The Board of Estimates is set to approve $27,500 tomorrow as the first installment of the “Love Letter to Baltimore” mural project by New York artist Steve “ESPO” Powers.

The allocation of funds from the Baltimore Development Corp. to the Baltimore Office of Promotion and the Arts will “assist in the funding of the painting of a mural on the Fitch Co. building located at 2201 Russell Street,” according to the agenda for the board meeting.

Powers has been commissioned by BOPA to paint between 5 and 10 murals in high-visibility locales around the city in the coming months.

Many Love Letters

The artist has parlayed his background in graffiti-inspired street art into a thriving international business where he paints “love letters” to various cities on walls and rooftops.

His work in Baltimore – as in Tokyo, Brooklyn, Belfast, São Paulo and Philadelphia – will consist largely of words or phrases, often in big block letters, that are inspired, he says, by conversations he or his team has with residents of a community or with passers-by.

Forever Recurring

Powers’ introductory “pop-up” mural, consisting of the words “FOREVER TOGETHER” was completed last week across a row of vacant houses slated to be torn down in East Baltimore.

The project sparked controversy after The Brew published a story about the community’s mixed reaction to the signage.

The word “Forever” is one of the recurring motifs in Powers’ murals. In April, he completed a mural on a wall in Toyko using the same word. The word was also emblazoned by Powers on a Philadelphia rooftop. (See below.)

Other examples of recycled words include his mural in West Philadelphia that says, “If you were here Id be home now.”

“I am here because its home” was spray-painted by Powers as part of his pop-up mural in East Baltimore last week.

A sign painter as well as a post-graffiti artist, Powers  appropriates commercial advertising for his painted pieces, which are frequently placed in bleak parts of the urban streetscape.

“A furtively ameliorative presence” and “a homeopathic palliative to the area’s malaise” was how Benjamin Gottlieb described Powers’ work in Brooklyn for the online magazine “Capital.”

Welcome Sign

There is no breakdown in the Board of Estimates agenda of how the $27,500 will be allotted.

A city official, who asked not to be named, said the money will go for paint, supplies and a stipend for the artist and his team. The funds will be used not only for the Fitch mural but for other paintings not yet settled on by the artist and BOPA.

Additional funds, amounting to roughly $20,000, have been pledged by the Department of Housing and Community Development, partly through its Vacants to Value program.

The mural on the Fitch Building is meant to welcome people to the city and serve as part of a beautification program. The artist and his team have met with residents of Westport, the city official said, as part of their evolving plan for the mural.

When completed in the fall, the mural will compete with another symbol of local pop art situated nearby – the waste incinerator on Russell Street emblazoned with BALTIMORE on the side of its smokestack.