American Visual Arts Museum
Baltimore, MD
This is one great museum. They capture the artistic genius of the invisible artists. Many of them are mentally ill, criminals, loners, poor or unknown. I've been to this museum about five times and I like it more and more, each time.
It's not a big museum but it is one that demands that you explore every aspect of it. Every piece has something to say to me, to you, to the world. It is filled with the voices of the mentally ill, the prisoners of crime and politics, and the estranged: the silent voices of our societies.
I wander in with friends and quickly try to lose them so that I can explore each exhibit on my terms, my pace. But there are so many things that I see that warrant a conversation. So I will go and find my friends and interrupt them and demand that they see what I see. And then I want them to go away so I can go back to my self- exploration.
After a few hours, we meet in the middle of the floor and shake our heads in agreement: we are finished and drained from our over-stimulation of thoughts and judgments and ideas. It's time to go home.
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