Aug
9th
2015
While in Baltimore, visit the American Visionary Art Museum · 4:00am Aug 9th, 2015
If you're in Baltimore for Bronycon, consider taking an hour away from the con to walk a little way down Key Ave, just past Fort McHenry, to see the American Visionary Art Museum. It's an entire museum for art by crazy people visionaries. You'll know when you're in the right place.
The pictures online aren't very representative. Mostly these are scenes painted by obsessives who painted or sculpted similar objects or scenes over and over for decades. They're interesting both as art and as psychology.
Very cool! Have a great time out there! :)
Oooooh.
Can't remember if i've been there or not, may be getting it mixed up with another art museum in the area. Did you visit Poe's grave site?
Abnormal Psych? I sense a little Obsessive/Compulsive in there...
Oh, so THAT'S the building with the birds nest balcony! I thought it was some sort of tie-in with the Orioles.
I must be a visionary!
Finally, a word for my artwork that doesn't include profanity.
There's more of this sort of thing out there than many think. In any college town, for example, there will be at least one "art car." You know, the creepy old guy who drives the 1979 Ford F150 with seashells and Barbie doll parts Krazy-glued all over the hood and fenders? Yeah.
And there was a time, long long ago, when I looked at those vehicles, or art like this, and wondered how those people saw the world. I wondered whether they had some ineffable connection with the numinous. What is it like, I wondered, to see through their eyes?
Now I've grown cynical, and I'm pretty sure that constructing anything like this is prima facie evidence of temporal-lobe epilepsy, possibly resulting from a brain tumor.
3307279
There's art cars and there's art cars. In Houston, somebody took apart a yellowing old copy of Kerouac's On the Road, glued the pages all over every part of an old BMW (except the windows, lights, etc), and lacquered it down. The car was completely driveable--it was like a wrap before wraps were a thing. Only completely and painstakingly hand-made.
I always wanted to do that to my old pickup with a copy of Steinbeck's Travels with Charlie. Or better yet--do it with Don Quixote, get a vanity plate that says CHARLIE and see if anyone gets the
jokemultilayered visual metaphor.** 'Cause in Steinbeck's book he wrote ROCINANTE on the side of his pickup truck, see...
3305918 I visited Poe's grave years ago, but honestly, my reaction was "yep, it's a grave." It's in a slightly sketchy part of Baltimore, so I don't recommend making a visit by yourself.