October 6, 2012 – September 1, 2013 • American

OCTOBER 6, 2012–SEPTEMBER 1, 2013
AMERICAN VISIONARY ART MUSEUM
EXHIBITION MEDIA KIT
OCTOBER 6, 2012 – SEPTEMBER 1, 2013
AMERICAN VISIONARY ART MUSEUM
THE ART OF STORYTELLING: Lies, Enchantment, Humor & Truth
October 6, 2012 – September 1, 2013 • American Visionary Art Museum
Exhibition Co-Curators: Rebecca Alban Hoffberger & Mary Ellen “Dolly” Vehlow
Exhibition Media Kit: Designed, produced & distributed by American Visionary Art Museum
© 2012, All rights reserved.
All Photographs by Dan Meyers, except where noted.
“Storytelling” Logo: by Mars Tokyo.
Cover Design: by Nick Prevas, with silk-screen printing by Kelly Laughlin & Beka Bridges.
Media Contact:
Nick Prevas, 410-244-1900 x241, [email protected]
American Visionary Art Museum • 800 Key Highway, Baltimore, MD • 21230
Printed in the U.S.A.
HIGH RESOLUTION PRESS IMAGES AVAILABLE FOR DOWNLOAD AT:
www.avam.org/news-and-events/media-info.shtml • email [email protected] for password
“Life itself is the most wonderful fairy tale.”
–Hans Christian Andersen (1805–1875)
W
elcome to our American Visionary Art Museum (AVAM)’s 18th
annual, thematic exhibition, THE ART OF STORYTELLING: Lies,
Enchantment, Humor & Truth! You, dear reader, constitute a special, oneof-a-kind story told in code by your inherited DNA and by your every action, reaction,
word and circumstance.
From scripture to fairy tale, cartoons to cyberbullying, the raw power of stories to
inspire and enchant, spread lies or to inform, simply has no equal. In fact, stories
are pesky, inescapable forces--as insidious in our lives as the outlawed “buy popcorn
now” message subliminals employed in old 1950’s movie theaters. Stories, including
all sorts of propaganda and family lore, infect and affect us even when we think that
they don’t. THE ART OF STORYTELLING’s ‘table of contents’ overflows with theme-related
quotes, story jokes (even the classic “a guy walks into a bar...” has a defined who,
what, where and why to it), and timeless sub-categories like Shakespeare’s “All
the World’s a Stage, and All the Men and Women Merely Players.” Another section,
“Misuse of Story: Bullying, Lies & Unkind Words,” examines the dark underbelly of
storytelling magnified via the Internet to spin negative and hurtful stories. It has
been said that, “Hurt people hurt people.” This healing exhibition is an articulate
plea for greater civility and kindness, forgiveness and respect in our ways of telling
stories about, and speaking to, one another.
THE ART OF STORYTELLING champions the courage and inventiveness of its
visionary artists exploring distinct aspects of all that a story can be. They have done
so via first person testimony, embroidery, diorama, sculpture, historic artifact, film,
graffiti documentation, graphic novel, and PostSecret confession—promoting all
manner of acute ‘visual listening’ and surprise for the whole family.
This tale-filled exhibition is a sequel for our co-curatorial team of Mary Ellen ‘Dolly’
Vehlow--a tireless, story-loving, award-winning graphic designer, and founder/sponsor
of Washington, D.C.’s H Street Festival--and me, a founder and the Director of AVAM.
– more –
THE ART OF STORYTELLING: Lies, Enchantment, Humor & Truth
underscores the role all museums, media, and governments play as public storytellers
as well as their nigh inescapable influence on what we think, hold true, reject, and/
or ultimately understand. Our religious beliefs also get conveyed via stories, usually
starring one super being engaged in some archetypal conflict. Such beliefs have
inspired both noble action and grievous religious warring over just how one particular
storied version of the Divine Unknowable must triumph over that held dear by
another.
May the story you live right now and the one we play out in concert with each other
astound in the beauty of its telling and aid in establishing revolutionary new heights
of happily ever after-ness!
Yours in this ‘Once Upon A Time,’
Rebecca Alban Hoffberger
“There have been great societies that did not use the wheel,
but there have been no societies that did not tell stories.”
–Ursula K. Le Guin
Mars Tokyo, Detail: The Cabinet of Mr. Mojo from “Theaters of the 13th Dimension,” 2003-2007,
Mixed media assemblages, Collection of the artist, Image courtesy of the artist.
American Visionary Art Museum
800 Key Highway
Baltimore, MD 21230
410.244.1900 • www.avam.org
Media Contact:
Nick Prevas
[email protected]
410.244.1900 ext. 241
FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
August 6, 2012
THE ART OF STORYTELLING: Lies, Enchantment, Humor & Truth
October 6, 2012 – September 1, 2013
The American Visionary Art Museum (AVAM)’s 18th annual, thematic exhibition,
THE ART OF STORYTELLING: Lies, Enchantment, Humor & Truth opens to
the public on Saturday, October 6, 2012, and runs through Sunday, September 1,
2013.
From scripture to fairy tale, cartoons to cyberbullying, the raw power of stories to
inspire and enchant, spread lies or to inform, simply has no equal. THE ART OF
STORYTELLING: Lies, Enchantment, Humor & Truth is the American Visionary
Art Museum’s brand-new, supremely original exhibition featuring embroidery,
diorama, sculpture, film, graffiti, and PostSecret confession—promoting all manner of
acute ‘visual listening’ and delight for the whole family.
