Jim Rouse Visionary Center
Three Enchanting Floors
Space description
1st floor Visionary Village
2nd floor conference room
2nd floor conference room

jrvc + SCULPTURE BARN
Have your ceremony or cocktail hour in the Sculpture Barn and Wildflower Garden, followed by your reception in the JRVC Banquet Room.

1st floor
Host cocktails here for an additional fee, and have your ceremony on the 3rd floor Banquent Room or Sculpture Barn.
add-on/package
RATES
Space | Mon-Wed | Thu | Fri & Sun* | Sat |
---|---|---|---|---|
* The Sundays before Memorial Day and Labor Day are at the Saturday rate.

(1932–2012)
Arthur Hammer
Arthur Hammer was born in 1932 in Cleveland, Ohio. His father sold tires, and his mother was a stay-at-home mom. Hammer, outgoing and extroverted, felt like a misfit in Cleveland and moved to New York City at the age of 18 to pursue an acting career. In New York, he also drove a cab and landed roles in various soap operas, sitcoms, commercials, and made-for-TV movies such as Rage of Angels, which starred Jaclyn Smith.
A self-taught artist, Hammer started painting in his mid-20s after his mother gave him a set of paints and eventually gave up acting to make art full-time. He befriended artist Romare Bearden, when the two men had studios on Long Island City, admired the portraiture of Alice Neel, and went on to develop a bold and evocative style of his own. "Everything he did was big, bold, colorful, and upbeat," notes his daughter, Deirdre, who says her father "lived a very hopeful life and was always jazzed about his work. He was also quite a ladies man and a consummate storyteller, who had a story for everything."
Of this particular piece, Deirdre notes that El Martillo translates to hammer, and her father certainly felt a kinship to the famed idealism of Don Quixote: "My father fought against windmills his entire life. And he was always looking out for the underdog and sticking up for the little guy." Hammer passed away in 2012, after a 20-year struggle with prostate cancer. El Martillo and three additional Hammer pieces are in AVAM's permanent collection.