"If one is lucky, a solitary fantasy can totally transform one million realities." Maya Angelou

THE NEW EXPANSION

For the proposed new building just south of our Tall Sculpture Barn, we will reclaim and transform the historic brick warehouse, once a whiskey barrel warehouse, into an entirely new, dynamic space. The main entrance will feature the Visionary Village, exhibiting extraordinary homes and environments built by everyday people and serving as the principal art repository of America's most remarkable backyard visionary creations. Adjacent to it, the Thou Art Creative Center will provide visitors with hands-on, personal creative experiences, while the top level's Center for Visionary Thought (CVT) will showcase innovative examples of cooperative and individual imagination which have resulted in practical improvements for urban and regional life. With a commanding east view of Baltimore harbor and Federal Hill, the top floor will incorporate meeting, learning, and celebratory space for 500 to 700 people (providing premier event and rental revenue), and a light-filled public 'clubhouse' for this unique urban think tank. The mezzanine level will provide the center with office space and the AVAM with additional offices, storage, and workshop space. Every component of the new center will seek to fulfill the late James Rouse's conviction: "Cities are meant to be gardens in which to grow beautiful people."

A hands-on art-making space for kids of all ages, the Thou Art Creative Center, will finally allow students, teachers, families, and seniors to respond creatively to their AVAM visit, and further communicate AVAM's distinctive Seven Education Goals (now included in courses of study at UC Berkeley and Cornell University). This is our long-awaited space to have fun in an interactive way, using new and old artistic materials, and promote AVAM's main principles of self-reliance and innate creativity at any age.

The Center for Visionary Thought is an independent, non-governmental think tank for identifying, exploring, and publicly promoting effective low-cost grassroots models of creative social responsibility, while supporting improved life in urban and regional centers around the world. Conceived as an independent, non-governmental think tank, this new center will provide a dynamic and centralized forum to showcase specific examples of creative activities that demonstrably improve life in urban and regional centers around the world. The center will focus particularly on identifying and implementing effective, low-cost grassroots efforts in our own community, while sharing these ideas with other communities worldwide. The ultimate goal of the CVT is to energize both individuals and bureaucracies with a shared and renewed sense of positive potential and community action.

• improved work, play, and residential activities
• improved child, family, and senior well-being
• utility use, management, cost, and production innovation in education and job training
• smart growth and green space a more civil society
• greater municipal innovation
• improved air and water quality
• better transportation and residential/work options
• simple acts of kindness to preserve the sense of community
• lower crime, better justice and more effective rehabilitation