The museum’s 18th, yearlong, thematic exhibition explores the impact of story via
visual narratives created by 30+ visionary artists, each expressive of some personal
aspect of tale-telling. Their intuitive creations include: the intricate cutout stories
of TED speaker and artist sensation, Béatrice Coron; Mars Tokyo’s miniature 3-D
Theaters of the 13th Dimension; and by popular demand, the return of Esther Krinitz’s
love-filled, 36-piece, embroidered tale of her Holocaust survival. Other exhibition
highlights include a collection of twenty painted self-portrait stories by rescued
Cambodian children, and accompanied by Leslie Hope’s documentary film, What I
See When I Close My Eyes; photographer Larry Yust’s Streets Tell Stories, images of
graffiti and street art from across the globe; and Andi Olsen’s filmed stories behind
human body scars. Another return from AVAM’s inaugural exhibition is Debbie
and Mike Schramer’s Fairy Tree Houses, guaranteed to enchant as powerfully as
AVAM’s permanent collection of South African “Truth and Reconciliation” story quilt
– more –
testimonies. Chris Roberts-Antieau’s newest batch of humorous embroidered fabric
appliqués join with artist P. Nosa’s stitched five-word-inspired scenes, created on his
bike pedaled/solar powered, roving sewing machine! Apache elder Judy Tallwing’s
tribal legends, painted with precious metals and adorned with prayer beads, speak
to the oral traditions that pass sacred stories to new generations; and opera/hip-hop/
performance artist Vanessa German wields found sculpture assemblages to shout her
‘soul stories,’ aimed at retelling a more truthful side to African American history.
THE ART OF STORYTELLING’s ‘table of contents’ overflows with quotes, jokes
(even the classic “a guy walks into a bar...” has a who, what & where to it), and
timeless sub-categories like Shakespeare’s “All The World’s A Stage, And All The Men
And Women Merely Players.” Another section, “Lies, Loshon Hora & True Confessions
of Bullies & The Bullied Innocents” examines the dark underbelly of storytelling,
magnified via the Internet to spin negative, false and hurtful stories. This exhibition
is an articulate plea for greater civility and kindness in our ways of telling stories
about, and speaking to, one another.
This must-see exhibition is a sequel for co-curatorial team Rebecca Hoffberger,
Founder & Director of AVAM, and Mary Ellen ‘Dolly’ Vehlow, award-winning graphic
designer and Founder/Sponsor of Washington, D.C.’s H Street Festival. THE ART OF
STORYTELLING: Lies, Enchantment, Humor & Truth underscores the role all
museums and media play as public storytellers, as well as their inescapable influence
on what we think, believe, and ultimately understand of stories.
EXHIBITION DATES
• Media/Press Preview: Wednesday, October 3, 2012 • 10am
• THE ART OF STORYTELLING Preview Party: Friday, October 5, 2012 •
7pm–10pm (AVAM Members free, $20 General Public)
• Exhibition opens to the public: Saturday, October 6, 2012 and runs through
Sunday, September 1, 2013.
THE ART OF STORYTELLING PREVIEW PARTY
Friday October 5, 2012 • 7pm–10pm • Tickets: Free for AVAM Members,
$20 General Public (tickets on sale through MissionTix beginning August 20)
Behold the American Visionary Art Museum’s brand-new, supremely original
exhibition, THE ART OF STORYTELLING: Lies, Enchantment, Humor &
Truth at our annual exhibition Preview Party! Don’t miss this exclusive sneak peek
of the new thematic show before we open the doors to the public. Meet visionary
artists in-person and hear their own personal narratives as you bear witness to the
stories unravelling throughout the galleries. Join us for an unforgettable evening
of music, entertainment, light fare & beverages (provided by Sacha’s & Max’s
Taphouse), fantastic art and stories to share! Museum members are FREE (so why
not join today?). Preview Party is open to the public – Tickets: $20 (will be available
through MissionTix beginning August 20, www.missiontix.com). For more info, or to
become a member, visit www.avam.org or call 410.244.1900.
THE ART OF STORYTELLING
ARTISTS
Anonymous artists
• Patient #32643
• African American Puppets
• South African Group ‘Truth &
Reconciliation’ embroideries
Chris Roberts-Antieau
Calvin and Ruby Black
Ben Ortega
Andi Olsen
Brian Pardini
Nina Shapiro-Perl
PostSecret artists
Art Brun
Rescued Children of
Friends-International Cambodia
Béatrice Coron
Betty Rosen
Timmerman Daugherty
Allie Light & Irving Saraf
(Light-Saraf Films)
Jim Doran
Emily Duffy
Nancy Duvall
Vanessa German
Allen Hicks
Leslie Hope
George Kennard, M.D.
(Story provided by historian,
Dr. Philip J. Merrill)
Esther Nisenthal Krinitz
Debbie Schramer
Mike Schramer
Marcellin Simard, M.D.
William Stoeckley, D.D.S.
Judy Tallwing
Alex Todorovich
Mars Tokyo
Frank Warren
Patty Kuzbida
Harriet Elizabeth Thompson, a.k.a.
“Princess Wee Wee”
Anthony Horton & Youme Landowne
Matthew “Bay Bay” Williams
Geraldine Lloyd
Larry Yust
P. Nosa
Esther Krinitz, Road To Krasnik, No. 20, 1994,
Embroidery and fabric collage, Collection of Bernice Steinhardt and Helene McQuade,
Image courtesy Art & Remembrance, artandremembrance.org
THE ART OF STORYTELLING
GALLERIES
& KEY AREAS OF SPECIAL INTEREST
FIRST FLOOR:
Front Wall, Museum Entrance: “The Art of Storytelling” logo by Mars Tokyo.
Entrance Ramp: Mars Tokyo’s “Storytelling” banners; Chris Roberts-Antieau;
Exhibition Welcome.
Hallway: “Lies, Loshon Hora, True Stories of Bullies & The Bullied Innocents” Frank
Warren’s selection of “Bullying” PostSecrets and essay; illustrated story of “Princess
Wee Wee.”
Elevator: Geraldine Lloyd painting and six word story project; Anonymous wooden
“birdhouse” mailbox.
STAIRWELLS:
1st–2nd floor: Béatrice Coron’s amazing Tyvek cut-outs. 2nd–3rd floor: Painted
self-portrait stories by Rescued Children of Friends-International Cambodia and
Leslie Hope’s film, What I See When I Close My Eyes; photograph of child prostitute by
Betty Rosen.
SECOND FLOOR:
2nd Floor Niche: Calvin and Ruby Black’s “Possum Trot Figures,” and Possum Trot
documentary by Light-Saraf Films.
