Maude Kasperzak ’11 (Painting BFA)
When Maude Kasperzak talks about creativity, she doesn’t describe it as a career path or even a calling. She describes it as a responsibility.
That conviction has guided Kasperzak from her early days as a Presidential Scholarship recipient in MICA’s Painting Department to more than a decade shaping some of Baltimore’s most imaginative confections at Charm City Cakes. Across canvas, cake, and textile, her creative path is unmistakable: play, experimentation, and an unwavering belief in the human spirit’s capacity to invent.
Born in Toledo, Ohio, in 1988, Kasperzak always sensed that art would be central to her life. Growing up, she was “the kid everyone wanted in art class,” encouraged by teachers and peers who saw her aptitude early. But it wasn’t until she attended pre-college programs that something clicked.
Those programs were structured like real art school: long studio blocks, rigorous critiques, immersion in a community of like-minded peers. “That was probably my first real ‘Oh, I can do this,’” she recalls. “You don’t really know until you try something and see how it feels.”
When it came time to apply to college, she cast a wide net. But Baltimore and MICA stood out. “There was something about the city,” she says. “I felt an affinity for it right away.”
More than a decade later, she’s still here. “It wasn’t the plan,” she laughs. “But Baltimore has a way of keeping you. It’s the hardest place to move from and the easiest place to move back to.”
At MICA, Kasperzak immersed herself in painting, but not in a narrow sense. If anything, her time in the Painting Department expanded her understanding of what painting could be.
In her thesis group, some classmates were working traditionally using rectilinear canvases stretched on frames. Others were pushing into sculptural territory, painting with fabric, working three-dimensionally. The department encouraged students to consider their work within the vast history of painting, but also to question, experiment, and redefine it.
That mindset would prove foundational. Years later, when she found herself “painting” with food dye on fondant, the transition didn’t feel like a departure; it felt like continuity.
Kasperzak’s path to Charm City Cakes was, as she puts it, “short and direct.”
While she was applying to MICA, the Food Network show Ace of Cakes was a staple in her household. The bakery’s reputation for ambitious, art-driven cakes made an impression. She once checked the company’s website about internships, only to find a firm message asking applicants not to inquire. So, she didn’t.
Instead, after graduating in 2011, she followed a more organic route. A friend landed an administrative job at the bakery. One opportunity led to another — deliveries, internships, assisting wherever needed. By 2012, she was in the studio. From 2012 to 2018, she served as Creative Director and has remained a central creative force ever since.
What makes Charm City Cakes unique, she says, is its hybrid DNA. The studio operates as one large, collaborative room. Experimentation isn’t just encouraged, it’s required.
For Kasperzak, designing a cake begins not with flavor but with emotion.
When clients sit down at the long studio tables, she walks them through logistics: venue, timing, delivery details. But then she asks a different kind of question: “What do you want the cake to feel like?” She gathers inspiration images, color references (sometimes down to specific Pantone swatches), and then filters everything through sketches and notes. Within a week, she sends a full-color rendering and detailed plan, aligning creative vision with production realities.
Some clients want strict specificity. Others grant artistic freedom. “Artistic liberties” is a phrase she hears often. Either way, her job is to translate energy into form by balancing parameters with expansiveness.
Her painterly background shows up in unexpected ways: in the subtle gradation between two nearly identical blues, in the layering of textures that catch light, in compositions that read differently up close than from across a ballroom.
An Alma Mater MomentOne recent project carried special meaning: designing a cake for MICA’s Fête of Lights celebration. The commission came through a familiar route, but the emotional resonance was different. As an alumna, she was invited to “have fun with it.” The event’s invitation design became her starting point, with its fluid lines, luminous figure, and Art Deco undertones.
Drawing on her BFA in Painting, she leaned into subtle color relationships rather than her instinct for full-spectrum exuberance. She worked late nights, sometimes solo in the studio, layering details, including lights behind the eyes of a central figure. The result wasn’t just dessert; it was installation.
Throughout her life’s journey, one word remains constant: play.
“Experimentation and play are at the root of everything,” she says. “But, I really think everyone on this planet should be playing and creating more.”
Client-based work has parameters. Studio practice offers different freedoms. But in both, she seeks the same core impulse: curiosity. One of her drawing professors once told her that sometimes you have to make work you don’t even like, because that tension leads somewhere new. It’s advice she’s carried into every season of life.
When someone encounters one of her cakes and wonders, “Is that really cake? How did she do that?” she hopes the amazement goes deeper than novelty. Behind every finished piece are years of study, collaboration, setbacks, improvisations, and resilience.
She describes each artwork, each cake, as an “energetic vote” for the kind of world she wants to live in, one where imagination is celebrated, where collaboration is baked in, where creativity helps us process and heal.
“Am I healing the world by making this cake?” she says with a smile. “Not so directly. But if it’s an energetic vote toward a more beautiful, more playful world, I’ll take it.”
Join the festivities as MICA honors its 200-year history, recognizes its present success, and looks forward to a bright future. Throughout 2026, the College will be sharing community stories and announcing one-of-a-kind events on campus, in Baltimore, and beyond.
