My Folking Art

My niece used these tree truck cuttings as the base for charmingly rustic center pieces for her wedding reception. She had Ball jars on them, some filled with wildflowers, some with candles. After the wedding, her father, my brother-in-law, was packing them into the back of his truck with no other plans for them other than to burn them as firewood in the winter. He agreed to give me as many as I could take - four was all I could manage in the 5th wheel toy hauler trailer that we call home. I made one into a door plaque for my brother and sister-in-law's Squam Lake cabin in New Hampshire. I did that last Fall.

Now I just finished the other three.

This first one, recently done, was made using drift wood that I collected from a small cove just south of Burlington, Vermont, along the shores of Lake Champlain. The "o"s in "HOME" are made from two beer bottle bottom sea glass pieces that we found on the beach in the Outer Banks, North Carolina, this past winter. I've coated the wood before adding the drift wood and sea glass, with polyurethane, to try to protect the wood and the bark sides. I've sprayed the entire thing with satin spray polyurethane after gluing the words in place with my craft glue gun.

The plaque is for one of my sisters and her husband. They recently had a new house built after the old one burnt to the ground two winters ago and lost virtually everything.

This next one I did using acrylic paints, gel pens, charcoal, and paper. It is of a vintage Allis-Chalmers D-21 tractor that is owned and beloved by another one of my sisters and her husband.

The plack below is made from beer bottle caps. I'm not sure who will get this one. I'd kind of thought of giving it to a friend in Severna Park to hang outside the house in her patio area. It's always hard to give someone something like this and fear that they might not want it. My daughter spoke up and claimed it though.

Note the Natty Boh beer cap on the top center of the crab and the Edgar Allen Poe beer cap on the bottom center of the crab. So Baltimore.

I have lots of beer caps left but am out of tree trunk slices. I think my brother-in-law may have saved a few more in his barn in Iowa. When I give him and my sister the D-21 Allis-Chalmers one, maybe I can pick up some more.

Love me some AVAM.

I love artistic venues and right now I am concuspiscent of folkin' art, visionary art, raw art, outsider art, the art by untrained artists or informally trained artists...like minds, like myself.

The AVAM, like Baltimore's Creative Alliance, keeps getting better and better. This is wonderful to see. The people who hate on Baltimore aren't spending their time in the right places, they are closed to the sensual. Baltimore is full of wonder, of beauty, of fascinating things and people, of edginess and risk and adventure. People create in Baltimore. Baltimore gives a home to people's creations.

I go to art museums to be soothed, to be inspired, to laugh and skip, to think, to learn, to feel as I am led through someone else's experiences. All these reasons. I got it going on at the AVAM because they got it going on.

"Learn to see, and then you'll know there is no end to the new worlds of our vision." Carlos Castaneda.

So here are my pictures from a recent tryst with the AVAM. As soon as you get in the main building, you can't miss the coruscant exclamation mark of the falling angel, twirling slowly upside down as if to fall but never really hitting the ground, the limbo of descent, surrounded sometimes by gawking abashed admirers.

Well endowed angel, I must say.

And this is what twirls the angel.

The outside grounds are full of art, whimsical, bizarre, fun.

One of the large shows featured currently, has a food theme and attitudes towards it, types of food, uses of food and food items for purveying food to mouth. This brightly colored artistic contraption twirls around. It is made mostly of painted paper plates.

Up close you can see the paper plates.

This, below, is art made by women in prison about women, prison, food. The word, grace, over the flag, is made from spoons.

And here are more paper plates, delicately painted, but I don't recall the artist.

Coconuts carved, below.

A collage by Craig Norton on betrayal, on food and death, called "We gave you corn. You gave us smallpox.".

Pictures, below, images of musicians created from dried beans, seeds, corn.

Many large scale pieces made from bread, below.

The cook and the chicken, below, are created primarily from marshmallows.

And below is a take on how and what we see as eye candy. Interesting box of paradox.

I knew Julia Child had to be here somewhere. I was not disappointed.

And the fabric arts were represented. I wish these pictures could show the delicate, intricate artistry and skill that was evident upon close scrutiny or by anyone who appreciates the fabric arts. These works were protected by glass. They were machine made but also seemed to have handwork on them too. I'm not sure because my skills haven't reached that point where I know for sure. Amazing.

This little beauty, below, was made from all kinds of things. She wasn't part of the food themed show. She is a complicated mosaic personality of beads, broken mirrors, shells, pearls...

Her head and upper torso.

Her legs, shells. Each with a pearl. I confess, I don't remember what was up with the hose on the left.

And this was an old tailor's mannequin covered with fabric, buttons, jewelry... Also protected by glass.

And brightly colored background walls really made things pop in the AVAM.

Match stick art.

Crocheted beauties.

And a man, weirdly wired. He is made of telephone/electrical wires. He is one of my many favorites in the AVAM.

Intricate sketches.The intricacy of OCD.