Entrance Gallery: “Esther’s Story:” Esther Nisenthal Krinitz’s holocaust
embroideries, 36 pieces with biographical elements illustrating her story of survival.
Curved Wall: Mars Tokyo’s “Theaters of the 13th Dimension” & hand-drawn graphic
diaries, Alex Todorovich’s Cancer Journal–ink drawings and small sculpture, and
Anonymous African American Puppets.
Storytelling Theater: Through The Eye of the Needle, film about artist Esther
Krinitz by Nina Shapiro-Perl.
Harlequin Wall (adjacent to Theater): Chris Roberts-Antieau’s comic fabric
appliqués; Allen Hicks’ sculpture, “She Done Me Wrong.”
– more –
SECOND FLOOR GALLERIES continued
Enchantment Gallery: Debbie & Mike Schramer’s “Fairy Tree Houses” with
paintings & handmade furniture; Marcellin Simard, M.D. paintings; “Mexicali,” an
original painted fairy tale by Nancy Duvall; Wooden dolls by Art Brun and William
Stoeckley, D.D.S.; works by Patty Kuzbida & Ben Ortega.
Rear Hallway (Key Hwy side): Baltimore’s Medical Camelot–story of Dr. George
Kennard & Christ’s Institution Medico-Chirurgical and Theological College of
Baltimore, Courtesy of Dr. Philip J. Merrill; “Truth and Reconciliation” quilts & essay;
“The Crying Child” by Matthew “Bay Bay” Williams.
Half Moon Gallery: “Streets Tell Stories,” Larry Yust’s photographs of graffiti from
around the globe with essay; Vanessa German’s sculptural assemblages exploring
revisions of African American history; Written On My Body, Andi Olsen’s short film
on stories of human body scars; precious metal & prayer beaded, painted legends by
Judy Tallwing; Mantu’s “Singing Scroll;” Timmerman Daugherty’s ballad inspired
sculpture, “The Selkie.”
Rear Hallway (Covington St. side): P. Nosa’s 5-word inspired micro-stories–
stitched on his solar/bike-powered sewing machine; Jim Doran’s story of friendship;
Youme Landowne and Anthony Horton’s original art from the book Pitch Black, Don’t
be Skerd.
Chris Roberts-Antieau, Power Brows, 2012, Fabric appliqué,
Collection of the artist, Image courtesy of the artist.
EXHIBITION AMBASSADORS
Julian Bond, civil rights and AVAM champion
Josh Charles, Emmy nominated actor committed to anti-bullying initiatives
Linda Kavelin-Popov & Dan Popov, Ph.D., founders of The Virtues Project
Lyn Pentecost, founder of The Lower East Side Girls Club
Ken Waissman, Tony Award-winning Broadway producer and (if you insist) musical
storyteller
Laura Wexler and Jessica Henkin, co-founders and co-producers of The Stoop
Storytelling Series
Jean L. Wyman, LCSW-C
PLATINUM
EXHIBITION SPONSORS
• Francis Goelet Lead Charitable Trusts
• Joannie, the Queen of Hearts, & Her Knights in Shining Armour,
Dr. Harry Lee Friedman & Mr. Ryan James Christos Hamilos
• Whiting-Turner Contracting Company
GOLD
•
•
•
•
•
Anonymous
Bunting Family Foundation
Max’s Taphouse
Lisa and Paul Revson
Urban Chic
SILVER
•
•
•
•
•
•
Jane Daniels
John Sondheim and Emily Greenberg
Thomas McCabe
Dr. and Mrs. Lawrence C. Pakula
Arnold and Alison Richman
Sylvan/Laureate Foundation
BRONZE
•
•
•
•
•
•
Emile Bendit, MD
Mary Catherine Bunting
Rosalee and Richard Davison
JoAnn and Jack Fructhman
Maryellyn Lynott
Two Boots Pizza
SUPPORTER
• Jan Weinberg
Béatrice Coron, MAD Growth, 2010, Cut Tyvek,
Collection of the artist, Photo by Dan Meyers.
AVAM 101
AMERICAN VISIONARY ART MUSEUM
THE AMERICAN VISIONARY ART MUSEUM is America’s official national museum
and education center for self-taught, intuitive artistry (deemed so by a unanimous vote of the
U.S. Congress). SINCE ITS OPENING IN 1995, the museum has sought to promote the
recognition of intuitive, self-reliant, creative contribution as both an important historic and
essential living piece of treasured human legacy. The ONE-OF-A-KIND American Visionary
Art Museum is located on a 1.1 ACRE WONDERLAND CAMPUS at 800 Key Highway,
Baltimore Inner Harbor. Three renovated historic industrial buildings house wonders created
by farmers, housewives, mechanics, retired folk, the disabled, the homeless, as well as the
occasional neurosurgeon – all INSPIRED BY THE FIRE WITHIN. From carved roots to
embroidered rags, tattoos to toothpicks, ‘the visionary’ transforms dreams, loss, hopes, and
ideals into POWERFUL WORKS OF ART.
WHAT IS A VISIONARY?
Visionaries perceive potential and creative relationships where most of us don’t. English
writer Jonathan Swift put it simply, “Vision is the art of seeing things invisible.” Such vision
lies at the heart of all true invention, whether that special vision manifests as an astonishing
work of art like those created by the intuitive artists featured at the American Visionary
Art Museum or as a medical breakthrough, a melody never before sung, some deeper
understanding of the cosmos, or as a way in which life could be better, more justly lived.
Visionaries have always constituted human-kind’s greatest “evolutionaries.”
Without visionaries’ willingness to be called fools, to make mistakes, to be wrong, few
new “right” things would ever be birthed. Visionaries are brave scouts at the frontier of the
unknown. They explore their visions with a passionate single-mindedness. Albert Einstein
rightly observed, “Imagination is more important than knowledge.”
Creative acts intended to uplift, defend, and enlighten fulfill every function that can be asked
of a work of art. They inspire us, make us think in new ways, and birth new beauty and
dignity into our world.
WHAT IS ART?
The ancients—the Greeks, Egyptians, Hopis, and New Guinea tribesmen—were among
earth’s most prolific art-making peoples. Yet, none had any word for “art” in their respective
languages. Rather, they each had a word that meant “well-made” or “beautifully performed.”
