baltimore County Arts Guild
Established in 2012, the Baltimore County Arts Guild is a registered 501(c)(3) organization based in Catonsville, dedicated to fostering all aspects of the arts for the citizens of Baltimore County. The Guild supports local artists by providing affordable studio space in a collaborative and nurturing environment, and by promoting their work through exhibitions, public art installations and other programs. In 2020, the Guild became the managing entity of the Catonsville Arts District on behalf of Baltimore County. Its 5,000-square-foot venue in the district, acquired in 2020 and affectionately known as “The Clubhouse,” provides additional exhibition, meeting, performance, and teaching space. For more information, visit www.bcartsguild.org.