art

Artomatic 2009

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The first weekend of June was a busy one for us, and we kicked it off by going to the opening night of Artomatic. This was the first time I’d been to an Artomatic in a new building, and it was a bit odd. The two I’d previously attended had been in buildings that were about to be torn down, which made the whole experience kind of spooky and reminiscent of unauthorized versions of these events that people I knew used to have in abandoned factories and warehouses in Philly in the mid-90’s. This time around, we took the elevator to the ninth floor and had panoramic views of the mall.

Our first stop was to see our friend Todd’s work—conveniently located on the ninth floor, meshing well with our plan to ride up and walk down. After spending some time stalking him in order to congratulate him on his pieces, we wandered over to the robot drawing area, easily identifiable by the many young children crowded around the tables. As promised, the robots we drew on postcards and submitted to the RobotDisorder folks are now part of an Artomatic poster! (Mine is sixth from the left in the top row and my partner’s is fifth from the left in the second row down.)


Our robots.

While little can compare to getting to draw your own robot, there were several other displays that I particularly liked. I was sorely tempted to purchase an insect with spatula wings, but I couldn’t think of a suitable place to display it. Now that the living room is painted, I’m tempted to go back for one for the unoccupied end of the mantle. Another favorite was the work of Novie Trump, an artist who lives nearby and whose work I’d seen at an Artomatic preview show that Todd took us to inauguration weekend. Her forms are lovely, and she has an excellent ability to mix texture and color in her use of clay; I find her small works melancholy and yet alive. Although I wasn’t moved by all of his pieces, Rick Braswell had a beautiful photograph of an Italian piazza that I could have stood and looked at all night.

The beauty of Artomatic is that there’s truly something for everyone: my partner spent much time with the action figure dioramas of one group of Frederick artists and the comic strips of another, ending the evening by getting his photo taken with the lifesize peep. I wandered down to the PostSecret area, joining the crowd in looking through a pile of actual postcards, but wasn’t brave enough to be recorded as part of the video project even if I could have come up with a secret on the spot.

Since we’re old now, we only got through three floors before it was way past our bedtime. Our plan is to return next before the end of the show, but the weekends are filling up quickly. The beauty of Artomatic is that there’s always more art to be seen.

Artomatic 2009

dusting off the old keyboard

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It’s been an embarrassingly long time since I’ve sat down to write anything here, for which I apologize. Of course, the longer the gap the greater the barrier to restarting. So this meta commentary is to serve as the restart. Go!

During the interregnum I’ve been busy with life. We took a weekend (plus a couple of evenings) and painted the bedroom, a nice warm beige that makes you feel like you’re going to sleep and waking up in a cappuccino. We then (finally) painted the upstairs bathroom, a nice soft blue that makes you feel like you’re brushing your teeth in…a room that’s blue. The blue is pretty mellow, partly out of deference to my partner’s desire not to live in A Fun House ™ but also because we’re trying out low-VOC paints and the color spectrum is much more limited. Apparently it’s the nasty chemicals that make you high as your brain cells keel over that give wall paints their lovely bright vibrant colors. Sad but true.

In addition to knocking those two interior jobs off our my seemingly endless list of home improvements, we’re mostly just planning planning planning. We need to install some exhaust fans, replace some light fixtures, make the basement improvements, and replace the second pump on the boiler which bit the dust last month (we’ve been using a space heater in the family room, which is the only area affected). And then, of course, I have big plans for the garden! Number one: make it seem like an actual garden! I suppose all the other plans are just sub-plans, really. With the gardening season comes the food-growing season, which now means the food-stockpiling season, so I’m kind of already looking forward to that. Even though we are still working our way through last year’s frozen and canned stockpile. Which is fine, because even though it seems like the bounty is just around the corner it’s actually a few months away. So there’s plenty of time to use the frozen cherries, squash, and blueberries and use up the jars of apple jelly, right? Right.

On the art front, my workspace has been disrupted by the water problems in the basement, so I’m switching gears while that gets completed. I’ve started a quilt, for which I am (a) using a pattern and (b) following generally accepted principles of quilting with regard to measuring and ironing seams and the like. I say this because ten 12 years ago I made a quilt, knowing absolutely nothing except how to use a sewing machine and pretty much entirely winging it, and I am therefore duly chastised by my partner whenever I refer to this new quilt as my first quilt. The use of modifiers like ‘proper’ or ‘real’ does nothing to help the situation.

So there you have it. Since I seem to be mired in domestic concerns, I am attempting to bring the art in where I can and just roll with it.

dusting off the old keyboard

see you at the Kennedy Center, Mr. President

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Tonight we’re seeing Swan Lake performed by the American Ballet Theater at the Kennedy Center. Will you join us, Mr. Obama?