Our American Visionary Art Museum believes that this view of what art really means is
as perfect an understanding of art as ever was. It speaks to an art incumbent upon all its
citizens, pervasive throughout all the acts of our daily life. Its emphasis is on process and
consciousness, not mere artifact.
Martin Luther King, Jr. expressed his profound respect for the true artistry each member of
a society can uniquely evidence to bless our communities, “If a man is called to be a street
sweeper, he should sweep streets even as Michelangelo painted, or Beethoven composed music,
or Shakespeare wrote poetry. He should sweep streets so well that all the Hosts of Heaven
and earth would pause to say, Here lived a great streetsweeper who did his job well.”
SOME HANDY
INFO
AMERICAN VISIONARY ART MUSEUM (AVAM)
800 Key Highway • Baltimore, MD • 21230 • 410.244.1900
web: avam.org • facebook: facebook.com/theavam • twitter: @TheAVAM
OUR HOURS
Tuesday–Sunday (Closed on Mondays*)
10:00 a.m.–6:00 p.m.
*Open Monday, Martin Luther King, Jr. Day as
AVAM’s tribute to teachers–Everyone is Free!
CLOSED: Christmas Day & Thanksgiving Day
PARKING
Abundant metered parking on Covington Street
and Key Highway. Handicapped accessible.
AMERICAN VISIONARY ART MUSEUM
(AVAM) is America’s official national museum
for self-taught, intuitive artistry. Since its
opening in 1995, the museum has sought to
promote the recognition of intuitive, self-reliant,
creative contribution as both an important
historic and essential living piece of treasured
human legacy.
THE ART OF STORYTELLING:
Lies, Enchantment, Humor & Truth
Throughout Main Building
October 6, 2012–September 1, 2013
From scripture to fairy tale, cartoons to
cyberbullying, the raw power of stories to inspire
and enchant, spread lies or to inform, simply
has no equal. THE ART OF STORYTELLING:
Lies, Enchantment, Humor & Truth is AVAM’s
18th yearlong, supremely original exhibition
featuring the works of 30+ visionary artists
& tale-tellers, including embroidery, diorama,
sculpture, film, graffiti, and PostSecret
confession—promoting all manner of acute
‘visual listening’ and delight for the whole
family.
GRETCHEN FELDMAN:
Love Letter to Earth (1934-2008)
Third Floor Gallery ~ April 2012–June 2013
This luminous retrospective of 40+ vivid
paintings exalt the exquisite, eternal themes
of “Perfect Unions:” where land meets sea, day
embraces night, sky kisses earth – opposites
inherent to life’s sacred cycle of union and touch.
REGULAR ADMISSION
Adult
Senior (60 & up)
Student
Children 6 & under
GROUP RATES*
Group Rate (Adult)
Group Rate (College)
Group Rate (K-12)
* For groups of 10 or more people
$15.95
$13.95
$9.95
Free!
$10 ea.
$8 ea.
$6 ea.
PERMANENT COLLECTION GALLERY
First Floor Gallery ~ Ongoing
Works selected from a collection that includes
visionaries such as Paul Darmafall (The
Baltimore Glass Man), Martin Ramirez, Mary
Proctor, James Harold Jennings, Wayne Kusy,
Antonio Alberti, and more.
CABARET MECHANICAL THEATRE
Jim Rouse Visionary Center ~ Ongoing
A collection of whimsical, interactive automta
from the Cabaret Mechanical Theatre of London.
SCREEN PAINTERS OF BALTIMORE
Jim Rouse Visionary Center ~ Ongoing
A celebration of screen painting–the uniquely
Baltimore art form. Full-size replica rowhouses
house screens painted by Baltimore’s finest. A
documentary film, shown in a theater within the
rowhomes, shines a light on the artists and their
desire to paint.
PUBLIC ART
Throughout Museum Grounds ~ Ongoing
A three-ton, four-story Whirligig by Vollis
Simpson; Nancy Josephson’s mirror-mosaic
Gallery-A-Go-Go bus; Andrew Logan’s Cosmic
Galaxy Egg; Adam Kurtzman’s Giant Golden
Hand; David Hess’s Bird’s Nest Balcony; Dick
Brown’s Bluebird of Happiness; the glittering
Community Mosaic Wall–the work of a
wonderful apprenticeship program for at-risk
youth; Wildflower Sculpture Garden featuring
Ben Wilson’s wooden Meditation Chapel/
Wedding Altar; Critters by Clyde Jones; Ted
Ludwiczak’s Stone Fountain Heads; and more.
OCTOB ER 5
2012
THE ART OF STORYTELLING
PREVIEW PARTY Fri. 10/5 • 7pm–10pm
• Tickets: $20, AVAM Members FREE!
Behold our brand-new, supremely original
exhibition at our annual Preview Party!
Don’t miss this exclusive sneak peek of the new
thematic show before we open the doors to the public.
Meet visionary artists in-person and hear their own
personal narratives as you bear witness to the stories
unravelling throughout the galleries. Join us for an
unforgettable evening of music, entertainment, light
fare & beverages, fantastic art and stories to share!
Tickets are available through Missiontix.com
30
FREE FALL BALTIMORE AT
AVAM Tues. 10/30 • 10am–9pm
• FREE Admission & Special
Programming! AVAM opens its
doors for FREE admission to the
museum all day on Tuesday, October 30th, and will be
staying open late until 9pm! Enjoy FREE programs
like a free Nia Class (Neuromuscular Integrative
Action) at 6pm in our Tall Sculpture Barn, & check out
a free screening of a VISIONARY FILM at 7pm in our
Permanent Collection gallery. All are welcome.
NOVEMB ER
24
BAZAART HOLIDAY MARKET
Sat. 11/24 • 10am–5pm • FREE
TO SHOP! AVAM’s annual
Holiday Marketplace of original
creations by over 50 regional
artists and craftspeople. Painting, sculpture, papercrafts, metalwork, jewelry, textiles, mixed media,
and other work that simply defies categorization!
