My wife and I celebrated our 29th anniversary today, and, as we have for the past five years, we traveled to Baltimore for a Brunch at the Rusty Scupper (expensive, but as lovely view of the inner harbor and a live jazz quartet) and a visit to the American Visionary Art Museum (AVAM). The AVAM changes it’s exhibition each year about two weeks before our anniversary, and this year the show is All Faiths Beautiful, showing views on spirituality “from Atheism to Zoroastrianism.”
As we are atheists, it is a pleasure to visit a show which realizes that atheism is a faith, has a moralistic premise, and is as important as the “religions” that are also included.
The show is dedicated to and filled with quotations from Jalaluddin Rumi, a Zoroastrian poet and philosopher who lived in Persia 800 years ago. In fact, Rumi is the largest selling poet in both America and Europe… and the UN has declared 2007 the International Year of Rumi. It struck me as interesting as I read this information entering the Museum that George W. Bush is celebrating the Year of Rumi by getting ready to bomb his ancient home (Persia, as you know, is now Iran)… and I’m sure that Bill Kristol and other NeoCons are planning other big celebrations for Rumi’s year.
One quote of Rumi’s that I found particularly memorable:
Out beyond ideas of wrongdoing and rightdoing,
There is a field.
I’ll meet you there.
The exhibition is full of what we used to call “naive” art, but “visionary” art seems a much better label. This is work by non-professionals, addicts, religious country people and others who do not make a living from art but are forced to express what they feel. Sculpture, paintings, drawings, tapestries… phenomenal and inspiring. I never leave without a mind full of thoughts about the world we live in.
I encourage visitors… the show runs through August.