The Baltimore arts community let out a collective sigh of dismay when it was announced that Rebecca Hoffberger, founder and director of the American Visionary Art Museum, would be retiring this year. Hoffberger is, of course, irreplaceable. But if anyone could fill her shoes, it’s Jenenne Whitfield, president of the Heidelberg Project, an acclaimed outdoor arts space in Detroit, and co-founder of the United Artists of Detroit, a grassroots network of artists, curators, and arts organizations. The former banker is also certified in divinity, trained in metaphysics, and has taught college students about art as a social practice. She takes over her new post in September.

When you were growing up, you had family in Baltimore. What stands out to you now returning as an adult?
What I’m seeing is not just the wonderful assets. Many cities across the country are going through a resurgence and that obviously means displacing people and drawing greater lines of demarcation. And then the other side is the richness, particularly within the arts scene. Baltimore is on fire. There’s a lot of underground art in addition to the institutions. There’s something to be said for the juxtaposition of raw grit with shine and polish. Can we find a good balance between the two? Both are going to be needed to teach us where we want to go.

How do you see artists in Detroit speaking to these dichotomies there?
It’s an uphill battle. You have to have champions, because what do artists do best? They create. What that calls for is stronger arts administrators, and not just directors of museums, where you’re working for the good of your institution. What my work in Detroit has been about is building bridges between the arts community and, say, the corporate community, and getting people to realize that we all benefit when we learn how to celebrate the great things that are happening in our cities.

Looking at your resumé, you seem destined for AVAM.
When I visited for the first time, I spent three hours in the museum alone. If you start talking about things like metaphysics, that night, after I visited, I was staying at the Royal Sonesta, and I awoke to a bright light over the harbor. I thought, is that a streetlight? But it was a star. And to me, it was like a witness or testament to me being here. And what Rebecca [basically] said in The Sun is that she could sleep at night knowing that I was coming, because we connected. People hope for that kind of magic and what Rebecca has put together is something that deserves care and thoughtfulness and that’s what I bring. How do we continue this great work, how do we expand it, and how do we help Baltimore see the treasures, AVAM being just one of them, that it has.

Any ideas for what you’d like to do first upon your arrival?
I want to do wrap my arms around the staff. I want to know what they want to do. I want their wings to begin to flap. I’m a newbie, I need them to teach me, and I want to grow with them.

OTHERWORLDLY ART

This Earth Day, Wednesday April 22, American Visionary Art Museum founder Rebecca Hoffberger will lead viewers through a free virtual tour of AVAM’s brand-new exhibit, “The Secret Life of Earth.” Now extended through January 2021, the environmentally focused exhibit speaks to the importance and interconnectedness of nature. Filled with a range of whimsical artworks, expect the likes of paper flowers, driftwood sculptures, intricate beaded animal sculptures, recovered plastic litter installations, satellite images from NASA’s Goddard Space Flight Center, and a brief pollinator film by Fantasic Funghi director Louie Schwartzberg.

GREEN LIVESTREAMS

Blue Water Baltimore is evolving in the times of coronavirus with a schedule of virtual events. This week, the local environmental nonprofit is hosting an Earth Day Q&A happy hour, featuring conversation with Baltimore Harbor waterkeeper Alice Volpitta and the launch of their 2020 Baltimore Water Watch report on the health of the Gwynns Falls, Jones Falls, Baltimore Harbor, and Patapsco River. It takes place this Wednesday from 4-6 p.m. via Zoom with a $10 suggested donation. Check back each week for more Facebook Live Q&As on Wednesdays at noon, featuring topics like native gardens, tree plantings, and water health, as well as Fridays at noon, for all things flowers with Herring Run Nursery.

CRABS IN THE TIME OF COVID

On April 1, Maryland’s commercial crab season opened to an unusual start in the wake of the global coronavirus pandemic. With many restaurants closed under Governor Hogan’s social distancing restrictions, one of the industry’s main markets—crab houses touting the state’s iconic crab feast—virtually disappeared overnight. Meanwhile, three of the state’s nine crab-picking houses have received a portion of their seasonal guest workers, who arrive each spring on H-2B visas from Mexico and elsewhere in Latin America, with new safety measures in place such as six-foot workspace spacing, daily temperature checks, and personal protection equipment. Failing to receive workers in the federal lottery system, the other six processing houses remain closed. Meanwhile, seafood markets remain open, with some sighting similar business to years past, while watermen are looking for new ways to distribute their catch, with eateries like The Local Oyster now selling steamed crabs for carry-out. Some watermen fear decreased demand will lead to increased supply and effectively lower crab prices, though with crabs largely not inundating Maryland waters until late spring and early summer, it is unclear how the industry will be impacted long-term.

