Dr. Sketchy’s Baltimore featuring Calamity Chang
Thursday, October 1 at Le Mondo
A livelier life drawing event, Dr. Sketchy’s is where artists of all levels draw fabulous burlesque and variety performers! Enjoy delicious cocktails and compete in zany drawing contests to win free drinks and other awesome prizes! We’ll start off with quick 1- and 2-minute gesture poses and gradually move up to 20-minute sketches. No drawing experience is necessary; just bring your own drawing materials—plus generous cash tips for our model—and join us for some fun figure sketching practice!
For our first event back from our little summer break, we’re beyond thrilled to have the fabulously creative Calamity Chang as our model and performer! This modern burlesque star has been named by The Huffington Post as one of the “20 Burlesque Stars To Know,” and by 21st Century Burlesque as one of the Top 100 Burlesque Performers in the World. Calamity is making a rare Baltimore appearance as a headliner for the Charm City Burlesque and Variety Festival that weekend, and we’re lucky that she was willing to arrive in town a little earlier to pose for us, so don’t miss your opportunity to draw this phenomenal performer and costumer! Here’s more about our next muse:
Calamity Chang launched her burlesque career in New York City and spent two decades performing and producing across the scene, creating multiple long-running weekly and monthly shows. In the early 2010s, she founded burlesque at Nurse Bettie, the Lower East Side’s iconic pinup bar, helping shape one of the neighborhood’s signature nightlife experiences. She is also the co-founder and producer of the Asian Burlesque Festival, now in its 14th year, celebrating artistry, representation, and spectacle on an international stage expanding in 2022 to a sister show in Montreal.
Calamity’s credits include DIFFA NYC, Inked Magazine’s Pinup Issue Release Party (2015), and private events for celebrities including Brooke Shields, Corey Miller (LA Ink), and the cast of The Addams Family. She guest-starred with Moby’s metal band DiamondSnake on “Woman, Yea,” appeared on Oddities (Science Channel) and My Big Redneck Vacation (CMT), and more infamously Calamity can be spotted in Steve McQueen’s NC-17 film Shame (2011) starring Michael Fassbender as “Late Night Lover #1”.
Now based in the Poconos, she brings NYC glamour to the region through performances and productions including her crowd-favorite monthly show Send Noodz at Sango Kura Brewery and her productions at the Mauch Chunk Opera House, proving that burlesque and glamour belong everywhere.
This “Asian Sexsation” has made a mark in the burlesque world with her signature food-inspired (“foodlesque”) acts focusing on Asian culinary icons in popular culture such as Sriracha hot sauce, sushi roll, and cup o’ noodles. By fusing her love for food and her Chinese heritage in playful and sexy striptease performances, Calamity brings visibility to performers of color worldwide with a dash of whimsy and a peppering of good humor.
Calamity has a wide range of performance styles suitable for all kinds of events. She is just as comfortable being a glamorous showgirl teasing with feather fans and ostrich boas in classic showgirl-style acts as she is performing neo-burlesque acts clad in shiny latex and other fetish-inspired looks.
Born in Taipei, Taiwan, Calamity grew up in Bolivia (Santa Cruz), Florida (Tampa), and various cities in Texas including Houston and Dallas. Though she has lived in NYC for 20 years and counting, she also considers Texas her home.
Another exciting feature of this session: it’s at a new-to-us venue, Le Mondo! (Read more about this neat downtown space in our “about our venues” section below. We’ll be back at Mobtown Ballroom later in the month!) Come early to get the best seats and a drink, then stay after we wrap up to share your work with fellow artists over one last drink. As always, join in our crazy drawing contests for a chance to win some free booze and other neat prizes! No drawing experience is necessary—just remember to bring your own drawing materials, and be ready to generously tip our model!
Dr. Sketchy’s Baltimore featuring Calamity Chang
Thursday, October 1, 2026
7 p.m. to 10 p.m. (doors at 6:00 p.m.)
Le Mondo
406 N. Howard Street, Baltimore MD 21201
$15 in advance, $20 (cash recommended) at the door
Remember to bring cash tips for the models!
18+ to draw, 21+ to drink
BYO sketchbook and drawing supplies!
Note: No photography, messy paints, or dip pens, please (watercolors are fine!)
A few things to know about our new venues!
Mobtown Ballroom & Café is at the corner of North and Maryland Avenues in the Station North Arts District. Parking around the venue is metered street parking, with the closest parking garage on Charles St. across from the Charles Theater, around four blocks away. Food is available for purchase at the venue, so no outside food, please. As always, we ask that you promptly clean any spills or messes that may happen while you work, but we’ll be stressing this since the venue has just been renovated with a beautiful new wood floor, which is why we are adding dip pens and drawing inks on the prohibited media list.
Le Mondo is a lovely artist-owned mixed-use art space in the Bromo Arts District downtown, on a resurgent block of Howard St. that is also home to Current Space and Cajou Creamery. Parking options include metered street parking as well as a few public garages within a few blocks. It’s also less than two blocks south of the Centre St. Light Rail stop. Le Mondo has a full bar with a menu of delicious cocktails, but no food, so feel free to bring your own dinner!
Please note: Ticketing for Le Mondo sessions are handled by the venue, so Le Mondo tickets are nonrefundable. However, as long as a Le Mondo membership discount wasn’t applied, you may be able to transfer your unused tickets to a future session—just contact us! Lastly, Le Mondo accepts cash, Venmo, and CashApp for drop-in ticket purchases, but credit cards cannot be used for admission at the door.