BAZAART Preview Party • Friday night
11/23 • 5:30–8pm • Tickets: $20, $10 Members: Enjoy
light fare, beverages, music & first dibs at the Friday
evening Bazaart Preview Party!
DECEMB ER
8
SOCK MONKEY SATURDAY Sat. 12/8 •
10am–2pm • FREE! Don’t let the holidays
drive you BANANAS! Relax by making your
very own Sock Monkey. A great last-minute
gift & just something fun to do! FREE, but
you must bring 2 pairs of (clean) socks & scissors to get
in! Location: AVAM’s Jim Rouse Visionary Center,
3rd Floor.
PROGRAMS &
EVENTS CA LENDAR
JANUARY
21
2013
MARTIN LUTHER KING JR.
DAY CELEBRATION Mon. 1/21
• 10am–6pm • FREE! A celebration
in honor of the life & dreams of one of
history’s greatest visionaries. AVAM
opens its doors for FREE all day! Join us for guided
tours, birthday cake, special performances & more–all
celebrating Dr. King’s vision & legacy.
APRIL
KINETIC VOLUNTEER ROUND-UP Volunteer
Meeting Dates TBA • Check avam.org for info WANTED: The Brave, The Talented, The Mediocre,
The Unsuspecting Few... KINETIC VOLUNTEERS
to help in the grueling, all-day, general insanity of
our 15th annual Kinetic Sculpture Race! More details
T.B.A. at avam.org, or call 410.244.1900.
MAY
4
15TH ANNUAL KINETIC SCULPTURE
RACE Sat. 5/4 • All Day! From AVAM – a
race of wacky, imaginative, totally human
powered works of ART designed to travel on
LAND, through the MUD, and over deep
harbor WATERS, constructed out of used
bicycles, gears, and parts, created by a lunatic genius
who tinkers around in the garage or backyard (Do
you know this person?) The machines can be simple,
small crafts, piloted by only one brave soul, or they
can be over 50 feet long, extremely well-engineered,
sophisticated vehicles powered by a team of pilots.
More at kineticbaltimore.com & avam.org!
JULY
4
VISIONARY PETS ON PARADE
Thurs. 7/4 • 10am • FREE! The best doggone parade in town! Dress your pet & strut
your stuff. Animal fun! Animal prizes!
Trophies awarded for Best Costume, Most
Patriotic, Most Visionary Pet, Owner & Pet
look-alikes, Least likely to succeed as a Pet, & more!
Pets of ALL kinds are welcome. Pet Registration
begins at 9:30am.
& AUG UST
FLICKS FROM THE HILL Thursdays in July &
August • FREE Screenings at 9pm on Federal Hill!
Grab a blanket, picnic under the stars, and watch
a great film selection inspired by AVAM’s current
exhibition. Thursdays in July & August! Museum is
Open & Free from 5pm–9pm on Flick nights!
Debbie & Mike Schramer, Detail: Fairy Tree House, 1995, Mixed media,
Collection of the artists, Photo by Dan Meyers.
THE ART OF STORYTELLING
ESSAYS
THE BEAUTY OF TRADITION:
Parables, Tribal Wisdoms,
Oral Traditions, Sacred Myths
“Why was Solomon recognized as the wisest man in the world? Because
he knew more stories (Proverbs) than anyone else. Scratch the surface in a
typical boardroom and we’re all just cavemen with briefcases, hungry for
a wise person to tell us stories.”
–Alan Kay, VP at Walt Disney
Parable par • a • ble, noun. A simple story used to illustrate and impart a moral or
spiritual lesson. From a Greek word meaning comparison, illustration, or analogy.
Fables are much like parables, but are teaching stories that use animals, plants and/
or inanimate objects to convey their simple truths and morals lessons in a symbolic
way. Jesus, Confucius, Buddha, and other great and enduring spiritual teachers
associated with centuries of varying geographic and cultural traditions have all
exquisitely employed parables to teach specific lessons. The Book of Matthew, in the
New Testament, quotes Jesus, “Therefore I speak to them in parables, because seeing
they don’t see, and hearing, they don’t hear, neither do they understand.”
One of the greatest marvels in human history has been the faithful ancestral
whispering of epic stories, imparted from one generation to the next, by much of
the world’s indigenous peoples. The gift of accurate recitation from memory of these
sacred stories was a treasured responsibility, incumbent upon each new generation.
From this tradition, the creation account of the Finnish Kalevala was kept intact and
allowed its transcription into print and many other Aboriginal tales and prophesies
were successfully preserved and lovingly passed from one generation to the next, in
a multi-centuried unbroken line, so that the whole world could enjoy and profit from
their ageless beauty.
Every death of an elder is as if an entire library
had been burned to the ground.
–African Proverb
Judy Tallwing, The Pipe Carriers, 2009, Resin, silver, 22 kt. gold, sterling, acrylic, copper, sacred piper dust,
Collection of the artist, Photo by Dan Meyers.
TRUTH AND RECONCILIATION:
Telling True Stories to Help Heal Injury
In 1995, just as our American Visionary Art Museum was opening here in Baltimore,
the Truth and Reconciliation Commission (TRC), on the other side of the world in
South Africa, began instituting a revolutionary and fiercely creative system for
communal healing, implemented through the power of truthful storytelling.
What was the Truth and Reconciliation Commission’s noble aim? Its aim was to
formally and humanely address the factual record of violent human rights abuse that
occurred under state-sanctioned apartheid upon its citizens of color and to offer a new
way forward as one unified people.
The new South Africa’s Truth and Reconciliation Commission was determined to
avoid the wheel of bloody retribution in response to the racist crimes sanctioned
under the former Apartheid Republic of South Africa government. They bravely set
course on a new way to heal and unite all the populations of South Africa, one that
also guaranteed gay rights as civil rights. They offered a very controversial approach
that suspended punishment when the perpetrators of brutal crimes would humbly
reveal the full measure of their acts and truthfully respond to the questions asked
by the grieving loved ones of those they had tortured or killed. This revolutionary
societal healing system was devoted to people-to-people sharing through truthful
stories. Forgiveness was seen as a mutual act of “Ubuntu” - a system wholly
contrasted with vengeance and punishment, whose ultimate goal lay in restoring
human dignity and shared concern for all parties as inextricably interrelated parts of
the one web of life.