MPT’S CHESAPEAKE BAY WEEK RETURNS

In the midst of coronavirus quarantine, Maryland Public Television’s annual Chesapeake Bay Week, now in its 16th year, couldn’t have arrived at a better time, with a full evening lineup of local programming on the nation’s largest estuary, on air through April 25. Learn about the likes of the bay’s iconic lighthouses with the brand-new Chesapeake Beacons, rising sea levels with Tidewater, local river-keepers with A Voice for the Rivers, the state’s historic shad fishery in Shad Run, and all things oysters with Oysterfest, as well as some of MPT’s highest viewed specials, Eatin’ Crabs: Chesapeake Style and Eatin’ Oysters: Chesapeake Style. The programs are also available for livestream viewing via mpt.org.

FERRY SERVICE

The Maryland Department of Transportation has struck down the proposal of a publicly operated car ferry as an alternative to a new third crossing of the Chesapeake Bay Bridge. In a recently released 43-page report, MDOT argues that, as a stand-alone option, a ferry would not alleviate congestion at the current spans along Route 50 between Anne Arundel and Queen Anne’s counties, and would also cost up to $3.4 billion to build and operate. (Past estimates project a third span could cost upwards of $7 billion.) Officials have recommended that such operations be considered in combination with other transportation alternatives. Several car-carrying ferries used to operate on the Chesapeake before ceasing operations in 1952 following the completion of the first existing span.

TOXIC TAKEDOWN

Due to the coronavirus pandemic, this spring’s Maryland legislative session was adjourned early for the first time since the Civil War. But while some eco measures fell to the wayside, such as a push for sustainably designed state buildings, the General Assembly did pass a win for environmentalists during the final minutes on March 19 with a ban on chlorpyrifos, a harmful pesticide linked to brain damage in children, as well as disorientation and death in wildlife. The European Union, plus California, New York, and Hawaii, have also banned the chemical, making Maryland the fourth state in the U.S. to do so. Though final amendments included a sunset clause for June 2024, as well as waivers for particular green bean growers and orchardists, advocates feel the legislation is still a step in the right direction.

TRASH TALK

As coronavirus-related quarantine orders are creating positive environmental impacts across the globe, the Order of the Wheel, a secret society of Baltimore’s beloved Mr. Trash Wheel, has returned to recruit its third pledge class of green stewards who will work to protect local waterways. Run by Waterfront Partnership—which oversees the garbage-eating, water-cleaning receptacles around the region—applications are open through May 11, with participants required to complete five green tasks over five weeks times. Each is tailored for at-home or socially distanced outdoor activities, such as recycling used goods and creating your own water filter. As of Monday, some 470 residents have signed up, with approximately half being new pledges.

BAY UPDATES

The Chesapeake Bay Program has released its annual Bay Barometer health report with a new look. Focused on updates to the goals and outcomes of the multi-state Chesapeake Bay Watershed Agreement, the report now highlights only the latest indicators of progress, many of which have been previously reported. For the 2018-2019 year, seven key takeaways include that record rainfall led to the highest amount of freshwater entering the estuary since monitoring began in 1937, contributing to lower salinity levels in parts of the bay and the largest observed dead zone in the past five years. Meanwhile, the Department of Natural Resources’ 2019 winter dredge survey suggests the population of blue crabs increased nearly 60 percent last summer—news that incited a flurry of headlines at the time—while harvests were below the overfishing threshold. The 2020 survey is due out in late spring. In addition, underwater grasses are slightly down, but still make up an estimated 91,559 acres of the Chesapeake Bay and its tidal tributaries. The report also pointed to increased efforts in land conservation, pollution reduction, and public access.

When Esther Nisenthal Krinitz left behind war-torn Poland in the summer of 1949, she had nothing left of the family she’d lost. Her parents, brother, and young sisters, along with the other Jewish families in her rural village, were told to report to a train station and never heard from again.