And canned art, or shall I say, coffee art, or to be precise, canned coffee art, riding an exercycle.

More sculptures. "I can resist everything except temptation." This one had cake parts and beads.

And here is her lower side.

I love the sculptures made from junk. I once did a junk sculpture with my young daughter. Years ago, at Halloween, when my daughter was in elementary school, her art teacher challenged his students' families to submit creative pumpkins for a competition. Our pumpkin was full of things that came out of what most everyone has in their house: a junk drawer. I wish I had a picture of that. But it looked something like this. All the other pumpkins were intricately carved or painted. Ours stood out, looking deformed, unbeautiful, mesmerizing. Our pumpkin would be in good company at the AVAM.

And here, below, is a painting of an artist, Matt Sesow, who, as a boy, lost his arm when he was hit by an airplane doing a crash landing in a field he was playing in. It severed his arm and he almost bled to death before they got him to the hospital. He remembers having an angel leaning over him telling him he could choose to die or to live. This painting below, was done of him by someone else, Dana Ellyn, called Duality.

Here are Matt Sesow's paintings as part of his Shock + Awe show.

I love some of the masterpieces he mimicked, below.

So this is his version of the Boating Party.

More of his paintings.

And here I am, standing between the distorted mirrors. Or is it me who is distorted?

I love that the artist, Mary Proctor, took her grandma's Willow china and cracked it up to make this mosaic, below. I think of all the people I know who hold on to and cherish their old Blue Willow. The artist held onto and cherished it as well, just in another realm.

And going into the second building of the AVAM, below is Axel Erlandson's tree. Axel, who died in 1964, used to grow (sculpt) trees into weird shapes. Very cool.

Here's the remains of one of his, at one time, living works of art.

I tell you, when you walk into that second building of the AVAM, this is what you see first. It is on such a grand scale and the lighting, the colors, the space, make for such a fun experience. Your visuality is well fed.

The elephant is partly made from lots of woven styrofoam, plastic pieces, and the ever useful duct tape, some brightly colored.

And here is the tail end, the paddle below the elephant's tail. I believe the elephant was one of Baltimore's Kinetic Sculpture race participants.

Everywhere you look; cool things.

These sculptures, below, are partly paper mache.

Below is up closeup of one of the sculpture's paper mache skirts. It has the beaded work; emphatic, elegant texture.

More cool stuff. Robot art.

And Coney Island. Such detail.

Such delicate work. Check out the sun bathers on the beach! I see this and imagine the artist at work, obsessive, unaware of passing hours or maybe all too aware and pushing through, working against the clock, the vision driving the hands.

And if you are truly of fan of Baltimore in all it's funkiness and diversity, the counterculture, which is, really, the real culture, you know who this sculpture honors.

She's Divine. Or he is. Harris Glenn Milstead, better known by his stage name, Divine, described by John Waters as the "most beautiful woman in the world, almost".

And I remember when the AVAM was hosting a Bra Ball to welcome in this work (below). I wanted to go but I think I was traveling for work at that time. The AVAM hoped to draw 500 patrons and raise $20,000 for educational programs. Area artists had created about 30 bras that were to be auctioned off. People were encouraged to wear their beautiful bras outside their clothing.

The Braball weighs 1800 pounds! Fabric is heavier than it might seem. I have to be careful about how much material for quilts I drag around (ha, I just said drag as in drag queen) in my 5th wheel toy hauler trailer.

This Braball was made by donations. I didn't donate for this work of art but I would have if I'd known about it. I only buy and wear the best lingerie, a tip I learned from another Army officer (yes, a woman) who taught me that despite working in a man's rough and tough and testosterone-driven world, we can still feel feminine underneath and a good way to do that is to buy and wear the most beautiful bras and panties. I've done that ever since, and I've shared that thought with other women who've had to work in careers dominated by penis'. I've donated several of my beautiful bras over the years to bars from a hole-in-the wall "members only" "club" in a dry county in Texas to New York City's Manhattan Hogs and Heffers (while dancing on the bar with one of the barmaids who took it off of me with such skill she never lifted my blouse but skillfully slid her hands up my back and shoulders). My husband and son stood on the floor watching and laughing, our son not quite believing his eyes and not sure whether to be embarrassed or impressed.

An art car. Blue bottles.

The back of it, in the trunk. Holy shit.

A Jesus Balloon.

Another of the Kinetic Sculptures: Fifi.

Wine art. Corks.

The AVAM recognizes Baltimore rowhouse screen painters. Yes!

And other amazing sights.

And below is another of the fabric artist's work. The picture does not do justice to this. The detail, the skill... The message be damned, but the skill!

The view from upstairs.

And the chair by the elevator.

Some of the views from inside the AVAM's two buildings, looking outside.

Looking northeast towards the park atop Federal Hill.

Here's another picture looking northeast, but capturing an art display of CD's. I loved how they are either shiny and silver, or multi-colored depending on where you stood and how the sunlight refracted.