Baltimore on Martin Luther King Day, January 16, 2017

For Martin Luther King Day this year I decided to go to Baltimore because the American Visionary Art Museum has free admission on that day each year. (The usual admission is $15.95 for adults under 60.) So I took a leisurely walk around the Inner Harbor on a cold and cloudy day.

I eventually found the American Visionary Art Museum, which has a very distinctive looking building on the outside.

I made my way inside where I saw this interesting exhibition in the lobby. Here’s some background. On Christmas Eve I was at the National Postal Museum in downtown DC where I learned that Frank Warren, author of the PostSecret books, had an exhibition in that museum. I thought it was neat because I’ve known about Frank’s work through Artomatic, since his PostSecret project was initially started as an Artomatic exhibition. It turns out that he is in another exhibition at this museum as well. His PostSecret postcards have been paired with a collection of vintage metal lunch boxes (which brought back numerous memories for me because I used to carry my lunch in one of those boxes when I was in elementary school and other kids did the same).

The museum had an exhibit from another artist I’m well aware of because he has shown at Artomatic in the past. His name is Matt Sesow and he’s a DC artist who lost his hand in a childhood accident. He also is known for being an usually prolific painter.

I saw this print of Martin Luther King on sale in the museum gift shop, known as the Sideshow.

This art piece includes a recipe for a hot milk cake. I took those pictures because I’m thinking about trying that recipe in the future.

Here’s the rest of the photographs I took that day, which shows only a very small sample of what the museum has.

The most interesting part of the museum was this exhibition where all of the art was created with edible materials like bread, crackers, and seeds.

I picked up one souvenir while I was at this museum. It’s a little toy TV set where you view it through a viewfinder in the back to see a picture of one of the art displays at the museum. You click on a button to see more pictures just like a View Master (except you can’t change the pictures in this TV set, unlike the View Master).

Check This Out

Looplit makes some really unique and funky jewelry.

Loyalty and Blood makes some really nice nature and animal-inspired jewelry, tote bags, t-shirts, and more.

maryink makes some really unique and stylish clothes including t-shirts and dresses.

Matt Sesow is a self-taught painter who does some very colorful yet provocative paintings.