But Krinitz, 15 at the time, and her 13-year-old sister Maria managed to survive by posing at Polish farm girls and finding work in a nearby village where no one asked to see their papers. They had many memories—of Jewish holidays spent with family, quiet life among their crops and livestock, and playing together as a family —but nothing solid to pass along to tie future generations to their lost past.

According to Krinitz’s daughter, Bernice Steinhardt, her mother was always telling her story. But in 1977, when Krinitz was 50, she started showing it instead. The result is 36 embroidered pieces that are now the highlight of the American Visionary Art Museum’s latest exhibition, Esther and The Dream of One Loving Human Family. Krinitiz’s work depicts her childhood, escape from the Nazis, life in hiding, and journey to America, culminating in her final piece: a portrait of her first granddaughter. It’s also accompanied by a documentary about her life and a recreation of her home in Poland.

“What my mother was doing here was for the family,” says Steinhardt. “It was about the family she lost and for the family that she created. The fact that she was a grandmother, that was what my mother was all about. It was not about expressing herself artistically, although of course she did, it was about remembering her family for her family.”

The pieces are placed in conversation with works from international artists that demonstrate the danger of demonizing the “other,” with the goal of educating visitors on just how devastating the escalation of hatred can be. A “preamble” to Krinitz’s embroideries includes sewn works documenting the genocide of the Tutsi people in Rwanda and life under apartheid in South Africa, as well as painted, carved, and assembled works from Native American activist and artist Judy Tallwing.

“When you take away names or identifiers like Jewish, or Holocaust, or any ethnic group, religion, or color and you look at what the mechanisms of the campaign to permit a genocide or mass slaughter that is orchestrated with a purpose in mind were, it’s all one playbook,” says AVAM founder and director Rebecca Hoffberger.

Together, these art pieces from across the world share the perspective of the innocents whose lives are altered by hatred and warn of its dangers. Words, in the form of essays and quotes around the gallery, play just as big a role in the message, sharing wisdom and forgotten history relating to the need for peace and “one loving human family.”

Just days into its run, people have already traveled from as far as Ohio and New York for a chance to see this expanded collection of Krinitz’s intricate, emotional works, which originally premiered at AVAM in 2001. But there’s plenty of time to catch them in this new installation, which will stay on display through March 2024.

In the 1960s, New York had counterculture artist Andy Warhol with his “Factory,” where beautiful people of all stripes came together to party, do drugs, have sex, and make art. In the ’70s, Baltimore had John Waters and his “Dreamlanders,” a ragtag group of outsiders, weirdos, and misfits who comprised the cast and crew of his subversive films. (And perhaps had sex and did drugs—hey, that’s their business.)

After all these years, it’s important to remember what a rebel Waters was in the early days. His films were designed to discomfit and shock; he wanted to eat the rich and take down the bourgeoisie. He famously scuffled with Maryland’s draconian censor board, and his movies were banned in several countries. In Baltimore, he was initially embraced only by arthouse fanatics and punks, but eventually—first with Pink Flamingos, then Polyester, and ultimately with his breakthrough hit, Hairspray—he was embraced by the mainstream.
Hairspray has become something of a cottage industry, but the original film shouldn’t be confused with the more mild-mannered (if still delightful) versions that followed. Waters’ Hairspray was a wonderful celebration of diversity and a takedown of racism, but it also had a scuzziness around the edges that the subsequent iterations lacked. (It also featured a touching and widely acclaimed performance by Waters’ dear friend the drag queen Divine, who tragically died shortly after the film debuted.)

By the time Cry Baby came around, Baltimore had already begun to commodify the kitsch of his films—selling pink flamingo lawn figurines and hairspray cans in his honor. Somehow, the notion of the “Hon”—so integral to Baltimore’s Charm City concept—became wrapped up in the Waters iconography. But in a 2008 article in USA Today, Waters swore off the word and even the Honfest. “To me, it’s used up,” he said. “The people that celebrate it are not from it. I feel that in some weird way they’re looking slightly down on it. I only celebrate something I can look up to.”

This is the most crucial aspect of Waters’ art. If you think he’s making fun of the Edie the Egg Lady, you’re missing the point. He loves these people, and he respects them, too. The world of John Waters is all-inclusive. The only people he judges are those who judge others. What could be more Baltimore than that?

