Colorful and clever, they swam into Baltimore, irresistible visual puns on all things fishy and Charm City. They arrived by way of the corporately sponsored Fish Out of Water project,

for which artists decorated nearly 200 6-foot-long fiberglass fish for display around the city last summer and fall.

Then, one by one, they swam away to libraries, churches, new public spaces and private homes.

The Fish Out of Water school taught about the ability of civic art to delight and "pay it forward." At a live auction and on eBay last year, all fish were snapped up, one for $22,500. Proceeds totaling $676,000 benefited city school and arts programs. And now the fish, by the dozens, brighten the home-scapes of Marylanders and sundry others along the Eastern Seaboard.

These delighted Fish Out of Water customers paid from $2,000 to $14,000 for their catches, many now mounted not too far from the water.