The TRC was chaired by our Visionary Museum’s respected, dear friend, Nobel
Laureate Archbishop Desmond Tutu, the recipient of our highest Grand Visionary
Award. We believe the Truth and Reconciliation movement constitutes humanity’s
highest and most compassionate creative act to date.
Treasured within our national museum’s permanent collection are these true stories,
expressed in sewn and embroidered quilted panels that were solicited under the TRC
to enable illiterate women to record their factual, personal testimonies expressive
of “the worse day of their lives under Apartheid.” Thousands of these painful
cloth remembrances were captured in this manner, often accompanied by verbal
testimonies also carefully recorded. In this way, the true story of suffering was never
minimized, but preserved as a permanent record of a shared tragic past that must
never be repeated.
Today the Truth and Reconciliation model of establishing a dignified public forum for
– more –
addressing past and grievous wrongs has now been successfully adopted by several
other countries and villages. Seeking a way to transcend blame, the TRC endures as
astonishment in civility, much like the act of the Pennsylvania Amish community who
stunned the world by immediately reaching out with compassion to the family of the
man who senselessly killed their innocent school children, knowing that they too were
suffering. Both the Amish community and the revolutionary South African Truth and
Reconciliation Commission were committed to revolutionary acts of kindness and
forgiveness in the light of truth, in lieu of responding to injury in ways that further
perpetuate hardship and alienation. If that isn’t human creativity at its best, we don’t
know what is.
“One of the sayings in our country is Ubuntu - the essence of being
human. Ubuntu speaks particularly about the fact that you can’t exist
as a human being in isolation. It speaks about our inter-connectedness.
You can’t be human all by yourself, and when you have this quality Ubuntu - you are known for your generosity. We think of ourselves far too
frequently as just individuals, separated from one another, whereas you
are connected and what you do affects the whole World. When you do well,
it spreads out; it is for the whole of humanity.”
–Archbishop Desmond Tutu defining “Ubuntu,” in 2008
P. Nosa, Communicating With Music, 2012, Machine embroidery on fabric,
Collection of the artist, Photo by Dan Meyers.
LIES, LOSHON HORA, TRUE STORIES OF
BULLIES & THE BULLIED INNOCENTS
Like all the great super powers—religion, government, media, sex and money—
storytelling, neither intrinsically good nor evil, has its dark underbelly. How we speak
to, and of, one another affects us deeply.
The Jewish sages define “Loshon Hora” literally as the “Evil Tongue.” The Talmud
states clearly that damaging gossip is a three-pronged tongue that actually kills three
people—the one who speaks it, the one who listens, and the subject of the gossip.
Throughout history, both young people and adults have engaged in this dark form
of storytelling most often to reduce their own insecurities at the expense of others.
Today we know it as bullying.
Each day in America, more than 160,000 children miss school due to bullying. This
newest twentieth-century crop of bullies has made other children captives of their
own Internet-tied existence. Take away their Internet access to save them the 24/7
pain as public targets of cyber humiliation and intimidation, and we punish the
innocent. Furthermore, current estimates state that teen suicide has increased a
horrific 400% in just the past 30 years. No wonder since 1995 more than 45 states
have passed laws to spell out legal consequences to cyber bullying and bullying in
general. New Jersey now requires all its schools to have an in-house, anti-bullying
specialist. The victims have too often been the most exquisitely gentle souls, like
Maryland’s lost treasures: Grace McComas, who on an Easter morning took her
own life, and Jason Mattison, murdered for being a gay teen who wished to one day
become a doctor. Both are now most cherished memories by all blessed to have known
them.
As bullying sadly continues to escalate in new violent and tragic outcomes, there is
bright news. Caring celebrities like Ravens football star Ray Rice and entertainment
icon Lady Gaga, along with both of their moms, have made pro-kindness and antibullying their #1, personal public cause. They have joined forces with bereft parents,
siblings, teachers and friends of bullied kids and have begun reaching out to the
bullies as well, to try and launch a new and kinder way forward, united. It has been
truthfully said, “Hurt people, hurt people.”
Pledging progress in this arena of public education and creative kindness, our
American Visionary Art Museum is dedicating this entire year in the effort to help
transmute destructive energies in our community and to empower acts that have the
capacity to help heal. We have joined hands with kindred visionary programs like
The Virtues Project and Truth and Reconciliation that take direct aim at ending the
cycle of blame, shame and retribution and seek to instruct and embrace both victim
– more –
and perpetrator in revolutionary, experiential ways, with the goal of shedding the
polarizing labels of “them and us.” We are wholly dedicated to Martin Buber’s societal
vision of inclusive and respectful “I/Thou” versus “I/It.”
Our postcard display of Frank Warren’s handpicked collection of PostSecret
confessions reveal, via first person testimonies expressed by both bullies and the
bullied, a more balanced and complete story of who and where we are. Frank, himself
traumatically bullied in third grade, then became a bully until he found his life
mission that helped him and hundreds of thousands of others begin a truthful path to
healing and compassion. Frank’s whole healing PostSecret project was inspired by a
way out of the burden of his own hurt. He has also helped suicide hotlines to survive
for years.
Psychologists who profile bullies state there are two groups of people who bully:
regular kids and adults and deviant ones, meaning all of us. Independent heroes who
act to protect or stand up for others are still far too few. These ratios of persons silent
in the light of abuse are not unlike behaviors reflected in wartime and genocide in
which ordinary people, who normally would not themselves be inclined to perform
individual criminal acts upon others, undertook nightmarish participation in
atrocities due to peer or authoritarian pressure. Historian Howard Zinn believed,
“The future is an infinite succession of presents, and to live now as we think human
beings should live, in defiance of all that is bad around us, is itself a marvelous
victory.”
Here’s to an end to all forms of bullying, in ourselves and in others, and to the courage
to raise an army devoted to the essential creativity inherent in living kindly with all
others.