For those who are parents and those who have been parented, the American Visionary Art Museum’s newest exhibition, Parenting: An Art Without a Manual offers a meditation on the role of role models, parental figures, and family—in all their shapes and sizes. From the warm and fuzzy to the nightmarish and traumatizing, the show is a contemplative, visual collection of stories on a theme, and it will most likely expand your definition of parenting.

It opens on Saturday and remains on view through September 1, 2019, in the nationally recognized museum in Federal Hill, with special events planned throughout its duration, including a free summit on March 24 that will bring together world-renowned speakers.

“Each year, we pick one grand theme that has always bedeviled or inspired humanity,” says Rebecca Hoffberger, the founding director of AVAM and co-curator of the show with Anna Gulyavskaya. “We’re all parenting, whether we choose to have children or not.”

As is usual with AVAM shows, Parenting is both visually and intellectually satisfying, with some of the most well-researched and thoughtful text you’re likely to see at an art exhibit. Statistics and the latest findings—on childhood trauma, parent-child attachment, grandparents becoming full-time parents because of the effects of the opioid epidemic, images of the developing brain, and more—as well as quotes witty and wise are posted throughout the gallery spaces to complement the visual art.

Bobby Adams’ powerful installation Models and Critics, for example, depicts his family—mother, father, and two children, one of whom is a young Bobby—on a couch. Their mannequin bodies are topped off with flat pieces of cardboard that display black-and-white photographs of their faces. Adams explains during a preview of the exhibition that his mother is in her nightgown, reading a book to his brother, while his father is dressed in nice clothes, having probably just gotten home from an evening of “womanizing,” and is yelling at Bobby, leather belt in hand. “My father always said I was stupid and called me a bastard,” he says in an emotional retelling of his childhood story to a crowd of journalists and exhibiting artists.

In another room, a long wall is dotted with several life-sized cutouts of a small child—each one with the same face but a different outfit. The work—Fifty Girls in Food Sack Dresses, by Linda St. John—explores the future of parenting and “designer babies,” while posing questions about what parenting will look like as people’s lifespans increase and families grow to include several generations.

And what would an AVAM show be without postcard images from Frank Warren, of Post Secret fame, or a piece by Baltimore’s beloved mosaic artist Loring Cornish, or the large spiritual work of Alex Grey? All of the above find their place in this show, alongside artists who have never been exhibited at AVAM until now.

Baltimore’s Chris Wilson makes his AVAM debut with a large abstract painting titled Momma’s Boy. Through it, he tells the story of his mother, who took her own life after struggling with drug and alcohol abuse, used as a coping mechanism to survive a horrific trauma. “In this painting, my brother and I attend Mom’s funeral,” he writes in the description of the piece. “I remain in the back because I am afraid to see my mother deceased. It was the hardest I’ve ever cried, so white tears are all over the canvas.”

Additional pieces explore surrogate parents, the father-daughter bond, children living in refugee and diaspora situations, and what it feels like to be an orphan.

A compelling sculpture by Allen David Christian called Piano Family: Adagio, Amarosa, and Bucky depicts three figures made of piano parts and is enhanced by a quote installed above it, from Michael Levine: “Having children makes you no more a parent than having a piano makes you a pianist.”

At the preview of Yummm!, the latest exhibition at the American Visionary Art Museum, director Rebecca Hoffberger said that part of the inspiration for the show came after she read that, within 35 years, the Earth’s population would reach 9 billion people. She then began to contemplate how that would affect how we produce our food.

“This is a museum that’s always looked at the highs and lows of what it means to be a human being on Earth,” Hoffberger said. The way we deal with the planet “has to benevolently change.”

Despite this somewhat somber introduction, the works that comprise Yummm! are an enticing, diverse assortment that capture the whimsical spirit that has always defined AVAM. Take the icons made from various forms of bread, for example, or the mesmerizing, 10-foot motorized mandala made entirely of hand-painted paper plates, not to mention the color-drenched canvasses that are the handiworks of painters with no formal training.