I was heartened to see that President Obama took his family to see the recent Alvin Ailey production and actually made use of the reserved presidential box at the Kennedy Center. I love Alvin Ailey performances, and remember how rewarding it was to share that experience with my partner for the first time. I can only imagine how much more enjoyable it would be to watch the reactions of your children to such an amazing and historic performance. Attending theater, dance, and musical performances with my parents was something I always loved as a child, even — especially — when I had no idea what to expect. That sense of surprise and wonder is something I retain; I am always happy to see new companies or performances and find it very easy to accept anything that is presented to me with good humor, much more so than with the arts than with the vagaries of life.

So, while I’m certainly personally interested in being in the same audience as the President and believe that Swan Lake, I hope the Obamas will decide to attend for the sake of the performance itself. And maybe afterwards, we can go out for coffee and talk about it.

see you at the Kennedy Center, Mr. President

A December sampling of arts in DC

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December is always busy for us, and this year is no exception. If anything, our choice to celebrate the season by attending performances of various kinds has heightened the schedule-juggling.

Our first event of the month was The Trumpet of the Swan, a reading of the book set to music that debuted at the Kennedy Center. The Trumpet of the Swan is one of my favorite books, and the actors and musicians did an excellent job of portraying it. I was excited to be able to see Kathy Bates and Fred Willard, and Washington local Edward Gero was perfect as Louis’s father. Attending this performance was my (early) birthday present, and I was glad to be able to share it with my partner, who had never read the book as a child.

The following Tuesday, we returned to the Kennedy Center to see the Martha Graham Dance Company perform Clytemnestra. Although I’ve seen many of the great modern dance companies perform at the Kennedy Center in recent years, I had yet to see a Martha Graham production. While I began to suspect that her version of Clytemnestra is something like the Ring Cycle of modern dance—by which I mean to say that we may not have risen to the level of knowledge or appreciation of other members of the audience—we were both fascinated. I found it particularly interesting given that it was first produced in 1958; I commented to my partner that you would have had to be terribly fashionable to attend this performance in its first run, as it was somewhat avant garde even for contemporary productions. The costumes and choreography were wonderful, and of course the dancing was superb. And now we can say that we’ve seen a show created by the mother of modern dance!

Following close on the heels of this performance, we went traditional on Friday and attended a reception at the Swedish embassy celebrating Santa Lucia Day. A highlight of the evening was Mats Carlsson, a ‘rather well-known up-and-coming Swedish opera singer’ as we were told by one of our fellow guests, joining the girls for a lovely solo. Our hosts were very gracious, the hors d’ouevres were excellent, and the Glögg was wonderfully potent. Maybe next year we’ll get invited to the gala and I’ll have a chance to wear my wedding necklace! (A girl can dream.)

The next night we headed back down to Foggy Bottom to see the Christmas Revels at GWU. We don’t go every year, but this year’s program had a French-Canadian theme that I just couldn’t pass up. We had a wonderful time; there’s something about being knee to knee and elbow to elbow with strangers while belting out holiday tunes that creates an incredibly festive atmosphere. The evening had the added bonus of exposing my partner, who never studied French in school, to the joys of Alouette, complete with popping out of our seats to point at the various body parts as they became relevant (et le bec!). We particularly enjoyed the operatic flourish with which the young child a few rows in front of us bowed at the completion of the last round of the song.

We wrapped up all of this celebrating by hosting our now-annual holiday cookie party on Sunday night. It’s always fun to sample the variety of confections, and this year was no exception. We had quite a mix of styles and cultural origins this year, with a nice representation of classics in the form of chocolate chip, oatmeal, and sugar as well. Word of a party with nearly unlimited access to sweets appears to have gotten out among the under-8 crowd, and the children-to-adult ratio tilted quite dramatically this year. We are pleased to report that our friends, colleagues and neighbors are doing exceptionally well at instilling manners in their (many) young offspring; our household fabrics thank you, and you and yours are welcome back any time! In addition to being just a general good time, the party spurred us to finally deal with all of the furniture and household goods displaced through various acquisitions and basement trouble this year. After a whirlwind of preparation, it’s wonderful to look around and see shelves, tables, and sideboards in their proper places, and to have boxes of our family treasures stored in tidy piles in the (clean!) attic rather than in the center of our offices. It certainly doesn’t hurt to have tins of cookies on those tables, either.

Our plans for the coming week are quite tame compared to all of this. We’ll be celebrating the solstice with our gift exchange on Sunday, and I have a couple of surprises planned as part of our weekend festivities. (They’re surprises; you will have to wait to learn of them.) In the meantime, I will enjoy quiet evenings that involve neither dressing up nor rearranging furniture.

A December sampling of arts in DC