Baltimore provides smiles, creativity and nice people....

My friend Sally who used to live in Spokane but now lives in Baltimore took me to the Visionary Museum the day after I arrived. We met up with Marilyn and her good friend.

Sometimes I come home tired and sometimes I come home tired and filled with ideas. Baltimore is the place to fill those kinds of creative bursts! My goodness so many Museums and so much to see and do! I had no idea. First stop was the Visionary Museum which is a museum filled with outsider art and lots of folk art. Since I consider myself one of the few folk artists who use textiles, buttons, junk and rick rack for my quilts, it was a perfect fit. They had funny quilts, paintings, sculptures and loads of other things. They strung bottle caps and beads on strig that ran along the hand rails for the stairs. Lots of funny sayings on the walls etc. Color was everywhere and that was so much fun....lots to see and imagine with. No photos and no books of things in there which was frustrating. But I did manage to buy a whole bag of hotdog and hamburger plastic charms and little cars and silly buttons and junk to go on a quilt. Hooray! I will be posting more all this week for you to enjoy. I sure did! Lovely students there and great ideas.A chapstick glued to the top of the bus...was this original or did someone else put this on do you think?
Top of the bus...a whirleygig....is this cool or what?

Rear view mirror of the mirrored bus at the Visionary Museum in Baltimore...what fun!

Here I am imagining that if I owned this bus I could pick up my retreat ladies and take them to Post Falls Idaho next June. :0) Would love the looks we would get in Spokane on the way....

If I was rich, I would like a car made this way....it is a bus covered with shards of mirror and colored glass....and you can't really tell but it has bunnies on the hood and swans and ducks on the top of it....I think outsider art or folk art makes you smile most of the time...note the polka dotted wheels. Lovely! I would love to show my folk quilts here one day.....

This was the trunk of the tree below this photo....I love "eyes" in art and this tree was something else! great ideas for being out of the box and stretching your quilt ideas....

This was a beautiful tree- all covered in mirrors on fish line and other ways and it caught the sun and it just glistened....would love this in my backyard....

The Visionary art Museum was covered with lots of orbs of mirror and colored glass as was a huge bus....so imaginative!

A whirleygig of sorts at the Visionary Museum....I didn't see him move but I think he must....

This was a HUGE whirley gig on top of the Visionary Museum....glorious.You would never guess what this "M" is and the letters below this that spell "Smile." They are tooth brushes held end to end with a resin...the letters are the brush part and they grab the junk off the bottom of your shoes....isn't this cool? This was at the Museum in Baltimore....if you live close to the Visionary Museum you need to go and visit. They wouldn't let me take photos inside but the theme was laughs etc and it was fabulous---like a manaquin with cupcakes all over her and cake pans for breasts...it probably doesn't compute reading like it did seeing. But oh my what glorious things and it did make me laugh and smile and feel joyful.Notice my feet as I take this photo...got my sparkly "Sketchers" on.....