In the flurry of subjects and artistic mediums—like the life-size neon-green gummy of Wayne Coyne, lead singer of the Flaming Lips, or the giant Peep-formed Swedish Chef from The Muppets—one could lose track of some of the central themes, including sustainability and awareness. (The reason for Yummm!’s three m’s, by the way, is that Yum! is the name of the fast food company that includes KFC, and Yumm! “just didn’t look right,” Hoffberger said. Yummm! might also be the name of a porn company, and Hoffberger jokingly said she hopes it won’t make the museum change the exhibit’s name.)

But Hoffberger and assistant director John Lewis, who co-curated the exhibit (and is also Baltimore’s editor at large), have placed reminders throughout that this isn’t just about fantastical sculptures and trippy designs. Like an explanatory panel about food and climate next to a trio of lush paintings by Cuban artist Ramon Alejandro of fruits amid natural landscapes that causes one to wonder if the rich papayas and melons depicted could become a casualty of climate change.

Another such example is the piece “Shared Dining,” an installation that includes a tabletop with place settings created by women inmates at a high-security prison in Connecticut. Inspired by Judy Chicago’s groundbreaking installation “The Dinner Party”, each woman made a place setting for another woman she’d like to have dinner with. Princess Diana and Nascar driver Danica Patrick are included in the group, and one of the inmates selected the woman she killed during a drunk driving accident—the crime that led to her incarceration.

During the tour, Lewis noted that the women were only able to use prison-approved items to create their art—nail clippers instead of scissors, for instance, and each place setting includes a plastic spork instead of a fork—and talked about the symbolism of the piece. He said, “It’s about having a seat at the table.”

“I really didn’t want to live here,” American Visionary Art Museum (AVAM) founder and director Rebecca Alban Hoffberger says, sitting in the cozy but slightly cluttered den of the late-1970s Owings Mills home she bought in 2008.

Tucked away on a leafy cul-de-sac, it was a perfectly nice, somewhat generic house on the outside, and, even today, there is nothing save a Turkish hand-painted wagon in the yard, some log-cabin-esque woodwork on the porch, and a bright green front door to suggest that the visionary mind behind Baltimore’s funkiest museum lives here.

It wasn’t the house, exactly, that brought her here. Wanting to live near her then-95-year-old father, “it was the only thing that I could afford in this area,” says Hoffberger, who wasn’t particularly impressed with the interior, which sported an abundance of shag carpet, wall mirrors, and pastel wallpaper. Then she stepped into the backyard.

“I know it sounds funny, but I felt the trees sort of hug me,” says the lifelong nature lover, whose museum launch included a tree-of-life exhibit that paid homage to the tree’s role in human history.

Bidding started $30,000 below the listed auction price—a pleasant surprise—but quickly ramped up.

“The bidding went like popcorn,” Hoffberger recalls. “I got to the point where I could not spend one penny more.” And then, in a minor miracle, the bidding stopped with Hoffberger on top. The house was hers.

“With it came the best neighbors—really, I was lucky,” says Hoffberger, who made minor fixes to the house that included pulling up the carpets (to reveal beautiful floors), giving the front porch a rustic makeover, and putting in a circular drive. Above the fireplace in the den, she installed an ornate wood mantel from a New York tenement—a gift from the Lower Eastside Girls Club, which, when founded, took a page from the seven educational goals Hoffberger created when she envisioned AVAM.

For basic furnishings, like the stout and commanding dining-room table, Hoffberger swears by local furnishings purveyor Carpetbeggars, though she’s careful about what she buys, especially when it comes to décor. “I don’t buy very much,” admits Hoffberger. And, no, she’s not trying to build her own AVAM-esque home museum: “I think it would be a conflict of interest to actively collect visionary art for myself,” she explains.

Instead, the home is brimming with items gathered and given that tie into the journey of her 63-year life.

In the den, the nearly 6-foot-tall Aurora painting propped against the fireplace tells one of those stories. Hoffberger had it reproduced inexpensively to replicate a painting that hung in one of her favorite childhood haunts, Haussner’s Restaurant. Nearby, atop the mantel, is a large tortoiseshell button, which elicits another tale. “That button was my first memory of my mother’s coat. I remember being a baby and seeing it,” Hoffberger says.

“Even seemingly standard antique chairs have some humor in them,” says Hoffberger, lifting a seat to reveal their design as “potty chairs.”