Anonymous, Bullying Confession, n.d., Postcards, Courtesy of PostSecret,
Image courtesy of PostSecret.
“WHAT I SEE WHEN I CLOSE MY EYES”
Self-Portrait Banners created by Children Rescued through Friends-International &
Documentary Film by Leslie Hope featuring True Life Testimonies Spoken by The Children.
The ultimate price of war is paid for by the children it leaves behind. UNICEF
estimates that 35% of Cambodia’s 15,000+ prostitutes are children under 16.
Many other children are engaged in forced labor, organized begging rings, and
other exploitive practices. Filmmaker and actor, Leslie Hope, visited Phnom Penh,
Cambodia for her first time in 2003. This is what she found:
“Once the richest country in Southeast Asia, it is now one of the poorest,
with an average annual income below $300. Today, more than 20,000
children live and work on the streets of Phnom Penh, many abandoned
by their families through poverty, death, and despair and the enduring
ravages of war. The illegal sex trade is a burgeoning industry, one that
shamefully continues to attract adult pedophile global tourists–children
as young as three and four years old have been bought and sold. HIV/
AIDS remains a fast-growing health problem, as is drug addiction.”
FRIENDS INTERNATIONAL, also known by Mith Samlanh from the Khmer
word for “FRIENDS,” was established in 1994, to provide safe haven and to help
meet the long-term needs of Cambodia’s rescued street children. Now a respected
and acclaimed international organization serving 60,000 children where needed
worldwide, FRIENDS INTERNATIONAL offers street living and working kids
shelter, food, remedial education, vocational training, job placement and counseling,
and perhaps for the first time in their lives, a safe place to call home. Hope recalls:
“While visiting one of the FRIENDS Training Centers, I was approached
by a young boy who seemed no older than my ten year-old son. He made
clear to me that he was sexually available. Obviously operating from a
former instinct for survival, while finally in a place where he no longer
needed to do that, he continued a habit that had been learned at an
enormous cost. His gesture to me was both so very disturbing and moving
that I felt compelled to do something. I wanted to help make a world
where children needn’t sacrifice themselves for the price of a meal. With
the cooperation of Sebastien Marot, the founder of FRIENDS, and with
the support and help of the staff and children, I returned to Cambodia
the following year to make this short documentary. Originally conceived
as a fund-raising tool for FRIENDS, the project bloomed into something
far bigger. The children became my heroes.”
Leslie Hope’s film, structured around the kids making over 100 life-sized self-portrait
banners, was inspired by her simple question, “What do you see when you close your
eyes?” By asking the courageous children of Mith Samlanh/FRIENDS the simplest of
questions, Leslie reports, “I was able to hear and film their most extraordinary and
truthful answers.”
Children of Cambodia, #62 Kha Koy, 2006, Emulsion paint on canvas, Courtesy of the children of FriendsInternational (Mith Samlanh Program), Phnom Penh, Cambodia, Photo by Dan Meyers.
To gift your personal support to the important work of Friends-International Cambodia, please visit
their website and learn more: friends-international.org/wherewework/cambodia.asp
BALTIMORE’S TRUE STORY OF
“MEDICAL CAMELOT”
& Its Truly Visionary Creator,
Dr. George Whittington Kennard
(b. 1855 - d. 1929)
In 1885, four years before the 1889 opening
of Johns Hopkins Hospital, a brilliant
African American physician and minister
named Dr. George Kennard opened Christ’s
Institution Medico, Chirurgical and
Theological College of Baltimore. From its
start, Dr. Kennard’s hospital served all in
need and included a racially and religiously
diverse medical and pharmaceutical
staff. Kennard’s institution maintained a
reputation for high standards of excellence
and inclusive community care. Originally
located at 1006 Stirling Street, Kennard’s
hospital quickly outgrew its location and
was moved to 704 Ensor Street in a building
that still stands today just across from
Dunbar High School athletic field.
In addition to a well-equipped operating
room that included tiered seating for clinical
observation by medical students, there was a well-fitted pharmaceutical laboratory
overseen by a skilled chemist, well-maintained clean hospital beds, a dining room for
patients, a nursing school, Dr. Kennard’s handsome office, a church, and an outpatient
clinic. Dr. Kennard subsequently opened and operated a convalescent home in the
countryside of Anne Arundel County. By 1907, Kennard was also instrumental in
founding a beneficial insurance company, maintained by small subscriber weekly
dues, that provided burial and sick pay benefits that promised, “All claims paid
promptly.”
The President of Kennard’s healing oasis, Dr. John F. D. Brown, had received his
medical training at the University of Pennsylvania and returned to Baltimore to live
and open the city’s first Black-owned pharmacy, just one street away in Baltimore’s
Federal Hill neighborhood from where you now stand reading this. Dr. Brown was
also an accomplished singer and artist who painted figures from classical Greek
Above: Unknown, Portrait of George Whittington Kennard, M.D., c.1929,
Portrait courtesy of Christ Institution Baptist Church, Photo by Dan Meyers.
– more –
mythology as well as the first painted astrological map of the United States that was
exhibited in 1905 at the Maryland Institute. These renaissance men, whose colleagues
also included white European trained physicians, presided over a patient clientele
and nursing school that was primarily white, as was Baltimore’s citizenry at the time,
and where compassion and respect for all prevailed.
At Dr. Kennard’s death in 1929, the Afro American newspaper gave this account,
“...With his Masonic apron upon him, and a smile upon his face, Dr.
Kennard presented a picture of one more in peaceful slumber than in cold
death. By his casket from nine in the morning until one o’clock, white,
black, gentile, Jew, wobbling old men and women, children hardly able to
see above the rim of the casket, passed by and gave a last look at this man
who had healed the sick and administered to their religious needs for
three decades.”
This Kennard-founded hospital, church and school was, from its inception, fully
integrated and had a steadfast policy for welcoming and caring for indigent
patients alongside those able to pay. Segregated Johns Hopkins Hospital would
often refer their ‘colored’ and Jewish patients to treatment there. Tragically, this
idealistic and thriving institution was shut down, along with a dozen other top U.S.
