The Sheer Amount of Talent in this City

What's the greatest thing about Baltimore?

We're starting to think it might be the sheer amount of natural talent you can find in any room.

We've been reminded of this over and over again lately.

At our floral design classes, we'll have a room full of people who tell us they've never worked with flowers before. Then, an hour later, we're walking around looking at what they've made and thinking, Wait. Who taught you how to do that?

Nobody, apparently.

They just have an eye.

We've always loved teaching, but lately the classes have felt like something a little bigger than that.

They're a reason for people to get in a room together.

You start with flowers on a table, and pretty quickly you're talking about what someone does for a living, where they grew up, the restaurant they love, the project they're working on, or the thing they've been wanting to try.

And then someone makes something really good.

It's a nice reminder that talent doesn't always announce itself.

Sometimes it's the person sitting quietly at the end of the table.

Sometimes it's someone who came because they had no idea what they were doing.

Sometimes it's someone who has been making beautiful things their entire life but never thought to call themselves creative.

We've seen a lot of that lately.

And it's made us think about Baltimore differently.

There is so much happening here.

Not always loudly. Not always in the places you'd expect.

But put a group of people together who are curious, creative, and willing to make something, and you can feel it almost immediately.

Maybe that's what we like most about events in the first place.

You never really know what you're going to find in the room.