Upstairs, a stained-glass window, purchased from a friend who’d stumbled across it in the 1970s during a downtown church remodeling, filters light into the master bedroom. Nearby, just steps from her bed, is a small round table loaded with photos and knickknacks—a shrine to beloved friends and family who have passed away.

And then there are the gifts, reminders of the people who’ve touched her life, like Marcel Marceau, the famous mime who recruited Hoffberger at age 16 as his first-ever American apprentice. The street scene sketch by Marceau that hangs in the dining room was given to Hoffberger by a friend who found it at an auction.

“It was one of the most thoughtful gifts I ever got,” says Hoffberger, who stayed in France after her apprenticeship, married a ballet dancer at 17, co-founded a ballet company at 19, and then returned to Baltimore to deliver her first child, Belina. (Hoffberger also spent time in Mexico, where she studied alternative and folk medicine, re-married, and had a second child, Athena.)

And, of course, there are reminders of those she has met by way of AVAM, including a dining-room centerpiece that was a gift from Vollis Simpson, creator of the Giant Whirligig that stands outside AVAM. “That will eventually go to the museum,” says Hoffberger. “But I love it so much.” Also close to her heart are three small statues: “They’re from [Irish-American sculpture artist] Patrick McGuire, one of my unsung heroes,” she says.

It all adds up to a home that’s perfectly in line with what matters most to its owner, says daughter Athena. “You can tell that she’s paying tribute to all the things that she appreciates in life, whether it be my grandparents or the simple craftsmanship of some obscure tribe,” she says. “The way she does it just has a flair of magic to it.”

Of course, even when she’s at home, her raison d’être, AVAM, which will celebrate its 20th anniversary in the fall with a star-studded gala, is never far from Hoffberger’s mind. Eventually, she’ll step away from the day-to-day rigors of running it, but before she does, there’s still unfinished business. “We still have the big nut to crack of the endowment,” she says. Hoffberger hopes to find a benefactor with $25 million to spend on naming rights to the museum. “We hope the name is Aaron von Aardvarc so we keep the AVA,” she quips. “But we’re open to any good soul.”

She is, by nature, hopeful, but right now, “above all, I’m feeling thankful,” she says. Not only is the museum on solid financial footing, but it’s also supported by a stellar staff, which eases the worry about any eventual transition.

When the time does come, the first order of business might be some quiet time off—Hoffberger notes she hadn’t gone on a vacation in 14 years until she took a work/play trip last year to London to judge the Alternative Miss World contest. She’ll also likely tackle another lifelong dream—writing a play, and adds studying physics to the list.

“I do love science so much and, since 1984, when I had the idea for the museum, I wanted to write a play about the friendship between Nikola Tesla and Mark Twain,” she says.

She’ll also, no doubt, downsize and streamline her life and her home, a notion that has become more appealing the older and the more in touch with nature she gets. “I see myself in some little shack in the woods on a mountain,” she says, adding that she’ll take with her little more than her mother’s jacket button and her photos. The rest she’ll pass along to friends and family, “just as they were given to me,” she says. “They’ll go to people to whom I feel they really belong—there’s something about them that matches the object. And, hopefully, it will bring them joy as well.”

Rebecca Hoffberger in 30 Seconds

Age: 63

Grew Up: Stevenson

You might not know: Hoffberger was accepted into college at age 15, but instead headed to France to become the first American mime apprentice for Marcel Marceau.

Career moves: Co-founder of New City Ballet company; nonprofit consultant; folk and alternative medicine trainee in Mexico; development director at the Mt. Sinai Hospital Department of Psychiatry for People Encouraging People; founder, director, and principal curator of AVAM.

Some kudos: 2011 Katherine Coffey Award from the Mid-Atlantic Association of Museums; honorary doctorates from the Maryland Institute College of Art, Stevenson University, Pennsylvania College of Art and Design, and McDaniel College; inductee into The Maryland Women’s Hall of Fame; winner of the Urban Land Institute’s National Award for Excellence.

Things she can’t live without: “People who make me laugh. Trees.
The sweet memories of my parents. Watermelon. Ancient Aliens TV show. The poetry of Rumi. Artist Andrew

Logan’s mirrored jewelry. An unending search for meaning and justice. Hope. Marrons glacés. Vanilla ice cream in coffee. Dr. Bronner’s peppermint soap. Tea Rose perfume. My museum staff and two awesome daughters.”