African American run medical institutions, by the Flexner Report, a later-formed,
government-sanctioned hospital licensing and accreditation body. It is noteworthy
that the Flexner criteria was based on the Johns Hopkins structure of patient care.
The Kennard Hospital was forever closed in this way, along with North Carolina’s
respected Leonard Hospital. Both proved tremendous losses in the quality of
compassionate and equitable care no longer available to their respective communities.
All that remains in operation today at the Ensor Street location is the Christ Church
Institution, now headed by Reverend Jo Farley, who is likewise enthusiastically
dedicated to preserving the history of Dr. Kennard and his kind vision for future
generations.
Our heartfelt appreciation and utmost indebtedness goes to African American history
expert, Dr. Philip J. Merrill. Merrill’s research and passionate scholarship in bringing
forward to us the true story of Dr. Kennard as well as the remarkable medical
artifacts he uncovered at the invitation of the late pastor, Reverend Fenton Horton,
has made this exhibit possible. We join the Merrill family, Reverend Farley, and her
congregation in advocating for the need to preserve the historic lessons and physical
location of this rare holistic healing institution so very far ahead of its time. Its
onetime existence stands tall in testimony to the beauty and courage that existed in
actual practice, despite the ugliness of an ambient culture that fostered segregation
and exclusion.
Uncovering and celebrating the moments where humanity has shined brightest and
against all odds is artful and historic storytelling at its balanced best.
For more information, Dr. Philip J. Merrill can be contacted through www.nanny jack.com
CAVE ART, GRAFFITI & SCARS “What I like about cities is that everything is king size,
the beauty and the ugliness.”
–Joseph Brodsky
From cave painting to modern graffiti, the premise at the heart of our American
Visionary Art Museum’s exhibition, THE ART OF STORYTELLING: Lies,
Enchantment, Humor & Truth, is that every mark, every scar, every color choice and
embellishment records and contains a story—a how, what, why, where and when—
just by its being.
We are deeply indebted to filmmaker Andi Olsen for her capture of first person
storytelling about body scars. This film marks a return to AVAM for Andi after
sharing her remarkable Where The Smiling Ends movie that revealed what
constitutes a genuine smile versus a posed fake one in our popular 2010-11 What
Makes Us Smile? exhibition.
Our other great friend, Los Angeles based filmmaker Larry Yust, captures stories
told in time by real life streetscapes. Larry always insisted on scouting and choosing
all his own filming locations. Place, for Larry, was far more than just a backdrop to
his drama. Hardwired to draw inspiration from surroundings, it’s no wonder that
when a career lull occurred in the early nineties, Yust was drawn to prowl the streets
armed with only a still camera to capture slices of action and stillness murmured by
the city streets. At first, Yust recorded the old industrial and decaying back streets of
LA, and then its aging, ethnic neighborhoods in transition—those in the lively visual
processes of absorbing new waves of immigrants and cultures. His long pictures act
as city storyboards to real life. Flash forward some fifty years and imagine just how
cherished what Yust thought to so carefully preserve will then be in this swiftly
changing world!
Perhaps it is a kindred force which draws thousands of tourists to Pompeii to gawk
at a frozen-in-time slice of life that also pulls viewers to examine the minutest details
preserved in Yust’s documentary photos of urban street elevations.
Larry is a wholly self-taught photographer. He doesn’t own or ever use a light
meter or anything but natural light. He just has ‘the eye,’ the kind that cannot
be transmitted by schooling. Like the West African griots, Larry Yust has been a
singer, actor and is a natural born storyteller. Singled out in elementary school to
read, in weekly installments, his own original scripted stories complete with backto-back cliffhanger endings, early on Larry Yust knew how to captivate through a
well-told story. Equipped with that natural instinct for story, it is of little surprise
that Larry fell under the spell of California’s Salvation Mountain and its creator, the
– more –
legendary outsider artist, Leonard Knight. Yust’s multi-decade befriending and photo
documentation of Leonard’s massive desert masterpiece stands as the most thorough
visual record of the Mountain’s evolution and has also helped to introduce an evergrowing audience to Leonard’s monumental creation of love.
Yust’s pictures freeze in time big hunks of ephemeral life. Graffiti and businesses
come and go—quickly. Streets indeed tell stories, but too many get forever lost, going
unheard. Yust’s urban elevations often constitute their last words. Encountering
Andi Olsen’s way of seeing stories in smiles and in scars, and Larry’s gift in viewing
streets as stage in life’s ongoing theater, may well make us all drive a bit slower,
look that much closer and longer to feast on the raw beauty of story that abounds
wherever we really look and live, be it with stranger and friend alike.
STREETS TELL STORIES: Photographic elevations by Larry Yust. Special edition 2 volume book.
SINGING SCROLL
The creation of this painted scroll and its accompanying song, sung slowly as
unraveled, are by Mantu. Mantu created this singing scroll in response to the horrific
Moslem/Hindu riots in Gujarat in 2002. Mantu traveled from his native Bengal,
India to sing this song of love and healing out to all the people of Gujarat. People of
all faiths were so moved, that his song and scroll were taped and viewed repreatedly
for two days on National TV in India. Mantu lives simply with his wife and young
daughter, carrying all their possessions with them. Together they each make art to
promote peace and respect for nature.
We Are Children of One Mother
Scroll & Song Title & Refrain
Some people call their God Bagwan,
Some may call the Supreme Power Allah,
Yet others may worship Jesus Christ,
But we are all children of One Mother.
Then why do we fight against each other,
brother against brother?
Come let us take an oath to never fight
between ourselves.
Let us have peace and harmony on earth.
Why should we let religion create conflict in our lives?
We are all children of One Mother.
Left:
Alex Todorovich, Resting Her Feet, 2008,
Mixed Media, Collection of Larry Kanter.
Below:
Brian Pardini, Out Of The Fire, 2009,
Driftwood assemblage, Collection of the artist.
Photos by Dan Meyers.
HIGH RESOLUTION PRESS IMAGES AVAILABLE FOR DOWNLOAD AT:
www.avam.org/news-and-events/media-info.shtml • email [email protected] for password