Glenstone Museum

The Glenstone Museum is a free art museum located in Potomac, Maryland.

The Pavilion’s lily pad pond.

The Glenstone Museum. This is a place where it’s become insanely hard to get tickets to ever since COVID-19 started. It’s run by a billionaire couple who bought this huge plot of land in Potomac, a wealthy suburb of Washington D.C., and decided to turn it into a free art museum for the public to enjoy. It is indeed free to go to the galleries and walk the grounds, but it is insanely hard to get those tickets. I tried for two months and failed to get them. They would often sell out within five minutes; the one month it sold out in two minutes. It took the third try for me to get tickets two months in advance, and so in August we put on our hiking shoes and drove to Potomac.

Definitely would recommend wearing walking shoes for this one. And if you’re a creative person, bringing a notebook because you’re not allowed to take pictures inside of the gallery. The pavilion is the main part with modern art—I recognized a room just filled with three On Kawara paintings. This section is relatively new, but the architectural detail is absolutely stunning. It’s modern architecture with these grey stones that feel so smooth to touch. There’s also a ton of light streaming in through wall-to-floor glass windows, and the glass doors all open manually with the appropriate staff badge. The pavilion is also home to the lily pad garden, which is so serene to just sit on the bench and stare out at for awhile. I loved that lily pad garden.

My family isn’t full of modern art fans, so at the end of the day, we were glad that this museum was free because it wasn’t something we would willingly choose to pay for. We all weren’t fans of the art on display, except for the exhibit that was seasonal in the gallery portion. There we found Faith Ringgold to be the artist whose work was featured, which I was absolutely thrilled with. I learned a bit more about Black art in the 1960s with that exhibit and a lot more about the context behind Ringgold’s art. I also was reunited with my favorite tapestry by her, one featuring Josephine Baker dancing, that I had previously seen over at the National Museum of Women in the Arts (aka my favorite museum, since it’s the only women’s art museum in the world).

by Glenn Ligon.

Part of the outdoor portion.

A lot of its staff are recent graduates or doctoral students studying art, and so as you wander from exhibit to exhibit, you really get this sense that they all know what they’re talking about. Every single staff member we spoke to knew about each of the artists and could talk in-depth about their work and inspirations/themes. They rotate pretty often too, so you’ll find a new staff member at the same exhibit probably ten minutes later. Something I loved about all of them is that the majority of the staff carried around books to read while on shift, so it was a little game of mine to see what exactly they were reading.

There was a nice mix of diversity in the galleries, which, after doing some snooping and research, is largely curated by the wife in the billionaire couple. The Ringgold exhibit won’t be there much longer, but I enjoyed the fact that it was a part of a global tour for the art and that this was the only American stop on the tour.

Once you’re finished with the pavilion and gallery, you can stop for lunch at the Patio or the cafe. All of the food served at Glenstone is locally sourced and sustainable, but the menu was limited when I checked online and kind of pricy, so we chose to instead eat in Potomac at Gringos and Mariachis. Rockville also has an insanely good amount of Asian restaurants, but my parents don’t like quote-on-quote ethnic food so we settled for Mexican, which is something they’re used to. I personally wanted Filipino food but alas. But Glenstone has the option to eat on-site or grab a coffee, which is nice if you’re tired.

After that there’s the hiking trail. This was a pretty decent-sized trail, but there’s some accessibility issues here. The staff, if arrangements are made, can drive you around the property. My father is essentially falling apart health-wise, so we had to go a bit slower since he’s not capable of walking up hills and whatnot. There’s sculptures all around the trail. If you take a right at the first fork you’ll find a sound installation in the forest that’s meant to mimic the sounds of war, complete with bombings and screaming. Not ideal for someone with PTSD. If you take a left you’ll continue on the trail towards the colonial-style homes, which contain sculptures and structures inside of them. There’s a nice little river along the right-side of the walk and a lot of greenery.

My favorite sculptures along the walk were Split-Rocker, which you’ll see below, and the two random sinks that are half-buried in the ground. Be careful with Split-Rocker though, the flowers on it are only in bloom during certain times of the year (I believe the sign said May to October). The outdoor sculptures are a bit eccentric and if you’re not into modern art, you’ll question it, but the hike and exercise was a bit nice to have. Don’t go on a hot day or you’ll end up regretting it. The art sections were the most crowded, but because they limit the amount of people in the museum with the timed tickets, you’ll probably have a good chunk of the art to yourself. Lots of benches to just sit and enjoy the ambiance; I was with my family and they’re a bit impatient, so I unfortunately did not have the chance to just sit and take it all in, but I recommend bringing a notebook, just sitting in front of, say, the lily pad pond, and start reflecting and writing.

It was a nice day trip, especially because we went into Rockville and got tacos and then went to an Iranian bakery called Yasaman. My father got too excited in there and ended up spending way too much money for an absurd amount of sweets and pastries, but we enjoyed the ones we got. We also enjoyed the food at Gringos and Mariachis, which was only about ten minutes from the museum. There’s also really nice gated homes to see on the drive there, since Potomac is the home to some of the nation’s wealthiest people. We saw some houses that we looked up and were $2.1 million USD and they looked so nice with their classic American architecture. Ah, to be rich and living near D.C., what a dream!

Split-Rocker by Jeff Koons.