The #1 thing I wanted to do in Baltimore was go to the American Visionary Art Museum – it was really great, and also very different from what I expected.
Unfortunately, photography wasn’t allowed inside the building.
I loved that the first thing we saw once we walked down the hallway to the main exhibit spaces was an angel by Howard Finster. To me, visionary art is really about artists who believe they have had some sort of special communication from G-d to make art (religious-based art, like that of Howard Finster, Myrtice West, Rev. B.F. Perkins, Sister Gertrude Morgan, etc.). It can also come from people who have experienced dreams, visions, and the like of the future – not so much based in religion – which is something I’m not as familiar with, and that’s what made this museum so different that what I was expecting.
And I would have never, ever guessed that Rosie O’Donnell’s artwork would be included in a visionary art museum!
Since I couldn’t take pictures, I took notes of some of the artists I liked especially, most of which I’ll post about later…but I was really taken with Paul Darmafall, who was known as the Baltimore Glassman, and Andrew Logan, who is also all about glass and glimmer, and has his own museum in England.